For immediate release:
December 16, 2009
For more information, contact:
Prue Adler
Association of Research Libraries
202-296-2296
prue@arl.org
Washington DC--The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) strongly supports the statement made on December 15, 2009, by Justin Hughes, head of the US delegation at the session of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) in Geneva, Switzerland. Hughes expressed support for library-endorsed international copyright policies during his speech on copyright exceptions and limitations for persons with print disabilities.
Hughes stated that the strength of United States copyright law is in part due to exceptions in the law for education, libraries, and the disabled. Hughes said that the United States has these exceptions because “access to information, cultural expression, and ideas is essential,” and that governments have a role to play in facilitating access and reducing barriers to information, education, and full participation in a democratic society. He continued that the United States is “committed to policies that ensure everyone has a chance to get the information and education they need and to live independently as full citizens in their communities.”
Hughes’s comments were met with thunderous applause at the international assembly.
The Library Copyright Alliance consists of the American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). LCA attends the WIPO sessions as a non-governmental organization, and has been pushing for international treaties and other mechanisms to increase access to information, most recently for the visually impaired around the world who have very limited access to reading materials in accessible formats. A significant part of the problem is the legal uncertainty around cross-border sharing of copies. An international treaty to allow cross-border sharing is essential to meet the needs of the visually impaired, 90 percent of whom live in developing countries.
The US delegation also noted that some in the international copyright community “believe that any international consensus on substantive limitations and exceptions to copyright law would weaken international copyright law. The United States does not share that point of view. The United States is committed to both better exceptions in copyright law and better enforcement of copyright law.”
Carrie Russell, Director of the ALA Office for Information Technology Policy’s Program on Public Access to Information, said Hughes’s statement demonstrates that leadership in the White House is maintaining its emphasis on the importance of ensuring access for all.
“President Obama, in his November 16, 2009, speech at the Museum of Science and Technology in Shanghai, declared that access to information is a universal right that should be available to all people. The policy articulated by the US delegation at WIPO flows directly from this declaration.”
The LCA praises the US delegation for its very thoughtful and positive statement in support of an international consensus on cross-border distribution and on specific limitations and exceptions for print-disabled persons.
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 124 research libraries in North America. Its mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, facilitating the emergence of new roles for research libraries, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/.