Today the librarian of Congress—based on recommendations by the register of copyrights—issued an expansion to the 2021 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) regulation that permits researchers to circumvent technological protection measures to conduct text and data mining research. The updated regulation clarifies that academic researchers can securely access research collections of literary works or motion pictures hosted by other institutions of higher education for purposes of collaboration, or to facilitate their own independent research projects.
In a petition, Authors Alliance, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) made the case that the expanded exemption will facilitate research that reflects more diverse viewpoints, methods, and subjects. For example, graduate students and faculty wish to study how African American English is expressed in fiction by African American writers, or analyze the representation of gender, race, and guns in films. The register of copyrights agreed that, without the expansion, researchers at other academic institutions face “adverse effects” on their ability to make noninfringing use of copyrighted audiovisual and literary works.
LCA also joined petitions to expand the existing exemptions for the preservation of software and video games, which the librarian did not grant. The librarian renewed all existing exemptions except for the exemption for accessible access to video games, for which there was no petition for renewal.
For the renewed and expanded petitions, the petitions that were not granted, and the updated regulatory text, please see the US Copyright Office’s website on the Ninth Triennial Section 1201 Proceeding, 2024.
About the Library Copyright Alliance
The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) addresses copyright issues that affect libraries and their users to foster global access to and fair use of information for creativity, research, and education. LCA consists of two major library associations—the American Library Association and the Association of Research Libraries. These two associations collectively represent over 300,000 information professionals and thousands of libraries of all kinds throughout the United States and Canada.
