From: Ann Shumelda Okerson <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 26 May 2014 18:49:42 -0400 http://www.cilip.org.uk/cilip/news/breakthrough-copyright-law-reform-confirmed From CLIP in the UK: "20 years of hard work by our sector has resulted, at last, in the recognition that copyright laws are out of kilter with the digital age and many of the activities taking place across our libraries, archives, museums and educational establishments, need to be supported by fit for purpose exceptions. This will create legal certainty and achieve a better balance between creators rights and user needs, and in doing this make copyright itself stronger." CILIP writes further: These vital changes include: * Much needed digital preservation exceptions to prevent the loss of vital sound recordings, film, as well as text based works. * Allowing the digitisation of analogue collections and their use on dedicated computer terminals on the premises of libraries, archives and museums. * New educational exceptions to support teaching, learning and research. * An expansion of the fair dealing exceptions for private study or non-commercial research purposes to cover not just text, as is the case today but sound and film also. * Amendments to Library Privilege so that publicly accessible not for profit libraries can make fair dealing copies on behalf of their users from all copyright works. It is great to see that for many of these education and research exceptions it is recognised that sound and film have equal importance in an education and cultural context as text based materials. * A new text and data mining (TDM) exception which will dramatically boost non commercial research. In an era of “big data”, research must be supported by allowing organisations and individuals, who have legal access already to copyright materials, to extract facts and data contained therein on a large scale. This new exception will provide unlimited opportunities to support vital research leading to new discoveries and greater innovation. * Copying into accessible formats for readers who are disabled in any way will be allowed, putting all citizens on a level pegging with the able-bodied. (Currently the law only allows copying for the visually impaired.) * Vitally, many of these core “permitted acts” in copyright law given to us by parliament will not be able to be overridden by contracts that have been signed. This is of vital importance, as without this provision, existing and new exceptions in law could subsequently simply be overridden by a contract. Also many contracts are based in the laws of other countries (often the US). This important provision means that libraries and their users no longer need to worry about what the contract allows or disallows but just apply UK copyright exceptions to the electronic publications they have purchased. *******