Digital Public Library of America » Blog Archive » Help the Copyright Office Understand How to Address Mass Digitization

"Wouldn’t libraries and archives like to be able to digitize their collections and make the texts and images available to the world online? Of course they would, but copyright inhibits this for most works created in the last 100 years. The U.S. Copyright Office recently issued a report and a request for comments on its proposal for a new licensing system intended to overcome copyright obstacles to mass digitization. While the goal is laudable, the Office’s proposal is troubling and vague in key respects. The overarching problem is that the Office’s proposal doesn’t fully consider how libraries and archives currently go about digitization projects, and so it misidentifies how the law should be improved to allow for better digital access. It’s important that libraries and archives submit comments to help the Office better understand how to make recommendations for improvements. Below is a summary of the Office’s proposal and five specific reasons why libraries and archives should have reservations about it. I strongly encourage you to read the proposal and Notice of Inquiry closely and form your own judgment about it. For commenting, a model letter is available here (use this form to fill in basic information), but you should tailor it with details that are important to your institution. Comments are due to the Copyright Office by October 9, 2015. The comment submission page is here."