Library Of Congress: Digital Preservation Report
Although copyright and related laws are not the only obstacle to digital preservation, there is no question that those laws present major challenges, the Library of Congress concluded in a report released Monday by its National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program in cooperation with partners in Australia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Digital works are ephemeral, and unless preserved soon after creation, they will be lost to future generations, the study said.
The report includes recommendations for legislative reform and other solutions to ensure that libraries, archives and other preservation institutions can manage copyrighted digital information in a manner consistent with national and international laws. Specific recommendations include structuring national copyright laws to provide exceptions for
preservation institutions to proactively preserve at-risk copyrighted material in digital form, subject to measures appropriate to protect the legitimate interests of rights holders.
Recommendations in the U.S.-focused section of the report follow those outlined in by an independent Library of Congress study group in March. Recommendations from the other jurisdictions reflect each country's specific copyright laws. The four organizations worked closely together to develop joint recommendations for how copyright and intellectual property law might better accommodate digital content preservation.
The document states that copyright laws should permit archives to safeguard copyrighted works in accordance with international best practices for digital preservation, including making copies for administrative and technical purposes; migrating works into different formats in response to technological developments and changing standards; and maintaining redundant copies among preservation institutions and legally authorized third-party preservation repositories to protect against catastrophic loss.
The authors further recommend that copyright exceptions for digital preservation should not be conditioned on the category (such as literature or music) or format (such as compact disc or Web site) of information. An electronic version of the study is available here.
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