Copyright term, film labeling, and film preservation legislation : hearings before the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourth Congress, first session, on H.R. 989, H.R. 1248, and H.R. 1734 ... June 1 and July 13, 1995 (1996)

579 • The Copyright Office Electronic Registration, Recordation and Deposit System, or CORDS, is a project that will develop and test a system for copyright registration with applications, copies of works, and copyright-related documents transmitted in digital form over communications networks such as the Internet. Digital works selected for the Library's collections will be available in accordance with authors' and other copyright owners' terms and conditions. • Together with six other libraries, the Library of Congress is participating in a site licensing project sponsored by the Getty Art Museum whereby collections will be sent electronically to seven university campuses for use by students and professors. This effort is aimed at testing the legal and technical mechanisms needed to allow the full educational use of collections and to develop model licensing agreements. • Working with the Association of American Publishers, the Library will select copyrighted multimedia American history materials and make them available electronically to schools and libraries, under a collective licensing agreement. While efforts like these move forward, a more comprehensive understanding of the copyright issues involved with new technology is needed. Up to this point, the works we have made available electronically through the National Digital Library project are mainly those in the public domain: either works by the U.S. Government or those whose copyright term has expired. The proposed extension of the period of copyright protection means that material from the mid-twentieth century, which would otherwise have passed into the public domain and become available for use by libraries and other educational institutions, would not now be available to be freely shared with schools and librarians. This restriction very clearly would limit the range of historical coverage into the 20th century, from which schoolchildren will be able to learn. One has to be concerned that too often today copyright is seen only as an economic concept, rather than as one which also fosters the growth of learning and culture for the public welfare. Our economic future clearly depends on the education and intellectual advancement of the American people which our copyright system seeks to advance; even as it seeks to reward authors and creators. I understand the equity and foreign policy reasons for copyright extension; and I support the testimony the Register will give to the subcommittee this Thursday. At the same time, I believe that, in conjunction with this legislation, we should start to search for ways to ease the unintended negative impacts that this legislation in its present form would predictably have on libraries, educational institutions and archives. Over the past two centuries, our copyright system has been flexible enough to adapt to new technologies. This adaptation has been smoothest and most beneficial when all parties involved have agreed to work together toward solutions. In her testimony, the Register will offer the assistance of the Copyright Office in helping the committee to defme