[SCC_Active_Members] Heads Up - Copyright Law and Orphan Works

[Lee Courtney]

Paul et al,

The issue of restricted access aka "dark archive" has been discussed by the
SCC and there was consensus that we accept donations to the Software Archive
with restrictions on release (e.g. not to be disclosed until mm/dd/yyyy
date). THis is a common practice at archives/libraries, for example
collections of personal papers or other IP with restrictions on the release
thereof. There is a lot of precedence for this.

Exposure due to "accidental" release is a manageable risk that the
organization deals with by having good housekeeping.

Given some of the murkey issues around software and IP protection, our
charter to PROACTIVELY collect significant software artifacts, and the ever
increasing loss of software artifacts we, at a minimum, will pursue a
preservation only course within the Software Archive.

I just want to make sure that we don't back-track on a fundamental decision
and direction that will forclose an important, and in some cases the only,
avenue for us to preserve artifacts on Grady's original list.

Cheers,

Lee C.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: scc_active-bounces at computerhistory.org
> [mailto:scc_active-bounces at computerhistory.org]On Behalf Of H.M. Gladney
> Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 4:50 PM
> To: 'Paul McJones'; 'Sellam Ismail'
> Cc: Dan Price (Dan Price); scc_active at computerhistory.org
> Subject: RE: [SCC_Active_Members] Heads Up - Copyright Law and Orphan
> Works
>
>
> Asking only for preservation permission would drive one towards a "dark
> archive"--i.e., a collection subset that could not be freely
> disseminated.
>
> This possibility is not only unattractive, but is likely to incur
> significant extra administrative costs compared to a repository that makes
> all its preserved holdings available.  It further is a potential source of
> infringement litigation in the case of a "dark" holding that is mistakenly
> made available.
>
> I.e., in my view, CHM should not endorse this possibility.
>
> Cheerio, HMG
> -----Original Message-----
> From: scc_active-bounces at computerhistory.org
> [mailto:scc_active-bounces at computerhistory.org] On Behalf Of Paul McJones
> Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 3:14 PM
> To: Sellam Ismail
> Cc: Lee Courtney; scc_active at computerhistory.org
> Subject: Re: [SCC_Active_Members] Heads Up - Copyright Law and
> Orphan Works
>
> For the purposes of preservation and historical/educational use,
> would it be
> necessary to ask that these "orphaned" works pass into the public domain?
> Perhaps there is a less final status that would suffice for us, such as
> saying that it would become legal to copy for purposes of
> preservation, etc.
> If the original copyright holder later spoke up (before the copyright term
> expired), he/she could still try to go after commercial users.
>
> I'm not sure if my idea makes legal sense, but the idea is to ask for as
> little as possible...
>
>
> Paul
>
>
> Sellam Ismail wrote:
> >>I ran across a pointer to a request from Senate Judicary
> >>Committee that the Library of Congress study impact of
> >>orphaned works WRT to current copyright law. ...
>
>
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