Revised February 19, 1998
David Green welcomed the 23 NINCH members and guests participating in this "core values" meeting and explained the meeting's rationale. The Advocacy Working Group that followed the November 12 NINCH Copyright Meeting determined that it would assist our project (both the Public Interest campaign and NINCH in general) to be able to draw up a policy statement of the core values of our group. Many of these clearly emerged from the presentations and discussion on November 12. However, these need to be isolated and clearly articulated into a prime statement of what we believe in and why. This would create a 'philosophical umbrella,' would emphasize several basic concepts (e.g. the value of an "intellectual commons") and would imply some specific projects. These core values would be inserted before the NINCH Mission Statement and would be at the head of a Public Interest/Public Domain campaign.
David Green explained that the goal of the meeting was to prepare the outline of a one-page "We Believe..." statement of the values that the coalition and the proposed campaign will propound. Participants would be invited to make brief statements or highlight key concepts that they believe this community most needs to define, articulate and propound. These informal statements would then become the basis for our work together in creating a one-page "core values" statement.
Green thanked Susan Fox, executive director of the Society of American Archivists, for offering to lead the values discussion.
Before the discussion started there were two brief update presentations: one on copyright developments by Professor Peter Jaszi, and the other on the recent CONFU Executive Committee meeting, by Patricia Williams.
Professor Jaszi reminded us of the long-term (roughly 20-year) cycle on which copyright legislation seemed to operate and the therefore critical "present opportunity" for the community to act decisively to get the copyright bill it wanted. He briefly surveyed the bills before Congress, especially those supported by the Administration [The "WIPO Treaties Implementation Act" (S. 1121/H.R. 2281)], and what he called the "para-copyright" database bill (the "Collections of Information Antipiracy Act," (H.R. 2652).
Against the problems he cited with S. 1121/H.R. 2281, Professor Jaszi maintained that the "antidote" for the cultural community could be found in the companion Boucher-Campbell "Digital Era Copyright Enhancement Act," (H.R. 3048) and the Ashcroft "Digital Copyright Clarification and Technology Act of 1997," (S. 1146). Both "would assure the continuation of behavior central to cultural institutions," and both reaffirmed the importance of Fair Use and contained provisions for enabling sensible asynchronous digital distance education.
Jaszi urged participants to examine the bills and to consider possible activity to ensure their passage. Passage would depend on attracting support and, especially, Congressional co-sponsors. Again he warned of the problems of in-action by reminding us of the Copyright Term Extension bill that had gathered an "irresistible head of steam" and which seemed guaranteed of passing shortly. This was partly due to the fact that when it was introduced over two-ad-a-half years ago there was no organized resistance to it.
Patricia Williams, of the American Association of Museums, reported on the December 9 meeting of the steering committee of the Conference on Fair Use. In attendance were Peter Fowler (Patent Office); Chris Dalziel, (Instructional Telecommunications Council); Mary Levering, (Copyright Office); Victor Perlman, (American Society of Media Photographers); Carol Risher, (Association of American Publishers); Mark Traphagen, (Software Publishers Association); and Pat Williams herself. Absent were: Adam Eisgrau, (American Library Association); Laila Van Eyck, (National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges); Lisa Livingston, (Consortium of College and University Media Centers); and John Vaughn, (Association of American Universities).
Pat reported that Carol Risher had proposed to the group that the guidelines process was, essentially, finished. The Digital Images process was clearly over, as was Distance Learning.
There was an important opportunity for comments on Peter Fowler's "Final Report" (the "Report to the Commissioner on the Conclusion of the First Phase of the Conference on Fair Use,") that could make a strong statement about how we collectively felt about the CONFU process. The deadline for comments is the end of February. This is also an opportunity for NINCH to orchestrate a collective response.
Mary Levering had reported at the meeting that the Copyright Office was revising its Circular No. 21, "Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians," (last revised December 1995, and viewable at http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ21>) and would include official reference to the Multimedia Guidelines. This was being done, apparently, because of the appearance of legitimization of the guidelines in the "Nonlegislative Report of the Subcommittee on Courts & Intellectual Property Committee on the Judiciary."
Pat also commented that, although most recognized CONFU as over, she was saddened by the fact that neither the Copyright Office or the Department of Commerce nor most of the commercial copyright holders seemed interested in continuing the fair use conversation in a formal fashion. She had actually suggested this three times during the meeting.
Before discussing the core values themselves, participants were invited to think about the audience NINCH would be addressing with its statement. The discussion moved from considering our audience as the general public and our message a very simple one, through a warning against oversimplification to defining what a "bull's eye" audience would be (policymakers, most agreed) to a segmentation of audience into:
Some thought we should have a generalized message that could be tailored to specific audiences (although others thought that the "bull's eye" audience of policymakers would do this for us). One suggestion is that we be attentive to and describe the following "domains" in which our core values could be used or applied
Many emphasized the importance of including the university community and aggressively pursuing university organizations as members. As they are core users of copyright material, they are essential to the debate, at both the organizational and institutional levels. Pat Williams cited Georgia State University's exemplary "Regents Guide to Understanding Copyright and Educational Fair Use" with scenarios to help faculty understand fair use. Meanwhile the Association of American Publishers is running a hundred seminars on copyright, stressing its point of view on campuses across the country.
We should respond to The Higher Education Alliance for Information Technology's recent policy statement (and Graham Spanier, in particular), congratulating them on the job done and pointing out ground still to be covered to demonstrate that the cultural community is looking at what they are doing. We should also remember elementary and secondary schools and work with the National Education Association.
There was some disagreement about whether we should work on core values that NINCH held in general or to focus only on values pertaining to copyright, or to do both.
Chuck Henry thought we should aim for generalized statements that open the door onto NINCH. The statement should be a magnet to attract members. The implications from the values would be tremendous (cost, curiosity...). We can exploit a situation that challenges NINCH's beliefs and values. These should be the basic core values of the organization. Both Stan Katz and Mike Neuman, though, wanted us to have a clear statement on copyright. On the other hand it was important to show where our statement is couched: "who we are" will be an important part of "these are our values." We should be clear about stating that NINCH comprises the broadest group concerned with networking cultural heritage. We need to make bold statements along the lines that "our success as a society depends upon solving these issues involving not only community networking but the life we can live in the future made possible by access to networked cultural heritage."
There was discussion about the hierarchical relations between Principles and Values. Principles should grow out of underlying values but, as we proceeded, what sounded like "principles" were often enumerated and many warned not to unwittingly repeat the exercise already completed by the NHA in developing its "Principles." (For a reminder of these see the Compact Version at </ISSUES/COPYRIGHT/PRINCIPLES/NHA_Compact.html>) However, it was important to get underlying "concepts" on the table, which perhaps mediated between values and principles. These were enumerated as follows:
Melissa Levine volunteered that access is the key to what this debate is. The copyright debate is a part of the access debate, rather than a matter of economics.
Duane Webster recommended getting endorsements of the NINCH Values statement. Sandy Freitag recommended taking the NHA Principles and the NINCH Core Values to the University of California campuses that belonged to NASULGC and AAU. Pat reminded the group that the museums perspective, not represented in the California draft principles were included in the NHA Principles.
Prue Adler reminded us that it would be important during the campaign to add that we have many for-profit strategic allies.
Pat Williams made a plea for finding an engaging metaphor for this work. Many in the room liked the one Pat remembered from the 1960s campaigns for historic preservation and the development of "public rights of way."