March 25, 1998
Conference Room,
Association of Research Libraries, Washington, DC
As I hope you all recall, we organized a very successful "summit" meeting on copyright issues last November. The point of the meeting was to review inter-related intellectual property developments such as copyright legislation, the development of licensing initiatives, the Conference on Fair Use, and, in the light of the failure of CONFU, the creation of organizational and institutional "Principles" and "Policies" in the management and use of copyright materials in a digital environment.
These "intellectual property" issues are extremely important for this coalition. With their potential for disrupting any plans we might have for networking cultural materials, it is essential that we, organizations and institutions representing those who create, own and use digital copyrighted materials, come to agreement about an outlook, a stance, and a statement of principles about these issues that we can all feel comfortable and secure about.
These issues will be with us for a long time, but many feel that before we move on with equal energy to other issues, we have to have a solid platform on copyright.
The report and summary report on the Copyright Meeting is still available (along with a reading list) at </ipmeeting/ipmeeting.html>.
One of several conclusions of the participants of the Copyright Meeting was to:
"Form a Task Force to organize a major public relations campaign on the value of the Public Domain. Such a campaign would articulate at many levels (from the article to the soundbite) the critical value of balanced copyright law (including fair use and a robust public domain) for a healthy and creative cultural and economic life."
Participants also concluded that before the Task Force engaged on its work, another general meeting should be held to clarify what NINCH's "core values" were. A final report on this "Core Values" meeting is available.
Some NINCH members felt that the initial draft reports of these meetings suggested a degree of activism that was inappropriate for a coalition such as NINCH. The final reports from those meetings reflect now, I believe, the agreed upon tone of our future position--and we are writing a statement on NINCH's advocacy stance.
The last meeting of this Task Force spent time working on our developing NINCH "Core Values" and Copyright Principles statements, both of which will be released shortly.
Now with the consolidating work on values and principles almost behind us, we are holding the meeting next Wednesday to consult with any members interested in discussing the options for a public education campaign on the importance of the public interest components of copyright and the public domain.
David Green
A meeting to discuss the future of NINCH's advocacy stance, its Public Interest campaign and a statement of NINCH's "Core Values" concluded that rather than declare specific positions on issues, NINCH should allow its clearly articulated values to generate perspectives, thus creating a platform for change.
The "Core Values" statement was warmly greeted as a potentially very effective document in clarifying NINCH's mission and goals. The immediate implications for NINCH were that we should demonstrate through examples and recommended best practices what a networked cultural heritage would consist of. For the campaign (but also for NINCH) the core values imply the need for clearly envisioning the future that we are working towards, as well as the dystopia we need to avoid.
A meeting was held at the end of March for those NINCH members particularly interested in discussing the options and strategic underpinnings of a proposed NINCH "public interest" campaign first mooted in our November Copyright Meeting.
In the process of developing an initial set of "core values" for the campaign, a small number of NINCH members reported some discomfort with the perceived level of growing activism supporting specific legislative positions that was felt to be inappropriate for a coalition such as NINCH.
The executive director met with those members and re-asserted his determination to keep NINCH a broad-based coalition rather than a sleeker more focused advocacy or lobbying machine. When it met again, the Public Interest Task Force prepared a broader, deeper "Core Values" statement with a separate Copyright Principles statement.
The group reasserted its sense of NINCH's "advocacy." While this word had different meanings for different members (from "education" to lobbying), the consensus of this group was that NINCH should encourage full disclosure by its members and the articulation of its "perspectives" and values on issues, that could provide a platform for change, rather than assert positions.
The "Core Values" statement was welcomed and was seen as an important internal declaration of what is and what is not negotiable within the coalition. It should be clear ground from which we can build perspectives and statements on a variety of issues.
The discussion proceeded to move between the implications the Core Values statement for NINCH as a whole and for the Public Interest campaign in particular. The two are clearly related and intertwined but, for some clarity, I have endeavored to separate them.
Claire Muldoon stated that now we had our "Ultimate Truths," we should use them to build a set of "best practices" that can guide us as we go into projects or programs, such as American Strategy, a DLI-2 proposal, the NSF project, or the public-private project. What are the best standards for the world we want to build?
Chuck Henry agreed: the Core Values brought with them the responsibility to prove what we were stating. Examples of what we mean and of recommended best practices were a clear first step. A NINCH committee might best be assembled to assist with this. Claire further suggested that we make the Core Values statement a live hypertext document: with linked projects, statements, digital libraries, quotations, etc. This would be one exemplary way of getting to "best practices."
Susan Fox felt the Core Values statement had implications for the Start-Up Strategic Plan. We should also more clearly list our achievements to date. The Core Values statement is a good base for us to articulate with more detail what kind of a community we are and what our expectations are for the future.
Pat Williams suggested thinking about a set of Awards to certain projects both as a form of recognition and as an assertion of NINCH's role. The AAM Awards Program could be a model.
Several participants spoke about how the arts and humanities still had some deep thinking to do about the challenges of a digital environment. On the one hand, the arts and humanities had some catching up to do with the scientific community that had comprehended the challenge of the digital infrastructure and had begun to build effective ways of implementing it. On the other hand, those working in science and technology were beginning to be aware of their often lost sense of history and of the valuable place of humanities' perspectives. Susan Fox reminded us of E. O Wilson's new book "Consilience," on the importance of relating different knowledge domains.
NINCH was poised to reach out and incorporate "best practices" of scientific and commercial worlds: in fact our two broad research projects are focused on bringing together in this arena, on the one hand, cultural and scientific, and on the other, private and public sectors.
Melissa Levine commented that beneath the "Core Values" lies an assumption of democratic values. Perhaps in our copyright statement we should make the explicit connection between the values of the first amendment and fair use.
Making broad connections between democratic values, the public domain, the "American" belief in the necessity for an educated citizenry and the potential of the new technology was important. Marc Pachter commented on the importance of our not drawing ourselves into a box, of our not being perceived as yet another special-interest group.
Materials that we still needed were an advocacy statement and an explicit envisioning statement of the kind of reality NINCH wants to see. The envisioning statement must be inclusive and broad: what would the classroom be without fair use, for example. The Core Values statement implies along with examples, a vision of the future. We need clear vision; key definitions; goals; messages. Then develop strategies and the means of success and resources.
Pat Williams thought it useful to see what we could learn from the history of public interest in historic preservation (with en route the key terms of "right of way" and "preserving cultural values"). What is it that the public has an interest in: something that the government cannot give to somebody else.
Members Attending March 25 Meeting
Kathe Albrecht (VRA), Chuck Henry (Rice University), Pat Williams (AAM), Lynne Boone Clement (ArtsEdge, Kennedy Center), Susan Fox (SAA), Marc Pachter, Claire Muldoon (Smithsonian), Jane Sledge (Getty Information Institute), Melissa Levine (Library of Congress)