Re: Fair Use Guidelines Teleconference

Hello CNI-COPYRIGHT,

I am replying in response to Matthew Watters' query as to whether others had seen the Fair Use Guidelines for Multimedia Teleconference. I did view this telecast and agree with many of the statements made by Mr. Watters and by Maryly Snow in her response. I found the telecast to be strongly pitched as a lobbying effort to have educators endorse the guidelines. I did not feel that enough opposing views were aired. Although, Judith Saffer did indicate that her early view that the educators participating in the CONFU meetings wanted to use anything and everything for free was softened somewhat, she seemed to be the only panelist that really seemed to have any inkling of the views of educators. I found it interesting that several of the Iowa panelists, most of whom were educators or media coordinators, seemed to follow the lead of the rights holders, primarily Carol Risher and Bernie Sorkin, the most vocal of the panelists. Carol Risher, as many of you may know, represents the American Association of Publishers and Mr. Sorkin is general counsel for Time Warner Inc. As Maryly Snow has mentioned already, the Visual Resources Association, an organization which also has had representatives at each of the CONFU meetings, voted not to endorse the proposed Fair Use Guidelines for Digital Image Archives. I believe that many of the constraints in the Fair Use Guidelines for Multimedia overlap and influence the interpretation of the Fair Use Guidelines for Digital Archives. Therefore I would urge educators to look closely at all of the proposed guidelines before endorsing any of them. As Maryly Snow has also mentioned, the American Library Association (ALA) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) have strong reservations about these guidelines. The Visual Resources Association (VRA) has issued a press release briefly summarizing why its Executive Board voted not to endorse the proposed Fair Use Guidelines for Digital Archives and I will send a copy of that press release to CNI-COPYRIGHT.

As far as educating users and/or the public about the CONFU process and the proposed guidelines, I felt the telecast did do that to a certain extent in the first 30 minutes of the broadcast. If one had never heard of CONFU and had no idea what the meetings were about, this telecast did present some of that information. However, I feel that it was primarily a lobbying effort to get educators to endorse the guidelines.

Sandra C. Walker
Visual Resources Specialist, Department of Art The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
215 Art & Architecture Bldg., 1715 Volunteer Blvd. Knoxville, TN 37996-2410
USA

Phone:	423-974-3196
FAX:	423-974-3198
E-mail:	swalker5[_at_]utk.edu