Status of Conference on Fair Use (CONFU)

Dear CNI members:

Do any educators or librarians have a handle on the status of CONFU fair use guidelines? The last I heard, the distance learning and digital images guidelines were hopelessly stalled, while the educational multimedia ones gained some acceptance in trial use situations.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/olia/confu/conclutoc.html is only up-to-date to the end of CONFU Phase One in September 1997. Now, however, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, recently signed into law, contains the following interesting provision:

     TITLE IV -- MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS
     SEC. 403. LIMITATIONS ON EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS; DISTANCE EDUCATION.

         (a) RECOMMENDATIONS BY REGISTER OF COPYRIGHTS. -- Not later
     than 6 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, the

     Register of Copyrights, after consultation with representatives 
     of copyright owners, nonprofit educational institutions, and 
     nonprofit libraries and archives, shall submit to the Congress
     recommendations on how to promote distance education through
     digital technologies, including interactive digital networks, 
     while maintaining an appropriate balance between the rights of
     copyright owners and the needs of users of copyrighted works.  
     Such recommendations shall include any legislation the Register 
     of Copyrights considers appropriate to achieve the objective 
     described in the preceding sentence. 

Does this mean that (at least for distance learning guidelines) CONFU has been scrapped or will take on another form as the Register begins consultations?

S.B. Smith
Groton Public Schools Copyright Committee Groton, CT
<sb_smith[_at_]sprynet.com> Received on Mon Nov 16 1998 - 05:42:20 GMT