ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


C&RL News ■  July/August 2001 / 735

W a s h i n g t o n  H o t l i n e Miriam N¡sbet

Distance Education—S. 487
T he full Senate passed S. 487, the “TEACH” 
Act, formally called the “Tech nology Educa­
tion and Copyright Harmonization Act” on 
Ju n e 7. This follows changes made to the bill 
that w ere developed through extended dis­
cussions among the various stakeholders fol­
lowing the bill’s introduction in March. The 
same day, Representatives Rick B ou ch er (R- 
Virginia) and Darrell Issa (R-California) in­
troduced  a sim ilar bill, H.R. 2100, in the 
House.

Current law  and the Copyright 
Office Report
Under the current provisions o f the Copy­
right Act o f 1976, instructors may perform or 
display any copyrighted material (audiovisual, 
literary, and musical w orks) in a classroom 
without securing perm ission from the cop y­
right owner. Though the law also provides a 
limited extension o f this classroom  exem p­
tion to distance education, the distance edu­
cation exem ption was developed in an era 
o f television transmission and does not ac­
com m odate online distance education. More­
over, the current exem ption is limited to per­
f o r m a n c e s  o f  c e r t a in  k in d s  o f  w o rk s  
(non-dram atic literary and musical), requires 
delivery o f educational content to a rem ote 
location serving as a physical classroom , and 
requires sim ultaneous delivery and receipt 
o f a perform ance or display.

As instructed in the Digital Millennium 
Copyright Act o f 1998, the U.S. Copyright Of­
fice conducted a study on the need for revis­
ing the copyright. After a thorough, balanced 
study, the office submitted a report to Con­
gress in May 1999 concluding that changes 
to copyright law w ere need ed  to bring the 
intent o f prior law into accord with current 
technology ( http://www.lo c .gov/copyright/ 
disted).

T h e ch an g es in cop yrigh t law  re c o m ­
m ended by the office included: eliminating 
the physical classroom  requirem ent; permit-

M ir iam N¡sbet is A LA  Legislative Counsel, e-mail: 
mnisbet@alawash.org

ting material to be stored on a server for asyn­
chronous use by students; expanding the cat­
egories o f works that may b e  used to include 
reasonable and limited portions o f audiovi­
sual and dramatic works as well as sound 
recordings; and expanding the rights subject 
to the exem ption to those necessary to en ­
sure that the workings o f the Internet do not 
create unintended liability.

The Copyright Office report also recom ­
mended safeguards for protecting digital copy­
righted material used in distance education, 
including: limiting the distribution o f material 
to enrolled students; requiring materials to be 
used through mediated instruction (analogous 
to classroom use); requiring the use o f tech­
nological measures that reasonably prevent 
downstream redistribution; and limiting per­
formances o f many types o f works to reason­
able and limited portions o f those works. The 
TEACH bill closely tracks the recommenda­
tions o f the Copyright Office.

Senate sh ift m ay im pact e- 
governm ent legislation
S. 803, the E-Government Act of 2001, will 
likely see increased attention from the Senate 
now  that its c h ief author, Senator Jo se p h  
Lieberman (D-Connecticut) is chair o f the Sen­
ate Government Affairs Committee. S. 803 was 
introduced on May 1 by Senators Lieberman, 
Burns, McCain, and others. With Senator Jim  
Jeffords announcing his move to being an In­
dependent and the control o f the Senate shift­
ing to the Democrats, Lieberman is now in a 
position to push this bill.

S. 803 makes a num ber o f proposals re­
lated to electronic governm ent transactions 
and seekin g to insure im proved life-cycle 
m anagement o f governm ent information. Ac­
cording to Lieberm an’s office, this bill is still 
a “w ork in progress.” It was the subject of 
m uch discussion at the ALA Annual Confer­
ence, within ALA Committee on  Legislation, 
its Governm ent Information Subcommittee, 
GODORT, ACRL, and others. A Senate hear­
ing could take place early this summer, so 
w atch for more information on this impor­
tant bill. ■

http://www.loc.gov/copyright/
mailto:mnisbet@alawash.org


736 /  C&RL News ■ July/August 2001