Washington DC—The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) today released a statement describing the key features copyright reform proposals should include in order to constitute significant improvement over current law for libraries and their users.

Interested parties are discussing with renewed vigor the issues of orphan works, mass digitization, and even modernization of Section 108 of the US Copyright Act in the wake of the Google Books settlement rejection by Judge Denny Chin of the Southern District of New York. The LCA statement, which represents the needs of library stakeholders in these debates, provides helpful guideposts for these discussions.

Libraries have always advocated for reasonable copyright policy—in the courts as well as in the US Congress. Library activities already benefit from broad, flexible protection under the fair use doctrine and related provisions in current law. The LCA’s statement describes the status quo for libraries as well as the policies that would constitute substantial legislative improvement to existing copyright law.

To view the statement, please visit: http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/lca_copyrightreformstatement_16may11.pdf .

The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) consists of three major library associations—the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, and the Association of College and Research Libraries. These three associations collectively represent over 300,000 information professionals and thousands of libraries of all kinds throughout the United States and Canada. These three associations cooperate in the LCA to address copyright issues that affect libraries and their patrons. LCA is on the web at http://www.librarycopyrightalliance.org .

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