LCA RELATED NEWS

Orphan Works Testimony
On March 8, 2006, several organizations, including  members of the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA), were represented by testimony on Orphan Works given by Maria Pallante given to the U.S. Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, Committee on the Judiciary U.S. House of Representatives on March 8th, 2006. Pallante is Associate General Counsel and Director of Licensing, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (Guggenheim Museum). The sheer number of cultural, scholarly, and educational institutions lending support to her remarks not only strengthened libraries position, but also caught the attention of the committee members. Read Pallante's statement

Database Directive Policy Options Comments
On March 10, 2006, several groups, including all the members of the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA), filed Comments on Database Directive Policy Options. Ten organizations and twenty law professors signed onto comments addressing the policy options outlined in the December 12, 2005 DG Internal Market and Services Working Paper on the Directive on the Legal Protection of Databases. The organizations and law professors represent the interests of technology and financial services companies; libraries, scientists, scholars, and educational institutions; and consumers. For the past decade, groups have opposed the adoption of overly protective database legislation in the United States. Read Comments.

Support for Open Document Format
On December 12, 2005, AALL, ALA, ARL, MLA and SLA sent letters to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in support of its adoption of the Open Document Format (ODF) as the standard for all electronic documents created by the executive branch. Backwards compatibility may be difficult to achieve in 100 years because the developer of proprietary software may have gone out of business, and the specifications for the document formatting may also have disappeared. ODF will significantly ease access to information for future generations as any future programmer will be able to finds its open, nonproprietary specifications. Read Galvin Letter, Read Trimarco Letter

Psihoyos v. National Geographic Enterprises
On November 17, 2005, several library groups filed an Amicus Brief in support of the National Geographic in the Supreme Court of the United States. The case presents a direct, material and acknowledged conflict between two U.S. courts of appeal on an important question of federal copyright law. Full Brief Amicus Curiae.

Illinois Tool Works, Inc. and Trident , Inc. v. Independent Ink, Inc.
On September 28, 2005, several organizations, including three members of the LCA (www.LibraryCopyrightAlliance.org), filed an Amicus Brief in the Supreme Court of the United States in support of Independent Ink, Inc. The case involves the tying of products. For example, the manufacturer of a computer printer may require a consumer also to purchase computer paper from the printer manufacturer. Under the antitrust law, such a tie is unlawful if the printer manufacturer has market power in the printer market -- the market for the tying product. Usually the plaintiff needs to prove that the defendant had market power in the tying product, which can be difficult and expensive to do. In this case, the Federal Circuit ruled that if a person has a patent or copyright on the tying product, market power in the tying product is presumed. The presumption makes it easier for consumers and competitors to bring tying cases.
Full Brief Amicus Curiae.