The Digital Age presents many new challenges to Scholarly Communication. Issues in Copyright and Open Access are among the most hotly contested in the legal and legislative world. As leaders in the struggle to maintain a balance of power between copyright holders and users, libraries closely follow both federal and state legislation. Below is an overview of some of the recent legislation that has been proposed or signed into law.
One part of the bill (Section G, Title II, Section 218) specifically requires that NIH-funded researchers deposit in the National Library of Medicine's online archive, PubMed Central, an electronic copy of their final peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication.
The bill would require federal agencies that fund over $100 million in annual external research to make electronic manuscripts of peer-reviewed journal articles stemming from their research publicly available via the Internet within six months of publication.
A Bill to amend Title 17, United States Code, this act would allow for the use of copyrighted works whose owners cannot be located with reasonable effort.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law which criminalizes production and dissemination of technology whose primary purpose is to circumvent measures taken to protect copyright, not merely infringement of copyright itself, and heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet.
The "Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act" (the TEACH Act) redefines the terms and conditions on which accredited, nonprofit educational institutions throughout the U.S. may use copyright protected materials in distance education-including on websites and by other digital means--without permission from the copyright owner and without payment of royalties.
The Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (alternatively known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act) extended copyright terms in the United States by 20 years. Before the 1998 act, copyright (under the Copyright Act of 1976) would last for the life of the author plus 50 years, or 75 years for a work of corporate authorship; the 1998 act extended these terms to life of the author plus 70 years and 95 years respectively.
