zatoicchi
17.07.08, 03:51
"Digital preservation" sounds simple enough; just slap that data onto increasingly cheap and spacious hard drives, keep some offsite backups, and you're good to go, right? Not so fast, says the Library of Congress, and it points a crabbed and bony finger directly at US copyright law—and at DRM.
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Libraries labor under most of the same rules that govern the rest of us, with a few key exceptions. For instance, libraries can make three copies of unpublished works in their collections, and copyright holders have to provide the Library of Congress with two deposit copies of all books.
But copyright law also hampers important work being done at places like the Library of Congress, and a major new report on the issue from the Library points out the problems with the current rules. One big issue is the exemption for published works in a library's collection; these can also be copied three times, but only to "replace a work in their collections that is damaged, deteriorating, lost or stolen or whose format has become obsolete." In other words, librarians can't backup or archive such works until destruction is well under way.
Library of Congress: DRM a serious obstacle to archiving (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080716-library-of-congress-drm-a-serious-obstacle-to-archiving.html)
Related Stories
Libraries labor under most of the same rules that govern the rest of us, with a few key exceptions. For instance, libraries can make three copies of unpublished works in their collections, and copyright holders have to provide the Library of Congress with two deposit copies of all books.
But copyright law also hampers important work being done at places like the Library of Congress, and a major new report on the issue from the Library points out the problems with the current rules. One big issue is the exemption for published works in a library's collection; these can also be copied three times, but only to "replace a work in their collections that is damaged, deteriorating, lost or stolen or whose format has become obsolete." In other words, librarians can't backup or archive such works until destruction is well under way.
Library of Congress: DRM a serious obstacle to archiving (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080716-library-of-congress-drm-a-serious-obstacle-to-archiving.html)