s largely to the library and information profession.
Copyright law should allow libraries to copy protected material in order to preserve it and legislation should not prevent libraries from relying on new technology to improve preservation techniques and to make digitally preserved materials available to library users.
Legislation should give libraries and archives permission, where necessary, to convert copyright protected materials into digital format for preservation and conservation related purposes and libraries should be allowed to provide access to such materials as they would a book, including access both onsite and off-site.
On liability for copyright infringement
Although libraries as intermediaries have an important role to play in ensuring training and compliance with copyright law, liability should ultimately rest with the infringer. Copyright law should enunciate clear limitations on liability of third parties in circumstances where compliance cannot practically or reasonably be enforced.
On the licensing environment
The terms of contractual license agreements for copyright material should support public policies in such areas as copyright, privacy, intellectual freedom, and consumer rights. License agreements for information should not exclude or negatively impact users of the information by removing any statutory rights that may be granted by applicable copyright law. IFLA believes that licensing agreements should complement copyright legislation, not replace it.
National copyright legislation should render invalid any terms of a license that restrict
or override exceptions or limitations embodied in copyright law where the license is established unilaterally by the rights owners without the opportunity for negotiation of
the terms of the license by the user. At a minimum the license should permit users to read, download, and print materials for their own personal purposes, without restrictions.
On technological copyright protection measures
Copyright protection should encourage and not inhibit, use and creativity. Copyright law should not give rights holders the additional power to use technological measures to override the exceptions and limitations to copyright and distort the balance set in international and domestic copyright legislation. Access to information, rather than
control of information, increases use. Indeed studies have shown that too much control, in the form of technical protection, is counterproductive. Circumvention of technological measures for non-infringing activities should be enabled.
National copyright laws should ultimately aim for a balance between the rights of copyright owners to protect their interests through technical means and the rights of users to circumvent such measures for legitimate, non-infringing purposes.
IFLA welcomes the opportunity to make these comments on the need for adequate exceptions to support UNESCO aims on education, literacy and social justice and encourages UNESCO to consult as widely as possible on this very important issue. IFLA sincerely believes that lobbying by some rights owners against national copyright exceptions, plus the increasing use of technological copyright protection measures and restrictive licensing conditions, is leading to a situation where the dissemination of culture and knowledge is threatened and the level of dissemination is no longer in accordance with wider public policy goals. IFLA does not believe that the best solution for facing the problems of copyright in the digital environment is to replace the regulatory regime of copyright law with the conditions of access established unilaterally by information suppliers.
The original purpose of copyright was to protect the author or creator in the wider public interest. We now live in a digital age and there is a danger of copyright becoming a legal protection mechanism for commercial conglomerates. There is a growing threat to the public interest aspect of copyright, with certain copyright owners wielding an enormous power to set their own rules and build a “private legislat