Dear Representative

Dear Representative,

I’m writing to you today as one of your constituents, a constituent who is concerned about the unexplored ramifications of the proposed CBDTPA bill and similar legislation. My concern centers around the effects such legislation will have on our nation’s libraries and I’d like to hear your thoughts on this subject. Here are mine.

I’m not an expert on copyright, digital rights management (DRM), or intellectual property, but I do know libraries. I know because I’m a library user and supporter. I know that’s not unusual - it’s difficult to find someone who’s against libraries. Just ask your family, your friends, your colleagues, and your other constituents. Try to find someone who has never had need of a library in his life. It’s not easy. I know because I’ve asked around. At some point, everyone I’ve talked to has used a school library, public library, college library, or even a hospital or law library at some point in their lives. I hope that you yourself have taken advantage of our grandest library institution, the Library of Congress.

I’m sure you support our nation’s libraries and what they stand for, but those of us that join you in that support are facing a dilemma of which few people are aware. There has been almost no public discussion about how the debate over copyright for digitized intellectual property will affect the libraries our democracy has relied on for more than a hundred years.

As much as I support libraries, I also support copyright and the protection of intellectual property. Very few people argue for the dissolution of copyright altogether. However, copyright supporters are also concerned about fair use, the doctrine of first sale, and the ability of libraries to continue collecting, cataloging, indexing, archiving, and circulating our cultural heritage. As our movement forward into the world of digital content accelerates, the ability of our libraries to perform these most basic functions is endangered. As I said, I’m no expert, but I have been tracking this issue for the past several months, as I hope you have been doing because at some point, you will probably be called upon to represent the public voice and vote on the CBDTPA (or other legislation with similar intent).

Here’s my concern. The entertainment industry is worried about their content, their intellectual property. I understand this concern and the cause for it. Many of our nation’s industries face similar problems and as with so much else in our modern lives, the gray areas have overtaken the once easier black and white decisions. However, the current debate over copyright and intellectual property still retains one very clear black and white decision, and it involves libraries.

For lack of more creative solutions, the entertainment industry is asking Congress and the technology industry to work with them to embed copyright controls in software, hardware, computers, televisions, and any entertainment device capable of playing multimedia files. While this may seem like an obvious solution to the problem of theft of digital files, the unexplored consequence may well end up being the dissolution of our libraries.

For example, if we embed digital rights management (DRM) in every device that plays a CD and I can only play CDs I’ve purchased on my home stereo, there is no way for the DRM software or hardware to recognize a CD that today is considered legal for a library to circulate to its residents. Or if the text in an ebook cannot be copied or printed, how will a student do research at the library and then include citations in her homework? These are very serious questions, and no one is asking the entertainment industry how they plan to resolve it. If their goal is to lock down all digital content in order to protect it from possible theft, they can’t leave open the traditional exemption upon which the idea of the public library is predicated. If they do, it could be exploited by hackers, so they won’t dare risk it. And this is exactly what you’ll discover if you ask them these questions directly. Which means they're making us (and soon, specifically you) to choose between something as simple as libraries and locking down all content forever.

Many times I have read the pleas of entertainment industry executives, always asking the technology industry to sit down at the table with them to work out a compromise. I applaud these efforts, but I have yet to hear what compromises media executives plan to offer in return. How will they make our digital cultural heritage available to our nation’s libraries? How will our citizens have access to popular culture? How will our students do research, the way we did when we were kids? How will our artists get their inspiration from our rich past of culture? How will we provide doorways to our history and culture for the digital have-nots?

The role our libraries have played in forming and framing our society is in grave danger. Books won’t go away tomorrow and we may not lose what we have now, but if digital content is buried under an electronic lock with no key, we may well lose our future. As I said, I’m no expert on all of this, but I have lots of questions and the entertainment industry is providing no answers. I hope that if you don’t know these answers either, that you will ask the questions until you get them, until the gray area comes into focus. The black and white decision here is to make sure we protect our libraries. As the debate continues and new legislation is proposed (as it surely will be), I urge you to think about your constituents, your neighbors, and your grandchildren. Ask the questions, and ask for the answers that provide specific solutions for protecting the valuable role our libraries play in our society, not just vague promises of "somehow" or to "figure that out later."

I look forward to your continued support of our nation's libraries and your personal response to this letter.

Sincerely and respectfully,

© Copyright 2004 Jenny Levine. Last update: 5/20/2004; 4:26:17 PM.

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