December 1, 1995

Senator Orrin G. Hatch 
Senate Judiciary Committee 
SD-224 
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Chairman Hatch:

	By way of introduction, we are writing to you on behalf of the ACM,
an educational and scientific organization otherwise known as the Association
for Computing.  The membership of the ACM includes more than 85,000
information and computing professionals worldwide, including almost 70,000
persons who reside in the United States.  As an organization, we are very
pleased with your demonstrated interest in promoting the benefits of
information technology.  We are, however, concerned with a bill which is
pending before your committee: the "Information Infrastructure Copyright
Act," S. 1284.

	From our perspective the current language of this bill fails to
recognize legitimate needs and interests of academic, professional,
scientific, and ordinary users of telecommunications technology. Copyright
laws that make the most sense for some forms of publication, such as
commercial music, may make poor sense for scientific and scholarly works.
Commercial entertainment firms have a legitimate interest in maximizing their
profits.  Other kinds of publishing and distribution organizations in the
scientific and scholarly worlds balance cost recovery/profit with maximizing
the review and distribution of materials to the academic and research
community.  The ACM has developed a sound policy that seems promising for its
members; other scholarly publishers and libraries are developing alternative
policies. Virtually all of these models differ from some key restrictions of
S. 1284 that are certain to inhibit scientific and scholarly communication.

	As a specific example of the problem, we note that the bill proposes
to add the phrase "transmission" in the definitions of two words,
"distribution" and "publication," now used in the copyright law to delineate
rights in written works. Further, the definition of the word "transmission"
itself would include distribution by any means whereby a copy is fixed long
enough to be perceived.  Such a definition, without further clarification,
may be interpreted by the courts to cover a transmission to a video screen
for period of time long enough for such material to be read. Thus, the bill
would broadly expand the legal interpretation of "copyright infringement," by
making it unlawful to browse through digital libraries found on-line, whether
those libraries are located on the Internet or elsewhere.  Implementation of
such a definition would impede legitimate needs of scientific and academic
communities to disseminate and study information in a free and speedy
fashion. These interests were inadequately addressed in the Administration's
recently completed "White Paper."

	As an integral part of its activities, the ACM is a publisher of
numerous journals, some of which are now being moved on-line.  For this
reason, it has given abundant consideration to the proper application of the
copyright principle in the on-line environment.  As part of its newly enacted
Copyright Policy, the ACM has chosen to adopt a working definition that
recognizes how the technology of browsers works: the browser brings a portion
of the copyrighted work to the local computer where it is being viewed.  We
have structured our copyright policy, applied to our works, to allow and
encourage browsing.  We need to permit individuals to browse and search
through digital libraries for the purpose of professional research, as well
as educational use.  Illustrative of this definition is the copyright notice
which will accompany all digitally published material maintained by the ACM:

	Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this
	work for personal or classroom use is granted with or without
	fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit
	or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and
	full citation on the first page . . . .  To copy otherwise, to
	republish, to post on services, or to redistribute to lists,
	requires specific permission and/or a fee.

It is this type of freedom of access over digital networks which is
indispensable to maintain motivated and effective academic and research
communities.

	Action is certainly needed in the digital copyright area.  However, a
rush to legislate without an adequate consensus on the balance among
different interests made poses a danger to all of society.

	We urge you, now, to take steps to study S. 1284 in the larger
context of all the goals which information technology must serve.  A careful
and methodical study of these issues, complete with suitable hearings where
all interests of society can be heard, is the appropriate manner in which to
proceed.  A mistake today may well hobble scientific and economic advances in
our country for decades to come.  In an effort to assist your committee
during these hearings, the ACM would be pleased to provide the names of
distinguished individuals who are knowledgeable about the technical aspects
of electronic publishing and who would be prepared to offer expert testimony
at such hearings.

Sincerely,

/sig

Stu Zweben 
President, ACM

/sig 
Barbara Simons 
Chair, U.S. Public Policy Committee of ACM

c.c.	Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
	Senator Patrick J. Leahy