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ninch-announce: SAA Response to NHA Principles

ninch-announce: SAA Response to NHA Principles

SAA Response to NHA Principles

David Green (david@ninch.org)
Wed, 8 Oct 1997 16:42:21 -0400 

Message-Id: <v0213053eb06195ed4c2f@[192.100.21.23]>
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 16:42:21 -0400
To: ninch-announce@cni.org
From: david@ninch.org (David Green)
Subject: SAA Response to NHA Principles


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NINCH ANNOUNCMENT
October 8, 1997



        SOCIETY OF AMERICAN ARCHIVISTS' RESPONSE TO NHA PRINCIPLES


The Society of American Archivists <http://www.archivists.org/> (SAA) has
just announced that the SAA Council has approved a detailed response to the
statement issued by the National Humanities Alliance (NHA) entitled "Basic
Principles
for Managing Intellectual Property In the Digital Environment."

The SAA makes it clear that it enthusiastically endorsed the NHA Principles
in August 1997. However, it felt it important to amplify them by adding
archival concerns, identifying how the Principles apply to the specific
needs and practices of archivists.

"Basic Principles for Managing Intellectual Property in the Digital
Environment: An Archival Perspective" is available on-line at
<http://www.archivists.org/governance/resolutions/nha%20response.html>.


A few important perspectives identified in this document include:
*  the importance that exemptions permitted under the copyright law to
support educational use of material recognize the enormous amount of
education taking place outside the classroom;
*  the importance of taking into account the privacy rights of those who
are the subject of archival records;
*  the practical difficulty of determining clear copyright ownership of
many of the documents in archival collections, or even of determining the
date of authorship or the date of the death of document authors;
*  archivists' acceptance of the responsibility for educating researchers
about the appropriate use of copyrighted material held by their
repositories, but with the caveat that:
*  ultimately, the protection of the rights of copyright owners rests with
the owners themselves, not with archives;
*  that de-encrypting devices or software must be legalized for enabling
legal access to encrypted, copyright material (especially for material that
eventually comes into the public domain).


David Green



===============================================================

David L. Green
Executive Director
NATIONAL INITIATIVE FOR A NETWORKED CULTURAL HERITAGE
21 Dupont Circle, NW
Washington DC 20036
www-ninch.cni.org
david@ninch.org
202/296-5346                                  202/872-0886 fax

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