[KLUG Advocacy] The TEACH Act...

[advocacy@kalamazoolinux.org]

Comments, anyone? I got this via my ACM internal contacts...

The TEACH Act is a new law that updates copyright law regarding the use of
copyrighted works in distance learning.  There is a comment period being
conducted at this time, should any SIG be interested in offering input.

BACKGROUND

The Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act or TEACH Act,
would completely revise Section 110(2) of the U.S. Copyright Act, and
copyright works, while permitting educations to use those materials in
distance education.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS OF THE TEACH ACT

1) Limit access to enrolled students to the extent technologically
feasible. (Feasible is not define)

2) Provide technological controls on storage and dissemination of digitized
information, which must include technical measures to prevent "retention of
the work in accessible form by recipients of the transmission ...for longer
than the class session." "Technical measures must be applied to prevent
recipients of the content from engaging in unauthorized further
dissemination of the work in accessible form." No definition of class
session is provided.

Conditions: Institutions must use technical controls that manage delivery,
terms of accessibility, and realistic abilities of students to download or
share copyrighted content.

Protection is offered to the institution in the event that a Hacker gains
unauthorized access and violates these provisions of the bill.

3) No Interference with existing technical measures. This addresses
anti-circumvention of existing DRM technology that is applied to
copyrighted work that is made available electronically by educational
entities.

4) Limited temporary retention of copies. This would limit the length of
time that copyrighted material may be made available electronically.
Further the institution may not maintain the information on a network or
system that is accessible by anyone other than the "anticipated recipient."

5) Limited long-term retention of copies by amending Section 112 of the
Copyright Act by address the issue of "ephemeral recordings." This allows
institutions to maintain copyrighted works in storage outside of the access
of others unless allowed under the provisions of the act.