See the Spanish version of the text
Background
When the Section for Archives of Literature and Art (SLA) was relaunched in 2009, a key part of its proposed work-programme was to be literary copyright. Subsequent discussions in the meetings of Section Chairs, however, made it clear that other ICA sections also had a strong interest in copyright matters. It was therefore suggested that SLA and SUV might lead on a copyright project which involved all the Section Chairs. The Section Chairs indicated that they would be prepared to support and partly fund such an initiative. At its meeting in Oslo in September 2010, MCOM decided that ICA’s interest in this copyright initiative extended still further, beyond the sections, and should involve the whole of ICA.
MCOM decision in Oslo, September 2010
MCOM took a decision in Oslo that archival copyright was sufficiently important to ICA to warrant the setting up of a new Working Group. This is the relevant paragraph from the MCOM minutes:
The President was in principle in favour of a working group on copyright but precise terms of reference were needed. The Secretary-General proposed that he and David Sutton (Chair of SLA) should aim to finalize these terms of reference, and nominate prospective members, within a month. MCOM agreed to this.
Within the following month, the Secretary-General and the Chair of SLA duly compiled a brief set of terms of reference and sent out a call for members of the Working Group. The terms of reference were as follows:
Remit
1. To develop a position statement on copyright for ICA, which reflects an appropriate balance between the interests of creators, custodians, and users.
2. To monitor developments in national, regional and international laws and regulations which could have an impact on copyright in archive institutions; to seek to influence these developments so that an appropriate balance is maintained; and to ensure that the special nature and importance of archival copyright is recognised.
3. To work in partnership with IFLA and other organisations so as to influence the agenda of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), the European Union and other bodies which shape copyright regulation across national borders.
A wide-ranging membership of twelve volunteers was assembled, giving a larger Working Group than anticipated, and further requests to join the group were still coming in. For practical reasons, the membership of the Working Group was to be regarded as closed.
WIPO, November 2010
The enactment of the MCOM decision made it possible for ICA to represented at the meeting of WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organisation) in November 2010. The representative was Tim Padfield of the English National Archives. ICA’s attendance at WIPO, for the first time for a long time, was widely noticed and welcomed. ICA participated in a joint press release with IFLA and others, and Tim Padfield was able to present statements on matters specific to archival copyright, on the involvement of ICA, and on specialist topics such as “orphan works”.
Future meetings
The Working Group has received a kind offer from the National Archives of Algeria to act as hosts for a meeting of the Working Group at an appropriate time. For the present, however, I would envisage that the business of the Working Group could be conducted “virtually”, by email discussions and by use of the Workspace facility on the ICA main website. The main challenge facing the Working Group in conducting its business in this way will be translation. It is anticipated that the Working Group may hold an informal meeting at the CITRA in Toledo in October 2011 and a more formal meeting, or perhaps a discussion forum, at the ICA Congress in Brisbane in August 2012.
Future work
There are four tasks in view for the Working Group in 2011-2012:
- Maintaining a presence at future WIPO meetings;
- Preparing reports from WIPO meetings for the consideration of the Working Group, of the Section Chairs and (as appropriate) the Executive Board;
- Commissioning an information paper on “Current issues in copyright for archivists” for publication within the Members’ pages of the ICA website;
- Creating a position paper on copyright issues for ICA to adopt.
In respect of the WIPO meetings, it seemed likely that SCCR23 (November 2011) would be more relevant than SCCR22 (June 2011). The estimated duration of SCCR22 is eleven days! (SCCR = Standing Committee on Copyright & Related Rights.)
In respect of the latter two tasks, it was proposed to ask the Working Group to agree that the “Current issues” information paper should be prepared before any work was done on the ICA position paper.