--------------------- Forwarded message:

Subj:    NINCH meeting
Date:    97-11-13 17:32:48 EST
From:    AAMD GOV
To:      AAMD NY

Dear Mimi, Max, Vishakha, Jennifer and David,

I attended the NINCH meeting on Intellectual Property on Nov. 12, 1997. David Green will post a complete set of notes from the all day meeting.

There were about 35 people at the meeting, all received a copy of the AMICO press release. Of the 11 who made presentations to the group, several mentioned AMICO and AAM's project, however, there was no discussion about those projects per se. The following are snippets from the presentations which may be of interest vis a vis AMICO.

Mary Case -- American Research Libraries speaking on Libraries and Licensing

Contract law can take precedence over copyright law. If we don't review the contracts of some publishers carefully, especially those marketing to libraries, we may be making concessions for fair use by giving up some fair use rights.

Publishers are opposed to interlibrary loan, they see this as an attempt to deprive them of royalties.

Libraries do not want to be held liable, if there is copyright infringement by those using digital images. They would, however, take action if notified of an infringement.

What do libraries do when a digital subscription ends? Does the library ever own the CD Rom? must it be returned, destroyed? This is an especially difficult question because libraries build their collection for the long term.

Also difficult for libraries, who is a bone fide user?

Libraries are forming consortium for purposes of buying power from publishers, who do not yet know how to deal with consortium. But because licensing is expensive and much education of the libraries is required, they need to pool resources.

Standard contract language and terms are needed. Licenses should allow for fair use and liability limitations.

Christie Stephenson -- New York University Museums and Site Licensing

Christie mentioned AMICO and MDLC as a reflection of what MESL tried to do -- they are seen as the next logical steps to MESL. Both are targeted to universities.

There is potential for museums to earn revenue to put into the production of more product. There should be shared values. We should keep the dialog open with the universities and not make it us or them. There needs to be openness about licensing, how much of the fee goes to overhead vs into new products.

The current programs appear to be more suitable for nontraditional image users, because of the enormous critical mass necessary to teach art history, for example.

It would be useful if museums would document their permission process for digital images, especially those that are not successful, in order to educate the whole community.

Kathe Albrecht -- Visual Resources Association MESL and CONFU

Universities cannot go directly to digital images because of the volume of images needed and lack of technical equipment. Slide libraries will exist for a long time.

Why would universities go to digital licenses and pay year after year. Now they pay only once and they use the image whenever they wish, as often as they wish.

The AMICO testbed is too expensive for visual research centers to afford, the cost must come from the library budget.

Anita