Legislation Committee Annual Report 2019

submitted by Kyra Folk-Farber

Current Roster

  • Anthony Sharp – approved, official invitation pending (2023)
  • Samuel Crawford – approved, official invitation pending (2023)
  • Peter Shirts (2023)
  • Kyra Folk-Farber, Chair (2022)
  • Jacey Kepich (2022)
  • Pamela Pagels (2022)
  • Kathleen DeLaurenti (2021)
  • Marci Cohen (ex-officio)

List of Previous Goals and Progress Made

Goal 1: Continue to maintain awareness of relevant legislation and respond as appropriate. Currently, this entails strategizing advocacy and support for the ACCESS Act in alignment with MLA’s mission to “promote legislation that strengthens music library services and universal access to music” and its goal to support the equitable use of music in learning.

Progress:

  • Members of the Committee worked closely with members of Public Knowledge, ARSC, ALA, and other organizations to advocate for ACCESS. The Committee received approval from the MLA Board to endorse a statement from LCA supporting the ACCESS bill, to endorse a letter to Senate leadership from Internet Archive’s counsel, and to add MLA’s endorsement to Internet Archive’s website in suppor of ACCESS. We requested and received many MLA members’ stories about how their patrons use sound recordings; the stories were used by Public Knowledge representatives to advocate for ACCESS. The Music Modernization Act, which includes major improvements regarding to access to pre-1972 sound recordings, was signed into law in October 2018.
  • After coordinating messaging with members of Public Knowledge, ARCS, ALA, and other organizations, MLA prepared and submitted a comment in response to U.S. Copyright Office’s Notice of Inquiry on Noncommercial Use of Pre-1972 Sound Recordings That Are Not Being Commercially Exploited. While the rulings on these and other aspects of the new law are cumbersome to libraries, there are some exciting changes that are beneficial to the public interest as well as independent musicians.

Goal 2: Update Copyright for Music Librarians website content and investigate collaboration with Copyright Advisory Network, perhaps integrating some of their content. This is in alignment with MLA’s core value of collaboration and its mission to “develop and deliver programs that promote continuing education and professional development in music librarianship.”

Progress:

  •  Marci Cohen, the Legislation Committee’s web editor, has done an excellent job updating and maintaining the Copyright for Music Librarians website. She has resolved bugs and written blogposts on the Music Modernization Act and on new items that have been add to the public domain.
  •  The Committee is planning to re-assess the possibility of collaboration with the Copyright Advisory Network this coming year.

Goal 3: Build and maintain fair use resources as a living document for music librarians, in alignment with the core value of access as well as the strategic goal area of education.

Progress:

  • Unfortunately, the time consuming legislation-related activities of the past year have prevented the Legislation Committee from focusing on this goal. We hope to attend to this goal over the coming year.

List of Future Goals

Goal 1: Continue to maintain awareness of relevant legislation and respond as appropriate. Current efforts are under way to collaborate with other organizations in advocating against the CASE Act, if it aligns appropriately with MLA’s strategic plan.

Goal 2: Re-examine the Legislation Committee’s charge and scope, and, if deemed necessary, create a new charge that either incorporates public policy that is not necessarily copyright-related, or narrows the focus of the Legislation Committee to copyright and intellectual property legislation. This aligns with MLA’s 2019-2020 objective to “develop and sustain the necessary resources to ensure the vitality of the Association, its programs and services.” It also aligns with the Advocacy Team’s report, which strove in 2012-2013 to “re-examine the Administrative Structure for ways to make MLA’s advocacy initiatives and responses more flexible and timely. […] Considerations to include (among others): create smaller (leaner, meaner) committees with specific advocacy charges; or create a special officer for advocacy […].”

Goal 3: Renew our efforts to build and maintain fair use resources as a living document for music librarians, in alignment with the core value of access as well as the strategic goal area of education.