The Joint UCR/ABF Conference on Copyright and Authors' Rights in the UK and France

Citation

French, T. (2002), "The Joint UCR/ABF Conference on Copyright and Authors' Rights in the UK and France", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 19 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2002.23919bac.001

The Joint UCR/ABF Conference on Copyright and Authors' Rights in the UK and France

Tom French

Papers delivered at the Joint UCR/ABF Conference on Copyright and Authors' Rights in the UK and France, held in Bordeaux, France in September 2001, are being made available formally, in print in Relay (No. 52, 2002 [sic], pp. 16-17, also [soon?] at www.ucrg.org.uk/relay.html) and in the Bulletin des Bibliothèques de France [forthcoming]. Meanwhile I can offer texts and/or Powerpoint files of all the anglophone papers and can make them available to anyone who wishes to see them.

The following text is largely by John Makin from Nottingham Trent University Library, incorporating comments and additions by me, and somewhat shortened, especially where petits fours were concerned.

There was excellent accommodation at the Cercle des Universitaires including power shower, fridge, hotplates, sink and batterie de cuisine for this Conference. This former children's hospital has been converted into a conference centre and a residence for visiting university researchers and professors. Our party of 23 UK and 43 French attendees and speakers constituted the first event to be held here, as the Cercle's President was very pleased to tell us.

There was a reception for the UK attendees, with vin liquoreux and enough petits fours for a party of a 100 with a good turnout of 25-30 coming from the UK. Speeches from the ABF President Gérard Briand and Tom French for UCR in warm evening sunshine provided a good welcome.

ABF President Gérard Briand and Tom French (representing UCR) declared the first day of the Conference open, and the event got under way with a morning session presided over by Fionnuala Bhreathnach of Toulouse Le Mirail University. The authors' rights position in France was first described by Emmanuel Pierrat, lawyer at the Paris Bar. He noted that, for instance, nothing may be copied without the express permission of the author and very serious penalties exist for those who break the rules . . . a librarian was fined this year for allowing copying without permission. His address was followed by an analysis of the UK situation on copyright by Judy Watkins of the British Library's Copyright Office.

After coffee and petits fours, an overview of the work of UK library professionals in the copyright area, in the light of the EC Directive of 2001, was given by Barbara Stratton of the UK Library Association. Each address was admirably summarised in the other language by Fionnuala, which greatly aided attenders having only English or only French. Lunch followed, with local delicacies such as black pudding sausage (boudin).

We resumed in the afternoon, presided over by Margaret Coutts, Librarian at the University of Kent at Canterbury. She also very helpfully summarised each paper, after its presentation, in the other language. Yves Alix, of the Bibliothèque du Cinéma in Paris, spoke about what French library professionals were doing in the authors' rights area; Elizabeth Gadd, of Loughborough University, contrasted the rights of the author with those of users in libraries who need to copy material.

After more coffee and petits fours, Anne Dujol, of Montpellier University Medical Library, spoke on "photo-copiage" i.e. the copying "industry" in French academic libraries, noting that the cost of permission to copy to university libraries in France is to rise from 14FF per student per year to 42FF by 2004. She added that this cost was unlikely to be passed on to students, as there were now more students than farmers, and they usually got their way! Finally, Rina Pantalony, formerly of the Canadian Heritage Information Network, but now at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, compared the different English, French, Canadian and US traditions on copyright in an address she entitled "Digital irony: convergence and access to content". The irony lies in the fact that, at present, digital media are proving more restrictive in terms of copyright ­ and she noted several test cases ­ than simple printed material with "fair use" copying.

After a brief debate, we hurried off to shower and change, so that we might catch the bus to the home of the British Consulate-General and his wife in the suburbs of Bordeaux, courtesy of the British Council in Bordeaux. The Reception was attended by John Todd, Director of the British Council in France, and we all greatly enjoyed the speeches, a drink or two and more petits fours. Later, we mostly adjourned to a Spanish restaurant in town to fill the gaps left by the petits fours and champagne . . .

Christian Lupovici of the University of Marne la Vallée presided over the second morning of the conference. Again he bravely summarised papers in the other language as we proceeded. François Gèze of Editions La Découverte gave the point of view of French publishers on authors' rights. This was followed by the UK position, explained by Toby Bainton of SCONUL. Toby's presentation was notable for the excellent bi-lingual Powerpoint slides he had prepared; this seems to be the perfect answer to the problem of texts presented in a language one does not have!

After another break for coffee and petits fours, Françoise Danset, of the Bibliothèque Départementale de Prêt des Bouches-du-Rhoˆne, Marseilles, shed more light on other international aspects of authors' rights and copyright. We ended the morning's session with a lively debate, mostly centred on the French publishers' claim to be acting in the best interests of authors.

Elizabeth Chapman of the Taylor Institute Library at Oxford University presided over the final two papers at short notice. She was standing in for a Chair who had had to cancel at the last minute, and she again took on the arduous task of summarising the papers in the other language. Helen Pickering, HERON Liaison Officer at the University of Stirling, considered the particular problems around the copyright and copying of electronic or digitised documents. Jean-Pierre Sakoun of the Bibliopolis in Paris gave the final paper, on the viewpoint of a French information distributor.

After coffee and petits fours, Conference considered recommendations that could be pursued elsewhere, led by Debbie Shorley, Librarian of the University of Sussex (her paper follows). This was followed by a final summing up or "synthèse" by Christian Lupovici again, with some discussion both in French and in English. Conference ended with closing addresses by Gérard Briand for ABF and Tom French for UCR. Tom spoke in his usual excellent French, only to note after some minutes that, each time he paused, Gérard was translating his words back into English!

Text of Debbie Shorley's paper (lightly edited by me):

We have spent the past two days listening to experts and practitioners from France, the UK and North America discuss copyright as it affects us in university libraries. We all know that copyright is a particularly fraught area that demands a disproportionate amount of our time and energy. But it is also important to recognise that, while the problems are indeed daunting, they should be put in their broader context. We have been urged to look beyond the legalistic niceties to the broader picture. In his opening address, Gérard Briand reminded us of our core mission: the provision of information to people, how, when, and where they want it. Whatever we do, we must remember that the freedom of information is sacrosanct and must always act for the good of our users, however tempting it is to hide behind apparent constraints.

"Copyright" ­ or the "droit d'auteur". These two terms are emphatically not interchangeable. Rather they reflect radically different approaches to the issue in France and the UK. Inevitably, technological progress has overtaken the law, and the electronic creation, delivery, dissemination and preservation of information raise questions with which we are only now beginning to grapple. Digital images, e-books and electronic reserve push our understanding of copyright to the limits ­ way beyond a legal framework created primarily to deal with print on paper. And with these technical advances comes rampant globalisation, not a vague concept, rather a challenging reality, which makes the partisan national approach of the past increasingly irrelevant. Meanwhile, the European dimension cannot be ignored. The recently approved European Directive on Copyright provides a concrete example of this, although even here ratification by different countries will highlight the variations in national approaches.

In this briefest overview I can do no more than pick out key points from successive speakers, whose disparate approaches and viewpoints serve to underline the complexity of an issue which, while grounded in law, reflects long-standing differences of approach to intellectual property in France, the UK and elsewhere. Either way it is clear that, as Emmanuel Pierrat, a French lawyer with direct experience in this area, warned us, libraries are now more exposed than ever before. So we need to be very sure of our ground. (The Bridgeman case this summer created new precedents; it is likely to be the first of many.)

Judy Watkins from the British Library's Copyright Office outlined the current UK situation and reminded us that we now need to redefine much of our core terminology: concepts such as browsing and publishing have acquired new meanings in the digital environment.

Barbara Stratton of the Library Association gave an extraordinarily encouraging account of the successful lobbying by UK librarians who sought modifications to the draft Directive; the more so because she emphasised that the strategy had depended above all on e-mail and the Internet. Again, here, we see the ubiquitous impact of the new technology.

Yves Alix regretted that the French approach had been markedly less unified, with the result that the Directive likely to be ratified in France may be far less favourable to libraries than in other EU countries. He saw specifically dedicated library legislation to be the only solution.

Elizabeth Gadd from Loughborough University drew attention to the inevitable conflict between the rights of authors and the needs of library users. Her pragmatic solutions to specific problems should serve as a model of best practice.

Anne Dujol approached the issue from a different direction. She drew a distinction between "photocopiage" and "photocopillage". (The latter term had been suggested to her for the title of her paper; but she had rejected it, as she was unwilling to categorise photocopying needs as "pillaging".) She attracted widespread support for her contention that it is fundamentally wrong to stop people from sharing knowledge (and reminded us that in France students are a large and powerful lobby).

It was for Rina Pantalony to draw on her Canadian experience to help us understand the diametrically opposed approaches embodied in the phrases "copyright" and "droit d'auteur" respectively. She explained that in Canada they had tried (unsuccessfully!) to reflect the legacy of the two opposing imperatives: the desire to protect publishers and the inalienable right of French authors to protect their original material. But in our Internet environment these two cannot be reconciled. The digital irony is inescapable ­ in some ways we were better off with books!

As a publisher, François Gèze saw it differently of course. He reminded us of the problems for publishers but pointed out that libraries were not in the end the main culprits. More worryingly, current awareness and the expansion of intranet communication posed problems that had never arisen before.

Toby Bainton (who remains unreasonably modest about the part he played in improving the terms of the EU Directive) explained how through the PALS initiative publishers and librarians are seeking a constructive and co-operative way through the mine-field.

Françoise Danset drew our attention to the important role of international professional organisations such as IFLA and EBLIDA, whose broader professional view and experience of lobbying should be exploited to the full.

Helen Pickering's account of HERON, a UK government-sponsored project to procure copyright clearance for digitised material, identified a number of practical issues and provided a pragmatic and essentially Anglo-Saxon solution.

Jean-Pierre Sakoun was inspirational. He cut a swath through the minutiae of legal argument to remind us to "démocratiser l'accès à l'information" through new ways of learning.

So much information so fast! We all learned a good deal, and by the end one thing at least was clear: for copyright, yesterday's solutions will simply not solve today's problems. Practical proposals emerged:

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  an International Court of Copyright;

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  an expert lawyer to be retained by European librarians;

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  and, inevitably, slick ways of side-stepping the law by means of copyright havens.

. . . But the speakers, without exception, were keen to emphasise that, more than ever before, we must work together ­ across national boundaries and in practical ways. We are beyond the adversarial approach; crucially we must share information in this area to ensure that all over the world our users can too.

Tom French(Tom.French@bl.uk) is the Head of Modern British Collections at the British Library.

Deborah Shorleyis a librarian at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.

John L. Makinis Faculty Liaison Officer, Education, LIS at the Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK.