ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


674 / C&RL News ■ N ovem ber 2003

W a s h i n g t o n  H o t l i n e Lynne E. Bradley

SAFE A ct in trod u ced
Senators Larry Craig (R-ID) and Richard 
Durbin (D-IL), along with Senators Michael 
Crapo (R-ID), Russell Feingold (D-WI), John 
Sununu (R-NH), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and 
Je ff Bingaman (D-NM), have introduced S. 
1709, the Security and Freedom Ensured Act 
of 2003 (the SAFE Act).

This bill would curb the overly broad 
powers allowed to law enforcement by the 
USA PATRIOT Act. The legislation has bi­
partisan support, including the support of 
some conservative Republicans as well as 
Democrats and moderates. This important 
piece of legislation would amend the USA 
PATRIOT Act in the following ways:

• restore privacy protections for library 
and bookseller records, allowing law enforce­
ment to obtain the records of individuals 
only when “there are specific and articulable 
facts giving reason to believe that the per­
son to whom the records pertain is a foreign 
power or an agent of a foreign power”;

• exempt libraries from “national secu­
rity letters,” which are nonjudicial subpoe­
nas issued internally in the FBI that allow 
the FBI to get e-mail and Internet “transac­
tional records”;

• add oversight provisions to the Justice 
Department’s request for records from librar­
ies and bookstores;

• extend the sunset provision of the USA 
PATRIOT Act; and

• provide other civil liberties protections.

Y o u r actio n  is n eeded
The SAFE Act is the latest in several bills that 
addresses library concerns. To see the oth­
ers, go to www.ala.org/patriotfix. Please con­
tact your senators, by calling the Capitol 
Switchboard at (202) 224-3121, to garner as 
much support as possible for the SAFE Act 
and the other bills. It is especially important 
that we continue to gather the support of 
Republican Senators.

Lynne E. Bradley is Office o f Government Relations director 
o f ALA's W ashington Office, e-mail: leb@alawash.org

M G M  Studios, Inc. v. Crokster, L td .— 
L ibraries jo in  amicus b rie f
ALA and the other four major U.S. libraiy asso­
ciations joined in filing an αm ici cu riae (friends 
of the court) brief on September 26 in the case 
of MGM Studios, In c. υ. Grokster, Ltd., which is 
on appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 
Ninth Circuit. The ACLU took the lead in writing 
the brief in support of the defendants, the com­
panies Grokster and Morpheus, which offer peer- 
to-peer file-trading software.

The record companies and movie studios 
sued the companies for contributory infringe­
ment and vicarious liability. A U.S. district 
court in California applied the Ninth Circuit’s 
holdings in its decision in the Napster case 
to the facts h e re , and co n clu d e d  that 
Grokster and Morpheus could not be held 
secondarily liable for the infringements of 
users of their software.

The district court also relied on the ruling 
o f the U.S. Supreme Court in the Sony/ 
Betamax case in 1984, when it held that the 
makers of the VCR should not be held liable 
for copyright infringement simply because 
the device could be used for infringing pur­
poses. The district court found that it was 
u n d isp u ted  th at th e re  are su b sta n tia l 
noninfringing uses for the file-sharing soft­
ware, such as to share public domain mate­
rials and government documents.

The brief pointed out that the a m ic i do 
not support the wrongful sharing of copy­
righted materials. Instead, they believe the 
Supreme Court ruled correctly in the Sony/ 
Betamax case. The court in that case cre­
ated fair and practical rules which, if over­
turned would, as a practical matter, give the 
entertainment industry a veto power over the 
development o f innovative products and 
services. ALA and the other library associa­
tions argue that free speech and the public 
interest are best served by rules that allow 
new and innovative mediums of communi­
cation to develop and flourish.

The lower court decision and all the briefs 
that have been filed to date can be found at 
the Electronic Frontier Foundation Web site: 
www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/. ■

http://www.ala.org/patriotfix
mailto:leb@alawash.org
http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/




6 7 6  / CSRL News ■ November 2003