You can still sign the petition without the use of facebook. I just did so. Just uncheck the "share on facebook" box. -Melissa On Sat, Jun 16, 2018 at 4:21 PM Stewart Gooderman <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Love to sign this but you are forcing the use of Facebook. I closed my > account due to privacy issues, as I think *everybody* should. You need to > find a better way to get signatures. > > DrG > > > On Jun 15, 2018, at 4:00 PM, Tim Brooks < > [log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > > As some of you may know, copyright legislation is being actively > considered in the U.S. Senate which would be very harmful to archives and > scholars. The latest estimate is that it will be voted out of the Judiciary > Committee in about one week. > > However there has been considerable pushback against the portion of the > Music Modernization Act (S.2823) called the "CLASSICS Act," which would > give pre-1972 recording rights holders a windfall in the form of streaming > royalties and even longer copyright terms, with no corresponding benefit > for the public. Once they get the money, so to speak, there will be no > reason for rights holders to compromise and allow provisions for > preservation and access by archives, or establishment of a public domain > for very old records (there currently is none in the U.S.). > > > > Senator Wyden of Oregon has introduced a competing bill called the > ACCESS Act (S.2933) which would grant rights holders royalties AND meet the > needs of archives and scholars, including establishment of a public domain > for recordings made more than 95 years ago. But rights holders are fighting > hard to defeat it. They want everything, with no compromises. > > Equal Citizens, an organization founded by noted copyright attorney > Lawrence Lessig, and the online library Archive.org, have started a > petition to urge senators to support ACCESS. Please consider signing it. > Here is the link: > > > > https://actionsprout.io/B13549 > > > > If you want to know more about these bills there are explanations online > and on the Association for Recorded Sound Collections site, at > > > > www.arsc-audio.org/blog. > > Thanks to those ARSC members who have contacted their senator about > these bills. It means a lot for them to hear from the public. > > > > Tim Brooks > -- Melissa Widzinski Audio Preservation Engineer Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative <https://mdpi.iu.edu/> Indiana University