together with special conditions, limitations, exceptions, etc., peculiarly tailored to fit the differing needs of the several interest groups concerned. And it may be extremely difficult to enact legislation of this nature unless and until the interest groups are ready to agree or to accept the main features of the proposed legislation. (These observations regarding legislation are illustrated by the provisions in the 1976 Act on photocopying and on cable television.)

6. On some questions of how the existing statutes apply to the products of new technology, where the question is fairly uncomplicated and the justice of the answer given is fairly clear, a ruling by the Copyright Office or a practice adopted by an industry group may be sufficient to settle the question for all concerned.

A.1.3.4 Providing Technological Expertise to the Judiciary. When courts have needed to be informed concerning matters of esoteric technology, they have generally been provided with the technological expertise pertinent to the issues in the case before them through such established procedures as the testimony of expert witnesses, physical demonstrations of technical devices or processes, briefs or memoranda presented by counsel, and research conducted by the court or its aides. Those procedures have apparently been found adequate in most litigation, including the usual run of copyright cases.

If other means were considered to be necessary, in extraordinary cases, to provide technological expertise to the judiciary, several other mechanisms might be given consideration:

1. The establishment of a special court or system of courts to deal with cases involving highly complex and sophisticated technological issues. Prototypes of such courts now exist in the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, the United States Tax Court, and the special State courts established to deal with juvenile and domestic relations cases.

2. Having specialists in the fields of science or technology involved attached to the staff of the court or available to serve as consultants to the court. Many of the juvenile and domestic relations courts now employ specialists in the medical, behavioral, and social sciences as staff members or consultants.

3. Making available to the courts the expertise of the wide range of scientific and technological specialists employed by the various Government agencies.

We do not believe any such special mechanisms are needed in copyright litigation involving new technologies. The judicial decisions in copyright cases dealing with new technologies as exemplified by those reviewed in this study -- indicate that the courts have been adequately informed, through the judicial procedures now used, concerning the new technologies involved, to reach intelligent and appropriate judgments.

A.1.3.5 STI Systems and Copyright Law. The authors, after reviewing the general principles that the courts have applied to copyright issues, and the historical impact of new technologies upon the copyright statutes, examined computerized STI systems in relation to the copyright law.

A.1.3.6 Groups Interested in STI Systems. The interest groups having, primarily and most directly, a financial, professional or service interest in the copyright issues relating to the generation, dissemination, or use of STI systems include:

Authors of various kinds of works, principally textual
and graphic works in the field of science and technology.

Commercial and nonprofit publishers of journals and of books and monographs of a scholarly or informational character.

o Producers and publishers of compilations of bibliographic and factual data.

0 Libraries, especially large research, university, and industrial libraries.

0 Educators and students, especially at the college and university levels.

Industrial and nonprofit research organizations and individual researchers.

0 Producers of computer hardware and software.

Organizers and operators of computerized information service systems.

Commercial indexing and data search services.

These groupings could, of course, be arranged in other ways, and there is considerable overlap among the groups as listed above.

A.1.3.7 Orientation of Suppliers and Users of STI Systems. From the standpoint of their copyright interests, the various groups may be divided into two broad categories: (1) authors, producers, publishers, and other suppliers of copyrightable materials, who are interested in having copyright protection and in receiving compensation for the uses of their works; and (2) researchers, educators, scholars, libraries, and other users of copyrightable materials, who are interested in having access to and use of those materials.

The differing needs of copyright owners on one hand and users of copyrighted materials on the other hand, are usually met by contracts negotiated in the open market. The desire of copyright willingness of owners to derive revenue from the market for their works, and the willingness of users to pay reasonable fees for the use of those works, have generally operated to make the market place responsive to the needs on both sides. In most situations the system of freely negotiated contracts should work to meet the needs of the owners and users of copyrighted works used in computerized STI systems.

In certain situations involving the use of copyrighted works in other media, problems of accommodating the needs of both owners and users have called for special treatment, either through voluntary systems for centralized or blanket licensing or through statutory provisions for compulsory licensing. These special methods of accommodation are discussed in the report as outlined below.

A.1.3.8 Copyright Law and its Impact upon Computerized STI Systems. Among the conclusions reached in this study concerning the application of the copyright law to computerized STI systems are the following:

A.1.3.8.1 Copyright Protection for Computer Programs. Computer programs generally are subject to copyright protection. The protection afforded by copyright is limited to reproduction of the program in its substance. Copyright would not protect the processes or techniques revealed in the program.

A.1.3.8.2 Copyright Protection for Data Bases.

1. In general, data bases, whether in printed or machine-
readable form, are copyrightable as compilations.

2. Complying with the requirements of copyright notice and
deposit of copies, as may be necessary for effective
copyright protection, may call for some special procedure
in the case of data bases in machine-readable form, and
in the printout of material from data bases, but no
insuperable difficulties in this regard are seen.

A.1.3.8.3 The Production of Data Bases.

1. The indexing of documents in order to compile a biblio-
graphic data base can be done manually or by using a com-
puter. If done by computer, the indexer must have the
documents in machine-readable form. If the documents are
copyrighted, the indexer would apparently have to obtain
machine-readable copies from the publishers, or to obtain
permission from the publishers to make and use his own
machine-readable copies, for indexing. It has been
argued that where the publishers cannot supply machine-
readable copies, an indexer should be permitted by law to
make his own, for the sole purpose of indexing, as a fair
use or, alternatively, under a compulsory license.

2.

The typical abstracts in data bases are no more than brief
identifying statements of the subjects covered in the
document; making such abstracts of copyrighted works is
not an infringement. However, a so-called "abstract" that
is actually a digest of the substance of a copyrighted
work, sufficient in detail to substitute for the work it-
self, would constitute a derivative work, and making such
would infringe the copyright.

A.1.3.8.4 The Use of Copyrighted Data Bases in Computerized Systems.

1. Where a system operator obtains a machine-readable data
base from the publisher, the lease agreement between them
will generally include (expressly or impliedly) a license
for the operator's use of the data base in his system.
Such agreements will usually serve to settle the copyright
questions that would otherwise be expected to arise.
Where the publisher offers machine-readable copies, a sys-
tem operator who makes his own copy instead of obtaining
one from the publisher should be considered an infringer.

2.

3.

4.

Where the publisher of a copyrighted compilation of data does not offer machine-readable copies, an operator who wishes to place that compilation in his data base system should be expected to ask the publisher to make and supply a machine-readable copy or to permit the operator to make one for use in his system. Where the publisher then refuses or fails to accede to such request, a valid argument could be made for a compulsory license.

It can be assumed that the publishers of machine-readable copies of copyrighted compilations of data will generally lease them, but not sell them, to system operators. An operator who is offered such a copy from a third person should therefore be suspicious of its legitimacy, and should be held liable if he acquires such a copy that was made or supplied to him in violation of the copyright.

If a system operator makes his own machine-readable copy of a copyrighted compilation or acquires a copy legitimately from a third person, he will need to obtain a license from the publisher to use it in his system. There are good arguments for requiring the operator in this situation to obtain such a license before putting the data into his system.

5. If a license for the use of a copyrighted data base in a
system has not been obtained earlier, the operator would
need to obtain a license for the output of material from
the data base. In the absence of a license, the extrac-
tion of a small fragment of a data base by a user of the
system on one occasion would appear to qualify as a fair
use; but the aggregate of the output of fragments on
many occasions would appear to constitute an infringement
by the operator of the system.

6.

If a user of a system were to extract from it an entire copyrighted data base or a major part of it, he would be infringing the copyright. Practical arrangements for preventing and detecting such infringements seem feasible.

A.1.3.8.5 Exclusive and Compulsory Licenses for the Use of Data Bases. In order to facilitate the development of computerized systems that will contain all the data bases needed for comprehensive coverage of any subject area, and also to prevent the monopolization of data base search services by one or two systems, consideration should be given to a scheme for precluding exclusive licenses for the use of data