we are going to be prevented from experimenting by the notion that a court order can stop us from doing so tomorrow, the odds of undertaking any work becomes much less. This is again not to say that we are not prepared to pay fair compensation, but we need a period in which we can find out what it is we want to do, what are fair mechanisms for doing it, and not have legislation that excludes us from an important area of scientific and technical research and development. Now, to try to make this more concrete, let me give you an instance which is only slightly futuristic of how the three problems that I mentioned the 100-mile limit, the time and contents provision, and the problem of input restrictions-would affect an information system. I point out in my prepared testimony that there now exist machines that can scan printed materials of limited type fonts. The machine can scan the printing and convert it into a form that a computer can use. There also exist experimental means for taking words stored in a computer and converting them into the sounds that would be heard if a person were to pronounce the words. So I can take my machine, take a page to it, and somebody can put on earphones, listen, and hear the page of text.

If such processes were perfected and extended even in limited form, one could visualize a prosthetic device which would enable a blind man to turn any book into a talking book without the limitations' or delays that are attendant on conversion into braille or on volunteer recording of talking books. I am not a lawyer, so I may be mistaken, but I think that the proposed legislation would create the anomaly that a normal man who has purchased a book at a bookstore or borrowed it from a library would be within his rights in reading this book any time and anywhere he pleases, but a blind man who would be using his prosthetic machine might well be infringing a copyright, first of all by causing his prosthetic machine to translate print into machine-readable form, whether or not transmission to a remote computer is required, so that the very act of putting that page in front of a machine and having the printed material transformed into electrical impulses or otherwise recorded in the machine would be an infringement.

Now, if transmission were necessary, and this is much more likely initially, then he would be infringing further by exceeding the 100mile limit, which is quite probable, since the necessary computers most likely could be provided economically only at a limited number of regional centers. If the man happens to be more than 100 miles from the center, he is infringing on that basis.

Finally, through his exercising his choice as an individual recipient, and here I quote the language of the bill, "in activating transmission from an information storage and retrieval system," or, as the bill goes on, "any similar device, machine, or process," he would again be infringing.

I do not think anyone would want to take the position that this man should read a book only at the time and place and in a manner specified by the transmitter. I can give some additional instances, and have done so in the formal testimony, of similar capricious consequences which would seem to me to ensue from the provisions that I have mentioned remaining in this bill.

It seems to me that the public interest in this matter requires a somewhat broader look at whom this proposed bill is to benefit. In 1909, the House committee that reviewed what is now the law pointed out that "the Constitution does not establish copyrights, but provides that Congress shall have the power to grant such rights if it thinks best. Not primarily for the benefit of the author, but primarily for the benefit of the public, such rights are given. Not that any particular class of citizens, however worthy, may benefit, but because the policy is believed to be for the benefit of the great body of people, in that it will stimulate writings and invention, to give some bonus to the authors and inventors."*

It seems to me that the revision bill as presently structured is rather stifling, if not to authors then at least to inventors.

One of the reasons why the publishers have urged that input to a computer be restricted is the assertion that this is the only point in computer operations at which copyright control can be exercised. I must state, with all the strength of whatever technical expertise I may have, that no statement could be further from the truth and that, quite to the contrary, presently available computer technology provides the means for a much greater degree of control of copyrights or most anything else that involves bookkeeping and accounting than any tool or technique previously devised. The question of whether it is philosophically, morally, or economically sound to keep this or that degree of control is one of these things that we must think hard about.

One can imagine a situation, which is technically quite feasible, where every comma, every character in a text stored in a computer is accompanied by a citation showing its precise origin and ownership. This extreme would clearly be absurd in any sort of economic or technìcal sense, since you would end up storing far more tracers than textual material. But, between that extreme and the opposite end where there is no charge whatsoever, and everywhere in between, where there are various forms of compulsory or nonobligatory licenses, fees, royalties and so forth, there is the broadest range of chonce.

Stating that there is no choice, that the only point in computer operation at which copyright control can be exercised is at the input, is simply contrary to fact and designed to instill fear rather than to present a rational and factual evaluation of the situation.

It is also hard for me to visualize how the sole act of input could be commercially important, any more than the act of my asking my secretary or a research assistant to take a book that I have bought, read it, and do something about it for me-abstract it, cut up the pages, put it on 3 by 5 cards, or whatever.

I want to reiterate that if I take some material and put it in the computer, I do not wish thereafter to attempt to disseminate it in some way that would be harmful to the rights of the owner of the copyright. I am certainly in favor of fair compensation, again because I am an author and would not enjoy having my works pirated any more than I would wish to pirate anyone else's.

I heard Dr. James Miller say before me that, as an author, he would much rather have his material put in a computer so people

House Committee on Patents, Report No. 2222, 60th Congress, second session, p. 7.

could get at it and I feel the same way. If, as a consequence of seeing this material in a computer, there should be an urge toward greater dissemination or an urge toward making copies, then I believe that we have to think through the details of a fair means of compensation. But if the limitation on input remains, then there is no way in which I can find out what material I want to work with or how I want to work with it, what I want to do with it, whether it is economically or reasonably or technically feasible to abstract, index, translate, et cetera, any material that I can put in a computer. We then, on that basis, simply cannot get there from here. All of these glowing promises, all of this bone that we seem to be fighting over, will just not materialize.

This input restriction also affects the timing of information dissemination and another aspect of the problem of where the public interest lies. The matter of using computers and other forms of informationprocessing systems to handle vast amounts of information-at the moment, they are not as vast as some of the more optimistic among us would have them be, but we are trying-this is a matter which is of grave concern to several branches of the Federal Government.

The Library of Congress has studied various approaches to automation. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare is sponsoring, through its Office of Education, numerous studies of computer-aided teaching and other technological aids to instruction. The Congress itself; the Bureau of the Budget; the Vice President of the United States, both now and as a Senator; the Committee on Scientific and Technical Information of the Federal Council on Science and Technology; various branches of the Department of Defense; and numerous other bodies have expressed deep concern over the information-handling problems of the Federal Government in every sphere of its activities, and they are seeking solutions through major programs now at varying stages from the operational through the experimental to the projected.

I am sure that the computing profession and the computing industry share with the publishing industry a deep concern for the fruition of these efforts.

It would seem to me that, if a bill is enacted which precludes research and development in this area, then we have a situation where various parts, both of the Congress and of the Executive, are working completely at cross purposes with one another, in that one is trying to spend money to solve what it sees as a critical problem while the other is insuring that there be little possibility to do research on this same problem.

So, in a sense, we are the victims of our own rosy predictions. The proposed bill drastically limits the traditional exemptions, although there is no clear and present danger of infringements. It threatens to cripple the very research and the very teaching which is necessary in order that the information storage and retrieval systems, or any other similar device, machine, or process, materialize fully, be understood, and be controllable in a rational way.

Thank you.

(The complete statement of Professor Oettinger follows:)

STATEMENT OF ANTHONY G. OETTINGER

Mr. Chairman, may I first thank you for the invitation to appear before your Subcommittee and for the opportunity to express my views on a matter which is of deep concern to me not only as a college teacher, as President of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and as a member of the Board of Governors of the American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS) ( but also as a scientist and engineer directly involved in research on information processing and more specifically on technological aids to creative thought and on the impact of technology on education both in the school and in professional life. Like many of my colleagues, I am also an author drawing revenues from copyrighted works. The Association for Computing Machinery is the professional society for individuals who apply, develop, design, and theorize about computers and computer programs; it currently numbers 20,000 members, the majority of whom are in the United States. Although I am speaking today as an individual, I have discussed my testimony with the other members of the ACM Executive Committee, Dr. Bernard Galler, Professor of Mathematics and Communication Science, University of Michigan and Mr. Donn Parker, Staff Specialist, Control Data Corporation, Palo Alto. They are in substantial agreement with what I have to

say.

My academic title reflects a traditional labeling of disciplines but I prefer to describe myself as a computer scientist and engineer concerned with both the theory and the practice of information processing by all the various means afforded to us by ancient and modern technology. The variance between my labels and my self-image reflects the one basic truth about the computing and information processing field today; it is growing and changing at a tremendous rate. This can scarcely be news to this committee since the report of the House Judiciary Committee1 clearly pointed out that "recognizing the profound import that information storage and retrieval systems seem destined to have on authorship, communications, and human life itself, the committee is also aware of the dangers of legislating prematurely in this area of exploding technology."

Some of those who have preceded me have pointed out with great force and clarity the legal implications of the Copyright Revision Bill S. 597 as presently drafted. I wish particularly to express my wholehearted agreement with the perceptive analysis of the problem provided in the statement submitted by the Interuniversity Communications Council (EDUCOM). I do not wish to repeat arguments that have already been well made by others, particularly since I am not a lawyer. I should rather like to paint for you a picture of what the pertinent sections of this bill look like to someone who, like myself, would be directly affected by the consequences.

For a couple of years now, with the support of the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense, I have been experimenting with the classroom use of terminals linked up via 3,000 miles of New England Telephone. Western Union, and Pacific Telephone lines to a computer system devised by my friend and colleague, Professor Glen Culler, at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Students in several Harvard courses have used this terminal to solve problems in mathematics and statistics as well as to experiment on the design of the system itself with an eye toward producing a more advanced system.

Several facts immediately stand out: transmission is clearly over more than 100 miles! The time and content of the transmission very clearly and necessarily "depend on a choice by individual recipients in activating transmission." I have therefore already run afoul of two of the conditions by which exemption is limited under Section 110 (2) of the proposed bill. It would, moreover, be very difficult for me to know whether or not the system my colleague operates 3,000 miles away had or had not incorporated in its programs that were themselves copyrighted or data that were copyrighted and which, under the spirit of the bill, had in the first place been illegally introduced into the computer.

I am now planning additional experiments over the next three years in which I expect to combine our new computer system with a variety of films, videotapes, audiotapes and other technical devices as well as the more conventional devices such as chalk and blackboard, books, technical journals, etc. In the

1 Report No. 2237 89th Congress, 2nd Session, October 12, 1966.

course of these experiments I expect to peruse, display, copy, and enter into computers or other files a great variety of materials in various media. I have as yet no idea how much of what I buy, rent, borrow or produce myself I will eventually keep and either use in my classroom, publish conventionally or disseminate by less conventional means now still in the experimental stage.

Under the provisions of the bill as now conceived, I would have not only to acquire and evaluate materials but, in each instance, before experimenting with them, seek out the owner of a copyright, if any, make formal requests for permission to use the material, pay royalties if any are due, etc. All this before any material could actually be used and, in fact, before I could find out whether or not the material was useful! The delays, the frustrations and the chaos inherent in such a process now seem so formidable that if the bill were passed in its present form I would be tempted to return to the safer occupation of copying out manuscripts with a goose quill pen.

I am interested in the free development of the science and the engineering of both computer hardware and computer software but, as an author, I am not unmindful of the protection afforded by copyright. Yet, the logic of permitting someone to cut up his legally purchased copy of a book I have written, paste pieces on file cards and sort these by hand while precluding him from doing the same job by machine escapes me. I am concerned if he makes illegal use of the end-product, but surely as I have as little right to tell him not to use the labor-saving assistance of a computer as I have to forbid him to delegate work to a research assistant or a secretary.

The foregoing was all stated in the first person and with very specific reference to my own interests. Nevertheless I am familiar enough with the work of my colleagues in computing, libraries, and information retrieval to believe that I could quite safely have said "we", substituted innumerable variations on the general theme of educational technology or switched altogether to the broader problem of library modernization. What I have said would still remain true.

Beyond my immediate personal concerns, I can see other curious and perhaps earlier unforeseen consequences of the limitations of Section 110 (2). One could argue, for example, that programmed instruction of the linear kind where each student is presented with precisely the same sequence of questions as every other, could legitimately take place if time and content of transmissions were controlled by the transmitting organization. However, the use of branching instructional programs where the future course of instruction, the nature of questions and so on depends on prior responses by the student might well constitute “a choice by individual recipients in activating transmission" and therefore an infringement! There is still considerable controversy among investigators of these modes of programmed instruction as to which is more effective and in what circumstances. It would be a rather curious precedent in our society and I need hardly say an unfortunate one, to have scientific questions decided a priori by legislation. However unintentional, this would surely be a return to the Dark Ages.

A look slightly ahead of us may further help in seeing the relevant provisions of the bill in some perspective. There now exist machines that can scan printed material of limited type fonts, and convert it into machine readable form. There also exist experimental means for taking words stored in a computer and converting these into the sounds that would be heard if a person were to pronounce the words. If such processes were perfected and extended even in limited form, one could visualize a prosthetic device which would enable a blind man to turn any book into a talking book without the delays and difficulties attendant on conversion into Braille or on recording by a volunteer reader.

We would then face the anomaly that a normal man who has purchased a book in a bookstore or borrowed it from a library would be within his full rights in reading this book anytime and anywhere he pleased; but, if I read the provisions of the bill correctly, that a blind man using his prosthetic machine might well be infringing a copyright:

(a) by causing his prosthetic machine to translate print into machine readable form, whether or not transmission to a remote computer is required. If transmission were necessary, as is much more likely initially, then there might be further infringement;

(b) by his exceeding the capricious 100-mile limit (Section 110 (2) B), which would be probable since the necessary computers most likely could be provided economically only at a limited number of regional centers.

(c) through his exercising his choice as an individual recipient "in activating transmission from an information storage and retrieval system" or, as the bill