Resources > Intellectual Property Rights > Copyright
VRA Endorses NHA Principles
July 17,1997
John Hammer, Executive Director
National Humanities Alliance
21 Dupont Circle, 6th floor
Washington, DC 20036
Dear Mr. Hammer:
The Visual Resources Association is happy to endorse the National Humanities Alliance "Basic Principles for Managing Intellectual Property in the Digital Environment." These principles were carefully reviewed by the VRA Committee on Intellectual Property Rights and the committee agrees that focusing on very general principles rather than specific guidelines is a better way to foster constructive dialogue between rightsholders and users.
Although the VRA has emphatically rejected the proposed Conference on Fair Use (CONFU) Guidelines, the VRA firmly believes in continuing the process of examining and debating the issues relevant to preserving fair use in the digital environment. The NHA Principles clearly articulate many of these issues; technical power overruning the legal framework of copyright; scholarly communication ranging over a broad range of constituents and media; and the need to balance the rights of copyright holders against the needs for access by educators & students.
Eventually our constituency, made up primarily of visual resources professionals employed in non-profit educational institutions, will need to develop actual guidelines to aid us in managing intellectial property in a digital world. But in the mean time we believe the NHA Principles are an excellent cornerstone upon which to construct such guidelines.
Sincerely,
Joseph Romano
President
Visual Resources Association
