WHO:  Peter Decherney, assistant professor of cinema studies at the University of Pennsylvania

WHAT: Decherney's testimony at U.S. Copyright Office proceeding

WHEN:  Monday, April 3, 9 a.m.2:30 p.m.

WHERE:    Library of Congress, Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave., SE, LM-649, Mumford Room, in Washington, D.C.

Peter Decherney, assistant professor of cinema studies at the University of Pennsylvania, will present testimony asking the U.S. Copyright Office of the Library of Congress for an academic exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to enable professors to fairly and legally use copyright video material from DVDs.

Decherney's testimony to the Copyright Office is on behalf of a trio of Penn faculty members. He wrote the comment seeking the academic exemption with Michael Delli Carpini, professor of communication and dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at Penn, and Katherine Sender, assistant professor of communication at Penn.

Professors who use DVD clips in the classroom now are breaking the law. But they argue that showing DVD film clips rather than VHS clips from movies too old to have copyright protections greatly improves the quality of in-class film criticism.

The Motion Picture Association of America, Time-Warner and a dozen other organizations have opposed the proposed exemption. Their representatives will be at the proceeding opposing the proposed exemptions on the grounds that they would lead to rampant movie piracy on college campuses.

The Copyright Office rulemaking proceeding is mandated by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  The Penn faculty members are seeking to exempt two classes of works from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act: audiovisual works included in the educational library of college or university film or media studies departments and audiovisual works in the public domain too old to still be protected by copyright with newly added copyright material.

The Copyright Office has until October to issue a decision.

  All comments with summaries can be found on the Copyright Office Web site: www.copyright.gov/1201/index.html.