Early PC software is about to decay and it is not clear we are allowed to save
it. The anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA may prevent libraries from
saving some of the most creative works of the 20th century from being lost.

"We are in a digital dark age" as Danny Hillis put it. We hope the Librarian
of Congress recognizes the problem and corrects it in time.

Internet Archive, Harvard, and Creative Commons submitted a "comment" on the
DMCA seeking an exception to allow us to save software.
ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/copyright/1201/2003/comments/025.pdf
some other interesting comments are also at:
http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2003/comments/index.html

As I understand it, there will be an opportunity for people to "reply" to
support the comment. The best case would be other libraries and archives that
have software or cdrom's in their collections.

If you are interested in helping by writing a "reply", please contact the
pro-bono lawyer on this:
Alex Macgillevray AMacgillivray@...

I thank Alex Macgillivray, Lawrence Lessig, Wendy Seltzer, and many others who
helped draft this comment. It is wonderful that such powerful lawyers are
working without fee to help libraries. It is a shame that it is necessary.

-brewster

Digital Librarian
Internet Archive