http://www.dti.gov.uk/CII/cii/ecomdirective/index.htm

The Library Association welcomes the opportunity to comment on the draft proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on certain legal aspects of electronic commerce in the internal market.

The Library Association is the Chartered professional body for librarians and information professionals with some 25,000 members employed in all sectors of the economy.

Library and information services and organisations in the private and public sector who provide such services have a direct interest in electronic commerce since libraries are fast becoming a significant point of access to the Internet for the general public. The Library Association sees this as a natural extension of the traditional information role of libraries and we are encouraging the library and information profession to embrace the opportunities inherent in the information society.

The Library Association is grateful for the opportunity to draw the attention of the Department of Trade & Industry to a number of points in the draft directive which affect library and information services.

The title of the directive uses the phrase "certain legal aspects" and this would presumably allow further aspects to be dealt with at a later date. Viewed as a whole, the document is detailed and complex. There are many points of fine detail, which could be raised and doubtless will be raised by others. The comments, which follow, will concentrate on those aspects of the directive, which would impinge on library and information services.

Although nowhere in the directive are the terms library or library services mentioned, the definition of service provider is so broad that it will embrace the library and information professions and that they will be liable under this directive for third party behaviour.

The term at a distance could cover not only any remotely available service but also an internally generated service, e.g. in a university library across campuses. The insertion of normally between any service and provided for remuneration is taken to mean that remuneration is not strictly necessary to fall within the definition.

We note that the Codes of good conduct will be designed between business and consumers including professional associations. The Library Association has its own Code of Professional Conduct to which members must adhere, and we would be pleased to work with others to define community wide ethical rules of conduct.

We are very concerned that licences may be concluded by the mere clicking of an icon to say that the terms are understood. If one clicks to accept, any exceptions or permissions granted under copyright will be overridden. There appears to be no possibility to negotiate such a click licence. This is very worrying. There should be an option for some negotiation. We would hope that the UK Government will address this concern.

The procedure for concluding contracts is very long-winded but obviously necessary for protection of both parties. We note that the acknowledgements of receipt by both parties must be sent "as quickly as possible". What does this mean? One minute, one hour, one day, one week? Is time for reflection given?

With such electronic contracts the law of the information provider prevails, not the law of the consumer. This could cause a problem if there is a dispute. However, it is appreciated that the same problems could occur if it were the other way round.

As library and information staff often do initiate, select and receive requests presumably they will not be seen as mere conduits. We note that hosts will have the highest risk from liability and libraries are likely to be hosts. Libraries will therefore need to obtain some or extra liability insurance, which will be an added cost. We are concerned about the level of liability and whether it can be disclaimed in some way. Is it reasonable that liability will fall on the library if the library has no way of knowing whether a user infringes copyright, for example?

It is interesting to note that in this draft directive, caching is seen as part of the process in electronic commerce and yet is seen as a restricted act in the proposed Copyright Directive.

23 March 1999