ARL Public Policy Briefing
May 2025
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Katherine Klosek, Director, Information Policy and Federal Relations, ARL
Contributions from the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) by Katherine McColgan, Manager, Administration and Programs, CARL
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The monthly Public Policy Briefing highlights developments in ARL’s public policy priorities, issues that are relevant to the research library community in the United States and Canada, and details on advocacy conducted by ARL and CARL. Please encourage your colleagues to sign up for the Public Policy Briefing.
If you have questions or suggestions, please email me at kklosek@arl.org.
CARL and ARL issued a joint communication about Global Accessibility Awareness Day on May 15, encouraging libraries and others to discuss, reflect, and learn about digital access and inclusion. The European Accessibility Act (EAA) goes into effect next month.
This issue of the Public Policy Briefing explains what we know about the shake-ups at the Library of Congress and US Copyright Office. In a long-awaited report, the Copyright Office concluded that AI activities by libraries and researchers is likely fair use. The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) submitted comments to the US Copyright Office stating that the system allowing libraries and archives to opt out of Copyright Claims Board proceedings is working as intended.
ARL organized a coalition letter opposing the Pro Codes Act, which would give sole ownership of elements of the law to private entities. ARL joined a letter supporting Senator Wyden’s call for FTC action on digital ownership rights. And, ARL and higher education associations joined forces in asking the Trump administration to reforge the federal government’s compact with higher education. Read on for updates and details on ARL’s engagement with federal funding agencies, and how you can get involved.
In Canada, CARL is preparing to engage with cabinet ministers. Parliament will return on May 26.
Read on for more details!
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Copyright and Fair Use/Fair Dealing
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Federal Funding for Library Priorities
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CARL & ARL Celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day
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The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) marked the 14th annual Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) on May 15, 2025, with this blog post encouraging libraries to engage with digital accessibility and inclusion by:
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- Staying informed about accessibility policies like the European Accessibility Act
- Learning about initiatives such as the Marrakesh Treaty and repositories of accessible materials
- Connecting library accessibility work to UN Sustainable Development Goals
- Sharing your library’s success stories
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Join the conversation using the #GAAD hashtag.
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What to Know About the European Accessibility Act
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Globally, most published works do not include features that allow them to be used by people with perceptual disabilities, such as accessibility metadata, captions for video, or alt text for images. The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is poised to address this problem by requiring ebooks and screen readers produced by businesses in the EU, or offered to EU consumers, to be designed and produced to maximize their use by persons with disabilities by June 28, 2025. Businesses are in compliance with the directive when their covered products and services are in conformity with EN 301 549, the official EU accessibility standard, which is based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA. This is the same standard that was incorporated by reference into Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II.
The EAA specifically mandates that ebooks are made discoverable by providing information on their accessibility features through descriptive metadata. And, the EAA prohibits technical protection measures (TPMs) from blocking accessibility features. While the EAA is meant to create identical accessibility requirements for consumer goods in EU member states, it may have a broader influence since global publishers will have to comply with the EU regulations.
For more on the EAA, please see:
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Updates on Canada’s Prime Minister and Parliament
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Canada’s federal election took place on April 28, which led to another Liberal Party win under the leadership of Mark Carney. It is a minority government with the Conservative Party as the official opposition. Prime Minister Carney appointed his cabinet on May 13, including Steven Guilbeault, minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and minister responsible for Official Languages; Mélanie Joly, minister of Industry and minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions; and François-Philippe Champagne, minister of Finance and National Revenue, all of whom CARL has engaged with their ministries previously. CARL has sent congratulatory letters to the ministers, which highlight CARL’s advocacy interests in research funding structures and programs, digital research infrastructure, digital and AI literacy, accessibility, and copyright.
Parliament will return on May 26 and the Throne Speech will be delivered by King Charles on May 27. The last time the monarchy gave the speech from the throne was in 1977.
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Copyright and Fair Use/Fair Dealing
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Shake-Ups at Library of Congress and Copyright Office
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President Trump terminated Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden on May 8 before the end of her 10-year term, which began in 2016. On May 10, Trump sought to install Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as acting librarian. While the president’s removal of Carla Hayden is likely lawful, the question of whether the administration can appoint an acting director is murkier. It is less likely that the administration has the power to remove the register of copyrights.
Members of Congress have expressed concern that the administration’s removal of Carla Hayden violates the separation of powers and tramples on the authority of Congress. Ranking Member of the Committee on House Administration Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) led a letter requesting an investigation and continued monitoring of potential improper communications between the Library of Congress and the executive branch. The letter asks whether the executive branch has attempted to access library data, including communications between the Congressional Research Service and congressional offices.
ARL issued this press statement describing the historic nature of Carla Hayden’s appointment, placing the termination in the context of a pattern of attacks on libraries and knowledge, and thanking Hayden for her accomplishments as librarian of Congress for nearly a decade.
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LCA to Copyright Office: System Allowing Libraries and Archives to Opt Out of Copyright Tribunal Is Working
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In comments to the US Copyright Office, the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) affirmed that the opt-out system of the Copyright Claims Board (CCB) for libraries and archives appears to be working as intended. More than 1,000 libraries have preemptively opted out of CCB proceedings, and we are not aware if any libraries or archives have encountered difficulty opting out preemptively. There is no evidence of any CCB complaint filed against a library or archives.
LCA participated in the legislative process that led to the adoption of the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2020 (the CASE Act) and the rulemaking that developed the regulations implementing the act. The main focus of LCA’s advocacy was the preemptive opt-out for libraries and archives.
The Copyright Office is accepting reply comments through June 23; LCA will monitor reply comments and engage, if necessary.
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Copyright Office Report Suggests Training AI Models for Research Purposes Is Likely Fair Use
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This month, the US Copyright Office released a pre-publication version of the long-awaited third part of its report on AI and copyright, which addresses the use of copyrighted works in the development of generative AI systems. The office concludes that copyright law—and the fair use doctrine in particular—can address generative AI, and that legislation to establish a licensing system is not necessary. The office’s conclusion aligns with comments submitted by the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA).
The bulk of the draft report is dedicated to analyzing the applicability of fair use to generative AI. A key consideration of fair use is whether the use is transformative. The draft report quoted comments submitted by the UC Berkeley Library, which state that “training [a] model to predict or classify aspects of copyright-protected inputs is a distinct purpose, and one that is highly transformative from the original ‘consumptive’ purpose.” In the draft report, the Copyright Office concluded that training a generative AI foundation model on a large and diverse dataset will often be transformative.
The draft report’s bottom line concerning AI training and fair use is favorable to the AI activities of libraries and researchers:
The Office expects that some uses of copyrighted works for generative AI training will qualify as fair use, and some will not. On one end of the spectrum, uses for purposes of noncommercial research or analysis that do not enable portions of the works to be reproduced in the outputs are likely to be fair. On the other end, the copying of expressive works from pirate sources in order to generate unrestricted content that competes in the marketplace, when licensing is reasonably available, is unlikely to qualify as fair use. Many uses, however, will fall somewhere in between.
In the section examining the benefits and challenges of licensing options, the draft report noted there was little support among commenters for statutory approaches to licensing. The Copyright Office recommends allowing the voluntary licensing market to continue to develop without government intervention.
The draft report is the culmination of a study that the Copyright Office kicked off in August 2023. Since then, the office issued part 1 of the report, in which the office recommended legislation to protect against the potential harms of AI-generated deepfakes; and part 2, which elaborated on the office’s earlier guidance on the copyrightability of AI-generated outputs. Part 3 of the Copyright Office report on copyright and artificial intelligence has been planned since 2024; its release date was delayed first from the end of fiscal 2024 to the end of calendar 2024, and then to the first quarter of 2025.
The draft report was issued the day after the removal of the librarian of Congress, and the day before the purported removal of the register of copyrights discussed above. There has been some speculation that the register was removed as retribution for the draft report, which was unfavorable in some respects to commercial AI enterprises. A more likely explanation of the timing of the draft report is that once the librarian of Congress was fired, the register of copyrights expected that she was next on the chopping block, so she released a prepublication version of the report.
The draft report’s impact on the legal landscape of training AI models is attenuated by its release as a prepublication while relevant litigation—and the ambiguous status of the register described above—is ongoing. ARL is closely monitoring Copyright Office developments.
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ARL Organizes Letter Opposing Pro Codes Act
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In coordination with the office of Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), ARL organized a coalition letter explaining our opposition to the Pro Codes Act, which Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) plans to reintroduce. As we explained in our opposition to the last Congress, Pro Codes would extend copyright protection to technical standards like building codes, safety regulations, and accessibility guidelines that are incorporated by reference into law. Granting a private entity sole ownership of elements of the law would restrict the public’s access to necessary information. Even if the bill includes requirements for codes and standards to be “publicly accessible online,” as in previous versions, such requirements are insufficient because the organization’s website could have onerous terms of use and limited functionality. ARL sent the letter to the House Judiciary Committee on May 16.
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CARL Hosts ABC Copyright Conference
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CARL hosted the ABC Copyright Conference on April 29–30. There were 380 registrants for the event, the largest registration for any Zoom event hosted by CARL. The diverse program included presentations on fair dealing, copyright reform, Indigenous knowledge and advocacy, and included speakers from both Canada and the US. One of CARL’s visiting program officers for copyright and other public policy matters, Stephanie Savage, presented at the conference and Katherine McColgan also participated as a member of the planning committee for the conference. Download presentation slides.
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Re:Create Coalition Celebrates 10th Anniversary!
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In April the Re:Create Coalition celebrated 10 years since its founding. Re:Create’s members include ARL and other library associations, civil society organizations, technology companies, online rights advocates and startups, all who support the balance of copyright policy that benefits users and the public interest.
Re:Create’s steadfast commitment to balanced copyright has been vital to ARL as we continue to promote fair use for research and education—particularly in the context of AI and other emerging technology.
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Federal Funding for Library Priorities
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Trump Administration’s FY 2026 Budget Proposes Defunding Research Library Priorities
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The Presidential Budget Request (PBR) for FY 2026, released on May 2, proposed eliminating or defunding a series of library priorities. While the version of the appropriations that Congress passes often diverges from the PBR, it is an indication of the administration’s priorities. The budget proposes decreasing federal funding by $163 billion government-wide. Most agencies that rely on discretionary funding are funded at FY 2024 levels, as the government operates under a continuing resolution. In particular, the administration proposes:
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- The elimination of, or the elimination of federal funding for, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities
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Reducing funding for National Institutes of Health (NIH) research to $27 billion—an unprecedented 40 percent cut—and eliminating funding for the National Institute on Minority and Health Disparities, the Fogarty International Center, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, and the National Institute of Nursing Research
- Cutting the budget of the National Science Foundation (NSF) by about half, to $5 billion
- Cuts to research programs at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Department of Energy (DoE), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Department of Agriculture (USDA)
- Decreased funding for financial aid programs for students
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Defunding the US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights “to refocus away from DEI and Title IX transgender cases”
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ARL Joins Higher Education Associations in Calling on Trump Administration to Reforge Compact with Higher Education
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ARL joined a statement expressing broad opposition to recent actions by the administration that jeopardize the longstanding partnership between the federal government and colleges and universities. The statement, led by the American Council on Education (ACE), emphasizes that the campus-federal partnership has made American higher education an engine of national progress and prosperity and urges the administration to reforge this vital compact and work with colleges and universities to advance our shared national interests. The signing associations called on the administration to renew and expand the partnership between the federal government and higher education that is essential for building a stronger America.
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ARL Supports Senator Wyden’s Call for FTC Action on Digital Ownership Rights
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ARL joined a letter by Public Knowledge supporting the February 25 request of Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) for Federal Trade Commission (FTC) intervention to protect consumer rights in digital marketplaces.
Senator Wyden urged the FTC to issue clear guidance to ensure that consumers who purchase or license digital goods can make informed decisions and understand what ownership rights they are obtaining. Such guidance would help libraries and those we serve better understand their rights regarding digital licensed materials, and would prevent disruptions to education, research, and scholarship.
Senator Wyden highlighted a critical issue: consumers who “purchase” digital materials like ebooks are actually only acquiring temporary access licenses, often with significant usage restrictions. Libraries must accept these restrictions when licensing essential databases and digital resources for education and scholarship. For instance, in some cases publishers have retroactively banned AI research applications through impromptu contract addendums—even after the library and publisher signed license agreements.
ARL joins the American Library Association (ALA), Software Preservation Network (SPN), University Information Policy Offers (UIPO), Public Knowledge (PK), and other library and civil society groups in signing the letter supporting Senator Wyden’s request.
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