Four Questions with Layla Maurer
We are thrilled to welcome Layla Maurer, the newest member of the Library Futures team. As our Staff Attorney, she’ll be in charge of our work researching, negotiating, and improving library contracts with digital content vendors. But first, she shares a bit about herself and how she came to the movement for digital rights and her job with Library Futures.
What experiences shaped your belief in digital rights and equitable access?
Am I allowed to say “all of them?” I grew up in a family that relied on public services ranging from public schools to local library systems and PBS and thrived in those settings. My mother worked in the public library system for decades and we took advantage of library resources regularly. But I was also a nerdy kid who wanted to play with computers and video games and music as much as she needed books and extracurriculars, so my parents went out of the way to provide access to PCs, consoles, and A/V equipment for the house (and portable audio players for me and my sibling, likely for their own sanity as well as mine). As technologies evolved I became familiar with all types of digital media, which led to fun questions buzzing in my head around ownership and use.
Book-nerd me earned her undergrad in history and fell in love with research databases and journals–so much information at your fingertips!–and then went for the MLIS. Tech-nerd me focused that degree on digital information, worked in IT and digital media, and eventually went to law school to learn even more about digital rights and access. I had several fantastic professors there, one of whom co-authored a book titled The End of Ownership (which informed a lot of my thinking around use rights). Then gamer-nerd me took that knowledge into my career and helped translate IP ownership and licensed rights into negotiated agreements focusing on fair compensation, reasonable license terms, and, often, permissive use. My work supported a community of millions of players, fans, and contributors. That in itself really drove home for me the fact that there is a huge need for fair and equitable use of both creative and educational content. Yet content creators’ rights need to be respected and creators need to make a living. I’m now hyper-focused on how to get more digital materials into more hands through better agreements and relationships.
Can you tell us more about the work you’ll be doing with Library Futures?
I’ll be working to facilitate those relationships between libraries and publishers, studios, and creators, which might include representative work and training libraries and librarians on how to negotiate for better access to materials. A big part of that is going to be coming up with the templates, processes, playbooks, etc. for libraries’ in-licensing or use of all types of digital media resources for lending. That will encompass ebooks, journal databases, music, video, games, and whatever other form of digital materials might come to exist in the future, including materials provided under open source frameworks (of which I’m a huge fan and about which I hope to educate more people).
What is your biggest hope for our digital future? Your biggest fear?
My biggest hope as an attorney is that we as a society can figure out how to move ahead with an updated copyright regime in the age of digital ownership and authorship, one that provides clear deference to creators while allowing for fluidity in derivative works. There are so many use cases that warrant (see: Everything is a Remix by Kirby Ferguson, in particular Part 3) and tools that enable creative digital interpretations of existing works, and they aren’t going anywhere; they’re only becoming more pervasive and better at what they are designed to do. A universe exists where that’s permissible without harming the original creators’ rights. But my biggest hope as a human is that we will re-embrace the intrinsic value of freedom of information and build the digital frameworks and tools to support ease of access to that information. Humankind needs access to information; it’s how we learn and thrive and grow. Better licenses are a step to get us there. Better tools, and more widespread availability of those tools, are needed to facilitate the access the licenses will provide.
My biggest fear about our digital future is to do with the manner in which those who fear knowledge may respond to its broader availability. In the bleakest of Orwellian futures, those who control the means of dissemination of that knowledge (i.e., the providers of those digital tools I’m hoping for) would not only decide what information is worthy of being made available, but would also collect and commodify data about how the tools are being used and sell that data for use in targeting segments of the population. I have enough confidence in the good of humanity for us not to devolve to that level of totalitarianism (and I don’t exactly worry about this on a regular basis), but it is a possibility when allowing any tool provider to track use.
What fills your time when you’re not making the world safe for open access to knowledge?
Too many things! I play video games (if that wasn’t apparent) and run D&D campaigns, though we’ve been on hiatus for a little while. I teach CLEs on creative transactions, video game law, and legal writing. I sing in a couple of local choirs, pet my cats and rabbit and my canine niece, study languages, think about playing my flute, travel around the Finger Lakes, Great Lakes, and Adirondacks, sample local wines and craft ciders and brews, drink tea and coffee from local tea shops and coffee houses, and occasionally bake something. I listen to a lot of music and make playlists, mostly on TIDAL, and spend a lot of time researching audio for fun.
I read more fantasy and sci-fi than I ought to admit, and I watch everything from historical dramas to anime to K- and J-reality TV to dystopian horror and feel-good nature documentaries and baking shows…. I know. It’s a lot.
