Speaker at the 9th Research Conference of the Digital Archive Society at the University of Tokyo Hongo Campus – Taro Yamada, Member of the House of Councilors Official Website

On November 2nd, he gave a speech at the 9th Research Conference of the Digital Archives Society at the University of Tokyo’s Hongo Campus.

At the beginning, I made a presentation regarding the expansion of the Digital Archive (DA) policy, the digitization of materials at the National Diet Library, the revision of the Museum Law in 2022, the revision of the National Diet Library Law, and the revision of the Copyright Law in 2023.

Afterwards, there was a free discussion with Professor Yoshimi, President of the Society, Attorney Fukui, Chairman of the Legal System Department, Professor Inoue, Attorney Okeda, Attorney Hashimoto, and others. A rich discussion covered a wide range of topics, including the importance of promoting DA, developing and securing human resources, and how to overcome the divide between rights holders and users. My belief as a politician is that “policies must be implemented.” We believe that we should not end with just stating our ideals or with just a form.

To this end, we place emphasis on exchanging opinions widely with those directly involved in policy and building a cooperative system among industry, government, academia, and the public. Regarding DA policy, we have had close interactions not only with government officials but also with the Digital Archive Society and the industry-based Digital Archive Promotion Consortium (DAPCON). The Liberal Democratic Party’s Intellectual Property Strategy Research Committee has invited attorney Fukui to the subcommittee, of which I am the secretary general, and has reflected this in its recommendations to the government. I believe that we should take the DA Society’s policy recommendations seriously and reflect them in national politics.