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General News 41 Studies, the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, the American Association of Teachers of French, the Alliance Française, and the Modern Language Association. His location at the "Pass on the Border" has provided him with opportunity for traveling, photography, and book collecting in lands to the south. Dr. Ruff's presidency of RM-MLA in 1952-53 was marked by the organizational innovation of posting both president and secretariat at the same college; initiating the practice of rotating meeting locations within the region to allow convenient travel for all members; and a membership working toward a gradual balance between teachers of English and those of foreign languages. A jovial and lively man, Dr. Ruff likes to recall the annual meeting held in El Paso—and the extensions to Juarez when it was invariably difficult to summon a quorum at the morning-after sessions. —From Frances Hernandez University of Texas at El Paso GENERAL NEWS Copyright Law Revisions Under Way This year, for die first time since 1909, die Congress will act on a general revision of die United States Copyright Law. This bill has already passed die House of Representatives and is now before a subcommittee of die Senate Judiciary Committee. The act has a number of revisions which will be helpful to audiors. For example, copyrights now in existence would have 19 years added to dieir term. Future copyrights would last until 50 years after die death of die author. Penalties on American writers for publishing their works abroad would be less severe; and authors would have die right to be paid for die reading or odier performance of their work on nonprofit radio or television, except in an organized program of instruction. However, there is one provision in the bill as passed by the House of Representatives which could operate to the disadvantage of authors. That is that non-profit radio and television stations nay make an unlimited number of permanent copies, by film or tape, of a performance of an author's or composer's work; and the station may sell, rent, or lend these to other non-profit stations widiout payment to the audior and widiout his permission. Two harmful provisions may be presented to die Senate. One of diese will remove any limitation on a library's photocopying a work in its own collection so long as die library does not make an unlimited number of copies of a textbook in its collection, widiout payment to die author. The odier amendment would establish a diree-year moratorium on all or most of die rights of an audior—respecting the use of his works in computeraided electronic data-processing, storage, and retrieval systems—while a special commission studies the new technology as it relates to copyright. This would make a basic decision before the commission completed its study, and thus establish what could be an irrevocable principle. Anyone concerned about these matters may write to his own Senator as well as Senator John McClellan, Chairman, Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights, Senate Judiciary Committee , Washington, D.C. RM-MLA Bulletin June 19ü8 First Annual Meeting of ACTFL The first annual meeting of die American Council of the Teaching of Foreign Languages, held in Chicago 27-29 December 1968, was an outstanding success, largely because of die excellent preparation by Executive Secretary F. André Pacquette and his committee, who reserved die Sheraton-Blackstone Hotel just across the street from die Conrad Hilton Hotel, in which die language meetings of die Modern Language Association were held. Hence, members of bodi organizations were able to profit from the larger choice of sessions. Many language teachers, especially those from secondary schools, commented very favorably on die ACTFL program, in which diey felt more at home dian in the MLA meetings. It was also interesting to note at die ACTFL meetings die many MLA members whose interest was primarily in die discovery of new teaching techniques and in die improvement of language teaching. A social hour offered by die Executive Secretary to introduce leaders in English and foreign language teaching made possible informal discussion of innovations and current trends in language teaching. This chance...