Hey, Warner, Leave those Kids Alone | Electronic Frontier Foundation

 

Hey, Warner, Leave those Kids Alone

Commentary by Corynne McSherry

Last month we reported that Warner Music Group was using YouTube’s Content I.D. (aka Video I.D.) tool to effectively censor myriad fair uses. We asked people to contact us if they needed legal help and put up a YouTube removal primer to give folks information about their options. As a result we’ve seen beautiful film montages set to music, videos to assist the hearing impaired, and many other examples of amazing artistic talent that have been censored by Warner Music.

But it turns out the problem is even worse than we thought. One way to check Warner’s abuse is for fair users to challenge improper Content I.D. takedowns. But very few are willing to do so, because they are afraid of the consequences.

Why are people scared? Because our broken copyright system leaves them facing the prospect of paying outrageous statutory damages and even possibly Warner's attorneys' fees if they stand up, fight back and, despite overwhelming odds in their favor, lose. It’s a gamble with their life savings that most people just aren’t willing to take, even when their works are clear fair uses and even if EFF gives them free legal help.

Of course, it’s hardly in the interest of a copyright owner to sue a creator who has engaged in an obvious fair use. In fact, we’re not aware of any content owner ever suing an individual YouTube user over a remix video. And since Warner is taking the videos down sight unseen, there’s no indication Warner actually objects to any particular video. So these creative, beautiful works are simply collateral damage in Warner’s negotiation with YouTube over revenue sharing. Thus, the Content I.D. tool, in the hands of a careless copyright owner, has helped create the worst of all worlds: incredibly easy takedowns on one side, and an intimidating put-back procedure that seems to invite legal risk on the other.

While YouTube is partially at fault for giving Warner this censorship-friendly Content ID tool, it’s time for Warner to take some responsibility and stop the censorship.

The best thing for Warner to do is to go back to how it treated videos before. The Content ID system should be set to flag possible infringing works and then Warner should have a human review those works before they are taken down. This is, after all, what Viacom (not exactly a softie on copyright issues) does.

At a minimum, Warner should reassure legitimate fair users who want to notify them when the ID tool is overblocking. Specifically, Warner should promise that no one will be sued for simply filing a "dispute" on a Content I.D. takedown. Even after a "dispute" is filed, Warner has the option of using a DMCA takedown notice to target videos that it really objects to, so Warner should give YouTubers comfort by saying they won't escalate straight to lawsuit after a "dispute" filing, without first availing themselves of their DMCA takedown option.

In the meantime, though, we still want to hear from folks who have been targeted by Warner, because if Warner doesn’t stop on its own we still want to intervene in this fight. Before you contact us, take a look at our YouTube removal primer, but if you made a fair use video and you want to fight back, we want to hear from you.

Hey, Warner, Leave those Kids Alone | Electronic Frontier Foundation

GOOG JAPANESE BOOKS TO AUTOMATICALLY GO ONLINE VIA GOOGLE SERVICE

 GOOG JAPANESE BOOKS TO AUTOMATICALLY GO ONLINE VIA GOOGLE SERVICE

JAPANESE BOOKS TO AUTOMATICALLY GO ONLINE VIA GOOGLE SERVICE

TOKYO, Feb 26, 2009

 

Books published in Japan would be made public on the Internet through Google Inc.'s books library project unless copyright holders take steps to block the commercial use of protected content, under the terms of a proposed U.S. class action settlement.

The details of the proposed agreement over Google Book Search were made public recently, with a U.S. court expected to approve the settlement on June 11.

The settlement would authorize the U.S. search engine giant to scan copyrighted books in the U.S., maintain an electronic database of the works and use the content in a variety of ways, such as charging fees for access and placing advertisements. In exchange, Google will pay copyright holders 63 per cent of all revenue from these applications.

This digital-rights class action agreement covers books published outside the U.S., including Japan. Authors and publishers that do not want Google to use their materials need to notify the company by 2011, and those wishing to opt out of the settlement must do so by May 5 of this year.

Domestic publishers have expressed concern that the contents of their books might be sold in the U.S. if they fail to act. But there have been some positive reactions as well.

"Having lots of people read my books makes me happy," says author Joh Sasaki, who writes adventure novels. "I have no objections if the service will allow users to read online books that they otherwise would not have ready access to."

GOOG JAPANESE BOOKS TO AUTOMATICALLY GO ONLINE VIA GOOGLE SERVICE

Kindles and "creative machines" blur boundaries of copyright - Ars Technica

Kindles and "creative machines" blur boundaries of copyright - Ars Technica

The Authors Guild has invited plenty of ridicule by claiming that Amazon's Kindle 2 violates authors' rights by reading works aloud. But buried in their argument is a surprisingly tangled puzzle for copyright law in the digital era.

By Julian Sanchez

The Authors Guild has come in for a fair amount of ridicule since their executive director, Paul Aiken, claimed that the speech-to-text feature of Amazon's new Kindle 2 violated copyright law, telling the Wall Street Journal: "They don't have the right to read a book out loud." On Wednesday, Guild president Roy Blount Jr. took to the pages of The New York Times to defend his group's much-mocked position, arguing that the device would "swindle" penurious writers out of precious audiobook revenue. Whether or not you think that's likely, however, probing the Guild's objections reveals one more way that advancing technology may blur traditional categories in copyright law.

The short version of Blount's argument is that the right to create an audiobook version of a text is generally more valuable than the right to distribute an e-book, and that the Kindle effectively gives Amazon a free twofer: having bought the cheaper e-book right, it gets to offer customers a multimedia package that includes an audiobook rendered on the fly.

While proponents of this argument have had some trouble explaining why it's OK for a human to privately read a bedtime story out loud, but not for a machine to do it, there is at least this potential distinction: private human reading is not a for-profit product that presents a realistic alternative to publisher-authorized audiobooks. The Kindle may not produce the kind of rich dramatic reading a human actor might record, but advances in text-to-speech technology make it a far more passable alternative than the sort of stilted Cylon centurion delivery that represented the state of the art just a few years ago.

For the moment, the Authors Guild seems to be hoping to rely on contract law rather than copyright litigation, urging authors and publishers to condition their licensing of e-book rights on Amazon's blocking the read-out-loud feature unless a separate performance license is purchased. It's not hard to see why: under the standard established in the seminal Betamax case, the Kindle's out-loud feature would almost certainly be deemed to have "substantial noninfringing uses," leaving the company in the clear, and publishers with the unrealistic recourse of trying to sue individual owners who "perform" their books without permission.

How to create a derivative work

But there is an implicit copyright claim lurking in the Guild's objections: US law assigns creators and publishers the exclusive right to prepare (or authorize) "derivative works" based on their creations—such as audiobooks, translations, and dramatic adaptations. But that raises a surprisingly tangled question: What does it mean to create a derivative work? As Sherwin Siy of Public Knowledge points out, the Guild has somewhat misleadingly spoken of "audio rights"—but there's no such thing as an "audio right" per se, only the right to prepare a "work," such as a particular (independently copyrightable) audio recording. But does the Kindle create a "work"?

Michael Kwun of the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that it doesn't, for two reasons. First, he says, a "derivative work" must be a work of creative authorship: He cites the copyright statute's definition of "derivative work" as "a work based upon one or more preexisting works . . . which, as a whole, represent[s] an original work of authorship."

But there's ambiguity hiding in that ellipsis. The full text is:

A "derivative work" is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a "derivative work".

The second sentence imposes an originality requirement as the criterion for determining when revisions and annotations amount to the creation of a derivative work, not as a general requirement of any derivative work. Kwun invokes the hoary maxim "No creativity, no copyrightability," but this conflates the standard for independent copyrightability of a work with the criteria for infringement of the derivative work right. As legal scholar Paul Goldstein notes in his definitive essay on derivative works, "the [Copyright] Act does not require that the derivative work be protectable for its preparation to infringe." In other words, a work insufficiently original to be eligible for an independent copyright may still be an infringing derivative.

Consider, for instance, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision in the 1984 case Lone Ranger Television v. Program Radio. Program Radio edited for broadcast old recordings of Lone Ranger teleplays that had fallen into the public domain. Thanks to a quirk of the law, however, the original scripts on which the programs were based remained under copyright. Though the edited versions clearly fell far short of the originality that would be required for an independent copyright, the Court held that Program Radio had violated the authors' exclusive "derivative works" rights. While the record is mixed, subsequent cases have at least been open to the category of "unoriginal" derivative works.

And Kwun concedes that his argument has some counterintuitive results: he told Ars that, on this theory, a translation of a text into another language—a paradigmatic example of derivative work—would not count as such if the translation were produced by an algorithmic software program like Google Translate. While no author has yet raised this claim, as far as I know, it might be argued that Google's on-the-fly translations of Web pages constitute large-scale production and dissemination of "derivative works." One interesting, and equally counterintuitive, wrinkle is that it might actually make an enormous legal difference whether the translation is performed on Google's servers and transmitted to the user, or by plug-in software on the end-user's home computer.

That's OK, Kwun has a backup argument with more solid support in case law. In the 1992 case Lewis Galoob Toys v. Nintendo of America, the Ninth Circuit found that Galoob's Game Genie—a device interposed between a game cartridge and the Nintendo console to allow users to tweak gameplay—did not create infringing "derivative works" of Nintendo's games because it did not "incorporate a portion of a copyrighted work in some concrete or permanent form." In other words, Game Genie altered the gaming experience, but did not actually create a new modified copy of the game. The Court codified that principle in Micro Star v. FormGen Inc., making the existence of some kind of nontransitory copy of a work a prerequisite for the creation of a "derivative."

Kindles and "creative machines" blur boundaries of copyright - Ars Technica

End of Free Access « The Scholarly Kitchen

End of Free Access « The Scholarly Kitchen 

End of Free Access

Posted by Philip Davis

A venerable Open Access title in medical research has instituted a subscription model for its online journal.

The Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI), a prestigious title in continuous publication since 1924, implemented a subscription model beginning with its January 2009 issue.  Original articles, however, continue to be freely available.

JCI began providing free access to all online content in 1996.  In spite of dwindling revenue from print subscribers, the journal continued to justify free access to its content.

JCI has an impact factor of 16.9, and is the most highly-cited journal within its category of Medicine, Research and Experimental, according to ISI’s 2007 Journal Citation Reports.  Its editors reject 9 out of every 10 manuscript submissions.

The journal receives several sources of income from its authors.  JCI charges for submission ($70 US), pages charges ($0.22 per word), plus additional fees for each figure ($100), table ($50),  supplemental data ($300) and color ($1000).  Apparently, these author charges are not sufficient to cover publication costs for a high-quality journal.

Between 1996 and 2003,  JCI lost 40% of its institutional subscribers, according to John Hawley, Executive Director of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.  Responding to my email on his decision to institute online subscriptions, Hawley responded in practical terms:

The decision to institute access control was not a strained one; there are costs to be met, and this was the one route available to determine if they could be met.

In 2005, another prestigious medical journal, the British Medical Journal (BMJ), ended full free online access, citing hemorrhaging revenue and the desire to fund future product development as justifications.  BMJ (like JCI) still provides free access to research articles.

There is a substantial difference between these two journals: BMJ publishes only 4 or 5 research articles per issue — the rest is full of editorials, letters, news, commentary, and other non-research material.  In comparison, JCI is primarily a research journal, publishing 15-30 articles per issue with little non-research material.  Responding to a question I posted on MEDLIB-L, a listserv for medical librarians, Peter Cole, director of the Aquinas Medical Library in New Jersey responded:

there isn’t enough non-research content in JCI to justify purchasing a subscription

Other librarians responded that they reinstated their institutional subscription, some begrudgingly.  At a time when many librarians are attempting to make radical cuts in their budget, this news did not come at a welcome time. Leslie Czechowski, Assistant Director of Collections & Technical Services at the University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences Library responded:

we canceled [our subscription] because of free online access.  Another year we might have resubscribed, but in times of declining budgets, it will be a more difficult decision

If new subscription revenue does not meet expectations, does JCI have any recourse (such as increasing page fees for authors)?  John Hawley answered soberly,

There’s always recourse.

 John Hawley Says:

1. Feb 26, 2009 at 9:30 am

   For what it’s worth, here’s the nonredacted version of my responses to the queries provided to me:

   * How difficult was it to make this decision?

   The JCI instituted access control for most non-research articles (commentaries, reviews, etc.) in January 2009. The history of the JCI publishing a mass of these types of articles is relatively brief, the last decade or so. While access control for this content was discussed in the past, the sentiment was that if the JCI could afford to make this content freely available, it should. This sentiment, however, progressively came up against hard costs — staffing, printing, and the like — for which there was no offsetting revenue such as there has been for the research articles published in the JCI. The decision to institute access control was not a strained one; there are costs to be met, and this was the one route available to determine if they could be met.

   * Do you think there enough incentive for libraries to reinstate their subscriptions. Put another way, do you think there enough content outside the original research articles to demand a subscription?

   We hope to bring back former institutional and individual subscribers, certainly. We feel that the articles we’re publishing are of standout quality, produced typically by leaders in their given fields. The metrics from citation rates to online usage suggest we’re hitting the mark. If quality isn’t a sufficient draw, it’s a problem not just for the JCI but many other journals.

   * Considering the current financial market, will libraries have the leeway to reinstate subscriptions?

   The economic climate for libraries has been eroding for some time, thanks to the avarice and near monopoly of commercial publishers. As a nonprofit publisher, I believe our role — our obligation — is to deliver the best journal we can at the lowest cost possible. We’ve done this; whether libraries can turn down the big deal to come back to us (and other nonprofit publications) remains to be seen.

   * If new subscription revenue does not meet expectations, is there any recourse (e.g. increase submission fees, page fees, etc.)

   There’s always a recourse.

End of Free Access « The Scholarly Kitchen

resolution.htm

resolution.htm 

For Whom the Gate Tolls?

How and Why to Free the Refereed Research Literature
Online Through Author/Institution Self-Archiving, Now

Stevan Harnad
Intelligence/Agents/Multimedia Group
Department of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton
Highfield, Southampton
SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/

ABSTRACT: All refereed journals will soon be available online; most of them already are. This means that anyone will be able to access them from any networked desk-top. The literature will all be interconnected by citation, author, and keyword/subject links, allowing for unheard-of power and ease of access and navigability. Successive drafts of pre-refereeing preprints will be linked to the official refereed draft, as well as to any subsequent corrections, revisions, updates, comments, responses, and underlying empirical databases, all enhancing the self-correctiveness, interactivity and productivity of scholarly and scientific research and communication in remarkable new ways. New scientometric indicators of digital impact are also emerging (http://opcit.eprints.org) to chart the online course of knowledge. But there is still one last frontier to cross before science reaches the optimal and the inevitable: Just as there is no longer any need for research or researchers to be constrained by the access-blocking restrictions of paper distribution, there is no longer any need to be constrained by the impact-blocking financial fire-walls of Subscription/Site-License/Pay-Per-View (S/L/P) tolls for this give-away literature. Its author/researchers have always donated their research reports for free (and its referee/researchers have refereed for free), with the sole goal of maximizing their impact on subsequent research (by accessing the eyes and minds of fellow-researchers, present and future) and hence on society. Generic (OAi-compliant) software is now available free so that institutions can immediately create Eprint Archives in which their authors can self-archive all their refereed papers for free for all forever (http://www.eprints.org/). These interoperable Open Archives (http://www.openarchives.org) will then be harvested into global, jointly searchable "virtual archives" (e.g., http://arc.cs.odu.edu/). "Scholarly Skywriting" in this PostGutenberg Galaxy will be dramatically (and measurably) more interactive and productive, spawning its own new digital metrics of productivity and impact, allowing for an online "embryology of knowledge."

resolution.htm

Science Dissemination Using Open Access : Ahabloging.com

 Science Dissemination Using Open Access : Ahabloging.com

Science Dissemination Using Open Access

Science Dissemination Using Open Access: A Compendium Of Selected Literature On Open Access / Editors E. Canessa and M. Zennaro (ICTP-SDU, Italy).

The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics. Science Dissemination Unit (SDU) / July 2008 / 207 pp. / ISBN 92-95003-40-3.

Open Access means aims to remove restrictions that exist on the access to articles and knowledge to the world-wide scholarly community, in particular to those in developing countries. Scientists in these countries still have difficulty in publishing their work due to the lack of access to the network, to their institutional economic difficulties or to the lack of awareness of available Open Access solutions.

The visibility, usage and impact of researchers’ own findings can increase with Open Access, as does their power to find, access and use the work of others.

This book aims to guide the scientific community on the requirements of Open Access, and the plethora of low-cost solutions available. A compendium of selected literature on Open Access is presented to increase the awareness of the potential of open publishing in general.

The book also aims to encourage decision makers in academia and research centers to adopt institutional and regional Open Access Journals and Archives to make their own scientific results public and fully searchable on the Internet.

Table of Contents

[http://tinyurl.com/5k9y8r]

Navigate Book

[http://tinyurl.com/5c6r35]

Free PDF Download
[http://sdu.ictp.it/openaccess/SciDissOpenAccess.pdf]

Source

[http://sdu.ictp.it/openaccess/book.html]

Associated Workshop

Using Open Access Models for Science Dissemination ICTP Workshop, Trieste, Italy, 7-16 July 2008
[http://tinyurl.com/55tsdm]

Science Dissemination Using Open Access : Ahabloging.com

Final Impact: What Factors Really Matter? | Scholarly Communication Program

Final Impact: What Factors Really Matter? | Scholarly Communication Program 

Final Impact: What Factors Really Matter?

A panel discussion on the debate about the best way to rank the importance and influence of scholarly publications. Panelists: Marian Hollingsworth, director of Publisher Relations at Thomson Reuters and former assistant director of the National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services; Jevin West, an Achievement Awards for College Scientists Fellow at the University of Washington's Biology Department and head developer for Eigenfactor.org; and Johan Bollen, a staff researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the principal investigator of the MESUR project. Columbia University Librarian Jim Neal introduces the talk.

Video from here -- http://scholcomm.columbia.edu/final-impact-what-factors-really-matter

Read the Twitter feed from the panel here.

Final Impact: What Factors Really Matter? | Scholarly Communication Program

Twitter / ScholarlyComm

Twitter / ScholarlyComm 

Hey there! ScholarlyComm is using Twitter.

Twitter is a free service that lets you keep in touch with people through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Join today to start receiving ScholarlyComm's updates.

Twitter / ScholarlyComm

Studies of key stakeholders in the digital transformation in higher education

Studies of key stakeholders in the digital transformation in higher education 

Studies of key stakeholders in the digital transformation in higher education

Changing technologies have been accompanied by changes in research habits, scholarly communications patterns, campus roles, and more. These changes offer exciting new opportunities, but also pose significant challenges for those who serve the higher education community. This document describes the findings of two large scale surveys conducted in 2006. The authors suggest a number of ways for libraries to exercise leadership in the transition to an increasingly electronic environment, sometimes in collaboration with other like-minded institutions.

Studies of key stakeholders in the digital transformation in higher education

Recent News on Open Access to Archives « QdukArt

Recent News on Open Access to Archives « QdukArt 

Recent News on Open Access to Archives

A continuing source of controversy is the desire of some archives, libraries, and museums to control through contract the downstream use of reproductions and digital files of public domain items.  A number of recent news items make me wonder if there is much of a future for this common practice:

First, a working group of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science organized to address issues relating the to the use of images in scholarly research released early in January its final recommendations.  While the report, “Scholarly Publishing and the Issues of Cultural Heritage: Fair Use, Reproduction Fees, and Copyrights,” is concerned primarily with visual images, its conclusions would apply to all public domain archival material.  Everyone should read it.

Among the many interesting recommendations for cultural institutions and scholars,  perhaps the most important is the recognition that in order “to promote creative scholarship in the humanities and to foster a deeper understanding of cultural  heritage, …open access to visual sources not covered by copyright” is needed.  That means that institutions should not use their ability to control access to limit non-commercial, scholarly use of public domain material.

The report also recommends that if scholars sign agreements to secure access to a public domain repository, they “must abide by the  terms of use stipulated in the contract.”  Three relatively recent examples of users apparently ignoring the restrictions repositories attempt to place on the use of their holdings make me wonder whether there is any future for such restrictions:

1. The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and the Internet Archive have announced a really interesting Mellon-funded pilot partnership to create an archival commons.  As a pilot project, they are joining with the Zotero-Internet Archive New Orleans user group to develop a program in which individuals share primary source materials on New
   Orleans that they have collected.  The announcement notes that they “are especially interested in material gathered from smaller
   archives in the New Orleans region that may now have limited access or
   even have been destroyed because of Hurricane Katrina.”  There is no mention in the announcement of possible limitations on use of these materials that may have been imposed by those same archives.  
2. The Alexander Street Press has announced an expensive new digital collection on local history.  The database consists of the images published in the local history books produced by Arcadia Publishing.  It is quite likely that many of these images came from libraries and archives that in theory impose restrictions on downstream use, and they were provided for specific print runs.  While seeking permission from authors to include their works, ASP is choosing to ignore archival ownership of the images and any restrictions on subsequent use that were imposed when reproductions were made.  Instead of seeking permission (and paying additional fees), it is offering an “opt-out” program through which repositories can tell them not to include their images.  (Let’s hope that there are repositories that may actually own registered copyrights in some of these images.  The copyright infringement fines they could secure would be substantial.)
3. The American Founding Era Digital Collection being offered by the University of Virginia Press is continuing to add to the digital versions of correspondence available through subscription.  To the best of my knowledge, the initiative has neither contacted any of the repositories that originally provided copies of correspondence to the editorial team nor have offered to share revenues from the project.  While it is possible that the original provisions of copies included permission to publish in electronic as well as print form, it is much more likely that permission was for print only (as was the case in Random House v RosettaBooks).  I suspect that the project is ignoring rights accruing from physical ownership of the original material.

Given the that repository-based use restrictions are being ignored by scholars and at least two commercial products, one has to wonder what is the point of imposing them at all.  Wouldn’t scholarship be better-served if repositories sold reproductions for whatever the market would bear but allowed public domain material to be freely available via open access solutions?

Recent News on Open Access to Archives « QdukArt

Law Librarian Blog: Law Librarian Group Calls for Ending Publication of Law Reviews in Print Format

Law Librarian Blog: Law Librarian Group Calls for Ending Publication of Law Reviews in Print Format 

Law Librarian Group Calls for Ending Publication of Law Reviews in Print Format

Print publication of law reviews is back in the news (see LLB's earlier post, Twenty-Five Year Decline in Law Review Subscriptions). Paul Lomio recently reported on Legal Research Plus that the Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship calls for all law schools to stop publishing their law reviews in print format and to rely instead on creating definitive versions of their journals in digital formats and making the law review articles readily accessible in online respositories by using a standard set of metadata to catalog each one. The list of signitories to the Statement, all directors of some of the nation's major academic law libraries, is printed below the text of the Durham Statement.

Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship
February 11, 2009 

Objective: The undersigned believe that it will benefit legal education and improve the dissemination of legal scholarly information if law schools commit to making the legal scholarship they publish available in stable, open, digital formats in place of print. To accomplish this end, law schools should commit to making agreed-upon stable, open, digital formats, rather than print, the preferable formats for legal scholarship. If stable, open, digital formats are available, law schools should stop publishing law journals in print and law libraries should stop acquiring print law journals. We believe that, in addition to their other benefits, these changes are particularly timely in light of the financial challenges currently facing many law schools.

Rationale: Researchers – whether students, faculty, or practitioners – now access legal information of all sorts through digital formats much more frequently than in printed formats. Print copies of law journals and other forms of legal scholarship are slower to arrive than the online digital versions and lack the flexibility needed by 21st century scholars. Yet, most law libraries perceive a continuing need also to acquire legal scholarship in print formats for citation and archiving. (Some libraries are canceling print editions if commercial digital versions are available; others continue to acquire print copies but throw them away after a period of time.)

It is increasingly uneconomical to keep two systems afloat simultaneously. The presumption of need for redundant printed journals adds costs to library budgets, takes up physical space in libraries pressed for space, and has a deleterious effect on the environment; if articles are uniformly available in stable digital formats, they can still be printed on demand. Some libraries may still choose to subscribe to certain journals in multiple formats if they are available. In general, however, we believe that, if law schools are willing to commit to stable and open digital storage for the journals they publish, there are no longer good reasons for individual libraries to rely on paper copies as the archival format. Agreed-upon stable, open, digital formats will ensure that legal scholarship will be preserved in the long-term.

In a time of extreme pressures on law school budgets, moving to all electronic publication of law journals will also eliminate the substantial costs borne by law schools for printing and mailing print editions of their school’s journals, and the costs borne by their libraries to purchase, process and preserve print versions.

Additionally, and potentially most importantly, a move toward digital files as the preferred format for legal scholarship will increase access to legal information and knowledge not only to those inside the legal academy and in practice, but to scholars in other disciplines and to international audiences, many of whom do not now have access either to print journals or to commercial databases.

Call to Action: We therefore urge every U.S. law school to commit to ending print publication of its journals and to making definitive versions of journals and other scholarship produced at the school immediately available upon publication in stable, open, digital formats, rather than in print. We also urge every law school to commit to keeping a repository of the scholarship published at the school in a stable, open, digital format. Some law schools may choose to use a shared regional online repository or to offer their own repositories as places for other law schools to archive the scholarship published at their school.

Repositories should rely upon open standards for the archiving of works, as well as on redundant formats, such as PDF copies. We also urge law schools and law libraries to agree to and use a standard set of metadata to catalog each article to ensure easy online public indexing of legal scholarship.

As a measure of redundancy, we also urge faculty members to reserve their copyrights to ensure that they too can make their own scholarship available in stable, open, digital formats. All law journals should rely upon the AALS model publishing agreement as a default and should respect author requests to retain copyrights in their scholarship.

• Richard A. Danner, Duke Law School
• Taylor Fitchett, University of Virginia
• Margaret A. Fry, Georgetown University Law Center
• Paul M. George, University of Pennsylvania School of Law
• Claire M. Germain, Cornell Law School
• S. Blair Kauffman, Yale Law School
• J. Paul Lomio, Stanford Law School
• Harry S. (Terry) Martin III, University of Texas Law School
• Kent McKeever, Columbia Law School
• Jim McMasters, Northwestern University School of Law
• John G. Palfrey, Harvard Law School
• Radu Popa, New York University Law School
• Judith M. Wright University of Chicago Law School

Law Librarian Blog: Law Librarian Group Calls for Ending Publication of Law Reviews in Print Format

Digital Humanities in 2008, II: Scholarly Communication & Open Access « Digital Scholarship in the Humanities

Digital Humanities in 2008, II: Scholarly Communication & Open Access « Digital Scholarship in the Humanities

"Good overview of recent trends -- follow the link for the full article" -- HSM

 

Digital Humanities in 2008, II: Scholarly Communication & Open Access

Posted on February 24, 2009 by Lisa Spiro

Open access, just like dark chocolate and blueberries, is good and good for you, enabling information to be mined and reused, fostering the exchange of ideas, and ensuring public access to research that taxpayers often helped to fund.  Moreover, as Dan Cohen contends, scholars benefit from open access to their work, since their own visibility increases: “In a world where we have instantaneous access to billions of documents online, why would you want the precious article or book you spent so much time on to exist only on paper, or behind a pay wall? This is a sure path to invisibility in the digital age.”  Thus some scholars are embracing social scholarship, which promotes openness, collaboration, and sharing research.  This year saw some positive developments in open access and scholarly communications, such as the implementation of the NIH mandate, Harvard’s Faculty of Arts & Science’s decision to go open access (followed by Harvard Law), and the launch of the Open Humanities Press.  But there were also some worrisome developments (the Conyers Bill’s attempt to rescind the NIH mandate, EndNote’s lawsuit against Zotero) and some confusing ones (the Google Books settlement).  In the second part of my summary on the year in digital humanities, I’ll look broadly at the scholarly communication landscape, discussing open access to educational materials, new publication models, the Google Books settlement, and cultural obstacles to digital publication.

Digital Humanities in 2008, II: Scholarly Communication & Open Access « Digital Scholarship in the Humanities

nsf.gov - News - Open Access to Scientific Papers May Not Guarantee Wide Dissemination- - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

"Without reading the study and the methodology behind this, it is interesting in terms of results....my initial thought was that most people are encouraged to publish in both, i.e. in journals as well as retaining rights for publication in repositories, so how are these separated in the study." - HSM

Press Release 09-026
Open Access to Scientific Papers May Not Guarantee Wide Dissemination

New research challenges assumption that having research published in open access journals and other free sources leads to more exposure and citations

Back to article | Note about images

Millions of research papers and other scholarly material are available on the internet, however, in many cases a person or library must pay to access them. In recent years, as the internet has helped lower the cost of publishing, more and more scientists have begun publishing their research in open source outlets on the internet. Since these publications are free to anyone with an internet connection, the belief has been that more interested readers will find them and potentially cite them. New research from James A. Evans and Jacob Reimer of the University of Chicago suggests that being in an open source publication does not necessarily increase the number of times a research paper is used by other researchers.
Credit: Jupiter Images

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James Evans, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, discusses his research into the impact of open source publishing on disseminating scientific information. Evans and his partner Jacob Reimer, a student of neurobiology at the University of Chicago, examined millions of journal articles and other publications. They concluded that having a publication available online in an open source journal did increase the number of times it was read and cited, but having the publication available online in a commercial format increased its usage even more. These findings seemingly contradict previous research into open source publishing. Evans and Reimer did discover that open source publishing provides a vital source of information for researchers and scholars in the developing world who may not otherwise have access to this type of material. Their research appears in the February 20, 2009 edition of the journal Science.
Credit: National Science Foundation/AAAS

The research into open source publications appears in the February 20, 2009, edition of the journal Science.
Credit: Copyright AAAS 2009

 

nsf.gov - News - Open Access to Scientific Papers May Not Guarantee Wide Dissemination- All Images - US National Science Foundation (NSF) - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

Gems & Gemology Goes Online -

 Gems & Gemology Goes Online - 2/18/2009 1:01:00 PM - JCK-Jewelers Circular Keystone

Gems & Gemology Goes Online\

"Some open access availability -- see below -- HSM"

-- JCK-Jewelers Circular Keystone, 2/18/2009 1:01:00 PM

Gems & Gemology, the quarterly journal of the Gemological Institute of America, is now available in electronic format at gia.metapress.com.

G&G Online comprises all elements of the print version, plus the Book Reviews and Gemological Abstracts sections, which appear online-only starting with the Winter 2008 issue, released in January. Individual articles and sections are available for download as PDF files the same day the print issue mails.

Current print subscribers have the option to add online access to their subscriptions for a nominal additional fee. Online-only subscriptions are also available and are priced the same as U.S.-address print subscriptions. Feature articles as well as journal sections such as Lab Notes (news from the GIA Laboratory) and Gem News International can also be purchased individually.

“Electronic access is the standard for scientific publishing,” said G&G editor-in-chief Alice Keller. “We are very pleased to offer this additional means of delivering the journal’s content to our readers. We’re especially excited for our international subscribers, who will now be able to see the journal as soon as it’s released instead of having to wait weeks for the issue to arrive by mail.”

To enhance the availability of gemological research, some of G&G Online is open (free) access, particularly the Book Reviews, Gemological Abstracts, Editorials, and Letters sections. Currently, all these sections from Spring 1981 through Winter 2008 are freely available on the MetaPress site.

Many past articles are also open access. These include several landmark works from the GIA Laboratory, such as the Fall 2004 article on the development of GIA’s diamond cut grading system and the Winter 2007 update on Apollo CVD-grown synthetic diamonds. 
Finally, the recent fall 2008 issue, which features articles on the identification of synthetic diamond melee and several new synthetic gem materials, is open access and will remain so indefinitely to allow readers to check out the new online version.

The content of G&G Online goes through the same rigorous production process as the print version. However, because of the difficulties of controlling color appearance across different computer monitors, GIA cannot guarantee that accurate colors will be displayed in the electronic versions. Readers needing precise color representation should refer to the printed issues of the journal.

To check out G&G Online, visit gia.metapress.com and click on “Journal Issues” or the G&G cover. To purchase an online subscription, visit www.gia.edu/gemsandgemology or call toll-free (800) 421-7250, ext. 7142. Outside the U.S. and Canada, call (760) 603-4000, ext. 7142

Gems & Gemology Goes Online - 2/18/2009 1:01:00 PM - JCK-Jewelers Circular Keystone

The Diamondback - Guest column: Online freedom

The Diamondback - Guest column: Online freedom 

Guest column: Online freedom

By: Catherine Simpson

Posted: 2/19/09

Did you know the average student spends about $1,000 annually on textbooks alone? This massive expense is about half of the tuition of an average two-year institution, and all we get out of it are books that only six percent of us will ever read in their entirety.
The article in Tuesday's Diamondback, "Professors take aim at high book expenses," highlighted the issue of skyrocketing textbook prices. Textbook prices have increased roughly four times the rate of inflation, making affording college an even bigger issue. On top of budget cuts, tuition hikes and lack of resources, college is becoming too expensive for the average student and leaving millions in debt. Shouldn't we start to take control of our expenses?
Professors Allen Stairs and Sonya Michel proposed that faculty should come together to save students money and make use of the wide array of digital and textbook alternative resources available to faculty members right now. The university's chapter of the Maryland Public Interest Research Group is already working on organizing a forum to bring faculty members together this semester to discuss what options exist.
Open textbooks are the best alternative option. Professors and leading researchers can create an online textbook with free, open access to any interested person. Teachers can choose information from multiple sources and edit it for their needs, cutting out the excess information found in most textbooks that students have to pay for. Not only does this reduce the cost for students, it also allows flexibility for teachers to teach from many different sources instead of one fixed book.
While many may not be aware of this issue, the open textbook movement is making headway in many areas, and people are interested. A survey of faculty at 28 different colleges and universities across the country asked opinions on education resources such as open textbooks. An overwhelming 91 percent responded that they would be interested in using open textbooks, but only 34 percent knew there were resources to use.
Fields such as science, medicine and health have an overwhelming amount of open information available to them, and the social sciences have a wealth of opportunity in this field, as well. These books are of the same quality as current textbooks, and are written by leaders in these fields. Additionally, the resources already out there are already being used by peer institutions, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology - MIT even has a digital databank of resources for almost every course at the school. The information is out there, it just needs to be used.
This university has an opportunity to be a leader in the evolution of textbooks and information resources. However, faculty members shouldn't have to go it alone to find these materials - the administration and departments should work with faculty members to assist them in making this transition.
And as students, we must take it upon ourselves to ask our teachers and administration what they can do to help make a better, innovative classroom experience.
Catherine Simpson is a senior criminology and criminal justice and sociology major. She can be reached at csimpso4@umd.edu.

---

© Copyright 2009 The Diamondback

The Diamondback - Guest column: Online freedom

Virginia Open Sourcing Physics Textbook ("Flexbook") - Tools of Change for Publishing

Virginia Open Sourcing Physics Textbook ("Flexbook") - Tools of Change for Publishing 

Virginia Open Sourcing Physics Textbook ("Flexbook")

Andrew Savikas
February 18, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (3) | Listen

I was part of a brief Twitter exchange recently with Cengage's Ken Brooks about the cost of textbooks:

kenbrooks: @doctorow #toc That depends entirely on the type of book. A K-12 reading program costs $millions.

andrewsavikas: @kenbrooks not necessarily. See ck12.org

kenbrooks: @andrewsavikas Talk to McGraw Hill or Pearson about basal reading programs. The intricacies are staggering. #toc

I like Ken a lot personally (and respect him a ton professionally), and I have no reason to doubt that it does take millions to develop many educational programs. But my reference to ck12.org (whose founder, Neeru Khosla, keynoted at TOC 2008) was because if it does cost that much, then something's wrong with the system, and that's not likely to change without the work of groups like ck12.

In fact, Virgina is already in the process of developing an open-source "flexbook" for physics using the ck12 platform:

Secretary of Technology Aneesh Chopra and Secretary of Education Tom Morris today announced the selection of thirteen individuals to form a core team to pilot the development and release of an open–source physics "flexbook" for Virginia. This electronic material will focus on high school physics and contain contemporary and emerging 21st century physics and modern laboratory experiments.

The Virginia Physics "Flexbook" project is a collaborative effort of the Secretaries of Education and Technology and the Department of Education that seeks to elevate the quality of physics instruction across the Commonwealth by allowing educators to create and compile supplemental materials relating to 21st century physics in an open–source format that can be used to strengthen physics content. The Commonwealth is partnering with the Palo Alto, California–based non–profit, CK–12 on this initiative as they will provide the free, open–source technology platform to facilitate the publication of the newly developed content as a "flexbook" — defined simply as an adaptive, web–based set of instructional materials.

"We need transformational ideas to ensure all Virginians are educated to compete in an increasingly competitive global economy," said Secretary Chopra. "This pilot initiative is a step in the right direction to introduce our students to contemporary physics topics and lab materials at no additional cost to the taxpayers or students," added Secretary Morris.

There is certainly a place for the investment-intensive educational publishing programs that only a firm with the resources of Cengage or Pearson or McGraw-Hill can provide. But there's also enormous opportunity to try new models that take advantage of the kind of collaboration that underpins all of academia to develop and distribute

Virginia Open Sourcing Physics Textbook ("Flexbook") - Tools of Change for Publishing

Project Runway: The Am Law Daily Edition

Project Runway: The Am Law Daily Edition

"Interesting side of copyright/patent/intellectual property -- design issues --HSM"

Much of what people generally think of when they hear fashion and legal issues are the knockoffs and fakes. Does a recession mean there are more knockoffs on the market?

The level of knockoffs generally increases in a downturn because people cut corners. As a result, enforcement increases to respond to the level of infringement. I don't know if that's going to happen this time. One of the big topics of debate at a conference on fashion at Columbia Business School last week that J.Crew CEO Mickey Drexler talked about was the death of luxury goods--that consumers would not want to carry a luxury bag in a down period. But what we see is luxury handbags often do very well no matter what because they are an investment purchase.

What's the level of enforcement like here in the U.S. as compared to, say, France, where so many luxury brands were born?

In France, the laws for protection of fashion designs and against counterfeiting are much more stringent than they are here. France has very pro-designer fashion laws. For example, you can't even possess a counterfeit. If you do possess counterfeits, they can be seized. In the U.S., if someone buys a counterfeit, there's no law against buying and possessing a counterfeit.

It's also Oscars Week, which reminds me of the post-awards morning talk show segments, with designers like ABS Allan Schwartz introducing dresses that look just like the couture gowns from the red carpet. Where does this fall into this world of knockoffs and copyrights and lawsuits?

If you were in France, it would probably be illegal, based on the distinctiveness and originality of the original dress. In the U.S., it's difficult, unless you can fit that design into some category that's protectable such as a design patent, trademark or copyright. That's been one of the impetuses behind the Design Piracy legislation that's been introduced in Congress to amend the copyright laws during the past few Congresses.

What does the legislation propose?
Basically, Design Piracy Prohibition Act legislation was introduced in Congress a few years ago, of which the Council of Fashion Designers of America has been very supportive, to amend the copyright to introduce a design protection law. The first recent bill was introduced in 2006, then again in 2007. It extends protections to the appearance of an item of apparel--and the definition of apparel is very wide ranging, including things like underwear, eyewear, belts, and handbags. The designer would have to register the copyright within three months of coming up with the design. There is design piracy legislation in Europe, India, and Japan. But it's never really made it out of Congress. Some people argue that a designer should not have a monopoly on the design of clothing.

Project Runway: The Am Law Daily Edition

Dell Tries to Cancel Psion "Netbook" Copyright - Gearlog

Dell Tries to Cancel Psion "Netbook" Copyright - Gearlog

"Shouldn't it say Trademark not copyright -- HSM"

Dell Tries to Cancel Psion "Netbook" Copyright

There's a case to made for the genericization of the word "netbook." The term has come to refer to lightweight, low-power PCs. Even as the definition of what constitutes a netbook becomes more blurred, the word's place in our daily vocabulary has become further cemented. After all, in this age of cloud computing and economic uncertainly, netbook manufacturers have been doing pretty brisk business.

The thing is, Psion owns the right to the term. The company copyrighted it in the 90s, and as it has become commonly used, Psion has become more aggressive about attempting to secure its trademark: It has sent letters to manufacturers who have been bandying about the term. Dell is among those guilty parties, having just released the Inspiron Mini 10.

So now, Dell has taken it upon itself to file a Trademark Cancellation petition: "Upon information and belief, Psion intends not to resume bona fide use of the Netbook name in the ordinary course of trade."

Dell Tries to Cancel Psion "Netbook" Copyright - Gearlog

Evil Mad Scientist's "BristleBot" project boosted by Scholastic / Klutz for book, no credit in sight - Engadget

Evil Mad Scientist's "BristleBot" project boosted by Scholastic / Klutz for book, no credit in sight - Engadget 

"From the comments there doesn't seem like anything in terms of copyright here, but I really like the video, so ......HSM"

Evil Mad Scientist's "BristleBot" project boosted by Scholastic / Klutz for book, no credit in sight

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Feb 19th 2009 at 3:02PM

 

In an upsetting -- though somehow not surprising -- turn of events, it appears that Scholastic and partner company Klutz have ripped off the work of two Makers, Windell and Lenore Oskay. The duo (also known as Evil Mad Scientists) created a charming little droid called a BristleBot which can be easily constructed using the head of a toothbrush, a pager motor, and a tiny amount of elbow grease. Apparently, Scholastic liked the idea so much that they turned it into a kit and book for kids (with the help of Klutz), but failed to involve or even credit the gadget's original creators. Knowing how open and excited the Make crew (and friends / cohorts) are about sharing their ideas, this comes as a particularly disheartening piece of news. Check out the read link for the whole story, and we're including Scholastic's media relations page below if you want to get in touch. Video of the original project after the break.
Read - Sad day for makers - unauthorized book from Klutz and Scholastic "BristleBots"
Read - Scholastic media contact

Evil Mad Scientist's "BristleBot" project boosted by Scholastic / Klutz for book, no credit in sight - Engadget

mocoNews.net - Skype And Mozilla Petition For IPhone 'Jailbreaking' Exemption - washingtonpost.com

 mocoNews.net - Skype And Mozilla Petition For IPhone 'Jailbreaking' Exemption - washingtonpost.com

mocoNews.net - Skype And Mozilla Petition For IPhone 'Jailbreaking' Exemption

James Quintana Pearce

mocoNews.net
Thursday, February 19, 2009; 7:00 PM

Skype and Mozilla have joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation in fighting against Apple's statement that jailbreaking the iPhone constitutes copyright infringement by circumnavigating protection measures. Skype and Mozilla filed comments with the US Copyright Office arguing that it should loosen the Digital Millenium Copyright Act's restrictions on jailbreaking iPhones, reports The Register. Naturally, Skype and Mozilla have a vested interest in their products being able to be free loaded onto devices, and a vested interest against a manufacturer (or carrier) preventing people from installing the software. Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is the main target here, but the decision would have ramifications across the mobile industry (and possibly other industries).

Apple is opposed to the exemption because "it will destroy the technological protection of Apple's key copyrighted computer programs in the iPhone device itself and of copyrighted content owned by Apple that plays on the iPhone, resulting in copyright infringement, potential damage to the device and other potential harmful physical effects, adverse effects on the functioning of the device, and breach of contract".

Is the question one of who has the right to control what goes on a device after it has been purchased? The New York Times has a piece on the topic, saying that isn't really the issue. "Jennifer S. Granick, a lawyer for the E.F.F., said that Apple could force buyers of the phone to agree to any conditions it wants to write into a user agreement. But those agreements would be governed by contract law, which would force Apple to sue users and prove actual damages?Under copyright law, Apple would have the right to claim statutory damages of up to $2,500 "per act of circumvention". People who jailbreak phones might even be subject to criminal penalties of as long as five years, if they circumvented copyright for a financial gain."

Apple's Comments PDFSkype's Comments PDFMozilla's Comments PDFEFF's Comments PDF

mocoNews.net - Skype And Mozilla Petition For IPhone 'Jailbreaking' Exemption - washingtonpost.com

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Dame Vera loses out on old songs

 BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Dame Vera loses out on old songs

"Whatever happened to the idea of life of the artist or 50 years? Interesting when you look at the hits section of the article most of the performers are dead, so who benefits with 59 years -- the performer who need the few hundred pounds or the record company? -- HSM"

Dame Vera loses out on old songs

By Julian Joyce
BBC News

 

Dame Vera Lynn is reportedly outraged over the inclusion, without her consent, of her famous song, The White Cliffs of Dover, on a CD sold to raise funds for the far-right British National Party (BNP).

But the 91-year-old former forces' sweetheart - who is said to be consulting her lawyers - is unlikely to win any legal battle against the BNP.

This is because, like many other older musicians, she has lost the rights over any material she recorded more than 50 years ago.

Now that may change, as a directive currently working its way through the European parliament will, if passed and then approved by the Council of Ministers, extend performers' copyright beyond the current limit.

The rules aim to extend performers' copyright to up to 95 years after songs were recorded.

It would mean that performers, or their heirs, and their record companies would be paid every time their old recordings - which would be copyright-free under current rules - were broadcast.

There is nothing to stop a creative person using an old recording as part of their work - as long as they do not release it

Record industry source

Downloading old songs would also come at a price - with recording companies likely to get the lion's share of any money to be made.

The rules would not be retrospective, and would apply only to songs about to slip out of copyright.

But the appetite for change is being partially driven by the prospect of huge amounts of popular material from the 1960s - such as Beatles songs - becoming royalty-free over the next few years.

Supporters - including Dame Vera and Sir Cliff Richard - say it is unfair long-standing musicians lose rights over their own material in their lifetimes.

They say it denies them income which they honestly earned.

But critics say the new rules will "stifle creativity" and that it is the record companies, not the artists who will benefit most.

Showbusiness lawyer Nigel Angel - who represents Dame Vera - said he had "nothing to add" on the reported row between his client and the BNP.

But he confirmed that other older musicians he represented were concerned at losing out on royalty income in their later years.

"Some of them have no pensions and need this money," he said. "You are either gifted or good at business. It's rare to be both."

HITS AFFECTED BY CHANGE

Lonnie Donegan - My Old Man's A Dustman -- "Dead"

Everly Brothers - Cathy's Clown

Eddie Cochrane - Three Steps To Heaven -- "Dead"

Johnny Kidd and The Pirates - Shakin' All Over --"Dead, i.e. Kidd don't know about the Pirates"

Shadows - Apache

Ricky Valence - Tell Laura I Love Her -- "Dead"

Roy Orbison - Only The Lonely -- "Dead"

Elvis Presley - It's Now Or Never -- "Dead"

Jonathan Morrish of PPL - which represents the rights of 38,000 performers and their record companies - said "millions" of songs would be lifted into copyright if the rules were changed.

"About 90% of our performers earn less that £15,000 a year, and even a few hundred pounds extra would mean an awful lot to them."

Negotiations are ongoing about precisely how long performers' copyright should last.

A few countries - like the Netherlands - have opposed any change to current rules.

The record industry favours 95 years, but UK ministers say this period "goes beyond" what is necessary to protect performers' interests.

 

The CD being sold by the BNP is also available from many other outlets

Intellectual property minister David Lammy confirmed that performers "should be protected throughout their lifetime."

A European Parliament source confirmed that a compromise 70-year extension was currently being discussed.

Opponents of copyright extension say any benefits accruing to older performers are outweighed by the "stifling of creativity".

Professor Lionel Bently, of Cambridge University's Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law, said extending copyright risked putting thousands of recordings - free to use under current rules - out of the reach of other artists and fans.

"For instance, it means that someone who wants to put up a website about, for example, the history of jazz will now have to seek permission and pay for the recordings," he said.

"It probably would not be worth their while."

Artists who wanted to use part of an old recording as part of a new work would be affected, he added.

And he estimated consumers and broadcasters would pay about £2bn extra for music and other recordings if copyright was extended to 95 years.

 

The Beatles back catalogue is worth many millions of pounds

Critics also accuse the recording industry of backing copyright extension because it is they, rather than the performers, who will benefit most.

Jim Killock, of the Open Rights Group, said research had shown that an estimated 80% of of extra money earned by copyright extension would go to recording companies, rather than artists.

"Extension won't help incentivise creativity or aid our artists," he added.

Critics also say the extension will lead to many older songs languishing unheard in record companies' back catalogues and unheard - a prediction record companies dispute.

They argue that copyright extension will encourage firms to digitise and release old songs - because there is money to be made from them.

An industry source told the BBC that record companies were determined to lobby for a 95-year copyright extension, arguing it would "harmonise" Europe with the US.

Said the source: "The 'creativity' argument is based on ignorance.

"There is nothing to stop a creative person using an old recording as part of their work - as long as they do not release it.

"If they do want to release it - and perhaps make money from it themselves - then they need to seek permission from the originator and pay them a fair price."

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Dame Vera loses out on old songs

Q & A: New Music Rights in iTunes - Gadgetwise Blog - NYTimes.com

Q & A: New Music Rights in iTunes - Gadgetwise Blog - NYTimes.com 

Q & A: New Music Rights in iTunes

By J.D. Biersdorfer

Q: What does it mean when iTunes music is “D.R.M.-free”? Does that mean I can play the files on other types of music players?

 

A: “D.R.M.” stands for digital-rights management, which is the copy-protection software built into many songs purchased from the iTunes Store; tracks labeled “iTunes Plus” are free of it. Songs with D.R.M. can only be played on a certain number of computers and have other specified limits for use.

But earlier this year at the Macworld Expo, Apple announced that it was making all of the music in its iTunes Store D.R.M.-free over the next few months, which means there are no software restrictions on what you can do with a purchased song.

D.R.M.-free songs from the iTunes Store should play on other music players besides iPods and iPhones. Tracks from the iTunes Store are in the A.A.C. (Advanced Audio Coding) format. If the non-Apple music player cannot play A.A.C. files, you will have to convert the tracks to MP3.

You can actually do this right in iTunes: go to the iTunes preferences (found under the Edit menu in the Windows version and under the Application menu on the Mac) and click on the General tab. Click on the Import Settings button and change the import format to MP3. Then, select a track you want to convert in the iTunes library, right-click on it and choose “Create MP3 Version” from the menu. This makes a duplicate version in the MP3 format.

Although the copy-restrictions are gone, copyright law is still in effect. And another thing to remember before sharing iTunes music with the world at large: the name and e-mail address from the iTunes Store account used to buy a song are embedded in the purchased song file itself. You can see the information by selecting the track and pressing Control-I (Command-I on the Mac) and clicking on the Summary tab.

Q & A: New Music Rights in iTunes - Gadgetwise Blog - NYTimes.com

3 News > Science-Tech > Story > Stephen Fry leads protest against 'guilt upon accusation' copyright laws

  Science-Tech > Story > Stephen Fry leads protest against 'guilt upon accusation' copyright laws" href="http://www.3news.co.nz/Stephen-Fry-leads-protest-against-guilt-upon-accusation-copyright-laws/tabid/412/articleID/91412/cat/73/Default.aspx">3 News > Science-Tech > Story > Stephen Fry leads protest against 'guilt upon accusation' copyright laws

Stephen Fry leads protest against 'guilt upon accusation' copyright laws

 

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 5:59a.m.

UK comedian and leading Twitterer Stephen Fry has called on users of social networking sites to black out their profile picture to protest so-called “guilt upon accusation” changes to New Zealand's copyright laws.

Fry wrote the following message on his Twitter site several days ago:

“If you’re on Twitter, would you change your avatar to black to show support for the fight against a ‘three accusations and you’re offline’ law in New Zealand?”

The star's campaign has found widespread support and even resulted in the website geekzone.co.nz

which is running a concurrent protest, crashing yesterday.

The protest centres on sections 92A and 92C of the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act, which comes into effect at the end of February.

The new law puts the responsibility for illegal downloading of copyrighted material in the hands of internet service providers, who will be asked to terminate the accounts of customers who infringe the law.

ISPs are being advised to offer a “three strikes and you’re out” policy – issuing up to three “education” notices before cutting off accounts.

The blackout protest is the idea of website www.creativefreedom.org.nz, which urges people to black out the pictures on their social networking sites in support of their campaign against what they describe as an “unjust law”.

3 News > Science-Tech > Story > Stephen Fry leads protest against 'guilt upon accusation' copyright laws

Cornell University Copyright Information Center - About Us

Cornell University Copyright Information Center - About Us 

About the Copyright Information Center

Goals

The goal of the Copyright Information Center is to provide Cornell faculty, staff, and students with Cornell-specific and general information about copyright. The Website serves as an information clearinghouse and contains Cornell policies, general information, reference materials, and information on the University's copyright awareness and education programs. You can also find information about the copyright clearance and consultancy services to assist you with your copyright-related questions.

We are interested in hearing your comments. Please send us your feedback and suggestions to support the further development of the Center.

Partners

This Website has been collectively developed by the following Cornell units. If you have any questions or need to contact one of the partners, please use the Help form:

Cornell University Library - (Website Development Coordinator)
Peter Hirtle, Intellectual Property Officer
Jesse Koennecke, Public Services Librarian
Fiona Patrick, Copyright Services
Oya Y. Rieger, Coordinator of Distributed Learning

Cornell Information Technologies
Joan Falkenberg Getman, Assistant Director, Distributed Learning Services
Diane Kubarek, Trainer/Technical Consultant
Todd Olson, Steward, Cornell E-Mail-List and USENET News Services
Clare van den Blink, Faculty Development and Training Program Coordinator

Office of Information Technologies
Tracy Mitrano, Policy Advisor

Office of University Counsel
Patricia McClary, Associate University Counsel

The Cornell Store
Jim Lawrence, Custom Publishing Manager

Cornell University Copyright Information Center - About Us

The Daily Beacon

The Daily Beacon 

Fund for open access publishing offers opportunities for faculty

Olivia Smithscott - Staff Writer

2009-02-16 22:19:53

A new fund sponsored by the Office of Research and the University Libraries is intended to encourage and assist publishing in open access journals, according to their Web site.

Open access publishing is a developing �model for the communication of research and scholarship,� the Web site says, serving as a digital repository for scholarly materials to be freely accessed with no cost to the receiver for the information.

Open access publishing, an alternative to the more expensive commercial publishing commonly used for academic publication, also seeks to cut down on the costs to academic institutions, which often pay large amounts of money to receive access to these scholarly journals. Linda Phillips, head of scholarly communication, said that the current system is a rather costly one.

�The university pays twice for journal articles,� Phillips said. �We pay faculty to write articles, and then we pay high prices for subscriptions to the journals where they�re published.�

The fund, which was founded in the fall semester of last year, provides money to faculty and graduate students wishing to publish in an open access journal. According to the Web site, the open access publishers charge money to the authors rather than the readers to cover the costs of publishing.

The money for the fund comes from an opportunities fund used for the pursuit of various research and scholarly opportunities, said Gregory Reed, vice chancellor for research administration. The Open Access Fund, at the moment, contains $20,000 for assistance.

Another huge advantage, besides considerable financial savings, Phillips said, is that the author may keep the copyright of their material, so they aren�t selling their work to someone else and are then able to publish in more than one place.

Phillips said the need for such an alternative system stems from a trend in commercial publishing over the past 30 years: an inelastic demand and the hike of subscription fees, due to the lack of competition.

�Some commercial publishers realized they could make a lot of money by increasing the prices of their journals because there�s no competition,� Phillips said. �And when faculty choose where they want to publish, they pick the journal title that is most prestigious, and often it�s the commercial title that carries the most prestige because the publisher has the resources to put into it.�

Recently, Phillips said, due to ever-increasing subscription fees sometimes numbering around $10,000 a month, the scholarly community has begun to seek out better ways of sharing their research.

�We as faculty are required to publish as a part of our job, and the reason that we publish is not to make money. It is to disseminate the results of our research,� she said. �If we�re going to disseminate the results of our research, why should somebody else make money off of it? We said, �What if we published in journals that said they were going to cover the costs in some way other than through subscriptions?��

Phillips said another issue with these commercial scholarly publications is that much of the content is determined by the publisher rather than a peer evaluator.

�Because these certain journals developed really great reputations, effectively, the publisher is the one making decisions about the quality rather than the discipline,� she said. �It�s like the publisher is controlling the peer review process, not the scholarly society.�

Although open access seems to be a promising new frontier, one problem with the open access route, said Reed, is that it may take awhile for it to reach the respectability and prominence of the commercial publications. Reed concluded that several factors would contribute to an improved reputation for open access.

�First of all they�ll have to have some sort of review or approval process that insures that peers will deem it as being reliable,� he said. �If anybody can post anything, then it�s not reliable. The next step would be for faculty in general to recognize it as being a peer quality review. In the final analysis, that�s where the journals got their success.�

So far, Reed said, there hasn�t been as much interest as expected in the fund, with very few applications for assistance being submitted. But Reed attributes this to caution and unfamiliarity with the new system on the part of authors.

Despite the slow response, Phillips cited Ralf Schimmer in The Chronicle of Higher Education for his promising evaluation of how relevant open access will become in time.

�I call it the logical next step, to move beyond the repository and subscription model scheme,� Schimmer said. �Open access is an inevitable, unstoppable and irreversible development.�

The Daily Beacon

CC Licensing Your Dissertations - Creative Commons

CC Licensing Your Dissertations - Creative Commons 

CC Licensing Your Dissertations

Jane Park, February 17th, 2009

PhD students slave for years on researching, writing, and drafting a final product, usually text, that marks the culmination of their candidacy for the highly esteemed doctoral degree. This product is then reviewed by a tenured member of the faculty in their domain of expertise, or a small committee of said members. Upon passing this review, the student is finally rewarded the title of “Doctor” along with its perceived reputation. The dissertation, unfortunately, usually falls to the wayside and is, for the most part, never read again.

Furthermore, because most dissertations are fully copyrighted, these significant pieces of work cannot be reproduced or redistributed for future students’ research. So why not do the obvious? Why not work with copyright law and publish your dissertation under an open license, thereby increasing its exposure to the world, academic or otherwise?

Two UC Berkeley graduates from the School of Information have gone ahead and taken a stab at doing this by CC licensing their dissertations. In the words of The Daily Californian, UC Berkeley’s independent, student-run newspaper:

“This license opens up many possibilities in the academic world such as free online course readers, zero cost educational multimedia, gratis online tutorials-even the price of paper textbooks could be drastically reduced. Perhaps more important than cost, however, by using Creative Commons you are essentially “paying it forward” by sharing your intellectual output with the academic community because future generations of scholars will have greater access to your work.

Two recent Berkeley students to file their dissertations using a Creative Commons license are Joseph Lorenzo Hall and danah boyd. Hall navigated through much bureaucratic red tape, but found that most of his difficulty came from simple formatting issues, not any ideological disagreement by the univerisyt. Another School of Information graduate, danah boyd, also filed her dissertation under Creative Commons shortly thereafter.

On Jan. 28, the Dean of the Graduate Division committed to make Creative Commons licensing available to future students. All students interested in contributing to the effort to make education more affordable and accessible should consider using Creative Commons instead of traditional copyright.”

Both danah’s and Joseph’s dissertations are licensed CC BY-NC-ND and are respectively entitled “Taken Out of Context — American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics” and “Policy Mechanisms for Increasing
Transparency in Electronic Voting“.

We hope that other institutions and individuals will also embrace the significant benefits gained by CC licensing academic outputs such as dissertations. For one thing, CC licensing increases your creation’s visibility, even if by only a small margin at first. It lets current and future students access and read (and even derive, based on the specific CC license you choose) your work so that they can build and improve upon it—all the while giving credit where credit is due, namely, to you.

CC Licensing Your Dissertations - Creative Commons