Today’s the Last Day: Make the Case for Open Access | Peer to Peer Review
The time to send messages to the White House ended January 21
Barbara Fister, Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN -- Library Journal, 1/21/2010
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Have you told the White House what you think about open access to publicly funded research? The Office of Science and Technology Policy has been accepting comments for weeks now, but the window of opportunity to add your thoughts closes today.
You haven’t commented yet? Do it now. Don’t worry. I’ll wait for you.
Okay, now that you’re back, I want to confess that there’s a lot involved that I don’t personally understand: the technical requirements, the need for uniformity, the way the deposits should work—I don’t have opinions on the fine points. What I do believe, though, is that the research funded by our tax dollars is important because it’s a public good. We wouldn’t be funding it with public dollars otherwise. It’s good for academic science, but it’s good for industry, too. (See also what ALA/ACRL and ARL have to say.)
Sharing science
My son is a physics postdoc at the Argonne National Laboratory. He does things with our tax dollars that I couldn’t begin to explain, but I do get that what he does may end up improving batteries that will be sold in products that we’ll be using—laptops, cars, you name it. It’s good for consumers. It’s good for business. And it’s especially good for pushing forward the frontiers of what we know about materials at a very fundamental level. (I mean, he fires photons at stuff to see what happens. That’s pretty basic.)What if students or faculty at my college need to read up on the latest research published by the people whose synchrotron is funded by our taxes? Well, they’re probably in luck. Physicists are big on sharing. They’ve been doing it for years, through arXiv and by making their own society publications open access friendly. Not everything is available, of course, but quite a lot is. They still publish massive amounts of research, but somehow they feel their interest in supporting a quality publishing operation is not incompatible with fast and free dissemination of results.
Not on the same page
Other science disciplines taught at my campus aren’t quite as open. In biology, there are myriad worthy societies that rely on earnings from library subscriptions, and there are even more commercially-published journals that rank high in importance. Neuroscience is an exciting concentration that is attracting a lot of students but, oy, it’s expensive. Like physics, chemistry has a major society that represents many branches of the field, but its journals are pricey and the logic of open access is not wired into the discipline as it is in physics.We also pay a lot just to find out what we don’t have. Our most expensive specialized databases are those covering chemistry and mathematics literature. The vast majority of what these tools index is published in journals we can’t afford, but, if we expect our faculty to be active scholars (and we do), there’s really no alternative. We have to hope that the land grant university up the road whose library we depend on will have enough tax-supported funding to provide access to the fair-use articles we can obtain, and that we’ll be able to afford copyright fees for the rest. For this to work, somebody, somewhere, has to buy a subscription.
Many small colleges like mine are going straight to paying commercial publishers for articles at point of need, and they’re saving a lot of money on subscriptions. But this means that, by design, there is no public asset to explore, even on a licensed, temporary basis. Scientific research is thus a disposable unit purchased for individuals, a solution that still costs libraries thousands of dollars per year. That’s a savings that comes at a steep cost.
Whose crisis?
This situation, of course, is often mistakenly called “the serials crisis.” It might be more accurate to call it the humanities crisis, because both my library and the research university we count on have less money for books, which are the lifeblood of many humanities disciplines. We know we have to pay fees for journal articles, because the only way we share them is by copying. Thanks to the first sale doctrine, we can share a book until it falls apart—and it’s politically a lot easier to not buy a book than it is to cancel a journal or database subscription.Here’s another thing: it has always seemed peculiar to me that the “5/5 rule” CONTU guideline for the interlibrary loan (ILL) of articles is a flat rate of five articles, published within the most recent five years, regardless of the size of a journal. We can get five articles from a science journal that publishes 1000 short articles a year—and five articles from a humanities journal that publishes 20 long articles a year. That doesn’t seem right, but such are the peculiar metrics of copyright compromises. It’s considered fair use to request by ILL some 20 percent of the humanities journal before paying copyright fees (which tend to be very affordable, anyway) but only one half of one percent of the big science journal, for which copyright fees typically cost the price of a scholarly trade paperback in the humanities. No wonder we’re buying fewer books.
Science in the public interest
We have a long way to go before we sort out the economics of publishing in a digital world. Book publishers are sweating over when to release ebooks, and the newspaper of record is poised to start charging frequent flyers.But this one is a no-brainer. We believe science is valuable enough that we pour public funding into it. We need to make sure that the results of that funding helps advance our knowledge of the physical and natural world, and that won’t happen if libraries can no longer afford it. Let’s make sure our investment pays off—for the public good.
The White House wants to hear from us. Add your comments to the open forum today.
Barbara Fister is a librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN, a contributor to ACRLog, and an author of crime fiction. Her next mystery, Through the Cracks, will be published by Minotaur Books this year.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Today’s the Last Day: Make the Case for Open Access | Peer to Peer Review - 1/21/2010 - Library Journal
Friday, January 15, 2010
White House Mulls Plan to Broaden Access to Published Papers -- Kaiser 327 (5963): 259 -- Science
White House Mulls Plan to Broaden Access to Published Papers -- Kaiser 327 (5963): 259 -- Science
White House Mulls Plan to Broaden Access to Published Papers Jocelyn Kaiser Should all papers that result from U.S. taxpayerfunded research be made freely available? The White House science office likes the idea and has asked for input on whether many federal agencies should formally adopt it. So-called open access advocates are enthusiastic in comments submitted to a White House forum, but some scientific societies remain wary, fearing that a too-broad public-access policy could kill journal subscriptions. Both sides agree that the White House appears to be moving toward a plan. "They're focusing not on should we do this but how would we do this," says Heather Joseph, executive director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, a librarian group and open-access proponent. The push for mandatory release of research papers started 2 years ago at the National Institutes of Health, which required that grantees send copies of their peer-reviewed, accepted papers to the agency. NIH posts the final manuscripts or published papers in its free PubMedCentral archive; release can be delayed on request up to 12 months after publication. The objective has been to give patients and the public broader access to research results. Despite grumbling from publishers, NIH says the policy is working smoothly. Last month, as part of President Barack Obama's "open government" activities, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) launched an online discussion about whether the NIH model should be expanded to other agencies. The OSTP forum asks nine questions, including how to ensure that authors comply. About 400 comments have been submitted so far from scores of individual scientists, librarians, publishers, and others. The majority support broadening public access, says OSTP Assistant Director of Life Sciences Diane DiEuliis, a neuroscientist on detail from NIH. "There was a fair consensus on the general issue," she told Science by e-mail, as well as on other questions, such as "embargo times": how long an author and journal can keep a paper under private control. Many suggested using the current NIH embargo12 monthsand preferred central repositories like PubMedCentral rather than university archives. But even a 12-month delay worries some nonprofit scientific publishers. For example, mineralogists and anthropologists argued that their papersunlike those in biomedical researchmay have a very long "half life" and that releasing the full text on the Internet could cause journals to lose subscribers. Katherine McCarter of the Ecological Society of America, which has not yet submitted comments, says that for ecology journals, "even a 1-year delay could be a real disincentive to buy a subscription." The cost of producing a single paper can run significantly higher in social sciences because papers need more space and require a "more robust peer-review process," argues William E. Davis III, executive director of the American Anthropological Association. His letter warns that mandatory release of such papers "could well result in the demise of the very journals that ... advocates seek to make more freely available." Despite such concerns, OSTP seems to be moving inexorably toward a general open-access policy. DiEuliis says OSTP will sort through all comments (the deadline has been extended until 21 January) and send suggestions to an interagency working group. This panel will also consider a report due this week from a group of publishers and other stakeholders that OSTP and the House Science Committee convened last June. One possibility, DiEuliis says, is that OSTP could draft an executive order or memo that would set out "minimum standards" but "give agencies flexibility to create custom plans.
White House Mulls Plan to Broaden Access to Published Papers -- Kaiser 327 (5963): 259 -- Science
Friday, January 8, 2010
Blade Runner author's family takes aim at Google - Gadgets - NZ Herald News
Blade Runner author's family takes aim at Google - Gadgets - NZ Herald News
Blade Runner author's family takes aim at Google By Kevin Rawlinson 12:53
The family of Blade Runner's author claim Google nicked names for its Nexus One smartphone.
The family of Blade Runner's author claim Google nicked names for its Nexus One smartphone. The family of author Philip K Dick is threatening to sue Google for infringement of intellectual property rights over its new Nexus One mobile. Isa Dick Hackett, daughter of the American writer, says that many of the names of the phone's features are lifted directly from her father's book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and the 1982 film Blade Runner based upon it. The Nexus One's operating system is called Android and the rogue cyborgs in the book are called Nexus 6s. Ms Dick Hackett sent a letter to Google yesterday, the day after the phone's launch, demanding that the corporation change the name. "Google takes first and then deals with the fallout later. In my mind, there is a very obvious connection to my father's novel. People don't get it. It's the principle of it. It would be nice to have a dialogue. We are open to it. That's a way to start," she said. Google's new product is based on its Android technology, launched two years ago. The company hopes that the phone - a direct competitor to the Apple iPhone - will gain it a share in the mobile phone market.
Google claimed at the phone's launch on Tuesday that the Nexus name is used in the word's original sense - as a place where things converge. In Dick's book, set in a future San Francisco, the main protagonist, Rick Deckard -n played by the actor Harrison Ford in Blade Runner - is a bounty hunter, searching for renegade androids who have escaped their human masters and are trying to lead lives as humans. After some people left Earth to escape the fallout from a nuclear war which had ravaged the planet, the cyborgs were supposed to act as slaves.
In the past, the Dick family, along with the relatives of the writer John Steinbeck and musician Arlo Guthrie, son of US musician Woody Guthrie, has also attacked Google's Book section, on which users can search the text of books the company has scanned and uploaded. Google uses optical character recognition technology to convert the books into searchable text and stores them on its digital database. They said that the system was overly complicated and that copyright holders were being asked to make binding decisions. In 2008, Google agreed to pay around £78m (NZ$169m) to copyright holders after the American Author's Guild sued. The company also agreed to set up Book Rights Registry to distribute revenue to copyright holders. Another mobile phone company, Motorola, agreed to pay the director of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, George Lucas, for the use of the name Droid in their Android OS-powered smartphone. However, the Nexus One character is not trademarked by the Dick family. - THE INDEPENDENT By Kevin Rawlinson
Blade Runner author's family takes aim at Google - Gadgets - NZ Herald News
French solution to illegal download and copyright infringement - tax Google and Yahoo | ZDNet Government | ZDNet.com
French solution to illegal download and copyright infringement - tax Google and Yahoo
Posted by Doug Hanchard @ January 7, 2010 @ 11:24 AM
The French government commissioned a study to determine solutions to the problems of downloading copyright protected movies and music. The panels recommendation is to tax search engine companies, funding new portals that would make available legal ways for consumers to access copyright materials. In a Globe and Mail post, the governments Minister of Culture, Frederic Mitterrand; The plan seemed inevitable to us, if we want to maintain a certain pluralism in the culture world and prevent the endless enrichment of two or three world players who will impose their cultural formatting on us, Patrick Zelnik, a record producer who helped lead the mission, was quoted as telling Liberation newspaper. This idea is similar to how blank VCR and music tapes were taxed in some countries to distribute to the music industry in the 1970s and 1980s. Googles response in the article was polite but clearly concerned; Google appears cool to the idea, but sought a conciliatory tone. Google Frances public affairs director said the company told the mission it wanted co-operation between Internet players and the cultural fields to develop new models. Olivier Esper said there were opportunities to promote innovative solutions instead of continuing on a path that opposes the Internet and the cultural worlds, for example the path of taxation. Its unknown what the RIAA or MPAA think of this approach. The complexity of creating the taxation method and how it is applied certainly would cause significant challenges and how tax revenues would be distributed. Such a program would likely face stiff resistance if a similar proposal was suggested in the United States and Canada.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Music Firm Sues Microsoft, Yahoo, and Real Networks Over Copyright Infringement | paidContent
Music Firm Sues Microsoft, Yahoo, and Real Networks Over Copyright Infringement | paidContent
Music Firm Sues Microsoft, Yahoo, and Real Networks Over Copyright Infringement
Not your typical targets for a music copyright infringement lawsuit: The big companies that run paid online music subscription services. But MCS Music America, which says it administers almost 45,000 tracks, is suing Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), and RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK), basically saying that they left some seemingly big Ts uncrossed when they obtained the rights to offer some songs to their members. From the lawsuit: “In order to transmit, perform, reproduce and deliver any sound recording of any musical work via ‘on-demand streams’ or ‘limited downloads’ defendants must first obtain not only the rights for the sound recording itself but also the rights for the underlying musical composition which is embodied on said sound recording.”
MCS Music America wants the tracks taken down and is also asking for damages—either “actual damages and profits derived by the defendants” or $150,000 for each act of copyright infringement (That could add up since it takes 90 pages for MCS Music America to simply list all the songs that it says have been misappropriated—and MCS Music America says that a separate act of copyright infringement took place each time one of those songs was downloaded or streamed).
TechDirt, which first reported the lawsuit, says it’s an indication of “just how incredibly confusing and impossible copyright law has become” since the three companies obviously did take the time to obtain some rights to the songs. Representatives from Yahoo, Microsoft and RealNetworks had no comment.
Music Firm Sues Microsoft, Yahoo, and Real Networks Over Copyright Infringement | paidContent
RIAA triumphs in Usenet copyright case | Digital Media - CNET News
RIAA triumphs in Usenet copyright case | Digital Media - CNET News
RIAA triumphs in Usenet copyright case
Note: See Usenet.com's reaction at "Usenet.com says RIAA 'whittling down' Betamax case."
The Recording Industry Association of America has prevailed in its copyright fight against Usenet.com, according to court documents.
In a decision that hands the RIAA an overwhelming victory, U.S. District Judge Harold Baer of the Southern District of New York ruled in favor of the music industry on all its main theories: that Usenet.com is guilty of direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement. In addition, and perhaps most important for future cases, Baer said that Usenet.com can't claim protection under the Sony Betamax decision. That ruling says companies can't be held liable for contributory infringement if the device they create is "capable of significant non-infringing uses."
Baer noted that in citing the Betamax case, Usenet.com failed to see one important difference between it and Sony. Once Sony sold a Betamax, an early videotape recorder, the company's relationship with the buyer ended. Sony held no sway over what the buyer did with the device after that. Usenet.com, however, maintains an ongoing relationship with the customer and does has some say in how the customer uses the service.
Usenet.com's lawyers could not be reached Tuesday evening.
The two-decade-old Usenet network was one of the early ways to distribute conversations and binary files, long before the Web or peer-to-peer networks existed. Usenet.com is a company that enabled users to access the Usenet network.The RIAA filed suit against Usenet.com in October 2007, accusing the company of encouraging customers to pay up to $19 a month by enticing them with copyrighted music.
The case is highly unusual because of Baer's many findings of discovery misconduct by the Usenet.com side. The rules of discovery in a civil case requires both sides to exchange information. The RIAA produced evidence, however, that Usenet.com destroyed evidence or failed to produce witnesses on multiple occasions.
The RIAA accused Usenet.com of intentionally destroying the contents on seven hard drives that contained employee-generated data; providing false information; and attempting to prevent employees from giving depositions by sending them to Europe.
The judge found the evidence credible but denied the RIAA's motion to hand it a victory based solely on the misconduct. Instead, the judge sanctioned Usenet.com "from asserting (the company's) affirmative defense of protection under the DMCA's safe harbor provision."
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbor provides refuge to Internet service providers from being held responsible for criminal acts committed by users. Without that and without the Betamax decision, Usenet.com was a sitting duck.
In a brief note posted Tuesday to RIAA.com, the trade group for the music industry said: "We're pleased that the court recognized not just that Usenet.com directly infringed the record companies' copyrights but also took action against the defendants for their egregious litigation misconduct."
RIAA triumphs in Usenet copyright case | Digital Media - CNET News
Friday, June 12, 2009
Christian Copyright Solutions Releases VIDEOready License for Christian Camps and Youth Ministries
Christian Copyright Solutions Releases VIDEOready License for Christian Camps and Youth Ministries
Christian Copyright Solutions Releases VIDEOready License for Christian Camps and Youth Ministries
FAIRHOPE, Ala., June 10 /PRNewswire/ -- It's the perfect gift for youth groups and campers -- visual images capturing the colors, sights, sounds and images of their life-changing trips and events. User-friendly technology makes it easy for student and camp leaders to film and produce highlight videos, and mixing the hottest Christian music with images just sweetens the memories. But is it LEGAL?
Many Christian leaders are unaware it is illegal to "lift" songs from their favorite artists (whether from a CD or MP3 download) to score highlight scenes without prior permission and licensing from owners of the songs and recordings.
To provide an easy and legal solution for church and camp leaders, Christian Copyright Solutions (CCS) announces the launch of VIDEOready License (http://copyrightsolver.com/VideoReadyLicense.aspx), an internet on-demand license, providing immediate online authorization for hundreds of today's most popular Christian songs.
In collaboration with major Christian music publishers and record labels, the VIDEOready License features pre-approved licensing for a selection of song tracks (including both song and sound recording) by top Christian artists--like Chris Tomlin, David Crowder, Kari Jobe, Lincoln Brewster, Hillsong and Third Day.
I know Christian camp staffs and leaders want to do the right thing," explains Susan Fontaine Godwin, CCS CVO/Founder. "They want to model a good example for youths regarding upholding the laws of the land (1 Tim. 5:18). They often don't, however, due to lack of knowledge, confusion or the complexities in getting copyright clearances."
According to the U.S. Copyright Law, prior permission to reproduce music must be obtained from the owner of the song and the sound recording, which are two separate copyrights and often controlled by at least two different parties. The VIDEOready License now makes legal authorization simple, easy and immediate.
"Music Services applauds Christian Copyright Solutions for their new program, VIDEOready License," states Don Cason, Music Services Vice President. "This program provides legitimate permission for the use of many popular Christian recordings for uses on camp and event video projects. It's a wonderful turn-key solution to secure the proper licenses for some of the top songs used in these projects. Congratulations, CCS."
"We try so hard to do the right thing, but it's been so difficult to do that with our videos," says Sarah Augustston of Covenant Harbor Bible Camp. "I am so grateful that God placed this idea in the minds of others, so that all camps may be able to honor the copyright issues."
CCS (www.copyrightsolver.com) offers online administration, consultation and education services to a client base which includes Saddleback Church, Pine Cove Christian Camps, Willow Creek Church, Bellevue Baptist Church. In addition to the VIDEOready License, CCS features the following services and licenses:
- PermissionsPlus - online copyright administration digitally manages every detail of permissions/licensing from start to finish.
- WorshipCast License - legally webcast more than 16 million songs
- PerformMusic License - one-stop church performance license from ASCAP, BMI & SESAC
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SOURCE Christian Copyright Solutions
Christian Copyright Solutions Releases VIDEOready License for Christian Camps and Youth Ministries
Film, TV music composers urge copyright law change - Yahoo! News
Film, TV music composers urge copyright law change - Yahoo! News
Film, TV music composers urge copyright law change
- By Sue Zeidler Sue Zeidler – Wed Jun 10, 5:29 pm ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Nathan Barr has scored horror films like "Hostel" and the HBO vampire series "True Blood," but what really keeps the composer up at night is fear he will not get paid for music distributed online.
"'True Blood' is my first big show for TV and it's definitely going to see a lot of play on the Internet. It's a big issue for me," Barr, 36, told Reuters in an interview. "I don't understand why composers don't get paid if someone downloads it."
The issue is the latest digital copyright debate pitting creators in the entertainment industry on one side and studios, broadcasters, cable operators and technology companies on the other. Barr underscores how a growing number of artists -- writers, actors and, yes, composers -- feel they are not fairly compensated for content distributed on the Internet.
Actors and writers have aired their grievances and demanded Hollywood studios pay up. Now, composers, along with publishers, are urging Congress to change copyright law so that when music airs in an audio-visual download, it is considered a public performance that earns them royalties.
The stakes are high: Industry experts believe composers could potentially earn nearly $100 million in additional royalty payments annually as Internet viewing grows -- if the law was changed to deem downloads of music in audio-visual works as public performances.
"We see audio visual as a vigorous growth area for composers, whether it's on Hulu, Netflix or iTunes, and a big issue is clarifying public performance rights as they apply to digital downloads," said Richard Conlon of Broadcast Music Inc (BMI), a performing rights group that collects royalties on behalf of artists.
The copyright issue, apart from being proposed legislation, is also expected to be the subject of a House Judiciary committee hearing in July, industry experts say.
At the center of the debate is a federal court ruling in April 2007, considered a victory for companies like AOL, RealNetworks and Yahoo! Inc YHOO.O> that found that downloading a music file was not considered a "performance."
AU REVOIR
Composers are arguably one of most overlooked among the so-called frontline entertainers behind a movie or TV series.
"Most composers don't get pensions like other people ... and we're now realizing we're not covered for much of the way entertainment is viewed online," Barr protested.
Performing rights group American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is appealing the 2007 ruling.
And ASCAP, BMI, and various other publishing and songwriting groups sent a letter in March 2009 to Congress urging a change in the U.S. Copyright Law.
"It's important these markets get locked down as composers really rely on public performance royalties," Conlon said.
Meanwhile, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a trade group for Hollywood studios such as General Electric Co's Universal Pictures, Viacom Inc's Paramount and Walt Disney Co, strongly opposes these efforts, arguing that a download is not a performance.
"The MPAA is opposed to amending the copyright law to require a double payment for music in movies and TV shows downloaded from the Internet," Angela Martinez, a spokeswoman for the MPAA said. "We do not need to amend the Copyright Act to compensate these composers twice for the same activity."
Veteran entertainment lawyer Jay Cooper said composers collect performance royalties when their music airs on cable, TV, radio and is streamed over the Web.
"But if a film along with the music in it is incorporated in a DVD, the typical contract between a composer and studio does not grant the composer a royalty or payment for sales of the DVD or for any downloads of the DVD," Cooper said.
"Composers believe the performance right of a download is not a contractual right but a legal right to which there is great opposition," he said.
Martinez and others like Jonathan Potter, executive director of the Digital Media Association, which represents online services like Apple Inc iTunes and Yahoo, believe composers are being disingenuous.
"This legislative request is the latest effort by these groups to blur the lines between making a copy and making a public performance in order to get royalties where none are obligated or should be obligated," said Potter.
(Reporting by Sue Zeidler; Editing by Edwin Chan, Richard Chang)
Film, TV music composers urge copyright law change - Yahoo! News
French Court Kills Part of Controversial Copyright Law
French Court Kills Part of Controversial Copyright Law
French Court Kills Part of Controversial Copyright Law
A French court struck down yesterday part of a recently passed anti-piracy law that would have shut off Internet access to those accused of repeated copyright infringement. The Constitutional Council said, in effect, that given the importance of the Internet, a court approval was needed before denying someone web access.
The court’s decision is a blow to copyright holders, who loved the law and saw its strict measures as a model for cracking down on file sharing. The three strikes law, which passed last month, would have created a new government agency called HADOPI (the Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des droits sur Internet) that would issue notices (at a copyright holder’s behest) to illegal file sharers. Upon receipt of a third notice, the accused would have been disconnected from Internet access for anywhere from two months to a year and blacklisted from signing up with another ISP. The law would also allow ISPs to be ordered to block certain sites, such as The Pirate Bay.
But the Council put the kibosh on that plan. The New York Times writes:
The council said the proposal was contrary to French constitutional principles, like the presumption of innocence and freedom of speech. The latter right “implies today, considering the development of the Internet, and its importance for the participation in democratic life and the expression of ideas and opinions, the online public’s freedom to access these communication services.”France’s culture minister said that, based on the court’s decision, the law could be taken back to the French Prime Minister for re-tooling.
Justice Dept. Seeks Details On Google Deal - washingtonpost.com
Justice Dept. Seeks Details On Google Deal - washingtonpost.com
Justice Dept. Seeks Details On Google Deal
By Brian Womack and James Rowley
Bloomberg News
Thursday, June 11, 2009The Justice Department has asked Google and publishers for information about the settlement of a book-scanning dispute, signaling that a federal probe is underway.
Google has received a formal inquiry from the Justice Department, said Adam Kovacevich, a company spokesman. The Authors Guild received a civil investigative demand last week, said Paul Aiken, executive director of the New York-based group, which was part of the settlement.
Google, which is creating an online book database by scanning millions of titles, reached a $125 million deal with publishers last year to settle copyright issues. The agreement could make Google the main online source for millions of out-of-print books, raising antitrust concerns.
Hachette Book Group, a publishing company in New York, also received a formal request for information from the Justice Department, said spokeswoman Sophie Cottrell. Gina Talamona, a spokeswoman for DOJ, declined to comment.
The settlement was designed to end years of hostility between Google and publishers.
Google, which began scanning books in 2004, uses volumes from Harvard University, the New York Public Library and other sources. The project lets users search books, bringing up pages or excerpts that contain sought-for terms.
The company was sued in 2005 by the Authors Guild, Pearson's Penguin unit, McGraw-Hill, John Wiley & Sons and Simon & Schuster. They claimed the digitizing process infringed their copyrights.
Justice Dept. Seeks Details On Google Deal - washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Independent study fuels debate on copyright report
Independent study fuels debate on copyright report
Independent study fuels debate on copyright report
By Vito Pilieci, Ottawa CitizenMay 26, 2009Comments (5)
OTTAWA — An independent study, first commissioned and then ignored by the Conference Board of Canada, is fuelling further debate over the research organization's most recent report on copyright in Canada.
University of Ottawa law professor, Jeremy de Beer, was commissioned by the Conference Board last spring to conduct independent research on copyright legislation.
De Beer delivered a working paper to the board in the fall. The working paper was reviewed by researchers at the board while they were compiling data to complete their copyright report.
De Beer's findings ran counter to many of the board's conclusions and was not mentioned in the board's final report called Intellectual Property Rights in the Digital Economy, which was released Friday.
In a statement Tuesday, the Conference Board said:
"In the course of the research, the authors reviewed the full spectrum of arguments surrounding the issue of intellectual property rights in Canada, including Prof. de Beer's study. The final report includes those arguments considered most relevant to the policy under review."
The Conference Board report calls Canada "the file-swapping capital of the world" and calls for strict new copyright legislation as well as new power for border guards to deal with counterfeit and pirated goods.
The report is largely based on the findings of the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) 2008 Special 301 Report.
De Beer's research debunks the 301 Report by stating, "such sources have been exposed as lacking creditability," in the working paper provided to the board called Copyright and Innovation in the Networked Information Economy.
"For example, a Canadian Government official has debunked the 'Special 301 Reports' . . . as driven entirely by U.S. Industry and lacking reliable and objective analysis," the report adds.
De Beer called the omission of his research in the board's final report "strange."
"I would have thought that they would have more carefully weighed the various perspectives that they solicited," said de Beer. "I'm not interested in picking a fight with them. If they want to commission research from me and then ignore it, that's their prerogative."
On Monday, University of Ottawa professor and Canada Research Chair in Internet and e-commerce law Michael Geist accused the board of plagiarism and questioned the sponsors behind the Conference Board's report.
The board has admitted the copyright report was produced as "contract research," adding: "The Conference Board regularly produces custom research. Our guidelines for financed research require the design and method of research, as well as the content of the report, to be determined solely by the Conference Board."
According to the Conference Board, the report was funded by the Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network, the Canadian Intellectual Property Council, the Copyright Collective of Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation as well as other lobby groups who are pushing for stronger Canadian copyright legislation.
The board would not detail financial commitments from the report's backers, citing client confidentiality, but it did say that the financial backers have no say over the report's editorial content.
The board's reassurance was of little comfort to Geist, who said the revelation that the organization ignored independent research "raises even further troubling questions about the objectivity of the survey."
He is calling for the research organization to recall the report.
"The right thing to do is to say, 'this report does not meet the standards of the Conference Board of Canada," he said. "The right thing to do is to pull it. They seem to be operating on completely the opposite tack."
Geist believes the controversy surrounding the board's report has damaged its reputation. The board describes itself as "the foremost, independent, not-for-profit applied research organization in Canada. Objective and non-partisan. We do not lobby for specific interests."
"It calls into question a lot of their research and significantly damages their claims that they are somehow independent," he said.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Everyone Assumes Copyright Only Applies When They Like It | Techdirt
Everyone Assumes Copyright Only Applies When They Like It | Techdirt
Everyone Assumes Copyright Only Applies When They Like It
Having written about copyright issues for so long, we've started to notice some trends. For instance, many people try to twist copyright law to the point where it only applies when it helps them, and suddenly doesn't apply when it helps them not to have it apply. In fact, this is so common that many people falsely assume that the same is true of us -- claiming that we'd be pissed if people copied our content (it's the usual retort to those who are unsure of copyright's benefits). Of course, for us, it's not true. If people want to copy our content for fun or for profit, they're free to do so. Yet, it is true that we often see people who should know better freak out when it's "their content" being used. These scenarios never make anyone look good.
You may recall the group NOM, an advocacy group fighting against gay marriage, that we talked about on this site a few weeks ago because of a bogus takedown notice it sent to YouTube on content that it almost certainly did not own the copyright on. NOM also seemed to have no sense of fair use.
How quickly things change.
NOM had no problem then taking 3 seconds of a clip from the blogger known as Perez Hilton and putting it in an advertisement. Perez Hilton the played the role of the copyright bully, sending a highly questionable takedown notice, claiming the 3 seconds was copyright infringement. Except, as pretty much anyone would tell you, the use was almost certainly fair use, and if anyone should know that, it's Perez Hilton. Yet, it was rather amusing to see NOM, just weeks earlier a staunch questionable takedown notice issuer, suddenly finding themselves on the flipside, defending fair use against a DMCA takedown.
And, how quickly things change again. Because just as Hilton is claiming that using 3 seconds of his own video is copyright infringement and not fair use, Ben Sheffner notes that Hilton has posted a 10 minute video of CNN footage, including his own Perez TV overlay and his own pre-roll ad at the beginning, along with a single sentence beneath the video.
Personally, I think both uses should be perfectly fine (the law, as it currently stands, is more likely to accept NOM's use, but not Hilton's), it's still illustrative of the way many people view copyright. It's an issue to protect you, but it's a hindrance when it gets in your way. Of course, we see this quite often with politicians. It's why Nicolas Sarkozy, who is pushing for incredibly strict new laws relating to copyright in France was found to have ignored copyright law when it suited him. We saw the same thing last year when a Canadian politician who was pushing for the Canadian DMCA was caught infringing on copyright himself.
While some claim it's just hypocrisy, I think it actually represents one of the fundamental flaws of copyright itself (or, really, any monopoly system). Monopolies aren't being used to create incentives to create. They're used to stifle others and to "protect." These days, almost everyone uses them and views them as tools of protection rather than an incentive to create. When you get so far away from the entire purpose of copyright law, you have a system ripe for widespread abuse.
Everyone Assumes Copyright Only Applies When They Like It | Techdirt
Law.com - Commentary: Is Google Too Big to Infringe?
Law.com - Commentary: Is Google Too Big to Infringe?
Commentary: Is Google Too Big to Infringe?
Robert Kunstadt
The National Law Journal
May 11, 2009Technology lets Google scan books. It does it because now it can. But authors and publishers sued -- and a class action settlement is now pending in the Southern District of New York. The settlement would authorize Google to scan copyrighted books and maintain an electronic database of books. Google will be able to sell access to individual books and subscriptions to the database, place advertisements on any page dedicated to a book and make other commercial uses of books. Google will pay the copyright owner 63 percent of revenue. The settlement should be rejected.
I studied copyright law under the late Professor Melville B. Nimmer, author of "Nimmer on Copyright," at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law. I was fortunate to win a national prize in The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers's "Nathan Burkan Competition" for law student papers on copyright law in 1975. My paper was published in the ASCAP Copyright Law Symposium. I was amazed to see online that Google scanned and published large sections of that paper (even though it was about protecting artists' copyrights).
Nimmer used to say "Ownership of a physical object [a book] is not ownership of the copyright in it." That is Copyright Law 101. But Google thought, "We can." The author's fundamental right is to control his or her work. Google's verbatim reproduction of scanned pages exceeds all bounds of "fair use" by abstracts or summaries. That the entire work is not reproduced is an aggravation, not a mitigation, since it violates the author's moral right under the Berne Convention to bar truncation of the work.
Google will argue that author/publisher class representatives and attorneys arranged this settlement. But these self-appointed "guardians" seem worse than no guardians at all. The class needs attorneys who will work harder for injunctive relief -- and contempt-of-court penalties if Google persists in copying. (But injunctive relief to stop Google's infringement would not create an evergreen settlement fund from which class attorneys may seek a share.)
PARTIES MAY NOT AMEND IP LAW
Authors should not be forced to comply with the proposed settlement's nonstatutory formalities to protect the author's rights. The author need only comply with U.S. copyright law. The parties may not amend the copyright law, creating an ad hoc alternative regime. The copyright law needs to be enforced, the settlement rejected and Google's willful infringement enjoined. Google, as a willful actor for profit, is punishable for copyright infringement the same as any software-pirating street peddler. To overcome the public perception that infringers are "Robin Hood" benefactors, IP law needs to be applied even-handedly to litigants large and small so that the public will see it in their own interest to support IP enforcement.
Google pursued its copying project in calculated disregard of authors' rights. Its business plan was: "So, sue me." To approve the proposed settlement would vindicate Google's street ethics: that the law is whatever you can grab and get away with. Google's added twist -- its update on the Dickensian street pickpocket -- is that if you take very little property from very many people, with a technological efficiency unimaginable to Fagin, you have some real money.
The settlement would reward Google's massive unauthorized online reproduction of copyrighted works, by making Google a "shadow copyright office" with a revenue percentage -- unlike the real Copyright Office, which collects a flat fee.
Google took from the authors first -- and belatedly now seeks to legitimize its misconduct by this settlement. Instead, Google should be punished hard, to deter such schemes. Otherwise, Google will succeed where Napster failed. Respect for IP law -- as well as the rule of law in general -- will decline. If an enterprising homeless person pitches a tent in Google's corporate parking lot for a "Thomas Jefferson Used Book & CD Flea Market," will Google let it stay there (since it only occupies part of the lot)? How about for a profit percentage as sweetener to induce "settlement"?
Google's conduct fits the definition of a public nuisance, and may be enjoined as such. It imposes a small harm on a large number of authors. The harm, copying only a portion of each work, is calculated so as not to make it worthwhile for an author to incur the expense of suing for injunctive relief. Google, despite its cute slogan "Don't be evil," is like a large paper mill releasing noxious gas over a wide area, sufficiently diluted that you smell it but faintly. Like those banks that are now "too big to fail," is Google really "too big to infringe"?
Robert Kunstadt is an IP trial attorney in New York. He submitted an opposition to the proposed settlement in the case against Google.
Friday, May 8, 2009
It’s Time to Legalize Personal-Use DVD Copying | Threat Level
It’s Time to Legalize Personal-Use DVD Copying | Threat Level
It’s Time to Legalize Personal-Use DVD Copying
- By David Kravets
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge here Thursday or soon thereafter is likely to conclude RealNetworks’ DVD-copying software is unlawful, and therefore should be permanently barred from distribution.
That’s the correct interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Yet we think it’s offensive that the 1998 act produces the absurd result that consumers are considered hackers and copyright scofflaws just for duplicating DVDs for personal use.
By suing RealNetworks over the RealDVD-copying software, the Hollywood studios fear losing control of the DVD like the music industry did with the CD.
It’s OK to copy music from CDs, for example, and place it in an iPod. Yet, it’s illegal to do the same with a DVD. When it comes to the DVD, there’s not even a question of fair use.
How can the DVD and CD be treated so differently? Answer: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which protects the DVD but not the CD.
Hollywood pushed hard for the DMCA, in part to produce the DVD. The studios were savvy enough to have seen how easy it was to duplicate the CD, which was not encrypted. Attempts to lace CDs with Digital Rights Management had failed.
But the DVD was different. It was born with encryption, now called the Content Scramble System. It is designed to prevent duplication. Under the DMCA, gadgets and software allowing duplication of encryption-protected works are prohibited.
That’s because the DMCA outlaws circumventing encryption to duplicate copyrighted works. It also forbids trafficking in circumvention products – although plenty of underground duplication solutions exist.
That brings us back to the ongoing litigation between the Motion Picture Association of America and RealNetworks, which is expected to conclude as early as Thursday. Hollywood fears that, if U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel blesses RealNetworks’ DVD copying software, which allows only one copy of a DVD to be made, the studios’ stranglehold on the DVD would be forever lost.
A RealNetworks victory would send the message to the general public that it’s OK to copy DVDs.
But DVDs cannot be copied without circumventing encryption, although RealNetworks claims its copying software is covered under the Content Scramble System license it acquired from the DVD Copy Control Association.
Circumventing encryption is barred by the DMCA. This situation should be changed to allow the public the lawful right to make backup copies of DVDs – those discs that children fling around like Frisbees and lick like lollipops.
RealNetworks is making the silly argument that its RealDVD software does not circumvent encryption technology. But what’s sillier is that RealNetworks finds itself in a courtroom, facing monetary sanctions, for producing a product that should be legal.
It’s Time to Legalize Personal-Use DVD Copying | Threat Level
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Center for the Study of the Public Domain
Center for the Study of the Public Domain
"Excellent Site for the ongoing debate between copyright and public good of a creative work -- HSM"
The public domain is the realm of material—ideas, images, sounds, discoveries, facts, texts—that is unprotected by intellectual property rights and free for all to use or build upon. Our economy, culture and technology depend on a delicate balance between that which is, and is not, protected by exclusive intellectual property rights. Both the incentives provided by intellectual property and the freedom provided by the public domain are crucial to the balance. But most contemporary attention has gone to the realm of the protected.
The Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School is the first university center in the world devoted to the other side of the picture. Founded in September of 2002, as part of the school's wider intellectual property program, its mission is to promote research and scholarship on the contributions of the public domain to speech, culture, science and innovation, to promote debate about the balance needed in our intellectual property system and to translate academic research into public policy solutions. The Center's Faculty Co-Directors are James Boyle, David Lange, Arti Rai and Jerome Reichman. Its Director is Jennifer Jenkins. The Center is supported in its operation by a generous founding gift and by grants from foundations.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Who Knew Discussing A Long Repealed Copyright Law Could Be So Interesting... | Techdirt
Who Knew Discussing A Long Repealed Copyright Law Could Be So Interesting... | Techdirt
Who Knew Discussing A Long Repealed Copyright Law Could Be So Interesting...
from the copyright-geeking dept
I wasn't at all sure what to expect yesterday when I went to a conference in honor of the 100th anniversary of the US's Copyright Act of 1909. After all, that law was superseded by the Copyright Act of 1976, and so it hasn't even been in effect for 33 years. However, the program was organized, in part, by Eric Goldman and Pamela Samuelson, and had some really big names on the speaker list, so I figured I'd at least check it out. Looking over the schedule, I figured I'd sit in on a few sessions and probably head out. However, the program actually turned out to be so interesting, that I stuck around for almost the entire thing (had to duck out for a bit at one point). Bill Patry joked that only a bunch of lawyers could get excited to discuss a law that was "repealed" 33 years ago, but what was so interesting was how much of the discussion was really about what's going on today.
The summary? Copyright law is so screwed up that even if you put a significant number of the top copyright scholars and students in an auditorium for a day, they'll disagree on almost everything, and only agree that the system is a total mess. Even simple questions like "how should copyright be handled on blogs" created a collective shoulder shrug, with everyone effectively admitting that copyright law has no answer for such basic questions. That should worry people. If the intention of copyright is to "promote the progress of science" then it shouldn't be so incredibly ambiguous and contentious. All in all, it seems to reinforce the point that copyright law has been stretched and twisted in so many different ways over the years, that it may be fundamentally broken. Basically, copyright law is adjusted every so often not based on any look at whether or not it actually promotes the progress, but based on whatever new technological innovation comes along that throws some legacy providers' business models into doubt. That industry freaks out, and politicians respond with some patch that protects that industry, but has little to nothing to do with actually promoting progress.
This goes all the way back throughout history. One speaker pointed out that the big innovation of the 1909 copyright was compulsory licensing on mechanical rights. This was put into place for one reason: fear about player pianos and how they would dominate the market and destroy the need for musicians. Within a matter of decades, the player piano market was effectively gone... and yet, these massive changes designed solely to deal with the player piano have stuck around ever since. Now apply that same story to basically every other technological innovation, and that gets you copyright law.
If there was a key theme running throughout the conference, though, it was on the single biggest change that the '76 Act brought into play: switching the copyright system from opt-in to everyone-automatically-in (not even to "opt-out" realistically speaking). In the terminology of copyright lawyers, in the '09 Act you had "formalities" to get copyright. In the '76 Act, you don't. While it was heartening to hear an awful lot of support for the idea of moving back to an opt-in system (i.e., if you want copyright protection, you need to proactively register/add a notice to get it, rather than automatically getting it on everything at the moment of expression), there was plenty of disagreement. Registrar of copyrights Marybeth Peters (who has a long history of supporting worrisome expansion of copyright law) kicked off the day by talking about why it was a good thing to switch to automatically in, because the old system resulted in too many questions about whether or not something was in the public domain.
Later on, Jon Baumgarten, who also participated in crafting the '76 Act, berated supporters of an opt-in system, saying that having practiced under it, it was only good for the lawyers, because everyone spent all of their time trying to determine ways to prove that someone had screwed up registering their copyrights, and thus the end result was lots of works accidentally fell into the public domain. On this last point, Peters concluded her remarks with the rather stunning statement "I'm so glad that copyright law no longer allows so much stuff to get into the public domain." (I'm paraphrasing the exact statement, but it was close... hopefully video will be up shortly and I can get the exact quote).
Think about that for a second. Yes, the context is important: her problem was mostly with items getting into the public domain because of confusion in the registration process, but it suggests a mindset that says "the public domain is bad." Later speakers pointed out that the difficulty of putting a copyright on creative works was actually a feature of the system, intended by the Founding Fathers to be difficult on purpose, because they believed how important it was to have a large and fruitful public domain.
Also, what was stunning was how much the "old guard" such as Peters and Baumgarten insist that an opt-in system can't work because it was such a mess under the '09 Act. They seem to be confusing the '09 implementation with the entire idea of opt-in. Sure, things were a mess before '76, but perhaps the problem was with the specifics of the "formalities" rather than with the concept itself. And, they don't even seem to acknowledge that modern technology could (and, in fact, should) change the entire thinking around copyright and how any sort of registration/opt-in process might work. And, in fact, David Nimmer's final keynote suggested that new technological solutions (he discussed a hypothetical system amusingly named "the panopticon") has shifted his thinking from being totally 100% against formalities to now believing that an opt-in system absolutely makes sense.
This post is long enough, even though there were plenty of other interesting discussions, but I did want to bring up three separate points that were interesting:All in all, a very interesting event that generated lots of thoughts and discussions.
- Bill Patry (whose blog is seriously missed) tried to hammer home the point that it's absolutely ridiculous that Congress doesn't ever look at copyright law in terms of whether or not it promotes the progress, and totally trashed anyone (including Supreme Court Justices) who seem to think that the "to promote the progress..." part of the Constitution is meaningless preamble, even noting that in 1909 the legislative history made it quite clear that anything that did not promote the progress was outside the scope of Congress's power. It's sad that both Congress and the Supreme Court now seem to ignore this point.
- International trade agreements are evil when it comes to copyright. Sorry, but it needs to be said. There was a lot more talk about whether or not certain changes in copyright law would keep us in line with either the Berne Convention or TRIPs (and soon, ACTA!) than about whether or not it made sense. Basically, these trade negotiations, often pushed by industry reps without considering consequences for the public, have locked us into a narrow range of bad options. We simply can't do what's best for society and creativity, because we agreed to be bound by some really bad trade agreements. No wonder the industry loves them. They get to put a stranglehold on pertinent discussion (does this promote the progress?) and force people into discussing something entirely separate (does this violate our trade agreements?). It gets everyone focused on the trees and missing the forest.
- There's a lot of bubbling concern about conflicts between copyright law and the First Amendment. I'd mentioned how often this issue seemed to be coming up lately, and this event was no exception. While the old guard again insists this matter is settled and there's absolutely no conflict between the two, a large number of scholars disagree, and point out that it's a big open question, and some earlier rulings conflict and leave open some big loopholes to be challenged in court. Expect this issue to get a lot more play in the coming years.
Who Knew Discussing A Long Repealed Copyright Law Could Be So Interesting... | Techdirt