Copyright – Page 20 – DigitalKoans

"EU Research Committee Wants to Gift Publishers New Rights to Restrict Access to Scientific Research"

COMMUNIA has released "EU Research Committee Wants to Gift Publishers New Rights to Restrict Access to Scientific Research."

Here's an excerpt:

Last week the Culture and Education Committee (CULT) and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) voted on their final opinions on the Commission’s Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. . . .

The introduction of a new right for press publishers (aka the “link tax”) to extract fees from search engines for incorporating short snippets of—or even linking to—their content in article 11 is one of the most controversial issues of the proposed directive. Adopting this type of ancillary right at the EU level would have a strong negative impact on all stakeholders, including publishers, authors, journalists, researchers, online service providers, and readers. . . .

In the votes last week in the CULT and ITRE committees, the press publishers right was also carried through – and even expanded. Both of the recent opinions remove the restriction that the right applies to digital uses only, meaning that if adopted it would cover all uses—both digital and in print. Even worse, ITRE—the committee responsible for policy relating to the promotion of research—voted to extend the press publishers right to cover scientific publications.

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"American Chemical Society Files Suit against Sci-Hub"

The American Chemical Society has released "American Chemical Society Files Suit against Sci-Hub."

Here's an excerpt:

On June 23, 2017, the American Chemical Society (ACS) filed suit in the United States District Court Eastern District of Virginia against unnamed confederates of Sci-Hub, a self-proclaimed web pirate organization that steals and then illegally reproduces and disseminates copyrighted scientific research articles on the internet. The suit asserts infringement of the professional Society’s copyrights, as well as counterfeiting and infringement of its trademarks.

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"Copyright Reform Is Never Happening"

Andrew Albanese has published "Copyright Reform Is Never Happening" in Publishers Weekly.

Here's an excerpt:

But here's what’s most troublesome to me: this bill [the Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act (H.R. 1695)] can so easily be seen as an attempt to keep Maria Pallante's views on copyright intact at the Copyright Office, that it could very well taint anything that might eventually come from the House Judiciary Committee review.

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"Looking into Pandora’s Box: The Content of Sci-Hub and Its Usage"

Bastian Greshake has self-archived "Looking into Pandora's Box: The Content of Sci-Hub and Its Usage."

Here's an excerpt:

By utilizing the recently released corpus of Sci-Hub and comparing it to the data of ~28 million downloads done through the service, this study tries to address some of these questions. The comparative analysis shows that both the usage and complete corpus is largely made up of recently published articles, with users disproportionately favoring newer articles and 35% of downloaded articles being published after 2013. These results hint that embargo periods before publications become Open Access are frequently circumnavigated using Guerilla Open Access approaches like Sci-Hub.

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"National Library Groups Oppose Bill to Make Register of Copyrights a Presidential Appointee"

Kara Malenfant has published "National Library Groups Oppose Bill to Make Register of Copyrights a Presidential Appointee" in ACRL Insider.

Here's an excerpt:

It’s also difficult to understand how the public or Congress itself would benefit from politicization of the Register of Copyrights' position by making it subject to presidential appointment and Senate confirmation, as this legislation proposes. Such politicization of the position necessarily would result in a Register more actively engaged in policy development than in competent management and modernization.

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"Leveraging Exceptions and Limitations for Digital Curation and Online Collections: The U.S. Case"

Patricia Aufderheide has published "Leveraging Exceptions and Limitations for Digital Curation and Online Collections: The U.S. Case" in Libellarium: Journal for the Research of Writing, Books, and Cultural Heritage Institutions.

Here's an excerpt:

Librarians wanting to use digital affordances for their patron’s and public benefit have increasingly found themselves frustrated by copyright law designed for a pre-digital era. In the U.S., this frustration has driven the nation’s most prestigious library group, the Association of Research Libraries, to explore the utility of the major exception to copyright monopoly rights, fair use, in order to accomplish basic curation and collection goals in a digital era. The ARL's efforts to clarify how libraries can employ fair use has resulted in sometimes-dramatic changes in how work is done, and has permitted innovation at some universities. Its approach demonstrates the power of consensus in a professional field to permit innovation within the law.

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"Copyright Compliance and Infringement in ResearchGate Full-Text Journal Articles"

Hamid R. Jamali has self-archived "Copyright Compliance and Infringement in ResearchGate Full-Text Journal Articles."

Here's an excerpt:

This study aims to investigate the extent to which ResearchGate members as authors of journal articles comply with publishers' copyright policies when they self-archive full-text of their articles on ResearchGate. . . . The key finding was that 201 (51.3%) out of 392 non-OA articles infringed the copyright and were non-compliant with publishers' policy. While 88.3% of journals allowed some form of self-archiving (SHERPA/RoMEO green, blue or yellow journals), the majority of non-compliant cases (97.5%) occurred when authors self-archived publishers' PDF files (final published version).

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"’Notice-and-Stay-Down’ Is Really ‘Filter-Everything’"

Elliot Harmon has published "'Notice-and-Stay-Down' Is Really 'Filter-Everything'" in Deeplinks.

Here's an excerpt:

There's a debate happening right now over copyright bots, programs that social media websites use to scan users’ uploads for potential copyright infringement. A few powerful lobbyists want copyright law to require platforms that host third-party content to employ copyright bots, and require them to be stricter about what they take down. Big content companies call this nebulous proposal "notice-and-stay-down," but it would really keep all users down, not just alleged infringers. In the process, it could give major content platforms like YouTube and Facebook an unfair advantage over competitors and startups (as if they needed any more advantages). "Notice-and-stay-down" is really "filter-everything."

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"Copyright: The Immoveable Barrier That Open Access Advocates Underestimated"

Richard Poynder has published "Copyright: The Immoveable Barrier That Open Access Advocates Underestimated."

Here's an excerpt:

In calling for research papers to be made freely available open access advocates promised that doing so would lead to a simpler, less costly, more democratic, and more effective scholarly communication system. To achieve their objectives they proposed two different ways of providing open access: green OA (self-archiving) and gold OA (open access publishing). However, while the OA movement has succeeded in persuading research institutions and funders of the merits of open access, it has failed to win the hearts and minds of most researchers. More importantly, it is not achieving its objectives. There are various reasons for this, but above all it is because OA advocates underestimated the extent to which copyright would subvert their cause.

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EFF Submits Amicus Brief in Cambridge Press v. Georgia State University E-Reserves Copyright Case

The EFF has submitted an Amicus Brief in the Cambridge Press v. Georgia State University case.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

On behalf of three national library associations, EFF today urged a federal appeals court for the second time to protect librarians' and students' rights to make fair use of excerpts from academic books and research.

Nearly a decade ago, three of the largest academic publishers in the world—backed by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) trade group—sued Georgia State University (GSU) for copyright infringement . . . GSU argued that posting excerpts in the e-reserve systems was a "fair use " of the material, thus not subject to licensing fees. GSU also changed its e-reserve policy to ensure its practices were consistent with a set of fair use best practices that were developed pursuant to a broad consensus among libraries and other stakeholders. . . .

But that was not enough to satisfy the publishers. Rather than declare victory, they've doggedly pursued their claims. It seems the publishers will not be content until universities and libraries agree to further decimate their budgets. As we explain in our brief, that outcome would undermine the fundamental purposes of copyright, not to mention both the public interest, and the interests of the authors of the works in question.

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"An Empirical Study of Law Journal Copyright Practices"

Brian L. Frye, Christopher J. Ryan, Jr., and Franklin L. Runge have published "An Empirical Study of Law Journal Copyright Practices" in the Review of Intellectual Property Law.

Here's an excerpt:

This article presents an empirical study of the copyright practices of American law journals in relation to copyright ownership and fair use, based on a 24-question survey. It concludes that many American law journals have adopted copyright policies that are inconsistent with the expectations of legal scholars and the scope of copyright protection. Specifically, many law journals have adopted copyright policies that effectively preclude open-access publishing, and unnecessarily limit the fair use of copyrighted works. In addition, it appears that some law journals may not understand their own copyright policies. This article proposes the creation of a Code of Copyright Best Practices for Law Journals in order to encourage both open-access publishing and fair use.

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Creative Commons Releases CC Search Beta

The Creative Commons has released CC Search Beta.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Our goal is to cover the whole commons, but we wanted to develop something people could test and react to that would be useful at launch. To build our beta, we settled on a goal to represent one percent of the known Commons, or about 10 million works, and we chose a vertical slice of images only, to fully explore a purpose-built interface that represented one type but many providers. . . .

After a detailed review of potential sources, the available APIs, and the quality of their datasets, we selected the Rijksmuseum, Flickr, 500px, the New York Public Library as our initial sources. Later, after discussions with the Metropolitan Museum of Art regarding their collection of public domain works, which were released under CC0 on February 7, 2017, we incorporated their 200,000 CC0 images as well. . . .

The prototype of this tool focuses on photos as its first media and uses open APIs in order to index the available works. The search filters allow users to search by license type, title, creator, tags, collection, and type of institution.

CC Search Beta also provides social features, allowing users to create and share lists as well as add tags and favorites to the objects in the commons, and save their searches. Finally, it incorporates one-click attribution, giving users pre-formatted copy for easy attribution.

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Metropolitan Museum of Art Puts Images of Public Domain Artworks under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) License

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has put images of public domain artworks under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) License.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This morning, we announced a major update to the Museum's policy governing the use and reuse of images in our collection: all images of public-domain artworks in the Museum's collection are now available for free and unrestricted use under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). This updated policy, known as Open Access, enables everyone to utilize more than 375,000 images of public-domain artworks in The Met's collection in any media without permission or fee.

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"Out of Print: The Orphans of Mass Digitization"

Mary Murrell has published "Out of Print: The Orphans of Mass Digitization" in Current Anthropology.

Here's an excerpt:

In the 2000s an interconnected set of elite projects in the United States sought to digitize "all books in all languages" and make them available online. These mass digitization projects were efforts to absorb the print book infrastructure into a new one centered in computer networks. Mass book digitization has now faded from view, and here I trace its setbacks through a curious figure—the "orphan"—that emerged from within these projects and acted ultimately as an agent of impasse. In legal policy debates, an "orphan" refers to a copyrighted work whose owner cannot be found, but its history, range of meanings, and deployments reveal it to be considerably more complex. Based on fieldwork conducted at a digital library engaged in mass digitization, this paper analyzes the "orphan" as a personifying metaphor that digital library activists embraced in order to challenge and/or disrupt the social relations that adhere in and around books.

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AAP and RIAA (and Others) Send Letters to Trump

The AAP and the RIAA (and others) have send letters to Donald Trump expressing copyright concerns.

Here's the AAP letter.

Here's an excerpt:

Provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), which Congress enacted in 1998 to encourage online availability of popular copyrighted works while promoting a balance of interests and cooperation between copyright owners and Internet service providers in dealing with online infringement of such works, wildly succeeded in encouraging such availability. However, the relevant DMCA provisions do not achieve that intended balance and cooperation due to numerous instances of judicial misapplication and the unanticipated appearance of service provider business models that foster, exploit and profit from online infringement by their users while offering only token compliance with the law.

Here's the RIAA letter.

Here's an excerpt:

However, much more needs to be done. Search engines, user upload content platforms, hosting companies, and domain name registrars and registries should follow others' example to effectively stop theft and assure fair payment.

Further, there is a massive "value grab" as some of these corporations weaken intellectual property rights for America's creators by exploiting legal loopholes never intended for them—perversely abusing U.S. law to underpay music creators, thus harming one of America's economic and job engines.

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Draft Model Publishing Contracts for Digital Scholarship Released

Emory University and the University of Michigan have released draft versions of two model publishing contracts for digital scholarship.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

In order to ensure this contract meets the needs of both authors and publishers, we are soliciting feedback from authors, publishers, and other interested stakeholders, and will make draft versions of these documents publicly available for comment. Materials will be available for review until February 15, 2017, at which time we will incorporate feedback into a revised version of the documents, which will be shared publicly and available for adoption, reuse, and modification.

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Assessing the Operation of Copyright and Related Rights Systems: Methodology Framework

The Finnish Foundation for Cultural Policy Research has released Assessing the Operation of Copyright and Related Rights Systems: Methodology Framework.

Here's an excerpt:

The methodology, such as it is outlined in the framework, can serve as a basis for the formulation of copyright and related rights policies and strategies at the national level. It can therefore facilitate further development of the copyright system. The methodology framework consists of relevant key indicators that are useful in identifying trends and good practices while acknowledging the different contexts in which the national copyright systems operate. Assessing the operation of the copyright system increases transparency and provides an information base for public discussion on copyright policy.

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"Blockchain Technology as a Regulatory Technology: From Code Is Law to Law Is Code"

Primavera De Filippi and Samer Hassan have published "Blockchain Technology as a Regulatory Technology: From Code Is Law to Law Is Code" in First Monday.

Here's an excerpt:

To illustrate the extent to which blockchain code can assume the function of law, let us take the example of a hypothetical blockchain-based DRM system. Copyright law introduces "artificial scarcity" in the realm of information, by prohibiting (or constraining) the reproduction of creative works without the consent of the corresponding right holders. Yet, given the ease with which one can produce an identical copy of a digital work, copyright infringement has become widespread in the digital world. Since many years already, content providers have been relying on technological means (such as DRM systems, or other technological measures of protection) to restrain the way in which content can be accessed, used or reused by introducing a new set of technical rules, as a complement to the legal provisions of copyright law. Yet, most of these systems are limited by the fact that it is impossible to distinguish one digital file from another. By leveraging on the transparency and immutability of blockchain technologies, it is possible to restore the unicity and transferability of digital works, by linking every digital copy to a particular token on the blockchain. Authors can then associate these tokens with a particular set of rights to their digital works and trade them in the same way as they would trade digital tokens. Blockchain technology can thus be used to implement "artificial scarcity" at the level of each individual file—thus potentially allowing for the reintroduction of the first sale doctrine [11] in the digital realm, without the need to rely on any contractual or legal means.

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Finding the Public Domain: The Copyright Review Management System

Ithaka S+R has released Finding the Public Domain: The Copyright Review Management System .

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The project team documented these lessons in a book called Finding the Public Domain: Copyright Review Management System Toolkit. The Toolkit shares practical insights gained in this effort in the hope of supporting others interested in copyright review. This brief complements the practical toolkit. It explains the history of CRMS and introduces the basics of the CRMS procedure. It then discusses some of the lessons, successes, surprises, and challenges of the work.

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"What Kind of World Is STM Living In?

The League of European Research Universities has released What Kind of World Is STM Living In.

Here's an excerpt:

4 September saw the International Association of STM publishers (STM) issue a response to the EC's proposed Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, which flies in the face of LERU's views contained in its own Press Release. Amongst other things, STM is calling for the extension of ancillary copyright to cover academic publishing, implying that they will take legal action if this does not happen. . . . Ancillary copyright in this case would extend copyright protection, not allowing academics and universities freely to link to/use the world of information on the Internet, placing publishers in control of the information environment. LERU rejects this as counter to academic freedom and to the EC's vison for Open Science.

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"State of the Union 2016: Commission Proposes Modern EU Copyright Rules for European Culture to Flourish and Circulate"

The European Commission has released "State of the Union 2016: Commission Proposes Modern EU Copyright Rules for European Culture to Flourish and Circulate."

Here's an excerpt:

"I want journalists, publishers and authors to be paid fairly for their work, whether it is made in studios or living rooms, whether it is disseminated offline or online, whether it is published via a copying machine or commercially hyperlinked on the web."—President Juncker, State of the Union 2016

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"Collaborative Academic Library Digital Collections Post-Cambridge University Press, HathiTrust and Google Decisions on Fair Use"

Michelle M. Wu has published "Collaborative Academic Library Digital Collections Post-Cambridge University Press, HathiTrust and Google Decisions on Fair Use" in the Journal of Copyright in Education and Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

Academic libraries face numerous stressors as they seek to meet the needs of their users through technological advances while adhering to copyright laws. This paper seeks to explore one specific proposal to balance these interests, the impact of recent decisions on its viability, and the copyright challenges that remain after these decisions

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"More than a House of Cards: Developing a Firm Foundation for Streaming Media and Consumer-Licensed Content in the Library"

William Cross has published "More than a House of Cards: Developing a Firm Foundation for Streaming Media and Consumer-Licensed Content in the Library" in the Journal of Copyright in Education and Librarianship..

Here's an excerpt:

This article will introduce traditional library practice for licensing multimedia content and discuss the way that consumer-licensing and streaming services disrupt that practice. Sections II and III describe the statutory copyright regime designed by Congress to facilitate the socially-valuable work done by libraries and the impact of the move from ownership to licensed content. Collecting multimedia materials has always presented special legal challenges for libraries, particularly as licensed content has replaced the traditional practice of purchasing and circulation based on the first sale doctrine. These issues have grown even more complex as streaming services like Netflix and Amazon and video game downloads through services like Steam have come to dominate the landscape. Section IV will describe the way that consumer-licensed materials, which not only remove the ownership that undergirds library practice, but also the ability to negotiate for library use, imperil the congressionally-designed balance. Section V will present a path forward for libraries to develop robust, cutting-edge collections that reflect a sophisticated understanding of the contractual and copyright issues at play.

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"Public Knowledge Launches Report on Systemic Bias at the U.S. Copyright Office"

Public Knowledge has released Public Knowledge Launches Report on Systemic Bias at the U.S. Copyright Office.

Here's an excerpt:

Today we're releasing our newest report, "Captured: Systemic Bias at the U.S. Copyright Office." This report examines the role of industry capture and the revolving door between the major entertainment industries and the Copyright Office, and the implications that capture has had on the policies the Office embraces. In the report, we investigate how the Copyright Office:

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"Library of Congress Might Become a Piracy Hub, RIAA Warns"

Ernesto Van der Sar has published "Library of Congress Might Become a Piracy Hub, RIAA Warns" in TorrentFreak.

Here's an excerpt:

The U.S. Copyright Office is considering expanding the mandatory deposit requirement for publishers, so that record labels would also have to submit their online-only music to the Library of Congress. The Library would then allow the public to access the music. The RIAA, however, warns that this plan introduces some serious piracy concerns.

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