Category: Copyright

"Jumping over the Paywall: Strategies and Motivations for Scholarly Piracy and Other Alternatives"


Despite the advance of the Open Access (OA) movement, most scholarly production can only be accessed through a paywall. We conduct an international survey among researchers (N=3,304) to measure the willingness and motivations to use (or not use) scholarly piracy sites, and other alternatives to overcome a paywall such as paying with their own money, institutional loans, just reading the abstract, asking the corresponding author for a copy of the document, asking a colleague to get the document for them, or searching for an OA version of the paper. We also explore differences in terms of age, professional position, country income level, discipline, and commitment to OA. The results show that researchers most frequently look for OA versions of the documents. However, more than 50% of the participants have used a scholarly piracy site at least once. This is less common in high-income countries, and among older and better-established scholars. Regarding disciplines, such services were less used in Life & Health Sciences and Social Sciences. Those who have never used a pirate library highlighted ethical and legal objections or pointed out that they were not aware of the existence of such libraries.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.05965

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A Preservationist’s Guide to the DMCA Exemption for Software Preservation, 2nd Edition


In late 2021, the Library of Congress adopted several exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provision prohibiting circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. In other words, they created a set of exceptions to the general legal rule against cracking digital locks on things like DVDs, software, and video games. The exemptions are set out in regulations published by the Copyright Office. They went into effect on October 28, 2021 and last until October 28th, 2024. This guide is intended to help preservationists determine whether their activities are protected by the new exemptions. It includes important updates to the first edition to reflect changes in the rule to allow offsite access to non-game software, along with a few other technical changes.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7328908

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John Willinsky: Copyright’s Broken Promise: How to Restore the Law’s Ability to Promote the Progress of Science


In Copyright’s Broken Promise, John Willinsky presents the case for reforming copyright law so that it supports, rather than impedes, public access to research and scholarship. He draws on the legal strategy of statutory licensing to set out the terms and structures by which the Copyright Act could ensure that publishers are fairly compensated for providing immediate open access.

https://cutt.ly/E15zPXH

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"Access to Research Data and EU Copyright"


The article seeks to contribute to this aim by exploring the legal framework in which research data can be accessed and used in EU copyright law. First, it delineates the authors’ understanding of research data. It then examines the protection research data currently receives under EU and Member State law via copyright and related rights, as well as the ownership of these rights by different stakeholders in the scientific community. After clarifying relevant conflict-of-laws issues that surround research data, it maps ways to legally access and use them, including statutory exceptions, the open science movement and current developments in law and practice.

bit.ly/3VVx7pg

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"Texas Universities Reach Historic Deal with Elsevier: TLCUA Saves Texas Universities Millions Collectively"


All TLCUA members will receive a discount on journal subscriptions—some as high as 30%—while still maintaining significant amounts of access to journals and combined, will realize a savings of over $4.75M annually. Beyond initial cost savings, Elsevier agreed to a maximum annual increase of 2% over the course of the license agreement, with some years as low as 0%, which is significantly lower than industry standard. . . . TLCUA and Elsevier have agreed to partner on a pilot project to revert ownership of journal articles back to original authors—and not just those at TLCUA-member institutions. Currently, authors transfer copyright of their work in exchange for that work being published. This pilot will provide for rights to go back to authors after a period of time that will be collaboratively determined with Elsevier. . . . Further, all TLCUA-member authors who choose to publish their work under an open access license will have access to discounted author publication charges (APCs). TLCUA also negotiated a license template that removed non-disclosure terms, restrictions on sharing usage data, and 44-year-old limitations on interlibrary loans (i.e., CONTU Guidelines) to expand library collaboration and improve how libraries can share information on journal usage.

https://cutt.ly/G1Yu8IU

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"The Scary Truth about AI Copyright Is Nobody Knows What Will Happen Next"


First, can you copyright the output of a generative AI model, and if so, who owns it? Second, if you own the copyright to the input used to train an AI, does that give you any legal claim over the model or the content it creates? Once these questions are answered, an even larger one emerges: how do you deal with the fallout of this technology? What kind of legal restraints could—or should—be put in place on data collection? And can there be peace between the people building these systems and those whose data is needed to create them?

https://cutt.ly/UM9vOJK

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"The Copyright Claims Board: Worrying Implications for Scholarship"


CCB proceedings may also pose a threat to freedom of expression for scholars and others who build on original works. There is, of course, the danger that the resolution of CCB infringement claims could result in required payment or an agreement to cease certain activity. Yet if a claimant files a takedown notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in addition to a CCB claim, the allegedly infringing work could remain off-line as long as it sits on the CCB docket awaiting resolution. This potential timescale is in contrast to the current DMCA notice-and-takedown regime, which requires an internet platform to repost an allegedly infringing work online within fourteen days in response to a counternotice that the work is not infringing. The new, extended takedown period thus constitutes a form of censorship.

https://cutt.ly/HM9TYzA

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"‘Anna’s Archive ’ Opens the Door to Z-Library and Other Pirate Libraries"


Anna’s Archive is basically a meta-search engine that can find content from third-party ‘pirate’ sources. . . . The Z-Library links rely on the Tor version of the site, which remains online. However, the goal is to ultimately make all content available through IPFS [InterPlanetary File System] as well. This would make it pretty much impossible to take down, similar to the Library Genesis forks, which also use IPFS.

https://cutt.ly/pMZYb6Y

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"Authors Guild Applauds Arrest, Indictment of Major E-Book Pirates"


"While we are heartened by the takedown and the resulting reduction in harm to authors, we are not unsympathetic to the plight of those college and other students who have perhaps felt forced to resort to such illegal pirate websites and other free sources of textbooks to help them manage the extremely high cost of higher education," Rasenberger [Authors Guild CEO] said. "However, these students’ anger is misdirected. The exorbitant cost of education should not be borne by authors and publishers but by the universities, and it should not be used to justify reliance on foreign criminals for textbooks or to trivialize the immense personal and economic harm Z-Library was causing authors who are trying to make a living under increasingly difficult and hostile economic circumstances."

https://cutt.ly/hMPgka5

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Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI Sued: "The Lawsuit That Could Rewrite the Rules of AI Copyright"


Microsoft, its subsidiary GitHub, and its business partner OpenAI have been targeted in a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that the companies’ creation of AI-powered coding assistant GitHub Copilot relies on "software piracy on an unprecedented scale". . . .Copilot, which was unveiled by Microsoft-owned GitHub in June 2021, is trained on public repositories of code scraped from the web, many of which are published with licenses that require anyone reusing the code to credit its creators. Copilot has been found to regurgitate long sections of licensed code without providing credit—prompting this lawsuit that accuses the companies of violating copyright law on a massive scale.

https://cutt.ly/FMwC4mR

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"The Digital First Sale Doctrine in a Blockchain World: NFTs and the Temporary Reproduction Exception"


At time of writing, this is the first piece of legal scholarship on NFTs that examines their interaction with the first sale doctrine. This Note examines the rise of the NFT phenomenon and the historical articulation of the first sale doctrine in the digital era. As NFTs present challenges for the copyright owner’s reproduction right, this Note recommends legislative intervention to clarify the doctrine’s applicability within the digital marketplace. This Note proposes an addition to the Copyright Act of 1976 that expressly allows for a first sale to be effective upon a digital transfer, albeit under certain conditions. Amending the act in this manner promotes the Copyright Act’s purpose of balancing the interests of copyright owners and consumers in a dynamic digital marketplace, and serves as a guide that will be necessary to avoid legal ambiguities and increased litigation.

https://cutt.ly/DN3TV8v

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"Clarivate and OCLC Settle Lawsuit"


Clarivate continues to deny OCLCs allegations of wrong-doing and maintains that the issue lay between OCLC and its customers, who sought to co-create an efficient community platform for sharing of bibliographic records. Clarivate will not develop a record exchange system of MARC records that include records which OCLC has claimed are subject to its policy and contractual limitations. Clarivate will bear its own fees and costs.

https://cutt.ly/vN3RDOx

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"Frankfurt Spotlight: Library E-books Have Leveled Up "


During the height of the pandemic, a number of publishers relaxed terms and prices for library e-books, helping libraries meet digital demand. But as pandemic restrictions have eased and libraries, schools, and business have gotten back to some version of normal, budgets are now strained while digital prices are rising again, and librarians say they don’t know how they will meet the increased digital demand.

https://cutt.ly/kBFFN89

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"Publishers, Internet Archive Ready for Summary Judgment Hearing in Book Scanning Case "


“That is what this case is about,” IA lawyers conclude. “Whether the selection of books available from libraries digitally will be chosen by librarians, or instead determined by publishers’ unilateral and unreviewable licensing choices. This Court is being asked to decide whether copyright law gives publishers the power to dictate which books in a library’s collection can and cannot be loaned digitally.”

https://cutt.ly/wBbwUxg

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Openly Licensed Photos and AI Facial Recognition White Paper: AI_Commons

"This white paper presents the case of using openly licensed photographs for AI facial recognition training datasets. . . . The case creates an opportunity to ask fundamental questions about the challenges that open licensing faces today, related to privacy, exploitation of the commons at massive scales of use, or dealing with unexpected and unintended uses of works that are openly licensed"

https://cutt.ly/pBuHEmH

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"DNS Providers as Piracy Fighters? Enforcement Groups Weigh Options"

https://cutt.ly/fV1EG0y

"The World Intellectual Property Organization’s Advisory Committee on Enforcement recently heard how DNS providers have the ability to fight online piracy but could also face liability as secondary infringers. Veiled warnings like these are nothing new, but with piracy colossus Fmovies cited as a primary example, pressure on DNS entities is building once again."

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"Why You Should Sign the Open Letter to the OSTP"

https://ostp-letter.github.io/why.html

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