William Patry, Senior Copyright Counsel at Google, has published How to Fix Copyright (publisher's description).

Here's an excerpt:

Our current laws are the result of "lobbynomics," the continual use of exaggerated (and often false) claims and crises as an excuse to pass laws that are unnecessary and many times harmful. . . . We will never fix our laws unless we clean house and start all over again, this time on a sound, empirical basis: Simply adding on to a failed structure will no longer work.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

The Library Copyright Alliance has released "Golan v. Holder: A Farewell to Constitutional Challenges to Copyright Laws" by Jonathan Band.

Here's an excerpt:

The majority opinion in Golan closes the door on constitutional challenges to copyright statutes unless those statutes contain absolutely no time limits or directly undermine the idea/expression dichotomy or fair use. Justice Breyer failed to convince the Court that under the Constitution Congress had the authority to enact only utilitarian copyright statutes that incentivized the creation of new material. The majority opinion leaves Congress as the sole venue for fighting draconian copyright laws.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 80 | Digital Scholarship |

The Amsterdam University Press has released Sharing: Culture and the Economy in the Internet Age.

Here's an excerpt:

This book is about file sharing for creative, expressive or informative works in all media. More specifically, it is about file sharing between individuals and without profit motive. File sharing is the act of making a file available to other individuals by putting it on-line, by sending a copy, or by rendering it accessible through a file sharing software. We defend the view that sharing without direct or indirect monetary transaction—or "non-market" sharing—is legitimate. We also claim that sharing is socially and culturally valuable and will play a key role in the future of our culture and the creative economies. Furthermore, this book proposes a means to strengthen and exploit the synergy between file sharing and creativity, for the general benefit of society and the enrichment of the cultural economy.

| Digital Scholarship |

HathiTrust has responded to the plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint in the Authors Guild, Inc. et al. v. HathiTrust et al. copyright case.

Read more about it at "HathiTrust Answers Authors Guild Lawsuit; Trial Schedule Set" and "Authors Guild v. HathiTrust et al. Resources."

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

Senator Ron Wyden and others have released a draft proposal, "Fighting the Unauthorized Trade of Digital Goods while Protecting Internet Security, Commerce and Speech," that presents an alternative to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 (PIPA).

Here's an excerpt:

We found that using trade laws to address the flow of infringing digital goods into the United States makes it possible to avoid many of the pitfalls that would arise from other legislative proposals currently being advanced to combat online infringement. Namely by putting the regulatory power in the hands of the International Trade Commission—versus a diversity of magistrate judges not versed in Internet and trade policy—will ensure a transparent process in which import policy is fairly and consistently applied and all interests are taken into account. When infringement is addressed only from a narrow judicial perspective, important issues pertaining to cybersecurity and the promotion of online innovation, commerce and speech get neglected. By approaching digital good infringement as a matter of regulating international commerce, we are able to take all of these factors into account.

Read more about it at "SOPA on the Ropes? Bipartisan Alternative to 'Net Censorship Emerges."

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

College & Research Libraries has released a preprint of "Copyright Policy and Practice in Electronic Reserves among ARL Libraries."

Here's an excerpt:

This paper presents the results of a survey of 110 ARL institutions regarding their copyright policies for providing electronic reserves. It compiles descriptive statistics on library practice as well as coding responses to reveal trends and shared practices. Finally, it presents conclusions about policy-making, decision-making and risk aversion in ARL institutions.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

The American Assembly has released Copyright Infringement and Enforcement in the US.

Here's an excerpt:

The note excerpts a forthcoming survey-based study called Copy Culture in the U.S. and Germany. Drawing on results from the U.S. portion of the survey, it explores what Americans do with digital media, what they want to do, and how they reconcile their attitudes and values with different policies and proposals to enforce copyright online.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Booz & Company has released The Impact of U.S. Internet Copyright Regulations on Early-Stage Investment: A Quantitative Study

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

A large majority of the angel investors and venture capitalists who took part in a Booz & Company study say they will not put their money in digital content intermediaries (DCIs) if governments pass tough new rules allowing websites to be sued or fined for pirated digital content posted by users. (DCIs are the companies that provide search, hosting, and distribution services for digital content such as YouTube, Facebook, SoundCloud, eBay, and thousands of others.) More than 70 percent of angel investors reported they would be deterred from investing if anti-piracy regulations against "user uploaded" websites were increased.

| New: Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 80 | Digital Scholarship |

The Library Copyright Alliance has sent a letter to Chairman Lamar Smith and Ranking Member John Conyers of the House Committee on the Judiciary about the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Here's an excerpt:

There are three pending copyright infringement lawsuits against universities and their libraries relating to their use of digital technology One of these cases, AIME v. UCLA, concerns the streaming of films to students as part of their course assignments. These lawsuits reflect a growing tension between rights holders and libraries, and some rights holders' increasingly belligerent enforcement mentality. Moreover, legislation such as SOPA and the PRO-IP Act passed in the 110th Congress, and the activities of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (a position created by the PRO-IP Act), encourage federal prosecutors to enforce copyrights law more aggressively.

In this environment, the criminal prosecution of a library for copyright infringement is no longer beyond the realm of possibility. For this reason, we strongly oppose the amendments described above, which would increase the exposure of libraries to prosecution. The broadening of the definition of willful infringement could result in a criminal prosecution if an Assistant U.S. Attorney believes that a library's assertion of fair use or one of the Copyright Act's other privileges is unreasonable. This risk is compounded with streaming, which SOPA would subject to felony penalties even if conducted without purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain.

| New: Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 80 | Digital Scholarship |

The U.S. Office of the Register of Copyrights has released Legal Issues in Mass Digitization: A Preliminary Analysis and Discussion Document .

Here's the announcement:

The Copyright Office has published a Preliminary Analysis and Discussion Document that addresses the issues raised by the intersection between copyright law and the mass digitization of books. The purpose of the Analysis is to facilitate further discussions among the affected parties and the public discussions that may encompass a number of possible approaches, including voluntary initiatives, legislative options, or both. The Analysis also identifies questions to consider in determining an appropriate policy for the mass digitization of books.

Public discourse on mass digitization is particularly timely. On March 22, 2011, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected a proposed settlement in the copyright infringement litigation regarding Google's mass book digitization project. The court found that the settlement would have redefined the relationship between copyright law and new technology, and it would have encroached upon Congress's ability to set copyright policy with respect to orphan works. Since then, a group of authors has filed a lawsuit against five university libraries that participated in Google's mass digitization project. These developments have sparked a public debate on the risks and opportunities that mass book digitization may create for authors, publishers, libraries, technology companies, and the general public. The Office's Analysis will serve as a basis for further policy discussions on this issue.

| Google Books Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Below are a selection of posts and other documents analyzing the Authors Guild et al. v. HathiTrust et al. case.

• "About Those Orphans" by Brandon Butler
• "HathiTrust and the Litigation Path" by Kenneth Crews
• "Is It All about the Orphans?" by Kevin Smith
• Resource Packet on Orphan Works: Legal and Policy Issues for Research Libraries by Prudence Adler, Jonathan Band, and Brandon Butler
• "Suing HathiTrust" by C. E. Petit

Read more about it at "Authors Guild v. HathiTrust et al. Resources."

| New: Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |

In "Access to the Agreement between Google Books and the British Library," Javier Ruiz of the Open Rights Group analyzes the Google Books contract between Google and the British Library (includes a link to contract).

Here's an excerpt:

The British Library recently announced to much fanfare a deal with Google to make available online a quarter of a million books no longer restricted by copyright, thus in the public domain.

The deal is presented as a win-win situation, where Google pays for the costs of scanning the books, which will be available on both Google and BL's websites. This sounds very philanthropic from Google, however the catch is in the detail:

"Once digitised, these unique items will be available for full text search, download and reading through Google Books, as well as being searchable through the Library's website and stored in perpetuity within the Library's digital archive."

In order to find out what this really means we asked the British Library for a copy of the agreement with Google, which was not uploaded to their transparency website with other similar contracts, as it didn't involve monetary exchange.

| Digital Scholarship |