Category: Copyright

Coalition for Responsible Sharing’s Statement: "Publishers and Societies Take Action against ResearchGate’s Copyright Infringements"

The Coalition for Responsible Sharing has released "Publishers and Societies Take Action against ResearchGate’s Copyright Infringements."

Here's an excerpt:

Numerous attempts to agree with ResearchGate on amicable solutions, including signing up to the Voluntary Principles of Article Sharing on Scholarly Collaboration Networks and implementing a user-friendly technical solution, remained unsuccessful. Members of the Coalition for Responsible Sharing are therefore now resorting to formal means to alter ResearchGate's damaging practices. The coalition members include the American Chemical Society, Brill, Elsevier, Wiley and Wolters Kluwer. These organizations will begin to issue takedown notices to ResearchGate requesting that infringing content be removed from the site. Concurrently, The American Chemical Society and Elsevier are asking the courts to clarify ResearchGate's copyright responsibility.

See also: "ResearchGate: Publishers Take Formal Steps to Force Copyright Compliance."

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"Publishers Taking Legal Action against ResearchGate to Limit Unlicensed Paper Sharing on Networking Site"

Jyllian Kemsley and Andrea Widener have published "Publishers Taking Legal Action against ResearchGate to Limit Unlicensed Paper Sharing on Networking Site" in Chemical & Engineering News.

Publishers could issue "millions" of take-down notices to ResearchGate.

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"Will Ruling in ReDigi Case Open the Door to a Used E-book Market?"

Andrew Albanese has published "Will Ruling in ReDigi Case Open the Door to a Used E-book Market?" in Publishers Weekly.

Here's an excerpt:

Should there be a legal market for reselling "used" digital files, like the secondary market that currently exists for books or CDs in the analog world?

Read more about Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi Inc.

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Lessons From History: The Copyright Office Belongs in the Library of Congress

ALA has released Lessons From History: The Copyright Office Belongs in the Library of Congress.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Prompted by persistent legislative and other proposals to remove the CO from the Library in both the current and most recent Congresses, [Alisa] Holahan's analysis comprehensively reviews the history of the locus of copyright activities from 1870 to the present day. In addition to providing a longer historical perspective, the Report finds that Congress has examined this issue at roughly 20-year intervals, declining to separate the CO and Library each time.

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"For Second Time, Appeals Court Hears GSU E-Reserves Case"

Andrew Albanese has published "For Second Time, Appeals Court Hears GSU E-Reserves Case" in Publishers Weekly.

Here's an excerpt:

In the hearing, which went for just over an hour, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, once again pressed attorneys for the fault lines in the decade-old copyright case, with much of the hearing focusing on whether Judge Orinda Evans correctly evaluated the fourth factor of the four factor fair use test (the effect on the market), and then properly weighted that factor in making her fair use determinations.

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"Sci-Hub Provides Access to Nearly All Scholarly Literature"

Daniel S Himmelstein et al. have published "Sci-Hub Provides Access to Nearly All Scholarly Literature" in PeerJ.

Here's an excerpt:

Since its creation in 2011, Sci-Hub has grown rapidly in popularity. However, until now, the extent of Sci-Hub's coverage was unclear. As of March 2017, we find that Sci-Hub's database contains 68.9% of all 81.6 million scholarly articles, which rises to 85.2% for those published in closed access journals. Furthermore, Sci-Hub contains 77.0% of the 5.2 million articles published by inactive journals. Coverage varies by discipline, with 92.8% coverage of articles in chemistry journals compared to 76.3% for computer science. Coverage also varies by publisher, with the coverage of the largest publisher, Elsevier, at 97.3%.

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"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.

See also: "Introducing Open Access at The Met."

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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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