Copyright – Page 32 – DigitalKoans

Peter Suber Wins 2011 L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award

Peter Suber has been named as the winner of the 2011 L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award by ALA's Office for Information Technology Policy's Copyright Advisory Subcommittee.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The annual award recognizes contributions of an individual or group that pursues and supports the Constitutional purpose of the U.S. Copyright Law, fair use and the public domain. The award is named after L. Ray Patterson, a key legal figure who explained and justified the importance of the public domain and fair use. Fair use is a key exception of the copyright law that allows for the use of a copyright without prior authorization and helps to promote learning, new creativity, scholarship and criticism.

Professor Suber is being recognized for his work in the open access movement that began in academia in response to increasing costs of scholarly journals. His goal is to provide free, public access to scientific information for the public good as well as provide an alternative venue for scientific publishing, one outside of the price-inflated research journal marketplace. Suber is a professor of philosophy at Earlham College, a senior researcher at Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), and a Fellow at Harvard University Library’s Office for Scholarly Communication. He also is member of the Board of Enabling Open Scholarshipand serves as Open Access Project Director at Public Knowledge.

Among his colleagues in our nation's capital, Suber is regarded as a leader in the quest to protect open access.

"There is no greater champion for open access than Peter Suber," Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge, said."The open access concept — that the public should have access to research that is paid for with tax dollars — may seem to be common sense, but it is not widely accepted in Washington. Peter has led a multi-year crusade to implement the idea, often in the face of determined corporate opposition. The American Library Association chose well in selecting Peter for this splendid award."

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography |

A Guide For the Perplexed Part IV: The Rejection of the Google Books Settlement

The Library Copyright Alliance has released A Guide For the Perplexed Part IV: The Rejection of the Google Books Settlement.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

This guide is the latest in a series prepared by LCA legal counsel Jonathan Band to help inform the library community about this landmark legal dispute.

In the Guide Part IV, Band explains why the Court rejected the proposed class action settlement, which would have allowed Google to engage in a wide variety of activities using scanned books.

As stated in the Guide, "The court concluded that the settlement was unfair because a substantial number of class members [i.e., authors and publishers] voiced significant concerns with the settlement.… However, the validity of the objections seemed less important to the court than the fact that many class members raised them."

As for the impact of the decision on libraries, Band writes that while it is too early to say what the parties will do next, "it appears that both the challenges and the opportunities presented to libraries by the settlement when it was announced in the fall of 2008 are growing narrower and more distant."

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography |

E-Reserves and Copyright: Cambridge University Press et al. v. Patton et al. Trial Set for 5/16/2011

The Cambridge University Press et al. v. Patton et al. trial date has been set for 5/16/2011.

Here's an excerpt from ruling:

At trial, the parties will need to present evidence and argument that will allow the Court to rule on the question whether Plaintiffs may proceed under Ex Parte Younp or whether the case must be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Based on the pleadings alone, the Court cannot say that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case. Dismissal under Rules 12(b) (1) and 12(c), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, would be improper.

Accordingly, Defendants' Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 2393) is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE. The parties are DIRECTED to file a proposed consolidated pretrial order no later than April 29, 2011. The trial is set for May 16, 2011 at 10:00 a.m.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

Jessica Litman: "Readers’ Copyright"

Jessica Litman, John F. Nickoll Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, has self-archived "Readers' Copyright" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

This essay is part of a project intended to help reclaim copyright for readers, listeners, and viewers. A system of copyright protection makes little sense unless it is designed to encourage the use and enjoyment of the works it induces authors to create and publishers to disseminate. I argue that a clear-eyed examination of copyright's history reveals that solicitude for readers and members of the audience is, in fact, deeply encoded in copyright's DNA. Recently, readers' interests have faded in apparent importance in the copyright scheme in ways that have unbalanced the copyright system, and undermined public support for copyright law. In response to growing criticism of copyright, some of copyright law's most ardent supporters have insisted that users have no rights, should have no rights, and have never had rights in the copyright scheme. That approach, I suggest, is making the problem worse, not better. Copyright seems out of whack because it has forgotten its most important constituents. In this essay, I take a series of very small baby steps in the direction of recognizing rights and liberties within the copyright system for readers, listeners, viewers and other members of the copyright audience.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

Four Reports and One Hearing on the Orphan Works Problem

In the wake of the recent Google Books Amended Settlement Agreement ruling, the orphan works problem has once again come front and center. Below are four reports and one Congressional hearing on the issue that may be worth revisiting.

Korn, Naomi. In from the Cold: An Assessment of the Scope of "Orphan Works" and Its Impact on the Delivery of Services to the Public. London: JISC, 2009.

Ricolfi, Marco et al. Final Report on Digital Preservation, Orphan Works, and Out-of-Print Works. Luxembourg: European Commission, Information Society and Media DG, Access to Information Unit, 2008.

United States Copyright Office. Report on Orphan Works. Washington, DC: United States Copyright Office, 2006.

U.S. Congress, House. Promoting the Use of Orphan Works: Balancing the Interests of Copyright Owners and Users, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property of the Committee on the Judiciary, 110 Congress, 2008.

Vuopala, Anna Assessment of the Orphan Works Issue and Costs for Rights Clearance. Luxembourg: European Commission, Information Society and Media DG, Access to Information Unit, 2010.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

Author’s Guild et al. v. Google Inc. Ruling: Amended Settlement Agreement Denied

Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. District Court Southern District of New York has denied the Amended Settlement Agreement for the Author's Guild et al. v. Google Inc. case.

Here's an excerpt from the ruling:

Before the Court is plaintiffs' motion pursuant to Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for final approval of the proposed settlement of this class action on the terms set forth in the Amended Settlement Agreement (the "ASA"). The question presented is whether the ASA is fair, adequate, and reasonable. I conclude that it is not.

While the digitization of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many, the ASA would simply go too far. It would permit this class action—which was brought against defendant Google Inc. ("Google") to challenge its scanning of books and display of "snippets" for on-line searching—to implement a forward-looking business arrangement that would grant Google significant rights to exploit entire books, without permission of the copyright owners. Indeed, the ASA would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond those presented in the case.

Accordingly, and for the reasons more fully discussed below, the motion for final approval of the ASA is denied. The accompanying motion for attorneys' fees and costs is denied, without prejudice.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

Cornell University Library Will Not Sign E-Resources Licenses with Nondisclosure Clauses

The Cornell University Library has adopted a policy of not signing e-resources licenses with nondisclosure clauses.

Here's an excerpt from the policy:

To promote openness and fairness among libraries licensing scholarly resources, Cornell University Library will not enter into vendor contracts that require nondisclosure of pricing information or other information that does not constitute a trade secret. All new and renewed licenses submitted with nondisclosure clauses will not be signed but henceforth will be referred to the Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Resources and Special Collections for further negotiation. . . .

It has become apparent to the library community that the anticompetitive conduct engaged in by some publishing firms is in part a result of the inclusion of nondisclosure agreements in contracts.¹ As Robert Darnton recently noted, by "keeping the terms secret, … one library cannot negotiate for cheaper rates by citing an advantage obtained by another library."² For this reason, the International Coalition of Library Consortia's "Statement of Current Perspective and Preferred Practices for the Selection and Purchase of Electronic Information" states that "Non-disclosure language should not be required for any licensing agreement, particularly language that would preclude library consortia from sharing pricing and other significant terms and conditions with other consortia."³ The more that libraries are able to communicate with one another about vendor offers, the better they are able to weigh the costs and benefits of any individual offer. An open market will result in better licensing terms.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 |

ELI2011 Podcast: How to Fix Copyright

EDUCAUSE has released ELI2011 Podcast: How to Fix Copyright in which William Patry, Senior Copyright Counsel for Google, discusses needed copyright changes. Both digital audio and video versions of the talk are available.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview | Reviews of Digital Scholarship Publications |

Lasting Change: Sustaining Digital Scholarship and Culture in Canada

The Sustaining Digital Scholarship for Sustainable Culture Group has released Lasting Change: Sustaining Digital Scholarship and Culture in Canada.

Here's an excerpt:

This report reflects the growing concern in the scholarly and cultural communities, and beyond, regarding the sustainability of Canada's digital knowledge and heritage. Canada's digital advantage is only of value if it can be carried into the future. Canadians must meet the challenge of preserving and enhancing scholarly and artistic knowledge production and our culture in a digital environment. This report reviews the current state of knowledge about the sustainability of digital scholarship and related cultural activity in Canada and identifies research opportunities that emerge from consideration of the literature.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Internet Archive and Library Partners Launch E-Book Lending Collection

The Internet Archive and a group of academic and public library partners have launched an e-book lending collection, which contains over 80,000 e-books. The majority of books were published in the 20th century.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Any OpenLibrary.org account holder can borrow up to 5 eBooks at a time, for up to 2 weeks. Books can only be borrowed by one person at a time. People can choose to borrow either an in-browser version (viewed using the Internet Archive’s BookReader web application), or a PDF or ePub version, managed by the free Adobe Digital Editions software. This new technology follows the lead of the Google eBookstore, which sells books from many publishers to be read using Google's books-in-browsers technology. Readers can use laptops, library computers and tablet devices including the iPad.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Final Guidelines on Copyright Clearance and IPR Management

The European Film Gateway project has released Final Guidelines on Copyright Clearance and IPR Management.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The report includes:

an overview of legal frameworks in EU countries for the film sector

guidelines how to successfully clear rights related to film works

copyright basics (moral rights vs. exploitation rights, orphan works etc)

diligent search guidelines for rights holders

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

"Intellectual Property’s Great Fallacy"

Eric E. Johnson has self-archived "Intellectual Property’s Great Fallacy" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

Intellectual property law has long been justified on the belief that external incentives are necessary to get people to produce artistic works and technological innovations that are easily copied. This Essay argues that this foundational premise of the economic theory of intellectual property is wrong. Using recent advances in behavioral economics, psychology, and business-management studies, it is now possible to show that there are natural and intrinsic motivations that will cause technology and the arts to flourish even in the absence of externally supplied rewards, such as copyrights and patents.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

"Comments Submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office Regarding Pre-1972 Sound Recordings"

Kenneth D. Crews has self-archived "Comments Submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office Regarding Pre-1972 Sound Recordings" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

The U.S. Copyright Office solicited comments regarding the possibility of extending federal copyright protection to sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972. Such recordings may have some state or common law copyright protection, but most are in the public domain. These comments outline some of the complications in lawmaking that often result from extending protection to works that were previously available to the public without copyright protection. Lessons are derived from such examples as the creation of new protection for architectural works and the restoration of foreign works.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

"Bibliographic Indeterminacy and the Scale of Problems and Opportunities of ‘Rights’ in Digital Collection Building"

The Council on Library and Information Resources has released "Bibliographic Indeterminacy and the Scale of Problems and Opportunities of 'Rights' in Digital Collection Building" as the first paper in its new "Ruminations" series.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

CLIR has launched a new publication series, "Ruminations." The series will feature short research papers and essays that bring new perspective to issues related to planning for and managing organizational and institutional change in the evolving digital environment for scholarship and teaching.

We inaugurate the new series with a report by John P. Wilkin that posits the scope of works in the public domain and probable extent of orphan works in our research library collections, based on an analysis of the HathiTrust book corpus. The question of rights status is critical since it governs how works can be used or reused, especially in the digital environment.

Recent research shows that HathiTrust's collection—which currently holds more than 5 million digitized books—is highly representative of research library collections. On this premise, Wilkin has analyzed HathiTrust's holdings and drawn preliminary conclusions about the proportion of works that are in-copyright, in the public domain, or are orphans—that is, works whose holders cannot be located.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

The Triangle Research Libraries Network’s Intellectual Property Rights Strategy for Digitization of Modern Manuscript Collections and Archival Record Groups

The Triangle Research Libraries Network has released The Triangle Research Libraries Network's Intellectual Property Rights Strategy for Digitization of Modern Manuscript Collections and Archival Record Groups.

Here's an excerpt from the OCLC press release:

This is the first formally published strategy for providing access to unpublished materials online based on an approach created by OCLC Research and the RLG Partnership.

This approach is described in a document titled, "Well-intentioned practice for putting digitized collections of unpublished materials online" and is the output of an "Undue Diligence" invitational seminar held in the spring of 2010. During this event, OCLC Research convened a group of RLG Partner experts from archives, special collections and the law to develop and define streamlined, community-accepted procedures for managing copyright in the digital age that would cut costs and boost confidence in libraries' and archives' ability to increase visibility of and access to unpublished materials online. The group acknowledged that, although there is risk in digitizing materials that may be in copyright, this risk should be balanced with the harm to scholarship and society inherent in not making collections fully accessible. Based on this premise, they identified a practical approach to selecting collections, making decisions, seeking permissions, recording outcomes, establishing policy and working with future donors, which OCLC Research staff outlined in the "Well-intentioned practice" document and posted online.

Since then, a community of practice has formed around these procedures and many professional organizations have publicly endorsed them, including the Rare Book and Manuscript Section (RBMS) of the American Library Association (ALA), and leading academic library professionals and scholarly communications officers.

Based on this ever-growing agreement within the profession, the Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN) member libraries created a Network's Intellectual Property Rights Strategy for Digitization of Modern Manuscript Collections and Archival Record Groups to specify the well-reasoned risk management practices to support their large-scale digitization project called "Content, Context, and Capacity: A Collaborative Digitization Project on the Long Civil Rights Movement in North Carolina." This project will present free and open online access to a total of forty digitized manuscript collections or archival record groups, accompanied by the broad summary descriptions and contents lists found in the finding aids created when the collections were processed. For the first time, these resources will cross the boundaries of the four libraries' reading rooms—bringing together a vast quantity of research material for the era between the 1930s and 1980s. This free and open online availability of full collections will facilitate new scholarly collaborations across institutions, and even nations, and will support the development of educational tools for students and the use of primary sources in classrooms.

Read more about it at "Well-Intentioned Practice for Putting Digitized Collections of Unpublished Materials Online."

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

How to License Research Data

The Digital Curation Centre has released How to License Research Data.

Here's an excerpt:

This guide will help you decide how to apply a licence to your research data, and which licence would be most suitable. It should provide you with an awareness of why licensing data is important, the impact licences have on future research, and the potential pitfalls to avoid. It concentrates on the UK context, though some aspects apply internationally; it does not, however, provide legal advice. The guide should interest both the principal investigators and researchers responsible for the data, and those who provide access to them through a data centre, repository or archive.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Creative Commons and Public Sector Information: Flexible Tools to Support PSI Creators and Re-Users

The European Public Sector Information (PSI) Platform has released Creative Commons and Public Sector Information: Flexible Tools to Support PSI Creators and Re-Users.

Here's an excerpt:

Public sector information (PSI) is meant for wide re-use, but this information will only achieve maximum possible impact if users understand how they may use it. Creative Commons tools, which signify availability for re-use to users and require attribution to the releasing authority, are ideal tools for the sharing of public sector information. There is also increasing interest in open licenses and other tools to share publicly funded information, data, and content, including various kinds of cultural resources, educational materials, and research findings; Creative Commons tools are applicable here and recommended for these purposes too.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Managing Digital Collections: A Collaborative Initiative on the South African Framework

The National Research Foundation has released Managing Digital Collections: A Collaborative Initiative on the South African Framework.

Here's an excerpt:

The objective of this Framework is to provide high-level principles for planning and managing the full digital collection life cycle. It aims to

provide an overview of some of the major components and activities involved in creating good digital collections

provide a sense of the landscape of digital collections management

identify existing resources that support the development of sound local practices

encourage community participation in the ongoing development of best practices for digital collection building

contribute to the benefits of sound data management practices, as well as the goals of data sharing and long term access

introduce data management and curation issues

assist cultural heritage organisations to create and manage complex digital collections

assist funding organisations who wish to encourage and support the development of good digital collections

advocate the use of internationally-created appropriate open community standards to ensure quality and to increase global interoperability for better exchange and re-use of data and digital content.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

2010 U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Annual Report on Intellectual Property Enforcement

Victoria A. Espinel, U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, has released the 2010 U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Annual Report on Intellectual Property Enforcement.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Special Issue of PLATFORM: Journal of Media and Communication about the Creative Commons

PLATFORM: Journal of Media and Communication has published a special issue about the Creative Commons.

Here's an excerpt from the issue's editorial by Elliott Bledsoe and Jessica Coates:

We are privileged to be able to begin this issue with an interview with one of the leading thinkers in the field, Esther Wojcicki, the Vice-Chair of the Creative Commons Board of Directors. Esther is an award winning journalist and educator, who has taught at Palo Alto High School in California for 25 years and blogs regularly for The Huffington Post and Hotchalk. She is an articulate and experienced advocate of open, using it in her professional and personal life. In Wojcicki’s interview she introduces us to the background philosophy of Creative Commons through the lens of her experience, giving her take on why rights literacy is necessary to teach a generation that will work and play primarily on the net.

Providing a broader overview of where things are at, the issue commences with Rachel Cobcroft’s piece chronicling the development of the international Creative Commons Case Studies initiative. The 2-year-old qualitative research project uses real world examples to gauge the impact of the Creative Commons licensing scheme's legal, technological, social, media and policy initiatives. As well as providing the fundamentals of the Creative Commons model, Cobcroft's piece examines the progress of open content licensing; identifies models of implementation and licensing trends across industry sectors as diverse as music, government, wikis and fashion; and, perhaps most importantly, explores individual motivations for the adoption of open philosophies.

A similar focus on motivations is central to our second piece by Cheryl Foong. However, in contrast to the broad picture provided by Cobcroft, Foong takes a narrow focus for her analysis, asking the question can open philosophies go hand in hand with commercial gain? Drawing on examples of adoption of Creative Commons licensing by content creators and intermediaries, Foong concludes that, if used wisely, the open licensing scheme can be a useful tool for those creators who wish to circumvent traditional distribution channels dominated by content intermediaries, while maintaining a level of control over their copyright works. However, Foong identifies a need for caution – giving your work away is not a business model in itself, and only those who can successfully adapt the tools provided by the open movement to, as Techdirt CEO Mike Masnick puts it, connect with fans and give them a reason to buy,. . . will achieve success in this space.

The message that open is valuable, but does not solve all problems is taken up in our third paper, a collaborative piece by Alexandra Crosby and Ferdiansyah Thajib. Viewed through the lens of video activism in Indonesia, Crosby and Thajib seek to explore the experience of individual creators attempting to tackle the behemoth of copyright in the liberated, but confusing, internet age. In doing so, they argue that while open licensing is an improvement on the models of the past, there is not yet a solution for the problems of copyright management that fits the Indonesian context. Of particular concern are issues of collaboration and credit in a world where attribution is the new currency, and the increasing gap between the global rhetoric of copyright enforcement and the diversity of practices on the ground. In the end Crosby and Thajib conclude that if the commons movement is to be successful in Indonesia, it must address cultural issues, images of imperialism and practical barriers to clear and open licensing in a society where no strong copyright tradition exists.

The final paper by Peter Jakobsson also focuses on the principle of collaboration that underpins the current commons movement, but with a more critical, theoretical eye. Relying primarily on the analytical model provided by Rene Girard's theory of mimetic desire, Jakobsson examines the relationship between the growing trend, and rhetoric, of cooperation on the ‘social web' and the often undervalued importance of competition in the same field. In doing so, he argues that both competition and collaboration are not only valuable but central to the new forms and platforms of cultural production. Most interestingly, to demonstrate his argument he draws on the real world example of YouTube's Partnership program, demonstrating that even in a limitless world, scarcity still exists in resources such as viewer attention.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

"The Impact of the Supreme Court’s Decision in Costco v. Omega on Libraries"

The Library Copyright Alliance has released "The Impact of the Supreme Court's Decision in Costco v. Omega on Libraries."

Here's an excerpt:

On December 13, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Costco v. Omega in a manner that eliminated none of the uncertainty caused by the lower court's ruling in that case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had ruled that the copyright law's "first sale doctrine" did not apply to copies manufactured abroad. This ruling cast doubt on a library's ability to circulate books and other materials manufactured outside of the United States. In a 4 to 4 vote, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's judgment "by an equally divided Court." This means that the Ninth Circuit's ruling stands within the Ninth Circuit, but is not a binding precedent on courts in the rest of the country. Libraries must now decide whether to change their purchasing and lending practices in light of the Supreme Court's decision. This memorandum suggests that a combination of defenses, including section 602(a)(3)(C) of the Copyright Act, the Ninth Circuit's Drug Emporium exception, implied license, and fair use, allow libraries throughout the country to continue their existing purchasing and circulation practices with a fair degree of confidence that they will not infringe copyright by doing so.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Three Chapters from Access-Right: The Future of Digital Copyright Law

Zohar Efroni has self-archived three chapters from Access-Right: The Future of Digital Copyright Law in SSRN.

"Access." Here's an excerpt:

This chapter scrutinizes the notion of "access to information" and attempts to translate it into a vocabulary property law can process and analyze. It turns out that very little about "access to information" as a property concept is self-explanatory.
"The Digital Reproduction Right." Here's an excerpt:

It shall be posited that and explained why the reproduction right belongs to past chapters in copyright law's evolution; it has grown evidently unsuitable to lead the copyright system into the digital future.
"Anticircumvention Laws." Here's an excerpt:

This chapter provides a broad overview and analysis on anticircumvention laws in the U.S. and Europe. . . . The statutory anticircumvention texts reviewed in this chapter do not provide straightforward answers to the nexus problem, that is, the relationship between anticircumvention bans and conventional copyright infringement.

| Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Open Content Licensing Tool: Risk Management Calculator

The OER IPR Support Project has released the Risk Management Calculator.

Here's an excerpt from the press release :

As more and more open content finds its way online, licensing and rights have become a key issue on a global level.

Licensing is complex and the more open you make content under an end user licence the greater the risk if you haven't sought the necessary permissions. In partnership with the Higher Education Academy, JISC is funding a support project on IPR and licensing issues for Open Educational Resources. The latest addition to their suite of support resources is a new tool—the Risk Management Calculator—designed to help understand levels of risk associated with publishing open educational materials. Typical examples of this might include materials which are still in copyright, but for which the rights holders cannot be traced or are unknown (so called "Orphan Works"). The calculator helps those relatively new to licensing to make the right decisions when creating open content. . . .

More and more organisations are realising the benefits of releasing their content under Creative Commons Licences, or similar open content licences such as the Open Government Licence, which explicitly grant the end-user permission to use materials, modify or redistribute them. Institutions like the British Library are releasing their bibliographic records to be reused without attribution and Creative Commons Licences are increasingly used by developing countries to open up content.

| Digital Scholarship |

The New Renaissance

The European Commission's Comité des Sages has released The New Renaissance.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The report, called "The New Renaissance," key conclusions and recommendations are:

The Europeana portal should become the central reference point for Europe's online cultural heritage. Member States must ensure that all material digitised with public funding is available on the site, and bring all their public domain masterpieces into Europeana by 2016. Cultural

Works that are covered by copyright, but are no longer distributed commercially, need to be brought online. It is primarily the role of rights-holders to digitise these works and exploit them. But, if rights holders do not do so, cultural institutions must have a window of opportunity to digitise material and make it available to the public, for which right holders should be remunerated.

EU rules for orphan works (whose rights holders cannot be identified) need to be adopted as soon as possible. The Report defines eight fundamental conditions for any solution.

Member States need to considerably increase their funding for digitisation in order to generate jobs and growth in the future. The funds needed to build 100 km of roads would pay for the digitisation of 16% of all available books in EU libraries, or the digitisation of every piece of audio content in EU Member States' cultural institutions.

Public-private partnerships for digitisation must be encouraged. They must be transparent, non-exclusive and equitable for all partners, and must result in cross-border access to the digitised material for all. Preferential use of the digitised material granted to the private partner should not exceed seven years.

To guarantee the preservation of collections in their digital format, a second copy of this cultural material should be archived at Europeana. In addition, a system should be developed so that any cultural material that currently needs to be deposited in several countries would only be deposited once.

| Digital Scholarship |

A Copyright Office for the 21st Century: Recommendations to the New Register of Copyrights

Public Knowledge has released A Copyright Office for the 21st Century: Recommendations to the New Register of Copyrights .

Here's an excerpt:

First and foremost, the next Register of Copyrights should prioritize updating the copyright registration system so that it can meet the demands of modern copyright. There is no reason why, in an era of interconnected computers and sophisticated digital imaging, the registry should have long processing delays, be incomplete, not include visual works, and not be searchable from any Internet-accessible device. A complete copyright registry that takes full advantage of digital technology will reduce costs for copyright holders, those engaging in searches, and taxpayers. Importantly, a complete and widely accessibly registry will help to ensure that those seeking to make use of copyrighted works can more easily find and compensate their owners.

Second, the next Register of Copyrights must recognize that copyright policymaking is no longer a sleepy backwater followed by a handful of copyright holders and their lawyers. Thanks largely to the clash of an overwhelmingly pre-VCR copyright law with digital technology, the length and terms of copyright law have become a matter of public debate. Moreover, ubiquitous computers and Internet access have made just about everyone a creator with a stake in copyright policymaking. Thus, the Copyright Office should take its cue from other government agencies and reach out affirmatively to various stakeholder groups and the public at large – not only to inform them of what the Copyright Office is doing, but also to seek their participation in policymaking.

The increased interest, and the public’s stake, in copyright policymaking also make it essential that the Copyright Office follow the Obama Administration’s goal of a more open and transparent government. At a minimum, this means that the Copyright Office must reveal who is meeting with their staff and why.

Finally, this paper recommends that Congress limit the term of the Register of Copyrights to no more than 10 years. Term limits make political appointees more accountable and reduce the possibility of capture by one or more existing stakeholder groups.

| Digital Scholarship |