Copyright – Page 49 – DigitalKoans

American Council on Education and the MPAA Spar over College Opportunity and Affordability Act

The American Council on Education has sent a letter to Senators Edward M. Kennedy and Michael B. Enzi regarding copyright infringement provisions in the College Opportunity and Affordability Act.

In it, the ACE states:

Recent investigations and reports to the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities concluded that legitimate online alternatives and technologies designed to deter illegal file sharing are largely ineffective. A widely distributed 2005 study commissioned by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) indicated that 44 percent of its domestic losses due to illegal file sharing were attributable to college students. However, MPAA revealed in January that a re-examination of those data determined that the estimated loss due to college students was in fact 15 percent, not 44 percent. Moreover, since only 20 percent of college students nationwide reside on campus, only 3 percent of MPAA losses can be attributed to college students using campus networks.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has responded with its own letter, refuting the ACE letter. It states:

One filtering product is now deployed at approximately 70 colleges and universities across the country, and it has demonstrated the ability to impede illegal P2P activity on a number of campus networks.

Further, the letter claims that one university has had significant cost savings as a result of filtering.

Meanwhile, an MPAA study revealed that the movie industry experienced record-breaking profits in 2007, casting some doubt on how significant the piracy threat really is.

Trade Dispute: Antigua Says It May Allow Violations of Copyright Agreements with the U.S.

As a result of a trade dispute over Internet gambling, Antigua may allow violations of copyright agreements with the U.S. by the end of the month. In 2007, the WTO awarded Antigua $21 million from the U.S. (it had wanted $3.4 billion) and backed it to collect those damages via copyright violations if the Internet gambling issue could not be resolved.

Berman May Introduce Orphan Works Legislation

Howard Berman, Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, may introduce legislation about orphan works in the next few months. Berman held a Subcommittee hearing about orphan works on March 13th to gather further information. One outcome of that hearing was the need to pay special attention to the problem that photographs and other visual works may not have information that identifies copyright owners.

Purdue Faculty Affairs Committee Endorses Addendum to Publication Agreements for CIC Authors

The Purdue Faculty Affairs Committee has endorsed the Committee on Institutional Cooperation's Addendum to Publication Agreements for CIC Authors.

Here's an excerpt from the Addendum:

The Author shall, without limitation, have the non-exclusive right to use, reproduce, distribute, and create derivative works including update, perform, and display publicly, the Article in electronic, digital or print form in connection with the Author’s teaching, conference presentations, lectures, other scholarly works, and for all of Author’s academic and professional activities.

After a period of six (6) months from the date of publication of the article, the Author shall also have all the non-exclusive rights necessary to make, or to authorize others to make, the final published version of the Article available in digital form over the Internet, including but not limited to a website under the control of the Author or the Author’s employer or through digital repositories including, but not limited to, those maintained by CIC institutions, scholarly societies or funding agencies.

The Author further retains all non-exclusive rights necessary to grant to the Author’s employing institution the non-exclusive right to use, reproduce, distribute, display, publicly perform, and make copies of the work in electronic, digital or in print form in connection with teaching, conference presentations, lectures, other scholarly works, and all academic and professional activities conducted at the Author’s employing institution.

Italian Agency Says Tracking File Sharing Activity without Permission Violates Privacy Rights

The Italian agency in charge of protecting personal data has ruled that Logistep violated the privacy rights of Italian file sharers by tracking their activity and ordered that these tracking records be destroyed. Previously, the Swiss data protection commissioner made a similar ruling against Logistep.

Presentations from the Open Access Collections Workshop Now Available

Presentations from the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories' Open Access Collections workshop are now available. Presentations are in HTML/PDF, MP3, and digital video formats. The workshop was held in association with the Queensland University Libraries Office of Cooperation and the University of Queensland Library.

Peggy Hoon Wins 2008 L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award

Peggy Hoon, Special Assistant to the Provost for Copyright Administration at North Carolina State University, has won the 2008 L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Peggy Hoon is the 2008 recipient of the L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award: In Support of Users’ Rights, which was established to recognize the contributions of an individual who pursues and supports the Constitutional purpose of U.S. copyright law, fair use, and the public domain.

Ms. Hoon currently serves as Special Assistant to the Provost for Copyright Administration at North Carolina State University. In that role, Ms. Hoon helps shape the university’s policies and regulations with regard to copyright, and she has shared that knowledge with countless other libraries and universities, through a busy speaking schedule and strong presence on the Internet.

Ms. Hoon has also prepared position statements on several pieces of federal legislation, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act. Further, numerous public interest groups that fought the Federal Communications Commission’s broadcast flag rule are beneficiaries of Ms. Hoon’s statement to the court. Her affidavit challenging the rule established standing for the petitioners (including ALA), which allowed the D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals to review the case on its own merit and ultimately rule against the broadcast flag.

Iowa Provost Issues Statement about Open Access MFA Theses Dust-Up

MFA students at the University of Iowa have been upset about a requirement that would make their theses available as open access documents either immediately or in two years (if they ask for an extension). A number of student blog postings have protested this requirement. Part of the problem is that MFA theses can be creative works (or other types of works, such as nonfiction works) that may have commercial potential. Peter Suber has analyzed the situation in his "Controversy over OA for Fine Arts Theses and Dissertations" posting.

The Interim Provost, Lola Lopes, has now issued a statement about the conflict.

Here's an excerpt from that statement:

For some time now our library, like most major academic research libraries, has been exploring ways to make its collections more accessible by digitizing some materials. As part of that process, there has been discussion about the possibility of making graduate student dissertations and theses available in electronic format. But any such process must be preceded by developing policies and procedures that allow authors to decide whether and when to allow distribution.

On Monday, March 17, I will begin pulling together a working group with representatives from the Graduate College, University Libraries, our several writing programs, and all other constituencies who wish to be part of the process. Under the leadership of Carl Seashore in 1922, Iowa became the first university in the United States to award MFA degrees based on creative projects. Although this has been a rocky start, I like to think that Iowa will again lead the way by developing policies and procedures that safeguard intellectual property rights while preserving materials for the use of scholars in generations to come.

Four Japanese ISP Organizations Say They Will Terminate Service to Illegal File Sharers

Four Japanese ISP organizations, representing around 1,000 ISPs, have said that they will terminate service to customers who use Winny and other file-sharing software to illegally download copyrighted material if they fail to heed warning e-mails from ISPs that are based on violation information provided by copyright holders.

Random House Group Executive Gail Rebuck on Publishing Books in a Digital Age

Gail Rebuck, Chairman and Chief Executive of The Random House Group, recently delivered the Stationers' Company Annual Lecture on "New Chapter or Last Page? Publishing Books in a Digital Age." Among other topics in this interesting, wide-ranging presentation, she discussed publishers' digital copyright concerns and Google Book Search, including saying:

Piracy threatens to erode the copyright protection that is the cornerstone of our creative industries and their successful exports. Vigilant policing and joined-up legislation across all countries is essential. Education is vital, too, to show that these crimes are in no sense 'victimless,' however harmless they may seem. Indifference to copyright protection and copyright worth will prove highly destructive. . . .

For texts held in the public domain the project [Google Book Search], seems entirely laudable, even exciting, since it brings an inconceivably rich library to anyone's desktop. But Google's initial willingness to capture copyrighted works without first asking permission was, to say the least, surprising. . . .

Google’s attitude towards copyright is merely a corporate expression of the individualist, counter-cultural attitudes of many of the Internet pioneers. As Stewart Brand, author of The Whole Earth Catalog once declared, 'information wants to be free.'

Swedish Ministers Say That ISPs Should Be Forced to Reveal Illegal File Sharers Identities

In an opinion article in Svenska Dagbladet, Swedish Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask and Minister of Culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth have said that they will propose a law that requires ISPs to reveal the identity of illegal file sharers to copyright holders after they provide evidence that infringement has occurred.

Read more about it at "Sweden to Clamp Down on File Sharing" and "Sweden to Get Tough on File-Sharers."

Music Industry Consultant Says It's Time for an ISP File Sharing Surcharge

Jim Griffin, Managing Director of OneHouse LLC, has suggested that ISP users should pay a small monthly surcharge to compensate music companies and performers for lost revenues from file sharing. This public proposal by a music industry consultant suggests that there may have been a shift in the industry's thinking since the EFF released "A Better Way Forward: Voluntary Collective Licensing of Music File Sharing" in 2004, which suggested a similar plan that was dismissed by the industry.

After Israeli Court Orders HttpShare Blocked, It Has to Upgrade Hardware to Respond to Increased Traffic

After an Israeli court ordered ISP providers to block HttpShare, a torrent search engine and link-only site, traffic sharply increased as a result of news coverage. The site now has a banner that says "Big Thanks to IFPI that bring us alot traffic!"

Four Music Companies Take Legal Action Against Irish ISP to Stop Illegal Downloads

EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner have taken Ireland's biggest ISP, Eircom, to court to force it to stop illegal music downloads on its network.

Several Publisher Associations Release Joint Statement on Journal Publishing Agreements and Copyright Agreement Addenda

The International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM), the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers (PSP), and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) have released the "STM/PSP/ALPSP Statement on Journal Publishing Agreements and Copyright Agreement 'Addenda'."

Here's an excerpt from the STM press release:

The debate on the rights that authors have (or indeed it is claimed inaccurately, do not have) over their published works continues to rage, and much coverage has been given to purportedly restrictive practices or policies, when in fact they do not exist for the majority of publishers.

The most recent examples surround the vote of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard for university ownership and distribution of research papers (February 2008). One advocate of the Harvard policy claims that this step was taken because "the scholarly publishing system has become far more restrictive than it need be [… m]any publishers will not even allow scholars to use and distribute their own work." (See http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2008/02.14/99-fasvote.html).

This is not only an inaccurate perception of the role of publishers and copyright, but also means that advocating authors to modify existing journal publishing agreements with "copyright addenda" is simply a call for needless bureaucracy. . . .

STM publishers invariably allow the authors of journal articles to use their published papers in their own teaching and for educational purposes generally within their institutions. Most journals have policies that permit authors to provide copies of their papers to research colleagues, and to re-use portions of their papers in further works or books. Although some news-oriented science and medical magazines have a few restrictions on pre-publication posting, almost all research journals permit the posting by the author or the author's institution of some version of the paper on the Internet.

Controversial Provision in the PRO-IP Act Dropped

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property dropped a controversial provision of the Pro-IP Act (HR 4279, the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2007) that would have made infringers liable for damages for each part of a compilation work (e.g., each song on an album). The Subcommittee then approved the bill.

Acta Crystallographica Section E Adopts Author-Pays OA Model and Creative Commons License

The International Union of Crystallography has adopted a very modest publication fee ($150) to support open access to Acta Crystallographica Section E: Structure Reports Online. It has also put the journal under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Read more about it at "Acta Crystallographica E is Open Access."

EDUCAUSE Urgent Call to Action about the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007

EDUCAUSE has issued an urgent call for action by March 7 about the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007, which contains a provision about illegal file sharing.

Here is the provision:

Section 494: Campus Based Digital Theft Prevention

(a) IN GENERAL—Each eligible institution participating in any program under this title shall to the extent practicable—

(2) develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity

See EDUCAUSE's talking points, action call template, and file-sharing resources. For further background, see "In a Win for the MPAA and RIAA, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 Is Approved by the House Education and Labor Committee."

You can use Congress Merge to find contact information for your Congressional representatives.

Creative Commons License Option for ETDs at the University of Auckland

The University of Auckland now gives students submitting an electronic theses or dissertation the option of putting it under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License.

Are Publishers Ready for the JISC/SURF Licence to Publish Author Agreement and Its Principles?

The SURFfoundation has published Acceptance of the JISC/SURF Licence to Publish & accompanying Principles by Traditional Publishers of Journals.

Here's an excerpt from the "Management Survey" section (I have added the link to the Licence to Publish):

In 2006, JISC and SURF drafted several Principles and a model Licence to Publish in order to persuade traditional publishers of journals to move in the direction of Open Access objectives. According to these Principles:

the author merely issues a licence to publish instead of transferring his/her copyright.

the author may freely deposit the publisher-generated PDF files of his/her article in an institutional repository, with an embargo of no longer than 6 months.

To set an example, a model Licence to Publish (hereafter: LtP) was drawn up as well. Yet, using the LtP is not a necessary requirement for meeting the—more important—Open Access objectives of the Principles.

This report presents the results of an enquiry by e-mail among 47 traditional publishers of journals. They were asked whether they would support the Principles and/or the LtP, which had first been explained to them. Two Open Access publishers were also asked for a reaction merely out of interest, since they do not belong to the target group. . .

The results showed that a substantial group of one-third of the contacted publishers conforms to the first aspect of the Principles; they make use of a licence to publish instead of a copyright transfer. Furthermore, the same number of publishers (16) already has a repository policy in place which is compatible with the Principles. Moreover, 7 publishers conform to both aspects and thus they endorse all the Principles. The support for the model LtP developed by SURF and JISC, however was low; no publisher did as yet endorse it.

Intellectual Property? OK, Let's Tax It as Property

Scientist Dallas Weaver has suggested that if copyright holders want "property" rights then they should be subject to a significant fixed annual tax in order to continue to hold the copyright. This tax would encourage copyright holders to put their works in the public domain.

Why Digital Copyright and Net Neutrality Should Matter to Open Access Advocates

It is highly unlikely that open access would have emerged if the Internet did not exist. The Internet makes the low-cost worldwide distribution of e-prints and other digital documents through institutional and disciplinary repositories possible, and it significantly lowers the cost of publishing, which makes open access journals possible. Open access in a print-only or proprietary network environment would require significant subsidies. The relative cost of providing open access on the Internet is trivial.

It would be a mistake to assume that the Internet will remain as we know it. With the rise of digital media, powerful interests in the music and film/television industries have become alarmed about file sharing of their content, and they have lobbied legislatures across the globe to stop it through restrictive copyright legislation and technological measures.

Since open access doesn't deal with popular music, film, or television, why should open access advocates care? The answer is simple: restrictive measures are unlikely to make fine-grained distinctions about content. New copyright measures won't exempt scholarly material, and new Internet traffic shaping or filtering technologies won't either.

Open access materials won't be limited to simple text documents forever: digital media and data sets will become increasingly important. These files can be large and increase network load. Digital media files may include excerpts from third-party copyrighted material, which are utilized under fair use provisions. Will filtering and traffic shaping technologies exclude them or will they be the inadvertent victims of systems designed for an entirely different purpose?

Even simple text documents will be governed by restrictive copyright laws and subject to potential copyright filtering mechanisms.

For example, the Tennessee State Senate is considering a bill (SB 3974) that would require every higher education institution to "thoroughly analyze its computer network, including its local area and internal networks, to determine whether it is being used to transmit copyrighted works" and to "take affirmative steps, including the implementation of effective technology-based deterrents, to prevent the infringement of copyrighted works over the school's computer and network resources, including over local area and internal networks."

You'll note that the bill says "transmit copyrighted works" not "transmit digital music and video works." Does this mean that every digital work, including e-prints and e-books, must be scanned and cleared for copyright compliance? That is unlikely to be the real intent of the bill, but, if passed, it will be the letter of the law. Why couldn't academic publishers insist that digital articles and books be vetted as well?

Net neutrality and digital copyright legislation are issues that should be of concern to open access advocates. To ignore them is to potentially win the battle, but lose the war, blind-sided by developments that will ensnare open access materials in legal and technological traps.

Tennessee State Senate Bill Would Force Universities to Stop Copyright Infringement

The Tennessee State Senate is considering a bill (SB 3974) that would require every higher education institution to "thoroughly analyze its computer network, including its local area and internal networks, to determine whether it is being used to transmit copyrighted works" and to "take affirmative steps, including the implementation of effective technology-based deterrents, to prevent the infringement of copyrighted works over the school's computer and network resources, including over local area and internal networks."

Lessig’s Final Free Culture Speech

Lawrence Lessig delivered his last speech on free culture on January 31, 2008 at Stanford University. A digital video is available on blip.tv.

You can follow Lessig's new Change Congress activities, including a possible run for Congress, on his Lessig08 Weblog.

A Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects, Version 1.5

The Software Freedom Law Center has published version 1.5 of A Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The guide, written by members of SFLC's staff, covers a variety of legal topics and their practical application to free software development. These topics include copyrights and licensing, organizational structure, patents, and trademarks.