Digital Copyright Wars – Page 17

More Coverage of the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act

Here are some additional articles/postings about the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act.

Fair Copyright in Research Works Act: Bill Opposing Open Access Reintroduced in House

Rep. John Conyers has reintroduced the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (H.R. 801) in the House.

Here's an excerpt from Peter Suber's posting:

The Fair Copyright Act is to fair copyright what the Patriot Act was to patriotism. It would repeal the OA policy at the NIH and prevent similar OA policies at any federal agency. The bill has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee, where Conyers is Chairman, and where he has consolidated his power since last year by abolishing the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property. The Judiciary Committee does not specialize in science, science policy, or science funding, but copyright.

The premise of the bill, urged by the publishing lobby, is that the NIH policy somehow violates copyright law. The premise is false and cynical. If the NIH policy violated copyrights, or permitted the violation of copyrights, publishers wouldn't have to back this bill to amend US copyright law. Instead, they'd be in court where they'd already have a remedy. For a detailed analysis of the bill and point by point rebuttal to the publishing lobby's rhetoric, see my article from October 2008.

I'll have more soon on ways to mobilize in opposition to the bill and support the NIH and the principle of public access to publicly-funded research. Meantime, if you're a US citizen and your representative is a member of the Judiciary Committee, it's not to early to fire off an email/fax/letter/phone call to your representative opposing the bill and defending the NIH policy. You can find ammo here:

the open letter from 46 law professors objecting to "serious misstatements relating to copyright law" in the publisher arguments against the NIH policy, September 8, 2008

the open letter from 33 US Nobel laureates in science defending the NIH policy against the Conyers bill, September 9, 2008

my article on the bill from October 2008

the OAN posts on the bill from the last time around

Also see: "Bill Banning NIH-Like Public Access is Reintroduced in Congress."

“How to Improve the Google Book Search Settlement”

James Grimmelmann, Associate Professor at New York Law School, has made available "How to Improve the Google Book Search Settlement" in the Berkeley Electronic Press' Selected Works.

Here's the abstract:

The proposed settlement in the Google Book Search case should be approved with strings attached. The project will be immensely good for society, and the proposed deal is a fair one for Google, for authors, and for publishers. The public interest demands, however, that the settlement be modified first. It creates two new entities—the Books Rights Registry Leviathan and the Google Book Search Behemoth—with dangerously concentrated power over the publishing industry. Left unchecked, they could trample on consumers in any number of ways. We the public have a right to demand that those entities be subject to healthy, pro-competitive oversight, and so we should.

"Google & the Future of Books"

Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard University, has published "Google & the Future of Books" in the The New York Review of Books.

Here's an excerpt:

As an unintended consequence [of the Google Book Settlement], Google will enjoy what can only be called a monopoly—a monopoly of a new kind, not of railroads or steel but of access to information. Google has no serious competitors. Microsoft dropped its major program to digitize books several months ago, and other enterprises like the Open Knowledge Commons (formerly the Open Content Alliance) and the Internet Archive are minute and ineffective in comparison with Google. Google alone has the wealth to digitize on a massive scale. And having settled with the authors and publishers, it can exploit its financial power from within a protective legal barrier; for the class action suit covers the entire class of authors and publishers. No new entrepreneurs will be able to digitize books within that fenced-off territory, even if they could afford it, because they would have to fight the copyright battles all over again. If the settlement is upheld by the court, only Google will be protected from copyright liability.

Like Deja Vu All Over Again: Microsoft's New MSN Mobile Music Service Includes DRM

Microsoft's new MSN Mobile Music service, which has been introduced in the UK, includes DRM protection.

In "Q&A: Microsoft Defends Return to DRM," Microsoft's Hugh Griffiths answers questions about this development.

“Editorial: Google Deal or Rip-Off?”

In "Editorial: Google Deal or Rip-Off?," Francine Fialkoff, Library Journal Editor-in-Chief, takes a hard look at the Google-Association of American Publishers/Authors Guild copyright settlement.

Here's an excerpt:

Clearly, the public had little standing in the negotiations that led to the recent agreement in the class-action lawsuit against Google for scanning books from library shelves. . . . Well, the suit was never about the public interest but about corporate interests, and librarians did not have much power at the bargaining table, no matter how hard those consulted pushed. While there are many provisions in the document that specify what libraries can and can't do and portend greater access, ultimately, it is the restrictions that scream out at us from the miasma of details.

Other perspectives can be found in my recently updated Google Book Search Bibliography, Version 3.

Google Book Search Bibliography, Version 3

The Google Book Search Bibliography, Version 3 is now available.

This bibliography presents selected English-language articles and other works that are useful in understanding Google Book Search. It primarily focuses on the evolution of Google Book Search and the legal, library, and social issues associated with it. Where possible, links are provided to works that are freely available on the Internet, including e-prints in disciplinary archives and institutional repositories. Note that e-prints and published articles may not be identical.

New from Boyle: The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind

Noted intellectual property expert James Boyle has published a new book, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind.

It is under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License, and the PDF can be freely downloaded. It is available in print form from the Yale University Press.

Here's an excerpt from the book's home page:

Our music, our culture, our science, and our economic welfare all depend on a delicate balance between those ideas that are controlled and those that are free, between intellectual property and the public domain. In The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (Yale University Press) James Boyle introduces readers to the idea of the public domain and describes how it is being tragically eroded by our current copyright, patent, and trademark laws. In a series of fascinating case studies, Boyle explains why gene sequences, basic business ideas and pairs of musical notes are now owned, why jazz might be illegal if it were invented today, why most of 20th century culture is legally unavailable to us, and why today’s policies would probably have smothered the World Wide Web at its inception. . . .

With a clear analysis of issues ranging from Thomas Jefferson’s philosophy of innovation to musical sampling, from Internet file sharing and genetic engineering to patented peanut butter sandwiches, this articulate and charming book brings a positive new perspective to important cultural and legal debates, including what Boyle calls the "range wars of the information age": today’s heated battles over intellectual property. Intellectual property rights have been viewed as geeky, technical and inaccessible. Boyle shows that, as a culture, we can no longer afford the luxury of this kind of willed ignorance.

"Comments on the Commission's Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy"

Søren Sandfeld Jakobsen et al. have deposited "Comments on the Commission's Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy" in SSRN.

Here's the abstract:

This paper is a reaction to the [European] Commission's Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy. It discusses issues concerning the three step test model licenses, digitization and orphan works, disability discrimination and access to digital content, dissemination for teaching and research, dissemination through libraries and user created content.

Tennessee's Higher Education Filtering Law to Cost State Institutions Over $9.5 Million to Start

The Tennessee Fiscal Review Committee estimates that SB 3974, a recently passed state law aimed at stopping copyright infringement in higher education institutions, will initially cost state institutions over $9.5 million, with ongoing annual costs topping $1.6 million in FY 08-09 and $1.9 million in succeeding years.

Federal Judge John Sprizzo Tentatively Approves Google-AAP/AG Settlement

Federal Judge John Sprizzo has tentatively approved the Google-Association of American Publishers/Authors Guild copyright settlement.

Read more about it at "NY Judge Tentatively OKs Google Copyright Deal."

A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries & the Google Library Project Settlement

ARL and ALA have released A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries & the Google Library Project Settlement.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The guide is designed to help the library community better understand the terms and conditions of the recent settlement agreement between Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers concerning Google’s scanning of copyrighted works. Band notes that the settlement is extremely complex and presents significant challenges and opportunities to libraries. The guide outlines and simplifies the settlement’s provisions, with special emphasis on the provisions that apply directly to libraries.

Georgia Harper on the Google-AAP/AG Copyright Settlement

In "The LJ Academic Newswire Newsmaker Interview: Georgia Harper," Harper, Scholarly Communications Advisor at the University Libraries of the University of Texas at Austin, discusses the Google-AAP/AG copyright settlement and the part that research libraries played in it. Also see her blog posting ("Google Book Search—and Buy").

Here's an excerpt:

Brewster Kahle has chastised public libraries for working with Google under a cloak of secrecy. Can libraries realistically refuse NDAs?

I think Kahle’s point, and others raise this point too, is more about the deleterious effects of secrecy on the negotiation process itself. Secrecy tends to be isolating. If you don’t consult with your colleagues at other institutions, your leverage may be diminished. Of course, a library could also hire a business and/or legal consultant to help, and bind the consultant to the NDA. Yes, Kahle has identified a very thorny problem, but it’s one we can ameliorate. I don’t think it’s workable simply not to do business with companies whose assets are ideas and information just because they feel compelled to protect them through secrecy. Either way, consultation does increase information, and information is power—in fact, the power of information is also the source of the [NDA] problem in the first place.

Google-AAP/AG Copyright Settlement: Vaidhyanathan Questions, Google Answers

On October 28th, Siva Vaidhyanathan posed some questions to Google about its copyright settlement with the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild ("My Initial Take on the Google-Publishers Settlement"). Now, Google has replied ("Some Initial Answers to My Initial Questions about Google Book Search and the Settlement").

How Much Will Large Doctoral Universities Have to Pay to Try to Stop Illegal File Sharing?

A new study says that large doctoral institutions could face costs that "easily exceed half a million dollars annually" as they try to clamp down on illegal file sharing in order to comply with Section 488 of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008.

The Campus Computing Project's The Campus Costs of P2P Compliance report details the findings of its July 2008 higher education compliance cost study, which included responses from 321 two-year and four-year institutions.

Read more about it at "The Costs of Policing Campus Networks."

Welcome to the Filtered Internet: No Opt-Out for Australians

Australia's Plan for Cyber-Safety will not offer an Internet filtering opt-out. Rather, Australians will have to choose between two filtered options: one blocks inappropriate content for children, the other "illegal" content.

Nix to Remix: YouTube Acts on Takedown Notices from Networks about McCain Campaign Videos

YouTube has immediately acted on takedown notices from networks such as CBS and Fox News about McCain campaign videos, removing the allegedly infringing videos. The campaign has sent a protest letter to YouTube regarding the takedowns.

Here's an excerpt:

Numerous times during the course of the campaign, our advertisements or web videos have been the subject of DMCA takedown notices regarding uses that are clearly privileged under the fair use doctrine. The uses at issue have been the inclusion of fewer than ten seconds of footage from news broadcasts in campaign ads or videos, as a basis for commentary on the issues presented in the news reports, or on the reports themselves.

Regarding the letter, Gigi Sohn, President of Public Knowledge, said:

It is ironic that the McCain/Palin campaign sent its letter to YouTube complaining about that company’s take-down procedures on the same day that President Bush signed the Pro-IP Act, which is yet another bill written by the big media companies that adds yet more imbalance to our copyright laws.

President Bush Signs PRO-IP Copyright Bill

President Bush has signed the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act (PRO-IP Act). In addition to strengthening infringement penalties, the bill creates an Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator position (commonly known as the "Copyright Czar") in the Office of the President.

U.S. Copyright Office Issues Call for Written Comments on DMCA Exemptions

The U.S. Copyright Office is requesting written comments on Digital Millennium Copyright Act exemptions. The deadline is December 2, 2008.

New Zealand's New Copyright Law Will Terminate Internet Service to Repeat Infringers

With the exception of the controversial Section 92A, New Zealand's Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008 will become effective on 10/31/08. According to a government press release, Section 92A has "a requirement for internet service providers to have, and reasonably implement, a policy for termination of accounts of repeat copyright infringers in appropriate circumstances." It will become effective on 2/28/09.

Public Knowledge: No Orphan Works Act This Year, but Future Passage Promising

In "The Orphan Works Bill: 'Wait Til Next Year!'," Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge gives a blow-by-blow account of the final days of the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008, and she offers a hopeful outlook for future passage based upon the progress made in this Congressional session.

Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future

Noted copyright freedom fighter and science fiction author Cory Doctorow has released a free version of Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future under a Creative Commons U.S. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. Doctorow is also a major contributor to the Boing Boing Weblog.

Internet Radio: Saved by the Bill? Congress Passes Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008

Internet radio stations, hard-pressed by high royalty rates established by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board, may get relief if the President signs the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008, which was passed by the House and Senate. The bill permits webcasters and copyright holders to negotiate royalty rates directly without government approval.

Cox Communications Temporarily Suspends Internet Service to Customers Who Receive Takedown Notices

TorrentFreak reports that Cox Communications is temporarily suspending Internet service to customers who receive takedown notices. Cox also has a "three-strikes" policy that permanently disconnects service to customers who have received three takedown notices.

Read more about it at "Cox Disconnects Alleged Pirates from the Internet."

Will the Orphan Works Act Die a "Quiet Death" in the House?

Wired reports that the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008, which passed the Senate, will languish in the House due to pressing economic legislation. (See ARL's "Orphan Works Legislation" briefing for background information.)

You can contact your Congressional representatives to support the bill using ALA's Take Action page for the bill.

Read more about it at "'Orphan Works' Copyright Law Dies Quiet Death."