Category: Public Domain

“Affordable College Textbook Act Reintroduced in U.S. Congress”


The Affordable College Textbook Act was introduced today in the U.S. Senate by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Angus King (I-ME), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Ron Wyden (D-OR), with companion legislation sponsored by Representative Joe Neguse (D-CO) expected in the U.S. House. Although the bill’s prospects are tied to the broader Higher Education Act reauthorization process, its sponsors have worked to deliver immediate results for students by securing annual funding for the Open Textbook Pilot grant program. Distributed by the U.S. Department of Education, the Open Textbook Pilot has funded 28 projects since 2018, which are projected to save students an estimated $250 million—a substantial return on federal investment.

https://tinyurl.com/25vnn9r5

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"Springer Nature Unveils Two New AI Tools to Protect Research Integrity"


Geppetto works by dividing the paper up into sections and uses its own algorithms to check the consistency of the text in each section. The sections are then given a score based on the probability that the text in them has been AI generated. The higher the score, the greater the probability of there being problems, initiating a human check by Springer Nature staff. Geppetto is already responsible for identifying hundreds of fake papers soon after submission, preventing them from being published — and from taking up editors’ and peer reviewers’ valuable time. . . .

SnappShot, also developed in-house, is an AI-assisted image integrity analysis tool. Currently used to analyse PDF files containing gel and blot images and look for duplications in those image types— another known integrity problem within the industry — this will be expanded to cover additional image types and integrity problems and speed up checks on papers.

https://tinyurl.com/3uxbvans

| Artificial Intelligence |
| Research Data Curation and Management Works |
| Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works |
| Open Access Works |
| Digital Scholarship |

"The Nelson Memorandum: How Two HELIOS Members Are Responding"


The fall 2023 Texas Open Science Summit (TOSS)9 raised awareness about the importance of the Nelson Memorandum and continued UT’s discussions about open scholarship and public access compliance, incentives, and good practices. This forum offered a publicly visible opportunity for scholars and open access advocates in the region and state of Texas to learn more about the federal Year of Open Science and support structures at UT. . . .

Building on a long history of open access support, the CSU Libraries has since created the Advanced Research and Scholarship Support group,10 providing resources for data management planning and openly sharing research outputs. The working group hosted the Opentober Event, highlighting initiatives and support services for furthering open scholarship and public access compliance at CSU.

https://tinyurl.com/4dtdjfjw

| Research Data Curation and Management Works |
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| Open Access Works |
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"The Smithsonian Puts 4.5 Million High-Res Images Online and Into the Public Domain, Making Them Free to Use"


"Anyone can download, reuse, and remix these images at any time — for free under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license," write My Modern Met’s Jessica Stewart and Madeleine Muzdakis. "A dive into the 3D records shows everything from CAD models of the Apollo 11 command module to Horatio Greenough’s 1840 sculpture of George Washington."

http://bit.ly/3KBhZsV

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| Open Access Works |
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"What Happens When Books Enter the Public Domain? Testing Copyright’s Underuse Hypothesis Across Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada"

Rebecca Giblin has self-archived "What Happens When Books Enter the Public Domain? Testing Copyright's Underuse Hypothesis Across Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

We find that books are actually less available where they are under copyright than where they are in the public domain, and that commercial publishers seem undeterred from investing in works even where others are competing to supply the same titles. We also find that exclusive rights do not appear to trigger investment in works that have low commercial demand, with books from 59% of the 'culturally valuable' authors we sampled unavailable in any jurisdiction, regardless of copyright status.

SSRN requires user registration or CAPTCHA verification for PDF access.

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"Who Owns the Law? Why We Must Restore Public Ownership of Legal Publishing"

Leslie Street and David Hansen have self-archived "Who Owns the Law? Why We Must Restore Public Ownership of Legal Publishing."

Here's an excerpt:

Each state has its own method for officially publishing the law. This article looks at the history of legal publishing for the fifty states before looking at how legal publishing even in moving to electronic publishing may not ensure public access to the law. The article addresses barriers to free access to the law in electronic publishing including copyright, contract law, and potentially, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The article concludes with prescriptions for how different actors, including state governments, publishers, libraries, and others can ensure robust public access to the law moving forward.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 9 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

Good News from Flickr about 500 Million CC and Public Domain Images: "Update on Creative Commons Licenses and ‘In Memoriam’ Accounts"

Flickr has released "Update on Creative Commons Licenses and 'In Memoriam' Accounts."

Here's an excerpt:

When we recently announced updates to Flickr Free accounts, we stated that freely licensed public photos (Creative Commons, public domain, U.S. government works, etc.) as of November 1, 2018 in excess of the free account limit would not be deleted. . . .

In this spirit, today we're going further and now protecting all public, freely licensed images on Flickr, regardless of the date they were uploaded. . . .

In conjunction with this announcement, we've disabled bulk license change tools in the Settings, the Camera Roll, and the Organizr for Flickr Free accounts. . . . Any member (Free or Pro) can still change the license of any of their photos on the photo page.

In memoriam accounts will preserve all public content in a deceased member's account, even if their Pro subscription lapses.

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"The New Music Modernization Act (Mostly) (Finally) Gets It Right"

Meredith Filak Rose has published "The New Music Modernization Act (Mostly) (Finally) Gets It Right" in the Public Knowledge Blog.

Here's an excerpt:

The new Music Modernization Act sweeps away this old system and replaces it with full federal protection. The terms are still much longer than ideal: the earliest recordings won't hit the public domain until January 2022, while many others will be locked away for a total of 110 years. But the bill also creates, for the first time, a true public domain in sound recordings. . . .

The other important function of the bill is that, for the first time, users will now have a process by which they can use sound recordings, even when the rights holder cannot be found. Anyone wishing to make a noncommercial use of a recording that is no longer commercially available can submit a notice of use at the U.S. Copyright Office.

Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"More Than 1 Million Images Now Publicly Available at library.artstor.org!"

Artstor has released "More Than 1 Million Images Now Publicly Available at library.artstor.org!."

Here's an excerpt:

Artstor has made more than 1 million image, video, document, and audio files from public institutional collections freely available to everyone—subscribers and non-subscribers alike—at library.artstor.org. These collections are being shared by institutions who make their content available via JSTOR Forum, a tool that allows them to catalog, manage, and share digital media collections and make them discoverable to the widest possible audience.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 9 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

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