RIAA Loses Money on File Sharing Lawsuits

Testifying in Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas (formerly known as Virgin v. Thomas), Jennifer Pariser of Sony BMG, admitted that the RIAA's lawsuits against file sharing result in a net loss for the organization.

Here's an excerpt from "RIAA Anti-P2P Campaign a Real Money Pit, According to Testimony":

One of the biggest bombshells from the cross-examination was Pariser's admission that the RIAA's legal campaign isn't making the labels any money, and that, furthermore, the industry has no idea of the actual damages it suffers due to file-sharing. . . .

The next line of questioning was how many suits the RIAA has filed so far. Pariser estimated the number at a "few thousand." "More like 20,000," suggested Toder. "That's probably an overstatement," Pariser replied. She then made perhaps the most startling comment of the day. Saying that the record labels have spent "millions" on the lawsuits, she then said that "we've lost money on this program."

Source: Bangeman, Eric. "RIAA Anti-P2P Campaign a Real Money Pit, According to Testimony." Ars Technica, 2 October 2007.

Digital Library Federation Forum for NSF DataNet Grant Proposals

The Digital Library Federation has established a forum for those who want to collaborate or get further information about the NSF's Sustainable Digital Data Preservation and Access Network Partners (DataNet) grant program. Participation in the forum is open, but registration is required.

Podcasts about the Long-Term Use of Research Data

Podcasts about the Long-Term Use of Research Data

The Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories has released MP3 and PDF files from its Long-lived Collections: The Future of Australia's Research Data Presentations symposium.

Here are selected MP3 files:

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog Update (10/3/07)

The latest update of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog (SEPW) is now available, which provides information about new scholarly literature and resources related to scholarly electronic publishing, such as books, journal articles, magazine articles, technical reports, and white papers.

Especially interesting are: "Evaluating Institutional Repository Deployment in American Academe Since Early 2005: Repositories by the Numbers, Part 2"; "Flipping a Journal to Open Access"; "Measuring and Comparing Participation Patterns in Digital Repositories: Repositories by the Numbers, Part 1"; "Motivating and Impeding Factors Affecting Faculty Contribution to Institutional Repositories"; "Moving Out of Oldenbourg's Long Shadow: What Is the Future for Society Publishing?"; "Of the Rich and the Poor and Other Curious Minds: On Open Access and 'Development'"; "Public Policy and the Politics of Open Access"; "PRISM: Enough Rope?"; "Reading Books in the Digital Age Subsequent to Amazon, Google and the Long Tail"; "Services Make the Repository"; and Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture.

Cyberscholarship Report

The School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh has released The Future of Scholarly Communication: Building the Infrastructure for Cyberscholarship. Report of a Workshop Held in Phoenix, Arizona, April 17 to 19, 2007, Sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Joint Information Systems Committee.

Here's an excerpt from the "Summary of Conclusions and Recommendations" section:

  • The widespread availability of digital content is creating opportunities for new forms of research and scholarship that are qualitatively different from the traditional way of using academic publications and research data. We call this "cyberscholarship". . . .
  • The widespread availability of content in digital formats provides an infrastructure for novel forms of research. To support cyberscholarship it must be captured, managed, and preserved in ways that are significantly different from conventional methods. . . .
  • Development of the infrastructure requires coordination at a national and international level. . . . In the United States, since there is no single agency with this mission, we recommend a coordinating committee of the appropriate federal agencies. . . .
  • Development of the content infrastructure requires a blend of research – both discipline-specific and in the enabling computer science – and implementation. . . .
  • We propose a seven year timetable for implementation of the infrastructure. The first three years will emphasize a set of prototypes, followed by implementation of a coordinated group of systems and services.

Scriblio Beta Released: A WordPress-Based CMS and OPAC

The Scriblio beta version has been released.

Here's a description of Scriblio from the About Scriblio page:

Scriblio (formerly WPopac) is an award winning, free, open source CMS and OPAC with faceted searching and browsing features based on WordPress. Scriblio is a project of Plymouth State University, supported in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

  • Free and open source
  • Represents bibliographic collections — library catalogs and such — in an easily searchable, highly remixable web-based format
  • Leverages WordPress to offer rich content management features for all a library’s content
  • Free and open source

NSF Solicits Grant Proposals for up to $20 Million for Dataset Access and Preservation

National Science Foundation's Office of Cyberinfrastructure has announced the availability of grants to U.S. academic institutions under its Sustainable Digital Data Preservation and Access Network Partners (DataNet) program.

Here's an excerpt from the solicitation:

Science and engineering research and education are increasingly digital and increasingly data-intensive. Digital data are not only the output of research but provide input to new hypotheses, enabling new scientific insights and driving innovation. Therein lies one of the major challenges of this scientific generation: how to develop the new methods, management structures and technologies to manage the diversity, size, and complexity of current and future data sets and data streams. This solicitation addresses that challenge by creating a set of exemplar national and global data research infrastructure organizations (dubbed DataNet Partners) that provide unique opportunities to communities of researchers to advance science and/or engineering research and learning.

The new types of organizations envisioned in this solicitation will integrate library and archival sciences, cyberinfrastructure, computer and information sciences, and domain science expertise to:

  • provide reliable digital preservation, access, integration, and analysis capabilities for science and/or engineering data over a decades-long timeline;
  • continuously anticipate and adapt to changes in technologies and in user needs and expectations;
  • engage at the frontiers of computer and information science and cyberinfrastructure with research and development to drive the leading edge forward; and
  • serve as component elements of an interoperable data preservation and access network.

By demonstrating feasibility, identifying best practices, establishing viable models for long term technical and economic sustainability, and incorporating frontier research, these exemplar organizations can serve as the basis for rational investment in digital preservation and access by diverse sectors of society at the local, regional, national, and international levels, paving the way for a robust and resilient national and global digital data framework.

These organizations will provide:

  • a vision and rationale that meet critical data needs, create important new opportunities and capabilities for discovery, innovation, and learning, improve the way science and engineering research and education are conducted, and guide the organization in achieving long-term sustainability;
  • an organizational structure that provides for a comprehensive range of expertise and cyberinfrastructure capabilities, ensures active participation and effective use by a wide diversity of individuals, organizations, and sectors, serves as a capable partner in an interoperable network of digital preservation and access organizations, and ensures effective management and leadership; and
  • activities to provide for the full data management life cycle, facilitate research as resource and object, engage in computer science and information science research critical to DataNet functions, develop new tools and capabilities for learning that integrate research and education at all levels, provide for active community input and participation in all phases and all aspects of Partner activities, and include a vigorous and comprehensive assessment and evaluation program.

Potential applicants should note that this program is not intended to support narrowly-defined, discipline-specific repositories. . . .

Award Information

Anticipated Type of Award: Cooperative Agreement

Estimated Number of Awards: 5 — Two to three awards are anticipated in each of two review cycles (one review cycle for fiscal year FY2008 awards and one for FY2009) for a total of five awards, contingent on the quality of proposals received and pending the availability of funds. Each award is limited to a total of up to $20,000,000 (direct plus indirect costs) for up to 5 years. The initial term of each award is expected to be 5 years with the potential at NSF's sole discretion for one terminal renewal for another 5 years, subject to performance and the availability of funds. Such performance is to include serving the needs of the relevant science and engineering research and education communities and catalyzing new opportunities for progress. If a second five-year award is made, NSF funding is expected to decrease in each successive year of the award as the Partner transitions to a sustainable economic model with other sources of support. The actual amount of the annual decrease in NSF support will be established through the cooperative agreement. Note that the maximum period NSF will support a DataNet Partner is 10 years.

Anticipated Funding Amount: $100,000,000 — Up to $100,000,000 over a five year period is expected to be available contingent on the quality of proposals received and pending the availability of funds.

Free Version of the Copyright Cataloging Database Now Available

In response to the U.S. Copyright Office's reply to a letter from Carl Malamud and Peter Brantley (and other co-signers) about the $86,625 cost of the U.S. Copyright Cataloging database, public.resource.org has made the database freely available (Web access and FTP access).

Here's an excerpt from the bulk.resource.org website:

  • The "code" directory contains PERL code from 2000 which is used to convert MARC-format records into XML.
  • The "raw" directory contains the bulk database product as sold by the Library of Commerce as of the year 2000.
  • The "hids" directory contains all bulk data from 1978 to the present. . . .

In posting these data, we rely partly on voicemail from the Honorable Marybeth Peters, the U.S. Register of Copyrights received Fri Sep 21 16:17:02 PDT 2007 in response to the above-mentioned letter, in which Ms. Peters states that "I think our records should be available to the public. Certainly there's no copyright in any of the copyright records. Certainly they're public records and they should be openly available."

Source: Brantley, Peter. "Making a Brouhaha in the Blogosphere." O'Reilly Radar, 30 September 2007.

2007 Digital Preservation Award Goes to DROID

The Digital Preservation Coalition has given its 2007 Digital Preservation Award to the The National Archives (UK) for its DROID (Digital Record Object Identification) software.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

An innovative tool to analyse and identify computer file formats has won the 2007 Digital Preservation Award. DROID, developed by The National Archives in London, can examine any mystery file and identify its format. The tool works by gathering clues from the internal 'signatures' hidden inside every computer file, as well as more familiar elements such as the filename extension (.jpg, for example), to generate a highly accurate 'guess' about the software that will be needed to read the file.

Identifying file formats is a thorny issue for archivists. . . . But with rapidly changing technology and an unpredictable hardware base, preserving files is only half of the challenge. There is no guarantee that today's files will be readable or even recognisable using the software of the future.

Now, by using DROID and its big brother, the unique file format database known as PRONOM, experts at the National Archives are well on their way to cracking the problem. Once DROID has labelled a mystery file, PRONOM's extensive catalogue of software tools can advise curators on how best to preserve the file in a readable format. The database includes crucial information on software and hardware lifecycles, helping to avoid the obsolescence problem. And it will alert users if the program needed to read a file is no longer supported by manufacturers.

Japanese Authors Write Novels on Cell Phones

Texting has been raised to a new level as young Japanese authors have taken to writing novels on their cell phones.

Here's an excerpt from "Ring! Ring! Ring! In Japan, Novelists Find a New Medium":

When Satomi Nakamura uses her cellphone, she has to be extra careful to take frequent breaks. That's because she isn't just chatting. The 22-year-old homemaker has recently finished writing a 200-page novel titled "To Love You Again" entirely on her tiny cellphone screen, using her right thumb to tap the keys and her pinkie to hold the phone steady. . . .

Most of these novels, with their simple language and skimpy scene-setting, are rather unpolished. . . . But they are hugely popular, and publishers are delighted with them. . . . Several cellphone novels have been turned into real books, selling millions of copies and topping the best-seller lists.

Source: Kane, Yukari Iwatani. "Ring! Ring! Ring! In Japan, Novelists Find a New Medium." The Wall Street Journal, 26 September 2007, A1, A18.

Web/Web 2.0 Tools

Here’s a list of a few Web/Web 2.0 resources and tools that developers may find useful.

Open Access Documentary Project Grant

The Open Society Institute has given BioMed Central and Intelligent Television a grant to fund the Open Access Documentary Project.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Open Society Institute has awarded a grant to support the production and distribution of the Open Access Documentary Project, a collection of online videos celebrating the benefits of open access to scientific and medical research. Intelligent Television and BioMed Central are co-producers of the Project.

The Open Access Documentary Project will facilitate the ongoing work of BioMed Central and Intelligent Television in promoting open access to science and medicine in fields as diverse as malaria research and particle physics.

The producers are now assembling an international editorial board and contacting institutions that hold archival and production resources that will be vital to the project. Principal production has begun in London, New York, and at CERN in Geneva, featuring video interviews with publishers and consumers of scientific and medical information in the developed and developing world—and with other stakeholders in open access including foundations, government agencies, and the media.

Copyright Office Replies to Malamud et al. about the Cost of the Copyright Catalog

In response to a letter by Carl Malamud and other notables questioning the $86,625 price tag on the copyright catalog, the U.S. Copyright Office has replied, and that reply has been posted on the Library of Congress Blog.

Here's an excerpt:

The U.S. Copyright Office neither sets the price nor receives any direct revenue from the sale of the Copyright Cataloging database. Rather, access to these records is a service offered through the Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) of the Library of Congress, which is mandated by Congress to provide this and other services to the public at a charge of production and distribution cost plus 10%. . . .

Fortunately, recent cost savings realized within CDS are anticipated to result in a drop in the price of many services available from CDS, including the Copyright Cataloging database subscription service. Any new pricing structure will appear first at on the CDS Web site www.loc.gov/cds/ in late October or early November 2007, then in the 2008 CDS Catalog of Products in January 2008.

Source: Raymond, Matt. "The Price of the Copyright Catalog." Library of Congress Blog, 26 September 2007.

Contact the Senate Now to Support the NIH Public Access Policy Mandate

If you are a U.S. citizen, now is the time to contact your Senators if you want to support the NIH open access mandate.

You can easily contact your senators using the ALA Action Alert Web form with my cut-and-paste version of ALA/ATA text or you can use the same form to write your own text.

If you want to write your own message, Peter Suber has gathered together key documents for talking points. If you use my cut-and-paste text, add a few sentences at the start of the text to personalize it.

Here's what Peter Suber has to say about the Senate fight:

This year is our best chance ever to win an OA mandate at the NIH. But the opposition from the publishing lobby is fierce. Remember that the AAP/PSP has launched PRISM, the behemoth Copyright Alliance has weighed in, and Elsevier has hired an extra lobbying firm. If you're a US citizen, please do what you can: contact your Senators and spread the word.

Version 69, Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography

Version 69 of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography is now available from Digital Scholarship. This selective bibliography presents over 3,120 articles, books, and other digital and printed sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet.

The Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography: 2006 Annual Edition is also available from Digital Scholarship. Annual editions of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography are PDF files designed for printing.

The bibliography has the following sections (revised sections are in italics):

1 Economic Issues
2 Electronic Books and Texts
2.1 Case Studies and History
2.2 General Works
2.3 Library Issues
3 Electronic Serials
3.1 Case Studies and History
3.2 Critiques
3.3 Electronic Distribution of Printed Journals
3.4 General Works
3.5 Library Issues
3.6 Research
4 General Works
5 Legal Issues
5.1 Intellectual Property Rights
5.2 License Agreements
6 Library Issues
6.1 Cataloging, Identifiers, Linking, and Metadata
6.2 Digital Libraries
6.3 General Works
6.4 Information Integrity and Preservation
7 New Publishing Models
8 Publisher Issues
8.1 Digital Rights Management
9 Repositories, E-Prints, and OAI
Appendix A. Related Bibliographies
Appendix B. About the Author
Appendix C. SEPB Use Statistics

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Resources includes the following sections:

Cataloging, Identifiers, Linking, and Metadata
Digital Libraries
Electronic Books and Texts
Electronic Serials
General Electronic Publishing
Images
Legal
Preservation
Publishers
Repositories, E-Prints, and OAI
SGML and Related Standards

What’s New in Digital Preservation Published

The Digital Preservation Coalition and the National Library of Australia’s PADI program have published the the 16th issue of What’s New in Digital Preservation.

Here’s an excerpt from the padi-forum announcement:

Issue 16 features news from a range of organisations and initiatives, including the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), Digital Curation Centre (DCC), JISC (UK), The National Archives (UK), DigitalPreservationEurope, nestor, the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (National Library of the Netherlands), the US National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), and the PLANETS and CASPAR projects.

Xena 4.0: Open Source Digital Preservation Software

The National Archives of Australia has released Xena 4.0, which is open source digital preservation software.

Here's a brief description of its capabilities from the project homepage:

Xena software aids digital preservation by performing two important tasks:

  • Detecting the file formats of digital objects
  • Converting digital objects into open formats for preservation

More Lawsuits and Pre-Litigation Settlement Letters from the RIAA

In a new round of litigation, the Recording Industry Association of America has sued 24 individuals who had not heeded pre-litigation settlement letters, and it has sent 403 new letters to individuals at 22 universities.

Source: Butler, Susan. "RIAA Sends Another Wave Of Settlement Letters." Billboard, 20 September 2007.

Here's Some Advice That Won't Cost the AAP $500K

After the PRISM fiasco, it may be time for the Association of American Publishers to consider a new initiative: CIA (Change Instead of Annihilation).

CIA would have a single goal: to develop new business strategies so that AAP members could survive and thrive in a scholarly communication system where open access prevails. The AAP doesn't have to embrace open access to launch CIA—CIA can be a contingency plan. However, CIA will fail if its participants do not take the underlying premise that open access can succeed seriously, and CIA will require intense brainstorming that lets go of long-held beliefs about conventional publishing models.

To that end, why not let the barbarians at the gate in and have lunch? Who better to bring fresh perspectives than open access advocates? After all, open advocates are not generally anti-publisher—they just want to change publishing models to support open access. If Elsevier, Wiley, and others can do it, so be it.

It may sound crazy, but ask yourself this: Who do you want to be if open access gains enough momentum to trigger the collapse of conventional publishing models, the guy with a plan or the guy without a plan? It looks to me like Elsevier is starting to think outside of the box with initiatives such as OncologySTAT and Scirus, and Elsevier has always been a tough, smart competitor in the publishing marketplace. If the day of reckoning comes, how far behind Elsevier do you want to be?

Which brings us to why the AAP may never do CIA. Having an open access plan is a competitive advantage, and publishers may not want to share that advantage. But, that doesn't mean they can't have their own internal planning process, even if it's clandestine.

So, is it time to dance with the devil?