Friday, September 16, 2011

Judge Sets Schedule in Case Over Google’s Digital Library; New York Times, 9/15/11

Julie Bosman, New York times; Judge Sets Schedule in Case Over Google’s Digital Library:

"Google’s plan to build a huge digital library remained stalled on Thursday when a federal judge set a proposed schedule for a lawsuit against the giant search company that could take the case to trial next year."

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

In Authors' Suit Against Libraries, an Attempt to Wrest Back Some Control Over Digitized Works; Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/14/11

Jennifer Howard, Chronicle of Higher Education; In Authors' Suit Against Libraries, an Attempt to Wrest Back Some Control Over Digitized Works:

"The copyright-infringement lawsuit brought on Monday by the Authors Guild and others against the HathiTrust digital repository, the University of Michigan, and four other universities could have a major impact on research libraries and the fate of millions of book scans created by recent mass-digitizing efforts. The plaintiffs seek to take control of those files out of the hands of libraries until Congress establishes guidelines for the use of digital libraries and orphan works—those that are subject to copyright but whose rights holders can't be identified or located.

But Paul Courant, dean of libraries at Michigan, said the libraries and the trust are in the right and will go on with their work."

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Lawsuit Seeks the Removal of a Digital Book Collection; New York Times, 12/12/11

Julie Bosman, New York Times; Lawsuit Seeks the Removal of a Digital Book Collection:

"James Grimmelmann, an associate professor of law at New York Law School who has closely followed the Google lawsuit, said that a settlement in that case would have provided a framework to decide which use of the libraries’ books was permitted.

“They chose now to go after the libraries in part because of the posting of books online,” he said. “And in part because the Google books settlement has fallen apart.”"

Authors Guild Sues HathiTrust and 5 Universities Over Digitized Books; Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/12/11

Chronicle of Higher Education; Authors Guild Sues HathiTrust and 5 Universities Over Digitized Books:

"The Authors Guild, the Australian Society of Authors, a Canadian writers’ union, and eight individual authors are suing HathiTrust and five universities for copyright infringement, the guild announced on Monday afternoon."

Musicians win copyright extension to 70 years; Guardian, 9/12/11

Josh Halliday, Guardian; Musicians win copyright extension to 70 years:

"Thousands of music performers, from little-known session musicians to Sir Cliff Richard, will receive royalties from songs released in the 60s for an extra 20 years, under new copyright laws ratified by the EU on Monday.

The legislation – known as "Cliff's law" after its most high-profile campaigner – extends copyright on music recordings from 50 years to 70 years."

Thursday, September 8, 2011

IFRRO: Collective Management For Orphan Works; Intellectual Property Watch, 9/8/11

Intellectual Property Watch; IFRRO: Collective Management For Orphan Works:

"The International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations (IFRRO) has submitted comments on the proposed European Union directive on orphan works, which aims to increase legal certainty for use of creative works whose copyright holders cannot be found. The group, which represents collective management organisations, authors and publishers, called for collective management and licensing for orphan works."

Michael Hart, Project Gutenberg's e-book loving founder, passes away; ArsTechnica.com, 9/8/11

Nate Anderson, ArsTechnica.com; Michael Hart, Project Gutenberg's e-book loving founder, passes away:

"Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, has died at his home in Urbana, Illinois at the age of 64. The project he started back in 1971 lives on, however, producing quality public domain texts now readable on devices that could only have been imagined when Project Gutenberg began."

HathiTrust's Growth Strategy: Full-Text Search Coming to WorldCat and EBSCO Discovery Service; Library Journal, 9/8/11

David Rapp, Library Journal; HathiTrust's Growth Strategy: Full-Text Search Coming to WorldCat and EBSCO Discovery Service:

"Today, in separate announcements, OCLC and EBSCO both unveiled plans to integrate full-text HathiTrust search capability into WorldCat and EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS), respectively. Once implemented, the deals will make the full texts of all of the 9.5 million-plus works in the digital repository searchable by some of the most widely used discovery tools—and greatly expand the accessibility of the massive HathiTrust corpus."

JSTOR Announces Free Access to 500K Public Domain Journal Articles; Library Journal, 9/7/11

David Rapp, Library Journal; JSTOR Announces Free Access to 500K Public Domain Journal Articles:

"The JSTOR journal archive announced today that it is making nearly 500,000 public domain journal articles from more than 220 journals—or about six percent of JSTOR's total content—freely available for use by "anyone, without registration and regardless of institutional affiliation."

The material, entitled Early Journal Content, will be rolled out in batches starting today over the course of one week. It includes content published in the United States before 1923 and international content published before 1870, which ensures that all the content is firmly in the public domain."

Still A Long Way To Go For Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement; Intellectual Property Watch, 9/8/11

Monika Ermert, Intellectual Property Watch; Still A Long Way To Go For Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement:

"The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiated last year will be open for signature for two years, until the first of May 2013. But while this looks like a long time, it likely will be needed by the 37 negotiating governments (including the United States, Japan, South Korea and the 27 European Union members) to iron out problems on their way to implementing what some rights owners welcomed as a possible new “gold standard” for the enforcement of intellectual property rights."

Monday, September 5, 2011

The Common Sense of the Fair-Use Doctrine; Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/21/11

Pat Aufderheide, Chronicle of Higher Education; The Common Sense of the Fair-Use Doctrine:

"The right of scholars to use unlicensed material for research and publication purposes is clear under the U.S. doctrine of fair use. Fair use—a broad, flexible part of copyright policy determined on a case-by-case basis—permits users to repurpose, or transform, an appropriate amount of original material. If it's so easy, why are so many smart people so scared of fair use? In the work that the legal scholar Peter Jaszi and I have done since 2004, and have synthesized in our new book, Reclaiming Fair Use, we have seen members of many professional and creative communities express that same anxiety. And we believe we understand why: They lack a common-sense understanding of their rights."

O.K., Downloaders, Let’s Try This Song Again; New York Times, 9/3/11

Janet Morrissey, New York Times; O.K., Downloaders, Let’s Try This Song Again:

"Still, Qtrax is relying primarily on the ads linked to the music player to finance licensing fees and to make the company profitable — a business model that many industry experts are skeptical can work. They point to previous hopefuls like Napster, which was sued by the record labels over copyright laws and is now a shadow of its former self (and now charges subscription fees for music) and to SpiralFrog and Ruckus, which had some backing from the major labels but collapsed after failing to raise enough cash to cover royalties to the record companies."