Give the nominee for librarian of Congress a vote; Washington Post, 7/12/16

Editorial Board, Washington Post; Give the nominee for librarian of Congress a vote:

"A WOULD-BE librarian of Congress is the latest casualty in Congress’s confirmation abdication: Carla D. Hayden was nominated to head the world’s largest library in February, sailed through her confirmation hearing in April and passed committee in a voice vote last month. But the Senate has so far failed to give her an up-or-down vote on the floor. If a vote doesn’t happen before the legislature goes on its summer recess at the end of the week, it might not happen at all...

The next librarian of Congress will have to solve that challenge while answering some difficult questions: Should the library remain responsible for the country’s copyright system, or does the effort require a separate office? Should the library’s research reports remain restricted to members of Congress, or should they officially be made public?

...[P]ublic arguments against Ms. Hayden offensively suggest that, apparently because she is an African American woman, she would turn the library into a “monument to political correctness.” Meanwhile, legislators refuse to vote but offer no arguments at all. The Senate should give Ms. Hayden the consideration she deserves."

Copyright Office seeks comment on IT modernization plan; FedScoop, 3/18/16

Whitney Blair Wyckoff, FedScoop; Copyright Office seeks comment on IT modernization plan:

"The Copyright Office is seeking comment on a comprehensive technology plan to make its IT “lean, nimble, results-driven, and future-focused.”...

Comments on the plan are due March 31."

Library of Congress Puts Rosa Parks Archive Online; New York Times, 2/25/16

Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times; Library of Congress Puts Rosa Parks Archive Online:

"The Library of Congress has digitized the papers of Rosa Parks, enabling free online access to everything from her first-hand recollections of the Montgomery bus boycott and personal correspondence with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to family photographs, tax returns and a handwritten recipe for “featherlite pancakes.”

The collection, which includes roughly 7,500 manuscript items and 2,500 photographs, is on loan to the library for 10 years from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which acquired the collection in 2014 after a dispute involving Parks’s heirs that had left the papers languishing in a warehouse for nearly a decade following her death in 2005. (If the archives move elsewhere, the digital files will remain at the library.)"

Copyright Register: IT outage shows why agency must modernize; FedScoop.com, 11/30/15

Whitney Blair Wyckoff, FedScoop.com; Copyright Register: IT outage shows why agency must modernize:

"U.S. Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante still grimaces at the mention of a major IT outage that struck her agency this summer.

What started as routine data center maintenance shuttered critical Library of Congress IT systems — including those at the Copyright Office — for nine days. Pallante said it forced her staff, who were unable to fix the problems directly, to field angry calls from customers unable to register their songs, books or other creative works online.

“This is an illustration of the fact that my IT, and my databases, are in the hands of people who are not statutorily responsible for that information,” she told FedScoop, speaking in a Copyright Office conference room lined with the portraits of past registers. She added, "I just really feel that people who work on Copyright Office IT should be in the Copyright Office, in the mission, working side by side with the other experts."

It’s a point alluded to in the Copyright Office's five-year strategic modernization plan, finalized and released Tuesday. The 65-page document includes overarching goals that span from building a robust and flexible technology enterprise to recruiting a diverse workforce. But woven into the report is the need to tailor the office's technology to the needs of the people it serves.

“I think the main message of this is that the Copyright Office has to be directly involved in technology — for one, we can’t administer the law without having control of tools to allow us to do that,” said Pallante, who spent nearly 10 years as intellectual property counsel and director of the licensing group at the Guggenheim Museums before coming to her current job in 2011."

It's OK to hack your own car, US copyright authorities rule; Reuters via Guardian, 10/27/15

Reuters via Guardian; It's OK to hack your own car, US copyright authorities rule:

"Car owners and security experts can tinker with automobile software without incurring US copyright liability, according to newly issued guidelines that were opposed by the auto industry.

The Library of Congress, which oversees the US Copyright Office, agreed with fair use advocates who argued that vehicle owners are entitled to modify their cars, which often involves altering software."

Copyright and other Library of Congress computer systems are working again; Washington Post, 9/8/15

Peggy McGlone, Washington Post; Copyright and other Library of Congress computer systems are working again:

"The online registration system at the U.S. Copyright Office is back online after more than a week of being down, Library of Congress officials confirmed. In addition, the Braille and Audio Reading Download system, or BARD, has also come back online.

The Copyright Office’s electronic registration system was reinstated on Sunday, nine days after it was taken down as part of scheduled maintenance at the Library of Congress. The BARD system, a free service of recorded books and magazines that was offline since Sept. 1, became operational Tuesday, a week after it failed."

Outage slams copyright registration system at Library of Congress; FCW, 9/2/15

Adam Mazmanian, FCW; Outage slams copyright registration system at Library of Congress:

"The online system used to register initial copyright claims at the Library of Congress is down. Users looking to obtain copyright on books, art, music, film and other creative works are going to have to mail in paper copies of registration forms for the time being.

The system went down Aug. 29 after scheduled maintenance on the Library's James Madison building, which involved a power shutdown. An equipment failure during the restart resulted in the system, called eCO, going offline, according to a spokesperson for the Architect of the Capitol. The eCO website informs users that there is no "estimated time for service resumption." The spokesperson told FCW via email that the CIO team is "working to restore the system as quickly as possible.""

Does the Copyright Office Belong in a Library?; Library Journal, 7/2/15

Kevin L. Smith, Library Journal; Does the Copyright Office Belong in a Library? :

"It has been a busy time for those of us who watch the doings of the Copyright Office. In addition to releasing a massive report on Orphan Works and Mass Digitization, about which I have written here, the Copyright Office (CO) is the subject of a piece of legislation introduced as a discussion draft on June 3. The bill, if it were officially introduced and ultimately enacted, would remove the CO from the Library of Congress (LC) and establish it as an independent agency of the federal government, under the Executive Branch. Then, while we were still considering the ramifications of this idea, came the announcement on June 10 of the pending retirement of Dr. James Billington, who has been the Librarian of Congress for the past 29 years.

These events suggest long-term changes for the copyright and library communities, and it is worth taking a moment to consider, especially, the impact of the idea of making the Copyright Office an independent agency.

The first thing that strikes me about the “discussion draft” of the proposed law to establish the Copyright Office as an independent agency—called the Copyright Office for the Digital Economy (CODE) Act—is that it never says why it is needed...

In short, this bill seems like a solution in search of a problem, unless you accept that the problem is that music and movie companies are making less money than they would like. Rather than considering such an ill-advised bill, I hope that we will see, over the next year and a half or so, a new Librarian of Congress who will provide stronger leadership on many issues, but especially on the need to keep copyright policy, and the Copyright Office, firmly grounded in the needs and interests of all of the American public."

IT troubles plague Federal Copyright Office; NetworkWorld.com, 3/31/15

Michael Cooney, NetworkWorld.com; IT troubles plague Federal Copyright Office:

"A report out this week from the watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office points out a number of different technical and management woes that see to start at the top – with the CIO (a position that has a number of problems in its own right) and flows down to the technology, or lack-thereof.

As the nation’s copyright center it is imperative that it operate efficiently to effectively protect all manner of written and recorded material but according to the GAO it doesn’t.

And it is a big job. For example, according to the Copyright Office, which falls organizationally under the Library of Congress, in fiscal year 2014 it registered about 476,000 creative works for copyright, including about 219,000 literary works and 65,000 sound recordings and recorded 7,600 copyright records. In addition in fiscal year 2014 the office collected approximately $315 million in royalties and made disbursements in accordance with the decisions of the Copyright Royalty Board."

U.S. Copyright Office/LC Announces Plans for Public Roundtable on Orphan Works and Mass Digitization Issues; Library Journal, 2/8/14

Gary Price, Library Journal; U.S. Copyright Office/LC Announces Plans for Public Roundtable on Orphan Works and Mass Digitization Issues:

"Two days of roundtable discussions/meetings on potential legislative solutions for orphan works and mass digitization under U.S. copyright law are scheduled to take place on March 10-11, 2014 at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

The public is also invited to submit comments.

The two-day event will include nine sessions."

[Press Release] Maria Pallante Appointed 12th Register of Copyrights; Library of Congress, 6/1/11

[Press Release] Library of Congress; Maria Pallante Appointed 12th Register of Copyrights:

"Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has appointed Maria A. Pallante as the 12th Register of Copyrights and director of the United States Copyright Office, effective today. Pallante served as the Acting Register for the past five months, following the retirement of Marybeth Peters on December 31, 2010."

Library of Congress Gets a Mile of Music; New York Times, 1/10/11

Larry Rohter, New York Times; Library of Congress Gets a Mile of Music:

"Under the agreement negotiated during discussions that began two years ago the Library of Congress has been granted ownership of the physical discs and plans to preserve and digitize them. But Universal, a subsidiary of the French media conglomerate Vivendi that was formerly known as the Music Corporation of America, or MCA, retains both the copyright to the music recorded on the discs and the right to commercialize that music after it has been digitized...

Much of the material has been stored at Iron Mountain, the former limestone mine near Boyers, Pa., that also holds numerous government and corporate records."

Lost tapes of classic British television found in the US; (London) Guardian, 9/12/10

Vanessa Thorpe, (London) Guardian; Lost tapes of classic British television found in the US: Treasure trove of drama from the 'golden age of television' discovered in Library of Congress after more than 40 years:

"The Library of Congress initially approached Kaleidoscope, the classic TV experts, who took the good news to the BBC and ITV this spring. "We brokered the deal for the BFI because so many different companies have copyright over the material," wrote Kaleidoscope's Chris Perry in a blog this weekend."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/sep/12/lost-tapes-classic-british-television

iPhone 'Jailbreaking' Legal Under New Government Rules; Huffington Post, 7/26/10

Joelle Tessler, Huffington Post; iPhone 'Jailbreaking' Legal Under New Government Rules:

"Owners of the iPhone will be able to legally unlock their devices so they can run software applications that haven't been approved by Apple Inc., according to new government rules announced Monday.

The decision to allow the practice commonly known as "jailbreaking" is one of a handful of new exemptions from a 1998 federal law that prohibits people from bypassing technical measures that companies put on their products to prevent unauthorized use of copyright-protected material. The Library of Congress, which oversees the Copyright Office, reviews and authorizes exemptions every three years to ensure that the law does not prevent certain non-infringing uses of copyright-protected works.

For iPhone jailbreakers, the new rules effectively legitimize a practice that has been operating in a legal gray area by exempting it from liability. Apple claims that jailbreaking is an unauthorized modification of its software.

Mario Ciabarra, founder of Rock Your Phone, which calls itself an "independent iPhone application store," said the rules mark the first step toward opening the iPhone app market to competition and removing the "handcuffs" that Apple imposes on developers that want to reach users of the wildly popular device.

Unless users unlock their handsets, they can only download apps from Apple's iTunes store. Software developers must get such apps pre-approved by Apple, which sometimes demands changes or rejects programs for what developers say are vague reasons.

Ciabarra noted that Google Inc. has taken a different approach with its Android operating system, which is emerging as the biggest competitor to the iPhone. Google allows users of Android phones to download applications from outside the Android Market.

Although Apple has never prosecuted anyone for jailbreaking, it does use software upgrades to disable jailbroken phones, and the new government rules won't put a stop to that. That means owners of such phones might not be able to take advantage of software improvements, and they still run the risk of voiding their warranty.

Apple spokesman Natalie Kerris said Monday that the company is concerned about jailbreaking because the practice can make an iPhone unstable and unreliable.

"Apple's goal has always been to ensure that our customers have a great experience with their iPhone, and we know that jailbreaking can severely degrade the experience," she said.

In addition to jailbreaking, other exemptions announced Monday would:

_ allow owners of used cell phones to break access controls on their phones in order to switch wireless carriers.

_ allow people to break technical protections on video games to investigate or correct security flaws.

_ allow college professors, film students, documentary filmmakers and producers of noncommercial videos to break copy-protection measures on DVDs so they can embed clips for educational purposes, criticism or commentary.

_ allow computer owners to bypass the need for external security devices called dongles if the dongle no longer works and cannot be replaced.

_ allow blind people to break locks on electronic books so that they can use them with read-aloud software and similar aides.

Although the jailbreaking exemption is new, all the others are similar to the last set of exemptions, which were announced in November 2006. The new rules take effect Tuesday and are expected to last a few years.

The exceptions are a big victory for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which had urged the Library of Congress to legalize several of them, including the two regarding cell phones.

Jennifer Stisa Granick, EFF's civil liberties director, said the rules are based on an important principle: Consumers should be allowed to use and modify the devices that they purchase the way they want. "If you bought it, you own it," she said."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/26/iphone-jailbreaking-legal_n_659272.html

Public-Domain Status of Early Sound Recordings Delayed Until 2067 According to Library Report, Library of Congress, 3/30/09

Via Library of Congress: Public-Domain Status of Early Sound Recordings Delayed Until 2067 According to Library Report:

"Sound recordings were not protected by federal copyright law until 1972. A Library of Congress report indicates that the miscellany of state laws protecting pre-1972 sound recordings will extend copyright protection until 2067, creating a situation where some recordings dating to the 19th century are not available in public domain.

The Library announced today the completion of a commissioned report that examines copyright issues associated with unpublished sound recordings. This new report from the Library of Congress and the Council on Library and Information Resources addresses the question of what libraries and archives are legally empowered to do, under current laws, to preserve and make accessible for research their holdings of unpublished sound recordings made before 1972.

The report, "Copyright and Related Issues Relevant to Digital Preservation and Dissemination of Unpublished Pre-1972 Sound Recordings by Libraries and Archives’ is one of a series of studies undertaken by the National Recording Preservation Board (NRPB), under the auspices of the Library of Congress. It was written by June Besek, executive director of the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at Columbia University. The report is available free of charge at http://www.loc.gov/global/disclaimer.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.clir.org%2Fpubs%2Fabstract%2Fpub144abst.html."

http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2009/09-060.html

With Flickr Layoffs, Whither 'The Commons'?, Wired.com, 12/30/08

Via Wired.com: With Flickr Layoffs, Whither 'The Commons'?:

"In mid-December, when Yahoo laid off George Oates, one of the original employees of the photo-sharing website Flickr, Oates immediately feared for The Commons, Flickr's project to have its millions of members turn their distributed intelligence to the world's photo archives.

Though less than a year old, The Commons hosts tens of thousands of copyright-free historical photos from 17 cultural institutions including the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library."

http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/12/with-layoffs-wh.html