Who uses libraries? Even in the stacks, there’s a political divide.; The Washington Post, October 4, 2024

 Andrew Van Dam, The Washington Post; Who uses libraries? Even in the stacks, there’s a political divide.

"When we took a look at the nation’s declining reading habits, our struggling bookstores and the prodigious number of books consumed by America’s top 1 percent of readers, scores of you wrote in with a singular question: What about the libraries?!

You people sure do love libraries! You wanted to know everything. Who are the biggest library users? How many of our books do we get from libraries? What else do we use libraries for?

We scoured all the government sources we could think of before turning to the cabal of polling prodigies over at YouGov to see what they could gin up.

As usual, YouGov exceeded our expectations, asking at least 50 library-related questions of 2,429 U.S. adults in April. They touched on just about everything: librarian approval ratings, restrictions on drag queen story times, number of books read. They also asked about the library services we actually use, up to and including how many of us avail ourselves of the library restrooms."

PEN America: Books bans doubled in 2023-2024 school year, most from Florida, Iowa; Florida Times-Union, September 24, 2024

  C. A. Bridges, Florida Times-Union; PEN America: Books bans doubled in 2023-2024 school year, most from Florida, Iowa

"In the 2022-2023 school year, Florida led the nation in the surge of book challenges and bans, according to free expression advocacy group PEN America. This year, the number of bans has more than doubled.

Research by the nonprofit organization found more than 10,000 instances of book bans across the country, with 8,000 of them from Florida and Iowa, according to preliminary findings released Monday at the start of Banned Books Week. This was largely due to new state laws, PEN America's Kasey Meehan and Sabrina Baêta said.

Florida's HB 1069, which went into effect July 2023, required that any book challenged for "sexual conduct" must be removed during the review process and empowered parents and guardians to challenge books without providing ways for parents or guardians to defend them. That led to a "significant rise in book bans" during the 2023-2024 school year, PEN America said."

Kim Dotcom to be extradited from New Zealand to US; The Guardian, August 15, 2024

Reuters via The Guardian , The Guardian; Kim Dotcom to be extradited from New Zealand to US

"As well as copyright infringement, Dotcom faces more serious charges, including money laundering and racketeering. He has long argued that he should not be held liable for copyright infringement carried out using his site, a filesharing service that allowed users to upload content and share the link with others to download."

Internet Archive forced to remove 500,000 books after publishers’ court win; Ars Technica, June 21, 2024

ASHLEY BELANGER, Ars Technica; Internet Archive forced to remove 500,000 books after publishers’ court win

"As a result of book publishers successfully suing the Internet Archive (IA) last year, the free online library that strives to keep growing online access to books recently shrank by about 500,000 titles.

IA reported in a blog post this month that publishers abruptly forcing these takedowns triggered a "devastating loss" for readers who depend on IA to access books that are otherwise impossible or difficult to access.

To restore access, IA is now appealing, hoping to reverse the prior court's decision by convincing the US Court of Appeals in the Second Circuit that IA's controlled digital lending of its physical books should be considered fair use under copyright law."

Training Generative AI Models on Copyrighted Works Is Fair Use; ARL Views, January 23, 2024

Katherine Klosek, Director of Information Policy and Federal Relations, Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and Marjory S. Blumenthal, Senior Policy Fellow, American Library Association (ALA) Office of Public Policy and Advocacy |, ARL Views; Training Generative AI Models on Copyrighted Works Is Fair Use

"In a blog post about the case, OpenAI cites the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) position that “based on well-established precedent, the ingestion of copyrighted works to create large language models or other AI training databases generally is a fair use.” LCA explained this position in our submission to the US Copyright Office notice of inquiry on copyright and AI, and in the LCA Principles for Copyright and AI.

LCA is not involved in any of the AI lawsuits. But as champions of fair use, free speech, and freedom of information, libraries have a stake in maintaining the balance of copyright law so that it is not used to block or restrict access to information. We drafted the principles on AI and copyright in response to efforts to amend copyright law to require licensing schemes for generative AI that could stunt the development of this technology, and undermine its utility to researchers, students, creators, and the public. The LCA principles hold that copyright law as applied and interpreted by the Copyright Office and the courts is flexible and robust enough to address issues of copyright and AI without amendment. The LCA principles also make the careful and critical distinction between input to train an LLM, and output—which could potentially be infringing if it is substantially similar to an original expressive work.

On the question of whether ingesting copyrighted works to train LLMs is fair use, LCA points to the history of courts applying the US Copyright Act to AI."

Column: Mickey Mouse and ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ enter the public domain on Jan. 1, a reminder of our crazy copyright laws; Los Angeles Times, December 26, 2023

MICHAEL HILTZIK, Los Angeles Times ; Column: Mickey Mouse and ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ enter the public domain on Jan. 1, a reminder of our crazy copyright laws

"Once a work enters the public domain, Jenkins says, “community theaters can screen the films. Youth orchestras can perform the music publicly, without paying licensing fees. Online repositories such as the Internet Archive, HathiTrust, Google Books, and the New York Public Library can make works fully available online. This helps enable access to cultural materials that might otherwise be lost to history. ... Anyone can rescue them from obscurity and make them available, where we can all discover, enjoy, and breathe new life into them.”

In some cases, extended copyright seems to work against the public interest. Consider the stringent control exercised by the estate of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — mostly his children — over his speeches and writings such as the “I Have a Dream” speech he delivered in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28, 1963...

The irony of the term extension is that Disney, which pushed so hard to keep its own creations out of the public domain, is perhaps our most assiduous exploiter of, yes, the public domain.

The core material of some of its most successful and profitable movies comes from Hans Christian Andersen, Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll and Charles Perrault — often freely reimagined and rewritten by Disney artists and writers. 

Disney’s “Fantasia” mined musical history for compositions by Bach and Beethoven, but if the copyright terms Disney pushed for in 1998 were in place when the film was made in 1940, the compositions used in the film by Stravinsky, Ponchielli, Dukas, Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky would still be under copyright protection. If Disney had to pay licensing fees to those creators, the film probably could not have been made."

An Apparent Cyberattack Hushes the British Library; The New York Times, November 3, 2023

 Alex Marshall, The New York Times; An Apparent Cyberattack Hushes the British Library

"Tasmina Islam, a lecturer in cybersecurity education at King’s College London said in an email that the motivation for attacking a library could be financial.

“Cybercriminals can access a lot of information from a library, including users’ personal data,” she said. Libraries also “store electronic books, research articles and various intellectual properties, all of which cybercriminals can exploit for illegal distribution,” Islam added.

The British Library incident “served as a warning for other libraries and institutions to assess their own security measures thoroughly,” she said."

Unpublished Letter Sent to New York Times Editor on 10/2/23 re “The Enemies of Literature Are Winning” by Matthew Walther (Oct. 1, 2023)

[Kip Currier: Unpublished Letter I sent to New York Times Editor on 10/2/23 re “The Enemies of Literature Are Winning” by Matthew Walther (Oct. 1, 2023).]

Nowhere in the author’s jeremiad does he address the two most important reasons for the continuing existence and relevance of Banned Books Week: providing readers with access to the broadest spectrum of information and including the voices of all, particularly BIPOC and LGBTQ+ persons who have historically been absent from library collections. In the words of the late Banned Books Week co-founder and longtime intellectual freedom champion Judith Krug, “We have to serve the information needs of everybody.” Not some, but everyone.

Record Labels File $412 Million Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Internet Archive; Rolling Stone, August 12, 2023

 ALTHEA LEGASPI, Rolling Stone; Record Labels File $412 Million Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Internet Archive

"UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP, Sony Music Entertainment, Capitol, and other record labels filed a copyright lawsuit on Friday against Internet Archive, founder Brewster Kahle, and others over the organization’s “Great 78 Project,” accusing them of behaving as an “illegal record store.” The suit lists 2,749 pre-1972 musical works available via Internet Archive by late artists, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Chuck Berry, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, and Bing Crosby, among others.

The suit, which was filed in federal court and reviewed by Rolling Stone, claims the Internet Archive’s “Great 78 Project” — launched by Internet Archive as a community project for “the preservation, research and discovery of 78rpm records,” according to its blog — has violated copyright laws. By “transferring copies of those files to members of the public, Internet Archive has reproduced and distributed without authorization Plaintiffs’ protected sound recordings,” the suit alleges.

The nonprofit Internet Archive began in 1996, stating its mission is to “provide Universal Access to All Knowledge.” It purports to be a digital library that provides free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public. Its “Great 78 Project” follows suit; the community project dedicates itself to “the preservation, research and discovery of 78rpm records” per a post about the project. It provides free access to “over 400,000 recordings” as Internet Archive estimates in its post."

Inside The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy; Library Journal, August 3, 2023

 Claire Woodcock  , Library Journal; Inside The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy

"Most libraries don’t own their own ebooks. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to LJ readers, yet it’s a statement that continues to confound elected officials and administrators who get an astounding amount of say in how much money public and academic libraries are allotted.

This is one of the reasons I, along with my coauthors Sarah Lamdan, Michael Weinberg, and Jason Schultz at the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at New York University (NYU) Law, published our recent report, The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy: How Publishers and Platforms Have Reshaped the Way We Read in the Digital Age. In nearly 60 pages, this report takes a hard look at how license agreements dictate what consumers—both individual and institutional—get to do with their digital book collections."

US farmers win right to repair John Deere equipment; BBC News, January 9, 2022

Monica Miller, BBC News; US farmers win right to repair John Deere equipment

"Consumer groups have for years been calling on companies to allow their customers to be able to fix everything from smartphones to tractors.

The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and Deere & Co. signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Sunday.

"It addresses a long-running issue for farmers and ranchers when it comes to accessing tools, information and resources, while protecting John Deere's intellectual property rights and ensuring equipment safety," AFBF President Zippy Duvall said.

Under the agreement, equipment owners and independent technicians will not be allowed to "divulge trade secrets" or "override safety features or emissions controls or to adjust Agricultural Equipment power levels.""

Open source intelligence observers gain growing role in how war is viewed; Stars and Stripes, March 29, 2022

ALISON BATH, Stars and Stripes ; Open source intelligence observers gain growing role in how war is viewed

"Citizen intelligence analysts are spotlighting the Russian navy’s role in its war on Ukraine, using publicly available information to report on missile launches, blockades and other actions in the Black and Mediterranean seas.

The information gathered using open-source intelligence, or OSINT, offers a glimpse into Russia’s maritime war activities and sometimes challenges information released by government sources.

Dozens of private citizens are parlaying their prior military experience, specialized knowledge of the Russian navy and online information-mining skills into robust, almost-real-time coverage of Russia’s full-scale invasion, which began Feb. 24."

After COVID boom, ebook aggregators face licensing questions from Congress; The Verge, November 18, 2021

Makena Kelly, The Verge ; After COVID boom, ebook aggregators face licensing questions from Congress

"“Many libraries face financial and practical challenges in making e-books available to their patrons, which jeopardizes their ability to fulfill their mission,” the lawmakers wrote. “It is our understanding that these difficulties arise because e-books are typically offered under more expensive and limited licensing agreements, unlike print books that libraries can typically purchase, own, and lend on their own terms.”

In September, Wyden and Eshoo first questioned publishers over the terms they set for ebook licensing. The COVID-19 pandemic forced many public libraries to shut down in-person service, and people began using online services like Overdrive’s Libby app to borrow digital books in lieu of physical copies. “Ensuring that libraries can offer an array of resources, including e-books, is essential to promoting equity in education and access to information,” the lawmakers wrote to Penguin Random House earlier this year."

Want to borrow that e-book from the library? Sorry, Amazon won’t let you.; The Washington Post, March 10, 2021

 Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Washington Post ; Want to borrow that e-book from the library? Sorry, Amazon won’t let you.

 

"Many Americans now recognize that a few tech companies increasingly dominate our lives. But it’s sometimes hard to put your finger on exactly why that’s a problem. The case of the vanishing e-books shows how tech monopolies hurt us not just as consumers, but as citizens...

 

Librarians have been no match for the beast. When authors sign up with a publisher, it decides how to distribute their work... 

 

In testimony to Congress, the American Library Association called digital sales bans like Amazon’s “the worst obstacle for libraries” moving into the 21st century. Lawmakers in New York and Rhode Island have proposed bills that would require Amazon (and everybody else) to sell e-books to libraries with reasonable terms. This week, the Maryland House of Delegates unanimously approved its own library e-book bill, which now heads back to the state Senate... 

 

Libraries losing e-books matters because they serve us as citizens. It’s easy to take for granted, but libraries are among America’s great equalizers."

Democracy activists' books unavailable in Hong Kong libraries after new law; Reuters, July 5, 2020

Reuters; Democracy activists' books unavailable in Hong Kong libraries after new law

"Books by prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy figures have become unavailable in the Chinese-ruled city’s public libraries as they are being reviewed to see whether they violate a new national security law, a government department said on Sunday. 

The sweeping legislation, which came into force on Tuesday night at the same time its contents were published, punishes crimes related to secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces, with punishments of up to life in prison.

Hong Kong public libraries “will review whether certain books violate the stipulations of the National Security Law,” the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, which runs the libraries, said in a statement.

“While legal advice will be sought in the process of the review, the books will not be available for borrowing and reference in libraries.""

National Library of Israel to open access to 2,500 rare Islamic books; Jerusalem Post, June 8, 2020

Jerusalem Post Staff, Jerusalem Post; National Library of Israel to open access to 2,500 rare Islamic books

"The National Library of Israel, in coordination with the Arcadia Fund, has announced a major initiative to open digital access to over 2,500 rare Islamic manuscripts and books, according to a press release from library on Monday. 

With the aid of a grant from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, the National Library's opening of access will include the digitization and uploading of high-resolution images of books and manucripts, improving item descriptions in Arabic and English  and the development of an English-Hebrew-Arabic digital platform."

Supreme Court Copyright Ruling Could Shake Up Legal Publishing; Publishers weekly, April 27, 2020

Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly; Supreme Court Copyright Ruling Could Shake Up Legal Publishing

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court this week held that legislators "cannot be the authors of—and therefore cannot copyright—the works they create in the course of their official duties."

"In upholding the appeals court reversal, the Supreme Court held that the annotations amended to the state of Georgia’s legal code were “ineligible for copyright protection” under the “government edicts doctrine,” a legal regime developed from a trio of 19th-century Supreme Court decisions.

“The animating principle behind the government edicts doctrine is that no one can own the law,” Roberts wrote. “Over a century ago, we recognized a limitation on copyright protection for certain government work product, rooted in the Copyright Act’s ‘authorship’ requirement. Under what has been dubbed the government edicts doctrine, officials empowered to speak with the force of law cannot be the authors of—and therefore cannot copyright—the works they create in the course of their official duties.”"

Georgia Can’t Copyright Its Entire State Code, the Supreme Court Rules; The New York Times, April 27, 2020

Adam Liptak, The New York Times; Georgia Can’t Copyright Its Entire State Code, the Supreme Court Rules

In a 5-to-4 ruling with unusual alliances, the court said that annotations cannot be copyrighted if they are the official work of state lawmakers.

"Georgia may not copyright its entire official code, which includes both the state’s laws and annotations interpreting them, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday. The 5-to-4 decision featured unusual alliances and would most likely be widely felt, as about 20 other states have claimed that parts of similar annotated codes are copyrighted."

Past coronavirus: an open-access future for academics; The Bowdoin Orient, April 3, 2020

Radu Stochita, The Bowdoin Orient; Past coronavirus: an open-access future for academics

"What Aaron Swartz left us is the courage to try and break the wall that exists between the public and the profit-driven industry of academic publishing. In his eyes, information was meant to be free and accessible. Progress was meant for the common good, in the benefit of everyone, not only for a selected few."

Free Access to Intellectual Property is Crucial in Mitigating The COVID-19 Pandemic; News18, April 9, 2020

Simantini Dey, News18; Free Access to Intellectual Property is Crucial in Mitigating The COVID-19 Pandemic

"Furthermore, sharing intellectual property among members of academia is also important, so that the invention of a working vaccine can be accelerated, and more can be discovered about this potent virus. 

To ensure such co-operation, a group of scientists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and individuals have come together and started the 'Open COVID pledge' initiative. The organisations, institutions and universities who take the 'Open COVID Pledge' will voluntarily make the commitment of sharing their Intellectual Property related to COVID-19, thereby reducing information barrier. 

So far, Intel, Mozilla and Creative Commons have publically taken the Open COVID pledge. Harvard, MIT and Stanford have also agreed to this initiative. The University of Utah (Centre for Law and Biological Sciences), and Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital are among some of the other institutions that have endorsed the pledge.

The current global healthcare crisis has brought to sharp focus the need to review patent laws of pharmaceutical products and how it should be reframed in case of a pandemic, or epidemic in future."