Joanna Moorhead , The Guardian; ‘An unsettling colonial collection’: should the Vatican return items ‘gifted’ to it from Indigenous peoples?

"The origins of this collection lie in an event mounted in 1925, when Pope Pius XI asked Catholic missionaries around the world to send cultural and sacred belongings from the communities they “served” to Rome, for an exhibition that would celebrate the Catholic church’s reach across the planet. It went on for a year, was attended by around a million people, and when it finished many of the objects remained in Rome. The following year, in November 1926, they became the core of a new Vatican Ethnological Museum, then housed at the Lateran Palace. In 1973 it moved across Rome to the Vatican Museums, where it remains to this day.

They’re big on anniversaries at the Vatican – witness the huge service planned next week to celebrate 400 years since the consecration of St Peter’s Basilica – but there’s an eerie silence round the Ethnological Museum, rebranded the Anima Mundi (“soul of the world”) in 2019. A source inside the Vatican told me a decision had been made to lie low over this particular landmark...

Even in 1925 some people questioned the ethics of the exhibition: most notably Anthony Martin Fernando, an Australian Aboriginal who had travelled to Europe to protest at the treatment of his people, and who went to Rome to leaflet visitors to the 1925 ethnological exhibition."

Episode 54 Bonus (Oct 2026): From the Care of Bodies to the Care of Minds; Library Journal, October 27, 2026

 Dave Lankes, Library Journal ; Episode 54 Bonus (Oct 2026): From the Care of Bodies to the Care of Minds

"This special bonus episode is from a keynote address delivered at the opening of the new ESSECI Public Library in Cuneo, Italy, at the end of September 2026. “From the Care of Bodies to the Care of Minds” explores what libraries can and must become in an age of generative AI, declining trust, and profound changes in how people create knowledge. Dave argues that libraries offer something machines cannot: accountable human relationships grounded in community. He calls on libraries to move beyond repositories of information and become platforms for conversation, cultural heritage, creativity, and collective action."

Why is Anthropic destroying books?; The Guardian, August 5, 2026

 Kathryn James, The Guardian; Why is Anthropic destroying books?

"Should we be surprised that destroying printed texts seemed easier to Anthropic than working with their human authors?"

Cultural barbarism: How AI companies are destroying the world’s books; The Telegraph, July 30, 2026

Chris Stokel-Walker , The Telegraph; Cultural barbarism: How AI companies are destroying the world’s books

In its attempt to boost AI’s power, Silicon Valley is buying millions of rare editions, scanning them and then shredding the originals

‘Avatar’ Suit Focuses on Hot Topic in A.I. Age: A Character’s Face; The New York Times, May 5, 2026

Brooks Barnes, The New York Times ; ‘Avatar’ Suit Focuses on Hot Topic in A.I. Age: A Character’s Face

"An actress accused the director James Cameron of stealing her likeness to create an “Avatar” character in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in California — a case that reflects a core fear among Hollywood performers in the artificial intelligence age: losing control of their own faces.

The actress, Q’orianka Kilcher, also sued Disney, which controls the multibillion-dollar “Avatar” franchise, which started in 2009...

The lawsuit involves Neytiri, the digitally created, blue-skinned warrior princess in Mr. Cameron’s three “Avatar” blockbusters. According to the complaint, Mr. Cameron used a photo of Ms. Kilcher as a teenager — without her knowledge — as the foundation for Neytiri, incorporating her features “directly into his production art” and digital production pipeline.

“Neytiri’s lips, chin, jawline and overall mouth shape” in the trilogy “are Q’orianka Kilcher’s,” the complaint said. “This was not a fleeting inspiration or a vague homage; it was a literal transplant of a real teenager’s facial structure.”

In 2010, Ms. Kilcher, who is also an Indigenous rights activist, met Mr. Cameron by chance at a charity event in Hollywood, where he told her that she was the “early inspiration” for Neytiri’s look, according to the complaint. “She did not take this to mean that her actual face had been replicated,” the complaint said.

Ms. Kilcher is suing now, the complaint said, because of an interview that Mr. Cameron gave to a French media outlet in 2024. In the interview, Mr. Cameron mentions Ms. Kilcher and “points to an image of Neytiri and says unambiguously: ‘This is actually her lower face,’” the complaint said. The interview came to her attention a year later."

As Works Flood In, Nation’s Library Treads Water; New York Times, 5/3/13

Jennifer Steinhauer, New York Times; As Works Flood In, Nation’s Library Treads Water: "Fantasia, the R&B star and one-time “American Idol” winner, recently slipped into the library to register a song for copyright, another of the library’s most visible and important functions. Last year the library registered more than 511,500 claims to copyright, many of which fill the storage rooms and off-site locations, walls of hopes and dreams. Roughly 2,000 new items are filed per day. “People will write a poem on a piece of paper and send it in to get it registered,” said David Christopher, chief of operations for the library’s Copyright Office. “Then they will call and ask, ‘Did you get my poem?’ They’re passionate about it. To them, it’s their creative output.”"

In Defense Of Google Books; Forbes, 9/25/09

Quentin Hardy, Forbes; In Defense Of Google Books:

Go ahead and hate Google, but it guaranteed our heritage a future.

"If Google's actions seem entirely wrong, consider how we would feel if, in response to all the criticism, Google simply destroyed the 10 million-volume corpus. We would feel an almost irrevocable loss.

The agreement will be reached. Most likely it will be tentative, and subject to review in a few years. It will not be perfect. But if Google had not made its audacious move, we could be heading into the future with a stunted and partial heritage."

http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/25/books-copyright-internet-intelligent-technology-google.html