Copyright Office Launches Digitized Copyright Historical Record Books Collection; U.S. Copyright Office, February 7, 2022

U.S. Copyright Office; Copyright Office Launches Digitized Copyright Historical Record Books Collection

"The Copyright Office today launched the first release of the digitized Copyright Historical Record Books Collection. “The Copyright Office holds the world’s most comprehensive collection of records of copyright ownership,” said Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter. “Today’s release of the first batch of our digitized historical record books will ensure that these records are preserved for future research and that anyone can access them from anywhere.”

This collection is a preview of digitized versions of historical record books that the Office plans to incorporate into its Copyright Public Record System (CPRS), currently in public pilot. The collection will eventually include images of copyright applications and other records bound in books dating from 1870 to 1977. This first release includes 500 record books containing registration applications for books from 1969 to 1977, with a majority of the record books being the most recent volumes from 1975 to 1977. The collection is being digitized using the Copyright Office’s internal administrative classification system in reverse chronological order. There will be periodic updates as record books are digitized and added to the collection."

Internet Archive to Publishers: Drop ‘Needless’ Copyright Lawsuit and Work with Us; Publishers Weekly, July 23, 2020

Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly; Internet Archive to Publishers: Drop ‘Needless’ Copyright Lawsuit and Work with Us

"During a 30-minute Zoom press conference on July 22, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle urged the four major publishers suing over the organization’s book scanning efforts to consider settling the dispute in the boardroom rather than the courtroom.

“Librarians, publishers, authors, all of us should be working together during this pandemic to help teachers, parents, and especially students,” Kahle implored. “I call on the executives of Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House to come together with us to help solve the challenging problems of access to knowledge during this pandemic, and to please drop this needless lawsuit.”

Kahle’s remarks came as part of a panel, which featured a range of speakers explaining and defending the practice of Controlled Digital Lending (CDL), the legal theory under which the Internet Archive has scanned and is making available for borrowing a library of some 1.4 million mostly 20th century books."

Reforming Digital Lending Libraries and the End of the Internet Archive; Jurist, July 20, 2020

Binit Agrawal, Jurist; Reforming Digital Lending Libraries and the End of the Internet Archive

"The lack of certainty relating to the legality of CDL as fair use is hampering its growth by creating a chilling effect. Libraries are under the fear of costly litigations. IA itself is under the risk of bankruptcy, as the publishers are not inclined to take back their suit, even after IA stopped ELP. This is the very problem section 108 intended to resolve. Hence, it is pertinent that the section is amended to meet the needs of the digital age and provide certainty in this regard. Some countries have already moved in this direction. While Canada has permitted a limited right to provide digitized copies to patrons of other libraries, the EU has been considering proposals to allow digitization of cultural heritage institutions, including 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."

Smithsonian Releases 2.8 Million Images Into Public Domain; Smithsonian Magazine, February 25, 2020

Katherine J. Wu , Smithsonian Magazine; Smithsonian Releases 2.8 Million Images Into Public Domain

"For the first time in its 174-year history, the Smithsonian has released 2.8 million high-resolution two- and three-dimensional images from across its collections onto an open access online platform for patrons to peruse and download free of charge. Featuring data and material from all 19 Smithsonian museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives and the National Zoo, the new digital depot encourages the public to not just view its contents, but use, reuse and transform them into just about anything they choose—be it a postcard, a beer koozie or a pair of bootie shorts.

And this gargantuan data dump is just the beginning. Throughout the rest of 2020, the Smithsonian will be rolling out another 200,000 or so images, with more to come as the Institution continues to digitize its collection of 155 million items and counting...

The database’s launch also marks the latest victory for a growing global effort to migrate museum collections into the public domain. Nearly 200 other institutions worldwide—including Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago—have made similar moves to digitize and liberate their masterworks in recent years. But the scale of the Smithsonian’s release is “unprecedented” in both depth and breadth, says Simon Tanner, an expert in digital cultural heritage at King’s College London.

Spanning the arts and humanities to science and engineering, the release compiles artifacts, specimens and datasets from an array of fields onto a single online platform."

Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria: "Somewhere at Google there is a database containing 25 million books and nobody is allowed to read them."; The Atlantic, April 20, 2017

James Somers, The Atlantic; Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria: "Somewhere at Google there is a database containing 25 million books and nobody is allowed to read them."

"After the settlement failed, Clancy told me that at Google “there was just this air let out of the balloon.” Despite eventually winning Authors Guild v. Google, and having the courts declare that displaying snippets of copyrighted books was fair use, the company all but shut down its scanning operation.

It was strange to me, the idea that somewhere at Google there is a database containing 25-million books and nobody is allowed to read them. It’s like that scene at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie where they put the Ark of the Covenant back on a shelf somewhere, lost in the chaos of a vast warehouse. It’s there. The books are there. People have been trying to build a library like this for ages—to do so, they’ve said, would be to erect one of the great humanitarian artifacts of all time—and here we’ve done the work to make it real and we were about to give it to the world and now, instead, it’s 50 or 60 petabytes on disk, and the only people who can see it are half a dozen engineers on the project who happen to have access because they’re the ones responsible for locking it up."

Lou Reed Archives Head to New York Public Library; New York Times, March 2, 2017

Ben Sisario, New York Times; 

Lou Reed Archives Head to New York Public Library

"Ms. Anderson said that the library’s mandate of making its collections available to the public was central to her decision to place the archive there. But she also felt that it all simply belonged in New York.

“Lou is kind of Mr. New York,” Ms. Anderson said. “This is the city he loved the most. It doesn’t make any sense for him to be anywhere else. Then, what’s the best place in New York? This is the best place in New York.”

She also giggled a little, and made a mock librarian’s shush, as she added: “I just love that somebody who is so loud is in the New York Public Library.”"

Librarians, Archivists, Call On WIPO Members To Create Safe Harbour Against Copyright Liability; Intellectual Property Watch, 11/18/16

Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch; Librarians, Archivists, Call On WIPO Members To Create Safe Harbour Against Copyright Liability:

"The age of digitisation has opened new doors to distribution of information including for libraries and archives. However, librarians and archivists are often confronted with risk of liability for copyright infringement, nationally and in cross-border activities. This week, they asked the World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee to provide them not only with some exceptions to copyright, but with protection against liability.

The WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) is taking place from 14-18 November. On the SCCR agenda is copyright exceptions and limitations for libraries and archives. On 17 November, librarians and archivists took the floor to explain why an international standard protecting them against liability is indispensable."

Christmas Tree Candles and Candle Holders - Web’s Largest Gallery of Historic Patents Shows How We Used To Decorate Our Trees; Huffington Post, 11/25/16

Tom Conrad, Huffington Post; Christmas Tree Candles and Candle Holders - Web’s Largest Gallery of Historic Patents Shows How We Used To Decorate Our Trees:

'Decorating with Christmas tree candles was in its commercial prime for about 50 years — from roughly 1870, gradually tapering off through the 1920s and 30s, although the U.S. Patent Office was still awarding patents for Christmas tree candle holders as late as 1945.

Studying patent drawings and reading the filings from the U.S. Patent Office is a good way to trace the design developments and get a feel for how the Christmas tree candle holders evolved through the years before they were overtaken by electric Christmas tree lights. The following selection is excerpted from our online Gallery of Christmas Tree Candle Holder Patents, which is the largest collection available on the web. Check out the gallery and see varieties of Christmas tree candle holders, clips and pendulums that are available to buy online."

Libraries, Orphan Works, and the Future of Copyright; Information Today, 10/4/16

Nancy K. Herther, Information Today; Libraries, Orphan Works, and the Future of Copyright:

"Harvard Library recently released a comprehensive literature review on orphan works and copyright in “an attempt to solve the legal complexities of the orphan works problem by identifying no-risk or low-risk ways to digitize and distribute orphan works under U.S. copyright law. The project’s goal is to help clear the way for U.S. universities, libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions to digitize their orphan works and make the digital copies open access.”

The review, “Digitizing Orphan Works: Legal Strategies to Reduce Risks for Open Access to Copyrighted Orphan Works,” was written by David Hansen, clinical assistant professor of law and faculty research librarian at the UNC (University of North Carolina) School of Law. Its goal is to “change the face of the orphan-works problem in the United States.”"

[Press Release] WVU Press and Libraries launch open access reader on West Virginia history, 1/15/16

[Press Release] WVU Press and Libraries launch open access reader on West Virginia history:

"West Virginia University Press and the WVU Libraries have launched West Virginia History: An Open Access Reader, a free, online collection of previously published essays drawn from the journal West Virginia History and other WVU Press publications.

The collection covers the history of the territory that became West Virginia from European settlement to mountaintop removal, and is especially suitable for use in courses on state history. It is available at https://textbooks.lib.wvu.edu/index.html.

“I love everything about this project – serving the needs of students, sharing the history of West Virginia, harnessing the power of technology, and collaborating between West Virginia University and Marshall,” WVU President Gordon Gee said. “This is the kind of responsive and innovative work that we want to become the ‘new normal’ for higher education in meeting the needs of our state.”"

Unpublished Black History; New York Times, 2/1/16

Rachel L. Swarns, Darcy Eveleigh, and Damien Cave, New York Times; Unpublished Black History:

"Hundreds of stunning images from black history, drawn from old negatives, have long been buried in the musty envelopes and crowded bins of the New York Times archives.

None of them were published by The Times until now.

Were the photos — or the people in them — not deemed newsworthy enough? Did the images not arrive in time for publication? Were they pushed aside by words here at an institution long known as the Gray Lady?...

Every day during Black History Month, we will publish at least one of these photographs online, illuminating stories that were never told in our pages and others that have been mostly forgotten...

Many of these photographs, and their stories, are equally intriguing. But the collection is far from comprehensive. There are gaps, for many reasons."

New York Public Library Invites a Deep Digital Dive; New York Times, 1/6/16

Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times; New York Public Library Invites a Deep Digital Dive:

"But the game is what you might call a marketing teaser for a major redistribution of property, digitally speaking: the release of more than 180,000 photographs, postcards, maps and other public-domain items from the library’s special collections in downloadable high-resolution files — along with an invitation to users to grab them and do with them whatever they please.

Digitization has been all the rage over the past decade, as libraries, museums and other institutions have scanned millions of items and posted them online. But the library’s initiative (nypl.org/publicdomain), which goes live on Wednesday, goes beyond the practical questions of how and what to digitize to the deeper one of what happens next...

A growing number of institutions have been rallying under the banner of “open content.” While the library’s new initiative represents one of the largest releases of visually rich material since the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam began making more than 200,000 works available in high-quality scans free of charge in 2012, it’s notable for more than its size.

“It’s not just a data dump,” said Dan Cohen, the executive director of the Digital Public Library of America, a consortium that offers one-stop access to digitized holdings from more than 1,300 institutions.

The New York Public has “really been thinking about how they can get others to use this material,” Mr. Cohen continued. “It’s a next step that I would like to see more institutions take.”

Most items in the public-domain release have already been visible at the library’s digital collections portal. The difference is that the highest-quality files will now be available for free and immediate download, along with the programming interfaces, known as APIs, that allow developers to use them more easily."

Flooding Threatens The Times’s Picture Archive; New York Times, 10/12/15

David W. Dunlap, New York Times; Flooding Threatens The Times’s Picture Archive:

"A broken pipe on Saturday morning sent water cascading into the morgue — the storage area where The Times keeps its immense collection of historical photos, along with newspaper clippings, microfilm records, books and other archival material — causing minor damage and raising significant alarm.

And it raised the question of how in the digital age — and in the prohibitive Midtown Manhattan real estate market — can some of the company’s most precious physical assets and intellectual property be safely and reasonably stored?

Jeff Roth, the morgue manager, said it appeared that about 90 percent of the affected photos would be salvageable, but it is too early to say with any certainty how many were lost.

Though he stood undaunted among rubber drums and wastebaskets catching the residual water dripping from the ceiling, Mr. Roth made it clear that this was the stuff of nightmares."

Librarians stir the pot for copyright reform; Brisbane Times, 7/31/15

Natalie Bochenski, Brisbane Times; Librarians stir the pot for copyright reform:

About 1500 libraries around Australia will on Friday, July 31, take part in ALIA's Cooking for Copyright campaign, with everyone else encouraged to take part as well.

Sue McKerracher, of the Australian Librarian and Information Association, said it was inspired by the thousands of vintage recipes that lay dormant in unpublished library collections.

"What we want is for everyone to cook something, photograph it, and send it to us using the hashtag," she said.

Advertisement "That will effectively give us a good petition to take to the government and ask the Attorney-General to review the legislation, make this change and give a gift to the Australian people."

ALIA has declared Friday, July 31, Cooking for Copyright Day, to draw attention to the quirk of legislation that prohibits unpublished documents from being uploaded online.

"We've got lots of real treasures locked up in museums, libraries, galleries, historical societies that can't be shared online with the Australian public because of this copyright restriction," Ms McKerracher said...

Ms McKerracher said the National Library in Canberra alone held more than two million unpublished works.

"Those include letters from Jane Austen, Prince Albert, Captain Cook, Charles Darwin, Dame Nellie Melba, Christobel Pankhurst and Banjo Patterson, but you wouldn't know that, because we can't put them on the web," she said."

Medicine’s Hidden Roots in an Ancient Manuscript; New York Times, 6/1/15

Mark Schrope, New York Times; Medicine’s Hidden Roots in an Ancient Manuscript:

"Scholars are just beginning to pore over the text, the oldest known copy of Galen’s “On the Mixtures and Powers of Simple Drugs.” It may well provide new insights into medicine’s roots and into the spread of this new science across the ancient world...

Little is known of the history of the manuscript in Baltimore, formally known as the Syriac Galen Palimpsest, from its recycling in the 11th century until the 1920s, when it was sold to a private collector in Germany. After that, the manuscript fell again from public view until 2002, when it was purchased by a collector in a private sale. He has not been publicly identified.

In 2009, the Galen Palimpsest was lent to the Walters Art Museum for spectral imaging of its leaves by an independent group of specialists, which would reveal the erased Galen undertext. Each page is photographed digitally at extremely high resolution with varying colors and configurations of light, which in various ways illuminate the inks, grooves from writing and parchment itself. Computer algorithms exploit these variations to maximize the visibility of the undertext.

The resulting images went online under a “creative commons” license, meaning that anyone can use the material free for any noncommercial purpose. Once the images were online, William Noel, who was the curator of manuscripts and rare books at the museum, began organizing members of the tiny community of scholars who study Syriac scientific texts to study the new material."

Ghostly Voices From Thomas Edison’s Dolls Can Now Be Heard; New York Times, 5/4/15

Ron Cowen, New York Times; Ghostly Voices From Thomas Edison’s Dolls Can Now Be Heard:

"Last month, the Historical Park posted online three never-before-heard Edison doll recordings, including the two from the Rolfses’ collection. “There are probably more out there, and we’re hoping people will now get them digitized,” Mr. Fabris said.

The technology, which is known as Irene (Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, Etc.), was developed by the particle physicist Carl Haber and the engineer Earl Cornell at Lawrence Berkeley. Irene extracts sound from cylinder and disk records. It can also reconstruct audio from recordings so badly damaged they were deemed unplayable.

“We are now hearing sounds from history that I did not expect to hear in my lifetime,” Mr. Fabris said.

The Rolfses said they were not sure what to expect in August when they carefully packed their two Edison doll cylinders, still attached to their motors, and drove from their home in Hortonville, Wis., to the National Document Conservation Center in Andover, Mass. The center had recently acquired Irene technology."

U.S. judge boosts Google 'fair use' defense of digital books; Reuters, 9/23/13

Reuters; U.S. judge boosts Google 'fair use' defense of digital books: "Google, based in Mountain View, California, has scanned more than 20 million books since its 2004 agreement with libraries worldwide to digitize books. The Authors Guild and groups representing photographers and graphic artists say the project amounts to massive copyright infringement. Google argues the practice constitutes fair use, an exception under U.S. copyright law, because it only provides portions of the works online. At a hearing in U.S. district court in New York on Monday, Judge Denny Chin said the question of fair use relies in part on whether the project "is a benefit to society." Chin then rattled off several examples of how Google's project has helped people find information, including his own law clerks. "Aren't these transformative uses, and don't they benefit society?" asked Chin."fair use,

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.”"

HathiTrust Verdict Could Transform University Access for the Blind; Library Journal, 11/7/12

Meredith Schwartz, Library Journal; HathiTrust Verdict Could Transform University Access for the Blind: "Now that the HathiTrust verdict has held that digitizing works for the purpose of providing access to the blind and print-disabled is not only a fair but a transformative use, schools can feel safer hanging onto those scans until the next student who needs them comes along, and can spend their efforts on improving them or scanning more books, instead of doing the same bare minimum of texts over and over. And Goldstein believes making the text available to sighted persons to crowdsource the manual work would also be fair use. Even more revolutionary than just keeping their own book scans, the Honorable Harold Baer, Jr., held that the University of Michigan libraries can be considered an authorized Chafee entity. That means the library could make digitized collections available not just to the university’s own blind and print disabled students, or even to blind and print disabled students at other colleges, but to any American who qualifies as blind or print disabled under the Chafee amendment."