Colm Tóibín: how Henry James's family tried to keep him in the closet; Guardian, 2/20/16

Colm Toibin, Guardian; Colm Tóibín: how Henry James's family tried to keep him in the closet:

"In his book Monopolizing the Master, published in 2012, Michael Anesko sought to outline the struggle that went on to control James’s posthumous reputation.

It began some years before James’s death as the novelist worked on the volume of his autobiography called Notes of a Son and Brother. As he began to use letters written by his brother William in this book, letters that had been given to him by his sister-in-law, he felt free to make amendments to suit his own purposes. Harry wrote to his uncle sharply when news of this leaked out. When Henry replied: “the sad thing is I think you’re right in being offended”, Harry wrote an exclamation mark in the margin. He wished to control publication of his father’s letters himself."

US Congressional Hearing On WIPO Accountability This Week; Intellectual Property Watch, 2/22/16

William New, Intellectual Property Watch; US Congressional Hearing On WIPO Accountability This Week:

"Several subcommittees of the United States Congress have scheduled a joint hearing this week on accountability and possible mistreatment of staff and whistleblowers at the UN World Intellectual Property Organization. The witness list for the hearing includes several high-level critics of WIPO Director General Francis Gurry who used to work for him. Meanwhile, observers are questioning what has happened to the report from an official UN investigation of WIPO.

The Joint Subcommittee Hearing: Establishing Accountability at the World Intellectual Property Organization: Illicit Technology Transfers, Whistleblowing, and Reform, is scheduled for Wednesday, 24 February. The hearing is expected to be publicly webcast."

‘Deadpool’ Technology Lands in Patent Fight; New York Times, 2/24/16

Jim Kerstetter, New York Times; ‘Deadpool’ Technology Lands in Patent Fight:

"Over the years, big tech companies have collected stock piles of patents and copyrights, both to protect their assets and sue other companies. Oracle sued Google. Apple sued Samsung. So-called patent trolls — companies that own patents, but don’t actually build products based on them — have sued scores of little and big companies.

Industry complaints that lawsuits were sucking innovation out of tech — and scaring people away from creating start-ups — led to calls in Washington for patent reform. But so far those efforts have gone nowhere.

Rearden has asked a judge to award it financial damages and block the distribution of movies and other entertainment that it claims have been made using infringing Mova patents and trademarks."

President Obama Announces His Intent to Nominate Carla D. Hayden as Librarian of Congress; WhiteHouse.gov, 2/24/16

WhiteHouse.gov; President Obama Announces His Intent to Nominate Carla D. Hayden as Librarian of Congress:

"Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Carla D. Hayden as Librarian of Congress.

President Obama said, “Michelle and I have known Dr. Carla Hayden for a long time, since her days working at the Chicago Public Library, and I am proud to nominate her to lead our nation’s oldest federal institution as our 14th Librarian of Congress. Dr. Hayden has devoted her career to modernizing libraries so that everyone can participate in today's digital culture. She has the proven experience, dedication, and deep knowledge of our nation’s libraries to serve our country well and that’s why I look forward to working with her in the months ahead. If confirmed, Dr. Hayden would be the first woman and the first African American to hold the position – both of which are long overdue.”

Carla D. Hayden, Nominee for Librarian of Congress, Library of Congress:

Dr. Carla D. Hayden is CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland, a position she has held since 1993. Dr. Hayden was nominated by President Obama to be a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board in January 2010 and was confirmed by the Senate in June 2010. Prior to joining the Pratt Library, Dr. Hayden was Deputy Commissioner and Chief Librarian of the Chicago Public Library from 1991 to 1993. She was an Assistant Professor for Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh from 1987 to 1991. Dr. Hayden was Library Services Coordinator for the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago from 1982 to 1987. She began her career with the Chicago Public Library as the Young Adult Services Coordinator from 1979 to 1982 and as a Library Associate and Children’s Librarian from 1973 to 1979. Dr. Hayden was President of the American Library Association from 2003 to 2004. In 1995, she was the first African American to receive Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year Award in recognition of her outreach services at the Pratt Library, which included an afterschool center for Baltimore teens offering homework assistance and college and career counseling. Dr. Hayden received a B.A. from Roosevelt University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago."

Sara Fine Institute presents: Christine Borgman, "Big Data, Open Data, and Scholarship": Mon Feb 29th 3.00pm - 5.00pm, University of Pittsburgh

Sara Fine Institute presents: Christine Borgman, "Big Data, Open Data, and Scholarship" :

"Monday Feb 29th 3.00pm - 5.00pm

University Club, Ballroom A, 123 University Pl, Pittsburgh, PA 15260

"Big Data, Open Data, and Scholarship"

by Christine L. Borgman

Distinguished Professor & Presidential Chair in Information Studies

University of California, Los Angeles

Scholars gathered data long before the emergence of books, journals, libraries, publishers, or the Internet. Until recently, data were considered part of the process of scholarship, essential but largely invisible. In the “big data” era, the products of these research processes have become valuable objects in themselves to be captured, shared, reused, and sustained for the long term. Data also has become contentious intellectual property to be protected, whether for proprietary, confidentiality, competition, or other reasons. Public policy leans toward open access to research data, but rarely with the public investment necessary to sustain access. Enthusiasm for big data is obscuring the complexity and diversity of data in scholarship and the challenges for stewardship. Data practices are local, varying from field to field, individual to individual, and country to country. This talk will explore the stakes and stakeholders in research data and implications for policy and practice.

Join us Feb. 29, 2016 at 3pm at the University of Pittsburgh’s University Club (Ballroom A). This event is free to attend and no RSVP is required. A reception will follow."

Fair Use Week at Carnegie Mellon University Libraries: February 22-26, 2016

Fair Use Week at Carnegie Mellon University Libraries: February 22-26, 2016:

Thanks to Pitt SIS alumnus Andy Prisbylla with CMU Libraries for this information on CMU's Fair Use Week, February 22-26, 2016: "CMU will be having student demonstrations of work that incorporates Fair Use and a digital exhibit will be playing on the flat-screens here as well."

Google gets patents for advanced Glass and a driverless delivery truck; ComputerWorld, 2/18/16

Sharon Gaudin, ComputerWorld; Google gets patents for advanced Glass and a driverless delivery truck:

"Google is working on advancing its Google Glass technology, while also working on the concept of a driverless delivery truck.

Google, which holds a myriad of patents, was recently granted two U.S. patents, one for a more rugged and flexible version of its computerized eyewear, and another for an autonomous delivery truck."

Librarians Find Themselves Caught Between Journal Pirates and Publishers; Chronicle of Higher Education, 2/18/16

Corinne Ruff, Chronicle of Higher Education; Librarians Find Themselves Caught Between Journal Pirates and Publishers:

"The rise, fall, and resurfacing of a popular piracy website for scholarly-journal articles, Sci-Hub, has highlighted tensions between academic librarians and scholarly publishers.

Academics are increasingly turning to websites like Sci-Hub to view subscriber-only articles that they cannot obtain at their college or that they need more quickly than interlibrary loan can provide.

That trend puts librarians in an awkward position. While many are proponents of open access and understand the challenges scholars face in gaining access to information, they are also bound by their contracts with publishers, which obligate them to crack down on pirates. And while few, if any, librarians openly endorse piracy, many believe that the scholarly-publishing system is broken."

Marvell Technology to Pay Carnegie Mellon $750 Million Over Patents; Reuters via New York Times, 2/17/16

Reuters via New York Times; Marvell Technology to Pay Carnegie Mellon $750 Million Over Patents:

"Marvell Technology Group Ltd on Wednesday said it will pay Carnegie Mellon University $750 million to settle a nearly seven-year-old lawsuit accusing it of infringing two hard disk drive patents held by the Pittsburgh school.

The accord was announced six months after a federal appeals court said an earlier $1.54 billion damages award against the chipmaker should be reduced significantly and that a new trial be held, but that Marvell must pay at least $278.4 million...

Carnegie Mellon had sued Marvell in March 2009 over patents issued that related to how accurately hard disk drive circuits read data from high-speed magnetic disks.

The university said at least nine Marvell circuit devices incorporated the patents, which were issued in 2001 and 2002, letting the company sell billions of chips without permission."

Balancing Benefits and Risks of Immortal Data Participants’ Views of Open Consent in the Personal Genome Project; Hastings Center Report, 12/17/15

Oscar A. Zarate, Julia Green Brody, Phil Brown, Monica D. Ramirez-Andreotta, Laura Perovich andJacob Matz, Hastings Center Report; Balancing Benefits and Risks of Immortal Data: Participants’ Views of Open Consent in the Personal Genome Project:

"Abstract

An individual's health, genetic, or environmental-exposure data, placed in an online repository, creates a valuable shared resource that can accelerate biomedical research and even open opportunities for crowd-sourcing discoveries by members of the public. But these data become “immortalized” in ways that may create lasting risk as well as benefit. Once shared on the Internet, the data are difficult or impossible to redact, and identities may be revealed by a process called data linkage, in which online data sets are matched to each other. Reidentification (re-ID), the process of associating an individual's name with data that were considered deidentified, poses risks such as insurance or employment discrimination, social stigma, and breach of the promises often made in informed-consent documents. At the same time, re-ID poses risks to researchers and indeed to the future of science, should re-ID end up undermining the trust and participation of potential research participants.

The ethical challenges of online data sharing are heightened as so-called big data becomes an increasingly important research tool and driver of new research structures. Big data is shifting research to include large numbers of researchers and institutions as well as large numbers of participants providing diverse types of data, so the participants’ consent relationship is no longer with a person or even a research institution. In addition, consent is further transformed because big data analysis often begins with descriptive inquiry and generation of a hypothesis, and the research questions cannot be clearly defined at the outset and may be unforeseeable over the long term. In this article, we consider how expanded data sharing poses new challenges, illustrated by genomics and the transition to new models of consent. We draw on the experiences of participants in an open data platform—the Personal Genome Project—to allow study participants to contribute their voices to inform ethical consent practices and protocol reviews for big-data research."

Without Copyright Infringement, Deadpool Doesn't Get Made; TechDirt.com, 2/16/16

Tim Cushing, TechDirt.com; Without Copyright Infringement, Deadpool Doesn't Get Made:

"Sure, leaking test footage isn't like leaking an entire film, but without that happening, nothing else does. The movie is never made and Fox doesn't have almost three times the budget grossed within the first four days of ticket sales. But because this leak happened, the studio is likely in control of a promising franchise, provided it can keep the lightning bottled and push forward without discarding everything that makes Deadpool Deadpool. And everyone involved can thank the unnamed person they won't rat out for shrugging off the insular "power" of copyright and mobilizing a fan base that is now making good on its promise to support the movie."

Gearing Up for the Cloud, AT&T Tells Its Workers: Adapt, or Else; New York Times, 2/13/16

Quentin Hardy, New York Times; Gearing Up for the Cloud, AT&T Tells Its Workers: Adapt, or Else:

"To Mr. Stephenson, it should be an easy choice for most workers: Learn new skills or find your career choices are very limited.

“There is a need to retool yourself, and you should not expect to stop,” he said in a recent interview at AT&T’s Dallas headquarters. People who do not spend five to 10 hours a week in online learning, he added, “will obsolete themselves with the technology.”...

By 2020, Mr. Stephenson hopes AT&T will be well into its transformation into a computing company that manages all sorts of digital things: phones, satellite television and huge volumes of data, all sorted through software managed in the cloud.

That can’t happen unless at least some of his work force is retrained to deal with the technology. It’s not a young group: The average tenure at AT&T is 12 years, or 22 years if you don’t count the people working in call centers. And many employees don’t have experience writing open-source software or casually analyzing terabytes of customer data."

Leading Scientific Institutions Agree to Share Zika Research Data; Gizmodo, 2/10/16

George Dvorsky, Gizmodo; Leading Scientific Institutions Agree to Share Zika Research Data:

"Scientists are typically tight-lipped when it comes to their research, but desperate times call for desperate measures. In an effort to battle the ongoing Zika epidemic, a number of global health bodies—including academic journals, charities, and institutes—have committed to sharing data on the virus.

The statement, signed by over 30 organizations, is meant to ensure that any information relevant to combating Zika is made freely and openly available to the international community as “soon as is feasibly possible.” Signatories include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Doctors Without Borders, PLOS, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (along with the Chinese equivalent), the JAMA Network, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Researchers who signed the agreement were assured that their work would still be eligible for publication in science journals.

“Research is an essential part of the response to any global health emergency,” said Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust and a signatory of the statement. “This is particularly true for Zika, where so much is still unknown about the virus, how it is spread and the possible link with microcephaly.” It’s critical, he said, that results are shared rapidly and in a way that’s “equitable, ethical and transparent.”

This move follows a recent WHO consultation held in early September 2015 in which leading international stakeholders agreed that the “timely and transparent pre-publication” of scientific data and results “must become the global norm.”"

Researcher illegally shares millions of science papers free online to spread knowledge; Science Alert, 2/12/16

Fiona MacDonald, Science Alert; Researcher illegally shares millions of science papers free online to spread knowledge:

"A researcher in Russia has made more than 48 million journal articles - almost every single peer-reviewed paper every published - freely available online. And she's now refusing to shut the site down, despite a court injunction and a lawsuit from Elsevier, one of the world's biggest publishers.

For those of you who aren't already using it, the site in question is Sci-Hub, and it's sort of like a Pirate Bay of the science world. It was established in 2011 by neuroscientist Alexandra Elbakyan, who was frustrated that she couldn't afford to access the articles needed for her research, and it's since gone viral, with hundreds of thousands of papers being downloaded daily. But at the end of last year, the site was ordered to be taken down by a New York district court - a ruling that Elbakyan has decided to fight, triggering a debate over who really owns science."

Pitt to merge SIS, CS department; The Pitt News, 2/11/16

Taylor Mulcahey, The Pitt News; Pitt to merge SIS, CS department:

"Within the next year and a half, Pitt’s computer science department and school of information science will become one.

The new undergraduate school, the School of Computing Informatics, is slated to accept its first students in the fall of 2017 and will combine the 32 SIS faculty with the 18 CS faculty and distribute the 50-person staff in three new departments: computer science, informatics and network systems and information culture and data stewardship...

A “shift from a singular focus on high performance computing to embracing big data, data analytics, [and] the interaction between computation and information, is driving the department merger,” Larsen said.

A growing number of other universities around the country, such as University of California, Irvine, University of Michigan, Indiana University and Drexel University, have reorganized their programs in similar ways.

For Pitt, the change comes as the University looks to shift its focus to big data projects. In March 2015, Pitt teamed up with Carnegie Mellon University and UPMC to form the Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance, a partnership to find new ways to use large sets of patient data in health care.

In October 2015, Pitt collaborated with UPMC, CMU and other city and county officials to open the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center, which has published city and county data, such as logs of the city’s 311 calls and information about opioid deaths, online."

U.S. the Best for Intellectual Property; U.S. News & World Report, 2/10/16

Isabella Gutierrez, U.S. News & World Report; U.S. the Best for Intellectual Property:

"For the fourth consecutive year, the U.S. has been listed as having the best environment in the world for intellectual property, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday, although the country ranks only fifth when it comes to enforcing intellectual property rights.

The chamber's annual International IP Index compared 38 countries that together account for around 85 percent of the world's gross domestic product, assessing them on major factors involved in intellectual property like patent and copyright protections and the safeguarding of trade secrets.

In the U.S., intellectual property industries account for 40 million jobs and 38 percent of GDP, Donohue said. The country took first place for its overall intellectual property environment in part because of its trade secret and copyright protections and membership in international treaties.

Behind the U.S. were the United Kingdom, Germany and France, surpassing countries like China, Japan and Canada."

Martin Shkreli Sued by Artist Over Wu-Tang Clan Album; Associated Press via New York Times, 2/9/16

Associated Press via New York Times; Martin Shkreli Sued by Artist Over Wu-Tang Clan Album:

"A Long Island artist sued ex-pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli and others Tuesday over the use of his art in a Wu-Tang Clan album, saying he never expected portraits he posted on a fan blog two years ago to be used without his permission.

Artist Jason Koza said in the Manhattan federal court copyright infringement lawsuit that his portraits of members of the New York-based hip-hop group were used without authorization on an album Shkreli bought for $2 million."

Appeals court upholds Warner Bros.’ Superman rights; ComicBookResources.com, 2/11/16

Kevin Melrose, ComicBookResources.com; Appeals court upholds Warner Bros.’ Superman rights:

"A federal appeals court has again sided with DC Comics and Warner Bros. in the long-running feud over the rights to the Man of Steel.

As first reported by THR, Esq., the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a 2013 ruling that the heirs of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel relinquished their claim to the character in a 2001 settlement with DC, and therefore are not able to terminate the copyright.

This legal dispute has proved as resilient as the Man of Steel, so we won’t label this a “definitive judgment.” However, the Siegel family would appear to have few options left beyond a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court. For now at least, Superman remains in the hands of Warner Bros. and DC."

’80s X-Men characters come to life in rocking music video; ComicBookResources.com, 2/10/16

Brett White, ComicBookResources.com; ’80s X-Men characters come to life in rocking music video:

"In addition to a spot-on Lila Cheney (performed by singer Sage Montclair in full ’80s Joan Jett glory) and Dazzler (Gentry Roth) on backing vocals, the fan-made music video features the complete nine-person New Mutants roster (that’s Cannonball, Sunspot, Mirage, Karma, Wolfsbane, Magma, Magik, Cypher and Warlock), the team’s dance instructor Stevie Hunter (complete with a shout-out to Kitty Pryde) and Strong Guy. Yes, Strong Guy. If you’re a fan of the X-Men and don’t mind having a super catchy song stuck in your head for the rest of the day, then “I Will Steal Your Heart!” is necessary viewing."

‘Happy Birthday to You’ Is Finally Out of Copyright; New York Magazine, 2/10/16

Samuel Lieberman, New York Magazine; ‘Happy Birthday to You’ Is Finally Out of Copyright:

"The rights to the song “Happy Birthday to You” have been the subject of 80 years of legal battles, but they're coming to an end on March 14. On that day, the seven-note tune will finally go into the public domain, as the music publisher Warner/Chappell — which has been charging moviemakers and TV networks many thousands of dollars whenever they film people singing around a cake — has agreed to pay a $14 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit brought by people who've paid to use the song."

How Google Stole the Work of Millions of Authors; Wall Street Journal, 2/7/16

Roxana Robinson, Wall Street Journal; How Google Stole the Work of Millions of Authors:

"Last week publishers, copyright experts and other supporters filed amicus briefs petitioning the Supreme Court to hear the copyright-infringement case against Google brought by the Authors Guild."

Artur Fischer, Inventor With More Patents Than Edison, Dies at 96; New York Times, 2/8/16

William Grimes, New York Times; Artur Fischer, Inventor With More Patents Than Edison, Dies at 96:

"Artur Fischer, a German inventor who registered more than 1,100 patents, including the first synchronized camera flash and an anchor that millions of do-it-yourselfers use to secure screws into walls, died on Jan. 27 at his home in Waldachtal, in southwestern Germany. He was 96...

“What Bill Gates was to the personal computer, Artur Fischer is to do-it-yourself home repair,” Der Spiegel wrote in its interview.

Mr. Fischer’s other inventions included Fischertechnik model-making kits, cup holders with retractable lids, ventilation nozzles and edible play-modeling material made from potato starch.

“I am interested in any problem to which I can provide a solution,” Mr. Fischer told the German magazine Technology Review in 2007.

His total number of inventions put him just ahead of Thomas Edison, who had 1,093 patents to his name. In recognition of Mr. Fischer’s work, the European Patent Office gave him a lifetime achievement award in 2014."

Give Up Your Data to Cure Disease; New York Times, 2/6/16

David B. Agus, New York Times; Give Up Your Data to Cure Disease:

"HOW far would you go to protect your health records? Your privacy matters, of course, but consider this: Mass data can inform medicine like nothing else and save countless lives, including, perhaps, your own.

Over the past several years, using some $30 billion in federal stimulus money, doctors and hospitals have been installing electronic health record systems. More than 80 percent of office-based doctors, including me, use some form of E.H.R. These systems are supposed to make things better by giving people easier access to their medical information and avoiding the duplication of tests and potentially fatal errors.

Yet neither doctors nor patients are happy. Doctors complain about the time it takes to update digital records, while patients worry about confidentiality. Last month the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons went so far as to warn that E.H.R.s could “crash” the medical system.

We need to get over it. These digital databases offer an incredible opportunity to examine trends that will fundamentally change how doctors treat patients. They will help develop cures, discover new uses for drugs and better track the spread of scary new illnesses like the Zika virus."

YouTube stars U-turn on trademarks after online fury; BBC News, 2/2/16

Chris Baraniuk, BBC News; YouTube stars U-turn on trademarks after online fury:

"One YouTuber who had expressed disappointment over the trademark applications was Jon, from Many a True Nerd.

"I'm delighted, but not hugely surprised," he told the BBC after hearing about the U-turn.

"Given the huge subscriber number falls they've seen, sometimes over 10,000 lost subscriber per hour, the risk to their business was too great to ignore."

Jon added, though, that he felt The Fine Brothers would struggle to regain trust among those alienated by the episode.

"I think this movement and its consequences represent that YouTube as a community is quite determined to stay a free and open platform, and that makes me optimistic for the future," he said."

THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES RELEASED A FREE COLORING BOOK OF WEIRD PATENTS; Popular Science, 2/5/16

Kelsey D. Atherton, Popular Science; THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES RELEASED A FREE COLORING BOOK OF WEIRD PATENTS:

"The National Archives of the United States just released a coloring book full of strange patents. It’s all available now as a free PDF, and it’s 17 glorious pages of sheer inventive weirdness. The patents range for chicken goggles to a hat that automatically salutes to the landing craft used in D-Day. It’s an utter delight.

Why the coloring book? Coloring books for adults are having something of a cultural moment not seen since the sarirical coloring books of the 1960s, with the task heralded for its mindfulness and derided as something merely for children."

When a Public Family Is Publicly Attacked; New York Times, 2/5/16

KJ Dell'Antonia, New York Times; When a Public Family Is Publicly Attacked:

"While Ms. Howerton and her supporters report Twitter accounts for abuse, she is also asking YouTube to take down the video commentary that makes use of her video and other family images. She has filed a privacy complaint, which YouTube rejected, and is waiting for it to respond to her new complaint, alleging copyright violation. Neil Richards, a law professor at Washington University and author of “Intellectual Privacy: Rethinking Civil Liberties in the Digital Age,” said he thinks Ms. Howerton’s belief that she can regain control of the footage may be overly optimistic.

“The use of home video and family images for political debate is something that has real consequences,” he said. “She has made her life choices, her experiences, her children’ experiences, a matter for public debate. When people do this they do expose themselves to criticism and attacks and some of them are quite unpleasant.”

Eric Goldman, a professor of law and director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law, agreed that because Ms. Howerton herself used family video as part of a political discussion, she may have little legal recourse when that video is used as part of a larger video engaged in social commentary on the same topic. In many situations, videos or pictures posted online can become “fair game” for critics to use in online attacks against the poster’s position or for other undesirable political or social statements, Mr. Goldman said in an email."

Senator Rob Portman to Oppose Pacific Trade Pact; New York Times, 2/4/16

Jackie Calmes, New York Times; Senator Rob Portman to Oppose Pacific Trade Pact:

"In a clear sign of the trouble facing President Obama’s trade pact with Pacific Rim nations, one of the most influential congressional Republicans on trade issues announced on Thursday that he would oppose it unless significant changes were made.

The lawmaker, Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, who was a trade ambassador under President George W. Bush, objects to the accord’s provisions on currency manipulation, auto parts and pharmaceutical industry protections. Lawmakers in both parties have raised the same issues, but Mr. Portman’s authority on trade is certain to carry extra weight with colleagues...

The separate objection of many Republicans, that the pact weakens patent protections for pharmaceutical companies to make drugs more affordable and accessible globally, has been led by Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and chairman of the Senate committee responsible for trade, a longtime proponent of the drug industry...

Only Malaysia has ratified it so far."

[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.”"

African Avengers: the comic book creators shaking up superhero genre; Guardian, 2/3/16

David Barnett, Guardian; African Avengers: the comic book creators shaking up superhero genre:

"“I don’t think Africa and Africans are well represented in mainstream western comics. That is why we are here ... to give us a place in this genre and to show the world what Africans are capable of.”

Interestingly, half the digital downloads from Comic Republic come from outside Africa – specifically, the US and the UK. Martin says the general response has been “amazing” and adds, “Africa and the world in general has welcomed us with open arms and we are grateful."...

And could the rise of the African comic industry also herald a sea-change in the way the continent is portrayed in mainstream comics over here? It wouldn’t be that difficult, according to Richardson. “We live in an information age,” she says. “Go out and do a little damn reading. No one is keeping that from you. But this is a great opportunity for someone to tap into a narrative not yet being utilised. I notice fictional media and entertainment in general, will paint a very one-sided representation of African countries and its people. I imagine the world would have an obscured view of the United States if all that was ever seen of its people were the ghettos, the impoverished, the starving and the vitriolic, you’d probably not want to visit."

Cops will adapt big data platform to secure Super Bowl; FedScoop.com, 2/5/16

Alex Koma, FedScoop.com; Cops will adapt big data platform to secure Super Bowl:

"Law enforcement agents and first responders in Northern California are turning to some software that harnesses the power of data to help keep fans safe at the Super Bowl, one of the most daunting security challenges of the year.

The state first started using the program last year — known as the “California Common Operating Picture” and powered by Haystax Technology’s “Constellation” analytics platform — and now law enforcement agencies of all shapes and sizes are preparing to use it to collect thousands of pieces of data about potential threats ahead of the big matchup in Santa Clara’s Levi’s Stadium.

In a briefing here at Haystax’s headquarters, Chief Technology Officer Bryan Ware laid out just how federal, state and local agents across the region have been using the system to keep a close eye on potential trouble makers and targets ahead of the Super Bowl, and how 13 different monitoring centers run by various government agencies will use it the night of the game to stay ahead of any security concerns."

If China Ever Uses Copyright to Censor Tank Man, It Will Be America’s Fault; Motherboard, 2/1/16

Sarah Jeong, Motherboard; If China Ever Uses Copyright to Censor Tank Man, It Will Be America’s Fault:

"Imagine a future where news agencies, historical archives, academic resources, and humanitarian organizations across the world all receive the same US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice, sent by a Chinese firm: Take down the Tank Man photo, or be sued for copyright infringement.

There is perhaps no better-known image associated with the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre: an unknown man in a white shirt and black trousers, grasping a bag in one hand, stands in front of a line of tanks, halting their progress.

Tank Man is a subversive image for the Chinese government, and for internet users in that the country, the photo—like many other references to the 1989 protests—has been censored by the authorities. It would be insanity if copyright were used to expand that censorship beyond China’s borders, but thanks to the United States copyright lobby, this absurd hypothetical is a little more realistic than you’d expect.

There’s more than one photograph of Tank Man, but for such a long, momentous stand-off, the photographs are surprisingly few. At least one of these photographs now belongs to Visual China Group, which purchased it from none other than Bill Gates himself, included inside of a massive bundle of copyrights to “historic news, documentary, and artistic images” that includes images of the Tiananmen Square protests.

Visual China Group has announced a partnership with Getty to license the images, so censorship doesn’t look like it’s in the cards."

Out of a Rare Super Bowl I Recording, a Clash With the N.F.L. Unspools; New York Times, 2/2/16

Richard Sandomir, New York Times; Out of a Rare Super Bowl I Recording, a Clash With the N.F.L. Unspools:

"Haupt owns the recording but not its content, which belongs to the N.F.L. If the league refuses to buy it, he cannot sell the tapes to a third party, like CBS or a collector who would like to own a piece of sports history that was believed to be lost. He would like to persuade the league to sell the tapes jointly and donate some of the proceeds to their favorite charities. His mother said that she would give some of her share of the sale to the Wounded Warrior Project.

“They’re not doing anybody any good sitting in a vault,” he said. “Let’s help some great charities.”

But that is unlikely to happen. A letter from the league to Harwood last year provided a sharp warning to Haupt. “Since you have already indicated that your client is exploring opportunities for exploitation of the N.F.L.’s Super Bowl I copyrighted footage with yet-unidentified third parties,” Dolores DiBella, a league counsel, wrote, “please be aware that any resulting copyright infringement will be considered intentional, subjecting your client and those parties to injunctive relief and special damages, among other remedies.”

The law favors the league, said Jodi Balsam, a professor at Brooklyn Law School.

“What the league technically has is a property right in the game information and they are the only ones who can profit from that,” said Balsam, a former N.F.L. lawyer."

At Berkeley, a New Digital Privacy Protest; New York Times, 2/1/16

Steve Lohr, New York Times; At Berkeley, a New Digital Privacy Protest:

"While some of the professors criticize the monitoring program as one that invades their privacy, the University of California has responded that “privacy perishes in the absence of security.”

It’s part of the larger challenge that fast-moving technology poses for social values. Every day, corporations, government agencies and universities must balance the need for computer security with the expected right to privacy of the people who use their networks. In different settings, there are different rules, expectations and levels of threat.

“We’re really just starting to sort out the risks and rules for digital security and data collection and use,” said Elana Zeide, a privacy expert at New York University’s Information Law Institute."

Adele tells Donald Trump to stop pinching her songs for his campaign; Guardian, 2/1/16

Mark Tran and Amber Jamieson, Guardian; Adele tells Donald Trump to stop pinching her songs for his campaign:

"Was there anything artists could do to make sure someone with completely different political views to them stays away from their music?

“Not really,” said Gordon."

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."

Five Charged in U.S. With Stealing Secrets From GlaxoSmithKline; Reuters via New York Times, 1/20/16

Reuters via New York Times; Five Charged in U.S. With Stealing Secrets From GlaxoSmithKline:

"Five people, including two former GlaxoSmithKline researchers, were charged with a scheme to steal trade secrets from the British drugmaker for potential sale in China, according to indictments announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia on Wednesday.

The indictments include charges of conspiracy to steal trade secrets, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, theft of trade secrets, and wire fraud...

The alleged conspirators established three corporations in China, all using the name Renopharma, to sell the stolen information that could be used to reproduce Glaxo products and drugs in development, to competitors in China, according to the complaint."

Aaron Swartz and copyright wars in the Internet age; Boston Globe, 1/28/16

Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe; Aaron Swartz and copyright wars in the Internet age:

"Swartz is a particularly tragic casualty of a conflict as old as the Gutenberg Bible. When copycats can easily republish the latest Charles Dickens novel or Adele CD, how will artists and publishers get paid? But laws to protect intellectual-property rights can cripple the free exchange of ideas.

Justin Peters seems as helpless as the rest of us to resolve this dilemma. But in his lucid and witty new book, he ably sketches the contours of the dilemma...

Peters places Swartz’s well-meant misdeeds in historical context, showing how this young man was one of many smart, ambitious combatants on both sides of the copyright wars.

"I can’t fault Peters’s sympathy for Swartz, and I share his opinion that the prosecutorial sledgehammer fell much too hard. But Peters seems a little too inclined to play the populist, sneering at the pro-copyright arguments of publishers. Yes, our current intellectual property statutes are absurdly restrictive. But apart from strong protections, how would artists and writers hope to make a decent living?

The conundrum continues, with activists on both sides engaged in constant efforts to redraw the boundaries. Peters’s new book is an excellent survey of the battlefield, and a sobering memorial to its most tragic victim."

Academics Want You to Read Their Work for Free; Atlantic, 1/26/16

Jane C. Hu, Atlantic; Academics Want You to Read Their Work for Free:

"Whitaker, who founded two other Elsevier journals and has a combined 50 years of editorial experience with the company, came into his new position after he heard about the former Lingua board’s actions and contacted Elsevier to express his dismay. “I disagreed with just about everything they were doing,” he said. He came out of retirement to sign a new contract with Elsevier in early January, and has since recruited several interim editors. He says that he and his editorial staff have received a fair amount of animosity from Glossa supporters.

But Whitaker stands firmly in favor of for-profit publishing; noting that publishers’ profits allow them to invest in new projects. (Elsevier gave Whitaker funds to found two new journals—Brain and Cognition and Brain and Language.) Plus, he says, profits ensure longevity. “That’s one of the many reasons I support the idea of a publisher that makes money,” he says. “Lingua will be here when I retire, and Lingua will be here when I die.”

The fate of Cognition, meanwhile remains to be seen. Barner and Snedeker plan to submit their petition to Elsevier on Wednesday. “The battle has been taken from a very small region—linguistics—to a much larger one,” says Rooryck. Barner and Snedeker are staying silent about their long-term plans, but their request sends a clear message to publishers: Scientists are ready for change."

‘Let’s Play’ enters the public domain as USPTO kills Sony’s trademark attempt; Digital Trends, 1/29/16

Danny Cowan, Digital Trends; ‘Let’s Play’ enters the public domain as USPTO kills Sony’s trademark attempt:

"After reviewing the matter, the USPTO found that “Let’s Play” was part of a larger vernacular, and is therefore ineligible for trademark. The new decision all but ensures that Sony’s attempted trademark is dead in the water.

The McArthur Law Firm takes credit for the revised decision, noting that it submitted “over 50 examples of how Let’s Play is generic and descriptive of video game streaming” in order to thwart Sony’s trademark attempt.

“The gaming community spoke, and the USPTO listened!” the firm announced this week."

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office News, 1/28/16

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office News:

"A report issued today by the U.S. Department of Commerce recommends amendments to copyright law that would provide courts with both more guidance and greater flexibility in awarding statutory damages.

In its "White Paper on Remixes, First Sale, and Statutory Damages," the Department’s Internet Policy Task Force (IPTF) sets forth its conclusions on three important copyright topics in the digital age: (1) the legal framework for the creation of remixes; (2) the relevance and scope of the “first sale doctrine;” and (3) the appropriate calibration of statutory damages in the contexts of individual file sharers and secondary liability for large-scale infringement.

The White Paper recommends amending the Copyright Act to incorporate a list of factors for courts and juries to consider when determining the amount of a statutory damages award. In addition, it advises changes to remove a bar to eligibility for the Act’s “innocent infringer” provision, and to lessen the risk of excessive statutory damages in the context of non-willful secondary liability for online service providers...

This new report follows up on issues first discussed in a 2013 IPTF Green Paper, "Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy," and is the product of two sets of written comments and five public meetings and roundtables conducted through the following year.

The IPTF is made up of representatives from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and other Commerce Department agencies.

The White Paper and additional background information can be found online at: www.uspto.gov/copyright-white-paper-2016."

Pass the Defend Trade Secrets Act; The Hill, 1/27/16

Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Chris Coons (D-Del.), The Hill; Pass the Defend Trade Secrets Act:

"Every year, industrial spies infiltrate American companies, stealing valuable trade secrets and leaking them to domestic competitors and corporations overseas. This crime cripples innovation and hampers economic growth, costing U.S. businesses billions of dollars each year. What’s worse, federal law does little to protect against this form of intellectual property theft. In fact, trade secrets are the only form of intellectual property lacking remedies under federal civil law. To safeguard American ingenuity and give companies the protections they deserve, Congress should act now to pass the Defend Trade Secrets Act, which we authored earlier this year.

In addition to the billions of dollars in direct economic costs, trade secret theft also stifles innovation by deterring companies from investing in research and development. Consider the case of DuPont—the chemical company that invented the life-saving Kevlar body armor used by our service members. DuPont invested significant time and resources developing a Kevlar material strong enough to withstand the penetrating trauma of rifle rounds and grenade shrapnel. Because of the company’s efforts, DuPont has saved thousands of lives.

But six years ago, a rogue employee leaked the manufacturing process of Kevlar to a rival company in South Korea, costing DuPont nearly $1 billion in economic losses. In an instant, the company’s comparative advantage—which it had earned after investing thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars—disappeared. Lacking a federal private right of action, DuPont executives were fortunate that the FBI was able to conduct a successful criminal investigation under the Economic Espionage Act. But the FBI lacks the resources to investigate the tens of thousand or more thefts that take place each year. Last year, in fact, the Department of Justice brought only 15 criminal cases for trade secret theft. The absence of a federal private right of action for trade secret misappropriation leaves American intellectual property vulnerable to theft and discourages research and innovation."

With Corbis Sale, Tiananmen Protest Images Go to Chinese Media Company; New York Times, 1/27/16

Mike McPhate, New York Times; With Corbis Sale, Tiananmen Protest Images Go to Chinese Media Company:

"Corbis, the photography archive owned by Bill Gates that includes some of the most famous pictures ever made, has sold its image and licensing division to a Chinese company.

The sale gives the new owner, Visual China Group, control over photographs of immense cultural and commercial value — Marilyn Monroe on a subway grate, Rosa Parks on a bus, Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock and Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue.

But it has been the transfer of images from the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square, an event that China’s Communist Party has aggressively blotted out of public view ever since, that has perhaps raised the most alarm."

Hacking the Patent System: Improved, Expanded Guide to Patent Licensing Alternatives; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), 1/26/16

Elliott Harmon, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Hacking the Patent System: Improved, Expanded Guide to Patent Licensing Alternatives:

"We're pleased to announce the 2016 edition of Hacking the Patent System, a guide to alternative patent licensing produced by the Juelsgaard Intellectual Property & Innovation Clinic at Stanford Law School in partnership with EFF and Engine. First published in 2014, the guide provides a high-level overview of several tools that inventors and innovators could use to avert unnecessary and costly patent litigation (or at least to avoid trollish behavior themselves).

The tools we cover fall roughly into three categories: defensive patent aggregators, defensive patent pledges, and insurance. Generally speaking, defensive aggregators use the pooled resources of member companies to purchase patents that may otherwise have been purchased by trolls."

CHORUS Inks Agreement with NSF, USGS, NIST; Library Journal, 1/21/16

Lisa Peet, Library Journal; CHORUS Inks Agreement with NSF, USGS, NIST:

"CHORUS (the Clearinghouse for the Open Research of the United States) has partnered with a number of federal agencies over the past six months to help them comply with the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directives requiring open access to federally funded research. The United States Department of Energy (DOE), the Smithsonian Institution, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have all reached agreements with CHORUS.

CHORUS was formed as a not-for-profit membership organization in 2013 in response to the OSTP memo, which required all federal funding agencies to develop public access plans for sharing both research data and peer-reviewed publications. Using metadata such as funder identifiers, award numbers, and Open Researcher and Contributor IDs (ORCIDs), CHORUS provides stable digital identifiers to full-text peer-reviewed articles after an embargo period, customarily 12 months. These can then be accessed by funders, institutions, researchers, publishers, and the public through CHORUS’s open application programming interfaces (APIs), which include search and dashboard services. CHORUS identifies federal funding through Funding Data, previously called FundRef, which collects funding source information for publications deposited with the nonprofit citation linker Crossref."

‘X-Men: Danger Room Protocols’ shut down after one episode; ComicBookResources.com, 1/25/16

Kevin Melrose, ComicBookResources.com; ‘X-Men: Danger Room Protocols’ shut down after one episode:

"“X-Men: Danger Room Protocols,” a fan-made animated tribute to the 1990s cartoon and comics, has ended after just one episode, purportedly due to legal pressure from Marvel.

“When I set out to make this project, I never really thought this was going to be an issue,” creator Joel Furtado said in a video posted this morning. “I didn’t think that Marvel was going to react this way, and this outcome, for me, is a little bit shocking.”

When contacted by ROBOT 6, Marvel declined comment.

Launched last week, the project was planned as a series of 18 episodes, each pairing two X-Men in a Danger Room training exercise (hence the title). Furtado had described “Danger Room Protocols” as “a love letter to Marvel and my childhood, as well as a way to give something back to the fans.”"

Watson helped IBM win more patents than any other company last year; New York Business Journal, 1/13/16

Michael del Castillo, New York Business Journal; Watson helped IBM win more patents than any other company last year:

"Even after 104 years, IBM is still the most innovative company in the United States by at least by one important metric: patents.

With 7,355 patents granted in 2015 IBM — which was founded in 1911 — crushed the competition, thanks in part to its artificial intelligence system, Watson, based in Astor Place in the East Village.

“More than 2,000 of IBM’s patents last year were related to its cloud and cognitive computing,” an IBM representative wrote to the New York Business Journal this morning. “Many of which are in use and part of the Watson offering’s capabilities.”

Two patents specifically mentioned in the IBM press release are Patent US9117446, which helps machines understand human emotion, and Patent US9146917, which helps machines learn from human beings."

If Patents Are So Valuable Why Does IBM's Intellectual Property Revenue Continue To Decline; Forbes, 1/19/16

Chuck Jones, Forbes; If Patents Are So Valuable Why Does IBM's Intellectual Property Revenue Continue To Decline:

"IBM was awarded 7,355 patents in 2015 which was the 23rd year in a row it has received the most patents. Over 2,000 of last year’s patents were related to cognitive computing and the company’s cloud platform. Over the 23 years IBM has received over 88,000 patents and I would estimate they have generated about $20 billion or more of IP (intellectual property) related revenue.

While the value of patents isn’t calculated just by the revenue they generate, it is interesting to see how IBM is doing with this financial line item. Between 2008 and 2012 IBM’s patent portfolio generated between $1.1 and $1.2 billion per year. It has fallen each year since then to $742 million in 2014 and could fall again in 2015 to under $700 million."

US Copyright Office is taking comments about how well the DMCA is working; ArsTechnica.com, 1/6/16

Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica.com; US Copyright Office is taking comments about how well the DMCA is working:

"If you're feeling down about the DMCA this winter—or feeling just skippy about it—there's a government agency that wants to hear from you. On December 31, the US Copyright Office said it intends to take public comments about the effectiveness of the DMCA and its "safe harbor" provisions.

The comments will be part of a "public study to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the safe harbor provisions" of the DMCA. Questions that the office wants to consider include:...

There are 30 numbered questions in all (but there's no requirement to address every point.) The questions and other information about the study are listed in the Federal Register notice.

Specific instructions on how to submit the comments will be posted by February 1 on the Copyright Office website, and comments are due by March 21. While a comment to the Copyright Office is a long way from influencing policy, the discussion could be interesting. Many of those on the receiving end of DMCA notices tend to think it's a "shoot first, ask questions later" approach to the problem, while content owners concerned about piracy have long held that the DMCA is too burdensome on them."

What a Million Syllabuses Can Teach Us; New York Times, 1/22/16

Joe Karaganis and David McClure, New York Times; What a Million Syllabuses Can Teach Us:

"COLLEGE course syllabuses are curious documents. They represent the best efforts by faculty and instructors to distill human knowledge on a given subject into 14-week chunks. They structure the main activity of colleges and universities. And then, for the most part, they disappear.

Some schools archive them, some don’t. Some syllabus archives are public, some aren’t. Some faculty members treat their syllabuses as trade secrets, others are happy to post them online. Despite the bureaucratization of higher education over the past few decades, syllabuses have escaped systematic treatment.

Until now. Over the past two years, we and our partners at the Open Syllabus Project (based at the American Assembly at Columbia) have collected more than a million syllabuses from university websites. We have also begun to extract some of their key components — their metadata — starting with their dates, their schools, their fields of study and the texts that they assign.

This past week, we made available online a beta version of our Syllabus Explorer, which allows this database to be searched. Our hope and expectation is that this tool will enable people to learn new things about teaching, publishing and intellectual history."

Celebrating Copyright Week with a Theatrical Copyright Revue; Public Knowledge, 1/20/16

Meredith Filak Rose, Public Knowledge; Celebrating Copyright Week with a Theatrical Copyright Revue:

"We're taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, copyright allies are taking on different elements of the law, addressing what's at stake, and discussing what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity and innovation.

Happy Copyright Week! To celebrate, I’m looking back on all the exciting copyright cases that have occurred since last year’s Copyright Week, with courts and the music industry alike tackling everything from uncredited sampling to fair use dancing babies. I’ve rounded up some of the highlights of the year’s upheaval, and took the liberty of suggesting a few edits to reflect the changing times. (And yes, that does mean I’ll be reviewing landmark music copyright cases via lyrical skits.)"