The Lost Emails of the I.R.S. Point to a Wider Problem; New York Times, 6/30/14

Derek Willis, New York Times; The Lost Emails of the I.R.S. Point to a Wider Problem:

"Even requiring agencies to store emails as electronic records rather than on paper might not solve the federal government’s problems with record management. Carl Malamud, the founder and president of the nonprofit Public.Resource.Org, which places state and federal government information in the public domain, described a deeper problem: Despite spending billions on information technology, the federal government has not kept pace with advances in technology. It has developed a defensive posture when the public and Congress demand information.

“In my view, one reason people dump so much on the Civil Service is that the Civil Service is forced to work with the most God-awful tools known to modern organizations,” Mr. Malamud said. “We spent $80 billion a year on I.T., and I’ve heard that 75 percent of that is a total waste, the end result being that we paralyze the bureaucracy and they in turn develop a real attitude.”

Mr. Malamud’s own experience with the I.R.S. includes performing audits on publicly available information to ensure that taxpayer data such as Social Security numbers do not get released by the agency. (He found tens of thousands of examples in one I.R.S.-managed database last year). The problem, he said, “is a people problem, not a money problem.”

A 2010 report from the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, agreed. “Technology alone cannot solve the problem without commitment from agencies,” it concluded. Insufficient training and senior officials who did not follow established procedures were among the concerns that the G.A.O. cited, calling email management “especially problematic.”"

After Supreme Court Ruling, Aereo’s Rivals in TV Streaming Seize Opening; New York Times, 6/29/14

Emily Steel, New York Times; After Supreme Court Ruling, Aereo’s Rivals in TV Streaming Seize Opening:

"The day after the Supreme Court ruled against Aereo in a copyright case brought by the nation’s major broadcasters, Mr. Ely was trying to scoop up Aereo customers by promoting his start-up, Simple.TV, on social media. “Former Aereo customer? Join the Simple.TV Family,” the company wrote on Twitter on Thursday...

The television establishment still has much to worry about after its Supreme Court victory on Wednesday over Aereo, the digital start-up that had threatened to upend the economics of the media business.

“Television is a castle filled with money,” said Rishad Tobaccowala, chief strategy and innovation officer at Vivaki, the Publicis Groupe’s digital marketing unit. “People are trying to get into that castle and take some money.” But while the court’s decision broadens the moat, traditional broadcasters still must find ways to defend themselves against an array of companies like Mr. Ely’s that want to give viewers an alternative to the their model.

Eager for a piece of the $167 billion American television market, dozens of companies are offering options for the growing number of viewers known as cord cutters, who are canceling their traditional pay-television subscriptions."

Open access is not enough on its own – data must be free too: Academics have been encouraged to make their research freely available, but their data also needs to be open to scrutiny; Guardian, 6/26/14

Susanna-Assunta Sansone, Guardian; Open access is not enough on its own – data must be free too: Academics have been encouraged to make their research freely available, but their data also needs to be open to scrutiny:

"If your research has been funded by the taxpayer, there's a good chance you'll be encouraged to publish your results on an open access basis – free at point of publication and with reuse and redistribution rights.

This final article makes publicly available the hypotheses, interpretations and conclusions of your research. But what about the data that led you to those results and conclusions? Isn't the underlying data just as important to support the quality of the findings?

A huge amount of data is being produced by scientists every day, but too often key information is left to rot in an Excel document on someone's desktop, or handwritten in a notepad that is later thrown away.

Increasingly, policymakers and funders are introducing data-sharing and stewardship policies to solve this problem. Funders want to see this data being properly described, stored, shared and reused, to realise its full potential. Data producers are also somebody else's data users, and they have also come to the same realisation. Open data ensures that the scientific process is transparent, helps others to reproduce results and can even help speed up the process of scientific discovery."

Output Drops at World's Largest Open-Access Journal; Science, 6/4/14

Jocelyn Kaiser, Science; Output Drops at World's Largest Open-Access Journal:

"The number of papers published by the world’s largest open-access journal, PLOS ONE, has plummeted over the past few months after rising fairly steadily for years, notes a scholarly publishing blogger. Phil Davis suggests the closely watched PLOS ONE may have become a less attractive option for scientists as its impact factor has fallen and other open-access publishers have come on the scene.

Founded 14 years ago, the Public Library of Science (PLOS) has been a leader in open access—online journals that are free for anyone to read and cover costs by charging authors a fee. But PLOS has also drawn criticism, because the nonprofit broke even only after starting the multidisciplinary PLOS ONE, which accepts all papers that pass technical scrutiny regardless of their importance. The model has drawn the complaint that PLOS ONE bulk publishes low-quality papers to make its more selective journals sustainable. That high volume made PLOS ONE the largest scientific journal in the world in 2010, with more than 8600 research papers. Last year, the site featured 31,509 papers.

But this year, the trend has been downward, notes Davis, a publishing consultant."

WIPO Copyright Committee: More Rights Or Limitations/Exceptions? ; Intellectual Property Watch, 6/29/14

Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch; WIPO Copyright Committee: More Rights Or Limitations/Exceptions? :

"The World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee meets next week with some uncertainty. Unable to agree on the future work of the committee at the end of the last session, delegates will have to decide how they want to advance work on a proposed treaty protecting broadcasting organisations, and on limitations and exceptions to copyright for the benefit of libraries and education.

The 28th session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) is taking place from 30 June to 4 July."

Symposium: Aereo decision injects uncertainty into copyright; SCOTUS Blog, 6/27/14

Mitch Stoltz, SCOTUS Blog; Symposium: Aereo decision injects uncertainty into copyright:

"Wednesday’s decision in American Broadcasting Cos. v. Aereo raises a big question about the right sources of interpretive authority in copyright cases. Justice Breyer’s majority opinion, finding that Aereo performed television programs publicly, was driven by legislative history and first principles, with analysis of the statutory text an afterthought. That approach turned a pure question of statutory interpretation into something more like common law adjudication. This is a departure from Justice Breyer’s past decisions on copyright, which have generally put the text first. If the new approach becomes the norm in Aereo’s wake, it could transform copyright into a more flexible but also far more unpredictable legal regime."

Hillary Clinton’s ‘Hard Choices’ Blocked in China; New York Times, 6/27/14

Jane Perlez, New York Times; Hillary Clinton’s ‘Hard Choices’ Blocked in China:

"The new memoir of Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Hard Choices,” which gives blow-by-blow accounts of tough discussions with Chinese officials, particularly on human rights, has been blocked in China, according to the American publisher.

No Chinese publisher made an offer to buy the rights for the book to be translated into Chinese for sale on the mainland, said Jonathan Karp, president of Simon & Schuster, which published the American edition.

The English version of the book was delisted from Amazon China on June 10, the day of publication in the United States, a move that effectively barred wide distribution in China, Mr. Karp said.

In Beijing, Gu Aibin, the head of Yilin Press, the state-owned publishing house that published Mrs. Clinton’s earlier book, “Living History,” said “Hard Choices” was different. “Some of the content was not suitable,” Mr. Gu said. “The company decided not to buy the copyright.”"