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Monday, September 20, 2004 |
Kahle v. Ashcroft Coverage.
Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive and Rick Prelinger, a film collector, want permission to digitize these so-called orphan works to create online libraries for free public access.
In a suit filed in March, the plaintiffs in Kahle v. Ashcroft argue that multiple changes to copyright law have essentially made it impossible for works to return to the public domain. They want to have these changes declared unconstitutional.
The copyright structure has changed so people no longer have to actively register and renew their work, meaning valuable historical resources stay protected by copyright, even though no one is marketing them. In the past, the scope of copyright was much narrower. When copyright expired, those works could then be used and built upon by future creators and were available to the public.
The law “imposes enormous burdens on speech without any countervailing benefit to anybody,” said Chris Sprigman, a fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, who is representing the plaintiff. “It doesn’t benefit the public because it keeps creative works locked up, and it doesn’t benefit private rights holders because these works are out of print. These changes to the copyright law make it more difficult for rights holders to get some licensing income because it makes them more difficult to locate.” [unmediated]
11:11:49 PM 
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Coming up in this week's Journal. Here are some stories we're working on for this week's Journal: * University President Richard Meyers tells students they need to get involved in Webster Groves politics and get "militant" if the city doesn't respond. * A Webster graduate is slated to be Indonesia's next president. * A new building for The School of Business and Technology is at least two years away. [The Journal]
11:00:55 PM
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NetGen Rhythms of Communication.
Blogging in the Liberal Arts Classroom
"Barbara Ganley has posted her complete BlogTalk paper titled 'Blogging as a Dynamic, Transformative Medium in an American Liberal Arts Classroom' which, not surprisingly, is an enthusiastic and articulate reflection on her successes using Weblogs in the classroom. It's another great resource for teachers of all levels...." [Weblogg-ed News]
Will is right that this is an interesting read. I particularly like this quote of a quote (that Will also pulled) about NetGens:
"Arguing that 'the world has changed; the classroom has not,' she notes that schools continue to ignore the social aspect of learning that Weblogs offer to a generation that is increasingly familiar with the digital commons, moreso than their teachers. She has a great quote from James Duderstadt:
'They expect--indeed, demand--interaction, approaching learning as a 'plug-and-play' experience; they are unaccustomed and unwilling to learn sequentially--to read the manual--and instead are inclined to plunge in and learn through participation and experimentation...They learn in a nonlinear fashion, skipping from beginning to end and then back again, and building peer groups of learners, developing sophisticated learning networks in cyberspace. In a very real sense, they build their own learning environments that enable interactive, collaborative learning, whether we recognize and accommodate this or not.' "
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If your library's strategy is to answer these kids' reference questions by sitting behind a desk and waiting for them to walk up to you to ask them, you will be answering a small fraction of their questions. You have to meet them in their world, and increasingly this will mean via IM, SMS, and online, synchronous reference. [The Shifted Librarian]
7:12:09 AM
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The Wired CD. In the Wall Street Journal. On a plane to New York in the morning. I'll report back after the concert. [Lessig Blog]
STEAL THIS MUSIC
Wired magazine's "Rip. Sample. Mash. Share." compilation CD invites listeners to copy, remix and sample these songs and others at will:
| ARTIST |
SONG |
| Beastie Boys |
'Now Get Busy' |
| David Byrne |
'My Fair Lady' |
| Zap Mama |
'Wadidyusay?' |
| My Morning Jacket |
'One Big Holiday' |
| Spoon |
'Revenge!' |
| Gilberto Gil |
'Oslodum' |
| Dan the Automator |
'Relaxation Spa Treatment' |
| Le Tigre |
'Fake French' |
| Paul Westerberg |
'Looking Up in Heaven' |
| Cornelius |
'Wataridori 2' |
| Matmos |
'Action at a Distance' |
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Wired's editors spent months shuttling to New York and Los Angeles, working to convince artists, their managers, record labels and lawyers that it was in all their interests to give away some of the valuable intellectual property that the industry has argued for years it must keep under lock and key. In the end, the magazine approached 50 to 60 acts, including Jay-Z, Moby and Coldplay, to find 16 participants. The musicians who participated contributed their efforts, as a promotional gambit.
"The artists were relatively easy to get on board," Mr. Anderson said. "The labels have different priorities. Some of them, once briefed, got it, and some of them never really saw the advantages."
. . .
Mr. Anderson said the compilation represented an attempt to demonstrate what a compromise might look like between "rigid and aggressive" copyright law as it exists and "criminality." As things stand now, "there's no middle ground," Mr. Anderson said. "Creative Commons is the best proposal to offer that middle ground."
Even so, neither he nor Mr. Lessig argued that Creative Commons would or even should replace standard copyright notices in all cases. "Obviously, Creative Commons isn't right for everybody," Mr. Anderson said.
One unexpected proponent of Creative Commons is Hilary Rosen, the former chairman and chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, on whose watch the trade group formulated its strategy of suing file sharers. Ms. Rosen, who said she first met Mr. Lessig when she debated him at the University of Southern California last year, contributed an essay to the November issue of Wired, endorsing the new form of licensing, at least in limited circumstances.
Ms. Rosen, now a CNBC commentator and consultant, says her endorsement doesn't mean she has changed her stance on piracy; she considers the new license useful as "niche" application. She said, "I've teased Larry that I don't think the major problem in the music business is that thousands of artists are looking for a legal and simplified method to give away their music."
7:12:05 AM
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Throw Your Amazon Wishlist in Your Aggregator.
Watchcow.net
"You want to keep an eye on your Amazon.com wishlist or a particular Amazon.com/de/co.uk item, want to be informed whether and how much the price has been changed, but don't have the time?
Watchcow.net to the rescue! This simple and handy service allows you to passively watch single Amazon products and entire wishlists in your newsreader, such as Bloglines (web), NetNewsWire (Mac), NewsFire (Mac) or FeedDaemon (Windows), just to name a few. It works with every newsreader/-aggregator that supports ATOM feeds. Which, incidently, means pretty much all of them."
Another great service from Carlo Zottmann! [The Shifted Librarian]
7:11:42 AM
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A Weblog for Every Student.
(via David Davies)
The University of Warwick is giving every new student the opportunity to start a weblog hosted on their home-grown BlogBuilder system. It'll be interesting to see what the take-up is once the new university term gets underway. I spoke to Steven Carpenter at the ALT-C conference and he told me that Warwick will probably let the system run for 12 months then they'll tie it in more closely with their PDP e-portfolios. Perhaps Warwick might even decide that the student weblogs will actually be the e-portfolios, a bit like they're doing over at the Maricopa Community Colleges. Cool...but here's what I really want to know. How did they come to the decision that blogs would be a valuable learning tool for students? What were the questions they asked, and the answers they got? Where did they do their reserach? (BTW, Kaye Trammell is on to that angle...) What are their benchmarks for success? How will they evaluate the tool?
And most importantly, did they blog their process???
[unmediated]
7:05:01 AM
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Why keep writing about politics?. Ojo Caliente asks:
If you are an ordinary, day-to-day, blogger--- living perhaps in some American backwater like Dismal Seepage, Nebraska---is there any reason to continue to write about current politics? What could be accomplished and who would care? After all, we Dismal Seepagites are not journalists, and we are not placed to unearth news of fresh disasters.
As for opinions, we have by now run out of new ones and our readers, if any, either know, or can deduce, any changes we might ring on the old ones.
(Emphasis added.)
Good question.
[Subdued Citizen: Amateur Blogger's Field Notes]
I dunno -- is there any less reason to write about current politics than about our pets, our work, or Great Works of Art? I mean, of course the presidential election doesn't turn on what I write, but neither do my children's health, the financial success of my employer, or the next Nobel Prize in Literature. But not making The Difference doesn't entail making no difference.
7:02:26 AM
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Saving the Artistic Orphans. Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, sues the federal government to help 'orphan works' return to the public domain. Pieces of history and culture are caught in a morass of far-reaching copyright laws. By Katie Dean. [Wired News]
6:57:37 AM
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