For a variety of reasons, including an interesting interpretation of policy from elsewhere at the university, I’m going to be moving this blog. (The university thing isn’t related to me personally.) The new URL will be:
http://www.copythisblog.com/
I’ve migrated posts, comments, and my blogroll over already. I’ll be turning off comments on this blog, but the posts [...]
President Powers has responded to the controversy:
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The University’s rule prohibiting the display of signs in students’ residence hall room windows has been the subject of a great deal of discussion for the past few days. I am keenly aware that this prohibition is of intense concern to many members of the student body, as well [...]
Ars Technica is running a very informative story about the claims that various organizations and government agencies make about losses to piracy:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/dodgy-digits-behind-the-war-on-piracy.ars
The ultimate conclusion is that the numbers are highly questionable, likely biased, and didn’t really deal with piracy in the first place.
The confusion is a result basically a 20 year “game of telephone” (yes… [...]
Judge blocks Harry Potter Encyclopedia on CNN.
I’m not particularly thrilled with the news. I can’t comment on the specifics of the case, since I don’t have access to the decision itself yet. I do think that this will have a chilling effect on similar endeavors. According to CNN, the judge said:
“While the lexicon, in its [...]
Stanford has just come out with a copyright renewal database for books published between 1923 and 1963. One of the problems that people struggle with is trying to determine if a given work is or is not under copyright, since materials published during that timeframe had to have copyright protection renewed (unlike today, when copyright [...]
Apparently so! George R. R. Martin’s fantasy series has been acquired by HBO. Excellent news for book and fantasy lovers. The Song of Ice and Fire series is one of the only fantasy series that my other half actually enjoys, so I’m particularly looking forward to it. ^_^ Let’s hope it doesn’t have the delays [...]
Universal took advantage of Firefly fans as part of its viral marketing campaign to promote Serenity. (Firefly is awesome, by the way). According to Slashdot, Universal is now going after fans demanding licensing fees- so fans are serving Universal marketing invoices. Now, Universal might have some points in there- but when are they going to [...]
OK! I’m finally back from the MER Conference in Chicago (which was a lot of fun) after a canceled flight and unexpected night at O’Hare. I’ll write about Electronic Records later- I learned some great things at the conference. For now, I mentioned the subject of this post in an earlier message when I was [...]
At any rate, you can read about the latest Gorman speech at fellow GSLIS alum Steve Lawson’s blog, See Also. Steve’s also got several links to responses to Gorman’s statement, in which he discusses the current state of LIS education, which he perceives as in crisis. He decries the opinions of “the millenniarist librarians and [...]
Steven Page of the Barenaked Ladies joins with a group of musicians including Avril Lavigne and Sarah McLachlan to form the Canadian Music Creators Coalition. They are looking at copyright music reform, and look for policies “that priorize musicians, not outdated business and the corporate bottom line.” They question suing fans, the use of [...]
PERFORM Act to restrict recording, broadcasting rights From Ars Technica, a disturbing story about the way some members of Congress think about technology and copyright law with the new PERFORM Act, and this just after the scary new intellectual property bill (via Library Juice).
I had an interesting trackback from a student in a course at the University of Buffalo School of Informatics called Cyberporn & Society. They’ve got some interesting student posts at the course blogroll. I won’t even hold it against them that they might skip the copyright law section this year. :P My post was about [...]
The new Copyright Advisory Network website from ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy is up. Ross Housewright and I have spent quite a bit of time on that site (it’s what I took some time off last week to work on). Please let us know if you find it useful or if you’d like to [...]
From Miriam Nisbet,
Copyright News updates & reminders:
(1) Section 108 Study Group: Due to a delay in posting the public roundtable transcripts on the Section 108 Study Group website, and because many commenters are busy responding to an Orphan Works legislative deadline, the deadline for submission of written comments on the issues raised in the February [...]
According to this job prospects list from Money magazine, Librarians are pretty low on the list for best jobs in America in terms of salary and job prospects over the next ten years, falling just under economists and tax collectors. Interestingly, library clerical workers rank much higher on the list- lower salary, but higher chance [...]