From the Berkman Center we learn that "James Boyle, William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law at Duke Law School, has won this year's World Technology Award in Law" James' book Shamans Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society is one of the most enlightening works on intellectual property and information economics I've ever read and this award is thoroughly deserved. The elite list of nominees he was up against gives you an indication of how important his work is:
Prof. Martin Adelman - George Washington University Law School
Mr. Hisamitsu Arai - Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters,Cabinet Secretariat
Prof. Yochai Benkler - New York University School of Law
Prof. Robert Bohrer - California Western School of Law
Prof. James Boyle - Duke Law School
Mr. Stuart Brotman - Stuart N. Brotman Communications
Prof. Paul Goldstein - Stanford Law School
Dr. Thomas Hoeren - University of Muenster
Dr. Kamil Idris - World Intellectual Property Organization
Mr. Michael Kirk - American Intellectual Property Law Association
Prof. Edmund Kitch - University of Virginia
Prof. Lawrence Lessig - Stanford University
Judge Richard Linn - U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Prof. Daniel Poulin, Mr. Ernst Perpignand and Mr. Marc-Andre Morissette - LexUM, Faculty of Law, University of Montreal
Prof. Pamela Samuelson - UC Berkeley
Dr. Barbara Simons - Association for Computing Machinery
A fair few things of note around but I'm limited for time today, so check out the usual suspects like Donna Wenthworth but one thing I would like to point you to is David Post's short note at the Volokh Conspiracy -
"Copyright Battles, Con't: Public Library of Science, a group of scientists and physicians seeking to insure that scientific information is placed in the public domain, free of copyright or other intellectual property protection, has launched a campaign to strip copyright protection entirely from works prepared with the "substantial" financial support of the US government.....
It's an important effort, I think (full disclosure: I've been a kind of informal advisor to the PLoS people for a while now), worth keeping an eye on. The recording industry's battles over Internet "piracy" have received most of the buzz in this area, but in many ways this clash between scientists and scientific publishers is equally important for the future of copyright law. " I have a quibble - I'd have said it's more important for scientific information to be in the public domain but I guess that's the techie in me.
Friday, June 27, 2003
Thursday, June 26, 2003
A company that makes mod chips for the Microsoft XBox has released the design of the chips under an open source license in Australia. Microsoft and rival Sony will not like that. Sony, in January 2002, successfully shut down, through legal action, a [messiah] mod chip [for Sony's Playstation] importer to the UK but failed in a similar action in Australia, in July 2002.
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
George Radwanski, Canada's Privacy Commissioner, resigned yesterday after his recent troubles. It's a long and robust resignation letter and he's sticking strongly to the line that he is the victim of nasty politics, perpetrated by folk in power, who didn't appreciate his effectiveness in his job.
"I hope that all fair-minded Canadians will judge me by what I have accomplished on their behalf and
by the unwavering vigour, commitment and spirit of service with which I have carried out my duties,
and not by the vicious, untrue and distorted things that have recently been said and reported about
me. I have paid a heavy price in these past days for doing my job of overseeing and defending the
privacy rights of all Canadians as I believe they deserve to have it done, but I leave proudly and
with no regrets except for being unable to carry on this vital work."
The Canadian media have a rather more negative perspective on the resignation.
"I hope that all fair-minded Canadians will judge me by what I have accomplished on their behalf and
by the unwavering vigour, commitment and spirit of service with which I have carried out my duties,
and not by the vicious, untrue and distorted things that have recently been said and reported about
me. I have paid a heavy price in these past days for doing my job of overseeing and defending the
privacy rights of all Canadians as I believe they deserve to have it done, but I leave proudly and
with no regrets except for being unable to carry on this vital work."
The Canadian media have a rather more negative perspective on the resignation.
SCOTUS blog on US V ALA on the Supreme Court decision upholding CIPA enforcement of library filters. They also provide a brief accessible summary of the positions of the various justices.
Jenny Levine's got a collection of links on the case. You can tell she's not overly enamoured with the decision,
"This decision only points out even further how out of touch
our politicians and judges are with the daily lives of the
people they are supposed to represent. Obviously none of
them use the public libraries they just deemed themselves
knowledgeable enough to censor.
Final thought for the night: someone please correct me if
I'm wrong, but there's no additional funding for libraries to
start purchasing site licenses for filtering software, using staff
time and resources to create internal solutions, or
outsourcing the job of building something. So now we're
supposed to divert existing monies (that help pay for the
access itself?) from our already weakened budgets in order
to be compliant with this decision? I'm still looking for the
common sense logic here...."
I suspect one of the Chief Justice's arguments, which he will be most criticised for, by opponents of the decision will be: "A library’s failure to make quality-based judgments about all the materials it furnishes from the Web does not somehow taint the judgments it does make. A library’s need to exercise judgment in making collection decisions depends on its traditional role in identifying suitable and worthwhile material; it is no less entitled to play that roll when it collects material from the internet than when it collects material from any other source. Most libraries already exclude pornography from their print collections because they deem it inappropriate for inclusion. We do not subject these decisions to heightened scrutiny; it would make little sense to treat libraries’ judgments to block online pornography any differently, when they judgments are made for just the same reason.” He's not actually treating like with like here and is pre-supposing that the libraries define what gets filtered out. Whereas it is the software filter companies who decide what criteria are used for filtering. Justice Souter, who disagreed with the majority (6-3) opinion, argues that excluding porn from an existing set of resources is different from actively spending money on porn to include in those resources. For a self described luddite, that's a pretty good demonstration that he understands the difference between the 'push' nature of most conventional media versus the 'pull' nature of the Net. Chief Justice Rehnquist, in the paragraph quoted, doesn't display a direct awareness of the push v pull distinction. It's unfair to take the paragraph out of context and I have not yet read the entire 56 page ruling but that one jumped out at me a bit.
One of the concurring justices (can't remember which at the moment) seems to be primarily swayed by the argument that there is no big deal here. If library patrons want unfiltered access to the Net via a library computer, they can just ask the librarian to switch the filter off. The possibilty of such an outlet then brings the question of anonymity into play. I might find it no big deal to ask a librarian to switch a filter off because, for example, it happens to block access to a site like the Ethical Spectacle, maintained by a prominent critic of software filters, Jonathan Wallace. (The websites of people like Jonathan and Seth Finkelsteinhave been blacklisted by some filter software companies.) Others might not be prepared to ask a librarian to switch off a filter for fear of being perceived in a negative light as someone interested in pornography. In his dissent, Justice Souter, on this point said "First, the statute says only that a library 'may' unblock, not that it must...In addition, it allows unblocking only for a 'bona fide research or other lawful purposes'. There is therefore necessarily some restriction, which is surely made more onerous by the uncertainty of its terms and the generosity of its discretion to library staffs in deciding who gets complete Internet access and who does not." Absolutely.
Jenny Levine's got a collection of links on the case. You can tell she's not overly enamoured with the decision,
"This decision only points out even further how out of touch
our politicians and judges are with the daily lives of the
people they are supposed to represent. Obviously none of
them use the public libraries they just deemed themselves
knowledgeable enough to censor.
Final thought for the night: someone please correct me if
I'm wrong, but there's no additional funding for libraries to
start purchasing site licenses for filtering software, using staff
time and resources to create internal solutions, or
outsourcing the job of building something. So now we're
supposed to divert existing monies (that help pay for the
access itself?) from our already weakened budgets in order
to be compliant with this decision? I'm still looking for the
common sense logic here...."
I suspect one of the Chief Justice's arguments, which he will be most criticised for, by opponents of the decision will be: "A library’s failure to make quality-based judgments about all the materials it furnishes from the Web does not somehow taint the judgments it does make. A library’s need to exercise judgment in making collection decisions depends on its traditional role in identifying suitable and worthwhile material; it is no less entitled to play that roll when it collects material from the internet than when it collects material from any other source. Most libraries already exclude pornography from their print collections because they deem it inappropriate for inclusion. We do not subject these decisions to heightened scrutiny; it would make little sense to treat libraries’ judgments to block online pornography any differently, when they judgments are made for just the same reason.” He's not actually treating like with like here and is pre-supposing that the libraries define what gets filtered out. Whereas it is the software filter companies who decide what criteria are used for filtering. Justice Souter, who disagreed with the majority (6-3) opinion, argues that excluding porn from an existing set of resources is different from actively spending money on porn to include in those resources. For a self described luddite, that's a pretty good demonstration that he understands the difference between the 'push' nature of most conventional media versus the 'pull' nature of the Net. Chief Justice Rehnquist, in the paragraph quoted, doesn't display a direct awareness of the push v pull distinction. It's unfair to take the paragraph out of context and I have not yet read the entire 56 page ruling but that one jumped out at me a bit.
One of the concurring justices (can't remember which at the moment) seems to be primarily swayed by the argument that there is no big deal here. If library patrons want unfiltered access to the Net via a library computer, they can just ask the librarian to switch the filter off. The possibilty of such an outlet then brings the question of anonymity into play. I might find it no big deal to ask a librarian to switch a filter off because, for example, it happens to block access to a site like the Ethical Spectacle, maintained by a prominent critic of software filters, Jonathan Wallace. (The websites of people like Jonathan and Seth Finkelsteinhave been blacklisted by some filter software companies.) Others might not be prepared to ask a librarian to switch off a filter for fear of being perceived in a negative light as someone interested in pornography. In his dissent, Justice Souter, on this point said "First, the statute says only that a library 'may' unblock, not that it must...In addition, it allows unblocking only for a 'bona fide research or other lawful purposes'. There is therefore necessarily some restriction, which is surely made more onerous by the uncertainty of its terms and the generosity of its discretion to library staffs in deciding who gets complete Internet access and who does not." Absolutely.
Monday, June 23, 2003
Following the deliberations of JURI on software patents, the European Parliament are scheduled to vote on the matter on 30 June, according to this contribution to Slashdot. For those of you who may be concerned enough about this to consider contacting your Member of the European Parliament about this, the UK OFFICE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT have provided a convenient map to allow you to identify your representatives.
Breaking news - the Supreme Court has just posted it's judgement in the CIPA library filtering case, US v ALA. Looks as though they've ruled the Act constitutional. No doubt the legal scholars will be all over this one very soon.
Phillip Greenspun in the Harvard blogosphere is concerned at the privatisation of previously public owned resources. His theory is that in spite of an economic downturn, the stock prices of companies absorbing these commons is going up because of this absorption. It would be really interesting to see some hard evidence of such a direct link, if there is some out there. Larry Lessig has offered some relevant background to the part of the story about Disney flyovers.
Update: Given that the Supreme Court has now ruled CIPA is ok on first amendment grounds, it's interesting to note that Reporters Without Borders have just published their second report on the state of global Net censorship. Vint Cerf has written the foreword. In it he says:
Truth is a powerful solvent. Stone walls melt before its
relentless might. The Internet is one of the most powerful
agents of freedom. It exposes truth to those who wish to see
and hear it. It is no wonder that some governments and
organizations fear the Internet and its ability to make the truth
known. The phrase "freedom of speech" is often used to
characterize a key element of democratic societies : open
communication and especially open government. But freedom
of speech is less than half of the equation. It is also vital that
citizens have the freedom to hear and see. It is the latter area in
which many governments have intervened in an attempt to
prevent citizens from gaining access to information that their
governments wish to withhold from them.
Breaking news - the Supreme Court has just posted it's judgement in the CIPA library filtering case, US v ALA. Looks as though they've ruled the Act constitutional. No doubt the legal scholars will be all over this one very soon.
Phillip Greenspun in the Harvard blogosphere is concerned at the privatisation of previously public owned resources. His theory is that in spite of an economic downturn, the stock prices of companies absorbing these commons is going up because of this absorption. It would be really interesting to see some hard evidence of such a direct link, if there is some out there. Larry Lessig has offered some relevant background to the part of the story about Disney flyovers.
Update: Given that the Supreme Court has now ruled CIPA is ok on first amendment grounds, it's interesting to note that Reporters Without Borders have just published their second report on the state of global Net censorship. Vint Cerf has written the foreword. In it he says:
Truth is a powerful solvent. Stone walls melt before its
relentless might. The Internet is one of the most powerful
agents of freedom. It exposes truth to those who wish to see
and hear it. It is no wonder that some governments and
organizations fear the Internet and its ability to make the truth
known. The phrase "freedom of speech" is often used to
characterize a key element of democratic societies : open
communication and especially open government. But freedom
of speech is less than half of the equation. It is also vital that
citizens have the freedom to hear and see. It is the latter area in
which many governments have intervened in an attempt to
prevent citizens from gaining access to information that their
governments wish to withhold from them.
Ian Lance Taylor visited SCO to find out about their case against IBM and linux. There was no direct access to legal documents and SCO are still keeping the detailed evidence and claims under wraps but there is more detail here than in previous media reports. Taylor did have to sign a draconian non disclosure agreement but was shown a piece of code that SCO claimed infringed their rights. Taylor wasn't convinced by the example and wasn't able to provide a copy because of the NDA but his perspective was that that it was possible that some code may have been copied from unix into linux but that there were numerous examples of the same code to be found easily around the net and that SCO were stretching the definition of what constituted a derivative work. Nice to see a few scraps emerging on this saga but the explicit evidence and court documents remain elusive and beyond the scope of open scrutiny for the moment.
The Special Olympics World Summer Games 2003 opened in Dublin on Saturday evening. Can somebody tell me why the british media have ignored it? As the official site says "This is the first time in the 35-year history of Special Olympics that a World Games Opening Ceremony has been held outside of the United States of America." It's on the UK's doorstep and yet the media here are more interested in a guy with a false beard and a dress sneaking into a 21st birthday party.
Friday, June 20, 2003
John McCain, Senate Commerce Committee chairman, will hold a hearing on the fallout from Verizon having to hand over customer details to the RIAA.
Meanwhile Eric Raymond is weighing into the SCO UNIX trade secret claims lawsuit with IBM. According to the story at PC World,
"Raymond claims to have collected the names of 60 Unix users who are willing to sign affidavits that disprove SCO's contention that its Unix System V source code, which forms the basis of IBM's AIX Unix, contains trade secrets."
Meanwhile Eric Raymond is weighing into the SCO UNIX trade secret claims lawsuit with IBM. According to the story at PC World,
"Raymond claims to have collected the names of 60 Unix users who are willing to sign affidavits that disprove SCO's contention that its Unix System V source code, which forms the basis of IBM's AIX Unix, contains trade secrets."
Seán McGrath explains why we can Blame/thank the Irish for copyright law. Mark O'Neill picked up the story the same day and expanded on it. A couple of saints engaging in a fierce battle over a supreme court ruling that said "To every cow its calf, to every book, its copy" (or to be more precise "Le gach bain a bainin, le gach leabhar a leabhrán."), resulting in 3000 mortalities and we talk about the 'copyright wars' today!
Thursday, June 19, 2003
Paul Carlyle, a partner at commercial law firm Shepherd & Wedderburn specialising in intellectual property and telecommunications law, writes in the Scotsman: "The European Commission consultation on patenting software, published last year, revealed most to be against any extension of patents to business methods. Even the draft Software Patent Directive, currently being finalised, seeks simply to codify the current position rather than extend patent protection."
Paul Meller over at InfoWorld likewise seems to think that Arlene McCarthy and her JURI committee have settled "on a position that ignores views from both extremes of the debate over software patents, and endorses the approach to patentability currently applied by the European Patent Office." He also says, "The European Parliament is likely to support a law that permits software patents but limits their application to inventions that have a technical effect outside of just a computer program. A program could only be patented if it runs in conjunction with some sort of device such as an intelligent household appliance or a mobile phone." That's one interpretation of the language but the concern of opponents of the measure is that it does not read exactly like that.
It seems that the intention of folk like MEP McCarthy is that the "technical effect" (or "technical solution" as it appears to have been called in JURI) doctrine apply to software patents, whereby the software can only be patented if in combination with a computer or other piece of hardware it can be considered to be a novel, useful and non-obvious invention. So the software can't be patented in isolation. The concern of McCarthy's opponents is that the technical effect notion is vague and in the case of software, if you can run it on a computer, it will have a technical effect. So any software that runs is thereby patentable. Speaking of running, I've got to and this saga is likely to.
Paul Meller over at InfoWorld likewise seems to think that Arlene McCarthy and her JURI committee have settled "on a position that ignores views from both extremes of the debate over software patents, and endorses the approach to patentability currently applied by the European Patent Office." He also says, "The European Parliament is likely to support a law that permits software patents but limits their application to inventions that have a technical effect outside of just a computer program. A program could only be patented if it runs in conjunction with some sort of device such as an intelligent household appliance or a mobile phone." That's one interpretation of the language but the concern of opponents of the measure is that it does not read exactly like that.
It seems that the intention of folk like MEP McCarthy is that the "technical effect" (or "technical solution" as it appears to have been called in JURI) doctrine apply to software patents, whereby the software can only be patented if in combination with a computer or other piece of hardware it can be considered to be a novel, useful and non-obvious invention. So the software can't be patented in isolation. The concern of McCarthy's opponents is that the technical effect notion is vague and in the case of software, if you can run it on a computer, it will have a technical effect. So any software that runs is thereby patentable. Speaking of running, I've got to and this saga is likely to.
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Another note to T182 students: remember from Section 1 -
"The Future of Ideas applies the environmental movement's sustainability rallying call to the resources we use to create and innovate. Its author, Lawrence Lessig, presents the case for the sustainability of ideas. He argues that unless we nurture the resources used to create and innovate scientific discoveries, language, skills, stories, facts etc. then society will run out of ideas. Lessig thinks we are fencing off these resources with law and technology, handing control of them to private owners. "
Here is an articulate rant, by Evan Hunt linking the environment and the public domain. In a similar vein to Lessig, Evans says:
"Why was Eldred vs. Ashcroft such a horrible blow? Because our generation and those that came before us were lucky enough to have a rich public domain to draw from in creating new artistic work, and our descendents will be stuck with no more than what we had--after we've already thoroughly mined it--and anything else, they'll have to pay for. Disgusting.Protecting the public domain is another kind of environmentalism."
"The Future of Ideas applies the environmental movement's sustainability rallying call to the resources we use to create and innovate. Its author, Lawrence Lessig, presents the case for the sustainability of ideas. He argues that unless we nurture the resources used to create and innovate scientific discoveries, language, skills, stories, facts etc. then society will run out of ideas. Lessig thinks we are fencing off these resources with law and technology, handing control of them to private owners. "
Here is an articulate rant, by Evan Hunt linking the environment and the public domain. In a similar vein to Lessig, Evans says:
"Why was Eldred vs. Ashcroft such a horrible blow? Because our generation and those that came before us were lucky enough to have a rich public domain to draw from in creating new artistic work, and our descendents will be stuck with no more than what we had--after we've already thoroughly mined it--and anything else, they'll have to pay for. Disgusting.Protecting the public domain is another kind of environmentalism."
The final chapter in Larry Lessig's The Future of Ideas is called What Orrin Understands and praises Senator Orrin Harch for his stance on the Napster and Microsoft cases, and specifically his concerns about concentrations of power. Senator Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is apparently now keen to give the music industry the right to remotely destroy peer to peer file sharer's computers.
"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize....There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws." I guess Professor Lessig and Senator Hatch have reached a parting of the ways....
"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize....There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws." I guess Professor Lessig and Senator Hatch have reached a parting of the ways....
I've been falling behind with things and hadn't spotted, over at SecurityFocus, Scott Granneman's look at DRM in general and Microsoft's plans in the area.
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
I'm not sure where Donna Wenthworth gets her energy from and manages to keep up with so many developments, but Copyfight is a must read (as usual) on everything from PIL 2003 to the fascinating "The Layers Principle: Internet Architecture and the Law"by Lawrence Solum and Minn Chung to Seth Finkelstein on the DMCA, fair use and Eldred. But don't waste time here - head over to the original for the complete works.
Note to my T182 students - You may find the Information Commons Blog on libraries as commons helpful in respect of the early discussion we had in Section 2 re. commons.
The June 13, 2003 entry in full follows
"Libraries and the Defense of the Commons
There's been a bit more blog discussion linking the defense of libraries and the defense of the commons. Larry Lessig picked up
on our post yesterday about funding cuts in Milwaukee-area school libraries. Larry suggests that librarians might sign the
Reclaim the Public Domain petition and ultimately lower the cost of libraries by expanding the public domain.
The sound you may have heard just now was the palm of my hand smacking against my forehead. Yes! Thank you, Larry. I
should have made the connection between the petition and supporting libraries myself, but now will not fail to take up the
banner Larry has so graciously unfurled. However, I think there are stronger reasons for librarians to support the petition than
just lowering the cost of information and therefore possibly making library budgets go further (laudable though that practical
goal may be).
Libraries are some of the best examples we have of the information commons in action. Libraries are community resources that
provide all kinds of information services to the public. Librarians are professionals whose role is to make the information
commons accessible to users. Librarians are among the staunchest supporters of access to information and of the framework of
rights necessary to guarantee that access. And librarians should support the public domain in general (and this petition in
particular) because the access to information embodied in copyright's public domain is interwoven with access to information in
society as a whole. An action in support of a vibrant public domain is an action that supports access to information overall.
And the discussion goes on. Over at Copyfight, Donna Wentworth linked Larry's post back to the Shifted Librarian. And that's
where Jenny Levine at TSL added: "The public domain and commons is just one more excellent service that libraries enrich,
and yet one more service we as a society will lose, if we don't start valuing our libraries and librarians more." Support the
commons, support libraries. Support libraries, support the commons.
Jessamyn from librarian.net added to the discussion with a comment on yesterday's commons-blog posting citing TSL. I'm
copying it here in its entirety to make it a bit more prominent:
"strikes me also that we need to be less vague than "support library services" in our requests. I think we need to:
"1. stress why libraries are important;
"2. explain specifically what we would like politicians to do [not just wear an "I [heart] my library" button in public];
"3. make having a library card wrapped up with being a good citizen.
"These things have been working well, so far, in Vermont where we have bi-partisan support FOR libraries and AGAINST the
USA PATRIOT Act. Go see Bernie Sanders at ALA and tell him you like what he is doing.
"...and, of course, going to our public library ourselves, and encouraging others to do the same. Even if you like to buy books at
Amazon, there are still things your library has to offer you. And every little book checked out helps your library look more
vital."
There are a couple of things I really appreciate about Jessamyn's comment. For one thing, I believe it implicitly suggests that
supporting libraries (like supporting the commons) is inherently a political act (at least in terms of requiring that we take a clear
position on how resources are organized in our society). Furthermore, she points out that we need to be very concrete about
what we think libraries offer, about what we want to acheive, and about what we ask our elected officials to do for us. If we
can't get concrete, it will be much more difficult to get anywhere.
Another point this conversation is raising for me is that we have greater potential for success if we can work together. There are
lots of ways that people are working to promote access to ideas and it can only help us to see the connections among the
various initiatives and to approach them with a spirit of mutual cooperation. Support for the public domain ultimately *is*
support for libraries, and the reverse is true as well. Furthermore, all of us who advocate openness in information can take heart
in the successes of our compatriots. The groundswell of opposition to the FCC's further deregulation of media ownership rules
is good news for all of us concerned with promoting access to ideas. The 12-thousand plus signatures on the Petition to
Reclaim the Public Domain are a sign of support not just for the Eldred Act, but for access to information overall.
So what to do? How about building a coalition that brings together the many voices working now to promote the commons and
access to information in its many forms? Is this desirable? Is it possible? And to what extent is it already happening? More on
this from me in the future, but if anyone has thoughts on this, I hope you'll share. . ."
There are some responses to these thoughts also available.
The June 13, 2003 entry in full follows
"Libraries and the Defense of the Commons
There's been a bit more blog discussion linking the defense of libraries and the defense of the commons. Larry Lessig picked up
on our post yesterday about funding cuts in Milwaukee-area school libraries. Larry suggests that librarians might sign the
Reclaim the Public Domain petition and ultimately lower the cost of libraries by expanding the public domain.
The sound you may have heard just now was the palm of my hand smacking against my forehead. Yes! Thank you, Larry. I
should have made the connection between the petition and supporting libraries myself, but now will not fail to take up the
banner Larry has so graciously unfurled. However, I think there are stronger reasons for librarians to support the petition than
just lowering the cost of information and therefore possibly making library budgets go further (laudable though that practical
goal may be).
Libraries are some of the best examples we have of the information commons in action. Libraries are community resources that
provide all kinds of information services to the public. Librarians are professionals whose role is to make the information
commons accessible to users. Librarians are among the staunchest supporters of access to information and of the framework of
rights necessary to guarantee that access. And librarians should support the public domain in general (and this petition in
particular) because the access to information embodied in copyright's public domain is interwoven with access to information in
society as a whole. An action in support of a vibrant public domain is an action that supports access to information overall.
And the discussion goes on. Over at Copyfight, Donna Wentworth linked Larry's post back to the Shifted Librarian. And that's
where Jenny Levine at TSL added: "The public domain and commons is just one more excellent service that libraries enrich,
and yet one more service we as a society will lose, if we don't start valuing our libraries and librarians more." Support the
commons, support libraries. Support libraries, support the commons.
Jessamyn from librarian.net added to the discussion with a comment on yesterday's commons-blog posting citing TSL. I'm
copying it here in its entirety to make it a bit more prominent:
"strikes me also that we need to be less vague than "support library services" in our requests. I think we need to:
"1. stress why libraries are important;
"2. explain specifically what we would like politicians to do [not just wear an "I [heart] my library" button in public];
"3. make having a library card wrapped up with being a good citizen.
"These things have been working well, so far, in Vermont where we have bi-partisan support FOR libraries and AGAINST the
USA PATRIOT Act. Go see Bernie Sanders at ALA and tell him you like what he is doing.
"...and, of course, going to our public library ourselves, and encouraging others to do the same. Even if you like to buy books at
Amazon, there are still things your library has to offer you. And every little book checked out helps your library look more
vital."
There are a couple of things I really appreciate about Jessamyn's comment. For one thing, I believe it implicitly suggests that
supporting libraries (like supporting the commons) is inherently a political act (at least in terms of requiring that we take a clear
position on how resources are organized in our society). Furthermore, she points out that we need to be very concrete about
what we think libraries offer, about what we want to acheive, and about what we ask our elected officials to do for us. If we
can't get concrete, it will be much more difficult to get anywhere.
Another point this conversation is raising for me is that we have greater potential for success if we can work together. There are
lots of ways that people are working to promote access to ideas and it can only help us to see the connections among the
various initiatives and to approach them with a spirit of mutual cooperation. Support for the public domain ultimately *is*
support for libraries, and the reverse is true as well. Furthermore, all of us who advocate openness in information can take heart
in the successes of our compatriots. The groundswell of opposition to the FCC's further deregulation of media ownership rules
is good news for all of us concerned with promoting access to ideas. The 12-thousand plus signatures on the Petition to
Reclaim the Public Domain are a sign of support not just for the Eldred Act, but for access to information overall.
So what to do? How about building a coalition that brings together the many voices working now to promote the commons and
access to information in its many forms? Is this desirable? Is it possible? And to what extent is it already happening? More on
this from me in the future, but if anyone has thoughts on this, I hope you'll share. . ."
There are some responses to these thoughts also available.
Back to George Radwanski - He allegedly spent $500,000 on travel and hospitality over two years. Can't say I've ever spent as much as $444.49 on dinner for two. Looks like he also has the authority to sign off on his own expenses claims. There's certainly a lot of mud flying around here and looks likely there'll be more.
The Green party have produced a negative press release on McCarthy's success on software patents. A bit ott - comes across as hysteria and doesn't really help make the point.
There's been a lot of activity on EU software patents in recent days. Labour MEP Arlene McCarthy has convinced the European Parliament's Commission on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market (JURI) to go along with her proposals on software patents. Apparently McCarthy won a majority on all points, which one critic says means
- introduction of program claims
- refusal of interoperability privilege (ITRE 15)
- refusal of definition of "technical"
- what is new needn't be technical and what is technical needn't be new
- no need for a technical solution, only problem must be technical
- additional rationales for patentability (e.g. need to make money
from licensing in view of low-cost economies)
- introduction of program claims
- refusal of interoperability privilege (ITRE 15)
- refusal of definition of "technical"
- what is new needn't be technical and what is technical needn't be new
- no need for a technical solution, only problem must be technical
- additional rationales for patentability (e.g. need to make money
from licensing in view of low-cost economies)
NIce article on Balancing Data Needs And Privacy - how US folk can preserve privacy in response to the Total Information Awareness programme. It appears there has been some substantial investment by the Pentagon into research at PARC to produce sound privacy enhancing technologies, that strip away personally identifying information, whilst allowing aggregate analysis of data in sophisticated ways which further the objectives of law enforcement and security services to fight crime and protect against other attacks. DARPA have put up £3.5 million dollars for this research, which is a bit more than peanuts. Marc Rottenberg of EPIC is skeptical "You can't escape the fundamental contradiction of privacy research being conducted around a half-a-billion-dollar program of national surveillance. It is like building environmentally friendly nuclear power plants."
The cynic in me agrees with him. The reality is that mass privacy invasion is unlikely to be counteracted in the short term effectively by law, however. So what we probably need is an architectural/technological response/development of the type that Teresa Lunt appears to be considering here. Private enterprises and individuals then can use these kinds of technolgies as technological gatekeepers to maintain the integrity of access, with various levels of access being granted e.g to law enforcement authorities who provide appropriately secured warrants or other legal documents.
The cynic in me agrees with him. The reality is that mass privacy invasion is unlikely to be counteracted in the short term effectively by law, however. So what we probably need is an architectural/technological response/development of the type that Teresa Lunt appears to be considering here. Private enterprises and individuals then can use these kinds of technolgies as technological gatekeepers to maintain the integrity of access, with various levels of access being granted e.g to law enforcement authorities who provide appropriately secured warrants or other legal documents.
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