News release: “Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society is pleased to announce exciting changes to our pioneering Chilling Effects project, including an expanded mission and a new set of international research partnerships. To better reflect this evolution in scope as well as the changes in the landscape over the fourteen years since it… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Digital Rights
Library of Congress 2015 DMCA 1201 Rules
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS U.S. Copyright Office 37 CFR Part 201 [Docket No. 2014-07] Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies. AGENCY: U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress. ACTION: Final rule. “In this final rule, the Librarian of Congress adopts exemptions to the provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act… Continue Reading
European Court of Justice
Decision of Europe’s top court on the validity of data transfer regime between the EU and US Continue Reading
EFF – Europe Blocks Progress for Libraries and Educators at WIPO
EFF – “Last week negotiators from around the world came together as the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) standing committee on copyright (SCCR) resumed consideration of its two current work items: the on-again, off-again broadcasters’ rights treaty, and the harmonization of minimum copyright limitations and exceptions for libraries, archives, and education. EFF has opposed the… Continue Reading
Report – Who Has Your Digital Back?
Who Has Your Back? 2015: Protecting Your Data From Government Requests. July 2, 2015 | By Parker Higgins: “We live digital lives—from the videos shared on social networks, to location-aware apps on mobile phones, to log-in data for connecting to our email, to our stored documents, to our search history. The personal, the profound, and… Continue Reading
Robots, Pirates, and the Rise of the Automated Takedown Regime
Carpou, Zoe, Robots, Pirates, and the Rise of the Automated Takedown Regime (April 6, 2015). Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2591187 “The notice-and-takedown provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has become increasingly controversial, particularly with the ever-increasing use of “robo-takedown” requests — an automated procedure by which a copyright holder locates allegedly infringing content… Continue Reading
Boing Boing’s Doctorow leads campaign to ban digital locks on ebooks, music
James Bridle – UK Guardian: “In my last column I wrote about Tesco’s graceful exit from the ebook business, offloading its customers – and their precious libraries – to Kobo. While applauding the commitment to preserving customers’ purchases, it remains a shame that this sort of transfer is even necessary. Storing books – or anything… Continue Reading
EFF – Automakers Say You Don’t Really Own Your Car
News release: “EFF is fighting for vehicle owners’ rights to inspect the code that runs their vehicles and to repair and modify their vehicles, or have a mechanic of their choice do the work. At the moment, the anti-circumvention prohibition in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act arguably restricts vehicle inspection, repair, and modification. If EFF… Continue Reading
UN Report – Copyright policy and the right to science and culture
“Science and culture are not only of great importance to the knowledge economy; they are also fundamental to human dignity and autonomy [this is the link to the report, Word doc.] In that area, two influential paradigms of international law — intellectual property and human rights — have evolved largely separately. Recent developments, however, have… Continue Reading
Over 310,000 free photos, vectors and art illustrations
“Finding free images of high quality is a tedious task – due to copyright issues, attribution requirements, or simply the lack of quality. This inspired us to create Pixabay – a repository for stunning public domain pictures. Your source for free vectors, free drawings and free photos. You can use any Pixabay image without attribution… Continue Reading
Houston, We Have A Public Domain Problem – Commentary
Parker Higgins is an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation: “I received a bogus copyright takedown notice for using public domain audio on SoundCloud yesterday. The sound in question—the famous “Houston, we have a problem” snippet of the Apollo 13 mission—is incontrovertibly available to all, for any use, without copyright restrictions. The fact that it’s… Continue Reading
Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books
Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books, Jean-Baptiste Michel, et al. Science 331, 176 (2011); DOI: 10.1126/science.1199644 “We constructed a corpus of digitized texts containing about 4% of all books ever printed. Analysis of this corpus enables us to investigate cultural trends quantitatively. We survey the vast terrain of ‘culturomics,’ focusing on linguistic and cultural phenomena that were… Continue Reading
