The New York Times: “Amid recent debates over several publishers’ removal of potentially offensive material from the work of popular 20th-century authors — including Roald Dahl, R.L. Stine and Agatha Christie — is a less discussed but no less thorny question about the method of the revisions. For some e-book owners, the changes appeared as… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Digital Rights
Audiobooks Without Audible: The Hard Lessons I’ve Learned Routing Around Amazon
Publishers Weekly: “With a Kickstarter campaign now underway for the audio edition of his new book, ‘Red Team Blues,’ Cory Doctorow shares the mistakes of his past campaigns—and why it’s all worth it. My next novel is Red Team Blues. It’s a major title for my publisher, Tor (which is part of Macmillan), and the… Continue Reading
Digital Identity During Times of Crisis
“The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society hosted a 10-week Research Sprint from October to December 2022 investigating Digital Identity in Times of Crisis, in collaboration with partners metaLAB at Harvard, the Edgelands Institute, and Access Now. BKC Research Sprints are an educational format developed at the Center that connects early-career scholars and practitioners… Continue Reading
Book Publishers Won’t Stop Until Libraries Are Dead
TechDirt: “Earlier this week there was finally a hearing in the case brought by the big book publishers to kill off libraries. That, of course, is not how the publishers describe the lawsuit, but it’s absolutely what the lawsuit is about. We’ll get to some of the details in a moment, but we’ve joked in… Continue Reading
Internet Archives – Here’s how to participate in Monday’s oral arguments
“We’re standing up for the digital rights of all libraries in court! On Monday at 1pm ET, the Southern District of New York will hear oral argument in Hachette v. Internet Archive, the lawsuit against our library and the longstanding library practice of controlled digital lending, brought by 4 of the world’s largest publishers. Here’s… Continue Reading
Why Vermont State’s digital library idea is so controversial
Higher Ed Dive: “…Vermont State University — a new institution to be formed from three existing Vermont public colleges — has announced that it will be transforming its libraries to be “all-digital. Alhough the physical spaces will continue to serve students, administrators said print materials will no longer be procured for students who do not… Continue Reading
Authors risk losing copyright if AI content is not disclosed, US guidance says
Ars Technica: “As generative AI technologies like GPT-4 and Midjourney have rapidly gotten more sophisticated and their creative use has exploded in popularity, the US Copyright Office has issued guidance today to clarify when AI-generated material can be copyrighted. Guidance comes after the Copyright Office decided that an author could not copyright individual AI images… Continue Reading
The stupidity of AI
The Guardian: “Artificial intelligence in its current form is based on the wholesale appropriation of existing culture, and the notion that it is actually intelligent could be actively dangerous.. The entirety of this kind of publicly available AI, whether it works with images or words, as well as the many data-driven applications like it, is… Continue Reading
Publishers Want to End How Libraries Lend Books Online
Medium: “When the pandemic began and schools and libraries around the country were forced to close their doors, teachers and librarians were at a loss over how to get digital books into the hands of young readers and their families. The problem was so drastic that the Internet Archive (IA), a nonprofit digital library, declared… Continue Reading
Securing Digital Rights for Libraries: Towards an Affirmative Policy Agenda for a Better Internet
Internet Archive: “We are excited to announce the release of our report, “Securing Digital Rights for Libraries: Towards an Affirmative Policy Agenda for a Better Internet,” and the culmination of a months-long process consulting with leading experts from libraries, civil society, and academia regarding libraries’ role in shaping the next iteration of the internet. The… Continue Reading
Digital Security and Reproductive Rights: Lessons for Feminist Cyberlaw
Meister, Michela and Levy, Karen, Digital Security and Reproductive Rights: Lessons for Feminist Cyberlaw (October 31, 2022). Feminist Cyberlaw (Meg Leta Jones and Amanda Levendowski, eds.), University of California Press, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4262774 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4262774 – “Reproductive rights in the United States are under threat, and the threat is growing more serious by… Continue Reading
OCLC and Clarivate settle lawsuit
OCLC / 07 November 2022 – “OCLC is pleased to announce today that it successfully defended WorldCat to protect the collaborative service developed and maintained with and for libraries worldwide. An agreement has been reached in a lawsuit filed by OCLC in June 2022 against Clarivate and its subsidiaries in the United States District Court,… Continue Reading
