betanews: “A new study of over 700 full-time US employees reveals that that 48 percent of employees have access to more company data than they need to perform their jobs, while 12 percent of employees say they have access to all company data. The survey by business app marketplace GetApp also asked employees what classifications… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Intellectual Property
3D Printing: Overview, Impacts, and the Federal Role
CRS report via FAS – 3D Printing: Overview, Impacts, and the Federal Role, August 2, 2019: “Three-dimensional (3D) printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is a highly flexible manufacturing process that has been used in product development and production for the past 30 years. Greater capabilities, lower prices, and an expanded range of manufacturing materials… Continue Reading
The Radical Transformation of the Textbook
Wired – Digital-first. Open source. Subscription. The way textbooks are bought and sold is changing—with serious implications for higher education: “For several decades, textbook publishers followed the same basic model: Pitch a hefty tome of knowledge to faculty for inclusion in lesson plans; charge students an equally hefty sum; revise and update its content as… Continue Reading
Libraries are fighting to preserve your right to borrow e-books
Eponymous librarian (internet folk hero) Jessamyn West‘s Opinion piece on CNN –Libraries are fighting to preserve your right to borrow e-books – “Librarians to publishers: Please take our money. Publishers to librarians: Drop dead. That’s the upshot of Macmillan publishing’s recent decision which represents yet another insult to libraries. For the first two months after a… Continue Reading
Elsevier sends copyright threat to site for linking to Sci-Hub
Follow up to previous posting on BeSpacific – Science’s pirate queen Alexandra Elbakyan is plundering the academic publishing establishment (includes multiple sub-links) and SciHub continues to get attacked around the world – via Boing Boing: “Sci-Hub (previously) is a scrappy, nonprofit site founded in memory of Aaron Swartz, dedicated to providing global access to the… Continue Reading
Viral App FaceApp Now Owns Access To More Than 150 Million People’s Faces And Names
Forbes – “And we thought we learned a lesson from Cambridge Analytica. More than 100 million people have downloaded the app from Google Play. And FaceApp is now the top-ranked app on the iOS App Store in 121 countries, according to App Annie. While according to FaceApp’s terms of service people still own their own… Continue Reading
The plan to mine the world’s research papers
Nature – A giant data store quietly being built in India could free vast swathes of science for computer analysis — but is it legal? – “Carl Malamud is on a crusade to liberate information locked up behind paywalls — and his campaigns have scored many victories. He has spent decades publishing copyrighted legal documents,… Continue Reading
China’s Goal? To Become the World’s Dominant Superpower, FBI Boss Warns
Fortune – “Amy Hess, boss of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s cyber division, warned a room of business executives about the various threats China poses to American interests on stage at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colo., on Wednesday. Her team is responsible for pursuing criminals and nation state actors who are targeting—and pilfering—American… Continue Reading
To Break Google’s Monopoly on Search, Make Its Index Public
Bloomberg – The tech giant doesn’t have to be dismantled. Sharing its crown jewel might reshape the internet. ” Recognition is growing worldwide that something big needs to be done about Big Tech, and fast. More than $8 billion in fines have been levied against Google by the European Union since 2017. Facebook Inc., facing… Continue Reading
How librarians, pirates, and funders are liberating the world’s academic research from paywalls
Vox – The war to free science: “The 27,500 scientists who work for the University of California generate 10 percent of all the academic research papers published in the United States. Their university recently put them in a strange position: Starting July 10, these scientists will not be able to directly access much of the… Continue Reading
USPTO denies Cardi B’s application to trademark a popular term
USPTO, May 7, 2019 – The assigned trademark examining attorney has reviewed the referenced application and has determined the following: “…Registration is refused because the applied-for mark is a slogan or term that does not function as a trademark or service mark to indicate the source of applicant’s goods and/or services and to identify and… Continue Reading
How Amazon benefits from counterfeit books
Vox – “Amazon has a counterfeit book problem. But it isn’t really a problem for Amazon itself, reporter David Streitfeld argued in an investigation published in the New York Times on Sunday. In fact, publishers and authors whose books are photocopied or otherwise plagiarized just come to rely on Amazon even more. Streitfeld starts by… Continue Reading
