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Category Archives: Intellectual Property

Google hardware and software monitoring millions of students in classrooms

Washington Post: “In public classrooms across the country, the corporate name that is fast becoming as common as pencils and erasers is Google. More than half of K-12 laptops or tablets purchased by U.S. schools in the third quarter were Chromebooks, cheap laptops that run Google software. Beyond its famed Web search, the company freely… Continue Reading

Gene Patents and Human Rights

Van Overwalle, Geertrui, Gene Patents and Human Rights (March 2015). in Intellectual Property Law and Human Rights. Third edition, Paul L. C. Torremans (ed.), Kluwer Law International, 2015, 871 – 914 . Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2708042 “Over the last decade, the relationship between intellectual property rights (IPRs) and human rights has gained wide… Continue Reading

State of the Commons Report Highlights Milestone of Over 1 Billion Creative Commons Works Shared Online

Ryan Merkley, December 8, 2015 –  Annual State of the Commons Report highlights global cultural and policy impact of free and open content – “Creative Commons, the global nonprofit that makes it easier for creators to share their work under simple copyright terms, announced a major milestone in the release of its 2015 State of… Continue Reading

An Easy Checkoff for Global Competitiveness: The Case for a U.S. Innovation Box

An Easy Checkoff for Global Competitiveness: The Case for a U.S. Innovation Box – Robert D. Atkinson – November 30, 2015.  “Taxing corporate revenues from innovation-based activities less will not only boost U.S. global competitiveness it will help bring back IP-based corporate profits now overseas. “Within the last decade a growing number of countries have… Continue Reading

State of the Commons Report Highlights Milestone of Over 1 Billion Creative Commons Works Shared Online

Ryan Merkley, December 8, 2015 – Annual State of the Commons Report highlights global cultural and policy impact of free and open content – “Creative Commons, the global nonprofit that makes it easier for creators to share their work under simple copyright terms, announced a major milestone in the release of its 2015 State of… Continue Reading

Swiss foundation seeks to extend copyright on Diary of Anne Frank

New York Times: “When Otto Frank first published his daughter’s red-checked diary and notebooks, he wrote a prologue assuring readers that the book mostly contained her words, written while hiding from the Nazis in a secret annex of a factory in Amsterdam. But now the Swiss foundation that holds the copyright to “The Diary of… Continue Reading

Harvard Law School Library Embarks on Expansive Digitization Project

Erik Eckholm, NYT: “Shelves of law books are an august symbol of legal practice, and no place, save the Library of Congress, can match the collection at Harvard’s Law School Library. Its trove includes nearly every state, federal, territorial and tribal judicial decision since colonial times — a priceless potential resource for everyone from legal… Continue Reading

Challenges to scholarly journal paywalls take several directions

The prohibitive cost of e-journal subscriptions and the wealth of critical research articles available only for fee continues to reverberate in different directions as individuals and groups work to bypass paywalls. Aaron Swartz spearheaded these efforts in 2013 when he downloaded millions of articles through MIT’s JSTOR account.  More recently, efforts to broaden access to… Continue Reading

Harvard Library Copyright Advisor and State Copyright Resource Center

“The Harvard Library Copyright Advisor program was established in 2014 to create a culture of shared understanding of copyright among Harvard faculty, students, and staff in support of pedagogy, research, and innovation. This site, which will serve as a clearinghouse of resources created by the Copyright Advisor, Copyright First Responders, and Copyright Fellows, is intended… Continue Reading

Emerald Group Publishing launches new contribution to Open Access debate

“Bingley, United Kingdom, 19 October 2015 – Emerald Group Publishing is marking International Open Access Week (19-25 October) with the launch of a Special Issue on Open Access (OA) from Online Information Review, with contributions from some of the world’s leading experts on the debate. The aim of this Special Issue is to contribute insights, analysis and commentary towards… Continue Reading

2nd Circuit Rules for Google in Authors Guild Book Scanning Case

13-4829-cv Authors Guild v. Google, Inc. UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT (Argued: December 3, 2014 Decided: October 16, 2015) “Plaintiff-appellants, who are authors of published books under copyright, appeal from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Chin, J.) in favor of Defendant… Continue Reading