Speakers:
* Daniel Clancy, Engineering Director, Google Books
* John Palfrey, Henry N. Ess III Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources, Harvard Law School
* Ann Wolpert, Director of Libraries, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
* Hal Abelson, Class of 1922 Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Moderated by Maura Marx, Executive Director, Open Knowledge Commons

For more info:

http://tinyurl.com/lk3xef

Posted by Rich

“The proposed Google Book Search settlement creates the opportunity for unprecedented access by the public, scholars, libraries and others to a digital library containing millions of books assembled by major research libraries. But the settlement is controversial, in large part because this access is limited in major ways: instead of being truly open, this new digital library will be controlled by a single company, Google, and a newly created Book Rights Registry consisting of representatives of authors and publishers; it will include millions of so-called “orphan works” that cannot legally be included in any competing digitization and access effort, and it will be available to readers only in the United States. It need not have been this way.”

“This workshop seeks to bring a fresh, unique perspective to a complex and widely debated topic. It will focus not on the specific merits and demerits of the settlement itself, or the particular antitrust and privacy and other objections that have been raised. Instead, it will examine the idea of possible alternative universes and offer specific proposals for scenarios that may arise whether or not the settlement is approved . What can libraries, or universities, or non-profits, or Congress, do in the current landscape? And how might these possibilities help us to define a better world than the one that we have today and, more importantly, than the one that will exist if the Google settlement is approved in its current form? Regardless of what happens with respect to the Settlement, what alternative possibilities could lead to a richer, more open and better information ecosystem than the one we have today or might have tomorrow with the Settlement?”

For more info on the free workshop:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/googlebooks/Main_Page

Posted by Rich

GateHouse Media, Inc., is suing The New York Times Co. to find out. Since many news sites, including aggregators like Yahoo! and Google News, link to news stories on other sites and include verbatim headlines and perhaps some text from the article, this case could reach fairly far and have some pretty big implications. It might even change how everyone links to copyright protected material across the Web. In the Boston Globe article linked above, Robert Weisman points out that GateHouse Media owns a number of community newspapers and sites across Massachusetts and perceives the Globe’s new community news approach as a threat to its territory. Is the lawsuit just a coincidence or something more?

The Globe article quotes Citizen Media Law Project director David Ardia, someone I’ve met through the Berkman Center. (I can’t help smiling when I read a news article and come across a Berkmanite.) He shares more thoughts and analysis about the situation via an interview on a Harvard Nieman Foundation site.

Addendum 1/28: The New York Times Company and GateHouse Media have settled. As part of their agreement, The Times can no longer scrape (use scripts to take content from) GateHouse Media’s sites.

From a Reuters blog:

“Aside from the wider (and unanswered) question of where the borderline is between polite linking and plain old stealing, it was worth getting a few laughs from watching two “old” media companies duke it out over whether links are a form of admiration or just plain theft. Maybe the real answer can be settled in an old-school-style gentleman’s agreement: You know when too much is too much.”

“12/09, 12:30 PM ET, Berkman Center Conference Room
RSVP is required by noon on Monday, 12/08 (rsvp at cyber.law.harvard.edu).

Topic: Developing A Self-Learning Distance Program on Copyright for Librarians
Guest: Berkman Fellow Melanie Dulong de Rosnay

Copyright for Librarians  http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/copyrightfo…) is a project developed at the Berkman Center in partnership with eIFL.net (Electronic Information for Libraries), aiming at developing a distance learning program on copyright targeted to librarians. Berkman Fellow Melanie Dulong de Rosnay will present the objectives and main steps of the project. As new technologies impact on the work of libraries and copyright law increasingly challenges library practices and access to knowledge, the aim of the course is to provide a sound understanding of the fundamentals of copyright and to raise awareness amongst librarians for balanced copyright laws and practices.

Librarians from 11 countries tested the first modules of the course as part of an intensive two month training program at the Mortensen Center  http://www.library.uiuc.edu/mortenson/) for International Library Programs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign during September and October 2008. Their role was to evaluate the ergonomics and the practical implementation of the course, as well as the textbook format and content.Course modules and interactive training will be made available under a Creative Commons Attribution license on the Connexions platform.

This event will be webcast live; for more information and a complete description, see the event web page: .\”" target=”_blank”>http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/lunc…

Radiohead has done some innovative actions regarding music distribution over the Internet recently, including allowing people to download their album In Rainbows for however much money they wanted to spend on it, including nothing.

The situation really raises the question about who has the right to block videos on sites like YouTube and under what circumstances.

As seen on Babbledog

One of the first things Zittrain said after taking the mic is that he used to title things poorly. I think that was in reference to something else, not what I just typed here. He joked about offering people a boat sinking and a love story at the same time. “Be mildly unsettled. Be very, very mildly unsettled.”

He’s presenting some dystopias, like North Korea and its radios that tune to only three stations. Some folks float radios into North Korea on balloons hoping to liberate the airwaves.

He introduced us to a bit of history of the census by explaining how some fellow came up with the idea of using punch cards to record information about the US population, then using machines to tabulate the results. That was quite revolutionary. The company became IBM. Jonathan illustrated this portion of his talk with pictures of punch cards and punch card readers.

His next really cool image is of Steve Jobs using an Apple model that looks like the first computer my family had. He naturally progressed into telling us about a mug shot of Bill Gates and his smile indicating his plans to own us all some day. To illustrate how technology is progressing, Zittrain shared an environmentally friendly paper shredder with us. Not only does the hamster wheel power the shredder, but the shredded paper can immediately be recycled for use in the cage.

After a series of images about CompuServ (Hello, JD!), the next fabulous photo was of some men illustrating networking by having cans and strings between them. What’s particularly amusing about the photo is that some connections go ear-to-ear or mouth-to-mouth instead of being the more useful mouth-to-ear connection. We laughed thinking about whether that means the photographed men don’t know about networks.

Of course, true to Zittrain, he talked a lot about generativity. One of the next big laughs came from a Chinese menu with Wikipedia on it: stir-fried wikipedia, wikipedia with eggs, etc. Zittrain was even able to work couch surfing into his talk. The site coordinates people willing to crash on people’s couches with people willing to host people on their couches. Blogging. And how blogging has changed from people who only write about cats to people who write about cats and Babbledog. {Sorry. I couldn’t miss a marketing opportunity there.} (Jonathan’s favorite blog? Cats who look like Hitler.)

The somewhat unsettled part of the talk comes into play when he talks about how changes threaten generativity.

Someone accidentally turned the lights off in the room and Jonathan jested, “That’s it. If we don’t solve these problems: lights out!”

Some newer technologies recall menus from older technologies, like the Brother Wordprocessor. Why alter things that work well?

Some technologies, like Tivos are sterile because you can only do specific tasks with them.

Some technologies are tethered. His anecdote is about a toaster that suddenly has a third slot and a message saying it downloaded an update. Imagine the slot disappearing one day because there was a bug and they rolled the technology back. Then think about your toaster making orange juice and toast next week. Hhhmmm.

One problem with updatable devices is that other companies can sue them to get them to change how their devices operate, which happened to a Tivo competitor.

Are we getting to a point where programmers will need licenses?

Another interesting situation came with the game Scrabulous, which is a Facebook plugin based on the word game Scrabble. The Scrabble rights owners asked the programmers to remove Scrabulous because of infringement and they said, “Good luck. We’re in India where the laws are different.” The rights owners then approached Facebook and Facebook wasn’t sure what to do.

The Web browser has really changed technology because we’re getting to the point where people can do so much via browsers, they don’t need a lot of software on their computers anymore.

We can’t wish these changes away. Jonathan wants us all to start using generative tools and do what we can to preserve their use. People who are rulemakers have interesting roles when it comes to enforcing their rules. Think about Wikipedia and its communities.

The picture on the cover of Zittrain’s book is terrific. It shows railroad tracks going off a cliff.

I will attempt to take notes during his talk in case anyone out there isn’t here, but wants to know what’s happening.

Lawrence Lessig speaks in the Ames Courtroom in Austin Hall at Harvard Law School on Friday, April 4, at 5 pm. It will be webcast, too. Harvard College Free Culture and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society sponsor the event focusing on Lessig’s Change Congress Movement. It is one of the series celebrating Berkman’s 10th anniversary year.

Because my track record of posting events before they happen sucks eggs, let me go ahead and tell you before I forget again that Berkman’s gala is the weekend of May 15 and 16 and features lots of cool activities. Check out what’s happening and register in advance. I’m still not used to the idea that I have been playing at the Berkman Center for about half of its existence. Five years ago this month, I attended my first blog group meeting, began blogging, and started spreading word about the center and its mission and activities. That’s roughly 260 Thursday nights talking technology and who knows how many hours blogging …

In industries like the media industry where organizations are creating copyrighted content and working hard to protect that ownership and earn money from it, what’s next? Has the chance to make money from our assets passed?

Thanks for sharing, Kim!

http://www.law-of-the-blog.com/index.html

Link via What I Learned Today:

http://www.web2learning.net/

Posted by Rich