Why Restrictions on Reuse Are Sometimes Important
“How Open Is It?” offers a useful set of parameters for defining “open,” but some fundamental questions remain, including the commercial and social consequences of free distribution.
Do Hamsters Pirate Books?
While the effect of piracy on some book sales is still debatable, college textbooks lose sales when online file-sharing becomes prevalent. A recent examination of the situation in a market outside the U.S. provides a laboratory example.
Help! I've Been Plagiarized
The author recounts an experience in which one of his blog posts. He was saved when an Internet community rode to his rescue.
Driving Innovation: Finding the Balance Between Fair Reward and Profiteering
Vitriol may have obscured important points in a post last week. The growing business strategy of our era is to drive the cost of everyone else’s product to zero in order to make more money from your own product. This imbalance stifles innovation and creation.
Final Score in the Georgia State Game: Library 94, Publishers 5
The GSU case serves as a strong rebuke for publishers over fair use and copyright claims, while recognizing that some boundaries remain.
Thinking Through a Strategy for Digital Rights Management
DRM (digital rights management) is a problematic response to a complex situation where copyright infringement becomes common. A management team needs a clear, progressive strategy to offset unauthorized use and may choose to drop DRM
Fleshing Out the World Dreamed Of — What If the Idealistic Recommendations Passed?
A new report for the Center of Economic Development suffers from a strong bias in its authorship. But beyond that, its implicit complaints, if addressed completely, would lead to a trainwreck in the world of scholarly communication. Is nobody thinking these things through?
Ask the Chefs: "What Is the Future of Copyright?"
The future of copyright will apparently involve catching up with technological change, cultural expectations of fairness, creative pressures for re-use, and many other factors. The Chefs cook up an interesting set of scenarios and ideas on this month’s question.
Blinded by Ideology — Open Access Advocate Continues to Fight the Battles of Yesteryear
More tired OA rhetoric, this time wielding an argument that copyright approaches of some OA publishers aren’t pure enough to qualify as “real” open access. Get ready to feel the burn.
The Shrinking Orphan Works Problem
The orphan works problem is finite. Current practices will chip away at the number of orphans. It is unlikely that more orphans will be created in the future because it is so easy for publishers now to hold onto rights and keep books available in some form.
Asked and Answered: Here's What I Think the Aaron Swartz Case Means
In my last posting, I posed four questions brought to my mind by the Aaron Swartz case. Here, I propose what I think are reasonable answers to those questions. The result is kind of a long post, but hey, it’s the weekend. Tell your spouse that the yard work will have to wait; you’re busy helping to solve the fundamental structural problems of the scholarly information marketplace.
When Publishers Are Their Own Worst Enemy
When publishers don’t employ foresight, they find themselves with challenges to their businesses, often from unexpected directions. Innovation is an imperative.
The Rapture of Demand — Caring for Orphan Works Left Behind
The orphan works problem is not easily resolved, but it may not be such a big problem, as books mostly become orphans because there is little demand for them.
Responding to One of Darnton's Three Jeremiads — the Google Books Settlement
An essay in the New York Review of Books about the Google Books Settlement is based on flawed reasoning. Here’s why.
Data-mining Google Books: Does the Reader Have To Be Human?
The data-mining of the Google books database has great promise, but who owns the data-mining rights?