Yet Another Plan To Change Copyright Law To Protect Newspapers | Techdirt

Yet Another Plan To Change Copyright Law To Protect Newspapers | Techdirt 

Yet Another Plan To Change Copyright Law To Protect Newspapers

from the please,-someone,-think-this-through dept

Last week, we wrote about Judge Posner's troubling idea that copyright law should be changed to protect newspapers, and this week, a columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer is backing the same basic idea as proposed by two brothers, David and Daniel Marburger. One is a First Amendment lawyer and the other an economist -- and I'm stunned that both would get things so backwards. Their specific proposal is that:

• Aggregators would reimburse newspapers for ad revenues associated with their news reports.
• Injunctions would bar aggregators' profiting from newspapers' content for the first 24 hours after stories are posted.

Both are incredibly shortsighted and backwards and would do significantly more harm than good. Both are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how news and the internet works. Even more amusing? They try to "anticipate the rebuttal" and get that totally wrong, claiming that people will complain: "Newspapers want to monopolize the truth."
No. That's not the complaint at all. The problem is much more basic than that. It's that newspapers (and the Marburgers, apparently) are confused about how people communicate and what business they're in. They think -- incorrectly -- that newspapers are in the business of delivering the news. But that's just a small part of it. They're really in the business of building a community of folks, who they then sell to advertisers. As such, they need to be doing two things, both of which this plan makes harder:

• They need to provide more value to their community, so they stick around
• They need to attract more people to their community

Now go back and look at the Marburgers' plan, and realize how backwards it is. It takes away value from the community by making it harder for those in the community to share and spread the news themselves -- a vital part of how people interact with the news these days. And just how do you define an "aggregator"? If someone Twitters a link to a news story... does Twitter become an aggregator? On top of that, barring others from "profiting" off the news for 24 hours simply limits the ability of others to help newspapers get more traffic.
Of course, in the meantime, Jay Rosen points us to Josh Young's analysis of what would almost certainly happen if newspapers could block others from linking to them. It's essentially what we've suggested in the past: if you give short-sighted and clueless newspapers the tools to block others from sending them traffic, that just opens wide the market for their smarter competitors to gladly accept all that traffic. Hell, it appears that Reuters recognizes the future. The folks there must be salivating over the idea that others would lock up their content and leave the playing field wide open to Reuters to scoop up all that traffic.

Yet Another Plan To Change Copyright Law To Protect Newspapers | Techdirt

OASIS

OASIS 

OASIS aims to provide an authoritative ‘sourcebook’ on Open Access, covering the concept, principles, advantages, approaches and means to achieving it. The site highlights developments and initiatives from around the world, with links to diverse additional resources and case studies. As such, it is a community-building as much as a resource-building exercise. Users are encouraged to share and download the resources provided, and to modify and customize them for local use. Open Access is evolving, and we invite the growing world-wide community to take part in this exciting global movement

OASIS

Pubget: the search engine for life-science PDFs

Pubget: the search engine for life-science PDFs

Pubget solves the problem of full-text document access in life science research. Instead of search results linking to papers, with Pubget's proprietary technology, the search results ARE the papers. Once you find the papers you want, you can save, manage and share them — all online.

Each year, scientists spend at least a quarter billion minutes searching for biomedical literature online. This is time they could better spend curing disease and building the future. Pubget's mission is to give them (you!) that time back.

Pubget: the search engine for life-science PDFs

Don't Sign Contracts with Confidentiality Clauses, says ARL - 6/11/2009 - Library Journal

 Don't Sign Contracts with Confidentiality Clauses, says ARL - 6/11/2009 - Library Journal

Don't Sign Contracts with Confidentiality Clauses, says ARL

Nondisclosure has "negative impact on effective negotiations"

Josh Hadro -- Library Journal, 6/11/2009

ARL urges members not to agree to restrictive contracts

• Will open negotiations work?
• Mechanism planned for collecting licensing and contract terms

Aiming to increase libraries' leverage in pricing and licensing negotiations, the board of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) urges member libraries to refrain from entering into vendor contracts that require nondisclosure or confidentiality clauses.

The hope is that more openness among libraries about analogous agreements at similar institutions will force vendors to offer more equitable deals all around.

Georgia Harper, scholarly communications advisor for the University of Texas at Austin, agreed, telling LJAN, "the more libraries one is able to talk to about what one is hearing from a vendor, the better to make decisions about the benefit versus the cost."

May not be enough
Harper also indicated, however, that this effort toward openness may not be enough on its own to revise the pricing standard downward over the long term. 
"[I]f the ARL goal were achieved, I feel certain the vendors would find other ways to maintain their margins," she said. "Like all successful players in a market economy, they have many strategies to build and sustain their income streams. If one source of revenue dries up or diminishes despite their efforts to keep it steady or increase it, they will create a new one or enhance an old one."

Sharing contract terms
Given that publicly funded institutions are more bound than private ones by disclosure requirements, it seems that the ARL statement is aimed primarily at the latter. But the statement also goes further with recommendations that apply equally to all kinds of institutions.

ARL libraries are urged at the outset to "share upon request from other libraries information contained in these agreements." 
The last line of the statement hints at something further, describing a proposed "mechanism by which [ARL] members can share information with one another about their agreements," to be established by ARL. 
Though no further details were available, this could mark the beginnings of an opt-in resource for collecting licensing terms, potentially saving librarians the significant effort of making requests of licensing terms from peer institutions.

Don't Sign Contracts with Confidentiality Clauses, says ARL - 6/11/2009 - Library Journal

Legal Threats Database | Citizen Media Law Project

Legal Threats Database | Citizen Media Law Project 

Legal Threats Database

Welcome to the CMLP's database of legal threats! The database contains lawsuits, cease & desist letters, subpoenas, and other legal threats directed at those who engage in online speech. You can view, search, and comment on every entry in the database. Interested in lawsuits against bloggers? You'll find them on the Lawsuits Involving Blogs page. How about threats involving forum posts and user comments? You'll find those here. You can use our advanced search page to sort the entries by any criterion of your choosing, as well as perform full-text searching of the underlying documents.

We need your help to keep the database accurate and up to date. If you've been threatened with legal action or know of someone who has, please let us know by using our contact form or by entering the information directly into the database through our easy to use threat entry form. If you have questions, check out our database FAQ.

Legal Threats Database | Citizen Media Law Project

BioEd Online: Biology Teacher Resources

BioEd Online: Biology Teacher Resources

Welcome to BioEd Online, the online educational resource for educators, students, and parents. BioEd Online utilizes state-of-the-art technology to give you instant access to reliable, cutting-edge information and educational tools for biology and related subjects. Our goal is to provide useful, accurate, and current information and materials that build upon and enhance the skills and knowledge of science educators. Developed under the guidance of our expert Editorial Board, BioEd Online offers the following high-quality resources.

• Streaming Video Presentations - View timely presentations given by thought leaders on education in biology and related subjects, classroom management, science standards, and other issues in education. Presentation topics include content reviews for prospective biology teachers, content updates for experienced teachers, research lab technique demonstrations, inquiry science, and assessment. In addition, BioEd Online offers helpful presentations for teachers in training as they prepare for the classroom experience.
• Slide Library - Customize exciting and relevant lesson plans and activities from hundreds of searchable slides developed by our Editorial Board and contributors. The slide library is updated regularly. Each slide is complete with talking points and references and can be downloaded into your own PowerPoint program for personal educational use.
  as they prepare for the classroom experience.
• Editors' News Picks - Stay current with science news selected by our Editorial Board. Check back each week for new science stories and related discussion questions to complement your ongoing science activities, and to stimulate an exchange of ideas in your classroom. All Editors' Picks are maintained in our archive for easy access whenever you need them.

BioEd Online is regularly updated with pertinent new slides in the slide library, presentations on breakthrough research, reviews, and virtual workshops on educational approaches and materials. Stay current with the latest research from top educators in the country by bookmarking BioEd Online for later use!

Would you like to be notified regarding updates to BioEd Online? Please complete the BioEd Online registration form.

BioEd Online: Biology Teacher Resources

UNdata

 UNdata

UNdata - a data access system to UN databases
The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) has launched a new internet-based data service for the global user community. It brings UN statistical databases within easy reach of users through a single entry point (http://data.un.org/) from which users can now search and download a variety of statistical resources of the UN System.
On the occasion of the launch of this service, DESA Under-Secretary-General Sha Zukang stated:

"The UN System has accumulated over the past 60 years an impressive amount of information. UNdata, developed by the Statistics Division of DESA, is a new powerful tool, which will bring this unique and authoritative set of data not only to the desks of decision-makers and analysts, but also to journalists, to students and to all citizens of the world."

Since its foundation, the United Nations System has been collecting statistical information from Member States on a variety of topics. The information thus collected constitutes a considerable information asset of the organization. However, since these statistical data are often stored in proprietary databases - each with unique dissemination and access policies - as a result, users are often unaware of the full array of statistical information that the UN System has in its data libraries. The current arrangement also means that users are required to move from one database to another to access different types of information. UNdata addresses this problem by pooling major UN databases and those of several international organizations into a single internet environment. The innovative design allows users to access a large number of UN databases either by browsing the data series or through a keyword search.
Useful features like Country Profiles, Advanced Search and Glossaries are also provided to aid research. The numerous databases, tables and glossaries containing over 55 million data points cover a wide range of themes including Agriculture, Education, Employment, Energy, Environment, Health, HIV/AIDS, Human Development, Industry, Information and Communication Technology, National Accounts, Population, Refugees, Tourism, Trade, as well as the Millennium Development Goals indicators. Whilst this initial version of UNdata is fully equipped with all the functionalities for data access, the development team is continuously adding new databases and features to further enhance the usefulness to users. When fully developed, UNdata will have a comprehensive array of international and national databases providing the world instant access to a wealth of statistical information.
UNdata is the brainchild of UNSD, the statistical arm of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the coordinator of statistical activities throughout the UN System. UNSD's core mission is to advance the development of the global statistical system and promote the dissemination of statistical information. This database service is part of a project launched by UNSD in 2005, called "Statistics as a Public Good", whose objectives are to provide free access to global statistics, to educate users about the importance of statistics for evidence-based policy and decision-making and to assist National Statistical Offices of Member Countries to strengthen their data dissemination capabilities. The project is implemented in partnership with Statistics Sweden and the Gapminder Foundation with partial financial support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).

 

UNdata