The potential for a global digital library is increasingly viewed as one of the most exciting opportunities of the Internet age. Countries are working to digitize their works (I wrote four years ago about the possibility of Canada doing so) and the private sector has been active as well. By far the best known - and most contentious - initiative is the Google Book Search initiative. Working with university libraries around the world, Google has been digitizing millions of books. The Google Book Search initiative led to a pair of U.S. lawsuits over whether the plan qualified as fair use, which in turn led to a settlement with implications for authors around the world.
This week's Friday Forum takes a look at the digitizing issue with particular focus on Google Book Search. It starts with Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive and his vision for building a free digital library. The talked was delivered at the EG Conference in 2007.
Google Book Search has emerged as the lightening rod for many of these issues. Before the settlement, the debate centered on whether it qualified as fair use under U.S. copyright law. Professor Larry Lessig provided his view in this 2006 talk.
Two author groups disagreed with Lessig's analysis leading to a pair of lawsuits. The parties reached a complicated settlement last fall. There is a lot available on the settlement - the documents themselves, commentary (EFF, James Grimmelman, Robert Darton, Pam Samuelson, Kahle) Samuelson expanded on her thoughts on the settlement in this recent talk at the University of North Carolina.
Last week's first Friday Forum provided an introduction to open access. This week's examines several issues that grow out of the open access movement including open access to government data, open access to law, open access and development, as well as open access and science. Given my column this week on how the House of Commons has sent takedown notices to YouTube to remove videos featuring committee hearings and the Auditor General's report on IP in the government, it is appropriate to start with the issue of open access to government data. The leader in this field in Carl Malamud, who delivered an @Google talk on the issue in 2006. Read More ...
For more information on access to government data from a Canadian perspective, see the DataLibre blog.
As for a recent talk, James Grimmelman of New York Law School focused on some of the copyright issues involved in access to law in this 2008 talk at Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy.
Up next is the connection between open access and development. There was a recent conference on this issue in Malaysia. Leslie Chan of the University of Toronto provides some context in this short video:
Meanwhile, Subbiah Arunachalam offers a perspective from India:
The fourth and concluding issue for this Friday Forum is open access and science. The scientific community have played a crucial role on open access and Science Commons is working to bring scientific data into the open access realm. John Wilbanks, Vice President of Science Commons, discusses science and OA in this keynote address from late last year.
Classes and exams have now concluded at the University of Ottawa and students won't be back on campus until September. Rather than taking a full hiatus on lectures, I thought it would be interesting to pull together a weekly virtual conference series using the incredible array of video lectures that have been posted online in recent years. The Friday Forum will be a weekly blog posting on a topic within the broad umbrella of law, technology, and policy. If you were to watch all the videos in their in its entirety, each virtual conference would take about a half-day. I'll also post additional readings and materials for those that want to dig more deeply into the issues. On most issues, there is a wealth of choice, so I'm bound to miss some great lectures that are on point.
This first Friday Forum virtual conference is the first of three on open access. This collection of lectures focuses on the open access movement and latest developments. Next week, I'll touch on some specific issues such as government data, access to law, development issues, and science commons. The final virtual conference will highlight the recent move toward university open access mandates.
The conference begins with an introduction to open access from Melissa Hagemann of the Open Society Institute (note that I serve on the Information Sub-Board of OSI). Melissa's talk on Open Scholarship was delivered at Wikimania in 2008 and provides a good introduction to these issues.
If you are looking for some introductory slides, SPARCs Heather Joseph has posted hers from a 2007 talk on the Growing Call for Open Access. For a history of open access in Canada, see Dean Giustini's wiki.
Next up is John Willinsky, currently a professor at Stanford University and formerly at UBC. Willinsky's book - The Access Principle - is the leading book on Open Access. The book can be downloaded for free under a Creative Commons licence direclty from MIT Press. Willinsky gives many speeches on open access. This recent speech delivered at Kansas University in February 2009 is titled Open Access Policies and Practices for Increasing Scholarly Contributions.
The third speaker will allow us to shift gears slightly for a publisher perspective. Dr. Frances Pinter, publisher at Bloomsbury Academic in the UK, delves into some of the publisher concerns in her talk titled The Transformation of Academic Publishing in the Digital Era. The talk was delivered at the Oxford Internet Institute and is available for either download or Real Video stream.
The fourth and final speaker is Peter Suber, soon to be a fellow at the Berkman Center at Harvard. Professor Suber is the undisputed source of open access news with his remarkable site, Open Access News. Suber's Berkman talk from earlier this year is titled the Future of Open Access.
Classes and exams have now concluded at the University of Ottawa and students won't be back on campus until September. Rather than taking a full hiatus on lectures, I thought it would be interesting to pull together a weekly virtual conference series using the incredible array of video lectures that have been posted online in recent years. The Friday Forum will be a weekly blog posting on a topic within the broad umbrella of law, technology, and policy. If you were to watch all the videos in their in its entirety, each virtual conference would take about a half-day. I'll also post additional readings and materials for those that want to dig more deeply into the issues. On most issues, there is a wealth of choice, so I'm bound to miss some great lectures that are on point.
This first Friday Forum virtual conference is the first of three on open access. This collection of lectures focuses on the open access movement and latest developments. Next week, I'll touch on some specific issues such as government data, access to law, development issues, and science commons. The final virtual conference will highlight the recent move toward university open access mandates.
The conference begins with an introduction to open access from Melissa Hagemann of the Open Society Institute (note that I serve on the Information Sub-Board of OSI). Melissa's talk on Open Scholarship was delivered at Wikimania in 2008 and provides a good introduction to these issues.
If you are looking for some introductory slides, SPARCs Heather Joseph has posted hers from a 2007 talk on the Growing Call for Open Access. For a history of open access in Canada, see Dean Giustini's wiki.
Next up is John Willinsky, currently a professor at Stanford University and formerly at UBC. Willinsky's book - The Access Principle - is the leading book on Open Access. The book can be downloaded for free under a Creative Commons licence direclty from MIT Press. Willinsky gives many speeches on open access. This recent speech delivered at Kansas University in February 2009 is titled Open Access Policies and Practices for Increasing Scholarly Contributions.
The third speaker will allow us to shift gears slightly for a publisher perspective. Dr. Frances Pinter, publisher at Bloomsbury Academic in the UK, delves into some of the publisher concerns in her talk titled The Transformation of Academic Publishing in the Digital Era. The talk was delivered at the Oxford Internet Institute and is available for either download or Real Video stream.
The fourth and final speaker is Peter Suber, soon to be a fellow at the Berkman Center at Harvard. Professor Suber is the undisputed source of open access news with his remarkable site, Open Access News. Suber's Berkman talk from earlier this year is titled the Future of Open Access.
Yahoo's The Right Click reports
on the mounting protests from Canadians against the prospect of adding
SOPA-style amendments to Bill C-11.
Feb.09/12Comments (1)
Government House Leader Peter Van Loan announced yesterday that the government is imposing time allocation on the second reading debate on Bill C-11. That means debate on the bill should conclude on Friday and the bill will be sent to committee for further hearings and review. While the government's overuse of time allocation is a concern, sending C-11 to committee places the core issues on the table - will it amend the digital lock rules as so many are asking and/or will it cave to copyright lobby pressure and add SOPA-style amendments to the bill? Now is the time to speak out.Feb.08/12Comments (6)
Alexander Furnas explains
in the Atlantic why the broader implications of ACTA may make it as bad
as SOPA. Furnas notes "while many of the alarmists specific claims are
inaccurate, ACTA exposes the systemic danger in how international
intellectual property regulation has evolved over the last 20 years." Feb.07/12Comments (0)
Kris Kotarski writes an opinion
piece in the Calgary Herald that calls attention to the lobby panic
that leads to legislation like SOPA and ACTA.
Feb.07/12Comments (0)
The National Post featured an op-ed
from Jesse Kline
over the weekend that notes "the essential question that must be
addressed going forward is whether government regulation is needed to
protect industries that have failed to innovate." He says the answer is
no.
Feb.07/12Comments (3)
John Ibbitson discusses
the implications
for Canada of joining the Trans Pacific Partnership, noting it would
likely include surrendering Canadian sovereignty over copyright law. A
reminder that the government is currently consulting on the TPP.
Details on the agreement and participating here, here, and
here.
Feb.06/12Comments (0)
Open Media has launched a new
campaign
against copyright reforms that threaten digital rights including the
prospect of website blocking, Internet termination, and digital locks.
Feb.06/12Comments (0)
AccessNow is maintaining an excellent
map
of the protests planned across the continent on February 11th, which
has been designated an international day of action against ACTA. The
issue has attracted mainstream media attention (eg. New
York Times) and questions
emerge about the likelihood the treaty will receive the necessary
approvals for ratification.
Feb.06/12Comments (0)
