Archive for May, 2009

Manitoba Debating New Private Sector Privacy Law

Brian Bowman reports that the Manitoba Legislature is debating a private member's bill that would establish a private sector privacy law in the province.

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May 25, 2009 Comments are Disabled News

Vancouver Embraces Open Data, Standards and Source

The CBC reports that the City of Vancouver has passed a resolution endorsing the principles of making its data open and accessible to everyone where possible, adopting open standards for that data and considering open source software when replacing existing applications.

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May 25, 2009 4 comments News

The Friday Forum: Digitizing Books and the Google Book Search Settlement

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.

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May 22, 2009 7 comments News

One Thousand Connections Per Day

AP reports that French Culture Minister anticipates cutting off access for one thousand people per day once the three strikes and you're out system takes effect.

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May 22, 2009 5 comments News

Doctorow on Copyright, Critics, and Fans

I'm late with this, but Cory Doctorow recently had a stellar piece in the Guardian on how copyright law protects critics, but not fans.

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May 22, 2009 Comments are Disabled News