Open Access info

October 14, 2008 in Uncategorized | by Will | No comments

Happy Open Access Day!

Today’s Daily Nebraskan printed a guest editorial written by Kevin and me.  We wanted to use a blog post to back up our editorial and give people access to more information on OA.

The best place to start to learn about OA is Peter Suber.  He has produced some amazing resources on the web for learning about open access.  His OA Overview is fairly comprehenesive, but those faint of heart might try starting with his Very Brief Introduction to OA.  Professor Suber also has a great explanation of what you can do to promote open access from the perspective of faculty, librarians, administrators and students.  And for everything you need to keep up-to-date with current events in OA, check Suber’s blog or newsletter.

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Open Access Day!

October 12, 2008 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | by Kevin | No comments

Please join us on October 14th in Love Library on campus to celebrate Open Access Day.  The event is around 2 hours long, starting at 5:30 p.m. and will include presentations by the Dean of Libraries, Other UNL students and faculty, and a webcast that includes world renown scholars.  We will be posting a much longer article about the benefits of open access in the days following the presentation, but if you would like to learn more about this exciting movement then come hang out with us on Tuesday night!

Good Copy Bad Copy meeting recap

September 17, 2008 in Uncategorized | by Will | No comments

Thanks to everybody who came to watch “Good Copy Bad Copy” this week.  We had a great crowd.  (Thanks especially to Professor Cummins for bringing her class.)

For those of you who weren’t able to make it, that doesn’t mean you have to miss out on all the fun.  “Good Copy Bad Copy” is available online in via flash or bit torrent.

We plan to meet next week sometime to see if people want to talk about issues from the film, current events in IP law, and more…or we might talk about nothing and just hang out at a coffee shop.  We’ll send out details on time and place sometime soon.

Oregon claims copyright over state laws, sends cease-and-desist letters to mirrors

April 16, 2008 in Copyright, Fair Use, take-downs | Tags: , | by Brian | No comments

Cory Doctorow has reported on Boing Boing that the State of Oregon has been sending out cease-and-desist letters to Web sites such as Justia and Public.Resource.Org which provide mirrors of Oregon state law. Oregon claims copyright over its state laws and says that their own Web site is sufficient for public access; however, as Carl Malamud of Public.Resource.Org points out, their Web site is filled with HTML errors, does not meet Section 508 accessibility requirements, and has no metadata.

2-28-08 Meeting Recap

March 3, 2008 in Meetings | by Will | 1 comment

Thanks to everyone who attended last Thursday’s meeting.  We discussed a number of current events that have a bearing on the free culture movement, and broke off into committees to discuss how to take action as a group on campus.  Committees include the advocacy, education, involvement, and events committees.  We plan on having these smaller groups get together every meeting, so if you weren’t last week, think about where you’d like to be involved for future meetings.

Also, thanks to those who came to our Be Kind Rewind viewing.  There was some great remixing going on, which Jack Black and Mos Def referred to as Sweding (video explanation of Sweding).  There are a bunch of Sweded videos up on YouTube, including a Sweded version of the original trailer.  We encourage people to do their own Swedes/remixes.  For those at UNL, let us know, and we’ll try to feature the videos on our site.

O’Reilly open books

February 28, 2008 in Creative Commons, open source software | Tags: , , | by Brian | No comments

O’Reilly Media, a publisher known for its computer and technical books, has an online repository of open books—books that have been released under an open license. Some of these books are out-of-print technical books; others are free because the author or subject felt strongly about open content. Not all of the open books are solely about computer topics; there are also several about the meaning of “freedom” in the context of intellectual property, for example.

Is IP a natural right?

February 27, 2008 in Copyright | Tags: , , | by Will | 2 comments

At our last meeting we discussed the history of copyright law and the difference between intellectual property (IP) laws based on natural rights as opposed to an incentive-based system.  In a recent post, William Patry, former copyright counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary; former Policy Planning Advisor to the Register of Copyrights; and current Senior Copyright Counsel, Google Inc., offers a couple of early Supreme Court cases that show clearly that the U.S. copyright system is not based on natural rights.  Patry points out that we should think of copyright as a privilege.  Outside of this limited privilege, the copyright owner has no natural right to restrict use of the work.

Those familiar with the Free Software movement are probably familiar with Richard Stallman’s complaints with the term “intellectual property.”  Stallman notes that we are not talking about physical property that you can steal.  ”Property” carries a bias, which connotes a natural right, and the rights we give to copyright owners are really limited monopolies.

Maybe as a compromise we can start calling copyright an “intellectual privilege.”  Eh, who’s with me?  That way we can keep calling it IP.  :)

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Blackboard and the World of Software Patents

February 26, 2008 in Patent | Tags: , | by Kevin | 1 comment

The familiar software company Blackboard recently won a patent lawsuit against a rival educational software firm Desire2Learn. The lawsuit was based on a ridiculous patent which I won’t go into the details of. The result of the case is that Desire2Learn owes 3.1 million dollars and could face an injunction preventing them from selling their software in the U.S. You can read more about the patent and the lawsuit at Slashdot. There is also another blog, The Nose, that has been following the case for some time and has in-depth coverage of the lawsuit.

Our local organization tends to focus on the copyright aspect of intellectual property, since it is the most applicable to the most people here on campus.  It is also where we think it is possible to affect the most change. Patents are another large part of intellectual property and in a similar state of disarray, especially where software is concerned. If you are interested in learning more about software patents, there are tons of articles on the topic. As always, Wikipedia is a good place to start.

2-14-08 Meeting Recap

February 20, 2008 in Meetings | by Will | No comments

Thanks to everbody who came to our Valentine’s Day meeting.  I hope everyone enjoyed the candy (thanks Laura) and the heart-shaped pizza.  Thanks to Brian for leading us through the history and current status of Copyright.

For those interested, here is some more information on the College Opportunity and the Affordability Act: story and story.

To Filter, or Not to Filter…

February 11, 2008 in Copyright, Fair Use | Tags: , , , , | by Sarah | 1 comment

… that seems to be the question for at least two major internet service providers. The New York Times’ BITS blog reports that AT&T is gearing up to begin filtering copyrighted content on its networks. Verizon, on the other hand, opposes the concept, and presently has no plans to filter its users’ online behavior. The call to filter has come from the mouths of the RIAA and MPAA and has serious implications for network openness. Not only is it inherently difficult for network-level filters to distinguish between copyrighted and non-copyrighted works, such content controlling tends to ignore any distinctions between infringing use and allowable fair use. Moreover, placing the task of policing user behavior in the hands of for-profit companies raises troublesome questions about customer privacy, due process, and the liability of the ISP’s for their customers’ internet behavior.

Overall, Verizon seems to be on the right path. I applaud the company for holding its own in the face of industry pressure and preserving the integrity of user privacy and access.