Internet Archive ends “emergency library” early to appease publishers; Ars Technica, June 11, 2020

Timothy B. Lee, Ars Technica; Internet Archive ends “emergency library” early to appease publishers

Online library asks publishers to “call off their costly assault.”

 

"The Internet Archive has ended its National Emergency Library programs two weeks earlier than originally scheduled, the organization announced in a Wednesday blog post. 

"We moved up our schedule because, last Monday, four commercial publishers chose to sue Internet Archive during a global pandemic," the group wrote. The online library called on publishers to "call off their costly assault."

But that doesn't seem very likely. The Internet Archive isn't ending its online book lending program altogether. Instead, the group is returning to a "controlled digital lending" (CDL) model that it had followed for almost a decade prior to March. Under that model, the group allows only one patron to digitally "check out" a book for each physical copy the library has in stock. If more people want to read a book than are physically available, patrons are added to a waiting list until someone checks the book back in...

Experts have told Ars that the CDL concept has a better chance of winning approval from the courts than the "emergency library" idea with unlimited downloads. But the legality of CDL is far from clear. Some libraries have been practicing it for several years without legal problems. But publishers and authors' rights groups have never conceded its legality, and the issue hasn't been tested in court."

Publishers Sue Internet Archive Over Free E-Books; The New York Times, June 1, 2020

Elizabeth A. Harris, The New York Times; Publishers Sue Internet Archive Over Free E-Books

Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette and Wiley accused the nonprofit of piracy for making over 1 million books free online.

"A group of publishers sued Internet Archive on Monday, saying that the nonprofit group’s trove of free electronic copies of books was robbing authors and publishers of revenue at a moment when it was desperately needed.

Internet Archive has made more than 1.3 million books available free online, which were scanned and available to one borrower at a time for a period of 14 days, according to the complaint. Then in March, the group said it would lift all restrictions on its book lending until the end of the public health crisis, creating what it called “a National Emergency Library to serve the nation’s displaced learners.”

But many publishers and authors have called it something different: theft.

“There is nothing innovative or transformative about making complete copies of books to which you have no rights and giving them away for free,” said Maria A. Pallante, president of the Association of American Publishers, which is helping to coordinate the industry’s response. “They’ve stepped in downstream and taken the intellectual investment of authors and the financial investment of publishers, they’re interfering and giving this away.”"

Past coronavirus: an open-access future for academics; The Bowdoin Orient, April 3, 2020

Radu Stochita, The Bowdoin Orient; Past coronavirus: an open-access future for academics

"What Aaron Swartz left us is the courage to try and break the wall that exists between the public and the profit-driven industry of academic publishing. In his eyes, information was meant to be free and accessible. Progress was meant for the common good, in the benefit of everyone, not only for a selected few."

Rumored executive order would change landscape of UC subscription partnerships; The Daily Californian, January 30, 2020

Alexandra Casey, The Daily Californian; Rumored executive order would change landscape of UC subscription partnerships

"Prominent Nobel laureate and chief scientific officer of New England Biolabs Rich Roberts has no online access to a paper he co-authored because his institution lacks a subscription to academic journal Nature Microbiology.

Roberts is one of 21 American Nobel laureates who submitted an open letter to President Donald Trump on Monday urging him to approve a rumored plan to make federally funded research free of cost and immediately accessible after publication. UC Berkeley’s Randy Schekman, who founded eLife — an open access scientific journal — led the Nobel laureates in their letter...

“This would effectively nationalize the valuable American intellectual property that we produce and force us to give it away to the rest of the world for free,” according to the letter from the publishers. “This risks reducing exports and negating many of the intellectual property protections the Administration has negotiated with our trading partners.”

The letter added that the cost shift could place an “additional burden” on taxpayers and undermine both the marketplace and American innovation."

Who owns the law in Georgia?; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 29, 2019

Bill Rankin, Atlanta Journal Constitution; Who owns the law in Georgia?

"“If the (appeals court’s) decision is affirmed, publishers will no longer be able to rely on sales of copyrighted works to recoup their costs for preparing annotations,” said Johnson, also a Washington attorney. “Therefore, states will either need to use taxpayer dollars to pay the publishers or stop offering annotated versions of their official codes.”

Thirteen states and the District of Columbia offered similar sentiments in a legal brief filed with the high court...

Malamud’s case has received support in friend-of-the-court briefs filed by a wide variety of groups, including the American Library Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Intellectual Property Association and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which was joined by Gannett Co., the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.

“If the First Amendment requires public access to criminal trials so that citizens may oversee and participate in government, then citizens must also have access to the laws that organize their society (and that form the basis of those criminal trials),” the media organizations said.""

Open Access: SCOTUS will consider whether publishers can copyright annotated state codes; ABA Journal, November 27, 2019

Mark Walsh, ABA Journal; Open Access: SCOTUS will consider whether publishers can copyright annotated state codes

"The question in Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org Inc. is whether a work such as the Official Code of Georgia Annotated may not be copyrighted because it falls under the doctrine of “government edicts.” The doctrine stems from a series of 19th-century Supreme Court cases holding that judicial writings and other official legal works published under state authority are not “the proper subject of private copyright,” as an 1888 decision put it."

The Authoritarian’s Worst Fear? A Book; The New York Times, October 3, 2019

Duncan White, The New York Times; The Authoritarian’s Worst Fear? A Book

""Regimes are expending so much energy attacking books because their supposed limitations have begun to look like strengths: With online surveillance, digital reading carries with it great risks and semi-permanent footprints; a physical book, however, cannot monitor what you are reading and when, cannot track which words you mark or highlight, does not secretly scan your face, and cannot know when you are sharing it with others."

Highly Profitable Medical Journal Says Open Access Publishing Has Failed. Right.; Forbes, April 1, 2019

Steven Salzberg, Forbes; Highly Profitable Medical Journal Says Open Access Publishing Has Failed. Right.

"What Haug doesn't mention here is that there is one reason (and only one, I would argue) that NEJM makes all of its articles freely available after some time has passed: the NIH requires it. This dates back to 2009, when Congress passed a law, after intense pressure from citizens who were demanding access to the research results that they'd paid for, requiring all NIH-funded results to be deposited in a free, public repository (now called PubMed Central) within 12 months of publication.

Scientific publishers fought furiously against this policy. I know, because I was there, and I talked to many people involved in the fight at the time. The open-access advocates (mostly patient groups) wanted articles to be made freely available immediately, and they worked out a compromise where the journals could have 6 months of exclusivity. At the last minute, the NIH Director at the time, Elias Zerhouni, extended this to 12 months, for reasons that remain shrouded in secrecy, but thankfully, the public (and science) won the main battle. For NEJM to turn around now and boast that they are releasing articles after an embargo period, without mentioning this requirement, is hypocritical, to say the least. Believe me, if the NIH requirement disappeared (and publishers are still lobbying to get rid of it!), NEJM would happily go back to keeping all access restricted to subscribers.

The battle is far from over. Open access advocates still want to see research released immediately, not after a 6-month or 12-month embargo, and that's precisely what the European Plan S will do."

'I can get any novel I want in 30 seconds': can book piracy be stopped?; The Guardian, March 6, 2019

Katy Guest, The Guardian;

'I can get any novel I want in 30 seconds': can book piracy be stopped?

"The UK government’s Intellectual Property Office estimates that 17% of ebooks are consumed illegally. Generally, pirates tend to be from better-off socioeconomic groups, and aged between 30 and 60. Many use social media to ask for tips when their regular piracy website is shut down; when I contacted some, those who responded always justified it by claiming they were too poor to buy books – then tell me they read them on their e-readers, smartphones or computer screens - or that their areas lacked libraries, or they found it hard to locate books in the countries where they lived. Some felt embarrassed. Others blamed greedy authors for trying to stop them.

When we asked Guardian readers to tell us about their experiences with piracy, we had more than 130 responses from readers aged between 20 and 70. Most regularly downloaded books illegally and while some felt guilty – more than one said they only pirated “big names” and when “the author isn’t on the breadline, think Lee Child” – the majority saw nothing wrong in the practice. “Reading an author’s work is a greater compliment than ignoring it,” said one, while others claimed it was part of a greater ethos of equality, that “culture should be free to all”."

Will the world embrace Plan S, the radical proposal to mandate open access to science papers?; Science, January 3, 2019

Tania Rabesandratana, Science; Will the world embrace Plan S, the radical proposal to mandate open access to science papers?

""In the OA movement, it seems to a lot of people that you have to choose a road: green or gold or diamond," says Colleen Campbell, director of the OA2020 initiative at the Max Planck Digital Library in Munich, Germany, referring to various styles of OA. "Publishers are sitting back laughing at us while we argue about different shades" instead of focusing on a shared goal of complete, immediate OA. Because of its bold, stringent requirements, she and others think Plan S can galvanize advocates to align their efforts to shake up the publishing system...

"The combined weight of Europe and China is probably enough to move the system," says astrophysicist Luke Drury, of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and the lead author of a cautiously supportive response to Plan S by All European Academies, a federation of European academies of sciences and humanities.

If Plan S does succeed in bringing about a fairer publishing system, he says, a transition to worldwide OA is sure to follow. "Somebody has to take the lead, and I'm pleased that it looks like it's coming from Europe.""

Do You Have Concerns about Plan S? Then You Must be an Irresponsible, Privileged, Conspiratorial Hypocrite; The Scholarly Kitchen, November 26, 2018

Rick Anderson, The Scholarly Kitchen; Do You Have Concerns about Plan S? Then You Must be an Irresponsible, Privileged, Conspiratorial Hypocrite

"Ultimately, though, what is most concerning about Plan S is not the behavior of those hell-bent on defending it by any means necessary. That’s just par for the course. More important is the way in which researchers themselves — the people whose work and whose freedom to choose will be directly affected by its implementation — seem to have been excluded from the process of formulating it. This shouldn’t be surprising, I guess, given the disdain in which authors and researchers are apparently held by Plan S’s creators. After all, as Science Europe’s Robert-Jan Smits puts it: “Why do we need Plan S? Because researchers are irresponsible.”

There you have it. The freedom to choose how to publish isn’t for everyone; it’s only for those who are “responsible” — which is to say, those who agree with Plan S."

Arguments over European open-access plan heat up; Nature, November 12, 2018

Richard Van Noorden, Nature; Arguments over European open-access plan heat up

"Debate is intensifying over Plan S, an initiative backed by 15 research funders to mandate that, by 2020, their research papers are open access as soon as they are published.

The Europe-led statement was launched in September, but details of its implementation haven’t yet been released. And while many open-access supporters have welcomed Plan S, others are now objecting to some of its specifics.

On 5 November, more than 600 researchers, including two Nobel laureates, published an open letter calling the plan “too risky for science”, “unfair”, and “a serious violation of academic freedom” for the scientists affected; more than 950 have now signed."

Publishers Call Out Target for 'Censoring' Book Descriptions; Publishers Weekly, September 13, 2018

Claire Kirch, Publishers Weekly; Publishers Call Out Target for 'Censoring' Book Descriptions

"According to Ohio State University Press director Tony Sanfilippo, Target’s move might be a well-meaning policy gone awry. “I understand that they might want to avoid controversy. But if they want to keep Nazis off their site, or Nazi-themed products out of their search results, there are ways of doing that that don’t censor. If you can’t say 'Nazi,' you can’t stop Nazis. And if you can’t search for books about the trans community and trans issues, your search engine and your corporate philosophy are morally flawed.""

Letter to the Editor: "Get the Facts on Readers", Emailed to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Kip Currier, September 1, 2018

[Kip Currier: I'm copying below a Letter to the Editor--titled "Get the Facts on Readers"--that I emailed today (September 1, 2018) to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. For additional background, see this story.]

Get the Facts on Readers

Dear Editor,

The Post-Gazette is running a multi-platform ad campaign that weaponizes variations of the line “I will never go digital” to make fun of older readers, depicted as fuddy-duddy Luddites. In one particularly offensive TV spot, a digitally-savvy granddaughter openly mocks her grandmother who prefers print.

Research refutes the ageist “messages” in the P-G’s divisive marketing campaign. Many adult U.S. readers—of all ages—are hybrid readers who want the choice of information in both print and digital formats.

As evidence, take a look at some of the key findings from a Jan. 3-10, 2018 national survey of 2,002 U.S. adults, reported by the well-respected, non-partisan Pew Research Center:

Despite some growth in certain digital formats, it remains the case that relatively few Americans consume digital books (which include audiobooks and e-books) to the exclusion of print. Some 39% of Americans say they read only print books, while 29% read in these digital formats and also read print books.

And the coup de grace to the P-G’s graceless stereotyping:

Some demographic groups are more likely than others to be digital-only book readers, but in general this behavior is relatively rare across a wide range of demographics. For example, 10% of 18- to 29-year-olds only read books in digital formats, compared with 5% of those ages 50-64 and 4% of those 65 and older.

The P-G’s preening effort to digitally divide users borders on farce, given that P-G writers and staff repeatedly concede the deplorable state of the newspaper’s digital search and archival features. 

The P-G’s tagline is “One of America’s Great Newspapers”. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, that tagline is not supported by facts. So, here’s a “message” for P-G ownership:

Hire some of the Pittsburgh region’s highly educated information professionals to help the P-G become a bona fide leader in print and digital content, search, and delivery. Give the Pittsburgh region a truly great newspaper that inclusively serves and respects all of its readers and residents.

James “Kip” Currier

Mt. Lebanon

Who Gets to Read the Research We Pay For?; Slate, August 21, 2018

Aaron Mak, Slate; Who Gets to Read the Research We Pay For?: Scientific journals’ lock on new studies has ignited tension for years. When it comes to access for people with rare diseases, it becomes an ethical issue too.

"This does not sit well with academics and other members of the research community, who often publicly complain about the company’s profit margins, its allegedly restrictive copyrights, and the fact that much of the research it sells access to is taxpayer-funded. This public outrage seems to have gotten under the skin of William Gunn, Elsevier’s director of scholarly communications. When one user argued that people in rare-disease families “shouldn’t have to jump through additional hoops to access information,” Gunn responded, “Yes, everyone should have rainbows, unicorns, & puppies delivered to their doorstep by volunteers. Y’all keep wishing for that, I’ll keep working on producing the best knowledge and distributing it as best we can.”

This is just one reckless tweet in the heat of a Twitter spat (though it’s worth bearing Gunn’s job title in mind), and, sure, he later apologized. But the issue of rare-disease families trying to avoid the high fees associated with accessing research on potential treatments goes beyond this Twitter spat: It’s a real problem that has not been adequately fixed by the company."

SCIENCE’S PIRATE QUEEN; The Verge, February 8, 2018

 Ian Graber-Stiehl, The Verge; SCIENCE’S PIRATE QUEEN

"The legal campaigns against Sci-Hub have — through the Streisand effect — made the site more well-known than most mainstay repositories, and Elbakyan more famous than legal Open Access champions like Suber. The threat posed by ACS’s injunction against Sci-Hub has increased support for the site from web activists organizations such as the EFF, which considesr the site “a symptom of a serious problem: people who can’t afford expensive journal subscriptions, and who don’t have institutional access to academic databases, are unable to use cutting-edge scientific research.”

The effort may backfire. It does nothing to address disappointment scientists feel about how paywalls hide their work. Meanwhile, Sci-Hub has been making waves that might carry it further to a wider swath of both the public and the scientific community. And though Elbakyan might be sailing in dangerous waters, what’s to stop idealistic scientists who are frustrated with the big publishers from handing over their login credentials to Sci-Hub’s pirate queen?"

Cloudflare Terminates Service to 'The Pirate Bay of Science'; MotherBoard, February 9, 2018

Rebecca Flowers, MotherBoard; Cloudflare Terminates Service to 'The Pirate Bay of Science'

"On February 3, the Twitter account for Sci-Hub tweeted a screenshot of an alleged email from Cloudflare, the content delivery network provider for Sci-Hub (which acts as an intermediary between the user and website host), informing Sci-Hub that its service would be terminated in 24 hours. At the time of writing, the main Sci-Hub domain is inaccessible on the web, but the mirror sites mentioned in the screenshotted email from Cloudflare are still active.

Cloudflare’s termination of service is due to a court injunction against Sci-Hub, a Cloudflare spokesperson told me over the phone. That order was handed down by a federal judge in November when the American Chemical Society, another academic publisher, won $4.8 million in damages against Sci-Hub. The decision also included an injunction requiring search engines and internet service providers to block Sci-Hub, a digital blockade unusual for the US."

Fair Use Too Often Goes Unused; Chronicle of Higher Education, May 10, 2017

Noah Berlatsky, Chronicle of Higher Education; 

Fair Use Too Often Goes Unused

"Only if authors can’t track down permissions holders, [Julia] Round [editor of the journal Studies in Comics] said, does the journal consider printing small images under the legal doctrine of fair use.

But while publishers want authors to get permission, the law often does not require it. According to Kyle K. Courtney, copyright adviser for Harvard University in its Office for Scholarly Communication, copyright holders have certain rights — for instance, if you hold rights for a comic book, you determine when and by whom it can be reprinted, which is why I can’t just go out and create my own edition of the first Wonder Woman comic. But notwithstanding those rights, fair use gives others the right to reprint materials in certain situations without consulting the author — or even, in some cases, if the author has refused permission...

Seeking permission may seem safe, but it can have serious ethical and practical downsides."

London Book Fair 2017: Judge Pierre Leval Defends Google Books Decision, Fair Use; Publishers Weekly, March 16, 2017

Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly; 

London Book Fair 2017: Judge Pierre Leval Defends Google Books Decision, Fair Use

"In a packed room for the LBF’s 2017 Charles Clark Memorial Lecture, Judge Pierre Leval, America’s foremost copyright jurist and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals Second Circuit, told attendees that Google’s program to scan tens of millions of library books to create an online index “conferred gigantic benefits to authors and the public equally,” and did not “offer a substitute or interfere with authors’ exclusive rights” to control distribution.

“It was,” Leval concluded, “not a, quote, close case.”

Leval delivered his remarks in what was billed as a debate with intellectual property lawyer and former General Counsel for the U.S. Copyright Office, Jon Baumgarten. But at the outset, both Leval and Baumgarten—long time acquaintances—downplayed the debate aspect. Rather, at a time when proposed exceptions to copyright law have many publishers in the U.K. and Europe on edge, Leval spoke mainly as an ambassador for the American doctrine of fair use...

The key to American fair use, he said, was the flexibility the law gives judges. While he acknowledged there is something to be said for “predictability and bright line rules,” he insisted that hard and fast standards do not best serve the purpose of copyright...

In his portion of the talk, Baumgarten reiterated the publishing community’s main complaints with the decision, and about fair use in the digital age more broadly. Most prominently, that the decision overly expanded the right to freely copy others’ works, which, if widely practiced in the digital age will harm rightsholders. He also bemoaned what he saw as the courts’ expansion of what “transformative” means."

Free Speech Advocates, Publishers Wrestle With Questions Of Censorship; NPR, 1/12/17

Lynn Neary, NPR; 

Free Speech Advocates, Publishers Wrestle With Questions Of Censorship

"Both the NCAC and PEN America say the best response to hate speech is not more censorship.

"Trying to suppress hateful speech doesn't make it go away," says Bertin. "I mean, I think the whole idea of free speech requires us to be active participants, and when we hear ideas that we think are bad and harmful, it requires us to say 'why,' not just say 'shut up.'"

But publisher Dennis Johnson says another equally important right is at stake here: The right to protest.

"This is not about censoring right wing voices," he says. "This is about combating hate speech and its entry into the mainstream.""