U.S. Copyright Office, Issue No. 948 ; U.S. Copyright Office Joins Message on International Women’s Day 2022
"The U.S. Copyright Office has joined with national and regional intellectual property offices from around the world as well as with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to issue a message in support of women creators and innovators. This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is “Gender Equality for a Sustainable Tomorrow.”"
Matt Enis , Library Journal; Holocaust Denial Materials and Other Fascist Content Removed from Library Ebook Platforms
"In February, collection development librarians from U.S. public libraries pointed out on listservs and social media that several fascist ebooks—including ebooks that deny the Holocaust, a sympathetic biography of Hitler, and a new English translation of a title written by Nazi officer—were available for patrons to download on hoopla and were surfacing in searches alongside other nonfiction content. One of the titles was also available for libraries to license via OverDrive Marketplace. On February 22, the Library Freedom Project (LFP) and Library Futures (LF) released a joint statement demanding “full accountability for how these materials were selected for inclusion on the platforms and more transparency in the companies’ material selection processes going forward” along with a form letter template for concerned librarians to email the leaders of both companies...
Citing the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s collection of antisemitic content as an example, Potash argued that there are legitimate uses for this content, such as the study of propaganda or the history of the Holocaust. He emphasized that context-free antisemitic or Holocaust denial ebooks surfacing in a library’s popular history collection was highly unlikely to happen on OverDrive’s patron-facing platform.
“We are strong advocates of freedom of speech and First Amendment rights, and we also believe in trusting librarians,” Potash said. “So, every aspect of what gets added or discovered in a patron-facing site is because a librarian made that judgement call or selected the title.”...
Macrina contends that the current climate makes the removal of fascist propaganda even more important. “My view of free speech has an analysis of power in it,” she said. “Who is really at risk of being silenced? Who is really under threat for their speech? [Currently] it’s queer people, it’s Black people, it’s people of color in general…. Trans children right now have just become criminalized in Texas. So, the context of the book bannings that we’re seeing are part of a bigger issue that we are facing as a society that is challenging the very humanity of some of the most marginalized people…. Nazis went after those people. Nazis burned books.”"
American Libraries; ALA Announces $7 Million in Grants to Support Accessibility
DYNA ROCHMYANINGSIH, Undark; Opinion: Genomics’ Ethical Gray Areas Are Harming the Developing World
"Various ethics guidelines on health-related research — including UNESCO’s International Declaration on Human Genetic Data and international ethical guidelines published by the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences, or CIOMS, in collaboration with the World Health Organization — advise researchers to seek approval from an ethics committee in the host country. Such reviews are critical, bioethicists say, because cultural and social considerations of research ethics might vary between countries. In low-resource countries especially, ethics reviews are essential to protect the interests of participants and ensure that data are used in ways that benefit local communities.
Nowhere in Larena and Jakobsson’s paper, or in any of the subsequent publications based on the Philippines study, does the Uppsala team mention obtaining such an ethics approval in the Philippines — and Philippines officials say they never granted the team such an approval."
Agencies, The Guardian; ‘Shocking behaviour’: Russian gymnast shows ‘Z’ symbol on podium next to Ukrainian winner
"“The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) confirms that it will ask the Gymnastics Ethics Foundation to open disciplinary proceedings against Ivan Kuliak following his shocking behaviour at the Apparatus World Cup in Doha, Qatar,” a statement from the ruling body said."
Diana Kwon, Nature; ResearchGate dealt a blow in copyright lawsuit
"A landmark court case in which two major academic publishers sued the popular website ResearchGate for hosting 50 of their copyrighted papers has come to a close — although both sides say that they will appeal. The court in Munich, Germany, has not only prohibited ResearchGate from hosting the papers, but also ruled that it is responsible for copyright-infringing content uploaded on its platform. The decision has the potential to set a precedent for further restrictions on the site, which has 20 million users worldwide."
Anton Troianovski, The New York Times; Russia Takes Censorship to New Extremes, Stifling War Coverage
"Mr. Putin signed a law that effectively criminalizes any public opposition to or independent news reporting about the war against Ukraine. Taking effect as soon as Saturday, the law could make it a crime to simply call the war a “war” — the Kremlin says it is a “special military operation” — on social media or in a news article or broadcast."
Michael Schur , The Washington Post; ‘Good Place’ creator Michael Schur asks: How can we live a more ethical life?
"For every conscientious citizen, there’s a whole bunch of cheaters and liars and Wolf of Wall Street maniacs who see ethical rules as annoying obstacles to getting whatever they want — not, you know, once a month, but literally all the time. Perhaps we can break down this whole confusing morass into four simple questions that we can ask ourselves whenever we encounter any ethical dilemma, great or small:
What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Is there something we could do that’s better? Why is it better?...
“Trying to do the right thing” means we are bound to fail. Even making our best efforts to be good people, we’re gonna screw up. Constantly. We’ll make a decision we think is right and good, only to find out it was wrong and bad. We’ll do something we don’t think will affect anyone, only to find out it sure as hell did, and man are we in trouble. We will hurt our friends’ feelings, harm the environment, support evil companies, accidentally help an elderly Nazi cross the street. We will fail, and then fail again, and again, and again. On this test, which we take daily whether we want to or not, failure is guaranteed — in fact, even getting like a C-plus often seems hopelessly out of reach. All of which can make caring about what we do seem pointless.
But that failure means more, and has more potential value, if we do care. Because if we care about doing the right thing, we will also want to figure out why we failed, which will give us a better chance to succeed in the future. Failure hurts, and it’s embarrassing, but it’s also how we learn stuff — it’s called “trial and error,” not “one perfect trial and we nail it and then we’re done.” Plus, come on — the alternative to caring about our ethical lives is really no alternative at all. We’re supposed to just ignore all questions about our behavior? Phone it in, morally speaking? I can’t believe that’s the right move. If we care about anything in this life, we ought to care about whether what we’re doing is good or bad."
Good Housekeeping; 40 Best Maya Angelou Quotes to Live By
"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."
George Iskander, Scientific American; The Manhattan Project Shows Scientists’ Moral and Ethical Responsibilities
"Collective action has power, but it starts with the individual."
Emma Vail , The Record by Recorded Future; Yik Yak has returned — and so have reports of cyberbullying, students say
"Yik Yak, an anonymous social media app that was shuttered in 2017 after coming under fire for facilitating cyberbullying, was resurrected last year with an emphasis on new protective measures including anti-bullying guardrails. But students and watchdog groups are already reporting instances of abuse, and say that the new safeguards aren’t enough to stop people from using the app for cyberbullying.
The app’s targeted consumers are college and high school students, allowing users to post or ‘Yak’ anonymously to others within a 5-mile radius. First launched in 2013 by Furman University students Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington, the app experienced a rollercoaster of initial success followed by sharp criticism that would lead to its demise in 2017.
Advertised to be a safer and welcoming space, the app relaunched in August of 2021. New measures were put in place to ensure user safety including a downvote system. Posts that get 5 downvotes by other users are immediately removed from the platform. Yik Yak has implemented a one-strike-and-you’re-out policy that will ban the user from the app if the “violation is serious,” as stated on the website."
American Libraries ; A Broad Look at Broadband
, Info Docket, Library Journal; Statements of Solidarity with Colleagues in Ukraine by Archive, Library, and Other Organizations
"Statements of Solidarity and Support (Latest Entries in Bold)kansascity.com via NewsBreak; KC-area library leader quits after trustees rejected diversity, condemned LGBT program
"Steven Potter, director of the Mid-Continent Public Library in Independence, Missouri, is resigning after more than a decade at the helm, and a wrong-way shift to the hard right in library board ideology has something to do with it."
Harriet Sherwood, Dan Milmo and agencies, The Guardian; BBC, CNN and other global news outlets suspend reporting in Russia
"The new law, passed on Friday, makes intentionally spreading “fake” or “false” news about the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine a criminal offence. President Valdimir Putin approved the new law on Friday evening, according to the Tass state news agency.
It came after the Kremlin accused the BBC of playing a “determined role in undermining the Russian stability and security”.
Davie said: “This legislation appears to criminalise the process of independent journalism. It leaves us no other option than to temporarily suspend the work of all BBC News journalists and their support staff within the Russian Federation while we assess the full implications of this unwelcome development.
“Our BBC News service in Russian will continue to operate from outside Russia.
“The safety of our staff is paramount and we are not prepared to expose them to the risk of criminal prosecution simply for doing their jobs. I’d like to pay tribute to all of them, for their bravery, determination and professionalism.
“We remain committed to making accurate, independent information available to audiences around the world, including the millions of Russians who use our news services. Our journalists in Ukraine and around the world will continue to report on the invasion of Ukraine.”"
Diana Marszalek, PRovokeMedia ; Ronn Torossian Admits To "Ethical Lapses" Amid News Site Controversy
"After finally admitting to owning Everything-PR, 5WPR founder and CEO Ronn Torossian apologized for his lack of transparency on the issue, acknowledging making “missteps including ethical lapses and errors in judgment” during the 20-year history of his firm...
Torossian’s apology comes following Crain’s New York Business’s report last week that he does indeed own Everything-PR, despite years of denial, and used the site to boost his own firm while slamming other agencies...
“In addition to being a cowardly and blatant violation of PRSA's Code of Ethics, Ronn’s actions are a stain on our profession and undermine our role as guardians of facts and integrity for those we serve. We strongly condemn his and his firm’s direct role in perpetrating disinformation while pretending to be a legitimate industry news site," said PRSA-NY's board said in a statement."
Cade Metz, The New York Times; David Boggs, Co-Inventor of Ethernet, Dies at 71
Thanks to the invention he helped create in the 1970s, people can send email over an office network or visit a website through a coffee shop hot spot.
"David Boggs, an electrical engineer and computer scientist who helped create Ethernet, the computer networking technology that connects PCs to printers, other devices and the internet in offices and homes, died on Feb. 19 in Palo Alto, Calif...
Before becoming the dominant networking protocol, Ethernet was challenged by several other technologies. In the early 1980s, Mr. Metcalfe said, when Mr. Boggs took the stage at a California computing conference, at the San Jose Convention Center, to discuss the future of networking, a rival technologist questioned the mathematical theory behind Ethernet, telling Mr. Boggs that it would never work with large numbers of machines.
His response was unequivocal. “Seems Ethernet does not work in theory,” he said, “only in practice.”"
American Libraries; ALA Stands with Ukrainian Library Community
"On March 1, the American Library Association (ALA) released a statement in support of the Ukrainian library community. The full statement reads as follows:
ALA and its divisions support our Ukrainian colleagues and will work with the global library community to answer the appeal from the Ukrainian Library Association to provide accurate information as a means to support democracy and freedom of expression.
ALA has adopted into its policies Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.”
ALA continues to encourage our members to help raise public consciousness regarding the many ways in which disinformation and media manipulation are used to mislead public opinion in all spheres of life, and further encourages librarians to facilitate this awareness with collection development, library programming, and public outreach that draws the public’s attention to those alternative sources of information dedicated to countering and revealing the disinformation.
American Library Association Executive Board
American Association of School Librarians Board of Directors
Association for Library Service to Children Board of Directors
Association of College and Research Libraries Board of Directors
Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures Board of Directors
Public Library Association Board of Directors
Reference and User Services Association Board of Directors
Young Adult Library Services Association Board of Directors
United for Libraries Board of Directors"
Tessa Solomon , ART News; A New Code for Ethical Collecting Calls on the Art Market to Do Better by Transparently Working with Dealers
"In 2020, Pepe gathered a group of like-minded collectors from around the world—Pedro Barbosa, Iordanis Kerenidis, Andre Zivanari, Sandra Terdjman, Haro Cumbusyan, and Jessica and Evrim Oralkan—to form a think tank dedicated to tackling the problem. The collective, working with an advisory team of 15 curators and artists, spent over a year drafting a set of principles and standards using “the language of professionals,” or what other industries use as a means of heading off power imbalances, according to Pepe. The draft is a living document, continually open to edits and additions as deeper dimensions of the issue reveal themselves.
Last week, the collective released the text of their efforts at the ARCO Madrid art fair. Titled Code of Conduct for Contemporary Art Collectors, the 11-page manual provides a template for collectors of all levels for ethically acquiring, exhibiting, and donating art, which was also reviewed by the group’s advisory team.
The code includes how to interact with dealers responsibly and transparently, how to support institutions and serve on their governing boards, and how to build and maintain collections. Each bullet point is broken down into several subcategories—the section on dealing with dealers, for example, covers “holding dealers accountable to pay artist[s] promptly,” and “not requesting artworks below fair market price,” such as asking for a discount...
This isn’t the first of ethical guideline introduced for the art world, though it is the most comprehensive. Previous attempts include the Basel Art Trade Guidelines, published by the Basel Institute on Governance, and the American Alliance of Museums’s Code of Ethics for Museums, but enforcement of either is uneven and the scope of their concerns is significantly narrower...
The group plans to update the code yearly, adding new concerns as they arise and other recommendations crowdsourced from a survey on the website. Oralkan added, “It’s a good thing—living documents shouldn’t have an end.”"
Colin Moynihan, The New York Times; Kandinsky Painting Returned to Jewish Heirs by Amsterdam Museum
Dutch officials, citing their “moral duty,” gave over the work which had been held by the Stedelijk Museum since 1940.
"“As a city, we bear a great responsibility for dealing with the indescribable suffering and injustice inflicted on the Jewish population in the Second World War,” Touria Meliani, a deputy mayor, said in the statement. “To the extent that anything can be restored, we as a society have a moral duty to act accordingly.”
The issue of whether to return the work had become part of a broader debate over how Dutch authorities should evaluate restitution requests."
Stanley Kurtz, The New York Times; The Battle for the Soul of the Library
"Ultimately, librarians who work to balance a library’s holdings will be far more persuasive advocates for intellectual freedom than those with a political ax to grind.
There is a lesson here for the professions upon whose trustworthy refereeing our society depends for its stability: judges, government bureaucrats, journalists and more. These occupations should work to recapture lost neutrality. As our political conflicts deepen, we need our traditionally fair and impartial referees far more, not less, than before."
Smriti Mallapaty, Nature; How to protect the first ‘CRISPR babies’ prompts ethical debate
"Two prominent bioethicists in China are calling on the government to set up a research centre dedicated to ensuring the well-being of the first children born with edited genomes. Scientists have welcomed the discussion, but many are concerned that the pair’s approach would lead to unnecessary surveillance of the children.
The proposal comes ahead of the possibly imminent release from prison of He Jiankui, the researcher who in 2018 shocked the world by announcing that he had created babies with altered genomes. He’s actions were widely condemned by scientists around the world, who called for a global moratorium on editing embryos destined for implantation. Several ethics committees have since concluded that the technology should not be used to make changes that can be passed on."
Yuval Noah Harari, The Guardian; Why Vladimir Putin has already lost this war
"Nations are ultimately built on stories. Each passing day adds more stories that Ukrainians will tell not only in the dark days ahead, but in the decades and generations to come. The president who refused to flee the capital, telling the US that he needs ammunition, not a ride; the soldiers from Snake Island who told a Russian warship to “go fuck yourself”; the civilians who tried to stop Russian tanks by sitting in their path. This is the stuff nations are built from. In the long run, these stories count for more than tanks."
Heather Kelly, The Washington Post ; How to avoid falling for and spreading misinformation about Ukraine
"Anyone with a phone and an Internet connection is able to watch the war in Ukraine unfold live online, or at least some version of it. Across social media, posts are flying up faster than most fact-checkers and moderators can handle, and they’re an unpredictable mix of true, fake, out of context and outright propaganda messages.
How do you know what to trust, what not to share and what to report? Tech companies have said they’re trying to do more to help users spot misinformation about Ukraine, with labels and fact checking. On Saturday, Facebook parent company Meta announced it was adding more fact-checkers in the region dedicated to posts about the war. It’s also warning users who attempt to share war-related photo when they’re more than a year old — a common type of misinformation.
Here are some basic tools everyone should use when consuming breaking news online."
FOR SUBSCRIBERS, The San Diego Union-Tribune; The Backstory: Paywalls and the ethics of charging for news content
[Kip Currier: Not a joke...This story --
is only available to subscribers.
Hey, San Diego Union-Tribune, you might want to think about making a piece about the ethics of paywalls accessible to non-subscribers too. You might actually persuade some people to your viewpoint and generate some worthwhile conversation about the pros and cons of paywalls.
Bad editorial and marketing decisions, as subscriptions to many newspapers continue to decrease and local news coverage is increasingly endangered.]
LYDIA SAAD, Gallup ; Military Brass, Judges Among Professions at New Image Lows
"Gallup's annual rating of the honesty and ethics of various professions finds five of the 22 occupations rated this year at new lows in public esteem. While the majority of Americans continue to believe military officers have high ethics (61%), the score is down 10 percentage points since it was last measured, in 2017. TV reporters' ethics rating has fallen nine points to 14% over the same period, and judges' has declined five points to 38%...
The latest results are based on Gallup's annual Honesty and Ethics survey, conducted Dec. 1-16, in which Americans were asked to rate the honesty and ethics of different occupational groups as very high, high, average, low or very low.
Gallup first conducted its Honesty and Ethics poll in 1976 and has updated it annually since 1990. A handful of professions have been on the list every year, while Gallup asks about others periodically.
For the 20th straight year, nurses lead Gallup's annual ranking of professions for having high honesty and ethics, eclipsing medical doctors in second place by 14 points -- 81% vs. 67%."
Alice Nuttall, Book Riot; WHY IS PUBLISHING PLAGIARISM STILL POSSIBLE?
"Spotting plagiarism in books, though, still seems to be a matter for eagle-eyed readers or wronged authors. Why, in a world where there’s an app or a programme for everything, is publishing plagiarism still possible?"
Sallyann Price , American Libraries Magazine ; The Public Interest
Opinion by Frida Ghitis, CNN ; Putin's war was launched on a runway of lies
"In the end, Putin did exactly what President Biden told the world he would do: He invaded Ukraine on a runway of lies.
In Russia, where most people get their news from government-controlled media, many believed Putin's claims of a nefarious threat from Ukraine. But the rest of the world saw the propaganda fall flat in real time.
"Orwellian" doesn't begin to describe the falsehoods. Putin announced he was sending "peacekeepers," as he ordered his military machine to move into Ukrainian territory. His soldiers went into Ukraine to supposedly "de-Nazify" -- smearing the Nazi label on a country that is a democracy, though a flawed one, whose president happens to be Jewish. Putin claimed Moscow needed to move in to defend Ukraine's Russian speakers from a nonexistent "genocide" by Ukrainians (a tactic made infamous of World War II).
Washington succeeded in thoroughly delegitimizing not only the phony Russian justification for war, but Putin's own credibility before the entire world. It may take some time for the Russian people, too, to grasp the depth of the deception, but eventually they will."
BILL SCHACKNER, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE; At Pitt, war or not, Russian and Ukrainian cultures share a bond
Immigrants who helped build the 'Steel city' are part of famed Nationality Rooms
[Kip Currier: An uplifting, poignant article, amidst the wrenching scenes emanating from an under-siege Ukraine.
The Nationality Rooms (more aptly, Classrooms) are one of the United States' truly singular treasures -- at the nexus of cultures and education -- and are my favorite place to take visitors, having had the privilege of serving as a Quo Vadis student organization volunteer tour guide for these architectural marvels during my undergraduate years at Pitt.]
"The Russian room, dedicated in 1938, and the Ukrainian room, dating to 1990, are historical treasures. But just as important, they are functioning classrooms at the University of Pittsburgh — part of the Cathedral of Learning's 31 famed Nationality Rooms.
Built on ethnic pride and donations, the rooms honor immigrants whose labor in the steel mills helped make Pittsburgh what it is today. In that, the two Eastern European communities share a deep bond.
Only now, Russia has invaded Ukraine and the countries are at war. Pitt undergraduates who routinely sit in these rooms taking classes that have nothing to do with geopolitics find themselves surrounded by trappings of cultures now locked in bloody conflict.
Time will tell if Pitt can turn all that into a teachable moment.
The rooms, like the people whose contributions built them, have always been about advancing understanding globally across cultures, said Kati Csoman, director of Pitt’s Nationality Rooms.
"They are intended to be spaces of, really, timelessness and cultural values," she said. "These are volunteers who have worked hard to raise funds for scholarships."
The Nationality Rooms are located on the first and third floors of the Cathedral, one of the world’s tallest classroom buildings, 42 stories high, its summit visible for miles beyond the sprawling Oakland campus. The massive Indiana limestone structure was opened in 1936 after a decade of construction.
Then-Chancellor John Bowman wanted to harness the enthusiasm of immigrant mill workers by establishing classrooms that would honor their traditions and inspire their children to seek a college education. That idea became the Nationality Rooms."
Nathan Allen and Guillermo Martinez , Reuters; World's first octopus farm stirs ethical debate
"Since the 2020 documentary "My Octopus Teacher" captured the public imagination with its tale of a filmmaker's friendship with an octopus, concern for their wellbeing has grown.
Last year, researchers at the London School of Economics concluded from a review of 300 scientific studies that octopus were sentient beings capable of experiencing distress and happiness, and that high-welfare farming would be impossible.
Raul Garcia, who heads the WWF conservation organisation's fisheries operations in Spain, agrees.
"Octopuses are extremely intelligent and extremely curious. And it's well known they are not happy in conditions of captivity," he told Reuters."
Calvin Reid, Publishers Weekly; PRH, Internet Archive Clash Over ‘Maus’
"However, Lisa Lucas, senior v-p and publisher of Pantheon Schocken, the PRH division which publishes Maus, denies the allegation. In response, Lucas emphatically denied the claim. “That is not true,” she said, framing the issue around copyright concerns rather than consumer demand. “Art Spiegelman has never consented to an e-book of Maus," Lucas said. "Therefore, PRH asked the Internet Archive to remove the PDF and stop pirating Maus because it violates Art Spiegelman’s copyright.”
Although best known for its collection of public domain titles, the Internet Archive also offers a lending library of more than 2 million modern titles “not in the public domain,” Freeland said. IA offers digital lending of these titles under a controversial policy called Controlled Digital Lending, or CDL, in which IA scans the book and lends out a PDF of the title, one copy per lender at a time, much like a physical book.
In June 2020, four publishers, including PRH, filed a lawsuit against the IA charging it with copyright infringement. The case is still working its way through the courts."
Morgridge Institute for Research ; Vote now in the 2022 Morgridge Ethics Cartooning Competition
"Sixteen cartoons have been selected as finalists in the 2022 Ethics Cartooning Competition, an annual contest sponsored by the Morgridge Institute.
The competition encourages ethics conversations and deliberation among scientists conducting biomedical research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and affiliated biomedical research centers or institutes.
A panel of judges has chosen the following cartoons for display to the public. You can vote below and help determine the 2022 winners!
This year’s cartoons depict a variety of research ethics topics, such as the ethics of scientific funding and publishing, the moral status of brain organoids, the ethics of experimenting on animals, environmental and social impacts of science, and problems of communication between scientists and non-scientists."
