Copyright

  • Most Topular Stories

  • What to Read When Not Here

    Copyfight
    7 May 2012 | 12:23 pm
    Copyfight is getting comment-bombed again. I'm cleaning up as fast as I can, but things are sluggish. Apologies in advance. Meanwhile, let me give you a couple of pointers to things I think are worth reading relative to the past week's stories. Amanda Palmer wrote a guest post on techdirt about her successful Kickstarter, which is well on its way to being the biggest ever. As I mentioned last week, one of the few elements I see in common among all the new success models is relentless fan service and Amanda addresses that issue head-on. She talks about "all of that real human connecting" and…

  • Judge comes down hard on publishers, Apple in e-book case

    paidContent
    Jeff John Roberts
    15 May 2012 | 3:04 pm
    In a strongly worded opinion, US District Judge Denise Cote rejected requests by Apple and five book publishers to throw out a class action suit that accuses them of price-fixing. Citing ongoing state, federal and international antitrust investigations, Cote turned down arguments that Apple and the publishers had acted independently when they changed the pricing model for e-books. (For more details on the case, see “Everything you need to know about the DOJ lawsuit in one post.”) Cote’s opinion is at times remarkable for the emphatic language in which she decries the alleged…

  • Wants NDA+ for Taiwanese Manufacturer

    Dear Rich: Nolo's Intellectual Property Blog
    The Dear Rich Staff
    15 May 2012 | 8:00 am
    Dear Rich: I’m trying to find a triple-N agreement to send to my Taiwan manufacture (NNN = non-disclosure, non-use and non-compete). I am concerned that customers in the Far East will try to get him to manufacture our product directly for them. If we have a good NNN agreement, it will help dissuade him from doing that. Can you direct me to any resources? We've spotted a few of these templates floating around the Internet, but from our research (and limited experience) it's not a good idea to use off-the-shelf NDA-type agreements with foreign manufacturers. The main reason is…

  • Copyright & Licensing Information

    Licensing Digital Content
    8 May 2012 | 7:31 pm
    A newly designed and content-rich site at has the information you are looking for. Check the articles, postings, newsletters, online and in-person courses. Visit there now!

  • How The Harvard Book Store is Reinventing Retail Bookselling

    Copyfight
    14 May 2012 | 2:07 pm
    Writing for Forbes last week, Phil Johnson profiles the modern-day re-creation of the venerable Harvard Book Store. When I moved to Cambridge in the pre-Web days it boasted more bookstores (and ice cream parlors) per square meter than any other place on earth. Awesome stuff. But over the years they've been dying out, like small independent and big chain bookstores everywhere. When the biggest of the lot went under it seemed like confirmation that nothing could compete with Amazon and other online offerings. But lo, Harvard Book Store is back, under the direction of Jeff Mayersohn, who…
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    Copyfight

  • How The Harvard Book Store is Reinventing Retail Bookselling

    14 May 2012 | 2:07 pm
    Writing for Forbes last week, Phil Johnson profiles the modern-day re-creation of the venerable Harvard Book Store. When I moved to Cambridge in the pre-Web days it boasted more bookstores (and ice cream parlors) per square meter than any other place on earth. Awesome stuff. But over the years they've been dying out, like small independent and big chain bookstores everywhere. When the biggest of the lot went under it seemed like confirmation that nothing could compete with Amazon and other online offerings. But lo, Harvard Book Store is back, under the direction of Jeff Mayersohn, who…

  • "The Mongoliad" As Business Model

    10 May 2012 | 11:39 am
    I recently got to hear Neal Stephenson talk at MIT. As usual, he was a pleasure*, and the talk ranged over a wide variety of topics, from why America is in a massive idea deficit to why we should all stand up more and sit down less. What he didn't really discuss, to my disappointment, was the Mongoliad. Fortunately, Mark Teppo's "Big Idea" post in Scalzi's Whatever gives a little hint of what's going on here. The Mongoliad on offer here is a book - a collaborative work. But what's of interest to Copyfight is the structure and entity that produced this book. To quote Teppo:[W]e formed a…

  • Village Person Terminates Cartel Rights

    9 May 2012 | 1:27 pm
    Way back in August of last year, I noticed that there was a storm brewing over so-called "termination rights" in music recordings. That storm appears to have had a first crash, with former Village People member Victor Willis reclaiming his rights in some of their hit songs. To review quickly: a feature of the Copyright Act that went into force in 1978 gave record companies 35 years' worth of profits from albums, after which the artists would be allowed to reclaim their rights in the music. Several artists have done so, and the Cartel is fighting them. According to Larry Rohter's NY Times…

  • Kindle Sales Dropping Already, Publishers Back Off IPad Apps

    9 May 2012 | 8:36 am
    Last month I noted that Charles Stross was giving the stand-alone e-reader 2-5 years, whereas I was betting that sales had already peaked and we'd see a decline after the holiday season this year. I might have been too optimistic. Now comes Jon Mitchell on ReadWriteWeb, reporting that "Kindle Sales Plummet". He claims that sucks but I think he's exaggerating. Anyway, Amazon doesn't exactly report its sales of Kindles, so it takes a little bit of sleuthing to infer this. Mainly the inference comes from E Ink Holdings, which supplies the screens for Kindles, reporting that it had a quarterly…

  • What to Read When Not Here

    7 May 2012 | 12:23 pm
    Copyfight is getting comment-bombed again. I'm cleaning up as fast as I can, but things are sluggish. Apologies in advance. Meanwhile, let me give you a couple of pointers to things I think are worth reading relative to the past week's stories. Amanda Palmer wrote a guest post on techdirt about her successful Kickstarter, which is well on its way to being the biggest ever. As I mentioned last week, one of the few elements I see in common among all the new success models is relentless fan service and Amanda addresses that issue head-on. She talks about "all of that real human connecting" and…
 
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    Creative Commons » Commons News

  • Saylor Foundation expands $20,000 Open Textbook Challenge

    Anna Daniel
    10 May 2012 | 11:36 am
    The Saylor Foundation provides global grants of US $20,000 to college textbook authors seeking to openly license their educational textbooks for use in free Saylor college-level courses. Authors maintain their copyright and license textbooks to the world via Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) to enable maximum reuse, remix, and redistribution. To learn more and apply, visit Saylor’s Open Textbook Challenge page for more details. In addition to providing grants for existing textbooks, the Saylor Foundation has announced a new option to award authors seeking to create open textbooks that…

  • CC News: The Liberated Pixel Cup

    Jane Park
    9 May 2012 | 2:38 pm
    Stay up to date with CC news by subscribing to our weblog and following us on Twitter. The Liberated Pixel Cup: an epic contest for gaming freedom We’re pleased to announce the launch of the Liberated Pixel Cup, a free-as-in-freedom game authoring competition being launched in cooperation between Creative Commons, the Free Software Foundation, Mozilla, and OpenGameArt! Liberated Pixel Cup is a two-part competition: make a bunch of awesome free culture licensed artwork, and program a bunch of free software games that use it. Hopefully many cool projects can come out of this… but…

  • Day Against DRM 2012

    Jane Park
    4 May 2012 | 11:29 am
    Today is Day Against DRM. If you don’t already, you should know that DRM stands for Digital Rights Management (or probably more accurately, Digital Restrictions Management), and that we have blogged about this day before for good reasons, including, DRM causes problems regarding fair use, lack of competition, privacy and security breaches, forced obsolescence, and more… (Read the Wikipedia article on DRM.) CC provides tools to make it easier for creators and owners to say what rights they reserve and permissions they grant — maximizing sharing and collaboration. This is in…

  • LRMI integration workshop at Content in Context

    Greg Grossmeier
    4 May 2012 | 10:51 am
    This year the Content in Context conference (organized by the Association of Education Publishers and the Association of American Publishers School Division) will host a free Metadata Lab centered around educational metadata adoption. The main highlights of the lab: Education data standards overview with Jack Buckley (NCES/CEDS), Ross Santy (US DOE), and Michael Jay (Educational Systemics) LRMI info session Group discussions One-on-one meetings Of particular interest is the LRMI session, which will include A project update by Greg Grossmeier (Creative Commons) A discussion led by Brandt Redd…

  • Musician Dan Bull reaches #9 on UK indie charts using CC0

    Jane Park
    2 May 2012 | 12:13 pm
    Dan bull / Tim Dobson / CC BY-SA Indie musician Dan Bull released “Sharing is Caring” into the public domain using CC0. Recently, “Sharing is Caring” reached #9 on the UK independent chart and #35 on the UK R&B Chart. Creative Commons United Kingdom interviewed Dan about why he chose to release his music for free: “It’s up to the individual musician what they want to do and it depends on their principles. In the past I have gone the way of having no licensing on my music at all, or where licensing is necessary, I make it known that I have no problem…
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    Copyright Litigation Blog

  • Art Law: Art Dealers in Uproar Over Nazi-Looted Schiele Case

    14 May 2012 | 9:28 am
    Art dealers are in an uproar over Bakalar v. Vavra, a case involving a work by Egon Schiele that was stolen from Viennese cabaret performer commenced in the spring of 2005 in the Southern District of New York.  The case is featured in this month's Art Newspaper here.   My firm represents the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum.Dealer Richard Nagy won't say how many Schieles he has that came from the collection of Fritz Grunbaum.    For more information on art stolen from Fritz Grunbaum and the dealers and museums that have refused to assist the heirs in…

  • Art Law - How To Avoid Forgeries When Buying Fine Art

    3 Mar 2012 | 12:37 pm
    Please check out Paul Sullivan’s column Wealth Matters titled How to Avoid Forgeries When Buying Fine Art in today’s New York Times, link below: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/your-money/is-that-a-real-motherwell-better-make-sure-before-buying.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all For those with an interest in art law, I will be speaking at a panel on March 9 at The Armory Show 2012.  Christie’sFine Art Storage Services (CFASS) presents The Complexities Surrounding Authentication.  With the recent disbanding of high-profile authentication committees, the market is forced to…

  • Hydrofracking Filmmaker Critical of Halliburton Arrested Trying To Protect NYC Drinking Water

    3 Feb 2012 | 1:53 pm
    Hyrdrofracking video embedded aboveFilmmaker Josh Fox, creator of Gasland, was arrested while trying to film Congressional hearings on hydrofracking.   According to media accounts, Republican lawmakers lawlessly threw him out.Hydrofracking is a toxic, pollutive process graphically illustrated in Gasland used to smash shale to release methane gas.  The problem is, methane gas pollutes drinking water - to the point it is so toxic you can't touch it and it will actually catch on fire.  Halliburton has so far kept the toxic cocktail of pollutants that it uses secret,…

  • Research Works Act - HR 3699 - Stealing From the Public Domain?

    24 Jan 2012 | 7:30 am
    In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Golan v. Holder last week, bills like the Research Works Act, which is designed to restrict access and limit sharing of scientific data, become more ominous.   More on the Research Works Act from Wikipedia here.   The full text below.Congressman Darrell Issa and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney are co-sponsors.Richard Poynder's take here and here. The American Association of Publishers is behind this apparently legislation.112th CONGRESS1st SessionH. R. 3699To ensure the continued publication and integrity of peer-reviewed…

  • Murder, Mystery and Egon Schiele's Dead City February 8 at Jewish Federation of San Antonio

    23 Jan 2012 | 2:00 pm
    Thanks to the Federal Bar Association and the Jewish Federation of San Antonio, I will be speaking at the Jewish Federation of San Antonio on February 8 about Egon Schiele's Dead City and the mystery and litigation that it has spawned since District Attorney Robert Morgenthau seized it in 1998 at the Museum of Modern Art.The MoMA's possession and concealment of artworks stolen from Holocaust survivors has come under fire recently, check out William Cohan's MoMA's Problematic Provenances in December ArtNews here.For more stolen art by Egon Schiele at the MoMA visit Art Stolen from Fritz…
 
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    Coyle's InFormation

  • RDA, DBMS, RDF

    13 May 2012 | 12:42 pm
    I have written before about some issues relating to RDA and RDF. Today I want to actually consider some things we should consider that should cause us to question the concept of "RDA in RDF." For many decades we have been using relational databases to store our bibliographic data, bibliographic data that we create and exchange using the MARC format. Doing so was not by any means natural or intuitive because there is nothing about the structure or content of the MARC record that lends itself to being stored and managed in a relational database. The results were often awkward, inefficient, and…

  • WIsh list: dump the desk

    3 May 2012 | 12:35 pm
    When I worked for the University of California we moved our offices a number of times, and sometimes into space that was being newly renovated. During each of these moves we were given diagrams and asked to choose a configuration for our cubicles or offices. One of the configurations, at least for offices, was the option to be sitting behind a desk rather than having the desk against a wall. In executive offices, the "behind the desk" configuration is de riguer. Its purpose is to put a solid barrier between the occupant and the visitor, and it symbolizes the power of the person who sits…

  • Digital Urtext

    25 Apr 2012 | 10:07 am
    As we reach a point where many of the classic books of literature and science published before the magical date of 1923 have been digitized, it is time to consider the quality of those copies and the issue of redundancy.A serious concern in the times before printing was that copying -- and it was hand-copying in those times -- introduced errors into the text. When you received a copy of a Greek or Latin work you might be reading a text with key words missing or mis-represented. In our digitizing efforts we have reproduced this problem, and are in a similar situation as that of the Aldine…

  • Clarification from Sweden on OCLC negotiations

    19 Apr 2012 | 7:56 am
    The National Library of Sweden has issued a short blog post clarifying their objections to the WorldCat Rights and Responsibilities (WCRR) policy. The inability of the two parties to reconcile these issues led the library to break off contract negotiations with OCLC. I find the Library's objections to be logical and undeniable:1. The relationship with OCLC around record use is asymmetrical, with OCLC having the right to do whatever it wishes with the records while library use is restricted by the policy.2. The policy actually requires libraries to favor WorldCat over other services, and thus…

  • Content and carrier

    8 Apr 2012 | 5:06 am
    In the midst of a discussion regarding the description of extents in RDA, I came to a realization that I might have noticed sooner if I did cataloging. As it is, I am probably coming to this a bit late.RDA chapter three describes carriers. This is where you find all of the terms of measurement that appear in library data, things like:12 slides1 audiocassette1 mapbox 16 × 30 × 20 cmThere is a controlled vocabulary in RDA for carriers. It has 54 entries that are in 8 categories:audio carrierscomputer carriersmicroform carriersmicroscopic carriersprojected image carriersstereographic…
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    Plagiarism Today

  • Plagiarism: When Digital Worlds Collide

    Jonathan Bailey
    15 May 2012 | 2:23 pm
    One of the most difficult aspects of dealing with plagiarism is that plagiarism, primarily, is an ethical issue. Though there’s a great deal of overlap between plagiarism and copyright, the core issue of when unattributed copying/reuse becomes plagiarism is an ethical one and, like most matters of ethics, there’s a lot of variance between person to person.However, in addition to individuals having different views on plagiarism, different industries and even fields of study have diverging views as well. A novelist, for example, faces a different standard of plagiarism than an…

  • 3 Count: Openly Wifi

    Jonathan Bailey
    15 May 2012 | 10:37 am
    Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.1: Oracle Trial Will Continue Into Damages PhaseFirst off today, Sam Varghese at ITWire writes that the judge in the Google/Oracle case has ruled that the trial will enter into the third phase, the damages phase, after the patent portion is complete. Oracle had asked the judge to postpone the final phase until after a retrial on the copyright claims had been held but that request was denied. The case began when Oracle sued Google claiming that the search giant had infringed their copyrights and patents when they…

  • Copyright 2.0 Show – Episode 238 – Partial Verdict

    Jonathan Bailey
    14 May 2012 | 2:06 pm
    It is Friday Monday again and that means that it is time for another episode of the Copyright 2.0 Show.It was a busy week for copyright news as we have an important, if ambiguous, jury ruling in the Google/Oracle case. We also have the return of Perfect 10 to the show as it sues Tumblr over allegedly ignoring DMCA notices and one of the first copyright termination cases is ruled on, in favor of the artist.Please note though that, due to some technical difficulties with the recording, the audio in this episode is of much lower quality than what you are likely used to. I had to rip the audio…

  • 3 Count: Pirate Pay

    Jonathan Bailey
    14 May 2012 | 11:13 am
    Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.1: Judge Rules Largely for GSU in Copyright CaseFirst off today, Bill Rankin of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Georgie State University has largely won its case against various publishers, including Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press and SAGE Publications, over its electronic lending program. The judge in the case ruled that some 69 of 74 alleged infringements by the university qualified for fair use. The system at GSU allows professors to share excerpts of textbooks with students…

  • 3 Count: Out of Tune

    Jonathan Bailey
    11 May 2012 | 1:03 pm
    Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.1: EMI Says Bankruptcy Won’t Protect MP3tunes from Copyright SuitFirst off today, Greg Sandoval at CNet reports that MP3Tunes, a music storage service that let users access and stream songs via the Web, has declared bankruptcy. However, the music label EMI has said that the filing will not affect their ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit and they are skeptical of MP3Tunes’ claim that it was the lawsuit that put them out of business. The lawsuit was filed in 2007 when EMI accused MP3Tunes of…
 
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    Beyond the Book

  • BTB #296: Free E-books Is Gluejar’s Mission

    rob@burstmarketing.com (BurstMarketing)
    13 May 2012 | 1:00 pm
    It sounds like a caper in a Wallace and Gromit movie. Liberate the e-books. But that unlikely mission is the work of Gluejar. A technologist, entrepreneur, and writer, Eric Hellman is Gluejar’s president, who became interested in technologies surrounding e-journals and libraries after 10 years at Bell Labs in physics research. “We want to offer rightsholders the opportunity to get a one-time payment in exchange for making their books into Creative Commons-licensed e-books. And the way we’re going to do this is by crowd-funding campaigns,” Hellman explains for CCC’s Chris Kenneally.

  • PW’s Week Ahead 05.11.12

    rob@burstmarketing.com (BurstMarketing)
    11 May 2012 | 1:01 am
    Authors’ representatives – otherwise known as literary agents – have done some writing on their own this week. In a missive to the US Department of Justice, the board of the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR) conveyed “in the strongest terms possible” its opposition to a proposed settlement with three publishers over alleged e-book price fixing. “The AAR acknowledges they have no idea whether the publishers that settled colluded or not,” PW’s Andrew Albanese tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “And, all good points aside, that’s the key issue here. If these CEOs…

  • BTB #295: The Trouble With E-Book Pricing

    rob@burstmarketing.com (BurstMarketing)
    10 May 2012 | 8:00 am
    Consumers are taking to e-books fast – almost as fast as they have taken to the readers and tablets where e-books live in the digital world. A February 2012 report from the Pew Research Center found that one in five US adults had read an e-book in the last year. The latest figures available from the American Association of Publishers show that year-over-year sales of adult e-book titles rose 49.4 percent in January 2012, from $66.6M to $99.5 M; children & young adult eBook climbed 475 percent over last year from just under $4M to $22M. But there is trouble in e-book Eden. News that the…

  • BTB #294: E-Books – You Can’t Write Just One

    rob@burstmarketing.com (BurstMarketing)
    6 May 2012 | 1:00 pm
    The price of e-books is on many people’s minds, including the Federal Department of Justice, which recently sued Apple and three leading publishing houses. At least as much as consumers care about getting the lowest price, however, authors and publishers care about getting a fair price for their works. But when you’re the author and the publisher at the same time, how do you know you’re getting the best deal and the most sales? “What we’ve learned is that a volume of titles makes such a difference. For those of you out there who are self-published authors or for those of you out…

  • PW’s Week Ahead 05.04.12

    rob@burstmarketing.com (BurstMarketing)
    4 May 2012 | 2:21 pm
    The parties returned to Judge Denny Chin’s Manhattan courtroom yesterday for motions in the Google Books Case. The search engine giant sought to remove the Authors Guild as an associational plaintiff, even as the Guild pushed for its own motion to certify the class of authors. And what about the publishers? Well, they were elsewhere, keeping busy with the burgeoning e-book market. “From the questions he asked from the bench, it certainly seems like Judge Denny Chin wants to see the Authors Guild lawsuit against Google and its library book-scanning program proceed as a class action, and…
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    DigitalKoans

  • Association of American Publishers Issues Statement on Georgia State University E-Reserves Copyright Case Ruling

    Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
    15 May 2012 | 10:03 pm
    The Association of American Publishers has issued a statement on the Georgia State University e-reserves copyright case ruling. Here's an excerpt from the press release: At the same time, we are disappointed with aspects of the Court's decision. Most importantly, the Court failed to examine the copying activities at GSU in their full context. Many faculty members have provided students with electronic anthologies of copyrighted course materials which are not different in kind from copyrighted print materials. In addition, the Court's analysis of fair use principles was legally…

  • Digital Resources Librarian at Sam Houston State University Library

    Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
    15 May 2012 | 10:03 pm
    The Sam Houston State University Library is recruiting a Digital Resources Librarian. Here's an excerpt from the ad: Position will provide leadership in planning, selection and organizing digital projects for an institutional respository. Creates digital collections including metadata for applications such as photographic collections, archives, manuscripts, music and video; develops guidelines for access and use. Supervises the training of staff and students in imaging technology including image editing software and other digitization software and hardware. | Digital Scholarship |

  • "Implementing DOIs for Research Data"

    Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
    15 May 2012 | 10:02 pm
    Natasha Simons has published "Implementing DOIs for Research Data" in the latest issue of D-Lib Magazine. Here's an excerpt: Research is increasingly collaborative and global in nature, and efforts to manage the vast amounts of research data generated daily require global solutions. The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) system provides a means of persistent identification of research data collections and datasets that is global, standardised and widely used. The Australian National Data Service (ANDS) partnered with DataCite to offer a DOI minting service. At Griffith University,…

  • "Issue Brief: GSU Fair Use Decision Recap and Implications"

    Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
    15 May 2012 | 10:01 pm
    ARL has released "Issue Brief: GSU Fair Use Decision Recap and Implications." Here's an excerpt: Although the decision is certainly not perfect (the use of bright line rules for appropriate amount under factor 3 is particularly troubling), Judge Evans has written a thorough and thoughtful analysis of the issues, and her opinion represents an overwhelming victory for Georgia State individually, a major defeat for the plaintiff publishers and for the AAP and CCC, and overall a positive development for libraries generally. The substance of the opinion is not ideal, but it is far…

  • Current News: Twitter Updates for 5/14/12

    Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
    14 May 2012 | 10:05 pm
    Elsevier Requires Institutions to Seek Elsevier's Agreement to Require Their Authors to Exercise Their Rights?, http://bit.ly/KaPbPY Dawn of a New Wireless: First 802.11ac Router Available Today, http://bit.ly/IUz0XG Latest Developments in PLoS Article-Level Metrics, http://bit.ly/KnFIcz Netherlands Becomes World's Second "Net Neutrality" Country, http://bit.ly/KaQ771 ARL Endorses VRA Statement on Fair Use of Images for Teaching, Research, and Study, http://bit.ly/JxKNy8 | Digital Scholarship |
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    Digitization 101

  • Courts rule in Cambridge Univ. Press v. "GSU"

    15 May 2012 | 8:41 am
    Last Friday, the judge finally ruled in the case of Cambridge University Press, Sage Publications and Oxford University Press v. several officials at Georgia State University (“GSU”).  The suit was file in April 2008, which demonstrates how slowly a copyright case can move through the court.  Testimony was given last year and it has taken months for the judge to decide on all counts.According to the Chronicle of Higher Education:A federal judge in Atlanta has handed down a long-awaited ruling in a lawsuit brought by three scholarly publishers against Georgia State University…

  • It Matters! (Jeffrey Katzer Professor of the Year Award speech)

    14 May 2012 | 9:45 am
    Photo courtesy of J.D. Ross, (c) 2012.On Saturday, graduating library & information science student Sylvie Merlier-Rowen presented me with the Jeffrey Katzer Professor of the Year Award.  Established in honor of former Professor and Interim Dean Jeffrey Katzer, this award recognizes a full-time faculty member for outstanding teaching, advising and service.  This year, the recipient (me) was selected by iSchool graduate students.I was thrilled, shocked and humbled when I heard that I had been selected, especially since it also meant that I would have the opportunity to speak at…

  • Blog post: The Legacy of a Digital Generation

    9 May 2012 | 8:22 am
    Quoting: One hundred years from now, will anyone know what you did today, or even that you were alive? Did you leave any trail marking your existence, or did you leave no trace? Did you send someone a birthday card? Did you write a love note? We often begin our research classes with these questions.What are we doing to ensure that this isn't the lost generation?  That something of this generation remains after it is gone?  Could it be that those cultures that aren't oriented to be digital will be the ones that will be remembered?  Will the rest of us disappear from…

  • Archived webinar: Navigating Your Career Path: Detours and Rough Roads

    8 May 2012 | 8:16 am
    Five months ago, I gave a webinar on "Navigating Your Career Path: Detours and Rough Roads."  Due to a technical glitch, the archive version is finally available online. At the SLA Annual Conference in July, I'll be speaking on a similar topic (Make the Most of a Difficult Situation: Solutions to Get You Through).  If you are attending that conference, I hope you come to my session on Monday morning.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

  • Working in teams

    4 May 2012 | 8:07 am
    When an employer calls to check someone's references, the person asks a number of questions.  One of the things the employer wants to know is if the person can work in teams.  Most academic programs have classes where teamwork is required.  Students learn how to work in teams through instruction, in-class exercises and by just doing it.  Below are two handouts from Loughborough University on working in teams. I've used these with students and know that there are some business teams that could benefit from them. Both have similar content, with the longer handout also being…
 
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    paidContent

  • Betting big on live sports data, Perform lays €120 million on RunningBall

    Robert Andrews
    16 May 2012 | 3:56 am
    After online sports broadcast specialist Perform Group went public a year ago, it promised it would succeed its acquisition of Goal.com by buying more sports sites. Now it is making a big one - Perform has offered up to €120 million ($153 million) for sports data provider RunningBall. The company employs match scouts to log over 1,000 in-game events for over 30,000 soccer games annually and is also growing in to logging data for others sports. The company’s Pushing Feed, Trader Client and Performance Video packages are provided to clients like media outlets and live betting…

  • ESPN: No talks yet about Apple TV authentication

    Daniel Frankel
    15 May 2012 | 7:31 pm
    As the most powerful programming brand on cable television, you’d expect that ESPN would spend the day of its upfront presentation bolstering its still-very-lucrative linear television business. But the Disney-owned sports channel spent most of Tuesday hyping — and shooting down rumors about — new digital initiatives. Notably, an ESPN spokesperson denied a Bloomberg report that earlier stated that ESPN and Apple executives are in talks to make the authenticated TV Everywhere app WatchESPN available on Apple TV. That’s not to say a deal is never going to happen.

  • Judge comes down hard on publishers, Apple in e-book case

    Jeff John Roberts
    15 May 2012 | 3:04 pm
    In a strongly worded opinion, US District Judge Denise Cote rejected requests by Apple and five book publishers to throw out a class action suit that accuses them of price-fixing. Citing ongoing state, federal and international antitrust investigations, Cote turned down arguments that Apple and the publishers had acted independently when they changed the pricing model for e-books. (For more details on the case, see “Everything you need to know about the DOJ lawsuit in one post.”) Cote’s opinion is at times remarkable for the emphatic language in which she decries the alleged…

  • How broadcasters could have stopped Dish’s Hopper

    Daniel Frankel
    15 May 2012 | 3:02 pm
    Like a long-ago military invasion that didn’t infiltrate far enough to root out a hostile regime, broadcasters are reviewing their decade-old litigation with digital video recorder pioneer ReplayTV with some regret. If only they had gone all the way with that case … The rumination stems from a new commercial-deleting feature called “Auto Hop” introduced last week by Dish Network for its Hopper DVRs. The feature essentially strips out commercial pods for shows recorded on the major broadcast TV networks. Once again, broadcasters are facing a DVR function that undermines…

  • Spotify said to hit 20M users, but it’s no wunderkind

    Janko Roettgers
    15 May 2012 | 1:50 pm
    Spotify has reached a milestone of 20 million monthly active users, according to music industry blogger and former Jupiter Research analyst Mark Mulligan, who has been tracking Spotify usage with the help of Facebook’s publicly available app data. According to those numbers, Spotify has added half a million new users in the last two weeks alone. Mulligan estimated that 17 percent of Spotify’s active users are paying for the service, which would mean that the company has around 3.4 million paying subscribers. Growth has been accelerating ever since Spotify launched its advanced social…
 
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    Dear Rich: Nolo's Intellectual Property Blog

  • Wants NDA+ for Taiwanese Manufacturer

    The Dear Rich Staff
    15 May 2012 | 8:00 am
    Dear Rich: I’m trying to find a triple-N agreement to send to my Taiwan manufacture (NNN = non-disclosure, non-use and non-compete). I am concerned that customers in the Far East will try to get him to manufacture our product directly for them. If we have a good NNN agreement, it will help dissuade him from doing that. Can you direct me to any resources? We've spotted a few of these templates floating around the Internet, but from our research (and limited experience) it's not a good idea to use off-the-shelf NDA-type agreements with foreign manufacturers. The main reason is…

  • Wrong Author Listed on Book

    The Dear Rich Staff
    10 May 2012 | 8:00 am
    Dear Rich: Is there an issue if my name is on a book by mistake? That's what happened to me. My name was credited for a book that I did not write. I did write one version of the book but they did not use it. There would only be an issue if you or the real author believe that the attribution error resulted in an injury. If you feel, for example, that the mistaken listing defames your reputation, makes use of your name to endorse a product without your permission, or subjects you to emotional distress (or some similar claim), you can pursue the publisher. The real author may have different…

  • Needs Anatomy Pix for Dissertation

    The Dear Rich Staff
    9 May 2012 | 8:00 am
    Dear Rich: I'm writing my postgraduate dissertation for surgery and I need to use pictures from the Skandalakis anatomy book, how do I ask for permission or can I use them? Wow, two anatomy questions within six months. (Our last question had to do with public domain imagery like the image, left.) We get seriously sidetracked with these anatomy questions -- is that really where the liver is? Just looking at this cross-section of the digestive tract has us vowing to quit processed cheese.Right, you had a question. The Skandalakis anatomy book (we assume you're referring to Surgical Anatomy…

  • Should I Register My Blog Name (or Domain Name)?

    The Dear Rich Staff
    8 May 2012 | 8:00 am
    Dear Rich: I am planning on starting a blog that I might ultimately turn into a consulting/market research business (though in the beginning, like most bloggers, I will be providing only free articles and research). Since I might ultimately end up doing commerce under my domain name, and since I think the name is nifty and special, I am thinking of trademarking it right away. This raises a few questions: (1) If I am not actually selling anything yet, but merely advertising services or providing free online research services, is that enough for a full trademark, or merely an intent-to-use…

  • Artist's Rights in Public Mural

    The Dear Rich Staff
    7 May 2012 | 8:00 am
    Dear Rich: I was hired to do a mural in a San Francisco apartment building. There's no contract and I get a flat fee. I'm being paid by the company that manages the building. Who owns the mural? If you're asking who owns the copyright, we think you own it. If you're asking who owns the mural itself, we think the owner of the building owns it. In other words, you would control the duplication, and distribution of copies of the work and you would have granted an implied license to the building owners to display the work in the apartment house. But wait .... by creating a fine art works you also…
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