Link Smorgasbord, April 22-28
Obviously this is in Germany, not the US, but due to various reciprocity treaties it is worth keeping an eye on what other countries are doing concerning copyright. The title of this article is also slightly misleading, as it does not ban all ebook sales no matter what, it does still allow resale with rights-holder consent. On a global scale, companies like ReDigi are exploring the reselling of MP3's and Amazon and Apple are both making initial steps to support the resale of ebooks. While digital sales often have country based restrictions, the push and pull of demand still exists for services available to others.
I cannot begin to tell you how annoyed this article makes me. It does acknowledge that efforts exist to include self-published ebooks, but overall comes across as if we just aren't trying. Self-published books present both an amazing opportunity and a huge challenge to libraries. We do add self-published books to our ebook collections, especially local authors, if they are available for our ebook platform. Smashwords ebooks are generally far more affordable to us than ebooks from the Big Six. On the other hand, the pool of support that exists for books available from more traditional publishers (including connecting authors with editors and reviewers) does not exist to the same extent for self-published authors. This makes curation and discovery of self-published ebooks a challenge for libraries.
Holyoke to promote child literacy by creating 'mini-libraries' at police substations, stocking cruisers with books
I love this. I personally it is important for both the police force and the community for personal involvement and interaction. It makes both sides of the equation more human in the minds of the other.
House Judiciary Chairman plans comprehensive review of US copyright law (The Verge)
This could be awesome, or horrible, or really just get us nowhere. Copyright law is this huge convoluted behemoth that in this day and age doesn't really fill its initial purpose, which was to foster, encourage, and protect creativity of the individual. Changes in technology have brought us into areas that copyright law never had in mind, and that amendments to have never really done a decent job addressing. See also Will Copyright Reform be SOPA in disguise? (LibrarianShipwreck).
I like having additional evidence in hand about non-piracy uses for BitTorrent, of which there are many. We are dealing with a disruptive technology that has the potential to be competence enhancing, or studios can cast it aside as evil and spend money and time trying to tear it down. Considering we're easily 15 years or more into easily navigated Peer-to-Peer sharing, tearing it down seems less than effective.
MPAA Executive Tampers with Evidence in Piracy Case
/sigh
I love this. I personally it is important for both the police force and the community for personal involvement and interaction. It makes both sides of the equation more human in the minds of the other.
House Judiciary Chairman plans comprehensive review of US copyright law (The Verge)
This could be awesome, or horrible, or really just get us nowhere. Copyright law is this huge convoluted behemoth that in this day and age doesn't really fill its initial purpose, which was to foster, encourage, and protect creativity of the individual. Changes in technology have brought us into areas that copyright law never had in mind, and that amendments to have never really done a decent job addressing. See also Will Copyright Reform be SOPA in disguise? (LibrarianShipwreck).
I like having additional evidence in hand about non-piracy uses for BitTorrent, of which there are many. We are dealing with a disruptive technology that has the potential to be competence enhancing, or studios can cast it aside as evil and spend money and time trying to tear it down. Considering we're easily 15 years or more into easily navigated Peer-to-Peer sharing, tearing it down seems less than effective.
MPAA Executive Tampers with Evidence in Piracy Case
/sigh
Comments
Post a Comment