Thoughts about SOPA/PIPA protest

Many of you will have heard about the one day "strike" being held today by some websites, to protest against the proposed legislation SOPA (The Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (The Protect IP Act). You can find out more about this on the SOPA Strike website. The most publicised action has been the blackout of the English-language Wikipedia site (although not its mobile version).
I do think that these bills are worrying, so broadly support the campaign. However, the protest actions have also raised some worrying issues.
I have been ill at home with a nasty bug for the last couple of days, and not checking my social media like I usually do. I was a bit disturbed to find out when I logged in, just now, that Flickr, as a protest, has been allowing members to block not just their own pictures, but other people's. This has a limit of 10 pictures that can be blocked, and you can "opt out from any photo" of yours being blocked - still I feel uncomfortable that Flickr is allowing other people to block my content. The opt-out clause is all very well, but if like me you have been out of it for a day or so you aren't aware that you NEED to opt out.
Some people who have made significant contributions to Wikipedia have also debated the ethics of an editorial collective making this decision about content created by a whole lot of other people. One of the issues that concerns me about SOPA/PIPA is the way in which US legislation can affect people in other countries (like me), but today also shows that actions by those who are "well intentioned" can also deprive people of access and rights.
The discussions about how companies are taking decisions based on commercial issues (e.g. likely protests from advertisers) are also interesting. As SilverPanda commented on a post at the Verge, "Wikipedia doesn’t have ads so it can do whatever it wants."
Altogether a day that gives someone like me, who has a lot of content in "the cloud" (including my university email account...) pause for thought.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Graduation Hall, Sheffield University, January 2012

You have read this article copyright / USA / web 2.0 with the title copyright. You can bookmark this page URL https://monochromaticstyle.blogspot.com/2012/01/thoughts-about-sopapipa-protest.html. Thanks!

Copyright Libguide

Denise Nicholson at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, has created an extensive LibGuide on Copyright and Related Issues. It has a few links specific to her university, and obviously has some focus on locally relevant resources, but includes many resources about the international scene and other countries.

http://libguides.wits.ac.za/content.php?pid=205315&sid=1713351

You have read this article copyright / resources with the title copyright. You can bookmark this page URL https://monochromaticstyle.blogspot.com/2011/08/copyright-libguide.html. Thanks!

Age of big access & Liberation bibliography

It's not specifically information literacy, but I just read a post on the ACRL blog by Iris Jastram, expressing deep concern about what she calls "The age of big access" (exploitation by big information providers/publishers like OCLC and EBSCO, rather than Google), which led me in turn to a column by Barbara Fister, in which she argues against the current focus on providing access to material (rather than pursuing other core goals and values), and argues that academic librarians should not "continue to pour our resources into renting access and into training students on how to pass courses using temporary access to information that will not be available to them when they graduate [...]".
Fister, B. (2010) "Liberation bibliography: trumping ownership with open access: a manifesto." Library Journal, (7) 1 April.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Trip on the Vltava, Prague, September 2010.

You have read this article academic libraries / academic sector / copyright with the title copyright. You can bookmark this page URL https://monochromaticstyle.blogspot.com/2010/10/age-of-big-access-liberation.html. Thanks!

IFLA Report: Researching the Information Commons

Kerry Smith was just talking at the IFLA conference about about Researching the Information Commons (RIC). There is a section on defining the IC on the website, including
"A commons, simply understood, is a resource, or a facility, "that is shared by a community of producers or consumers" (Oakerson, 1992 as quoted in Kranich 2004). The resources within a commons may be either "public goods" or "common pool resources." Some examples of public goods are streets, parks, beaches, common transit routes, stores of knowledge, and national defense." and
"An imaginary "place" where works in the public domain and works affirmatively made under conditions less restrictive than full copyright "reside" (Campbell, 2005)" (see http://infocommons.curtin.edu.au/). Kerry showed pictures of her local beach and bush, as examples of physical commons she was free to roam.
This is therefore something a bit different from the use of the phrase to apply to library/services (as in the "Information Commons" at my university, which you can't get into unless you have a university card). This is an important topic to think about and debate (and take action on) and its worth having a look at the website to see the issues being researched, and you can join in if you are a researcher passionate about this area.
Photo by Sheila Webber: another cute mobile library parked outside the conference centre.

You have read this article copyright / Freedom of information / ifla2010 / Information Society with the title copyright. You can bookmark this page URL https://monochromaticstyle.blogspot.com/2010/08/ifla-report-researching-information.html. Thanks!

Copyright and E-learning

A new book is: Secker, J. (2010) Copyright and E-learning: A guide for practitioners. London: Facet. ISBN: 978-1-85604-665-7
There is a contents list, extract from the book and a video from Jane secker on the Facet website: http://www.facetpublishing.co.uk/title.php?id=665-7
Photo by Sheila Webber: Corn (on cob) field, Hellingly, July 2010

You have read this article copyright / Pedagogy / resources / web 2.0 with the title copyright. You can bookmark this page URL https://monochromaticstyle.blogspot.com/2010/08/copyright-and-e-learning.html. Thanks!

Copyright for Librarians: open online course

Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and eIFL.net (Electronic Information for Libraries) have developed and launched Copyright for Librarians, an Online Open Curriculum on Copyright Law. It "aims to inform librarians about copyright law in general, as well as the aspects of copyright law that most affect libraries, especially those in developing and transition countries." It has very detailed information and various exercises and case studies.
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/copyrightforlibrarians/Main_Page
Photo by Sheila Webber: Greylag goose, Blackheath pond, March 2010

You have read this article copyright / resources with the title copyright. You can bookmark this page URL https://monochromaticstyle.blogspot.com/2010/03/copyright-for-librarians-open-online.html. Thanks!

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for OpenCourseWare

The Center for Social Media has published the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for OpenCourseWare. "This document is a code of best practices designed to help those preparing OpenCourseWare (OCW) to interpret and apply fair use under United States copyright law." Obviously that means it can't be applied internationally, but it at least highlights issues of concern and in practice there is international harmonisation of a number of elements of copyright law. The code is at: http://tinyurl.com/ylzeg9p
Photo by Sheila Webber: Autumn oak leaves, Sheffield, October 2009

You have read this article copyright / Pedagogy / Technology / USA with the title copyright. You can bookmark this page URL https://monochromaticstyle.blogspot.com/2009/10/code-of-best-practices-in-fair-use-for.html. Thanks!

Discussion transcripts posted

Transcripts of the chat conversation from the last 5 discussion/presentation sessions held in Second Life (the virtual world) are available. This is the Centre for Information Literacy Research (CILR) series. There are links to material from all previous sessions (about 30) at http://infolitischool.pbworks.com/Past+events
If you have a Second Life avatar, you can also go inworld and find boards with links and notecards in the CILR on Infolit iSchool at
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/107/223/22/
The events, with individual links, were:
1) Report on IL at the IFLA 2009 Conference (3 September 2009; Sheila Yoshikawa/ Sheila Webber) chatlog at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=1060
2) EDINA and SL (20 August 2009) chatlog at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=1061
3) Information providers in a virtual world (6 August 2009; Lorri Momiji/ Lorri Mon) chatlog at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=1063 (shown in first picture)
4) Intellectual Property (IP) and SL (30 July 2009; led by Pancha Enzyme) chatlog at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=1064 (shown in second picture)
5) Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) and the First Year Experience (FYE) (23 July; Sheila Yoshikawa/ Sheila Webber) chatlog at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=1065: this is rather skinmpy since I did the presentation in voice: the text of my slides (i.e. the text from the SL notecard) with short notes is here: http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/ibl-fye-sy.pdf

You have read this article copyright / Information Behaviour / Information Literacy / Pedagogy / research with the title copyright. You can bookmark this page URL https://monochromaticstyle.blogspot.com/2009/09/discussion-transcripts-posted.html. Thanks!