From the monthly archives: February 2010

How efficient is our licensing system?

On February 24, 2010 By

Two letters landed on my desk a few weeks ago, both from the Copyright Clearance Center.  I have written before about concerns over what we are actually paying for when we pay permission fees to CCC, and my experience with these two letters deepened that concern.

The first letter asked us to give [...]

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Should the court consider the new Google patent?

On February 17, 2010 By

On Tuesday Google was formally granted a patent on software to selectively control access to content, based on access rules and geographical locations.  There is a story on Ars Technica here that explains the patent and its potential application very nicely.  Basically, this is a technique for filtering what users can see based on [...]

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OSTP comments and the issue of compensation

On February 10, 2010 By

I wanted to post this earlier, but intervening events got the better of me.  As most readers will know, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy recently collected a wide range of very useful and specific comments in response to a request for information about public access policies for federally-funded research.  I [...]

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LOL at the Federal Register

On February 5, 2010 By

It sounds very strange, but I really did find myself laughing as I read a long notice from the Copyright Office in volume 75, number 15 (Jan. 25, 2010) of the Federal Register.  Admittedly, some background is necessary to acquit me of the suspicion of insanity.

The Copyright Office notice details a interim [...]

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“Renewing copyright” and a reflection on versions

On February 2, 2010 By

In a post about two months ago I promised that I would offer a link to the article I wrote on reforming copyright law from the perspective of academic libraries.  That article was published this month in portal: Libraries and the Academy, and is now also available in DukeSpace, the open access repository at [...]

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