Cory Doctorow interview on librarianship and media

James Boyle - The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind

I’m listening to the audio version of this right now and it’s brilliant. Here’s the video for your viewing pleasure.

In his new book The Public Domain, Professor James Boyle describes how our culture, science and economic welfare all depend on the delicate balance between those ideas that are controlled and those that are free, between intellectual property and the public domain —the realm of material that everyone is free to use and share without permission or fee

Intellectual property laws have a significant impact on many important areas of human endeavour, including scientific innovation, digital creativity, cultural access and free speech. And so Boyle argues that, just as every informed citizen needs to know at least something about the environment or civil rights, every citizen in the information age should also have an understanding of intellectual property law.

Is the public domain as vital to knowledge, innovation and culture as the realm of material protected by intellectual property rights? James Boyle thinks so and visits the RSA to call for a new movement to preserve it. If we continue to enclose the “commons of the mind”, Boyle argues, we will all be the poorer.

New copyright statement in Flickr for “government work”

For a while now, photos posted on flickr by the White House have been licensed under a CC-BY license. While this was the most lenient of the CC licensing options it wasn’t exactly appropriate as these photos were technically in the public domain. Because of this, the attribution requirement of the CC license, although a great suggestion that everyone should follow, was technically adding a requirement that wasn’t allowed by law.

The only other option previously available was that of the Flickr Commons project “no known copyright restrictions”. Again, not appropriate as in this case we know that there can’t possibly be even the potential of a copyright claim by anyone. Again, close but technically not appropriately.

So, the folks at flickr have come up with a new designation: “United States Government Works”.

What does this mean? Well, if you click on the link you’ll be taken to the relevant page of copyright law giving you the relevant information. At that point you’re on your own. Thanks, I think.

Why doesn’t flickr just have a “public domain” option? That’s a completely different discussion which I’m not going to have here. Check out the flickr discussion and flickr’s official opinion on the matter if you’re interested.

Imagining a Smithsonian Commons

I’m back from Computers in Libraries 2009 and I’ve got a lot to share. The first is Wednesday’s keynote talk from Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy at the Smithsonian Institution. It was streamed live online (a first for CIL) and was recorded. Listen to him and then go read all the books he mentions in his talk. (I’ve read all but one of them and I’m on the list at LCL for it now.)

Online TV Shows by Ustream

He also put up a text version of his presentation in SlideShare. I've embedded it here for you.

CIL 2009 Michael Edson (text version)

View more documents from edsonm.

He also put up a text version of his presentation in SlideShare. I've embedded it here for you.

CIL 2009 Michael Edson (text version)

View more documents from edsonm.

The best two minute into to CC I've ever seen

Change.gov changes to a CC license

I just want to officially state how happy I am that the content of Change.gov has been officially licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license. I also have a response and a concern.

The response is to those that ask "but aren't creations of the federal government automatically in the public domain?" Well, yes, but the content of Change.gov is coming out of the "office of the president-elect" which isn't officially part of the federal government. Additionally, Obama has given up his Senate seat so he's no longer part of the federal government either. That is, not until January 20th. Then, he gets control of Whitehouse.gov and that's in the public domain.

The concern is about the page on Change.gov that has the license: http://change.gov/about/copyright_policy. The CC license is listed under the heading of "Copyright Notice". Trouble is, CC isn't Copyright. Copyright is a law, Creative Commons is a license. A picky detail I'm sure, but an important one.

OCLC and CC

Almost every time I hear someone from OCLC speak in defense on their forthcoming Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat® Records they mention Creative Commons. Granted they insist that CC was something that "inspired" their license but they keep repeating the the new OCLC license is very similar to a CC BY-NC-SA license. On it's face, this is true, but something has been bugging me about this comparison. Yesterday I thought I'd finally figured out what my problem was. Today this line of thought hasn't changed so I share it with you now.

Let's say I create something, a photo for example, and assign a CC BY-NC-SA license, that means that others are free to use my photo as long as they attribute me as the creator, use it non-commercially, and pass my license along on whatever they create using my photo. So far, so good. What this CC license does not allow me to do is to control how my photo is used beyond those three items. As long as they are following those three items, I do not have the right to say that I approve of a certain use and not approve of a different use. This is the right I am waiving by using this, or pretty much any other, CC license.

In fact, at least one of my photos has been used in a way that I wouldn't necessarily have approved of. You can read the story in a post of mine from 7 November 2006 if you're interested in the details. Basically, a photo of mine was used to illustrate a point that I completely disagreed with and was the opposite of the point I was trying to make by taking the photo in the first place. This is the risk I take by using a CC license and I have to live with that if I want people to use my work via this method.

OCLC on the other hand wants it both ways. They want to use a license that sounds a lot similar to CC BY-NC-SA but then adds the following:

4. Reasonable Use. Use must not discourage the contribution of bibliographic and holdings data to WorldCat or substantially replicate the function, purpose, and/or size of WorldCat.

So, what OCLC is saying is that you're welcome to use "their" records (I'm not going to debate here wether these records are theirs or not, that's a different discussion) as long as you attribute the source, use it non-commercially, pass the license along, and with their approval of your use.

That, my friends, is my problem with them mentioning CC in their defense of the new license. It's a slap in the face of Creative Commons.

UPDATE 11/24/08:
After thinking about this some more I add the further thought. The new license is more like CC BY-NC-ND. In other words they're by default, not allowing derivative works. Please OCLC, if you're going to continue to associate your new license with CC, then associate it with the correct CC license.

Thing #9: Compfight

Compfight is an indispensable tool for me, one I use almost daily. I'm constantly looking for a photo to illustrate a point. Wether it's for a blog post or a presentation, I love using photos to make a point. I'm also generally sure to use only Creative Commons (cc) licensed photos in my work. Not only does this ensure that I'm not going to be sued but it promotes CC and lets me turn my presentations into teaching moments about more than just the direct topic of the talk itself.

But why Compfight instead of the standard flickr search option? Check out these two screenshots showing search results for library:

Flickr

Compfight

Srs'ly? Can you no doubt the usefulness of Compfight. Same search, completely different screen full of results. I'm less concerned with the content of the results (though I think Compfight's better at that too) but more with how those results are presented. Compfight gives you screens full of images that you can look and and choose from. Flickr, you get  25 at a time with a lot of scrolling involved. Clicking on any one of these images takes you to the photo's page for further details and downloading.

Yea Compfight! My presentations are better because of you.

ACURIL2008 Update

As to the hotel problem, we checked back last night and they said that the dinners had been cleared from our account. We'll double-check when we get the bill Saturday morning but it sounds like this problem has been cleared up. I don't remember if I said this before but as a result of all this we figured out that eating via room service is actually cheaper than the hotel restaurant (the one of the three that are actually open) or the buffet. Go figure.

Yesterday afternoon we went down to the local craft market in Montego Bay and had an interesting experience. It was fun and we were able to pick up some interesting souvenirs but almost every booth (hundreds of tiny ones) mostly all had the same stuff. (I kept expecting to see "made in China" on some of the crafts but was unable to find a single one.) Every seller wanted to make sure you stepped into their booth and bartering was expected. Once we learned to say "no thank you" directly, they would politely back off. Before we left I had a Brown Stew Fish lunch. (I need to find the recipe for Jamaican Brown Sauce). It wasn't exactly what I expected (photo below) but it was delicious.

Last night's "cultural event" was a lot of fun. The room and the busses that transported us were very hot but it was worth it for the entertainment. I'm uploading the next batch of 200+ photos now but here's just a few shots I got from last night's event.

My presentation on Creative Commons this morning went well. Since I had a lot more time than I did @ CIL, I was able to present the material in a less rushed manner and even had time to show the videos. (Everyone loves the Muppets.) Here's the presentation slides (sans video) if you're interested.

| View | Upload your own

Think Like a Dandelion

In Cory Doctorow's latest Locus column he discusses the reproduction methodology of the dandelions (something I'm currently fighting in my own back year, literally,) and relates it to artists in the Internet world.

Dandelions and artists have a lot in common in the age of the Internet. This is, of course, the age of unlimited, zero-marginal-cost copying. If you blow your works into the net like a dandelion clock on the breeze, the net itself will take care of the copying costs. Your fans will paste-bomb your works into their mailing list, making 60,000 copies so fast and so cheaply that figuring out how much it cost in aggregate to make all those copies would be orders of magnitude more expensive than the copies themselves.

You can read the full article on Locus Online.

Little Brother » Download for Free

The CC-licensed free download is now available.

I did listen to the audio version over the weekend and I've got to say it's an amazing book that everyone should read. I got goosebumps a few times and started to tear once or twice too.

Little Brother has landed!

Today the day for the new Cory Doctorow novel Little Brother. Click on the cover art to buy your copy now. In fact, buy a copy for every teenager in your life. (I ordered one for me and one each for the two 15 year-olds in my life.)

Not sure what it's about? Check out these words from authors John Scalzi and Neil Gaiman.

Now, here's my question: Since I'll be in Colorado this weekend I had my copies shipped there. I was hoping to download the traditional free copy to my Sony Reader today in order to be able to get started on the book tonight. Hey Cory, where's the downloadable CC-licensed copy?

Oh, and there's a how-to blog based on the book too. w1n5t0n [INSTRUCTABLES] If you can't understand the name of the blog, you're too old ;-)

UPDATE: It looks like Cory will be posting the ebook version "just as soon as I get back to London (I’m presently in Toronto, visiting my family with my newborn daughter). It’ll likely be Monday or so — there’s a bunch of little clean-uppy things I need to do with the Little Brother distribution site that I need to be in my office with uninterrupted time to accomplish."

Additionally, there's a DRM-free audio version available which "comes with my own sampling license: once you own it, you’re free to take up to 30 minutes’ worth of material from it and remix and then redistribute it as much as you like, provided that you do so on a noncommercial basis, make sure that it’s clear that this is a remix and not the original, and make sure that you tell people where to find the original. This is in addition to all the fair use remixing that you’re allowed to do without my permission (of course!)." Maybe I'll buy that tonight and listen to it on the drive to CO. That sounds like a great plan.

Of Librarians, Photography, Copyright & Creative Commons

Before you read this post be sure you've read these other posts and I don't really feel like summarizing them, just responding to the issues at hand.

• 50 Reasons Not to Change
• Copyright Infringement and Creative Commons
• Creative Commons, Copyright and the Murky Middle
• Free Use Photos
• So What Are the Rules for Photographers?

I was going to post about this since I seem to be the "CC Guy" in the library world post-CIL2008 but then I decided not to as I'm not in the mood to write something worthy of what I have to say about it. Now, is looks like we will be discussing the issue on tonight's episode of Uncontrolled Vocabulary so I've decided to create this less-than-perfect response if for no other reason than to organizer my thought in preparation for tonight.

Resolved:

Whereas the original blogger of the image in question did not own the copyright on the image in the first place, they are just as "wrong" in republishing it on the Net as anyone involved.

Whereas the original blogger states "Please note that this image has a copyright, for non-commercial distribution with attribution" then displays the CC BY-NC-SA license, this wholly makes no sense. Either the image is under traditional copyright or it's under a CC license. You can't have it both ways.

Whereas Michael Casey followed the license as far as I can tell I consider him pretty much faultless in this situation.

Whereas the original blogger insists that you use her code to post that image anywhere else, that both a) does not jive with the CC license given and b) is not something most Web publishers will do since she could change the image to something else at any time and therefore that would display new, non-approved content on my site.

Whereas the original blogger is stating a copyright, and stating a CC license, and then stating that others must only post the image the way she wants, she is trying to have her cake and eat it too and that just won't work. Pick one. You can't have all three.

Whereas the original blogger issued a DMCA takedown notice to Yahoo! (owner of Flickr), I consider this to be a complete overreaction to the situation. She should have contacted Michael first and tried to work it out with him personally. I'm sure he would have been reasonable about it.

Whereas Yahoo! received the DMCA takedown notice they did the only thing that the law allowed them to do, and took the image out of Michael's account. Michael and I see this as completely unreasonable but I still find Yahoo! faultless since they had no choice under the DMCA. I hope that Yahoo! will restore the image pending their investigation.

Whereas Flickr does not allow for a public domain license, I agree that they should. Anyone know who to write to in encouragement of adding a PD license?

Whereas the new Free Use Photos Flickr group has been created, I believe this might only cause additional confusion and problems as most of those photos are in the "Free Use Photos" group yet still have a traditional full copyright listed for rights. In other words, we teach users to check the rights but now have to say "but as long as it's in this group, you're allowed to ignore the listed rights."

Whereas I was invited to participate in this group I have decided to respectfully declined. I am more than happy to let pretty much anyone use my photos as long as they give me credit. (In fact I've allowed several commercial organizations to use my photos without paying me.) My CC license allows for this just fine. I'm not willing to put my photos into the public domain at this point since then others could use my works without giving me credit.

Therefore I believe that the problem is not Creative Commons but a distinct lack of understanding of one or more of the parties. The solution is not to give up on CC as Michael has done, but further education.

Someone please do this

Here's an idea that I'd love for some forward-thinking library to take advantage of for this one's totally outside of MPOW's collection development policy: Download the CC-licensed Nine Inch Nails album, burn a copy to CD then catalog and circ said CD. Don't forget to get it cataloged into OCLC too!

Unshelved, Creative Commons, and blog editing :: Update

I don't know if my previous post had anything to do with Bill's new post (though I get the feeling it did) in which he clarifies their current non-decision on giving Unshelved a CC license. I'll just follow with my continued encouragement for "Mr. Con" to give it a go. You're practically doing it anyway, why not make it official?

And the reason for the editing of the blog post. Let's just say it involved a skateboard and Jim Croce. Thanks guys!

Unshelved, Creative Commons, and blog editing

I'm wondering about what's up with the guys over at Unshelved regarding Creative Commons. I wasn't going to blog about his until something happened. Here's the story:

Yesterday there was a post on the Unshelved blog in which Bill talked about giving permission to use Unshelved strips to promote your library. Great idea I thought. This morning I went to re-read that post and something seemed different. I though he'd listed some specific things you needed to do in order to use their comics which sounded a lot like a NC-BY-ND CC license and that they were aware of this so don't e-mail them about it. But today here's what I read:

..So here's our offer. We've got over two thousand strips about libraries and the things they go on there. Please use them to promote your library, school, or other reading-friendly cause. If you have questions about usage, or if you need a high-resolution version suitable for printing, just mail us.

Wait, where's the specifics? Where's the mention of Creative Commons? I did have a rough night's sleep last night. Did I dream it? Seems not. Here's what I found via the Google cache:

...So here's our offer. We've got over two thousand strips about libraries and the things they go on there. If you'd like to use some of them for noncommercial purposes, please do. Just use them intact, without alteration, attribute them to us, and show our URL and the correct copyright. If you have questions about usage, or if you need a high-resolution version, just mail us.

...P.S. To forestall a gazillion emails I will say that I am well aware of Creative Commons, and we are thinking (read: arguing) about it.

So, what's my point? There are two actually. First, guys, please make the plunge into the world of Creative Commons. My guess is that one of you likes the idea and the other doesn't. How about blogging about the pros and cons and get some outside opinions from the library world. Heck, many of us are reposting your strips on our blogs anyway. How about making it officially allowable and support the CC movement at the same time.

Second, as I warn my students in my blogging workshops, if you have second thoughts about something you wrote in a blog post, don't go back and remove it like it never happened. Write a follow-up post and clarify your position. Otherwise someone's going to notice and point it out since nothing on the Net ever actually gets deleted.

I've been BoingBoing'd

Honestly, after my conversation with Cory about the project I was hoping this would happen. There is now a BoingBoing.net post about the Creative Commons project I've been working on at the Commission. As a result the story has also been picked up by LISNews. (I'm now off to give a heads-up to our computer team about the potential spike in Web traffic.)

Are publishers finally starting to understand

First there was Lawrence Lessig, then Cory Doctorow (or was it the other way around?) who offered the complete texts of their books online, for free. You could read them on the Web site, download them, read them on your computer in Word, put them on your phone, iPod and/or eBook. Finally, you could print your own copy. Many readers ended up buying the publisher-printed copy anyway. Those who didn't make the purchase probably wouldn't have regardless of the availability of the free version. Other authors have started to follow.

And all was good.

But where were the publishers in all of this?

Then came the Baen Free Library. Long-time publisher of science fiction and fantasy, Baen offers more than 100 complete titles in formats from HTML to Rocket eBook (there's a dead format) to RTF. Just read online or download it to go. 4.6 million visits later, they're periodically adding new titles.

Neil Gaiman's publisher, HarperCollins, has started offering complete book for free online. Neil recently asked his readers to pick which of his books would be offered up. Much to his surprise, his largest book, American Gods was chosen and will be made available in the near future. I was excited. I'm not any longer. The problem is that in order to read the book you must do so on their site, in their reader.  The books are not portable in any way, shape, or form. Sure, you can search the contents (nice) and you can embed the book into your site (a la YouTube) but how does that help me read it on my device, when I want, when I don't have a WiFi connection?

Close, but no soup for you!

Next on deck, TOR books. Publisher of Cory Doctorow and many, many other authors I love to read. (L.E. Modesitt, Jr., Brian Lumley, and Brian Herbert, just to name a few.) They're about to launch their new site "Watch the Skies" and if you sign up, they'll e-mail you the link to a free eBook every week. No word on the level of control that they'll give you over said books but with Cory Involved and the word "download" being bandied about, I have all sorts of hope.

So publisher's, who's next?

Creative Commons @ MPOW

I don't usually cross-post between this personal blog and the office blog but a project I've been working on for about a month has just been implemented and I'm totally excited about it. Check out the details on the NLC blog.

CC-licensed Firefly FanFic by serious SciFi Author

Established and popular science fiction author Steven Brust has written My Own Kind of Freedom: A Firefly Novel and released it under CreativeCommons on his Web site. (.doc & .pdf) I've also uploaded the PDF version to my Scribd account. I've not started reading it yet but I've got it loaded on my Sony Reader so I'll be getting to it soon.