This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons (Attribution: 3.0) License (US),
though the work this blog incorporates may be separately licensed.
A Search for Comity in the Intellectual Property Wars: symposium at The New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU, April 28-30, 2006 [slides, audio, transcripts]
Will Fair Use Survive? Free Expression in the Age of Copyright Control, by Marjorie Heins and Tricia Beckles.
download the report [PDF]
I just launched Cook-Stir.com, a twitter-generated interface for between-tweets cookery. Upload pics of cooking - especially if you're an artist who cooks while procrastinating in the studio - or post blurry shots of your latest debauched meal out to your twitter stream. use the hashtag #cookstir. The challenge: How to tweet a recipe in 140 characters?
Check it out from your smart phone.
| | | |
| | |
"To the museum’s credit, the sensibility of openness that leads to the collection concept works on both sides of the site database – content is added and edited using a distributed, wiki-style content management system (CMS) unique to Linked by Air, the design firm responsible for the new Whitney site. [...That ] part of the goal of the new site [... is to allow] a broad range of museum employees to contribute directly to it assures currency, accuracy – and staff ownership."
Philip Bump offers some insight and analysis.
via MEDIAite:
The Whitney’s Re-Design: Web Done (Nearly) Rightby Philip Bump | 10:27 am, November 12th, 2009
| | | |
| | |
Image Via
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
6:00 – 8:00 pm
Meeting Hall, New York City Bar Association, 42 West 44th Street
How should the law treat “orphan works”? Please join us as we discuss proposals that would enable copyrighted works to be used when their owners cannot be located to obtain necessary permissions. What should be the obligations of potential users with respect to searching for copyright owners? How should infringement claims be handled if a copyright owner emerges? Do different types of copyrighted works present unique issues? What roles might registries and recognition and detection technologies play? Our speakers will address these and related questions, focusing on orphan images.Speakers:
Brendan M. Connell, Jr., Director and Counsel for Administration, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
Frederic Haber, Vice President and General Counsel, Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
Eugene H. Mopsik, Executive Director, American Society of Media Photographers
Maria Pallante, Associate Register for Policy & International Affairs, U.S. Copyright Office
Charles Wright, Vice President and Associate General Counsel, Legal and Business Affairs, A&E Television Networks
Moderator:
June M. Besek, Executive Director, Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts
This program is free and open to the public; registration is not required.
| | | |
| | |
Image Via
via Electronic Frontier Foundation:
September 8th, 2009
National Coalition of Authors Urge Rejection of Google Book Search Deal
Ability to Track Readers Puts Privacy at Risk
New York - A coalition of authors and publishers—including best-sellers Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, and technical author Bruce Schneier—is urging a federal judge to reject the proposed settlement in a lawsuit over Google Book Search, arguing that the sweeping agreement to digitize millions of books ignores critical privacy rights for readers and writers.
The group of more than two dozen authors and publishers, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Samuelson clinic), filed an objection to the settlement today. The coalition is concerned that Google’s collection of personal identifying information about users who browse, read, and make purchases online at Google Book Search will chill their readership.
"Google Book Search and other digital book projects will redefine the way people read and research," said Lethem, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award. "Now is the moment to make sure that Google Book Search is as private as the world of physical books. If future readers know that they are leaving a digital trail for others to follow, they may shy away from important intellectual journeys."
The settlement, currently pending approval from a New York federal district court, would end the legal challenges brought by the Authors' Guild over the Google Book Search project. It would give Google the green light to scan and digitize millions of books and allow users to search for and read those books online. However, Google’s system could monitor what books users search for, how much of the books they read, and how long they spend on various pages. Google could then combine information about readers’ habits and interests with additional information it collects from other Google services, creating a massive "digital dossier" that would be vulnerable to fishing expeditions by law enforcement or civil litigants.
"I believe that the fear of tracking will create a chilling effect on my readers and reduce my readership, and therefore my revenue, from these books," said Schneier, a computer security expert. "Moreover, I write these books in order to participate in the public debate on security issues. Reduced readership negatively impacts my expressive interests as an author."
In the objection filed today, the coalition asks the court to require Google to create a robust privacy policy that gives readers as much privacy in online books as they have in a library or a bookstore and to ensure that the policy is enforceable and overseen by the court on an ongoing basis. The authors and publishers present a list of privacy protections that would improve the settlement, including limiting tracking of users by requiring a court order or judge-approved warrant before disclosure of the information collected, ensuring user control of personal information stored by Google, and making the system transparent to readers. After much pressure from EFF, ACLU, the Samuelson clinic, and others, Google finally issued a privacy policy for Google Books on September 3, 2009. However, that policy doesn’t guarantee that Google will require court approval before disclosing reader information, and it doesn’t sufficiently limit Google’s retention of that information. It is also changeable by Google at any time.
A hearing on the fairness of the proposed Google Book Search settlement is set for October 7, 2009, in New York.
For today's filing:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/authorsguild_v_google/File%20Stamped%2...For more on this case:
http://www.eff.org/cases/authors-guild-v-google
| | | |
| | |
At Last, Artists Harness the Internet
| | | |
| | |
» 1 comment
I don’t envy those who have to redesign the website for a museum – balancing institutional structure and needs with the requirement that it reflect the appropriate aesthetic. Moreover, the process of transitioning a sensibility to the web in itself requires decisions about what the organization represents – a staid, classical collection would justifiably be nervous about embracing an open engagement of the general public.
The Metropolitan Museum, for example, probably won’t be holding a contest on YouTube any time soon. Its website, which looks like it was created by a medium sized corporation in 2002, is staid, muted, and tucked behind a splash screen. The Museum of Modern Art’s website, by contrast, is, well, modern, with a palette and structure that would bore Mies van der Rohe. It’s the Obama of websites – so cool, it’s dull.
Late last night, the Whitney Museum of American Art, known for its modern and contemporary exhibitions and its Biennial, unveiled the latest example from this world. It’s a great improvement over what was there yesterday, though that’s a low hurdle to conquer. Yesterday, the site was a card catalog. Today, it’s a website.
What establishes the Whitney’s new site as a success is not the aesthetic revamping with which, frankly, I’m not impressed. Various elements are laid in a casual grid, anchored by the logo, nice and big, at the top. The navigation is awkward, with elements jumping to the head of the line to show additional options once clicked. The background is either black or white, in order to accommodate a conceptually interesting feature in which it changes when the sun in New York rises or sets. (That would be at 4:41 this afternoon or 6:40 tomorrow morning for those wanting to witness it.) As I said – conceptually interesting. In practice, though, it tends to make the site feel a bit flat, and perusing the collection is negatively impacted by the black background. (White borders would do wonders.)
That’s particularly a shame, because said perusal and its accompanying tools are the real hook to the site. The collection itself is easy to navigate and well indexed. Every page, one notices, has at the bottom a small dot which, when clicked, adds an item to your “custom collection” (assuming you take advantage of the free registration, which you ought to do). This is not unique – the afore-mentioned MoMA site has a similar function – but the Whitney takes it further. When, above, I said every page, I meant every page. In addition to works of art, you can add artists, site elements, upcoming exhibits, even the contact page. Collections are an opportunity to interact with more than the art – you can in essence create your own museum website.
[read full article]