“The D; All Things Digital session featuring Random House’ Richard Sarnoff and Lawrence Lessig provides a candid picture of the difference of opinion about the meaning and value of copyright. Lessig, a lawyer, is reported to have lambasted Sarnoff for “unleashing” Random House’s lawyers to “suck value out of [the information] economy.” Predictably, because it’s easy to dislike lawyers (and because, as a lawyer, Lessig sounds noble making this statement) he got riotous applause.

“But I think it’s a little too easy to applaud lawyers complaining about lawyers when the problem is a question of, as Lessig said, “the digital destiny of American culture or world history” The lawyers are the sideshow, the problem is how to pay for the culture Mr. Lessig wants to preserve, and lawyers aren’t the experts I’d rely on for culture. After all, with rare exceptions, lawyers don’t produce writing or video or music that anyone would want to read, see or hear except to pass a test.”

Rational Rants. Lessig’s Razor. June 1, 2006.

Note: An abbreviated transcript of this speech appears in a special section published Monday, June 19, 2006, in The Wall Street Journal.

CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

The debate over the mass digitization and global availability of information has raged anew ever since late 2004 when Google publicly launched its ambitious plans to digitize and index the massive library collections of Harvard University, Stanford University, the University of Michigan, the University of Oxford, and the New York Public Library. Even as the Google Print Library Project has garnered the attention and applause of millions of consumers and educators, it has drawn the ire—and litigation—of the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers.

Yahoo has likewise entered the fray with its own project to digitize and make available for online searching millions of books from the University of California, the University of Toronto, the National Archives of England, and the European Archive. A joint effort with these and several other archives and technology companies, the Open Content Alliance hopes to avoid much of the controversy in which Google has been embroiled by digitizing only works in the public domain unless copyright holders give explicit permission otherwise.

From the sidewalk to the library, from the cubicle to the boardroom, and the classroom to the courtroom, everyone has an interest and a stake in how we as a society will answer the complex questions of intellectual property rights, copyright, piracy, fair use, ownership, access, distribution, compensation, and control that confront us every time we click our way along the information superhighway.

• How will higher education morph in coming years—and how has it already changed—as digital archives are built and expanded upon our campuses?
• What will be the parameters and responsibilities of scholarship as the academy becomes ever more digital and digitized?
• How might our relationships to our disciplines, repositories of knowledge, diverse media providers, and even each other alter as the waves of digital content multiply, swell, and flow through the academy?

Copyright at a Crossroads: The Impact of Mass Digitization on Copyright and Higher Education

Hosted by The Center for Intellectual Property, University of Maryland University College

3501 University Blvd. East

Adelphi, Maryland 20783

June 14-16, 2006

Fees: $225 per individual or just $575 for an institution.

CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

This post provides supplementary material to a workshop led by K. Matthew Dames and Jill Hurst-Wahl.

The workshop, the “Digitization Essentials Workshop,” will thoroughly discuss the management of digitization programs. The workshop is being offered as part of the 2006 SLA Annual Conference in Baltimore, MD. The two-day workshop takes place on June 10-11, 2006.

K. Matthew Dames is editor of CopyCense, an online journal that reports on digital media. Jill Hurst-Wahl is the president of Hurst Associates, Ltd. and the editor of Digitization 101. Interested participants can register online or at the conference site.

If you are interested in starting a digitization program, or arranging for a strategy session with either Mr. Dames or Ms. Hurst-Wahl, please contact them at sesogroup@gmail.com.

Description

Digitization is much more than converting a physical or analog object into its digital equivalent: it is about efficiently repurposing crucial information resources to improve an organization’s retention and use of business intelligence. Yet most digitization projects are doomed from the start because the focus is on the conversion process instead of other, critical pre-scanning issues such as selection criteria, preservation of original documents, metadata creation, software and hardware concerns; integration into existing systems; and legal issues.

Participants in this pre-conference workshop will be introduced to some of the critical issues every organization must consider when they approach a digitization project, and will be engaged with on exercises and simulations that discuss and analyze real-world situations. In particular, these two, half-day morning sessions will provide participants with a firm conceptual understanding of the life cycle of a digitization project, which will allow them both to investigate their own projects more critically, and move from working on a single project to creating an ongoing digitization program. The lecturers also will provide an update on the status of the world’s most famous digitization project: the Google Print Library Project.

Slide Presentation

• K. Matthew Dames & Jill Hurst-Wahl. Digitization Essentials Workshop. (.pdf, 820 KB) Presented at SLA Annual Meeting & Conference. June 10-11, 2006.

Supplementary Materials: Websites

• Seso Digital LLC. CopyCense. (Ed. K. Matthew Dames) (See also: CopyCense Digitization Archive)
• Hurst Associates Ltd. Digitization 101. (Ed. Jill Hurst-Wahl)
• Cornell University Library. Moving Theory Into Practice: Digital Imaging Tutorial.
• Digitizationblog (Ed. Mark Jordan)
• Digitize Everything. (Ed. Michael Yunkin)
• DigitalKoans. (Ed. Charles W. Bailey Jr.)
• D-Lib Magazine (Corporation for National Research Initiatives)
• File Formats Blog. (Ed. Gary McGath)
• Peter B. Hirtle. Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States. Cornell Copyright Information Center. Jan. 1, 2006.
• OCLC. Digitization & Preservation Online Resource Center.
• Society of American Archivists. A Guide to Deeds of Gift. Undated.
• Tape Transcription Center. Digital Recording: Here to Stay. Undated.
• The Ten Thousand Year Blog. (Ed. David Mattison)
• University of Buffalo’s UBdigit. UBdigit Conditions of Use. No date.
• University of California at San Diego. diglet. (Ed. Jim Jacobs)

Supplementary Materials: Articles, Guides & Papers

• James Currall and Peter McKinney. Investing in Value: A Perspective on Digital Preservation. D-Lib. Apr. 2006.
• K. Matthew Dames. “Associations’ Silence on Google Book Search Is Not Golden.” Online. March/April 2006.
• K. Matthew Dames. Demystifying Fair Use. CopyCense. March 2, 2006.
• Mary Sue Coleman. Google, the Khmer Roge and the Public Good (Address to the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers). (.pdf, 180 KB) Feb. 6, 2006.
• K. Matthew Dames. Library Schools & the Copyright Knowledge Gap. Information Today. February 2006.
• K. Matthew Dames. Library Copying in the Digital Age. Copycense. Jan. 31, 2006.
• Paul Ganley. Google Book Search: Fair Use, Fair Dealing and the Case for Intermediary Copying. Social Science Research Network. Jan. 13, 2006.
• John Blau. IBM Expert Warns of Short Life Span for Burned CDs. InfoWorld. Jan. 10, 2006.
• Jonathan Band. The Google Library Project: The Copyright Debate. (.pdf) ALA Office for Intellectual Property Policy. January 2006.
• Robin Jeweler. The Google Book Search Project: Is Online Indexing a Fair Use Under Copyright Law? (.pdf, 37 KB) Congressional Research Service. Dec. 28, 2005.
• Siva Vaidhyanathan. A Risky Gamble With Google. Sivacracy.net. Nov. 28, 2005.
• CDP Digital Audio Working Group. Digital Audio Best Practices, version 2.0. (.pdf) November 2005.
• Jonathan Band. The Authors Guild v. The Google Print Library Project. LLRX.com. Oct. 15, 2005.
• K. Matthew Dames. Google Shouldn’t Punt on Litigation. CopyCense. Oct. 4, 2005.
• Jonathan Band. The Google Print Library Project: A Copyright Analysis. (.pdf, 174 KB) Policybandwidth.com. August 2005.
• Peter B. Hirtle. Digital Preservation and Copyright. Copyright & Fair Use/Stanford University Libraries. No date.
• Mary Minow. Library Digitization Projects: U.S. Copyrighted Works That Have Expired into the Public Domain. LibraryLaw.com. April 15, 2004.
• Melissa Smith Levine. Overview of Legal Issues for Digitization. Northeast Document Conservation Center. April 9, 2004.
• National Information Standards Organization. A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections, 2d. Ed. 2004.
• June M. Besek. Copyright Issues Relevant to the Creation of a Digital Archive: A Preliminary Assessment. Council on Library and Information Resources. June 2003.
• Western States Digital Standards Group. Western States Digital Imaging Best Practices Version 1.0. (.pdf) January 2003.
• Mary Minow. Library Digitization Projects and Copyright. LLRX.com. June 28, 2002.
• National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH). The NINCH Guide to Good Practice in the Digital Representation and Management of Cultural Heritage Materials. October 2002.
• Stuart D. Lee. Digitization: Is It Worth It? Computers in Libraries. May 2001.
• Maxine K. Sitts, Editor. Handbook for Digital Projects: A Management Tool for Preservation and Access. Northeast Document Conservation Center. 2000.
• Franziska Frey. File Formats for Digital Masters. Digital Library Federation. 2000.
• Abby Smith. Why Digitize? Council on Library and Information Resources. February 1999.
• Harvard University. Selection for Digitizing: A Decision Making Matrix. (.pdf) 1997.
• Tony Gill, et al. (Murtha Baca, Ed.) Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to Digital Information, version 2.1. Getty Research Institute. Undated.

CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“When Mark Z. Danielewski’s second novel, ‘Only Revolutions,’ is published in September, it will include hundreds of margin notes listing moments in history suggested online by fans of his work. Yochai Benkler, a Yale University law professor and author of the new book ‘The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom,’ has gone even farther: his entire book is available — free — as a download from his Web site.

“Not surprisingly, writers have greeted these measures with a mixture of enthusiasm and dread. The dread was perhaps most eloquently crystallized last month in Washington at BookExpo, the publishing industry’s annual convention, when the novelist John Updike forcefully decried a digital future composed of free downloads of books and the mixing and matching of ’snippets’ of text, calling it a ‘grisly scenario.’

“Hovering above the discussion of all these technologies is the fear that the publishing industry could be subject to the same upheaval that has plagued the music industry, where digitalization has started to displace the traditional artistic and economic model of the record album with 99-cent song downloads and personalized playlists.”

Motoko Rich. Digital Publishing Is Scrambling the Industry’s Rules. The New York Times. June 5, 2006.

CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“My goal is to state the case for a new vision of culture and copyright in Canada. I will discuss the transformative power of the Internet and new technologies while illustrating that this is a good news story for industries new and old. With the cultural opportunities in hand, I will discuss copyright, demonstrating how copyright policy developed in Canada over the past two decades while few of us were paying attention.

“I will also assess how it might continue to unfold if more Canadians do not become engaged in the policy process. I will conclude by illustrating how things could be different. Canada has a choice and our leaders have been vested with an unprecedented opportunity to articulate a cultural and copyright vision that brings access to knowledge for all Canadians from coast to coast to coast. One that unleashes the creative spirit in millions of Canadians. One that transforms our education system. One that respects our privacy and protects our security. One that preserves our heritage.

“Yes, copyright can do all that. Let us look at how.”

Michael Geist. Our Own Creative Land: Cultural Monopoly & The Trouble With Copyright (The Hart House Lecture 2006). (.pdf) University of Toronto. 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will hold a briefing on May 12, 2006, from 9:00 a.m. to noon in the agency’s Madison building. The USPTO has created a partnership with academia and the private sector to launch an online, peer review pilot project that seeks to ensure that patent examiners will have improved access to all available prior art during the patent examination process.

As a follow-up to the February 16th meeting, this briefing will focus on further developing previously discussed initiatives as well as answering the question of what constitutes valid prior art and a greater in-depth analysis of the peer review pilot project that is under consideration.

An agenda is available online. Registration is strongly encouraged; register by e-mail at OpenSource2006@uspto.gov.

USPTO to Hold Briefing on Patent Peer Review Pilot Project

Friday, May 12, 2006

9:00 am -12:00 noon

Madison Auditorium, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

USPTO Headquarters

Madison Auditorium, South Side

600 Dulany Street

Alexandria, VA 22314

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

This is the supplement to the second of two virtual workshops that discuss the management of digitization projects. The first workshop, presented by Jill Hurst-Wahl, addressed the context and landscape of digitization programs. This workshop will address legal issues that affect digitization programs.

Specifically, this workshop analyzes how copyright affects different phases of a digitization project, including:

• What “intellectual property” really means (including an introduction to the IP landscape);
• Identifying the copyright issues inherent in digitization projects (including the public domain, the library and archival limitations, and fair use);
• Why licensing agreements and subscriptions may curb your digitization project;
• Why confidential and proprietary information must be handled differently; and
• An update on the IP issues in Google Book Search project.

Slide Presentation

K. Matthew Dames. Managing Legal Issues in Digitization Projects. (.pdf, 1.39 MB) Presented to SLA Click U. Live! April 26, 2006.

Supplementary Materials: Websites

Seso Digital LLC. CopyCense. (Ed. K. Matthew Dames) (See also: CopyCense Digitization Archive)

Hurst Associates Ltd. Digitization 101. (Ed.L Jill Hurst-Wahl)

Digitizationblog (Ed. Mark Jordan)

Digitize Everything. (Ed. Michael Yunkin)

DigitalKoans. (Ed. Charles W. Bailey Jr.)

Cornell University Library. Moving Theory Into Practice: Digital Imaging Tutorial.

File Formats Blog. (Ed. Gary McGath)

Peter B. Hirtle. Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States. Cornell Copyright Information Center. Jan. 1, 2006.

OCLC. Digitization & Preservation Online Resource Center.

The Ten Thousand Year Blog. (Ed. David Mattison)

University of Buffalo’s UBdigit. UBdigit Conditions of Use. No date.

University of California at San Diego. diglet. (Ed. Jim Jacobs)

Supplementary Materials: Articles, Guides & Papers

K. Matthew Dames. “Associations’ Silence on Google Book Search Is Not Golden.” Online. March/April 2006.

K. Matthew Dames. Demystifying Fair Use. CopyCense. March 2, 2006.

Mary Sue Coleman. Google, the Khmer Rouge and the Public Good (Address to the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers). (.pdf, 180 KB) Feb. 6, 2006.

K. Matthew Dames. Library Schools & the Copyright Knowledge Gap. Information Today. February 2006.

K. Matthew Dames. Library Copying in the Digital Age. Copycense. Jan. 31, 2006.

Paul Ganley. Google Book Search: Fair Use, Fair Dealing and the Case for Intermediary Copying. Social Science Research Network. Jan. 13, 2006.

Jonathan Band. The Google Library Project: The Copyright Debate. (.pdf) ALA Office for Intellectual Property Policy. January 2006.

Robin Jeweler. The Google Book Search Project: Is Online Indexing a Fair Use Under Copyright Law? (.pdf, 37 KB) Congressional Research Service. Dec. 28, 2005.

Siva Vaidhyanathan. A Risky Gamble With Google. Sivacracy.net. Nov. 28, 2005.

Jonathan Band. The Authors Guild v. The Google Print Library Project. LLRX.com. Oct. 15, 2005.

K. Matthew Dames. Google Shouldn’t Punt on Litigation. CopyCense. Oct. 4, 2005.

Jonathan Band. The Google Print Library Project: A Copyright Analysis. (.pdf, 174 KB) Policybandwidth.com. August 2005.

Peter B. Hirtle. Digital Preservation and Copyright. Copyright & Fair Use/Stanford University Libraries. No date.

Mary Minow. Library Digitization Projects: U.S. Copyrighted Works That Have Expired into the Public Domain. LibraryLaw.com. April 15, 2004.

Melissa Smith Levine. Overview of Legal Issues for Digitization. Northeast Document Conservation Center. April 9, 2004.

National Information Standards Organization. A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections, 2d. Ed. 2004.

June M. Besek. Copyright Issues Relevant to the Creation of a Digital Archive: A Preliminary Assessment. Council on Library and Information Resources. June 2003.

Western States Digital Standards Group. Western States Digital Imaging Best Practices Version 1.0. (.pdf) January 2003.

Mary Minow. Library Digitization Projects and Copyright. LLRX.com. June 28, 2002.

National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH). The NINCH Guide to Good Practice in the Digital Representation and Management of Cultural Heritage Materials. October 2002.

Maxine K. Sitts, Editor. Handbook for Digital Projects: A Management Tool for Preservation and Access. Northeast Document Conservation Center. 2000.

Abby Smith. Why Digitize? Council on Library and Information Resources. February 1999.

Harvard University. Selection for Digitizing: A Decision Making Matrix. (.pdf) 1997.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.