The SPARC Author Addendum is a legal instrument that modifies the publisher’s agreement and allows you to keep key rights to your articles. The Author Addendum is a free resource developed by SPARC in partnership with Creative Commons <http://www.creativecommons.org> and Science Commons <http://science.creativecommons.org>, established non-profit organizations that offer a range of copyright options for many different creative endeavors.

The development and widespread use of Internet technologies and platforms that are grouped under the labels “Web 2.0” and “social media” have led to celebratory accounts of their potential as tools to unleash human creativity. A “creativity consensus” has emerged that describes a vision of creative production via these new platforms as universal, democratic, communal, non-commercial, and revolutionary. The avant-garde of Web 2.0 creativity are said to be young, web-savvy media makers: a new generation that has embraced new technology and is upending old notions of creativity and related cultural practices. This dissertation challenges these views through an ethnographic investigation of deviantART, the self-described “world’s largest online art community.” The dissertation demonstrates how conflicting ideals of art, creativity, and the web, when put into practice, shaped the site as ideological and technical infrastructure for creative practice and the formation of members’ creative identities. In their use of the site, participants in deviantART actively, and at times contentiously, engaged with historical tensions concerning both art and the web. The dissertation explores tensions emerging around three sets of concerns: (1) gaining artistic recognition through visibility, popularity, or quality; (2) demonstrating artistic “seriousness” in relation to ways of improving at art; and (3) controlling and circulating work through the concepts of property, “sharing,” and “theft.” The dissertation argues that rather than upending Romantic conceptions of art and creativity, the web uneasily accommodates multiple conflicting ideologies. Intersecting with tensions in art are tensions around the web and its overlapping corporate, commercial, and communal uses. deviantART brought together a diverse set of art worlds and creative practices via a seemingly conventional set of interfaces, features, and functionality. In turn, participants on the site helped manifest, reproduce, and transform these tensions in art practice and web use. These findings illustrate flaws in conventional accounts of creativity in a world with the web—accounts that fail to recognize the active, contested, and ongoing work underlying the mutual production of creative practice and the web.

Addresses the basics of copyright law and the exclusive rights of the copyright owner, the major exemptions used by cultural heritage institutions, and stresses the importance of “risk assessment” when conducting any digitization project.

While Lessig is incensed at the raising of a generation of criminals, he is unfazed at the thought of raising a generation of commodities, whose attention and interest is a source of revenue for some venture capitalist. At a time when advertising directly to children is under increasing scrutiny, and for good reason, the commodification of friendship and of home videos should make a parent of young children concerned. But it does not.

Google recently made a deal with book publishers over access to scanned books for Google Book Search. We have to be vigilant that they don't snub the reading public the way they are currently dissing the listening, writing and remixing public on Blogger.

Some additions, amendments.The agreement between Google and the AAP is of great significance for libraries. It is also very long, written in "legalese", and contains conclusions of a lengthy negotiation without revealing the nature of the discussion. Given that many lawyers were involved, we may never get the back story of this historic settlement, yet it has the potential to change the landscape on rights, digitization, and libraries.I am basing much of my analysis on the summary of the agreement produced by ARL. This unfortunately means that some errors may be introduced between their summary and my interpretation. I have gone to the original document to check some particulars, such as definitions, but much of that document goes unread for now.Key Points(... or, a summary of the summary)The agreement is primarily about books that are presumed to be in copyright but which are no longer in print. In-print books continue to be managed directly by the rights holders, who can make agreements with Google (or anyone else) for uses of those items.The agreement has some odd limitations that baffle me: it only covers books published in the US that have been registered with the Copyright Office. It does not include any books published after January 5, 2009 .The settlement does cover non-US books (e.g. Berne countries); I'm still unclear on the statement about registration for US books, but it was cited in the ARL document.The agreement trades off Google's liability with payment to rights holders. That is, as long as Google requires payment from users to displays and copies, and passes 2/3 of those monies to the rights holder, Google is exempt from copyright infringement claims by rights owners. So users of the digital files will pay to keep Google legal.The agreement does not answer the all-important question of whether scanning for the purposes of searching is an allowed use under copyright law.The agreement flaunts the concept of Fair Use by quantifying the amount of an in-copyright book that users can view for free ("20% of the text," "five adjacent pages," but not the final 5% of a fiction book, to keep the endings a surprise.) The ARL document has Google saying that it will not interfere with fair use. I can't find that statement in the actual settlement. These quantities are contractual, and I'm assuming that that technology will not allow users to exert fair use rights, only the contractual agreement.Google will sell digital copies of in-copyright books to users, who will have perpetual access to the book online. Some printing will be allowed but all printed pages will have a watermark that identifies the user. (I'm calling this "ratwear," software that rats you out.) Users will be able to make notes on the book's pages, but they will only be able to share those notes with other purchasers of the book. (Thus buying a Google book is like joining a secret reading club.) The settle states that the watermark will identifier either the user, or other information "which could be used to identify the authorized user that printed the material or the access point from which the material was printed." Agreement, p. 47Key Points Relating to LibrariesThis is the hard part for me. Hard in that it really hurts.After digitizing books held in libraries, Google will then turn around and become a library vendor, supplying those same books back to libraries under Google's control. Each public library in the US will get a single "terminal" provided (and presumably controlled) by Google that allows users to view (but not copy and paste from) books in the Google database. Some printing is allowed, but there will be a per-page fee charged. Libraries and institutions can also subscribe to all or part of the database of out of print books. Access is not perpetual, but limited to the life of the subscription.There is verbiage about how users in these institutions can share their "annotations." In other words, if you take notes on your own, obviously those are yours. But if you use the capabilities of the system to make your notes in the system, you cannot share your own notes freely.Now for the Clincher... this is the pact with the devil.A library can partner with Google for digitization of its collection and get the same release from liability that Google has. The library can keep copies of these digitized books, however, it must follow security standards set by Google and the AAP and must submit its security plan for review and allow yearly auditing. (The security measures are formidable and quite possibly not affordable for all but the wealthiest institutions. There are huge penalties up to millions of dollars for not getting security right.)Libraries that make this pact with the devil are thereby allowed to preserve the files, print replacement copies for deteriorating books, and provide access for people with disabilities. Note that all of these uses by libraries are already allowed by copyright law. The libraries that make this pact with the devil cannot let their users read the digitized books. Well, they can let them read up to five (5!) pages in any digitized book. Presumably if the library wants to provide other uses it must subscribe to Google's service. Libraries are expressly forbidden from using their copies of the books for interlibrary loan, e-reserves, or in course management systems. ... and if you refuse to negotiate with the devil...Current Google library partners who do not choose to become party to this must delete all copies of digitizations of in-copyright works made by the Google project in order to obtain a release from liability. If they choose not to delete the copies, they are on their own in terms of liability for the in-copyright books that Google did digitize (and Google knows exactly which books are involved.)Even if the library was only allowing Google to digitize public domain works, those libraries must destroy all of their copies to get release from liability in case they mis-judged the copyright status of one of the those books.In other words, this agreement is making the assumption that if anyone sues Google for copyright infringement, the library will be a party to that suit.They say that "the devil is in the details." In this case that is not true: the devil is right up front, in the main message. That message is that Google has agreed with the publishers, and is selling out the libraries that is has been working with. The deal that Google and the libraries had was that in exchange for working with Google to digitize books in their collections, the libraries received a copy of the digital file. After that, it was up to the libraries to do the right thing based on their understanding of copyright law. Participating with Google has been an expensive proposition for the libraries in terms of their own staff time and in the development of digital storage facilities. Part of the appeal of working with Google was the assumption that partnering with the search giant gve the entire project clout and provided some protection for the libraries. With Google and the AAP now in cahoots, the libraries must join them or try to stand alone in an unclear legal situation; an unclear situation that Google invited the libraries into in the first place.This is classic bait and switch. And it is bait and switch with powerful commercial interests against public institutions. There is no question about it...THIS IS EVILNote: I've added more comment and info in the comments area as things pop up. So read on....

Unless and until some deal can be worked out for digital rights to images, the focus of the digital library is limited to text—just as we enter the golden age of visual narration.

To the extent it or other search engines limit access to parts of their index, their public-spirited defenses of their archiving and indexing projects are suspect.

Open Text Mining Interface (OTMI) is an initiative from Nature Publishing Group (NPG). It aims to enable scholarly publishers, among others, to disclose their full text for indexing and text-mining purposes but without giving it away in a form that is rea

A worldwide Coalition of leading companies, respected associations, and industry experts have joined this unprecedented non-profit mandate to clearly define and standardize the core aspects of image licensing and its management. Now we can all agree.

List of movies that have fallen out of copyright, with links to where they are hosted.

Bound By Law reaches beyond documentary film to provide a commentary on the most pressing issues facing law, art, property and an increasingly digital world of remixed culture.

William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law and co-founder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School.

Documentary filmmakers have created, through their professional associations, a clear, easy to understand statement of fair and reasonable approaches to fair use.

On March 11-12, 2006, Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society will host a symposium to explore the development and expansion of the metaphor of "cultural environmentalism."

The call for this new regulation is being led by the United States government and the European Commission, pushed by highly paid lobbyists for a trade association that includes Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, Real Networks and a handful of other companies.

The treaty would give broadcasters 50 years of copyright-like control over the content of their broadcasts, even when they have no copyright in what they show. A TV channel broadcasting your Creative Commons-licensed movie could legally demand that no one

There's a new restriction on content waiting in the wings--a "webcaster's right" that allows websites to control the dissemination of content they put up.

DJs may "not mix, remix, Segue, edit, change or otherwise manipulate the sounds of any Sound Recording so that the sounds on the Dubbed copy of the Sound Recording are different from those on the original Sound Recording."

Wouldn't it be economically more efficient for the advertiser to work directly with the program's producer to distribute television programming directly to the audience, using hyperdistribution?

AMV.Org gets its first cease and desist letter.

artists can license their music into productions without giving up any ownership, while TV and advertising producers can discover new music ready for use.

The AMV community reacts to Larry Lessigs publicizing of the AMV phenomenon.

Fair Use--"a privilege in others than the owner of a copyright to use the copyrighted material in a reasonable manner without his consent, notwithstanding the monopoly granted to the owner...

This is a good book if you want a detailed history of how copyright law evolved to accomodate digital technology and the Internet...

This is an insightful though often quick and unfocused examination of the history of copyright law...