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Daily Archives: March 26, 2023

Book Publishers Won’t Stop Until Libraries Are Dead

TechDirt: “Earlier this week there was finally a hearing in the case brought by the big book publishers to kill off libraries. That, of course, is not how the publishers describe the lawsuit, but it’s absolutely what the lawsuit is about. We’ll get to some of the details in a moment, but we’ve joked in the past that if libraries were new today there’s no way that book publishers would let them exist. In some ways they’re a legacy holdover from before publishers had that much power. The attack on controlled digital lending (CDL) more or less proves this. As much as publishers like to claim they “love libraries,” their actions here speak quite clearly that they would destroy them if they could. Controlled digital lending is no different from how a library lends out books today. In both cases, it gets a physical copy of the book (either through purchase or donation), and then proceeds to lend out that copy. With a physical library it’s literally that physical copy. With CDL it’s a scan of that book, but the scan is tied to the physical copy, so that if a digital copy is loaned out, no one else can take out another copy. Every part of that has been deemed legal. Copyright law already has first sale rights, written directly into the law and allow for the lending or reselling of copyright-covered works without a license or permission. Similarly libraries are given explicit rights to make copies, so long as those collections are made available to the public. On top of that, courts have determined, multiple times, that book scanning itself is fair use for libraries. So, literally each separate component of what is happening with Controlled Digital Lending has already been deemed to be legal and exactly what we expect libraries to do…”

FTC Proposes Rule Provision – “Click to Cancel” Recurring Subscriptions and Memberships

“The Federal Trade Commission today proposed a “click to cancel” provision requiring sellers to make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up. That is just one of several significant updates the Commission is proposing to its rules regarding subscriptions and recurring payments. The new click to cancel… Continue Reading

Your next job interview could be judged by AI. Here’s how to prepare.

Washington Post: “Some employers are using AI to assess video interviews candidates do on their own time without a human on the other side. Depending on the software, the AI can evaluate a candidate’s communication skills, problem-solving skills, initiative, professionalism and attitude. And ultimately, the AI screening could eliminate you before you ever speak to… Continue Reading

Subjects: AI

Utah parent says the Bible contains porn – remove from school libraries

The Salt Lake Tribune: “Frustrated by the books being removed from school libraries, a Utah parent says there’s one that hasn’t been challenged yet, but that they believe should be, for being “one of the most sex-ridden books around.”So they’ve submitted a request for their school district in Davis County to now review the Bible… Continue Reading

Hitting the Books: How the ‘Godfather of Cybercrime’ got his start on eBay

Engadget – “From bunk Beanie Babies to signal-stealing cable boxes, Brett Johnson has scammed them all. The internet has connected nearly everybody on the planet to a global network of information and influence, enabling humanity’s best and brightest minds unparalleled collaborative capabilities. At least that was the idea, more often than not these days, it… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, March 25, 2023

Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, March 25, 2023 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly… Continue Reading

AI chatbots compared: Bard vs. Bing vs. ChatGPT

The Verge: “The chatbots are out in force, but which is better and for what task? We’ve compared Google’s Bard, Microsoft’s Bing, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT models with a range of questions spanning common requests from holiday tips to gaming advice to mortgage calculations. Naturally, this is far from an exhaustive rundown of these systems’ capabilities… Continue Reading

Internet Archive

Internet Archives Blog: “Today’s lower court decision in Hachette v. Internet Archive is a blow to all libraries and the communities we serve. This decision impacts libraries across the US who rely on controlled digital lending to connect their patrons with books online. It hurts authors by saying that unfair licensing models are the only… Continue Reading