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Category Archives: Digital Rights

Libraries, Publishers Battle Over Terms for E-Books’ Use

Bloomberg Law: “States that want to give libraries a better deal on e-books are watching a publishers’ suit against Maryland, the first state to set terms for how digital books are distributed for public borrowing. Library associations, including the American Library Association and several state groups, have been pushing for state laws to require publishers… Continue Reading

Digitized Data as a Political Object

“Digitized data is used as a powerful tool: national security actors see it as a surveillance tool, and the Information, Communications, and Technology (ICT) sector treats it as an economic commodity with great financial value. Fundamental to the findings in this book, data is now tied to your personal identity, and is therefore worthy of… Continue Reading

Mozilla guide to help you shop for safe, secure connected products

CNET – “Santa isn’t alone in keeping an eye on you this holiday season. Nearly a third of the 151 popular connected gifts analyzed by the Mozilla Foundation as part of its annual “Privacy Not Included” shopping guide didn’t meet basic standards for digital security and privacy, the digital rights group said Tuesday. Among the… Continue Reading

Giant, free index to world’s research papers released online

Nature – Catalogue of billions of phrases from 107 million papers could ease computerized searching of the literature.  In a project that could unlock the world’s research papers for easier computerized analysis, an American technologist has released online a gigantic index of the words and short phrases contained in more than 100 million journal articles… Continue Reading

The Library Technology Market’s Failure to Support Controlled Digital Lending

The Scholarly Kitchen – The Library Technology Market’s Failure to Support Controlled Digital Lending – This article is by Nathan Mealey, Michael Rodriguez, and Charlie Barlow. Nathan is Associate University Librarian for Discovery & Access at Wesleyan University. Michael is Collections Strategist at the University of Connecticut Library. Charlie is the Executive Director of the… Continue Reading

Nonprofit Websites Are Riddled With Ad Trackers

New on LLRX – Nonprofit Websites Are Riddled With Ad Trackers – Enterprise reporter Alfred Ng and Investigative Data Journalist Maddy Varner detail how many non profit organizations that often deal in sensitive issues, like mental health, addiction, and reproductive rights—are feeding data about website visitors to corporations. Continue Reading

I Set Out to Build the Next Library of Alexandria. Now I Wonder: Will There Be Libraries in 25 Years?

TIME – Brewster Kahle, Founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive. Member, National Academy of Engineering, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Internet Hall of Fame< “When I started the Internet Archive 25 years ago, I focused our non-profit library on digital collections: preserving web pages, archiving television news, and digitizing books.… Continue Reading

Amazon Publishing, DPLA Ink Deal to Lend E-books in Libraries

Publishers Weekly: “The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) today announced that it has signed a much-anticipated agreement with Amazon Publishing to make all of the roughly 10,000 Amazon Publishing e-books and digital audiobooks available to libraries, the first time that digital content from Amazon Publishing will be made available to libraries. In a release… Continue Reading

Misinformation and Technology: Rights and Regulation Across Borders

Post, Robert and Maduro, Miguel, Misinformation and Technology: Rights and Regulation Across Borders (November 17, 2020). Global Constitutionalism: 2020 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3732537 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3732537 “The “virtual” public sphere has taken on unprecedented importance, exposing a variety of legal questions regarding the governance of the internet and its relationship to democracy and freedom of… Continue Reading

Crowdsourced maps will show exactly where surveillance cameras are watching

Fast Company – “Amnesty International is producing a map of all the places in New York City where surveillance cameras are scanning residents’ faces. The project will enlist volunteers to use their smartphones to identify, photograph, and locate government-owned surveillance cameras capable of shooting video that could be matched against people’s faces in a database… Continue Reading

YouTube’s Copyright Filter Is Crushing Video Critique And It’s Getting Worse

Gizmodo – “YouTube’s copyright filter is a labyrinthine nightmare called Content ID. Content ID works by scanning all the videos on YouTube and comparing them to a database of material submitted by copyright holders—often music labels and movie and TV studios—which have been given the ability to add things to the database by YouTube. Once… Continue Reading