Randy Picker has a fascinating post on the Faculty Blog of the University of Chicago’s law school of the copyright status of scans (by Google, for example) of public domain works. Does the effort of digitizing the work qualify as enough original effort to create a new copyright?
The still-in-draft Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, beloved of some, is hated by many–including Google, apparently.
There has been increasing discussion around the concept of the “splinternet”: that proprietary devices like the iPad or proprietary sites like Facebook are acting to splinter the old, connected Web into discrete, fragmented, and self-contained units. But the “golden age” was hardly golden, and today’s Web is, if anything, better than it used to be in terms of interconnectivity. Certainly it’s important to recognize fragmentation issues today, but let’s not pretend it’s a new problem.
Norman Oder updates us on the arguments at the Google Books settlement hearing. I found the several following points made by speakers at the hearing particulary interesting.
At the Google Books fairness hearing, who supports and who opposes the settlement?
There have been several new entrants to the legal research marketplace, including the now-established Fastcase, along with free alternatives like AltLaw and FindLaw. Google recently entered the picture by adding legal cases (federal and state) to Google Scholar, and now Bloomberg (known for business-focused research tools) is experimenting with a new legal research product.
“Be helpful and do good” is a deceptively simple strategy: just go out and help people, and clients will find you. (Just don’t forget to make it easy to be found!)
Dan Cohen gave an interesting talk at the American Historical Association meeting recently, where he discussed the benefits Google brings to historical research, as well as some pointed criticisms.
As part of a recent attempt to update my personal information online, I decided to update my personal site to better reflect my current activities and background. As part of my content update, I ideally wanted my site to be more dynamic, so that I did not need to touch it very often, yet to still have it be more up-to-date and fresh. My idea was to rely on updates I would make to other sites anyway, and to leverage those updates to drive my personal site too.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought over the weekend to the problem of finding good content buried amidst all the noise on the Internet, especially when it comes to blog articles from lesser-known sources. (This is true for readers looking for quality content, but it’s also true for authors seeking readers.)
I’m generally in favor of holding companies liable for their actions — after all, if we treat corporations as “persons” under the law, then they should have responsibilities as well as protections and benefits. But I’m not sure about holding executives criminally liable — perhaps in the case of knowing pollution or conspiracy to cover up product dangers — but not, I think, for actions they are not directly responsible for, as in this case from Italy.
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