“The nation’s largest publisher and several bestselling authors, including novelists John Green and Jodi Picoult, are part of a lawsuit filed Thursday challenging Iowa’s new law that bans public school libraries and classrooms from having practically any book that depicts sexual activity.
The lawsuit is the second in the past week to challenge the law, which bans books with sexual content all the way through 12th grade. An exception is allowed for religious texts….”
“A redrafted bill to expand access to e-books and digital audiobooks in Massachusetts would not violate federal law, librarians said Monday, as they sought to quash concerns about a similar law in Maryland that was deemed unconstitutional last year….
Balser, D-12th Middlesex, said her revised proposal complies with federal law, but the national group of publishers say the bill still conflicts with copyright law and would devalue the intellectual property of authors.
Balser said the legislation aims to ensure fairer licensing agreements between publishers and public libraries, which must contend with steeper costs and a raft of restrictions for obtaining e-books and digital audiobooks compared to physical books.
Public libraries often need to pay five to six times as much for an e-book compared to a hard copy — and those e-book licenses expire after a certain amount of duration or number of checkouts, making it difficult for libraries to maintain or expand their collections for patrons, according to the Massachusetts Library Association….”
“Libraries around the world were forced to shut their doors in the spring of 2020 during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Temple University Libraries was no exception. While the Philadelphia institution’s physical buildings were closed, librarians got creative about how to remain open to students, faculty and staff.
It was all about getting users connected with digital material. Library staff worked together to develop a simple new service—they added a “Get Help Finding a Digital Copy” button to their library catalog. When searching for resources in the library catalog, users can click on the button to request assistance finding a physical item in digital form, which creates a help ticket for library staff to field.
Within the first week of the button launch in April 2020, there were about 350 requests. Since then, the requests have surpassed 9,000….”
“Despite recent litigation, the practice of controlled digital lending (CDL) continues — and is likely here to stay, according to experts recently gathered for a webinar hosted by SPARC.
“CDL is not dead. It’s been around for a long time. It’s ingrained into a lot of libraries as a means of considering access differently,” said Kyle K. Courtney, a lawyer, librarian, and director of copyright and information policy at Harvard University. “It’s another viable solution for collections that are rare, local, and have little zero market harm, but have high value to communities.” …”
“The US library system, once the model for the world, is under assault from politicians, rightwing activists and corporate publishers. Book bans are at record levels, and libraries across the country are facing catastrophic budget cuts, a fate only narrowly avoided by New York City’s public libraries this summer. In a separate line of attack, library collections are being squeezed by draconian licensing deals, and even sued to stop lending digitized books….
Today, the ownership of digital books is routinely denied to libraries. Many books are offered to libraries in electronic form only, under restrictive temporary licenses; libraries can never own these e-books, but must pay for them over and over, as if they were Netflix movies.
Some publishers have even explicitly named libraries as direct economic competitors….”
“Whether through a physical or digital copy, lending materials one object at a time is a core library activity. Despite the publisher challenge in Hachette v. Internet Archive that has put a spotlight on this issue, libraries are continuing the practice of controlled digital lending. As the Internet Archive appeals the initial ruling in the case, libraries may have questions about the case and how this decision may impact them.
On October 3rd from 12-1pm ET / 9-10am PT, SPARC will host a conversation that will provide an overview of the implications of the case so far, discuss how libraries are continuing the practice of controlled digital lending, and touch on what libraries can be doing to support and strengthen this practice moving forward. The event will also touch on the recent Valancourt Books ruling that curbs the U.S. Copyright Office’s ability to require the deposit of physical copies of works with the Library of Congress…”
“Whether through a physical or digital copy, lending materials one object at a time is a core library activity. Despite the publisher challenge in Hachette v. Internet Archive that has put a spotlight on this issue, libraries are continuing the practice of controlled digital lending. As the Internet Archive appeals the initial ruling in the case, libraries may have questions about the case and how this decision may impact them.
On October 3rd from 12-1pm ET / 9-10am PT, SPARC will host a conversation that will provide an overview of the implications of the case so far, discuss how libraries are continuing the practice of controlled digital lending, and touch on what libraries can be doing to support and strengthen this practice moving forward. The event will also touch on the recent Valancourt Books ruling that curbs the U.S. Copyright Office’s ability to require the deposit of physical copies of works with the Library of Congress The webcast will feature a variety of perspectives from libraries and copyright experts….”
“Five textbook publishers have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against pirate site Library Genesis (LibGen) seeking for the operation to be shut down and the site’s domain names blocked.
LibGen is a pirate website that gives users free access to copyrighted works such as academic journal articles that would otherwise be paywalled or not digitised elsewhere. According to the complaint, the site attracts in excess of nine million visitors per month on average from the US alone. Its operators are anonymous….”
“Yesterday, some of the biggest textbook publishers sued Library Genesis, an illegal shadow library that publishers accused of “extensive violations of federal copyright law.”
Publishers suing include Cengage Learning, Macmillan Learning, McGraw Hill, and Pearson Education. They claimed that Library Genesis (aka Libgen) is operated by unknown individuals based outside the United States, who know that the shadow library is “one of the largest, most notorious, and far-reaching infringement operations in the world” and intentionally violate copyright laws with “absolutely no legal justification for what they do.”
According to publishers, Libgen offers free downloads for over 20,000 books that the publishers never authorized Libgen to distribute. They claimed that Libgen is “a massive piracy effort” and noted that their complaint may be updated if more infringed works are found. This vast infringement is causing publishers and authors serious financial and creative harm, publishers alleged….
This is not the first lawsuit to go after Libgen, and if history repeats, it likely won’t be the last. TorrentFreak reported that after the publisher Elsevier sued Libgen in 2015, a court ordered Libgen to shut down. But after briefly disappearing, Libgen popped back up and has been online ever since, operating in defiance of that order—as well as court orders “in several countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, and the United Kingdom,” publishers’ complaint filed yesterday said. Those countries even tried ordering “Internet service providers to block access to Libgen Sites as a result of infringement actions,” publishers said, all seemingly to no avail….”
“This week, the Internet Archive appealed a court decision that forced the nonprofit to limit access to some scanned books at the behest of large commercial book publishers. We are joined by a leader at the nonprofit as well as a UW-Milwaukee librarian offering free e-textbooks to students.”
ACS and Elsevier, members of the Coalition for Responsible Sharing, have agreed to a legal settlement with ResearchGate that ensures copyright-compliant sharing of research articles published with ACS or Elsevier on the ResearchGate site. The lawsuits pending against ResearchGate in Germany and the United States are now resolved. The specific terms of the parties’ settlement are confidential. Dr. James Milne, Chair of the Coalition for Responsible Sharing and President, ACS Publications, said: “The settlement is good news for researchers. ACS, Elsevier, and ResearchGate have agreed on a technical solution that enables authors who have published research articles with ACS or Elsevier to share their work on the ResearchGate platform in a copyright-compliant way. Automated checks occur instantly at the point of upload, helping researchers to save time. “I’d like to thank all parties for their cooperation on this solution. Asking the courts to resolve ResearchGate’s responsibilities in connection with copyright compliance was a necessary step. Publishers in the Coalition for Responsible Sharing actively promote and enable the sharing of research articles as they support researchers to make progress that benefits society. We’re pleased that this settlement helps remove uncertainty for researchers sharing their work on the ResearchGate site.” Ijad Madisch, Co-Founder and CEO of ResearchGate, added: “Today’s joint announcement marks a new chapter in the relationship between ACS, Elsevier, and ResearchGate, and we’re pleased to have landed on an automated solution that makes it easier for authors to share works published with ACS and Elsevier on ResearchGate. This automated solution performs a series of checks to determine applicable sharing options at the point of upload – with no additional overhead for researchers. This helps scientists and researchers who use ResearchGate every day, and we look forward to continuing to work with publishers across the industry to deliver the best solutions for researchers.” At the point of upload, the ResearchGate platform will check rights information for ACS and Elsevier published content. ResearchGate will then immediately determine how the content can be shared on its site. Authors can store their copyrighted ACS and Elsevier published Version of Record articles privately in their ResearchGate profiles and share them privately when requested by other users. The platform also identifies articles that may be shared publicly. -Ends-
“Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued its opinion in the case ASTM International v. Public.Resource.Org.
The Court was asked to consider whether online posting of building codes (and other standards) incorporated into the law by reference constitutes a fair use. Public Knowledge maintains that these standards, once incorporated into law, are no longer protectable by copyright, and filed an amicus brief with Library Futures, EveryLibrary, and Authors’ Alliance arguing this position. The Court of Appeals did not address whether or not these standards remained under copyright, but did hold that posting them online for nonprofit purposes constituted a fair use….”
“Today, the Internet Archive has submitted its appeal [PDF] in Hachette v. Internet Archive. As we stated when the decision was handed down in March, we believe the lower court made errors in facts and law, so we are fighting on in the face of great challenges. We know this won’t be easy, but it’s a necessary fight if we want library collections to survive in the digital age.
Statement from Brewster Kahle, founder and digital librarian of the Internet Archive:
“Libraries are under attack like never before. The core values and library functions of preservation and access, equal opportunity, and universal education are being threatened by book bans, budget cuts, onerous licensing schemes, and now by this harmful lawsuit. We are counting on the appellate judges to support libraries and our longstanding and widespread library practices in the digital age. Now is the time to stand up for libraries.”
We will share more information about the appeal as it progresses….”
Abstract: In the recent years, CDL has been heatedly talked about, CDL should be treated objectively and rationally. Getting knowledge of CDL modes and their copyright issues is critical for sustainable development of CDL. Rather than CDL becomes a transient phenomenon as a result of many copyright hurdles. The paper will explore CDL modes by combing CDL practices and programs from research papers and official website documents of different library organizations. Then, based on legal frameworks of CDL in the US, Canada and the UK which are summarized, copyright issues of CDL modes are analyzed from perspectives of implementing institution, service resources, and usage mode. Finally, some copyright recommendations for sustainable development of CDL are proposed. We believe that library institutions can use CDL to advance their crucial mission for the public’s interest through making sense of different CDL modes and their copyright issues and implementing some proposals about copyright processing.
“Publishers can’t demand more money for the paper books you’ve already bought, but the technology for copying and distributing books has evolved a lot since 1909. So four titanic corporate publishers are currently in court, insisting on the effective right to barge in and demand multiple, recurring payments for digital books–like they do for digital movies, music, and software–and they want to exercise that same power over the books in libraries.
This threat to the ownership of books is what makes the ongoing publishers’ lawsuit against the Internet Archive politically dangerous, and in an altogether different way from earlier challenges and amendments to copyright law. At a time of increasing book bannings and attacks on libraries, public schools and universities, it is not safe for democracy, or for our cultural posterity, to leave an “on/off” switch for library books in the hands of corporate publishers….”