Thanks to Kim, Olga, Jack and all those at CIP whose work over the last month or two brought (c)ollectanea to life. This is a wonderful opportunity to expand the good work of the CIP by bringing members of its audience into a broad conversation about copyright issues.
One never knows for sure who, if anyone, is listening when you blog, so I hope those of you who are will take a moment now and then to add your voices to the mix. Comments, questions and observations are welcomed.
I follow many other bloggers daily and have found it to be an excellent way to keep up with what's happening in areas that interest me. Today I noticed that the author of The Long Tail, Chris Anderson, posted a note about his book having been pirated and made available through Bittorrent -- The Long Tail: Books want to be free. Far from being upset about it, he's elated. What interests me are his musings about the possible business models that could support free audio books, alongside hardback and paperback versions. These kinds of conversations about the future of the publishing industry are very important. Publishers need all the creative minds they can get working on the problems of moving forward in a networked world. Copyright by itself is only part of the answer.
Comments (3)
This is an interesting blog.
I'd written a Letter to the Editor on copyright and IP issues that appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association:
My letter was in response to a JAMA article by Harvard Medical School's ombud, Authorship The Coin of the Realm, The Source of Complaints at http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/280/3/216 .
The Harvard ombud seemed to feel universities could not protect students or junior faculty from retaliation by tenured faculty when IP disputes arose. I disagreed.
My letter in response to the article was informed by issues with IP (a computer program) I authored as faculty at Yale School of Medicine. Yale's copyright policy at http://www.yale.edu/ocr/indust_policies/copyright.html plainly states "the University disclaims ownership of works by faculty" unless special arrangements apply. However, a number of senior faculty unfortunately felt otherwise.
S. Silverstein, MD
The iSchool at Drexel
Posted by Scot Silverstein, MD | February 5, 2007 1:04 PM
Posted on February 5, 2007 13:04
Thanks so much for all of this - copyright is so valuable to us librarians yet so convoluted - having a common-sense source to read on a frequent basis will certainly go a long way to bridge the gap between knowledge currently possessed and knowledge needed!
Posted by Susan | February 5, 2007 1:57 PM
Posted on February 5, 2007 13:57
Congratulations to you and the folks at CIP on launching what will surely be an interesting and useful blog!
And thanks for the link to Chris Anderson's post. He presents many interesting ideas. I think there is much to be said for the marketing value of free online content, but the effectiveness of this approach may turn out to vary quite a bit by type of book.
Doug Barnett
University of Texas
Posted by Doug Barnett | February 5, 2007 5:27 PM
Posted on February 5, 2007 17:27