COPYCENSE

"This week Google Inc. down in Mountain View, wading in dough from its stock offering, announced it would use some of the money to put millions of volumes from the country’s great libraries online where anybody can use them.

"Don’t burn that library card just yet, though.

"There’s a catch. Well, several. First, as anyone trying to send Grandma’s recipe for plum pudding to a sister in Des Moines knows, scanning takes time. Google claims to have a new whiz-bang way to do it — there won’t be some luckless employee feeling her brain cells die as she flattens a book on a cranky copier page by page. It won’t say exactly what its method is.

"For a company bent on putting the universe at the disposal of anyone who can type words into a box, it seems less enthusiastic about information flowing out of its headquarters in Mountain View."

Adair Lara. ‘Googleizing’ Libraries Won’t Replace Books. San Francisco Chronicle. Dec. 18, 2004.

See also:
No author. Here’s What You Will – and Won’t – Be Able to See When Searching for Library Books on Google. Detroit Free Press. Dec. 15, 2004.

George Kerevan. Despite Google, We Still Need Good Libraries. Scotsman.com. Dec. 16, 2004.

National Public Radio. Google’s Plan Prompts a Question: What’s on the Web?. Talk of the Nation. Dec. 15, 2004.

Matt Hicks. Google’s Library Project Could Drive Content Contest. eWeek. Dec. 14, 2004.

Andrew Leonard. What Google Promises Us. Salon. Dec. 14, 2004.

(Editor�s Note: Salon.com normally requires a paid subscription, but you can view articles if you register for a free day pass.)

SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"Last week, the financial and technological world saw yet another dot-com star go dark. In 1999, Commerce One Inc. was the belle of the dot-com IPO ball. Promising a gateway to faster, more efficient business-to-business (B2B) transactions over the Web, it was the No. 1 initial public offering of 1999, boosting its stock price over 600 percent and making millionaires out of its founders. After the crash of 2000, however, Commerce One’s fortunes reversed, leading it down a path to delisting and, eventually, bankruptcy.

"As in most bankruptcies, Commerce One’s creditors sought to sell off the company’s assets to the highest bidder, hoping to recoup its lost investment and satisfy the $9.7 million of outstanding debt the company had left behind. What made this fire sale different from most, though, was the power of a single set of assets — Commerce One’s Web services patent portfolio. In a relatively rare decision, the bankruptcy court decided to separate the sale of these patents from the sale of the rest of the company, thereby allowing a separate bidding process to take place exclusively for the patent portfolio.

"While the sale of patents is nothing new, the Commerce One patent auction highlights a disturbing trend in our current patent system."

Jason Schultz. When Dot-Com Patents Go Gad. Salon. Dec. 13, 2004.

(Editor�s Note: Salon.com normally requires a paid subscription, but you can view articles if you register for a free day pass.)

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"A handful of myths have spawned practices, particularly among bloggers and Website owners, that turn copyright law on its head. These myths are rooted in the assumption that everything is up for use online unless and until proven otherwise. Those myths and that ease have fostered a presumption of entitlement that causes Netizens to treat the Internet (and non-electronic sources as well) as a buffet spread of photos, articles, sounds and multi-media files free for the plucking and posting.

"Despite all the media attention to recent lawsuits cracking down on unauthorized music downloads, these myths are still in surprisingly widespread circulation. In the past six months, otherwise educated people have asserted eight different fallacies to me as if they were law. Every one of them has the potential to lead the ill-informed into the land of copyright infringement, where even a short stay can carry a whopping price tag.

"Note: The discussion below will use the term ‘permission’ to include both explicit permission from the copyright holder and any legally imputed permission, whether due to the work being in the public domain or through fair use, the exercise of the special reproduction right granted to libraries and archives under 17 U.S.C. Section 108, or the limited instructional exemption granted by 17 U.S.C. Section 110.  Also, this discussion addresses only works created in the United States or otherwise subject to U.S. copyright law."

Kathy Biehl. Bloggers Beware: Debunking Eight Copyright Myths of the Online World. LLRX.com. Dec. 16, 2004.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"Apple Computer on Thursday said it has now sold more than 200 million songs through its iTunes Music Store–and it has new plans to keep the sales trend continuing upward.

"It took the company 11 months to sell its first 50 million songs and then another four months to get to 100 million songs. Three months later, the company hit 150 million, and it took just two months to get to 200 million.

"Apple has not only kept its sales growing, but it has maintained a commanding share of the online sales market, despite stepped-up competition from stores using Microsoft’s Windows Media file format. The company also faces an uphill battle to convert those still using free file-swapping services such as Kazaa."

Ina Fried. iTunes Hits 200 Million Download Mark. News.com. Dec. 16, 2004.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.