Learning From Aaron Swartz: Content Must Not Be The End Game For Knowledge

In the wake of the suicide of Aaron Swartz, there have been many fine tributes to the man and his work. Another growing class of posts that have flowed from this unhappy event are people reflecting on the important lessons he taught them. Here, for instance, is Jeff Jarvis recounting his journey from a fairly traditional position on copyright to one that recognized how the Internet had reshaped that landscape. 

On Techdirt.

Of Access to Copyright Materials and Blindness

In a way, I suppose we should be grateful that the content industries have decided to dig their heels in over the question of providing more access to copyright materials for the visually impaired. For it leads to revelatory posts like this, which offer an extraordinary glimpse into the twisted, crimped souls of those fighting tooth and nail against the needs of the blind and visually impaired:

the treaty now being proposed would not be compatible with US copyright laws and norms, and would undermine the goal of expanded access that we all share. This overreaching treaty would also harm the rights of authors and other artists, and the incentives necessary for them to create and commercialize their works. We strongly believe improving access for one community should not mean that another loses its rights in the process.

Let's just look at that.

First, in what sense is providing more access to the visually impaired not compatible with US copyright laws? The proponents of this change have gone out of their way to make sure that the access given is within current copyright regimes, which are not serving this huge, disadvantaged constituency properly. And how would it undermine expanded access? It would, manifestly, provide access that is not available now; the publishers have proposed nothing that would address the problem other than saying the system's fine, we don't want to change it.

But the most telling - and frankly, sickening - aspect of this post is the way its author sets up the rights of authors against the rights of those with visual disabilities, as if the latter are little better than those scurvy "pirates" that "steal" copyright material from those poor authors.

In fact, *nothing* is being taken, it's simply that these people wish to enjoy their rights to read as others do - something that has been denied to them by an industry indifferent to their plight. And which author would not be happy to extend the pleasure of reading their works to those cut off from it by virtue of physical disabilities?

If Mark Esper thinks that is an unreasonable, outrageous goal for the visually impaired, and that maximalist copyright trumps all other humanitarian considerations, he is a truly sad human being, and I pity him. He should try looking in the mirror sometime - and be glad that he can, unlike those whose rights he so despises. (Via Jamie Love.)

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UK Government Fails to Get Web 2.0

This is so depressing:

There should be no new exemption from copyright law for users' adaptations of copyright-protected content, the UK Government has said. To create such an exemption for user-generated content would ignore the rights of content creators, it said.

...


"Another significant concern is the extent to which such an exemption might allow others to use the works in a way that the existing rights holders do not approve of and the impact that exemptions in this area might have on remuneration," it said.

In fact reading the full report is even more depressing, since it constantly harps on "stakeholders" - by which it means content owners - and clearly doesn't give a toss for the general public's concerns or needs.

The UK government is clearly still trapped in the mindset that it's about telling the little people what they can do with the stuff kindly provided by those magnanimous content corporations. Even extending exemptions for teaching and libraries are frowned upon as self-evidently bad things - can't spread that dangerous knowledge stuff too widely, now can we?

The Elephant in the Library

As I read about the incredible riches of content stored on the Internet, one thing worries me increasingly: who's doing the off-site backups? Too many of the current stores seem to have single points of failure, but nobody's really talking about this serious issue - call it the elephant in the library.

So it's good to hear of new projects that aim to back up content independently of others. Things like HathiTrust:

HathiTrust is a bold idea with big plans.

As a digital repository for the nation’s great research libraries, HathiTrust (pronounced hah-tee) brings together the immense collections of partner institutions.

HathiTrust was conceived as a collaboration of the thirteen universities of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and the University of California system to establish a repository for these universities to archive and share their digitized collections. Partnership is open to all who share this grand vision.

HathiTrust is a solution.

To prospective partners, HathiTrust offers leadership and reliability.

It provides a no-worry, pain-free solution to archiving vast amounts of digital content. You can rely on the expertise of other librarians and information technologists who understand your needs and who will address the issues of servers, storage, migration, and long-term preservation.

Not all of this content will be freely available to all, although that will be the main emphasis - here's the current stats:

2,123,209 volumes
743,123,150 pages
79 terabytes
25 miles
1,725 tons
335,300 volumes (~16% of total)
in the public domain

Still, it's good to have backups for proprietary content too: if in the coming apocalypse it's lost because the primary stores go down permanently, there's no hope of ever opening it up.

And if you were wondering:

What does the name HathiTrust mean?

Hathi (pronounced hah-tee) is the Hindi word for elephant, an animal highly regarded for its memory, wisdom, and strength. Trust is a core value of research libraries and one of their greatest assets. In combination, the words convey the key benefits researchers can expect from a first-of-its-kind shared digital repository.

Volantis Code Takes Flight with GPLv3

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Karenina Code

Never mind Da Vinci, there's clearly a deeper Karenina Code waiting to be deciphered, judging by the number of (different) spam messages I've received that use it. The latest began:

several successful shots, and in the night they drove home

Amazingly, those words are enough to identify the text, thanks to Google. Content as the ultimate index....