Disruptive Library Technology Jester

WorldCat May Become Available as Library Linked Data under ODC-BY

Peter Murray — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 02:46:39 +0000

On the second day of the OCLC Global Council meeting [agenda PDF] there was a presentation by Robin Murray (VP, OCLC Global Product Management) and Jim Michalko (VP, OCLC Research Library Partnership) called “Linked Open Data”. The title of the presentation was an understatement because the real heart of the matter was WorldCat data as linked open data. The presentation was about an hour long, and despite the technical difficulties was fascinating to listen to through the streaming video feed. OCLC says the archive of the meeting will be available at some point, and I urge you to check it out when it becomes available.

Robin Murray’s first half of the presentation walked through OCLC’s thoughts about how their implementation of linked data is evolving along side their programatic API offerings. (Almost as an aside, Robin said that use of the WorldCat API has been growing steadily and is now up to 15 million hits per month — or 347 hits/minute. Wow!) He had a really slick diagram that showed the exposure of data through linked data services and API services across a half-dozen OCLC products. He called library linked data the “Data Exposure Service” of the WorldShare platform. There was one slide that I did copy down: with a title of “Opportunity or Threat”, Robin proposed:

IF, collectively we can re-envision cataloging as ‘registering nodes in a global web of data’;
AND we can position WorldCat as the trusted, global web of library data;
THEN this dramatically increases the global value and utility of metadata management with WorldCat.

Robin went on to say that he sees publishing the OCLC cooperative’s data assets as linked data is more opportunity than threat. That doing so grows the possible base of funding support for WorldCat; or, as he put it a “significant opportunity to ‘Grow the Denominator’” (where the fixed costs of adding value to member contributed records is the numerator).

Jim Michalko’s second half of the presentation walked through the history of the cooperative’s Rights and Responsibilities document, past discussions about publishing WorldCat data, and lead up to a recommendation that OCLC leadership had for the Global Council and the Board of Trustees: publish WorldCat data as linked data with an Open Data Commons “BY” attribution license (a.k.a. ODC-BY). In fact, Jim explicitly said “no restrictions on commercial reuse” of individual records.

After the presentation and a short question/answer period, there was to be discussions at the tables where one of the questions was whether the Global Council would recommend to the Board of Trustees the adoption of ODC-BY to WorldCat data. Each table was to report the summary of their deliberations, but unfortunately that part of the meeting wasn’t webcast. We may have to wait for formal minutes of the meeting to be published to see what the conclusion of the discussion was.

This discussion at Global Council about WorldCat data follows a similar announcement from Thom Hickey about the Virtual International Authority File being published with an ODC-BY license with attribution to VIAF. Jonathan Rochkind posted his appreciation and approval of the VIAF move but predicted a couple of pain points with the ODC-BY licensing. What he says there is also true of an ODC-BY licensed WorldCat.

Both Robin and Jim made a point of modeling their practices on what is happening in the general linked data community, but I’m concerned that a Google search for “ODC-BY linked data” doesn’t show many examples beyond OCLC’s efforts. It is quite possible that my Google results are artificially skewed towards library results. ~~On the Code4Lib IRC channel it was noted, for instance, that the Linked Geo Data (derived from Open Street Map project) is or soon will be ODC-BY.~~ [See clarification in the comments.] If there are other examples, I’d appreciate hearing about them in the comments.

There was also a discussion about whether WorldCat data could be given by members to Europeana, which announced it is using the CC0 public domain dedication. There is an important mismatch between CC0 and ODC-BY — notably the attribution requirement in the latter that isn’t in the former. I can’t faithfully recall direct quotes from the discussion — you’ll have to watch the video archive — but the summary I remember was that doing so would be okay as long as the member was being reasonable about what was being shared with Europeana. And that the same would hold true for the Digital Public Library of America.

On the whole, the presentation and discussion were fascinating to follow, and from my point of view represents a welcome and appropriate liberalization of how WorldCat data can be reused and the intention of OCLC to public bibliographic (and other data) to become a stable, generally usable anchor of library linked data. This is an important milestone to putting libraries and library data at the core of the linked open data movement, and it will spur innovation and uses that we can only dream about now.

Update — 18-Apr-2012

News from Twitter:

Global Council passes resolution advising move to Open Data Commons Attribution License ODC-BY #oclcgc
— OCLCEMEARC (@OCLCEMEARC) April 18, 2012

As I recall the process, it now moves to approval by the OCLC Board of Trustees.

But Is It a Library? — Reflections on ‘Little Free Libraries’

Peter Murray — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 20:43:30 +0000

Little Free Library, near Cafe Zoma by Jeremy Cusker, on Flickr

There are these places popping up around the country where people are putting out books in containers ranging from little huts to hutches to converted fire extinguisher cases for others to take, share, and return or substitute with a book of their own. In some cases, they are even replacing closed library branches. But in all of their variations and in much of the media discussion about them, something seemed odd in how they were described — are they really libraries?

Many of the stories describing these oases seem to focus on the books themselves — that the container is a place one goes to give or find a physical artifact. As librarians would tell you, a ‘library’ is so much more than that. Libraries are less about the physical artifacts and more about the connections made with people and between people and ideas. It is just that libraries have been focused on the lending of physical artifacts for so long that they have become synonymous. Particularly as we now start the era of ideas encoded in digital form and many begin to wonder what will become of that place called the ‘library’ as the predominance of the physical form declines.

So as I came across the first few articles describing the ‘little free library’ movement and similar efforts, I was bothered by the fact that the word ‘library’ kept being used to describe these containers. I changed my mind as I read one story with the title Using books to build community. Part of a supplement to an NBC Nightly News story, the article says:

And each one has become more than just a place for getting books and leaving books. [Todd] Bol said the little libraries have fostered a greater sense of community.
“There’s a primal need,” he said, “for people to be a part of their community. We have people tell us all the time in seven days of having a Little Free Library I’ve met more people than I have met in 20 years in my neighborhood.”
In Madison, Wisc., Meghan Blake-Horst put a little library in her front yard. “It’s a continual conversation piece,” she said.
Terri Connolly Cronk, who also lives in Madison, said people in the neighborhood who never stopped and talked before are stopping now because of the library that rests on the corner of her property. The library is not just encouraging readers, it’s giving neighbors opportunities to get to know each other.

Now that is something I think we’d be proud to call a library: not only connecting people with books but also connecting people with people.

Thursday Threads: Developer Genders, Facebook Release Engineering, Alcohol Among Technologists

Peter Murray — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:33:29 +0000

You’ll get the sense that this week’s Thursday Threads is stacked towards cultural awareness. First is the view of a developer of the female gender in a room of peers at a meeting of the Digital Public Library of America. The second thread is a pointer to a story about Facebook’s software release process, and it leads into a story about the role of alcohol in technology conferences and reflections from the library technology community.

DLTJ Thursday Threads is a weekly summary of technology, library, and publishing topics (and anything else that crosses my path that is worth calling out). Feel free to send this to others you think might be interested in the topics. If you find these threads interesting and useful, you might want to add the Thursday Threads RSS Feed to your feed reader or subscribe to e-mail delivery using the form to the right. New this year is that Pinboard has replaced FriendFeed as my primary aggregation service. If you would like a more raw and immediate version of these types of stories, watch my Pinboard bookmarks (or subscribe to its feed in your feed reader). Items posted to are also sent out as tweets; you can follow me on Twitter. Comments and tips, as always, are welcome.

An Inclusive Table

But here I am, with a constant background obsession, now, of how to get more librarians involved (and involved more deeply) in tech, how to foster collaboration on library technology projects, which is inseparable from the problem of how to get more women involved more deeply and collaboratively in technology. So I can’t not look at that room and see how the status lines fracture, along code mastery but coincidentally also gender, written in the physical geography of the room, where I’m the only one sitting at the table. I can’t not wonder, how can I create spaces which redraw those lines.
- my first hackathon; or, gender, status, code, and sitting at the table, by Andromeda Yelton

Andromeda attended the DPLA hackathon last Thursday and posted this very pointed view of the perceptions of women in library technology.

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Facebook Release Engineering

I recently had a unique opportunity to visit Facebook headquarters and see that story in action. Facebook gave me an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the process it uses to deploy new functionality. I watched first-hand as the company’s release engineers rolled out the new “timeline” feature for brand pages.
That was where I met Chuck Rossi, the release engineering team’s leader. Rossi, whose workstation is conveniently located within arm’s reach of the hotfix bar’s plentiful supply of booze, is a software industry veteran who previously worked at Google and IBM. I spent a fascinating afternoon with Rossi and his team learning how they roll out Facebook updates—and why it’s important that they do so on a daily basis.
- Exclusive: a behind-the-scenes look at Facebook release engineering, by Ryan Paul, Ars Technica

I’m pointing to this story for two reasons. First, it is a fascinating look at how one of the top internet operations manages its processes for rolling out new software. Second, how the wheels of the release process are greased feeds into the third story below.

Our Culture of Exclusion

Lately there have been a lot of great articles being written and discussion happening around sexism in the tech industry. And the flames are being fanned by
several high profile incidents of people saying and doing just plain stupid things.
It reminded me of this draft post just sitting here, uncommitted. For quite a while I’ve been collecting links, tweets and other stuff to illustrate another problem that’s been affecting me (and other people, surely). I thought it was finally time to write the post and bring this up because, honestly, I feel excluded too.
- Our Culture of Exclusion, Ryan Funduk’s blog

The role of alcohol in technology events was a topic of discussion on Twitter and elsewhere at the end of last week. There is a term for this that I heard for the first time last week — brogrammer — and I don’t think it is a flattering persona for the technology profession. The way in which Facebook releases its code, described in the thread above, is one data point. Ryan’s message, quoted above, points to some high-profile conferences where alcohol seems to play a central part of the event. His article was the source of some introspection among the Code4Lib community as well.

Thursday Threads: Open Source Advocates Twitch at Blackboard’s Strategy and Effect of Copyright/DRM on Access

Peter Murray — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:22:06 +0000

Thursday Threads has been a back-burner activity for quite a while now. Blame it on too many interesting things happening at home and at work (to say nothing of the early arrival of spring weather). This week will be only a slight exception with just two threads of mention rather than the typical three or four. First is the announcement by Blackboard that it is starting up an open source support division and acquiring/hiring some of the bigger names in that sector. Second is a reflection on two independent stories about the effect of copyright uncertainty and digital rights management on book materials.

Feel free to send this to others you think might be interested in the topics. If you find these threads interesting and useful, you might want to add the Thursday Threads RSS Feed to your feed reader or subscribe to e-mail delivery using the form to the right. New this year is that Pinboard has replaced FriendFeed as my primary aggregation service. If you would like a more raw and immediate version of these types of stories, watch my Pinboard bookmarks (or subscribe to its feed in your feed reader). Items posted to are also sent out as tweets; you can follow me on Twitter. Comments and tips, as always, are welcome.

Blackboard Pivots Towards Open Source

Today we are making some big announcements that we know will catch the attention of many members of the education community. Taken together, they speak to a broader shift in our strategy for serving education institutions so we are taking a moment to share some thoughts about our approach.
The high level change is this: Blackboard is becoming a multiple learning platform company that supports both commercially developed software as well as open source solutions.
- An Open Letter to the Education Community, Blackboard Strategy Update

Last week Blackboard announced a four-part strategy to join the open source community: 1. the formation of an open source services group; 2. the acquisition of Moodlerooms and NetSpot; 3. the hiring of Sakai Foundation Board Member Charles Severance to lead Blackboard’s Sakai initiatives; and 4. the announcement of continued support for Angel (a proprietary platform and company that Blackboard acquired in 2009). Phil Hill has a wrap-up of public statements from Blackboard and commercial competitors to Blackboard.

You might remember Blackboard from its now infamous patent lawsuit with competitor Desire2Learn in which Blackboard tried to claim invention rights to the fundamentals of any computer-mediated learning management system. Blackboard initially won the lawsuit but the finding was overturned at the appellate level. That was all after Blackboard issued a “non-assertion pledge” following discussions with both EDUCAUSE and the Sakai Foundation. (Interestingly, the original pledge is no longer available from the Blackboard website; it is available through the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.) Blackboard has an extensive history of buying companies and integrating them with its core software, so one has to wonder what this move towards open source means for not only Sakai and Moodle, but for the core Blackboard product as well. Audrey Watters sums up some of the concerns from the open source community while “Dr. Chuck” reflects on the state of institutional support for open source software versus what commercial companies are putting into the effort. Laura Gekeler pulls no punches in contemplating what that means.

Copyright and DRM

There’s been quite a bit of chatter lately about some research by Professor Paul Heald from the University of Illinois. Heald recently delivered a seminar on the stagnating effects of extended copyright terms in the U.S., and blogger Eric Crampton immediately called attention to one data-set about books that is particularly telling (found through Slate) which illustrates what The Atlantic has dubbed “The Missing 20th Century”. It’s the number of titles available from Amazon as new editions (as opposed to used copies) graphed by the decade of original publication:
The source of that massive fall-off at the midpoint is seemingly simple: all books published in the U.S. in 1922 or earlier are in the public domain. What’s immediately apparent from this graph is the fact that copyright is limiting the public’s access to older works—but why and how, exactly? The answer lies in the reality of what a copyright is really worth, commercially, and how long it retains that value—and it sheds light on another problem with copyright law.
- Why The ‘Missing 20th Century’ Of Books Is Even Worse Than It Seems, by Leigh Beadon, Techdirt

DRM is just “a speedbump,” Hachette’s Maja Thomas said at a copyright conference this afternoon. However, opinion within Hachette is clearly divided.
- Will Hachette Be The First Big-6 Publisher To Drop DRM On E-Books?, y Laura Hazard Owen, PaidContent.org

I do wonder what will be left in archives decades from now. It does seem like some forms of creative media are under assault from this double-barrel shotgun: uncertainty of public domain status for content from the 1920s to the 1980s and, arguably when we get our recordkeeping act together on ownership from the 1990s forward, the content will be locked up in digital rights management encoded formats.

Thursday Threads: Research Works Act, Amazon Kindle Give and Take, OCLC’s Website for Small Libraries

Peter Murray — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 02:58:28 +0000

I’ve been away from DLTJ Thursday Threads for a while, but that doesn’t mean the fun hasn’t stopped. This week there are stories about the beginning and the end of the Research Works Act (again, one might add), Amazon’s continuing shifts in the ebook marketplace, and an announcement of beta access to OCLC’s Website for Small Libraries service.

Research Works Act is Dead

The introduction of HR 3699 [the Research Works Act] has spurred a robust, expansive debate on the topics of scientific and scholarly publishing, intellectual property protection, and public access to federally funded research. Since its introduction, we have heard from numerous stakeholders and interested parties on both sides of this important issue.
As the costs of publishing continue to be driven down by new technology, we will continue to see a growth in open access publishers. This new and innovative model appears to be the wave of the future. The transition must be collaborative, and must respect copyright law and the principles of open access. The American people deserve to have access to research for which they have paid. This conversation needs to continue and we have come to the conclusion that the Research Works Act has exhausted the useful role it can play in the debate. As such, we want Americans concerned about access to research and other participants in this debate to know we will not be taking legislative action on HR 3699, the Research Works Act. We do intend to remain involved in efforts to examine and study the protection of intellectual property rights and open access to publicly funded research.
- Statement by Representatives Issa and Maloney (via Alexander Howard)

The Research Works Act (RWA) had the stated intention “to ensure the continued publication and integrity of peer-reviewed research works by the private sector” but many saw it an attempt to reverse the mandatory NIH 12-month to open publication mandate and prevent similar mandates in other government agencies. (Go ahead, follow the link; the legislation is remarkably short!) The efforts against RWA got into gear when it was revealed that Elsevier was a top contributor to Representative Maloney, a co-sponsor to the legislation. That sparked a boycott of Elsevier by researchers that signed a statement that they would stop submitting papers, refereeing, and performing editorial work for the publisher; it was signed by 7,666 people so far.

This week Elsevier dropped support for the Research Works Act, followed shortly by the message from the legislation’s sponsors that they would suspend work on the act. A more in-depth message was posted to the LIBLICENSE-L list by a Elsevier vice president. This is, however, not the first time such legislation has been proposed and defeated; similar bills were proposed in two previous congressional sessions.

Amazon Gives (Access to Ebooks) and Amazon Takes Away

The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library continues to grow rapidly, now offering more than 100,000 books that Amazon Prime members with Kindles can borrow for free—including over 100 New York Times Best Sellers like The Hunger Games trilogy—as frequently as a book a month, with no due dates.
- Amazon press release

Amazon.com removed more than 4,000 e-books from its site this week after it tried and failed to get them more cheaply, a muscle-flexing move that is likely to have significant repercussions for the digital book market.
- Amazon Pulls Thousands of E-Books in Dispute, by David Streitfeld, New York Times Bits Blog

Within the span of a week we see these two stories about ebooks on Kindles. In the first, Amazon announced that the size of the Kindle lending library has reached 100,000 books, including “a third of the Top 20 Kindle Best Sellers in February.” Amazon also noted that “over 1 million KDP Select books [had been] borrowed since program began in December.” The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library is not without controversy from publishers and authors, though, as Amazon extends its reach into the role of the traditional publisher.

In the second, Amazon pulled access to ebooks from the Independent Publishers Group (IPG) when the two parties could not reach an agreement on terms. IPG explains its reasoning but we have not seen a similar response from Amazon. This story has similarities to the Amazon/Macmillan rift two years ago. Amazon blinked in that plotline and restored Macmillan books to the Kindle store. It remains to be seen if something similar happens in this case.

OCLC Website for Small Libraries Project Goes Beta

The Website for Small Libraries project, which began as an OCLC Innovation Lab experiment in 2011, is now available as a beta service for any library wishing to set up its own website.
By participating in the project, libraries will be able to quickly and easily set up a website that provides basic functionality for making small collection information available on the Web, setting up users, checking materials in and out, placing holds, and providing library contact, location, service and event information.
- OCLC Website for Small Libraries project makes getting on the Web easy and fast for small libraries, OCLC Press Release

OCLC’s project to offer Website for Small Libraries reached the beta stage earlier this month after a year in development. The early stages of development were covered previously in DLTJ, and it is good to see this project survive the early stages to make it to this point.

Thursday Threads: Learn to Code in 2012, Issues with Apple’s iBooks Author, SOPA/PIPA Are Dead

Peter Murray — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:16:40 +0000

The internet has survived the great SOPA blackout, and we’re still talking about the fallout. Apple made a major announcement of plans to support textbooks on iPads, but there are concerns about the implementation. But the first story this week is about a free service geared towards teaching people how to program with weekly lessons throughout 2012.

Code Year: Learn to Code in 2012

Sign up for Code Year to start receiving a new interactive programming lesson every Monday. You’ll be building apps and websites before you know it!
- Code Year

Code Year is a project of internet startup Codecademy, a service that teaches people how to code (JavaScript only, at the moment). There have been three classes posted already, and the website says they are still accepting registrations at the homepage. Code Year is free, and it sends an e-mail at the beginning of each week with a link to that week’s course. More questions? See the frequently asked questions.

What I think is really cool about this is that a group of librarians has self-organized themselves to support each other through the year. There is a community area on ALA Connect and a list of resources on the catcode wiki that includes examples tailored to cataloging challenges. (“catcode” is a unique story onto itself. It is a wiki created to “help support dialogue between catalogers and coders.”)

Apple Introduces iBooks Author

Educators so far seem excited about the potential promise of a learning “revolution” enabled by Apple’s new iBooks Author app. However, not everyone is feeling that same level of enthusiasm: e-book publishing experts have concerns about the formatting that iBooks Author can output, which isn’t fully ePub 2 or ePub 3 compliant. Furthermore, Apple has added a clause to iBooks Author’s end user license agreement that prohibits selling e-books created with iBooks Author anywhere but the iBookstore.
- Enthusiasm for iBooks Author marred by licensing, format issues, by Chris Foresman, Ars Technica

Last week saw the big introduction of iBooks Textbooks for iPad and iBooks Author ebook creation utility. The combination were billed as a promising new way to have students interact with course materials and to have teachers build their own content. There were some not-so-nice surprises in the implementation, though. First, the ebook format is close to that of ePub standard from the International Digital Publishing Forum, but strays in enough important ways that the iBooks Textbooks themselves won’t be usable on non-Apple devices. Second, included the End-User License Agreement for the iBooks Author software are terms that says content created with iBooks Author can be given away freely but can only be sold through Apple’s iBookstore. Apple also reserves the right to determine if your work is sold at iBookstore with no recourse for rejected works. The article above has more details, and the press coverage of iBooks Textbooks and iBooks Author has been generally negative so far.

Update on 6-Feb-2012: Apple released iBooks Author version 1.0.1 with the only change being clarifications to the End-User License Agreement: “If you want to charge a fee for a work that includes files in the .ibooks format generated using iBooks Author, you may only sell or distribute such work through Apple, and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple… This restriction does not apply to the content of such works when distributed in a form that does not include files in the .ibooks format.”

SOPA and Protect-IP Are Dead

Graphic from Talking Points Memo

Leaders in Congress on Friday effectively killed two pieces of anti-online piracy legislation following the increasingly vocal protests of tens of thousands of websites and millions of Internet users.
That’s right, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate are, for all practical purposes, dead in the water.
Sure, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) used the word “postponed” in their announcements, saying that Congress would only take a breather, but would certainly not give up for good on its goal of passing some sort of legislation designed to combat overseas “rogue” websites hosting pirated American content.
But whenever Congress decides to re-engage the online piracy fight — and it could be a while, given just how acrimonious the debate over the bills became in the last week — it’s almost certain that SOPA and PIPA won’t be revived in any recognizable form.
- How The Web Killed SOPA and PIPA, by Carl Franzen, Talking Points Memo Idea Lab

Who would have thought — grass roots organizations convince major internet presences to “black out” or otherwise inform users of ill-considered provisions (at best) in legislation, and in turn those users bury both houses of Congress with so much anti-SOPA and -PIPA feedback that they effectively kill the bills. Is this the closest we’ve come to direct democracy since ancient Athens? Perhaps! The article quoted above goes into great detail about the formational elements of SOPA and PIPA and the forces that gathered to stop them.

The response to Wikipedia being blacked out in particular was interesting. The Washington Post, The Guardian and National Public Radio announced that they would answer questions posted to Twitter with the hashtag #altwiki. Closer to the library community Credo Reference announced that free access for a day.

My ALA Midwinter 2012 Schedule

Peter Murray — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:08:26 +0000

The snow is falling here in central Ohio, so I’m eager to leave here and head to warm Dallas for ALA Midwinter 2012. I’m looking forward to catching up with colleagues; making new acquaintances; learning the latest thinking on RDA, linked data, and standards activity; and talking about free/open source software in libraries. On the latter point, I encourage you to come see me give an introduction to the newly announced FOSS4LIB site, answer questions, and take feedback on Saturday morning (10:30 to 11:30) or Sunday morning (10:30 to 11:30). (Or, if you are not coming to Midwinter, sign up for one of the free webinar sessions later in January and February.)

ALA is using a new iteration of its scheduler this year, and it keeps getting better and better. This one even allows you to embed your selected schedule as an on an arbitrary page. So here is my schedule:

You can follow me on Twitter where I’ll be tweeting about #alamw12. A Twitter mention or direct message is also the best way to get ahold of me while in Dallas.

Safe travels if you are headed to Midwinter, and I hope to run into you there.

Thursday Threads: SOPA, PROTECT-IP, Research Works Act, and Broad E-Textbook Pilot

Peter Murray — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:20:56 +0000

One could say it is an all intellectual property edition of DLTJ Thursday Threads. How could one miss the outpouring of opposition to SOPA/PROTECT-IP? If that was an overwhelming story you might have missed the introduction of the Research Works Act that could end the open access mandates now at the National Institutes of Health and coming elsewhere. And because we need some good news, Internet2 announced a new electronic textbook pilot that could be really interesting.

Support for Web Bill Wanes as Protests Spread

When the powerful world of old media mobilized to win passage of an online antipiracy bill, it marshaled the reliable giants of K Street — the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Recording Industry Association of America and, of course, the motion picture lobby, with its new chairman, former Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat and an insider’s insider.
Yet on Wednesday this formidable old guard was forced to make way for the new as Web powerhouses backed by Internet activists rallied opposition to the legislation through Internet blackouts and cascading criticism, sending an unmistakable message to lawmakers grappling with new media issues: Don’t mess with the Internet.
- Support for Web Bill Wanes as Protests Spread, By Jonathan Weisman, New York Times

The population of the internet became very familiar with the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT-IP Act (a.k.a. PIPA) today with major internet services like Wikipedia blocking access to its articles and Google placing a black rectangle over its logo. Advocacy sites like americancensorship.org and blacklist.eff.org and www.google.com/landing/takeaction sprang up to prompt U.S. citizens to call their Senators and non-U.S. citizens to petition the U.S. State Department to set in motion opposition to bills that once seemed inevitable. And all sorts of people took to Twitter to protest the fact that they couldn’t use Wikipedia to answer their homework.

It wasn’t all a one-way street, though. Former Senator Chris Dodd (and now MPAA chairperson) denounced the protests as “an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on [the sites] for information and [who] use their services.” House Judiciary Committee Chairperson Lamar Smith announced that his committee will resume consideration of SOPA in February. And PROTECT-IP Act sponsor Senator Leahy released a point-by-point rebuttal to some of the claims made by opponents.

At the end of the day, the protest clearly had an effect on the legislation as co-sponsors dropped their support of PROTECT-IP and others made statements opposing the bill. As this is being written on the evening of the 18th, the ProPublica lists 41 Senators supporting and 19 Senators opposing or “leaning no” (OpenCongress’ whip count lists it as 34 to 35 versus last night’s OpenCongress count of 39 to 16), so it is unclear whether there the 60 votes required to end debate and move for passage of PROTECT-IP in the Senate as promised by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

I’ve stated my objections to SOPA and my objections to PROTECT-IP, and reiterated them today by putting up an anti-SOPA/PROTECT-IP splash page on DLTJ. I also still think there is more to learn a few levels deeper than the anti-SOPA/PROTECT-IP advocacy. ProPublica has a project called Who in Congress Supports SOPA and PIPA/PROTECT-IP? that offers a variety of ways to categorize supporters and opponents of the legislation including an accounting of campaign donations by industry. On my own Stop-SOPA/PROTECT-IP page, I ask readers to look into Laurence Lessig’s #Rootstrikers movement. A big part of the disconnect and dysfunctional nature of public office holders is the role that campaign contributions play — or, at best, have the appearance of influence — in the public policy decision making. So while SOPA/PROTECT-IP opponents may have won the battle, there is much to do to win the war of undue influence that created SOPA and PIPA in the first place.

More Legislative Shenanigans: Research Works Act

In case SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, hasn’t given you enough heartburn, here’s another development on the legislative horizon to be concerned about–H.R. 3699, the Research Works Act. The Association of American Publishers has provided a summary of what they hope the bill will accomplish, which is a frightening read for those of us committed to the principles of Open Access. It appears that H.R. 3699 would seriously threaten public access to federally funded research and deal a critical blow to the Open Access movement, which has been buoyed by exactly the kind of activity H.R. 3699 seeks to curtail in the AAP’s view, namely public access mandates and the development of repositories for publicly funded research.
- More Legislative Shenanigans: Research Works Act (H.R. 3699), by Meredith Kahn, University of Michigan’s MPublishing blog

Yes, that’s right — more intellectual property legislation in front of the U.S. Congress. This time it is a bill that would protect the business interests of academic publishers by preventing the U.S. government from mandating open access to federally funded research. An article in The Guardian (U.K.) paper says academic publishers have become the enemies of science. The twist here is that one of the sponsors of the Research Works Act is none other that Representative Darrell Issa, one of the leading opponents to SOPA in the House Judiciary Committee. As you might guess, campaign donations are involved and so there is a call from #Rootstrikers to help fight “SOPA v2″.

Internet2, McGraw-Hill, Courseload, and Five Universities Implement eText Pilot in Spring 2012

Participating universities in the pilot get McGraw-Hill eTexts, the Courseload reader and annotation platform integrated with their Learning Management System, and can be part of a joint research study of eText use and perceptions. Through the Courseload software, students can print, use social annotation with classmates and instructors, and access their eTexts on any HTML5-capable tablet, smartphone, or computer. Students will receive their eTexts at no cost as the institutions are subsidizing the study, and students who prefer a full hardcopy book may optionally order a print-on-demand version of the eText for a $28 fee. Faculty interest at the pilot institutions has been very strong.
- Internet2, McGraw-Hill, Courseload, and Five Universities Implement eText Pilot in Spring 2012, Internet2 Press Release

This is good news for students and etextbooks. It sounds like a good experiment and I’m eager to see the outcomes of the pilot. And something that might make next week’s DLTJ Thursday Threads? The rumor that Apple is expected to delve into textbooks in an announcement today.

The Best of the “SOPA Blackout”

Peter Murray — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 04:35:02 +0000

Commentary, intentional and unintentional humor, and media from January 18, 2012.

Stop SOPA and Protect-IP

Peter Murray — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:02:03 +0000

This blog will be present first-time users with a warning page on January 18, 2012 — the day that many internet sites are using to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) — and January 23rd, 2012 — the day before the U.S. Senate may vote on the PROTECT-IP act. DLTJ is proud to join many other sites in this demonstration of solidarity for an open, transparent internet.

Thought you heard that SOPA was dead? Or was modified to be acceptable? Or that PIPA is on the ropes? As of January 17th, these statements aren’t true:

Representative Lamar Smith, House Judiciary Chair and sponsor of SOPA, issued a statement that said committee discussion of SOPA will continue in February.
Although proponents have said they will remove the DNS redirection provisions, there are still dangerous and unprecedented parts of the bills.
There are still more Senators in favor of PIPA (39) than not (16).

This legislation is bad for the health of the internet, bad for companies — those that exist now and those that would otherwise come — that make their living on the internet, and bad for the standing of the United States in the global community supporting freedom of speech and due process principles.

Looking for something to do to make your opinions known? Try one more more of these:

Use the Contact Congress form on the OpenCongress site to send an e-mail to your Senators or use the OpenCongress Find Your Senators and Representatives to look up their phone numbers. The Wikipedia SOPA Initiative page has some good phrasing of things to say based on your concerns. If outside the United States, use the Petition the U.S. State Department form on americancensorship.org.
Look into the #Rootstrikers movement. A big part of the disconnect and dysfunctional nature of public office holders is the role that campaign contributions play — or, at best, have the appearance of influence — in the public policy decision making. This certainly seems to be true for the current SOPA debate.
Watch the Learn to Be a Better Activist webcast on January 18th (or the recording after that day). It is a full day of talks from people who know something about making voices heard in Congress.
Add a banner to the bottom of your Twitter profile picture to spread the word of your opinions.
Read the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s list of about a dozen other things you could do.