Ethan Zuckerman blogged Erin McKean’s talk at PopTech, reporting of the fear of some lexicographers that they will be sued for scanning some books to analyze language patterns. “This scanning shouldn’t be threatening to publishers. ‘I don’t care about your plot, or your ideas – I just want to analyze your use of the language.’ … Read more
The Berkman Center’s increasingly terrific new media production team has rolled together this special-edition podcast on copyright in the context of teaching and learning. It’s an extension of the work done on the Digital Learning Challenge, led by Prof. Terry Fisher (the first voice you hear on the podcast) and former Berkman fellow, now Prof. … Read more
The digital copyright issue is one of the sidebars related to the Google/YouTube transaction that has merited a fair amount of digital ink. (For a few examples: don’t miss Fred von Lohmann as interviewed by John Battelle. Declan McCullagh and Anne Broache have an extensive piece highlighting the continuing uncertainty in the digital copyright space … Read more
Sony is unveiling its new online bookstore and e-book reader on October 1. One interesting twist is that they will allow you also to subscribe to certain RSS feeds on the device. But only a small handful of feeds, reports Stuff. The article says: “The device and service will also let users download from the … Read more
Here’s the syllabus for my fall freshman seminar, called the “Law of the Internet,” taught at Harvard College, in H20 Playlist form. Comes with an OPML output, too. (Wondering what H20 is? Check out Go With the Flow.)
Lawrence Lessig is giving a rousing lecture right now to a standing-room-only crowd in Ames Courtroom at Harvard Law School. It’s a plenary session of Wikimania 2006. He is in his element. It’s amazing to feel the energy in this room — unconveyable by blog or any other Internet-borne medium, but very very real. Interoperability, … Read more
In the past few weeks, I’ve gotten several fresh calls, four in fact (some out of the blue, some from people I know well) about RSS, aggregation, and copyright issues. I think the matter continues to have traction and importance. Two follow-ups: – I never managed, somehow, to see a very fine reply from Nathan … Read more
Our project that names names of code that users should look out for, StopBadware, has released its latest instance of an application that falls outside of the scope of our guidelines. We think computer users should beware of the Jessica Simpson Screensaver (in case the name didn’t give it away to you already). The idea … Read more
Susan Mernit, a wonderful analyst of all things Web 2.0, writes, in a thoughtful post responsive to the flap over RSS and copyright: “But it seems to be what Palfrey has not yet addressed–which makes sense considering this company is so new–is that many of the players entering into the bundled space recognize they have … Read more
Mikel.org has a post that is right on — where Top10 Sources or anyone else makes a mistake in republishing an RSS feed that is subject to a (cc) license, it should fix that mistake fast. (It’s possible, of course, for someone to give license to do something beyond what the (cc) license says, so … Read more