* Guest post by Amanda Zerangue (MLS, JD), UNT Libraries GLA The Google Books Dispute Resurfaces In a move that comes as a surprise to many keeping tabs on the Google Books dispute, Authors Guild recently petitioned the Supreme Court to hear its case against Google Books, arguing again that Google’s book digitization project constitutes… Read more »
The New York Public Library’s collection of nearly 190,000 public domain items is now available for high resolution download. Since these items are in the public domain, they can be copied, reused, remixed, and distributed in any way. The collection also includes a cool visualization tool that allows users to browse the collection. Learn more… Read more »
Rep. Tom Marino introduced HR 4241 on December 11th. This bill aims to establish the US Copyright Office as an agency in the legislative branch, which would move it from its current location in the Library of Congress. HR 4241 was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary after it was introduced. There… Read more »
The United States Copyright Office has recently created a Fair Use Index. This index is intended to make it easier for attorneys and laypersons to understand fair use and how to apply it. The database is searchable and provides citations to and summaries of court opinions, not the full opinions themselves. Users can generally access… Read more »
There are several interesting commentaries about Elsevier’s new “article-sharing” policies, which point out that the policies actually impose further restrictions on how authors may share their works. I found Kevin Smith and Stevan Harnad’s posts the most useful in terms of explaining how the terms of the policies negatively affect open access. What do you think of the policies?… Read more »
Back in February, the plaintiff publishers in the case asked the trial court to reopen the record, meaning they wanted the court to examine the most current evidence in this case. This is consistent with the doctrine of Ex parte Young. Because GSU is a state university it is protected by sovereign immunity and the plaintiff… Read more »
The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced its plan for providing public access to results of NSF-funded research. The plan (which is set to be implemented sometime in 2016) requires final versions of manuscripts and papers: Be deposited in a public access compliant repository designated by NSF; Be available for download, reading and analysis free of charge… Read more »
