We've moved over to The Learned Fangirl!

Check us out at The Learned Fangirl, (http://thelearnedfangirl.com/) where we'll be posting from now on!

Gawker Thinks You Suck.

Check out the recent New York Magazine piece on Gawker Media, Jezebel's corporate parent. It's definitely an eye-opener for those interested in what blogging's possible future may be. Beyond the salacious tales of rock-star bloggers and drug abuse, what's most interesting is the discussion on Gawker Media's business model, which rewards writers on the popularity of their posts, rather than solid writing and reporting.

It's actually kind of depressing now that I think about it.

From the WTF!? Files

Tribune Corp. has apparently started a new citizen journalism website:
http://triblocal.com/

According to the site, citizen journalists can:

"...work side-by-side with Triblocal.com's editorial staff to produce coverage of your community with your news items and your photos."

Lots of pictures of dogs and Little League. Fun! It's like putting the Weekend Shopper online!

I need to stew on this a bit.

Can't You Hear The Violins Playing Her Song ...

Here in Chicago, the media can't seem to get enough of Amy Jacobson and her bathing suit. The Conrad Black story didn't stand a chance, it seemed.

For those that don't know, WMAQ-NBC reporter Amy Jacobson is in a lot of hot water for being videotaped lounging by the pool of one of her sources, Craig Stebic, currently under investigation in connection to the disappearance of his wife, Lisa. Jacobson had been covering the story for several months, but the fact that she was in her bathing suit during off-hours got tongues wagging.

She was fired by WMAQ this week among a firestorm of controversy that has yet to let up. For her part, Jacobson has been making the media rounds with a list of explanations for her bad judgement.

Eric Zorn, among other columnists, are determined to push Jacobson's firing as a consquence of sexism. Personally, I'm not eager to play up the gender angle, and I am routinely accused of being one of those "shreiking feminists" that Fox News loves so much. Yes, reporters routinely "hang out" with sources in their off-hours all the time - at the bar, for dinner, etc. But attending a pool party with the kids - and not informing her editors about it - was a really dumb move on her part. I think if it was a male journalist in his swim trunks there would be the same kind of scrutinty because of the nature of the story. But she's blond, pretty and in a bikini, so of course we are going to hear about it all over the news. And, as far as I know, she was not upfront with her bosses about her off-hours activities with the Stebics. And then there's the news of Jacobson briefing police on her discussions with Stebic before telling her bosses. ("Don't reporters always do that?" is her answer. ) That's not a gender issue. That's an issue of Amy Jacobson clearly having no understanding of basic journalistic ethics.

She lost her job, and that's too bad. But men and women get canned for lesser mistakes all the time. She'll work again. There are plenty of issues of gender, media and the workplace. I'm willing get up in arms about, but not this one. Your mileage may vary.

Parody or Satire: Is there a difference to a "reasonable person"?

One of the most important distinctions in U.S. copyright law for users of remixing technology is between parody and satire.

The distinction between the two is not one that can easily be defined, especially in an era of mashups and multiple level parody/satire. Are the fan ads for movies, the 1984-Apple anti-Hillary Clinton ad, the South Park/Apple ad, and many others vids, parody or satire? How much context is needed by the viewer to make that distinction?

Simply put, parody gets more protection than satire. Yet both can be "fair use," the acceptable use of copyrighted material by others.

In Campbell v. Acuff-Rose, a case about a parody of the song "Pretty Woman," the U.S. Supreme Court said that a parody is the “use of some elements of a prior author’s composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author’s works.” Parody can serve a social benefit “by shedding light on an earlier work, and, in the process, creating a new one.”

However, satire, because it uses an existing work to be critical of something other than the original work, the borrowing does not automatically fall into "fair use." The Court seems to be interested in making sure to avoid the use of original works “merely use[d] to get attention or to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh.”

The parody/satire divide was raised by some commentators during the controversy over the JibJab video in 2004, which used Woody Guthrie's "This land is your land" to state a political message in a internet video.

So I invite you to discuss whether the following videos fit carefully within the legal/literary terms of parody or satire, the fannish terms of homage, spoof, tribute, and mashup, or some combination of these or others.

I'm interested in the perspectives of law-talking folks, fans, and others, including those without the pop-culture context for these items. If you have any other examples of the difficulty of definitions for similar vids, please let me know!

Vote Different:


South Park Mac vs. PC:


LOTR Secret Lovers:


Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager (Episode One):


Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series - Episode 17:


When Harry Met Sally - The Horror Remix:

Canon vs. Fanon: Presentation at MIT 5: Creativity, Ownership, and Collaboration in the Digital Age

We will be presenting at MIT 5 (Media in Transition) about:

Canon vs. "Fanon": Folksonomies of Culture
There is an often unacknowledged symbiotic relationship between creators and owners of mass media and fan communities inspired by their work. Due to the interactive nature of participatory fan communities, both authors and fans are active agents in collectively determining the validity of the "official" story. This paper will explore the concept of pop culture canon: the official storylines and back stories invented by mass media creators, and fanon: ideas that fan communities have decided are part of the accepted storyline or character interpretation. We propose the idea that fanon is an example of folksonomy, a user-generated classification or "tag"; an aggregation of content emerging through bottom-up consensus by the public/fan communities. We will also discuss the implications of fanon folksonomy for the future of popular culture.

Our full paper is here.

We welcome your comments!

An Open Letter to Google, William Patry, and Google's Library Partners

In honor of National Library Week, I write this open letter:

To: Google, William Patry (a copyright expert and Google's senior copyright lawyer), and to Google's Library Partners

Greetings,

I know that you are very excited about the partnership between Google and its Library Partners, who have supplied books and other materials for scanning. I know that some have had serious concerns about the project, but I'm not discussing general concerns here.

All I'm asking for is full access for the public to government documents on Google BookSearch. These documents are in the public domain and therefore should not be limited by claims of copyright, by Google or by the Library Partners.

According to Google's own FAQ:

For books that enter Book Search through the Library Project, what you see depends on the book's copyright status. . . . If the book is in the public domain and therefore out of copyright, you can page through the entire book and even download it and read it offline.

This statement implies all materials on Book Search that one cannot page through or download are not in the public domain.

Can you provide the public a reason why Google BookSearch has not made public domain government documents fully available? These documents include:

• U.S. House and Senate Reports (including these Sunshine Act Reports!)
• Agency and Administrative Materials (including from the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration, Code of Federal Regulation, and the War Department),
• many publications of the U.S. Government Printing Office, and
• U.S. Supreme Court Cases

I'm sure you know that government works created by the U.S. federal government are not protected by copyright; instead these works (with limited exceptions for materials withheld for security, export control, and policy reasons) are in the public domain.

Some of these documents are dually public domain -- not only as government documents, but also because all works published in the United States before 1923 are in the public domain (see this excellent copyright chart) . Why aren't these (1821 House report and 1879 Senate report) fully available?

Already scanned government publications should be available for both full viewing and as downloadable PDFs. (According to Google in regards to public domain material: "Google now allows Internet users all over the world to download (and therefore print and read offline) these same out-of-copyright books.")

I, and the public, await your response.

Appendix

These are Google's (U.S.) Library Partners' Statements on Public Domain materials:

* University of California: "Anyone will be able to freely view, browse and read UC's public domain books, including many of the treasures in the libraries' historic and special collections."
* Harvard University: "Users elsewhere will be able to discover books that they might not otherwise find, ... to read out-of-copyright books online, and to print out copies."
* University of Michigan: "The full text (all pages and covers) will display for titles out of copyright; users will be able to page back and forth within the volume, and retrieve all text through searches." and "Public domain works can be brought fully into the light."
* New York Public Library: "NYPL is working with Google to offer a collection of its public domain books, which will be scanned in their entirety and made available for free to the public online. Users will be able to search and browse the full text of these works."
* Princeton University: "Because the books being digitized are in the public domain, users will be able to view the full text of the books and download them for leisure reading, research or printing for later reference."
* Stanford University: "Many items from Stanford’s collections are now available through Google Book Search ... The available items include many U.S. Congressional Hearings. To see samples of items from Stanford’s government documents collections, try searching on terms such as “National Flood Insurance”, “Artic National Wildlife Refuge”, or “Food Stamp Act ”. ... Materials that are clearly in the public domain (mostly materials with publication dates of 1922 or earlier) will be available to the general public through Google. All users should be able to view the full text of public domain materials online."
Note: Some Stanford-held government documents are available in full text and PDF, but not all.
* University of Texas at Austin: "Anyone will be able to freely view, browse and read the university's public domain books, including a number of unique treasures in the Libraries' historic collections."
* University of Virginia: "Anyone will be able to freely view, browse and read U.Va.’s books in the public domain."
* University of Wisconsin-Madison: "Users will be able to access the full text of hundreds of thousands of public domain materials from the UW-Madison Libraries and the Wisconsin Historical Society Library."

Update: As mentioned by Rick in the comments and at his post on the Prelinger library blog, this problem with gov docs on Google has been noted before. I hope this situation can be fixed soon -- can we at least all agree that pre-1923 government documents should be available?

Welcome to new readers via Sivacracy, the Open Access Network, LibraryLaw, Duke Library Blog, FreeGovInfo, and Librarian.net!

5/15: The American Historical Association blog discusses another issue with Google Books, quality control, and the comments show an interesting range of views.

Copyright Royalty has NPR in a head-lock!

Recently, the United States Copyright Royalty Board (authority described here) announced new royalty rates for webcasts, effective from 2006 to 2010. These new rates would, at a minimum, require $500 per year and require detailed information about the number of listeners.

Of course, many for-profit and non-profit broadcasters are upset, but the big cheese is National Public Radio (NPR). If this royalty change is made, it will have serious consequences for NPR -- and may potentially end streaming.

According to Andi Sporkin, Vice President for Communications, NPR:

“The Board’s decision to dramatically raise public radio stations’ rates was based on inaccurate assumptions and lack of understanding of the issues. The new rates inexplicably break with the longstanding tradition of recognizing public radio's non-commercial, non-profit role, while the procedures we're being asked to now undertake for measurement are non-existent, arbitrary and costly."

“In its decision, the Board has attempted to equate public radio with commercial radio, which we are not. Instead, public radio is driven by a public service mission on behalf of underserved and unserved audiences; in our internet music efforts, those audiences include both listeners and the music community that seeks public radio to reach those listeners. We hope the Board will reconsider.”

David Byrne (yes, the dude from the Talking Heads) discusses the impact of this ruling on small stations and on NPR:

"NPR stations ... would pay the same royalty rates as commercial broadcasters. KCRW estimates roughly that as this ruling is retroactive they would owe $130,000 in additional fees for 2006 and $237,000 for 2007. WXPN in Philly estimates $1,000,000. In some worlds this is not a big deal but as one can imagine many of these stations barely eek by as it is, so this could very likely shut down the webcasting side of many of them. That would be a shame, as these stations are the only source of, well, good music, alternative sounds and innovative and informative programming in the U.S. It would be a loss for, well, democracy, as democracy depends on availability of many points of view untainted by commercial concerns and pressures. A truly informed populace, in other words." (emphasis added)

SavetheStreams is a great information source for the impact this ruling potentially has on internet radio.