Ebook seminar

Notes for soctech seminar planning, Spring 2005

Ebooks: Reading, Copyright, and Digital Rights

The goal of this seminar is to provide a forum for discussing copyright and DRM as applied to ebooks.

Schedule details

Week 1: Intro

• Discussion leader: Joshua?
• Topics:
  • What is this course about, and why are we here?
  • basic definitions, discussion of what attendees want out of class
• Post-Reading:
  • David Levy "A Bit of Digital History" Scrolling Forward p. 137-157 (20 pages)
• Recommended Optional Reading:
  • Cliff Lynch The Battle to Define the Future of the Book in the Digital World (43 pages)

Week 2: The Basic Framework

• Discussion leader: Joshua?
• Topics:
  • basics of manufacture and distribution
  • featuring codecs, The Internet, Copyright, Licensing, and DRM
  • as distribution costs approach zero, what happens to production?
• Readings:
  • Christopher Dreher "Why do books cost so much?" Salon.com (3 pages)
  • Marshall Poe “Note to Self: Print Monograph Dead; Invent New Publishing Model” Journal of Electronic Publishing 7, December 2001 (5 pages)

Week 3. Copyright of digital documents

• Discussion leader: law person?
• Topics:
  • Nothing new, but harder to enforce... or is it?
  • Is there any need for a public domain if I can access anything for a nickel?
  • Clinton whitepaper, Berne, WIPO
  • Celestial Jukebox
• Useful websites:
  • Copyright and Fair Use Center
  • US Copyright Office
  • UW COPYRIGHT INFORMATION FOR EDUCATORS
• Readings:
  • Peter Givler "Copyright: It's for the public good" Association of American University Presses (3 pages)
  • "Some Rights Reserved": Building a Layer of Reasonable Copyright (1 page)
  • O'Reilly First to Adopt Founders' Copyright (3 pages)

Week 4. Licensing of digital documents

• Discussion leader: law person? (Bob Gomulkiewicz? Stuart Sutton?)
• Topics:
  • It ain't copyright, but contract law!
  • The DMCA: DRM enforcement with no (legal) exceptions for the public
  • Dude, where's my 200 years of fair use caselaw?
  • Licenses that "guarantee your freedom to share and change" (Free software and the Creative Commons)
• Readings:
  • UW Libraries Electronic Resource Usage Rights and Restrictions (1 page)
  • Creative Commons "Choosing a License" (2 pages)
  • Creative Commons "Some Rights Reserved": Building a Layer of Reasonable Copyright (1 page)

Week 5. In Libraries: "Can I check out this eBook?"

• Discussion leader: Joshua? Guest?
• Topics:
  • complicated and expensive reading devices
  • potentially crippling legal problems
• Readings:
  • David Kirkpatrick "Battle Over Access to Online Books" New York Times June 17, 2002
  • KCLS eBooks
  • UW Libraries NetLibrary FAQ

Week 6. Scholarly publishing

• Discussion leader:
• Topics:
  • Do universities already pay production costs?
  • Who needs pretty magazines when we've got arXiv.org (do the humanities)?
• Readings:
  • Marshall Poe “Note to Self: Print Monograph Dead; Invent New Publishing Model” J. of Electronic Publishing, December 2001 (5 pages)
  • Colin Steele "Phoenix Rising: New Models for the Research Monograph?" Learned Publishing, April 2003 (12 pages)

Week 7. DRM Technology

• Discussion leader: CSE person?
• Topics:
  • what exactly are "effective technological measures"?
  • Is the DCMA a problem for research?
• Readings:
  • "Digital rights management" from Wikipedia (currently 7 pages)
  • "Converting .LIT files for fun and profit" (3 pages)
  • Jury Acquits Elcomsoft in eBook Copyright Case (1 page)
  • Security Researchers Drop Scientific Censorship Case (2 pages)
• Optional Recommended Reading:
  • John Walker The Digital Imprimatur (currently 53 pages, but many sections can be skipped)

Week 8. Preservation

• Discussion leader: CSE person?
• Topics:
  • will those created today be around in 100 years?
  • if so, how about reading those bits as an ebook?
• Readings:
  • Emulation and BBC Domesday (7 pages)
  • Technical Obsolescene (1 page)
  • Peter Hirtle "Digital Preservation and Copyright" (6 pages)
• Optional Recommended Reading:
  • Organizational Approaches to Preserving Digital Content CLIR (6 pages)

Week 9. Digital documents in international development

• Discussion leader: Evans school person?
• Topics:
  • Kahle's bookmobile, Million Book Project and others
• Readings:
  • Digital Library of India Vision (1 page)
  • Million Book Project FAQ (6 pages)
  • Rural Kids Print, Bind, and Read (3 pages)

Week 10. Accessibility

• Discussion leader:
• Topics:
  • How much access should laws mandate?
  • Do we need something like NLS when Text-to-Speech is virtually free?
• Readings:
  • Ebooks and Accessibility (7 pages, but most can be skimmed)
  • Microsoft Reader Accessibility FAQ (3 pages)
  • The Soundproof Book (5 pages)

Past courses to mine for useful content

• LIS 520, Monographs section

Floating readings

These are readings that haven't been matched to a date yet.

• Are these ebooks? (Why or why not?)
  • British Library Lindisfarne Gospels Illuminated manuscript written c.700 C.E.
  • Neal Stephenson In the Beginning was the Command Line 150 pages in plain text
  • Lessing Free Culture 350-page PDF with bookmarks
  • Norm Walsh DocBook: The Definitive Guide 652 pages in HTML
  • Gutenberg Project Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865]
  • NetLibrary books from UW Libraries
  • Anything on an Amazon.com item page

Other notes

• assumptions:
  • everyone will have at least a layman's understanding of terms
  • we can come up with one good discussable reading per session
  • a volunteer or assigned discussion facilitator for each session

How many days worth of class is this?