Thursday, March 26, 2009
Access vs. Ownership
I am not the least bit interested in paying for an ebook reader, or for ebooks, but I did download the free Kindle app for my phone last week, along with one of the free public domain books that are available form Amazon. It’s nice to have a book in my pocketbook, but only as a pinch-hitter. I have been thinking about ebooks and readers a lot lately, so it was interesting to see this article from the Christian Science Monitor about what we lose when we choose the electronic version of a book over the paper one. The author feels that we trade ownership for access, when we make that choice, and that access is far inferior to ownership. I am not sure that I feel so strongly about that, as a principle, though. After all, I am not making just that choice every time I borrow a book from the library, instead of buying it? The difference is, of course, that in the case of the Kindle, the access isn’t free. It’s like paying $360 for a library card, and then paying another $10 or so for every book I borrow. Sure, I could read it over and over, for as long as the Kindle works, but I am not much of a re-reader. The truth is that someone is making a lot of money off our access. The author of the article invokes the golden light of 2.0, but I don’t think that we have fewer rights to edit and share the text we get digitally than what we have to edit and share what we pay for in print, do we? Am I missing something here?
Friday, March 13, 2009
Government Opacity
Maira Kalman did this beautiful thing on the inauguration in her monthly illustrated NY Times blog. In it, she wrote “ A woman named Renata asked ‘Why on the Bible? Why not on the Constitution?’ and I think that is a VERY good question. But now we are taking a short break from questioning. Right now, we are opting for naïvité.” That was true, then. It was all so good, that it seemed wise to savor the moment.
Now the savoring time is over, though, and it’s time for the questions. Why (oh why) are the details of an international agreement about intellectual property state secrets, the knowing of which would threaten National Security? Honestly? True story? It stinks like Bush, to me. Our president promised us transparency and he gives us this. As Wired author David Kravets points out, there are 27 nations involved in the negotiation of this treaty, so just how secret can it be? There are rumors that the content of the treaty are hardcore enforcement mandates, making iPods subject to border searches and criminalizing peer-to-peer file sharing, but for now those are just rumors. ALA Code of Ethics says that librarians respect intellectual property rights, but librarians also stand firmly on the side of access, and citizens are being denied access to the workings of their government. It makes a person start to wonder what terrible stuff really is contained in that treaty.
Sometimes, even people with really great intentions need help to stay on the path they chose. Maybe President Obama needs our help right now, to keep his commitment to transparency.
Now the savoring time is over, though, and it’s time for the questions. Why (oh why) are the details of an international agreement about intellectual property state secrets, the knowing of which would threaten National Security? Honestly? True story? It stinks like Bush, to me. Our president promised us transparency and he gives us this. As Wired author David Kravets points out, there are 27 nations involved in the negotiation of this treaty, so just how secret can it be? There are rumors that the content of the treaty are hardcore enforcement mandates, making iPods subject to border searches and criminalizing peer-to-peer file sharing, but for now those are just rumors. ALA Code of Ethics says that librarians respect intellectual property rights, but librarians also stand firmly on the side of access, and citizens are being denied access to the workings of their government. It makes a person start to wonder what terrible stuff really is contained in that treaty.
Sometimes, even people with really great intentions need help to stay on the path they chose. Maybe President Obama needs our help right now, to keep his commitment to transparency.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Pay for it Twice
or
What’s in it for Whom? (Which is one of my favorite questions ever)
or
Hey, This Has Nothing to do with Neil Gaiman!
I read this interesting article in Boing Boing that said that Rep. John Conyers has introduced legislation in Congress that would chip away at our right to access information. The bill would disallow government funding agencies from requiring that recipients of federal research grants make the results of their research freely accessible to the public. That means that you or I could pay for the research twice – once through our taxes, and once more to access the results of the research that our taxes funded. Currently, the law says that the information must be made freely accessible to the public within 12 months. This makes sense, since the public paid for the research in the first place.
Scientists don’t stand to gain from this legislation. They don’t get paid for their articles anyway. In fact, according to this article in the Financial Times, 33 Nobel Prize-winning scientists, research librarians, and patients’ rights advocates are all actively opposing the legislation, and the current and former heads of the NIH say that this legislation, if passed, would hurt the advancement of science. The folks who do stand to gain from a change like this one are members of the publishing industry, which is threatened by the rise in support in the scientific community for open access peer-reviewed journals. Also according to Larry Lessig, the bill’s co-sponsors in Congress receive twice as much financial support from publishing interests as their non-sponsoring colleagues. So that explains a lot.
What’s in it for Whom? (Which is one of my favorite questions ever)
or
Hey, This Has Nothing to do with Neil Gaiman!
I read this interesting article in Boing Boing that said that Rep. John Conyers has introduced legislation in Congress that would chip away at our right to access information. The bill would disallow government funding agencies from requiring that recipients of federal research grants make the results of their research freely accessible to the public. That means that you or I could pay for the research twice – once through our taxes, and once more to access the results of the research that our taxes funded. Currently, the law says that the information must be made freely accessible to the public within 12 months. This makes sense, since the public paid for the research in the first place.
Scientists don’t stand to gain from this legislation. They don’t get paid for their articles anyway. In fact, according to this article in the Financial Times, 33 Nobel Prize-winning scientists, research librarians, and patients’ rights advocates are all actively opposing the legislation, and the current and former heads of the NIH say that this legislation, if passed, would hurt the advancement of science. The folks who do stand to gain from a change like this one are members of the publishing industry, which is threatened by the rise in support in the scientific community for open access peer-reviewed journals. Also according to Larry Lessig, the bill’s co-sponsors in Congress receive twice as much financial support from publishing interests as their non-sponsoring colleagues. So that explains a lot.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
