LibraryLaw Blog

When can you digitize old newspapers?

I got this question at the very end of the Digital Reference Legal Issues webcast, and we'd already cut off the connection.  It's actually a very complicated answer, and I hereby refer to this reply.

Lyrics and digital reference

At the Digital Reference Legal Issues webcast last week,  I was asked whether libraries can scan copyrighted lyrics from a book to answer virtual reference questions. I ducked it until I could doublecheck the definition of “musical work.”

I’ve done some digging, and this is my reply (subject to the usual caveats – i.e. check with your institution’s lawyer…)  If anyone else wants to weigh in here, go ahead.

Breaking News: Google / Univ of Michigan Digization contract available now

Dear Mary Minow:

The U of Michigan has posted their confidential agreement with Google in response to my freedom of information request. See the link at the top of www.google-watch.org/appeal.html

I have some observations after reading this thing. Either the U of M decided that Google deserved a big fat Christmas present last December, or U of M's lawyers all had hangovers from a Christmas party.

Google gets to do anything it wants with the public domain material it digitizes, and U of M cannot do anything with this material other than use it on their own website, assuming that measures are taken to prevent crawling, scraping, or other types of automatic retrieval. As for copyrighted material, Google decides what is "fair use" and what isn't, and U of M is out of the picture.

The only place where I saw the word "privacy" in the agreement is here:

"4.5.2  Google shall maintain on its website a privacy policy that governs collection and use of information that Google obtains from a user of the Google Search Services."

That is absolutely worthless. We know this because every privacy policy Google has published on their website is absolutely worthless. Every single one is full of loopholes, assuming you can find anything concrete in them to begin with.

This was interesting:

"6.3  Confidentiality  (Exceptions)  Google understands that U of M, as a public institution, is subject to the Michigan Freedom of Information Act, and any disclosure of Confidential Information required by that statute will not constitute a breach of this agreement."

The whole agreement was confidential. The U of M is the only one of the five libraries that is not private, and subject to government regulation. Clearly, Google was hoping that no one would notice. They were almost right -- it was nearly five months before I decided to search for "freedom of information" and "university of michigan." Shame on me, and even more shame on everyone else. But the most shame on Google and the U of M, who should have taken one look at the situation and decided to skip all the confidentiality language from the start.

This is, after all, clearly a public policy issue. Remember, Google is on a mission from God to organize all the world's information. That's just about as public as you can get.

-- Daniel Brandt

Open Access Law Program, a part of the Science Commons publishing project, supports "open access" to legal scholarship

Cool - there's now an Open Access Law Program, publishing free access to scholarly literature "without undue copyright and licensing restrictions."

Courtesy of private email from Sam Trosow (reprinted with permission):

I don't know if you've seen this, but it's no doubt something your readers
will be interested in:  http://science.creativecommons.org/literature/oalaw

news flash on libraries and patriot act - Sanders' amendment passes

From Bernie Sanders' site:

Sanders Passes Critical Legislation to Amend Patriot Act and Protect Americans’ Reading Records   

Washington, DC—Congressman Sanders today led a tri-partisan coalition in restoring Americans’ constitutionally guaranteed right to read and access information without governmental intrusion or monitoring. With 199 Democrats, 38 Republicans and one Independent (Sanders) voting in support, the House passed Congressman Sanders legislation to amend Section 215 of the Patriot Act in order to keep the federal government from accessing Americans’ reading records without a traditional search warrant.

Can someone tell me how many are needed to stop a presidential veto?

Wyoming expands its library confidentiality law

Now that's refreshing - effective July 1, Wyoming library patron transactions will be protected by law insted of just patron circulation and registration records (subject to established exceptions). 

An elegant update to reflect changing times - new wording would include virtual reference and other new patron transactions.  Nice. 

How about it, California librarians? Any readers from Wyoming want to comment?

I saw this thanks to the great state library laws list by Paul Neuhaus which he keeps updating.

Introduced: 2005 H.B. 0316 (January 25, 2005)
Status: Signed into Law on March 3, 2005; Becomes effective July 1, 2005
Sponsors: Representatives Esquibel & Walsh and Senator Boggs

(d) The custodian shall deny the right of inspection of the following records, unless otherwise provided by law:

(ix) Library [Delete: circulation] [Add: patron transaction] and registration records except as required for administration of the library or except as requested by a custodial parent or guardian to inspect the records of his minor child;

Disappearing Government Information - New paper by Susan Nevelow Mart

You can download it for free from SSRN.   Susan Nevelow Mart, Let the People Know the Facts: Can Government Information Removed from the Internet be Reclaimed posted June 13, 2005

Abstract:     
This article examines the legal bases of the public's right to access government information, and examines and analyzes the types of information that have recently been removed from the Internet and the rationales given for the removals. The concerted use of FOIA by public interest groups and their constituents is suggested as a possible method of returning the information to the Internet. There article concludes with a brief review of recent FOIA cases that might provide some guidance on the litigation sure to follow such concerted requests.

Once Again - the Freedom to Read Amendment

According to the Campaign for Reader Privacy, next week Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will try again to pass his Freedom to Read Amendment, when the House of Representatives is due to consider the House Commerce, Justice, State (CJS) Appropriations Bill, which funds the Justice Department. The Sanders amendment would cut off funds for bookstore and library searches under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. This last time the Freedom to Read Act Amendment was introduced, it was defeated in a tie vote. The Amendment to the Justice Department's funding bill was originally 219-200 in favor of the amendment, but the the House leadership changed enough votes to bring the tally to a 210-210 tie. The vote was close last time, so this is the time to send a letter or e-mail to your representative.

Digital reference - legal issues webcast on Thursday

California librarians are invited to tune in Thursday at noon pacific time to my Infopeople webcast on digital reference legal issues.

Anyone else can download handouts and look at the archived webcast a little later.

http://infopeople.org/training/webcasts/06-16-05/

Anonymous library cards / Ostrowsky

Slashdot has lengthy comments on an article proposing anonymous library cards, written by Ben Ostrowsky, systems librarian at the Tampa Bay Library Consortium.

Privacy minded users deposit $20 to get a card - and money is deducted when they check out materials. Once the materials are returned, the money is restored.

Fascinating idea - I know I typically check out hundreds of dollars of stuff at a time ... and at first blush I thought this would be too limiting because the card would be too expensive for me. 

But having the privacy card option is very appealing, since I could still check out bestsellers and expensive art books on my identifiable library card. But I could also check out that book that I don't want anyone to know I'm reading - by using my privacy card.  Add self-checkout machines to the mix, and no humans connect me to the book -  great!   

I often use a small library and request books from other branches.  Could I still do this? I suppose I could, as the privacy card could still have a barcode.  If requesting from a home computer, you'd have to mask the IP address of the computer you're using with an anonymizer.

It would set up a two-tier system - those that can afford privacy have that option while others don't.  Yet anyone can still go to the library and read the books there free. And get this, it seems to me that for as little as 25 cents you could get a privacy card, giving you unlimited access to request books from other libraries - delivered to your branch to then read in-house for free.*  This might even help homeless patrons at the libraries that require an address to get an identifiable library card.

And for a no cost option (that is, no cost to users), see Pam Davis, “The honor system: a library encourages kids to take books without checking them out,” School Library Journal, (March 2004), for a successful experiment with anonymous checkout in a school.

*This assumes that the library gets books from other branches free for users with cards. Mine does.