LISNews: Librarian News

Cory Doctorow says "Intellectual property" is one of those ideologically loaded terms that can cause an argument just by being uttered. Fundamentally, the stuff we call "intellectual property" is just knowledge - ideas, words, tunes, blueprints, identifiers, secrets, databases. This stuff is similar to property in some ways: it can be valuable, and sometimes you need to invest a lot of money and labour into its development to realise that value.

Back in October, we wrote about a law firm that was claiming a copyright on the cease-and-desist letters it sent out, and insisting that it was a violation to repost them. It's long been believed that cease-and-desist letters that have no new creative expression and are merely boilerplates are likely not covered by copyright. On top of that, preventing someone from copying a cease-and-desist letter or posting it on their own website seems like a pretty severe First Amendment violation. The group Public Citizen hit back against this law firm's claims, but surprisingly, a judge has now agreed that you can copyright cease-and-desist letters.

Story continued here.

A Short Little Post from Chronicle.com quotes one of my favorite librarians, Trisha Davis. She made the remark while discussing the challenges Ohio State faced in building an institutional repository. The university has over 21,000 articles — including conference papers, teaching materials, photographs, and multimedia works — in the archive.

Faculty members will submit research papers to the repository often unaware that they have signed away the rights to their work to a journal publisher, Ms. Davis said. “They are stunned that they have not retained the copyrights,” she said. “They’re vehemently adamant” that they still have rights to the work.

Veteran romance novelist Cassie Edwards is revered by her fans for her meticulous research when writing books. From Savage Torment to Savage Sunrise, her books (of which there are more than 100, published by Dorchester/Leisure Books, Signet, Harlequin and other houses) have detailed descriptions of Native American religion, weaponry, cuisine and other subjects. But this week, the romance review blog Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books called attention to some striking similarities and, in some cases, verbatim passages, between Edwards’s works and a number of nonfiction books about Native American history and customs. Signet, however, is standing by the author. Story continued at Publisher's Weekly