The Distant Librarian

Privacy Commissioner Finds Facebook Violating Canadian Privacy Law

The headline says it all.  Michael Geist has a good summary of the issue.  For the most part the big issue seems to be how FB shares data with third-party applications, and with the way things work during an account deactivation.

Facebook has 30 days to address the outstanding issues.  If they continue to decline to do so, the Commissioner can go to Federal Court for enforcement.  The finding is one of the longest and most detailed in memory as it chronicles not only the complaint and findings but the negotiations with Facebook in addressing the concerns.  In doing so, it represents the most exhaustive official investigation of Facebook privacy practices anywhere in the world.

As mentioned in the comments, it's not entirely clear what Canada can DO to FB if they don't comply...

My favourite quote though comes from a writeup that appeared in my paper this AM: "Trying to take something off the Internet is like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool".  Love it.

No place for state in our hard drives?

U of Calgary affiliate Kris Kotarski has a thought-provoking op-ed in the Calgary Herald about the Copyright/DRM debate that's about to be reborn here in Canada. 

"Simply put, if society settles on laws enforcing copyright provisions such as a ban on breaking DRM locks on CDs and DVDs, or taking down SIM locks on cellular phones (both part of last year's Bill C-61), there will be no way to credibly enforce them without an intrusive government monitoring scheme."

Yet another followup post on Harvard and EBSCO linking

Peter Murray at Distruptive Library Technology Jester (aka DLTJ) has done a bunch of reading and thinking about the recently-hot issue of Harvard Business School Publishing charging extra to allow the use of persistent URLs in course reserves and content management systems. in his post, EBSCO in Cahoots With Harvard Business Press, he goes in to detail about how Harvard is likely determining whether links are coming from course reserves or a CMS, and looks at EBSCO's terms of use and privacy policy.   He concludes with he following unanswered questions:

And what is EBSCO's role in this? Isn't a library's contract with EBSCO, not Harvard Business Publishing? Is EBSCO earning more revenue from this HBP license requirement to enable deep linking to article content? If so, isn't that just an incentive for EBSCO to do the same with other high-profile publishers?

To me it sounds as though we can complain all we like, but both EBSCO and Harvard are legally covered.  I guess one more question is how much bad publicity do they want to receive over this policy?

I encourage you to read Peter's entire post.

A little more info on the Harvard linking BS

Following up on yesterday's post about Harvard Business School Publishing not allowing PURLs within EBSCO, I received an email from a librarian at a small school who pointed out that the following appears at the bottom of each HBS publication within Business Source Premier/Complete:

"Harvard Business Review Notice of Use Restrictions, May 2009 Harvard Business Review and Harvard Business Publishing Newsletter content on EBSCOhost is licensed for the private individual use of authorized EBSCOhost users. It is not intended for use as assigned course material in academic institutions nor as corporate learning or training materials in businesses. Academic licensees may not use this content in electronic reserves, electronic course packs, persistent linking from syllabi or by any other means of incorporating the content into course resources. Business licensees may not host this content on learning management systems or use persistent linking or other means to incorporate the content into learning management systems. Harvard Business Publishing will be pleased to grant permission to make this content available through such means. For rates and permission, contact permissions@harvardbusiness.org."

He also mentioned that HBSP had leaned on his school and when they decided not to pay, EBSCO turned off the ability for them to create PURLs for that publisher.

So how does Harvard BSP know whether a given link is being used for "private individual use" or for within electronic reserves, electronic course packs, a syllabi, or within a learning management system?  I guess if the link is openly available on a website they might come across it, but there should be no way they'd even be aware that a link was being used from within a learning management system, right? 

I'll let you know when they contact us; has your school lost the ability to create persistent links to HBSP publications? 

Harvard Business School Publishing not allowing UK libraries to build PURLs in EBSCO - are we next?

Just read a couple of deeply troubling posts at Libreaction and the library staff blog at the University of Lincoln in which librarians are crying foul over what appear to be mafia tactics by Harvard Business School Publishing.  According to the Libreaction post:

For a few years now HBSP have been requesting payments of as much as £15k pa from several UK academic business libraries simply for the privilege of making persistent links to HBR articles on reading lists and VLEs.

The links in question are being made to EBSCO's Business Source products (which provide HBR in full-text), however, it is Harvard rather than EBSCO who have approached librarians directly for additional payment.  Thus far these demands for extra monies, which are being requested on top of the EBSCO subscription, are, as mentioned above, merely part of a 'pilot scheme', however, HBSP plan to roll it out to all EBSCO subscribers in due course.

Thus far, all UK librarians who have been offered the 'opportunity' to pay this additional sum have unsurprisingly turned it down, and as a result have recently had the ability to make persistent links to HBR turned off by EBSCO.

I have the vaguest of recollections of hearing something about this a year or more ago, but it's so vague as to have possibly been a bad dream.  But seriously, what's going on here?!?  I just checked, and I can still create persistent URLs to Harvard Business Review within Business Search Complete. 

Here's a scary PDF flyer in which Harvard Business School Publishing

...is excited to offer the opportunity to upgrade your existing annual subscription to EBSCOhost to a new level that allows for use of HBR articles for course use... If you choose not to upgrade your current EBSCOhost at this time, please reiterate to your faculty and students that your license with EBSCOhost allows them to access HBSP content only for research purposes. If you choose not to upgrade, please be advised that EBSCO may disable the ability to persistent link to HBSP content at your institution.

Give me a break!  This is ridiculous!  According to both blog posts this is coming from Harvard, not EBSCO. 

What do you think about this?  Surely we're not going to let our UK colleagues get rolled, only to find that we're next!

Many libraries are lending Kindles

While we wait to see if BYU will reinstate their Kindle lending program, take a look at the list of libraries that are still lending them put together by iReaderreview.  I's not just a list; there's a fair bit of supporting content in the post.

Kindle, Libraries

Download Your YouTube Videos Legally

Amit at Digital Inspiration points out that you can now download your YouTube videos legally.  But the emphasis is on YOUR videos.  The best tool I know for being able to download all YouTube videos, and in the format of your choice, is KickYouTube.

BYU suspends Kindle program over legal concerns

Sometimes it's a problem pushing the envelope - seems that the BYU Library initiative to use Kindles instead of getting books via ILL has been suspended after "some buzz on library-related blogs for breaking ground in the uncertain area of lending books on the Kindle." 

"We are playing it safe," Layton said. "Two people here said we have verbal permission. But if we don't have it in writing, that's a different thing. We don't want to do anything that Amazon doesn't completely agree with."

Everyone in the comments seems to be in favour of the initiative.  Hope this forces Amazon to acquiesce!

Brigham Young Library Tests Kindle as ILL Alternative

Gerrit van Dyk, Document Delivery Services Manager at Brigham Young University, blogs about their new initiative to loan Kindles to faculty members instead of trying to obtain new material via ILL.  You can also read a brief article about this at Library Journal.

Kindle, ILL, BYU

EFF Teaching Copyright Curriculum

The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently launched a website called Teaching Copyright "to help teachers present the laws surrounding digital rights in a balanced way."

In five distinct lessons, students are challenged to:

• Reflect on what they already know about copyright law.
• See the connection between the history of innovation and the history of copyright law.
• Learn about fair use, free speech, and the public domain and how those concepts relate to using materials created by others.
• Experience various stakeholders' interests and master the principles of fair use through a mock trial.

Teaching Copyright will require your students to think about their role in the online world and provide them with the legal framework they need to make informed choices about their online behavior.

It's based on US Copyright Law, but there are lots of good resource links and questions to ponder regardless of your location.

This time we mean it! - Google to sell e-books

The New York Times is reporting that Google plans to begin selling ebooks by the end of 2009.  "In discussions with publishers at the annual BookExpo convention in New York over the weekend, Google signaled its intent to introduce a program by that would enable publishers to sell digital versions of their newest books direct to consumers through Google. The move would pit Google against Amazon.com, which is seeking to control the e-book market with the versions it sells for its Kindle reading device."

TeleRead has a couple of posts around this announcement as well.

I'm betting it will be USA-only.

Geist calls out the Conference Board of Canada

In his post, The Conference Board of Canada's Deceptive, Plagiarized Digital Economy Report, Michael Geist points out how much of a recent Conference Board of Canada report appears to be plagiarized from the International Intellectual Property Alliance (the primary movie, music, and software lobby in the U.S.).

 Michael asks the following questions:

For Anne Golden, the President and CEO of the Conference Board of Canada:

• Is a deceptive, plagiarized report drawn from a U.S. lobby group consistent with an organization that claims that it is non-partisan and that does not lobby?
• How much was the Conference Board of Canada paid to produce this report?
• Does the Conference Board of Canada stand by the report in light of these findings?
• Will the Conference Board of Canada retract the report and the inaccurate press release that accompanied it?

For Stephen Toope, President of UBC, and Indira V. Samarasekera, President of the University of Alberta, both members of the Conference Board of Canada board:

• Do they condone or support the use of plagiarism in this report?
• Will they ask the Conference Board of Canada to review this report and to retract it?

Perhaps most importantly, for Minister of Research and Innovation John Wilkinson:

• How much public money was spent in support of this report?
• Does the government support the use of public money for a report that simply repeats the language of a U.S. lobby group?
• Will the Minister ask the Conference Board of Canada to refund the public money spent on this report?
• Will the Minister publicly disassociate himself from the report in light of these findings?

Update May 28, 2009: The Conference Board of Canada has just posted the following statement:

The Conference Board of Canada has recalled three reports: Intellectual Property Rights in the Digital Economy; National Innovation Performance and Intellectual Property Rights: A Comparative Analysis; and Intellectual Property Rights—Creating Value and Stimulating Investment. An internal review has determined that these reports did not follow the high quality research standards of The Conference Board of Canada.

More on Libraries and eBooks

Following up on my earlier post about licensing issues around ebooks and libraries, Sue at No Shelf Required discusses the same Teleread post: Is it possible to donate an eBook to the library?  In the  comments,  Dan D'Agostino mentions he's got a new blog on his (collection development librarian) perspective of eBook reader technology at e-Book Reader News (on e-book readers, mobile devices, and the ebook publishing world).  Subscribed.

In which the public learns about licensing

Teleread has an interesting post entitled How to give away an ebook after you’ve read it in which the author suggests people purchase ebooks for their local library rather for themselves, thus allowing multiple people to read the book (once the original purchaser has had a chance to read it).  Sounds like a great idea, except, as folks in the comments point out, most licenses won't allow for this.  But there are some ideas in there that, in a sane world, could work.  Alas.

Introducing RefMobile

From the Press Release (PDF):

Introducing RefMobile

RefMobile is a version of RefWorks for mobile and smart phones, as well as PDAs, that allows you to access and view your references, manage folders and even add information to the Notes field of your references.  In addition to being able to access and manage your references, RefMobile has a feature – SmartAdd – that will search the web for references based on a digital object identifier (DOI), PubMed ID (PMID), PubMed Central ID (PMCID), ISSN/ISBN number or by author and publication year or even search using part of a title.   References located by SmartAdd can even be imported into your RefWorks account via RefMobile.  Any user can access RefMobile at http://www.refworks.com/mobile.  Please note:  you must have a group code to access RefMobile.  Currently Shibboleth and Athens authentication is not enabled.

Screenshots are available.