I just got done listening to the JISC podcast “The Google Generation: Myth or Reality?“, and it seems like the key thing discussed in it (I haven’t had time to read the report) crosses over with some of what Andrew Keen discusses in The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture: lack of information literacy. One of the criticisms that I see at the root of some of Keen’s arguments is that people are taking Google results, blogs, wikis, “web 2.0″ (etc) at face value and not engaging with it critically. As the traditional gatekeepers (editors, paid news professionals, and so on) lose out to user generated content, there is a greater need to think about content critically because it hasn’t gone through this vetting process. From the JISC project website for the Google Generation study:

The report by the CIBER research team at University College London claims that, although young people demonstrate an ease and familiarity with computers, they rely on the most basic search tools and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to asses the information that they find on the web. The report ‘Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future’ also shows that research-behaviour traits that are commonly associated with younger users – impatience in search and navigation, and zero tolerance for any delay in satisfying their information needs – are now the norm for all age-groups, from younger pupils and undergraduates through to professors.

And for a representative sample of Keen, p 93:

But the problem is that the Web 2.0 generation is taking search-engine results as gospel.

Maybe part of the response to Keen’s view of the Web 2.0 future is, as this study suggests, education:

The findings also send a stark message to government – that young people are dangerously lacking information skills. Well-funded information literacy programmes are needed, it continues, if the UK is to remain as a leading knowledge economy with a strongly-skilled next generation of researchers.

Education of the end-user can make up for the lack of traditional gatekeepers in terms of user generated content (though I don’t think traditional media is dead). If people are only relying on, say Wikipedia, then this is of course a problem. In part because researchers should always go directly to the source whenever possible (though what does that say about me, not having read the report?).

The Eduserv Foundation, who kindly funded me for a study on open content licences and the UK cultural heritage sector, has a new call for funding for some really interesting areas:

Online identity – a persona that people establish in online communities.
The open social graph — a machine-readable description of the online identities in one or more online communities and the relationships between those online identities.
Always-on Internet access and mobile computing — results from the growing availability and use of personal, mobile computing devices (laptops, PDA, hand-held devices, mobile phones, etc.), coupled with increasingly pervasive wireless network access.

The last area fits in with some work I just had published this fall on wireless mesh networking in the Journal of Internet Law.

Anywho, start writing those grant apps!

Open Rights Group is looking for interns — this might be particularly good for you UK law students out there…

These are my links for 4th January 2008 through 14th January 2008:

• Some Comments the US-Antigua Gambling Arbitration – Goes over the standards used in the case regarding internet gaming.
• Top Ten Myths of Entrepreneurship – Starting a biz ain’t easy.
• U.K. prepares for amended computer crime law | InfoWorld – “A six-page document published on Monday by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) gives prosecutors pointers for handling offenses under soon-to-change provisions of the Computer Misuse Act (CMA) of 1990.”
• Law Firm Aims to Be Go-To Firm in ‘Digital Trespassing’ Niche – “The law firm is carving out a niche in representing consumers who say their rights are being abridged by unwanted text messages on cell phones and undisclosed online meddling with their computers, among other things, in a kind of “digital trespassing,”"
• Law.com – 9th Circuit Harmonizes With IP Holders in Karaoke Case – Court rules that karaoke is an audiovisual work and requires a separate copyright license for the lyrics.

Lord Triesman, current Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Intellectual Property and Quality, spoke on Tuesday (8 Jan.) at the British Library at the launch of the UK Intellectual Property Office’s new consultation “Taking forward the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property: Proposed changes to copyright exceptions”. This consultation will look specifically at implementing parts of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property:

Recommendation 2: Enable educational provisions to cover distance learning and interactive whiteboards

Recommendation 12: Create an exception to copyright for caricature, parody or pastiche.

There are several aspects of this review that I’ll be commenting on over the coming weeks and months (here and at opencontentlawyer), but I want to concentrate on the last recommendation:

Recommendation 12: Create an exception to copyright for caricature, parody or pastiche.

Lord Triesman, as a well-known political figure, joked that the UK doesn’t suffer any shortage of caricature and pastiche. This sentiment echoes the language of the current review:

Parody, in particular, continues to flourish under the current system. If this is the case, does anything need to change?

The current review of a proposed parody exception goes on to discuss the issue at greater depth. However at the general level, the question for many I believe is whether an exception is necessary given that parody (which includes caricature and pastiche within the context of the review) is prevalent within the UK.

It is however important to put the current state of parody in the context of how copyright gets enforced.

As Westminster, the European Union, and the UK IPO implement various ways to increase IP enforcement and encourage parties to resort to filing a court action, this can clearly put parody in jeopardy. The costs of bringing an action, the difficulties involved, the threat of having to pay the other side’s legal fees, and the threat of establishing disfavourable case law by bringing an action all act as a disincentive to litigate and thus give parodists freer reign in the UK. Contrast this with the United States, where statutory damages — pre-established damages awards for copyright infringement — can make claims much easier to bring and thus have a greater impact on parody. Making it easier to bring an action can have consequences — including making it harder for parodists and thus crushing worthy expression here in the UK.

I would submit to the review that they should keep in mind the balance between enforcement and free expression when considering whether to introduce a parody exception formally into the UK. Making a broad exception to copyright for parody will ensure that this culture flourishes and that the rights to free expression are preserved.

About the Gowers Review

The Gowers Review was commissioned by the Treasury in 2005 to review intellectual property in the UK. Andrew Gowers, former editor of the FT, led the review which was published in December of 2006. This review made a number of recommendations, some of which have already been implemented. The current review by the UK IPO examines implementing some of the proposed exceptions to copyright.

The Office of Public Sector Information will be having a BarCamp around Recommendation 8 from the Power of Information Review on 12 January 2008.

Recommendation 8

“To improve government’s responsiveness to demand for public sector information, by July 2008 OPSI should create a web-based channel to gather and assess requests for publication of public sector information.”

http://barcamp.org/BarCampPOIR8 on *12th January 2008*,
Spey & Ness Rooms, City Inn, 30 John Islip Street, Westminster, London.

From an announcement of the event:

Since beginning to accept requests for re-using PSI through the discussion forum on the OPSI website, we’ve been given some very helpful feedback by users and learnt quite a few lessons about how the eventual service will need to work. The forums have served a useful purpose these few months but are clearly insufficient going forwards.

We’ve opted for a BarCamp format as the most open, participative and democratic way to engage with potential re-users. We’ve a venue arranged and an outline agenda – but really we would like the re-user community to shape the event.

Way cool.

These are my links for 19th December 2007 through 3rd January 2008:

• Patent Baristas » Changes to the European Patent Convention – Overview of EPC 2000 that has come into effect.
• Patent Troll Tracker – Blog on patent trolls.
• Film on Demand – Review of need for more legal content online
• Jean-Luc Godard reveals that he stole money to finance his films – Theft is art.
• Must-Read Nanotechnology Report – Report on nanotech
• ABA Journal Blawg 100 | ABA Journal – Law News Now – The top 100 includes a number of the ones in my feed reader and a few I hadn’t heard of. Worth checking out.
• Company suing OLPC wants $20 million to settle | InfoWorld – “Oyegbola said he hopes his company can still settle with OLPC. “We’re hoping it doesn’t get to [a trial],” he said. “It’s in the hands of the lawyers now.”"
• ALT-C — Call for Papers – “Can a balance be struck, or will the future be open source (and/or open access)?”
• Timothy Karr: Ten Worst Telco Moments of 2007 – Media on The Huffington Post –
• Science Commons » Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data – New protocol for an Open Access Data Mark.
• CCZero – CC Wiki – Wiki page on the upcoming CCZero legal tool.
• QMPRI | International Copyright Protection System – “Professor J.A.L. Sterling has drafted a series of documents to serve as research material for studies on current copyright issues.”