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This site explains why people choose to illegally downloads, even if some people know that they are breaking the copyright law.

Interesting read as I'm guilty of illegally downloading/streaming TV and music. Very surprised to see that the rich are the ones who illegally download on a regular basis.

"I'd have to wait too long to see it on TV" is the reason I hear the most about when it comes to illegal downloading. Those people generally do make an effort to watch it when it does officially come out on TV though, to off-set their piracy. The way companies will show something in one country and then sit on it for five months before letting someone in another country watch it seems silly to me at this point, though. Yes digital piracy is illegal, but it seems to be getting to the point of the Prohibition Era in the United States: yes, it's illegal, but everyone's doing it anyway. I think somebody's going to need to change things up here, and it seems doubtful that the companies producing these shows can alter the cultural norms without a lot more work than it seems they're willing to put in.

I was lucky to be in Berlin with some colleagues earlier this month for the 2014 Open Knowledge Festival and associated fringe events. There's really too much to distill into a short post-from Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda, making the case for " Embracing the open opportunity," to Patrick Alley's breathtaking accounts of how Global Witness uses information, to expose crime and corruption in countries around the world.

A useful summary of some of the key take-aways from the 2014 Open Knowledge Festival, courtesy of Tariq Khokhar From the article: 1. There are some great open data initiatives around the world and two common themes are the need for a strong community of technologically literate data re-users, and the sustained effort needed within governments to change how they create, manage and publish data in the long term. 2. Spreadsheets are code and we can adopt some software engineering practices to make much better use of them. There are a number of powerful tools and approaches to data handing being pioneered by the scientific community and those working in other fields can adopt and emulate many of them. 3. Open data fundamentally needs open source software. App reuse often doesn't happen because contexts are too different. Reusable software components can reduce the development overhead for creating locally customized civic software applications and a pool of high quality civic software components is a valuable public good worth contributing to. Reading time: 15mins

I see that Google are the sponsors of the 2014 Open Knowledge Festival but despite having little knowledge about Google's role and interest in the Open Knowledge , I also feel they are the culprit when it comes to data manipulative for their own profit motives.

A look at how fitness tracking might be expanded to wider use/tracking in the workplace. Here theoretical and positive, but could be sinister. I thought this was interesting, especially after reading the 2011 article "Why Privacy Matters" https://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/ shared in our OKMOOC group.

Just a few short years ago, the world of digital scholarly texts was in its primordial stages, and it is still the case that most online editions are simply basic HTML or scanned images from more or less arbitrarily chosen print editions.

FREE CULTURE is available for free under a Creative Commons license. You may redistribute, copy, or otherwise reuse/remix this book provided that you do so for non-commercial purposes and credit Professor Lessig. " America needs a national conversation about the way in which so-called 'intellectual property rights' have come to dominate the rights of scholars, researchers, and everyday citizens. A copyright cartel, bidding for absolute control over digital worlds, music, and movies, now has a veto over technological innovation and has halted most contributions to the public domain from which so many have benefited. The patent system has spun out of control, giving enormous power to entrenched interests, and even trademarks are being misused. Lawrence Lessig's latest book is essential reading for anyone who want to join this conversation. He explains how technology and the law are robbing us of the public domain; but for all his educated pessimism, Professor Lessig offers some solutions, too, because he recognizes that technology can be the catalyst for freedom. If you care about the future of innovation, read this book." -- Dan Gillmor, author of MAKING THE NEWS, an upcoming book on the collision of media and technology

Hi Kim, Thanks for sharing this great work by Lawrence Lessig published ten years ago.

Technische Universität (TU) Darmstadt digitized a book from German publisher Eugen Ulmer KG without receiving permission in order to post sections of it for course reading. Eugen Ulmer filed suit, and on Sept.

Education South Africa - February 2013 With the 2012 Limpopo textbook delivery saga, and the rising cost of printed textbooks, one public school has decided to take a bold step into the future and convert to using E-books for all their learners.

This sounds like a good idea but then the students must have the tablets and computers to be able to read the books. Unfortunately I don't think this will work in many of the poorer rural schools that need it most.

The great idea of this project could be used by every educational organization, as the article say, the cost are clearly low.

"It turns out that students are poorly trained in college to effectively navigate the Internet's indiscriminate glut of information. Another Project Information Literacy study, involving more than 8,300 undergraduates at 25 American colleges, found that most make do with a very small compass. They rely on tried and true resources such as course readings, library databases, Google, and Wikipedia....The skills that students cultivate through traditional assignments-writing essays based on library research-are far different from those required to perform efficient, high-level, accurate research in the digital world. All of those types of research skills take practice under the eye of experts."

This commentary emphasises the need for students to be taught within the curricula on how to be discerning when navigating the surfeit of information on the internet.

You can help proof read pages for the digital upload of public domain books!!

To determine the ranking we count the times each file gets downloaded. Both HTTP and FTP transfers are counted. Only transfers from ibiblio.org are counted as we have no access to our mirrors log files. Multiple downloads from the same IP address on the same day count as one download.

The New Yorker covered the issue of copyright in a recent issue: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/20/crooner-rights-spat The cover many of the points raised in this course, as well as some of the issues relating to copyright in the digital age. An interesting read!

Nice find! It has some great examples of American copyright laws and is historically grounded. It's always easier to understand when fun/relevant examples are used (like Rod Stewart's head, in this article!).

Digital media is changing how scholars interact, collaborate, write and publish. Here, Jessie Daniels describes how to be a scholar now, when peer-reviewed articles can begin as Tweets and blog posts. In this new environment, scholars are able to create knowledge in ways that are more open, more fluid, and more easily read by wider audiences.

On Monday 8 September 2014, the Nal'ibali reading-for-enjoyment campaign, in partnership with Mxit Reach, will launch a literacy app. The Mxit social networking platform, which has five million monthly users, will allow anyone with a mobile handset to help put their children on the path to educational success with access to regular stories, literacy tips and support

Great idea. Part of a lots of creative digital projects taking advantage of the interest of child for mobile phones and permanent connection

If you are interested/involved in the field of Information and Digital Literacy, this site is for you. It is run by information professionals from key UK organizations actively involved in this field. This is an amazing source that has been created for practitioners, researchers, and anyone with such interest from around the world. It is well structured, maintained, and updated. It provides definitions and models, teaching materials, information about research in the filed of Information Literacy, extra reading (e.g. books, journals, websites, reports, etc.), and much more. You can search about Information Literacy by sector (e.g. schools, health, public, and special libraries, higher and further education, etc.). You can also get in touch with editorial team or leave your comment.

In thinking about the Wayback Machine and archiving webpages, this new tool brings to light archival possibilities for social media.

Wow, great article! This really complements the ideas we have been talking about this week regarding digital preservation. I've been thinking a lot about the idea of preserving and accessing closed social networks of the past this week, and didn't even think to make the connection to this weeks' readings until now. I actually introduced my roommate to the Wayback Machine this week and together we were able to find her tacky old Lord of the Rings themed archived geocities website (and it was even worse that I could have imagined! hilarity ensued.) Of course, we were able to access something like geocities because it's a website that's open and available to the public. But what about a social network that requires a username and password? I recently tried to see if I could access my old myspace profile, and was shocked to find that myspace has transformed itself into a music-sharing site with none of the old social networking features it used to have. The information that used to be contained -- and the interactivity that went along with it -- are gone! Not to mention that, if it were searchable via a tool like the Wayback Machine, one would need to remember the *exact* URL to find it (for this sad, sad, reason, I have not been able to find my tacky old geocities website from way back when). This is a great idea and I look forward to seeing how the project evolves. Thanks for sharing!