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After receiving a Facebook apology and little else for having his work stolen, Max Hattler has filed a lawsuit against DJ and record producer Bassnectar.
Before I forget, I’ve actually started a Tiny Letter, also called TILT though it’s a bit more essay-ish than these posts. Subscribe if you like this sort of thing in your inbox. Infrequent messages, well-designed and lovingly delivered.
Been thinking about the workplace a little this week. Here’s my top five.
I really wish the DPLA would mix up their front page a little but I did learn about their new Source Sets from our local Vermont contact when I was at VLA. Curated primary source documents with teaching guides and links to more information. Here’s one on the food stamp program in the US.
Being dedicated to accessibility should also include knowing how to find useful things for our patrons that our libraries may not have. With this in mind, it’s worth making you aware of PornHub’s launch of described audio of their most popular videos. You can find it by searching for the “narrated” tag. An earlier web project called PornfortheBlind.org is still online as well.
In the second of Oxford’s new series of Law Vox podcasts, Jeremy Phillips, editor of Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, describes how the field of intellectual property law looked when he started his illustrious intellectual property law career. Jeremy’s conversation with Law Vox also addresses how intellectual property evolved and grew to encompass many different features. He uses the analogy of Tracey Emin’s bed to explain how intellectual property touches many aspects of our lives without us consciously realising it.
As the native city of composer Ludwig van Beethoven, Bonn seems to be an appropriate location for a meeting of the International Literary and Artistic Association (ALAI); a society dedicated to protecting the interests of creative individuals. ALAI has roots in the 19th century, when in 1878 the French writer Victor Hugo founded the society in order to promote recognition of the legal protection of authors for their intellectual work.
At the half time break, at life drawing this evening, I was ready to give up forever. I wanted to sneak out, go home and never pick up my pens again. My drawings were an embarrassment and why was I even at life drawing? I shouldn't be there. I didn't deserve to be there - not with what I was producing. I, obviously, was getting ideas above my station going to life drawing. But I finished my cuppa and went back in. I persevered and I'm glad I did. I pulled this one out of the bag. And now I can carry on drawing for a bit longer.
0 Comments on a bit about perseverance as of 6/3/2015 7:19:00 PM
A peppy beat and bassline. Cowbell. An ecstatic whoop in the background. Make a note, because all these elements now belong to family of Marvin Gaye. Or do they? The recent verdict against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams in the 'Blurred Lines' case has perplexed followers of the music industry. One might think the ruling was a vindication of the rights of artists, but composers like Bonnie McKee see it differently.
My new zine, The Tamp, now has an advert. yes, I've hit the big time. This minature zine is not only a tiny newspaper but also a puzzle. The puzzle is putting the thing together and specifically getting the pages in the correct order. It'll only make sense if they are in the right order. I say 'make sense'...
The newspaper has a tiny comic strip, a tiny film and book review, tiny classified ads. So, as the man says 'READ ALL ABOUT IT!'. Limited print run, get your copy HERE.
Copyright these days is very high up on the agenda of politicians and the public at large. Some see copyright as a stumbling stone for the development of digital services and think it is outdated. They want to make consumers believe that copyright protection is to be blamed, when music or other ‘content’ is not available online, preferably for free. From Brussels we hear that ‘national copyright silos’ should be broken up, that the EU Internal Market is fragmented when it comes to copyright.
This time the fuss is about already critically acclaimed (The New York Times critic in residence, AO Scott, called it “a triumph of efficient, emphatic cinematic storytelling”) biopic Selma, starring David Oyelowo as the Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.
The film starts with King’s acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1964 and focuses on the three 1965 marches in Alabama that eventually led to the adoption of the Voting Rights Act later that year.
The King estate has not expressly objected to the making of this film. However, back in 2009 the same estate had granted DreamWorks and Warner Bros a licence to reproduce King’s speeches in a film that Steven Spielberg is set to produce but has yet to see the light. Apparently Selma producers attempted in vain to get permission to reproduce King’s speeches in their film. What happened in the end was that the authors of the script had to convey the same meaning of King’s speeches without using the actual words he had employed.
Put it otherwise: Selma is a film about Martin Luther King that does not feature any actual extracts from his historic speeches.
Still in his NYT review, AO Scott wrote that “Dr. King’s heirs did not grant permission for his speeches to be quoted in “Selma,” and while this may be a blow to the film’s authenticity, [the film director] turns it into an advantage, a chance to see and hear him afresh.”
Indeed, the problem of authenticity has been raised by some commentators who have argued that, because of copyright constraints, historical accuracy has been negatively affected.
But is this all copyright’s fault? Is it really true that if you are not granted permission to reproduce a copyright-protected work, you cannot quote from it?
“The social benefit in having a truthful depiction of King’s actual words would be much greater than the copyright owners’ loss.”
Well, probably not. Copyright may have many faults and flaws, but certainly does not prevent one from quoting from a work, provided that use of the quotation can be considered a fair use (to borrow from US copyright language) of, or fair dealing (to borrow from other jurisdictions, e.g. UK) with such work. Let’s consider the approach to quotation in the country of origin, i.e. the United States.
§107 of the US Copyright Act states that the fair use of a work is not an infringement of copyright. As the US Supreme Court stated in the landmark Campbell decision, the fair use doctrine “permits and requires courts to avoid rigid application of the copyright statute when, on occasion, it would stifle the very creativity that the law is designed to foster.”
Factors to consider to determine whether a certain use of a work is fair include:
the purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is commercial or for nonprofit educational purposes (the fact that a use is commercial is not per se a bar from a finding of fair use though);
the nature of the copyright-protected work, e.g. if it is published or unpublished;
amount and substantiality of the taking; and
the effect upon the potential market for or value of the copyright-protected work.
There is fairly abundant case law on fair use as applied to biographies. With particular regard to the re-creation of copyright-protected works (as it would have been the case of Selma, should Oyelowo/King had reproduced actual extracts from King’s speeches), it is worth recalling the recent (2014) decision of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in Arrow Productions v The Weinstein Company.
This case concerned Deep Throat‘s Linda Lovelace biopic, starring Amanda Seyfried. The holders of the rights to the “famous [1972] pornographic film replete with explicit sexual scenes and sophomoric humor” claimed that the 2013 film infringed – among other things – their copyright because three scenes from Deep Throat had been recreated without permission. In particular, the claimants argued that the defendants had reproduced dialogue from these scenes word for word, positioned the actors identically or nearly identically, recreated camera angles and lighting, and reproduced costumes and settings.
The court found in favour of the defendants, holding that unauthorised reproduction of Deep Throat scenes was fair use of this work, also stressing that critical biographical works (as are both Lovelace and Selma) are “entitled to a presumption of fair use”.
In my opinion reproduction of extracts from Martin Luther King’s speeches would not necessarily need a licence. It is true that the fourth fair use factor might weigh against a finding of fair use (this is because the Martin Luther King estate has actually engaged in the practice of licensing use of his speeches). However the social benefit in having a truthful depiction of King’s actual words would be much greater than the copyright owners’ loss. Also, it is not required that all four fair use factors weigh in favour of a finding of fair use, as recent judgments, e.g. Cariou v Princeor Seltzer v Green Day, demonstrate. Additionally, in the context of a film like Selma in which Martin Luther King is played by an actor (not incorporating the filmed speeches actually delivered by King), it is arguable that the use of extracts would be considered highly transformative.
In conclusion, it would seem that in principle that US law would not be against the reproduction of actual extracts from copyright-protected works (speeches) for the sake of creating a new work (a biographic film).
This article originally appeared on The IPKat in a slightly different format on Monday 12 January 2015.
Featured image credit: Dr. Martin Luther King speaking against war in Vietnam, St. Paul Campus, University of Minnesota, by St. Paul Pioneer Press. Minnesota Historical Society. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.
When “The Case of the Black Macaque” scooped media headlines this summer, copyright was suddenly big news. Here was photographer David Slater fighting Wikipedia over the right to disseminate online a portrait photo of a monkey which had, contrary to all expectations and the law of averages, managed within just a few jabs of a curious finger, to take a plausible, indeed publishable “selfie”. Did Slater have the right to control the image since it was his camera on which it was recorded, or was it free for the world to use on the basis that he was not its author, the true creator being the crested black macaque who, for all her charm and dexterity, was neither a real nor legal person and therefore disentitled to any legal rights?
Disputes like this make great headlines, but cause even greater headaches for the intellectual property (“IP”) community. Most have little legal substance to them and are interesting only because of their facts, but that’s what drives journalists’ involvement and readers’ interest, making it easier for the media to attract paying advertisers. By the time they pass through the media machine these tales are frequently mangled to the point at which IP lawyers can scarcely recognise them. In one recent case involving a well-known chocolate brand, a company was said to have patented its copyright in England in order to sue a business in Switzerland for trade mark infringement. To the layman this may sound fine, but it’s about as sensible to the expert as telling the doctor that you’ve got a tummy ache in your little finger because your cat ate the goldfish last night. We IP-ers try to explain the real story, but monkeys and selfies are far more fun than the intricacies of copyright law and, by the time we’ve tried to put the record straight, the next exciting story has already broken.
“By the time they pass through the media machine, these tales are frequently mangled to the point at which IP lawyers can scarcely recognise them”
The next selfie episode to hit the headlines, far from featuring a portrait, was quite the opposite end of the anatomical spectrum. Model Kim Kardashian objected that Jen Selter’s selfies constituted copyright infringements of photos which had been taken of Kim Kardashian’s bottom (occasionally colloquially described as her “trademark” bottom, but not yet registered in conventional legal fashion). Here the only questions IP lawyers address are (i) are the pictures of Kim Kardashian’s backside copyright-protected works and (ii) does the taking by Jen Selter of selfies of her own posterior constitute an infringement? For press and public, however, the issue morphs into the much more entertaining, if legally irrelevant, one of whether a person has copyright in their own bottom.
Self-portrait by the depicted Macaca nigra female. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
There are many IP rights apart from copyright and they all have their macaque moments. Trade mark law is full of episodes of evil corporations stealing words from the English language and stopping anyone else using them. Patent law (in which the legal protection of body parts very much smaller than bottoms, such as sequences of DNA, does have some relevance) is garnished with tales of greed and intrigue as people seek to steal one another’s ideas and avariciously monopolise them. Confidentiality and the right to publicity have their own rip-roaring encounters in court as amorous footballers who are “playing away” seek to hush up their extramarital (that’s one word, not two) exploits. Meanwhile, the women with whom they shared moments of illicit intimacy seek to cash in on their news value by selling them to the highest bidder. For IP lawyers the legal issues are serious and, when cases come to court, they achieve precedential status that governs how future episodes of the same nature might be handled. For press and public, the issues are different: who is the footballer, who is the woman — and are there any pictures (ideally selfies)?
Seriously, the rate at which not just eye-catching tales like those related above but also far less glamorous tales result in litigation, or even legislation, makes it hard-to-impossible for practitioners, academics, administrators and businessmen to keep abreast of the law, let alone understand its deeper significance for those affected by it: businesses, governments, consumers, indeed everyone. Publishers like OUP are increasingly raising the tempo of their own responses to the IP information challenge, utilising both formal and informal media, in print and online. Since legal publishing is largely reactive, we can narrow the gap between the time an exciting new event or legal decision hits the popular media and the point at which we can strip it down to its bare legal essentials. But it will take more than a little monkeying around before we can close that gap completely.
Featured image credit: Camera selfie, by Paul Rysz. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.
How does the law operate when intellectual property rights overlap? When a creative output, be it a photograph, a piece of music, or any artistic work, is protected by multiple intellectual property rights such as trademark and copyright, or a patent and data protection, it can be challenging to manoeuvre through the overlapping rights. Intellectual property law seeks to defend the rights of the artistic creator, and protects the expression of ideas, but when these rights overlap in both law and practice, how do they interact?
This is a question that Neil Wilkof, member of the Bressler Group, special IP counsel to Herzog, and Fox & Neeman, Israel, was faced with when a student asked him how overlapping trademarks and copyright might operate. Here, Wilkof discusses how this question might be tackled:
In practice, intellectual property rights very rarely occur independently; there is usually an overlap. Here, Wilkof explains how the disjuncture between written law and practice can be addressed by looking at intellectual property from a practical, rather than theoretical, perspective:
With the issues of overlapping intellectual property rights in mind, Wilkof goes on to discuss how this area of law might change and develop in the future:
Featured image credit: Lady Justice, at the Old Bailey, by Natural Philo. CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Digital writing community Wattpad is making it easier for writers to make their work available to be the basis of fan fiction. The social network has expanded its Creative Commons licensing option to level 4.0, which essentially means that they are giving writers more options to rework and remix the work of other writers.
Writers can participate by tagging their stories with the CC 4.0 licensing option, making their stories searchable to site visitors looking for work to expand upon. Wattpad has more than 300,000 stories which include this distinction. Sci-fi author Cory Doctorow has shared five works on Wattpad under these licenses, including Homeland and Little Brother. To help promote the launch of CC 4.0, he has made his first novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom available for other writers to rework on Wattpad.
“The biggest question facing new writers today isn’t how to protect their work; it’s how to find a readership for it,” stated Doctorow. “It makes complete sense that so many Wattpad writers are gravitating toward Creative Commons licenses: by giving others permission to share your writing, you can open doors to new audiences and new creative opportunities.”
A US court has ruled that forty-six Sherlock Holmes stories and four novels are in the public domain and are no longer subject to the copyright of Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle.
The ruling comes as part of a lawsuit between Doyle’s estate and Leslie S. Klinger, the author of a new original work of fiction starring Holmes called A Study in Sherlock: Stories Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon. In 2011, the estate demanded a licensing fee from his then publisher Pegasus Books who dropped the book over threats of a lawsuit and having the book blocked from major retailers. Random House later picked up the book and according to The Guardian, “paid the fees, even though Klinger thought that the Holmes stories were in the public domain.” (more…)
All romantic and richly-dressed, swash-buckling and thigh-booted, breeches of brown doe-skin, rapiers atwinkle, mounted on ebony thoroughbreds - that's the glamorous highwaymen. And as for the pirate chiefs, well, fearsomely moustachioed, portly stomachs bursting through silver-buttoned jackets, with scarlet-breasted parrots joining in the comradely sea-shanties, slicing their ships through the waves with the sleekness of dolphins. Ahoy me hearties! Stand and deliver! Romantic rapscallions on highways and high seas.
Most of us love or have loved a good highwayman or pirate story and where would those tales be without the romance and swash-bucklingness, the sense of robbing the rich to give to the poor - or at least just robbing the rich in an era where all the laws were made for the rich and justice was hard to come by?
We don't much enjoy being reminded of the truth about highwaymen and pirates - that pirates ruthlessly and violently terrorised (and still do in some parts) honest seafarers bringing food or goods from country to country and that highwaymen were reckless and cruel in their robbery of people of all classes, ages and weaknesses. Dick Turpin's gang, for example, is said to have been responsible for countless violent robberies, mostly against people too poor to matter to the authorities, with gleeful torture and rape thrown in.
Which brings me to that other sort of "pirate", very different from both the parrot-ridden, shanty-singing, jolly-roger myth and the genuinely dangerous, ruthless robber of the seas: I'm talking about the scummy thieves who steal our work and prevent us being able to earn. I wish people wouldn't call them pirates, because there's really no comparison, either in perceived glamour or in power. Scummy thieves, they are. They just take what isn't theirs, without bravery, risk or effort.
This is close to my heart right now, as yesterday I received a Google alert, directing me to where I could (apparently) get free downloads of my ebooks. These are ebooks I published myself, no advance, no fee, no earnings unless people choose to pay the c£2 I dare to charge for them. No publisher to serve a take-down notice for me. They took me countless hours to create, and I paid real money for proof-reading, cover design, formatting and promotion. And three days before they appeared on this torrent site, I noticed that my sales on Amazon had plummeted to almost zero.
Well, thanks for that, to the thieves who put them up on the site.
And thanks, I must say, to people uncaring or unaware enough to download them.
I can't do anything about the site and the scummy thieves - though I'm following a few leads and doing what I can without spending a ridiculous amount of time. I contacted the Society of Authors, and, amongst other things, they suggested informing the Publishers Association about the pirate scummy thief site. If you're an SoA member, you'll find helpful articles in the members' section of the SoA website, by the way.
NB - incidental warning: I did not click on the links to download my books - including the audio version, which I was particularly intrigued about because I never created an audio version - and Kate Pool at the SoA said I was right to be cautious: "By no means all sites purporting to offer pirated copies are in fact doing so. In addition to entirely legitimate online retailers offering to sell new copies, or second-hand copies some are virus-ridden, and some are pfishing sites just after bank/personal details e.g. encouraging rights holders to contact them, and promising (not always truthfully) that they will remove the book from their site if the rights holder pays a fee." And I think, in fact, that's what this particular site was; which doesn't make it better, just different.
Anyway, as I say, I can't do much about the little thieves with their scummy sites. But I can do something about the uncaring or unaware behaviour of people who download from them.
And so can any of us. Two things. First, call them on what they're doing. Whether it's our kids or our friends, or casual acquaintances who drop into the conversation with a little laugh that they know a place where you can get any ebook/music free. Ask them (and yes, it can be done politely, and usually that's all it takes before the penny drops) exactly in what way deciding not to pay for a book or music or image because it's easy to steal is any different at all from shop-lifting? Explain that actually yes, writers need and deserve to be paid for their work, in exactly the same way as the shopkeeper or any other human does. But even if a writer happened to be very rich and moderately unsaintly (only one of which things I am), you still can't steal from them - just as if I left a cake cooling on a kitchen windowsill you wouldn't steal it. "But Nicola doesn't need that cake and anyway, I don't like her," doesn't make it OK to steal my cake.
And second, stop calling the people who steal the files and put them up there "pirates". Just stick to scummy little thieves. Because they are.
Most people, I still believe, are decent, and wouldn't do this if they understood and realised that it does hurt and that there are victims. Call me an idiot, but it is what I believe. And I think that making decent people understand is the best thing we can do.
For my article on copyright for ALCS, see here. Anne Rooney and John Dougherty have also blogged for ABBA on the topic before. So have I.(And so have others.) PS At only a slight tangent and still on the subject of money, please note that there is NEW SOA ADVICE ABOUT FEES FOR AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR VISITS. If you detect my voice in it, there's a reason... Each author/illustrator is entirely at liberty to charge whatever feels right, but you might like to know what many were charging last year. And yes, every author/illustrator is different and every event/school/budget is different, but if your visit is valuable, give it a value. Interestingly, a lot of wonderful librarians and schools have retweeted that article, with supportive comments. Thanks, to all of them. PPS Entirely irrelevantly, if you work for or want to support a school, note that I am offering ONE free BRAIN STICK™ only to a randomly-chosen school, in my next Brain Sane newsletter. Details of how to enter (free) are here.
0 Comments on Highwaymen and pirates - Nicola Morgan as of 5/22/2014 12:42:00 AM
Oxford Scholarship Online (OSO) launched in 2003 with 700 titles. Now, on its tenth birthday, it’s the online home of over 9,000 titles from Oxford University Press’s distinguished academic list, and part of University Press Scholarship Online. To celebrate OSO turning ten, we’ve invited a host of people to reflect on the past ten years of online academic publishing, and what the next ten might bring.
By Nicola Wilson
When I was invited to develop two lists for Oxford Scholarship Online, I jumped at the chance. From the perspective of a commissioning editor, digital publishing has extended the “life” of our copyrights indefinitely, and we no longer need to hold a book in physical print for it to continue to be available to our readers.
The first module that I developed was “Public Health and Epidemiology,” back in 2008. The books contained in the module have been published by our medical department over the course of three decades, and many are now considered public health classics, such as Michael Marmot’s Social Determinants of Health, and Geoffrey Rose’s The Strategy of Preventative Medicine.
The books that we chose to include on Oxford Scholarship Online present research and analysis of global health issues, and insight into the impact of diseases and conditions on populations. Several of the projects in the module have directly influenced policy planning and clinical attitudes to disease prevention and management, transforming scientific investigation methods and treatment approaches worldwide.
The biggest challenge in developing the module was the time that it took to clear permission to reproduce the material online. Many of the contracts and agreements that we held for our older books long pre-dated electronic resources, and we had to ask the authors and editors to sign contract addendums to allow us to proceed with publishing the books online. In some instances, authors had died since the book was published with us, so we needed to contact authors’ estates and ask surviving relatives to grant us permission to reproduce the material online.
In other cases, we needed to trace the ownership of third-party copyrighted material which was included in the books, so I became a detective, trying to identify the current owners of defunct publishers, some of which had changed their ownership through multiple company mergers over a thirty-year period. What naively started out as a few hours of looking through dusty hard-copy records in our basement, turned into a few months of internet heavy investigation and phone calls to numerous publishers’ Rights departments.
The amount of work that clearing permissions created turned it into an “all hands on deck during evenings and weekends” project. Over half of the medical department pitched in extra hours over a four-month period to ensure that we hit the launch deadline that we had been set. (Never underestimate the power of food to complete a project on schedule.)
The trickiest book that we worked on was Nutrition for Developing Countries, which was originally published in 1993 before our copyright clearance rules were defined. It’s full of unique hand drawn illustrations of Tanzanian families, different types of food, and easy-to-read graphs. It was specifically presented in such a way that could be used as a “show and tell” book by doctors working with non-literate families in Africa. For example, they could point at the illustrations of healthy foods in the book and explain to nursing mothers how eating those foods would help their babies to grow strong and remain healthy.
However, our challenge was trying to find out who had drawn the pictures, and subsequently who owned the copyright for them. Many of the illustrations had been drawn by a friend of one of the editors, and given to the editor as a wedding present. Did this mean that the copyright was held by the editor, or was it held by the artist? No copyright permission had ever been signed to state either way, and we had no contact details for the artist to enquire with them directly. We contacted the book editor, but they were often working in areas of Africa where Internet access was non-existent, so it took around four months to liaise with the editor and the artist (whom the editor contacted on our behalf), and acquire permission from both of them (to cover all legal bases) to use the illustrations in a digital form.
A major benefit of putting books online is the global availability of the information they contain; practitioners and academics can access and use these books online wherever they are in world. It’s wonderful that public health and epidemiology books attract a global readership, and through their availability online, they will have an even broader reach, and continue to help develop and improve research and treatment for many years to come.
Nicola Wilson is Commissioning Editor for the “Palliative Care” and “Public Health and Epidemiology” modules on Oxford Scholarship Online.
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Sony Pictures has demanded the removal of the CGI short film Sintel from YouTube due to a claim of copyright infringement. One small problem: they don't actually own anything in the film.
As usual, you get a neat real-time look at what’s going on by following the Twitter hashtag. Do NOT look at the bbw twitter hashtag as I mistakenly did last night. As usual there are two “main” sites the ALA site at ala.org/bbooks and the bannedbooksweek.org site which is really nice looking this year. The BannedBooksWeek Twitter account is still moribund which is a damned shame. The Virtual Read Out doesn’t seem to have any new videos this year… yet?
Please remember if you are a librarian who has a book that is challenged, report it to the ALA so they can keep track of it.
Here is the list of organizations who are co-sponsors. Let’s look at their websites.
American Library Association – has that clicky slide show on their home page, in which #7 is a link to the Banned Books site on ALA.org. There is a link to their press release on their news page. OIF maintains the main Banned Books Week pages which I linked to above.
American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression – is doing a poetry reading in NYC and I’m gratified to see their home page mentioning the NSA/Snowden issues. Last year’s Banned Books Week Handbook is still available though their Five Easy Ways to participate has been changed to Four Easy Ways. I especially appreciate their links and information about the Kids Right to Read Project since the bulk of challenges lately are about books that people deem age inappropriate.
The language of the censor is the language of the tyrant, the absolutist, the one with no vision. It is the antithesis of art because it assumes that there is only one perspective, one reality, and that anything that fails to rhyme with it is a sin against nature. But the real sin against nature is to suffocate personal truths and experiences with wobbly doctrine and to disguise it as morally just. Art— particularly literature—exists to show us there are as many worlds as there are people. Each of these worlds come with its own laws. These laws vary from person to person, but if there is one that they have in common it is to share your truth. We owe it to our humanity and our short time among other humans to respect the truths that are shared with us. – Nick Burd
Websites are working and the word is getting out. I was pleased with this year’s collections of content. What I’m concerned about, as per usual, are challenges and censorship that don’t even reach the physical items on the library shelves. What about this Salinger book? Worldcat shows 40 copies of it, a handful of which are in the US, and the reviews of it haven’t been so great anyhow. But the idea that the book wasn’t obtained and removed, it was never obtained in the first place (as we see with so much born-digital content that we can’t even get in lendable format) opens a door to all new ways that libraries can not get books. The old challenges (dirty cowboy? really? do not google that) remain and new ones appear.
3 Comments on The annual banned books week roundup for 2013, last added: 9/25/2013
[...] hold out hope that people take a moment to be courageous and speak up, even if it is anonymously. Jessamyn West has a nice roundup as to what different groups are doing for Banned Books Week so take a moment to [...]
I'm not one to dwell on something, to pine and to wallow. I am a positive person and I like to move forward and upward from difficult situations. But, I am a completist, I like to finish what I start, and I like to be thorough. I like to help others through my own experience, and to share information that may benefit others. We artists (and friends!) need to stick together... and speaking of which, I so greatly appreciate all of the support that's been shown to me over the past couple days!
Here is my letter to S6, their response, and my reply to it. If it helps someone, I'm happy.
-----------------------
My email to S6 (email #1)
February 25, 7:27pm
Dear Society 6,
I recently discovered an Instagram "shop" selling my Society 6 art as well as MANY designs from MANY other Society 6 artists. When first I discovered the post (yesterday), it was 22 weeks old. I am 100% certain that the stolen art was art that I specifically designed and prepared exclusively for products in my S6 shop. I just wanted to let you know that those designs have been stolen and are now floating around Indonesia on products I never approved and will never receive any income from. And the "seller" has now disappeared from social media, at least under their former name.
My own case of infringement is not the first that I've heard about from former S6 shopkeepers, and sadly, it probably won't be the last. I don't know how the international illegal art market is obtaining the art— whether you have a hole in your servers, or a bad apple in your bunch. That's for you to know and handle. But, however you deal with it, please deal with it. This IS happening. Ignoring the problem is not going to make it go away. And there will only be more and more people like me that voice our own stories about copyright infringement of the work that we prepared and posted exclusively to our S6 shops.
When we join S6, we understand and acknowledge that you take no responsibility for copyright infringement. But (and I think I can speak for everyone on S6 here) we go in with a certain expectation that S6 will take, at the very least, reasonable measures to protect our work from getting ripped off. Moreover, S6 is more than just a shopping site. It is also a community. In order to keep your community healthy, thriving and undivided long-term, there has to be a certain level of goodwill coming from you toward the individuals within the community whose art is taken from S6 and infringed.
A healthy community helps it's members out as best it can within it's own set of guidelines, though limited they may be. There is a humanity and helpfulness there built in the system. After reading comments and stories of other former S6 artists being shut out (and shut off from their accounts) after voicing the international infringement of their intellectual property which they directly connected to their involvement on S6, I see that there is a serious, fundamental problem. If you are part-shop/part-community, you need to step up to the plate a little. Not asking for a lot here. Acknowledgement and some support, in a seemingly small way, would go a long way in the goodwill department. (How about a community forum for users, with this issue as one of the discussion boards where people can share, unite, and call out infringers?)
Anyway, I am a fan of your site, and I truly hope you will make this issue a top priority to fix.
Best Regards,
Kathy Weller
WellerWishes
(attached to message: screenshot from Instagram providing infringing sellers' name)
-----------------------
REPLY from S6 (email #2)
February 25, 7:37pm
Hi Kathy,
Thank you for contacting Society6 Support.
We don't know what "shop" you are referring to, but we'd sure like to see it if you can report it?
(Note: the following portion of the email, in grey, is content lifted directly from Society6's Copyright page)
Please allow us to share some very important information regarding your Copyrights.
First, please be aware that when you post your work to the Internet, no matter the size or resolution of your images, no website (and we mean NO website, not a one) can make it impossible to prevent it from being copied.
It is also incredibly important to us that you understand that while we do everything in our power to maintain your trust as an artist, we are not charged with enforcing the laws that we are required to follow.
Copyright infringement is generally a civil matter, which only the copyright owner can pursue - this means it is your responsibility to make sure that you are upholding your legal interests in your work, we are not authorized to do it for you. We are prohibited from giving specific legal advice on your rights, whether in connection with particular uses of copyrighted works, cases of alleged domestic or foreign copyright infringement, or other matters of a similar nature. You may wish to seek professional legal advice from a copyright attorney and to discuss your legal options.
Please remember, finding your artwork on another site is usually a good thing! In fact we encourage and support the sharing of your artwork as long as it is done correctly and with respect to you as the artist. So if you find your work on another website, please make sure the website is actually unlawfully infringing your copyright and not making "fair use" of your content, or reselling your products (buying them from you and reselling them for a profit). You won't make any friends if you're issuing unwarranted DMCA takedown notices to someone trying to give your work more exposure because they admire it!
If you're still not comfortable with your work showing-up on another site, always start by simply asking the website owner to remove the infringing content. Our experience shows that a polite email to the website admin requesting the image be removed is usually all it takes to resolve the situation.
In cases where your works appear for sale or where someone is claiming the work as their own, contact the individual asking that the works be removed immediately. The next step is to contact the company hosting the site containing the infringing work and ask them to disable the content or the account. When Society6 members have contacted sites like Etsy or Facebook in the past, these companies have typically responded in a reasonable time frame and suspended the content or the user. Please remember that most sites have systems, or specific processes (i.e. DMCA requirements) in place that you must follow in order to handle these matters.
If your desire is to sell your products, please know that we take every action to both protect your images, but also make them compelling for customers to purchase as products, and easy to promote thru social media, blogs, and other websites on the Internet.
Society6 secures your hi-resolution files and only ever provides a low resolution preview of your work on our site. Our product previews are presented at 600px, even though a larger 800px image is now the industry acceptable standard for product previews. It has been determined that at this size (and at screen resolution) there is no way to reproduce a printed product fit for sale.
We do not enable watermarks over your images as research shows it deters people from purchasing your products. There is no other successful online retailer that uses watermarking technology. You may find another site that offers watermarks, but you will quickly discover that all you’ll end up with is watermarked images and dismal sales.
We enable right clicks because this is a great way to allow members and other people to link to your work and give you additional exposure. We believe that disabling right clicks is not a true protection and does more harm than good - anyone that is stealing images understands how you can still copy right click disabled images. Furthermore, even if you disable the click, you can always take a screenshot.
We recommend that you research the relevant copyright laws and their application to your work on the Internet (links below), or consult legal counsel if you are unsure about copyright law.
We recommend that you research the relevant copyright laws and their application to your work on the Internet (links below), or consult legal counsel if you are unsure about copyright law.
We also suggest that you review Society6's Terms of Service http://society6.com/help/terms with respect to our Content & Copyright Policy to ensure that you are in compliance at all times.
We really appreciate your understanding and appreciate your continued support.
Sincerely,
(Name of S6 support person)
----------------------------
My Reply (email #3)
February 25, 7:52pm
Hi (Name of S6 support person),
Thanks for the reply. The shop that infringed S6 artists' work, including mine, has disappeared (I mentioned that in the 1st paragraph of my previous email).
It was really not a shop at all, but an Indonesian seller who has a bunch of S6 stolen art for sale on iphones via Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. They sold under the name Beaumont Stuffs.
The seller left all three social media sites after being exposed by the online community. (Though I'm sure they will pop back up with another name.)
I attached a screenshot in my original message to you of the Instagram post where I first discovered my work on their phones. I put it in my original message to you, but here is it again.
Thanks for the rest of the copyright info in the email. I already read it on your site.
Good luck and I hope you can fix what is broken over there.
I'm going to go remove my account now.
Best,
Kathy
7 Comments on Letter to Society6, last added: 3/1/2013
Society 6 is just the WORST! I follow another artist on Facebook (Christopher Uminga) who just had the same issue with another seller stealing his (and plenty of other artists') work. Although I readily support artists' ability to sell their work in an easy format, I can no longer support or recommend the purchase of Society 6 products because I simply can't be sure that I'm rewarding the proper artist whose work I admire. Society 6 needs to tighten the ranks and make it a little more difficult to sell just any old thing. If a seller has more than two wildly different styles it's a sure bet that the art in question isn't theirs.
Hi Anon, Thank you for your support and for chiming in! I greatly appreciate you adding new info to the conversation. It's difficult for me to understand how S6 prioritizes the importance or severity of infringement. There is the type you mentioned -artists on S6 stealing other artists' work (something I was not aware of til now on S6). There is my issue of infringement by other parties (mine overseas) selling products which, it is crystal clear to me, were created using designs I specifically templated for my S6 products and they were the only other servers besides my own that had access to those art files. Then there is the infringement of artists on S6 using trademarks and trademarked characters in their work. This is rampant on S6 and has been for a long time. I am not sure what steps they take to address that type of infringement but whatever they do, it does not seem to be working. There is this perception that it is ok to rip off a larger, more popular intellectual property like Batman, Barbie or Hello Kitty. In my book IP is IP and IP crime is IP crime no matter how big or indie your property is. And it amazes me how rampant this one is because I don't understand where some of these peope draw the line at creative integrity and originality. I guess there is parody of public figures and that can fall under Fair Use but who writes that script? Eek... I apologize for getting off track here from the original subject. It's just that there are several IP issues. Such a slippery slope.
Wow, their response is completely unacceptable and looks as if your note was disregarded. I was lead to your site by a large art group on FB, many contemplating selling on S6. After your experience and S6's truly disheartening lack of caring about their artist community I don't think any of them will be using their site. Plus many who were there will be shutting own their shops. Thanks for your open communication. All of us do need to stick together to make sure this stops. Sincerely, Susan
Seconding Susan's comment above... Totally unacceptable response from Society 6. Dismissive and even a little condescending when you have supplied them all the details already.
I'm so sorry you had to go through this. You can be sure word of this will spread around like wildfire.
I wish you the best of luck with legal correspondence to the offending party {vultures, as you called them - wonderful description for these thieves who can't or won't make their own art}
I think we've all learnt something from this. I certainly have.
Jeez, Kathy- That is scary! I've had my artwork on Society 6 for less than a year and this definitely makes me question my decision to upload product there. I guess I always had a nagging doubt with these sites as they pretty much admit they can't protect our art any way. Thank you for sharing and good luck!
Susan, Thanks for chiming in. Yes I agree, my massage was blatantly disregarded. It's perplexing to me, the S6 model of part shop/part community with really a hands-off, ignorant, hear no evil/see no evil/speak no evil approach to situations like this. It's completely backwards to treat individual cases like this as so unimportant as to not even warrant a complete reading of my message, when their community consists completely of individual artists coming together under their roof. It's very scary, the more scary the more I think about it. And when I think about the research I did (or tried to do) before joining... I did email back and forth with them trying to get a handle on their process, looking for more transparency. I never got it. but I went ahead with my shop anyway. I learned a really important lesson there. Just another case of my gut fully knowing what my intellect didn't have the words to communicate, at the time. My gut comes FIRST these days.Just sometimes, it's hard to tell. But the more I listen, the better I get at hearing it.
Nicole / Joe - Thanks for chiming in! I am so glad to have a blog where I can share great, awesome positive stuff but also stuff that affects ALL of us and may not be so pretty such as this infringement issue. The more I read and learn, the more I'm seeing a scarlet letter G for Guilty on Society6.
Maddening, disappointing, unsettling, frustrating news this morning: I discovered my art has been infringed upon.
At first, I thought this was a fan-based post. But then I quickly realized that I'd come across a social media vulture-stealer-infringer-seller who is selling my designs and many, many others, through their social media outlets.
Of course once they got called out by me, most of their accounts are suddenly private... Guilty!!!
(As of this writing, their Twitter is still public - so feel free to tweet them...
Beaumont Stuffs Facebook account - Now Private!
The ONLY place that had access to these exact same designs other than myself is Society 6, so I'm going to be contacting them as well. Really, REALLY disappointing. I joined S6 last summer and actively had a shop/presence there for about a month or so, until I decided to go indie with Case-Mate Aug./Sept. 2012.. Of course, I *trusted* Society 6.. But my designs leaked out into the underground illegal art trade. So, nice. Now that's a sad state of affairs. When you join Society 6 and sell through there, you are in business with them and entrusting them with your work. It's such a violating discovery to find that the designs I made specifically for my Society 6 shop were leaked. I do not think Society 6 is *directly* to blame for this. But I *DO* think they need to take some responsibility. It is clear that they have a security leak (or more than one?) and they need to get to the bottom of how this happened and figure something out so that it does not happen again. They have GOT to treat this SERIOUSLY. I have read about this happening in the past with Society 6 and I have heard that they were unresponsive to infringement claims such as this. Well, now I am about to find out for myself.
I'll be contacting every social media outlet and every avenue I can to stop this. Please comment if you know of any resources that might help me, if you can spare any advice, or if you just want to offer support!! I truly appreciate it ALL.
Oh... and also: feel free to "friend" them and screenshot any pages you gain access to, and send them along to me. THAT would REALLY help a lot!!
23 Comments on Copyright infringement by Beaumont Stuffs, last added: 3/1/2013
so sad. I'm really sorry that this is happening to you. On the plus side, my friend posted this to Facebook (Maurie Manning) and because of this incident I have discovered your beautiful work! I love it all!
Thanks so mucb Ashley! That's so awesome ! I am so happy you discovered my work through this awful incident! Silver lining :) :D
Anonymous said, on 2/24/2013 2:34:00 PM
I click on your "My name is Kathy..." link above and I see your first mistake: a huge, high-resolution image of your artwork loads. It would be a simple matter for anyone to capture that image and use it on anything to produce a high-quality product! Keep all of your online images relatively *small* to prevent theft/reuse.
Next option: hire an attorney. Even if it's just to send out cease and desists. It sounds like an open and shut case.
Your name is even in the drag and drop photograph on the cases! Very clear in the top two...Anger doesn't even begin to cover it! I hope this is resolved soon, girl!!
yes you are right - that one image is very large. My home page template supports dynamic views so they really shouldn't show up as LARGE as they do, but they do and it's been an issue that I need to fix.
However that is only one image and actually the stolen images are directly lifted from the art I was selling on products on Society 6.
I already contacted an IP attorney. I don't agree that it is open and shut. U.S. copyright registration is very often blatantly and brazenly ignored by countries particularly in Asia and South America. Though they are OUR laws they are not necessarily followed and complied with by some dubious sellers that are not in the U.S.A.
Thank you for your comments! I wish I knew your name so I could put a comment to a name!
I *just* opened an S6 page yesterday and just took the leap today and started adding my newest work. When I shared my big news on IG, a follower/fellow artist clued me in to your troubles. What a mess! I took down my artwork from there and read the "copyrights" section of there "help", which basically says that they are not in the business of protecting our copyrights from anyone else, they don't prevent right clicks and don't intend to, they don't allow watermarks and don't intend to, good luck and have a nice day. :(
Although the pillows looked adorable on the screen, I'm going back to etsy. Your website is beautiful. I'm glad you are no longer there and you caught them and at least slowed them down. And thank you very much for announcing this and perhaps protecting others from virtual pickpockets.
Kathy, awful news! I'm really sorry. These seem to be the often bad news from designers who decide to sell their lovely work through society6, and they still take no action to protect who really keeps them on business... just very frustrating! This is the reason I opened and then almost immediately closed my shop there. I really hope there's something you can do. Good you caught the bastards! I'll spread the news...
This makes me so angry for you. I adore your style and have seen you via instagram. Having had my work copied, my images lifted, people selling my art and even taking pictures !!!can really understand how awful this is. Your creativity, hard work, talent being Stolen by this company...i can't find them now so maybe they have removed themselves. People say when i am copied it flattery !! how is theft flattery. It's disheartening too to learn that your images where taken from society 6. I can only hope you can get some resolution to this.
Hi Kathy This Facebook group I belong to could be a good place to post - Copyright Infringement Cases - or if you like I could post a link to your blog. I can imagine how upset you must be. I only have to think of someone stealing my work and feel sick to my stomach. Hope you get it sorted. :) Carla
Their Twitter page is gone now and it says that their FB page doesn't exist. I hope that the fact that they were caught shamed them into pulling everything!!!
I'm so sorry this happened to you. You're art is wonderful! It should remain yours!
Sorry for the report--I wanted to included the name of the WA company. Here's the revised comment:
This is so scary! You know, I created an account at Society 6 last summer from the recommendation of a well-known male artist. I guess for once I can be grateful to my procrastination, because I never did log anything onto it. I am so, so sorry this has happened to you. )-: There's a small, but prominent, Seattle Design shop--MODERN DOG--that's been fighting Disney and Target for almost 2 years for copyright infringement. They said they may never win, but they're fighting on principle. They took donations on their website for a small amount of time to help fight legal costs. Already your actions of principle have affected them to remove social media sites and helped spread the word to so many others. Thank you for being an art crusader! Also, I will add that this issue led me to your art as well--which is adorable!
Here's the link to that story--I hope it helps you: http://www.king5.com/news/cities/seattle/Seattle-designers-sue-Disney-claims-copyright-infringement-179754381.html
Juju - THANKS for the link to the Modern Dog case (I'm a fan of theirs & I have a Modern Dog book of their design work :D ) Love the fighing on principle, though it is such a hard way to go... the stress... takes a steely will and an iron gut! ;) I'll check that link out, thanks!
Elizabeth - Thanks! Yes I noticed that... and POOF they are gone...
Vita - THANK YOU!! XO
Carla-Thanks for the name of the FB group! I'll visit there, but please feel free to post my blog link there if you like! :D Absolutely :)
Heidi/Little Nore - thanks so much! We will see what happens. They have disappeared into thin air but the one thing I can say is that they know I'm watching and that you all have rallied too! For my part, next time... oh there is many things I would do differently... I will be a silent ninja and I will be able to contact the other infringed-upon artists (things happened so fast I saw art I recognized but I did not get adequate-enough screen grabs..) NOT that I'm looking forward to a "next time"... just that I'll be better prepared. That's for sure. ;)
MaJo BV - THANK YOU for your support!! (And for your compliments of my work!! :D ) I greatly apreciate your nod to other artists, formerly with S6, who have had similar experience. That is really on my mind right now. (I'm about to post the letter I sent to S6. Please stay tuned for that one!)
Lori, Good for you for making an informed decision. I believe in making a decision based on information that is available, no matter what. What is important is that people share honest info from experience and that can factor in (or not, as the case may be) to another person's individual decision! :D Sharing is caring (and is good karma too!)
Juju - THANKS for the link to the Modern Dog case (I'm a fan of theirs & I have a Modern Dog book of their design work :D ) Love the fighing on principle, though it is such a hard way to go... the stress... takes a steely will and an iron gut! ;) I'll check that link out, thanks!
Elizabeth - Thanks! Yes I noticed that... and POOF they are gone...
Vita - THANK YOU!! XO
Carla-Thanks for the name of the FB group! I'll visit there, but please feel free to post my blog link there if you like! :D Absolutely :)
Heidi/Little Nore - thanks so much! We will see what happens. They have disappeared into thin air but the one thing I can say is that they know I'm watching and that you all have rallied too! For my part, next time... oh there is many things I would do differently... I will be a silent ninja and I will be able to contact the other infringed-upon artists (things happened so fast I saw art I recognized but I did not get adequate-enough screen grabs..) NOT that I'm looking forward to a "next time"... just that I'll be better prepared. That's for sure. ;)
MaJo BV - THANK YOU for your support!! (And for your compliments of my work!! :D ) I greatly apreciate your nod to other artists, formerly with S6, who have had similar experience. That is really on my mind right now. (I'm about to post the letter I sent to S6. Please stay tuned for that one!)
Lori, Good for you for making an informed decision. I believe in making a decision based on information that is available, no matter what. What is important is that people share honest info from experience and that can factor in (or not, as the case may be) to another person's individual decision! :D Sharing is caring (and is good karma too!)
So sorry to see & hear about this and I hope Society 6 can do something helpful towards resolving this issue for you. They really need to step up their game!
I am a textile designer and have thought about putting some designs up with them. Been dragging my feet about it as I was focusing on other projects. Now I think I may pass altogether on them.
Hi Modern! Gee, I wrote a very detailed message to you a few hours ago on my iphone, and I lost it. So here is a new one...
Thanks for your support and comments! I know that S6 will do nothing for me but I really hope they make the decision to reinvestigate the model they have built on the intersection of business and community, and how they need to support each other, genuinely, literally.
Another issue is available information. They seem to keep cards so close to their vest when it comes to process. There is so painfully little on their web site about how things are actually made.
We are all artists, we understand printing process, dpi, color processes and the like.
Before I joined S6, I emailed them to find out further technical information regarding their process. They never really gave me a straight answer to that question. (actual email exchange follows)
------------------------ Me:
Hi there! I have a couple seller questions: 1) I have a detail of the larger image used for the iphone. That same image is used for the greeting card. Is it possible to instead choose the full image for the greeting card, and not the iphone-specific detail from the print? 2) My original art is 27.5" x 20.5", 300 dpi. The larger prints are larger than that size (22 x 28 and 36 x 28, with no option to remove the larger prints from sale). How can you get a good hi-res print that is larger than the original art without the quality suffering? Please let me know the answers to the above. Thanks! Best regards, Kathy
------------
Society 6:
Thank you for contacting Society6 Support.
We use the asset you uploaded for the iPhone Cases/Skins to create the Stationery. If you need to EDIT these, just click "Add T-Shirts and More" at the top of any post to easily edit/delete other products that accompany your Art Print.
Our system automatically determines your available sizes based on industry standards and the amount of pixels in your file. These sizes created by our system can not be edited or changed. You are able to EDIT and replace the file at any time.
I hope this helps!
(name of Society 6 Support person here)
----------
They are simply not transparent about their process. I should have seen this as a red flag. And I guess, on some level, I did, after all.
I really hate that this happened to you, Kathy. I wish more people would realize that taking someone's art without permission to make a profit is THEFT not flattery. I'm so glad I did not upload any work to my S6 shop yet, especially after reading this part of their stance on copyright protection that you posted:
"Please remember, finding your artwork on another site is usually a good thing!...You won't make any friends if you're issuing unwarranted DMCA takedown notices to someone trying to give your work more exposure because they admire it!"
Yes, exposure is great, but finding your work on a site that is making money off of your designs without your knowledge or consent is horrendous (I know, it happened to me for the first time this Summer and it was a TERRIBLE feeling)...
Well...keep on truckin', Girl! Your artwork rocks- here's to lots of awesome *legitimate* deals coming your way soon!!!
Genevieve, THANKS SO MUCH for your support!! :D XO Seriously that sentence gives me shivers, too. Again, they are so vague. If pressed they will surely say that what they mean is that if people are promoting your work on their blog, who are you to argue with the exposure. Of course, two wrong things with that. 1) People need to get in the habit of asking permission before posting work that is not their own regardless of the situation. This is just a given. 2) That sentence itself is so dubious, shady, and opaque and it is clear that it's that way on purpose. It was probably written by their lawyers.
In 2010, Aaron Swartz, a 26-year-old computer programmer and founder of Reddit, downloaded thousands of scholarly articles from the online journal archive JSTOR. He had legal access to the database through his research fellowship at Harvard University; he also, however, had a history of dramatic activism against pay-for-content online services, having previously downloaded and released roughly 100,000,000 documents from the PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) database, which charges eight cents per page to access public files. Given his status as a prominent “hacktivist” and the sheer quantity of files involved, law enforcement agents concluded that Swartz planned to distribute the cache of articles and indicted him on multiple felony counts carrying a possible sentence of $1 million in fines and 35 years in prison.
Swartz was slated to go to trial this year but committed suicide in early January, prompting a public outcry against the prosecution in his case. Swartz was a prominent voice in the heated debate surrounding modern copyright law and public access and use (see his 2008 “Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto”). New York’s current issue contains a great feature from Wesley Yang discussing Swartz’s activism, his life, and the controversy in which he was embroiled.
In the ongoing debate over Swartz’s prosecution, we’ve pulled together a brief reading list on the issues surrounding American copyright in the digital age from OUP’s stable:
A Senior Copyright Counsel at Google takes a look at the changing economic realities of the globalizing, digitizing world and concludes that our government must “remake our copyright laws to fit our times.”
An overview of music piracy stretching back to the advent of recorded sound. The RIAA made headlines throughout the last decade by litigating against users who shared music online, but musicians, record companies, songwriters, and fans were navigating this territory for nearly a century before the Internet became a factor.
The story of one early 20th century musician who spent decades conducting high-profile lawsuits against the leading pop icons of the day. Though he never won a single case, Ira Arnstein managed to have a significant impact on the shape of music copyright through the decisions in his numerous cases.
Spoo homes in on the contested publication of Ulysses to reveal the impact on copyright of literary modernism (and vice versa). Characters such as Ezra Pound, the infamous publisher Samuel Roth, and of course James Joyce flesh out a revealing story about artists grappling with free speech and authorship.
Oxford University Press is committed to developing outstanding resources to support students, scholars, and practitioners in all areas of the law. Our practitioner programme continues to grow, with key texts in commercial law, arbitration and private international law, plus the innovative new ebook version of Blackstone’s Criminal Practice. We are also delighted to announce the new edition of the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, one of the most trusted reference resources in international law. In addition to the books you can find on this page, OUP publishes a wide range of law journals and online products.
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The first module that I developed was “Public Health and Epidemiology,” back in 2008. The books contained in the module have been published by our medical department over the course of three decades, and many are now considered public health classics, such as Michael Marmot’s Social Determinants of Health, and Geoffrey Rose’s The Strategy of Preventative Medicine.
[...] librarian.net » Blog Archive » The annual banned books week roundup for 2013. [...]
Really, that’s a nice roundup. Thanks.
[...] hold out hope that people take a moment to be courageous and speak up, even if it is anonymously. Jessamyn West has a nice roundup as to what different groups are doing for Banned Books Week so take a moment to [...]