A Spanish court has addressed Creative Commons licenses in a case on whether the major collecting society in Spain could collect royalties from a bar that played CC-licensed music. The court ruled in favor of the bar, since the music was not licensed by the collecting society and the CC licenses permitted public performance of [...]
Archive of entries posted on March 2006
2004 Presidential Term Web Harvest
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) conducted a harvest (i.e., capture) of Federal Agency public web sites as they existed prior to January 20, 2005. This harvest was intended to document Federal agencies’ presence on the World Wide Web at the time that the Presidential Administration term ended in early 2005.
http://www.webharvest.gov/collections/peth04/
Freedominfo.org Launches New Country-by-Country Resource on FOI Laws
Freedominfo.org, sponsored by the National Security Archive, has introduced “a new, comprehensive country-by-country section that gives users access to resources about FOI laws in more than 60 countries—including background, legal texts, links to government bodies and organizations, and current news about the FOI movement in the country. As more countries move towards adopting FOI [...]
National Archives Makes State Department Records Available Online
For the first time, the National Archives and Records Administration has made available online more than 400,000 State Department telegrams and other records for 1973 and 1974. Central Foreign Policy Files, 1973-1974: This series, popularly known as the “State Department Cables” or the “State Department Telegrams”, consist of telegrams, and an index to airgrams, memoranda, [...]
Librarian Is Still John Doe, Despite Patriot Act Revision
The NY Times reports on librarian John Doe’s inability to accept an intellectual freedom award from the American Library Association (Registration required):
“The new law does establish the recipient’s right to challenge the nondisclosure orders that typically accompany national security letters and Section 215 requests. But the recipient would have to wait a year before raising [...]
CATO Institute Releases Study Criticizing DMCA
Conservative think tank the CATO Institute has released a new study that concludes that the DMCA hinders innovation. Entitled Circumventing Competition: The Perverse Consequences of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the study expresses deep concern with the government interference into digital rights management techniques.
Executive Summary: “The courts have a proven track record of fashioning balanced [...]
DOD removes missile defense system report from Web site
From Federal Computer Week: The Defense Department has removed from the DOD inspector general’s Web site a critical report that states that the network that links radar systems, missile sites and command centers for the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) ground-based defense system has serious flaws in the security technologies, policies and procedures needed to protect [...]
Saudi Arabia frees activist jailed over Web article
“Saudi Arabia released on Tuesday an Islamist activist who was arrested earlier this month after criticizing a cabinet minister in an Internet article, a colleague said. Mohsen al-Awajy was taken into custody on March 10 after penning and posting an article in which he also said a liberal clique of ministers and officials had become [...]
IRS plans to allow tax preparers to sell data
The IRS is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns. If it succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers will be able to sell information from individual returns – or even entire returns – to marketers and data brokers. The change is raising alarm among consumer and privacy-rights advocates. It was included [...]
National Library Legislative Day 2006
This year marks the 60th Anniversary of the American Library Association’s Washington Office, and the 32nd National Library Legislative Day! Join hundreds of library supporters from across the country visiting Members of Congress to share stories about libraries in your communities and to talk about the needs and accomplishments of libraries in your area.
Can’t go [...]