Author: jessamyn

using your author superpowers for good (causes)

Posted on by jessamyn

This September, Neil Gaiman and other authors you may have heard of — John Grisham, Stephen King, Dorothy Allison — are having an unusual auction. If you’re the high bidder on these eBay auctions, these authors will put your name, or the name of your choosing I assume, in their upcoming books as specified. All the proceeds go to benefit the First Amendment Project. The auction page is fun reading, this is what King is offering…

“One (and only one) character name in a novel called CELL, which is now in work and which will appear in either 2006 or 2007. Buyer should be aware that CELL is a violent piece of work, which comes complete with zombies set in motion by bad cell phone signals that destroy the human brain. Like cheap whiskey, it’s very nasty and extremely satisfying. Character can be male or female, but a buyer who wants to die must in this case be female. In any case, I’ll require physical description of auction winner, including any nickname (can be made up, I don’t give a rip).”

Laura Crossett wins!

Posted on by jessamyn

If you read the EFF blog you’ve probably been keeping up with their Blog for Freedom where people have been writing on their blogs about their first experiences with standing up for their digital rights. What I didn’t know was that it was a contest of sorts. Today I learn that contest was won by …. a librarian. Rad Refster and library student Laura Crossett who runs lis.dom won Best Overall post for this entry. Nice going Laura! I hope they send you the pajamas.

What is your library doing on September 11th?

Posted on by jessamyn

David and Sarah are ramping up The September Project this year. If your library is doing something on September 11th, let them know. If you haven’t yet thought about it, now would be a good time to get started. If you need ideas, they’ve got ’em. In 2001 librarian.net didn’t even have permalinks yet. Keeping focused by providing access to the content that others were creating was a way of making sense of the chaos that was unfolding, not just on 9/11 but in the world since then. The September Project’s events are “…activities of reflection, discussion, and dialogue about the meaning of freedom, the role of information in promoting active citizenship, and the importance of literacy in making sense of the world around us.” and it takes place throughout all of September, not just Sunday the 11th. You can keep up with the progress of the project on The September Project Blog, of course.

more on the topic of digital distribution and Harry Potter

Posted on by jessamyn

Can you tell that I just added Freedom to Tinker back into my RSS reader? This post about how quickly digital copies of the newest Harry Potter book made it on to the Internet in text and audio — despite or possibly because of J.K. Rowling’s decision not to release the book in ebook format — says some important things about the relationship between distributing information digitally and copyright infringement. Different types of people can think the phrase “downloading music” means buying it, illegally sharing it, exercising your fair use rights, or possibly even making use of the lovely public domain.

Since there have been copying technologies, people have been making copies and sharing information. I’m not saying that this makes any and all sorts of information reproduction right as rain, but it does help to keep a cool head about these issues and remember that the Internet didn’t create copyright infringment, it only made it simpler. The simplification of copyright infringment through information reproduction has made the media campaign to dissuade people from even trying that much more aggressive, and made the lobbyists try that much harder to make even tighter legislation to outlaw it. And, as librarians who like to share as much as we’re legally able, this is a pickle indeed.