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Digital Culture Legal Issues Library Issues

Reading aloud allowed

Just days after Jessamyn’s post regarding DRM, my good friend Catherine emails me this DRM Rights statement from an e-book that she was helping a patron with.

———————————————————–
Adsorption: Theory, Modeling, and Analysis. By: Jozsef Toth
File Size: 6825KB
Published: 05/10/2002
E-ISBN: 0824744497

DRM Rights:
Copy 25 selections every 1 day(s)
Print 25 pages every 1 day(s)
Reading aloud allowed
Book expires 150 day(s) after download
Note that Adobe eBooks cannot be shared.
———————————————————–

I think the insanity speaks for itself. Oh how I hate thee, DRM…stupid, stupid media companies. I know that eventually the reasonable, intelligent media will overcome the stupid, dinosaur media, but I’m no longer confident it will happen in my lifetime. DRM does nothing to stop theft of IP, nor to delay or dissuade those who would traffic in media in infringing ways. It only prevents the average user from using media in the ways they wish.

I had a conversation with my good friend Barron just the other day about why it was that he couldn’t listen to his Velvet Revolver album on his shiny new iPod. After I explained to him that in order to do so he would have to break the law, his response was basically: That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

Indeed it is.

Note: I am giving explicit permission for the reading aloud of this post.

By griffey

Jason Griffey is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he works to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise is useful and needed. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, Jason ran his own technology consulting company for libraries, has been both an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was an academic librarian in roles ranging from reference and instruction to Head of IT at the University of TN at Chattanooga.

Jason has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently AI & Machine Learning in Libraries and Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design from 2018. His newest book, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, will be published by MIT Press in 2024.

He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.
He is one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries for the Measure the Future project (http://measurethefuture.net), an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces. He is also the creator and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open source portable digital file distribution system.

Jason can be stalked obsessively online, and spends his free time with his daughter Eliza, reading, obsessing over gadgets, and preparing for the inevitable zombie uprising.

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