Over at OnTheCommons, David Bollier is warning of the potential monopoly Google will have over digitized books. Bollier references  Robert Darnto's Google & the Future of Books article from The New York Review of Books in his discussion.

Should we fear a googlopoly of books? Monopolies almost invariably misuse their power, so probably so.

Was Obama's gift to the Queen of England of an iPod preloaded with music fair use? You decide, and then read EFF's Fred von Lohmann's exploration of the issues surrounding this gift.

Via Lessig Blog.

The transcript of David Blakesley's presentation at the Research Network Forum, Conference on College Composition and Communication San Francisco, March 11, 2009, is now available online at Parlor Press.

Here is the abstract:

Scholarly presses may be in peril due to diminishing markets, tight budgets, and over-reliance on the monograph as the signifier of scholar achievement, but individuals and organizations in rhetoric and composition can take specific action to ensure that scholarly presses not only survive momentary crises but also thrive in the years ahead. In turn, presses themselves also need to adapt to the changing needs of the multiple constituencies they serve and the new technologies that enable the democratization of peer review, production, distribution, and delivery

The Intellectual Property Caucus at CCCC was quite productive this year, as always. Thirty-one people attended, and we started the meeting off by plugging our projects and celebrating the year's accomplishments when it came to intellectual property issues:

First, there's the publication of Stephen Westbrook's collection Composition

From the Center for Social Media, American University:

* Copyright & Fair Use in Documentary Film -- the best material on this topic currently available, especially the "Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use"

* Fair Use Language for Course Syllabi [PDF]

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on Lenz v. Universal, and a fair use application regarding preemptive takedown orders under the DMCA: "a federal judge ruled Wednesday that copyright holders can't order one of their songs removed from the Web without first checking to see if the excerpt was so small and innocuous that it was legal."

Here's a link to the court order, via the EFF. [PDF]

Quotes:

Thanks to the hard work of all of those who have worked on this document in one form or another over the last few years, I am happy to announce that at the business meeting on Saturday morning at CCCC that the members voted to approve a formal resolution regarding open source software use. An official copy should be posted to the CCCC website sometime in the coming weeks. In the meantime, those wishing to see the draft version which was submitted to CCCC can view it here.