intellectual property

Intellectual Property
26 Mar

Free and Open Textbooks in Rhetoric and Writing Studies

in intellectual property

Below is my article for this year's CCCC-IP Annual. I refer to some exciting stuff going on in our field such as http://writingspaces.org/:

The issue of access is one of the main reasons our field has held a prolonged interest in copyright and intellectual property matters. We want everyone to have access to education, art, science, and culture. We want open-access publishing in general, for our scholarship and for teaching resources. But we especially empathize with college students and their diverse financial situations; many are, as we all know, accruing student loan debt, juggling class schedules and work schedules, and, in some cases, supporting their families. Admittedly, many others are racking up high bar tabs, paying high membership dues to fraternities or sororities, and buying expensive clothes, but we maintain concern for the students who are struggling to pay their bills and whose financial future is especially uncertain. Such concern means that we -- especially those of us who, like me, are Writing Program Administrators -- often agonize about our responsibility to select textbooks that are both affordable and pedagogically sound and appropriate for our students. In this paper, I will describe two developments from the year 2010 that pertain to intellectual property and our field. One is the publication of a report titled A Cover-to-Cover Solution: How Open Textbooks are the Path to Textbook Affordability by a student activist group. The other is the publication of volume I of Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, an open textbook for undergraduate writing courses.

14 Oct

Helpful Information about Open Textbooks

in intellectual property

I ran across this interview with Nicole Allen, an open education activist, who updates Creative Commons on her work with open textbooks. There's also a link to a new report, A Cover to Cover Solution: How Open Textbooks are the Path to Textbook Affordability.

04 Oct

The Copyright Principles Project: Directions for Reform

in copyright, fair use, intellectual property

First time I've heard of The Copyright Principles Project. But their recommendation report for copyright reform (notably, Pamuel Samuelson is listed as lead author), The Copyright Principles Project: Directions for Reform, soon to be published in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, is a great set of recommendations (a total of 25). I can imagine intellectual property scholars will be referencing this document frequently. If Congress would only enact half of the recommendations, we would see significant positive change.

For more information and an overview of the document, see the Berkeley Law Press Release.

16 Aug

Major Intellectual Property Events of 2010 (So Far)

in copyright, intellectual property

I want to try to think of as many possible "Top IP Developments of 2010" as possible while 2010 is still going on, so that I'll have a lot of topics to assign for the CCCC IP Annual. (Most people want to be assigned a topic.)

There's Viacom v. YouTube...anything else you can think of right now?