The information giants, Google being the largest, trade every day and build high-valuation mega-opolies on the back of very personal information without including their sources of value with any tangible return for their investment of exclusive data. The time has come to ask the question whether the grand bargain of "cool tools" in…

According to the recent survey of Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), one of the several top trends in publishing nowadays is the licensing liberalization among publishers. Licensing options now abound and there are various price points for libraries considering new collections. One such example is how SAGE offers…

Introduction: Our aim is to compare the advantages and problems of e-book acquisition identified in research literature to those experienced by two Swedish university libraries. Method: A literature review was used to identify the main issues related to acquisition of e-books by academic libraries. The data for comparison were collected through…

Twenty-three scholarly papers and twelve abstracts comprise the content of the eleventh annual Brick and Click Libraries Symposium, held at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The peer-reviewed proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at the symposium, portray the contemporary and future face of…

Discusses provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) that relate to special librarians and offer a limitation on liability for online service providers. Highlights include eligibility requirements; storing material and referring users to material at other locations through hypertext links or search engines; system caching; and scope…

Discusses licensing agreements and royalties to writers for the sale of articles from online databases. CARL Corporation is working with the National Writers' Union to devise a transaction-based method of paying royalty fees to authors whose articles are used through UnCover; this agreement could provide a model for use by all database services.…

Online copyright problems may be resolvable by a simple permission method. Describes Project Xanadu, a system of hypermedia publishing servers, designed to preserve integrity, copyright, and royalty for digital materials, yet allow reuse. Discusses permission doctrine; aspects of supporting software; legal status of transcopyright; variations not…

Discusses new pricing models for some online services and considers the possibilities for the traditional online database market. Topics include multimedia music databases, including copyright implications; other retail-oriented databases; and paying for free databases with advertising. (LRW)

Describes factors to consider when doing business research on the World Wide Web. Highlights include cost, variety of information and viewpoints, timeliness of information, ease of use, time used in searching, quality and value, online vendors and online services, ownership and copyright, and an appendix that annotates 16 Web sites. (LRW)

Discusses the use of America Online and CompuServe to find clip art, photos, and other images for use in desktop publishing projects. Highlights include copyright issues, different graphic formats, graphic conversion programs, compression programs, and downloading. (LRW)

Examines digital copyright issues for developers and users of CD-ROMs and online information systems. Offers seven copyright tips for multimedia developers and discusses the growth of copyright law, automated copyright licensing, and Internet royalty meters. A sidebar lists copyright print resources and names of corporate and legal contacts. (JMV)

This document presents the proceedings of a conference on the issues of intellectual property rights in a technology-driven environment. Following an introduction which summarizes the conference presentations and discussions, copies of the five presentations are provided: (1) "The OTA (Office of Technology Assessment) Report on Intellectual…

Describes characteristics of the online marketplace. Topics discussed include technology barriers; data ownership; markets for online services, including libraries and end users; marketing and promotion tactics, including exhibits and conferences, advertising, direct mail, and user groups; international marketing and service; strategic marketing…

Highlights key aspects of and issues related to the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998," a bill passed by the U.S. Senate on May 14, 1998. Discussion includes banning of black boxes (i.e., technological-protection measures such as tv signal scramblers), fair-use protection, identification of copyrighted works, protection for…

Copyright and other intellectual property issues have dominated discussions of legal issues surrounding the Internet. There are other issues of considerable importance that also attract attention. Five legal issues affecting the Internet are addressed: copyright, online service-provider liability, database protection, obscenity, and privacy. Cited…