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Open source opens access to the law library
,----[ Quote ]
| Or they had. Because now Google-like algorithms and cheap Indian labor are
| letting new companies grab for hunks of that duopoly:
|
| * Casemaker provides basic case law and opinions.
| * PreCYdent offers opinions, statutes, lists of lawyers, and a very
| Google-like interface.
| * Fastcase specializes in case law, with both federal and state cases.
|
| These services are dramatically under-cutting the incumbents on price, and
| giving the general public access to legal cases for the first time. Forbes
| calls the result open source law but that’s a misnomer. It’s basically
| lower-cost competition.
|
| [...]
|
| Open source, as a rule, abhors monopolies, and its competition eventually
| drives prices toward zero. We’re still a long way from that in the legal
| research field, but it’s getting cheaper, and more accessible, day after day.
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=2546
SELF-made site for courseware
,----[ Quote ]
| Where on the Web do you go for free education and training materials? A
| project called Science, Education and Learning in Freedom (SELF) has created
| a site where educators and students can upload and download courseware
| without charge, or create courseware collaboratively. It maintains
| free-as-in-freedom content, and is intended for courses on free/libre
| software.
`----
http://www.linux.com/feature/137245
Recent:
Information Liberation
,----[ Quote ]
| Other than in the realm of life-saving medicine, why should any of this
| matter to nonacademics? Well, for one thing, barriers to the spread of
| information are bad for capitalism. The dissemination of knowledge is almost
| as crucial as the production of it for the creation of wealth, and knowledge
| (like people) can't reproduce in isolation. It's easy to scoff at the rise of
| Madonna studies and other risible academic excrescences, but a flood of truly
| important research pours from campuses every day. The infrastructure that
| produces this work is surely one of America's greatest competitive
| advantages.
|
| In fact, open access might help to moderate some of the worst forms of
| academic hokum, if only by holding them up to the light of day -- and perhaps
| by making taxpayers, parents and college donors more careful about where they
| send their money. Entering the realm of delirium for a moment, one can even
| imagine public exposure encouraging professors in the humanities and social
| sciences to write in plain English.
|
| Keeping knowledge bottled up is also bad for the world's poor; indeed,
| opening up the research produced on America's campuses via the Internet is
| probably among the most cost-effective ways of helping underdeveloped
| countries rise from poverty. Closer to home, open access to scholarly work
| via the Internet would help counteract the plague of plagiarism that the
| Internet itself has abetted. Anyone suspecting a scholar of such chicanery
| could search for a phrase or two in Google and see if somebody else's work
| turns up with the same unusual text string.
`----
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120486540450119149.html
Related:
1.8 million rulings online -- and free
,----[ Quote ]
| Sebastopol man posts half-century's worth of court decisions which could
| shake up $5 billion legal publishing industry
`----
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080213/NEWS/802130315/1036/BUSINESS01
Berkman Center and CALI Partner to Create New Legal Education Resource
,----[ Quote ]
| “We are looking forward to renewing a fruitful relationship with Harvard Law
| School through the Legal Education Commons project, which will provide
| innovative tools and access to open-licensed course materials to our more
| than 200 member law schools” said CALI Executive Director John Mayer.
`----
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/newsroom/pressreleases/berkman_center_and_cali_partner_to_create_new_legal_education_resource
Harvard Research to Be Free Online
,----[ Quote ]
| Harvard University will soon begin posting research and articles produced by
| its faculty on the Internet free of charge.
`----
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/books/14arts-HARVARDRESEA_BRF.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
A Quest to Get More Court Rulings Online, and Free
,----[ Quote ]
| The domination of two legal research services over the publication of federal
| and state court decisions is being challenged by an Internet gadfly who has
| embarked on an ambitious project to make more than 10 million pages of case
| law available free online.
`----
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/technology/20westlaw.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Wikipedia Founder Joins EC Open Access Campaign
,----[ Quote ]
| Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said he signed a petition calling
| on the European Commission to give the public open access to
| taxpayer-funded scientific research because it was "simple and
| obvious" that the public should have access to research they
| had funded. "Public money should result in public benefit,"
| he added.
`----
http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/56443.html
Announcing the Open Library
,----[ Quote ]
| Early this year, when I left my job at Wired Digital, I thought I could look
| forward to months of lounging around San Francisco, reading books on the
| beach and drinking fine champagne and eating foie gras. Then I got a phone
| call. Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive was thinking of pursuing a
| project that I'd been trying to do literally for years.
|
| [...]
|
| So today I'm extraordinarily proud to announce the Open Library project. Our
| goal is to build the world's greatest library,
`----
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/openlibrary
Libraries: Eliminate DRM!
,----[ Quote ]
| Recently, we took action against the Boston Public Library (BPL) demanding
| that they embargo the use of DRM technology on their collection and create a
| policy that respects the motto that hangs above their door: "free-to-all." To
| send a message to all libraries that they too should respect their patrons'
| freedom, we urge you to sign our open letter.
`----
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/Libraries-Eliminate-DRM
Protest DRM at the Boston Public Library
,----[ Quote ]
| the BPL [Boston Public Library] has launched a new service powered by a
| company called OverDrive. The system gives BPL patrons access to books,
| music, and movies online -- but only if they use a Microsoft DRM system.
|
| There are lots of problems with the introduction of this system: it bars
| access to users of GNU/Linux and MacOS and creates a dependence on a single
| technology vendor for access. These are important issues, certainly. The
| worst problem, however, is much more fundamental.
|
| By adopting a DRM system for library content, the BPL is giving OverDrive,
| copyright holders, and Microsoft the ability to decide what, when, and how
| its patrons can and cannot read, listen, and watch these parts of the BPL
| collection.
`----
http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/20080207-00
Following Removal of DRM, MIT Resubscribes to SAE Database
,----[ Quote ]
| IT faculty, students, and staff have access to the Society of Automotive
| Engineer’s technical papers over the web again, because the SAE listened to
| MIT and other universities when they spoke out against the imposition of
| Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology.
|
| Last spring, the MIT Libraries cancelled their web access to the (SAE)
| technical papers, because the society was imposing a DRM plug-in called
| FileOpen that seriously impeded normal scholarly use.
`----
http://news-libraries.mit.edu/blog/following-removal/1024/
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