Acquiring new media works
"Museologists face a new reality in our fast-changing high-tech world. Works with technological components pose unfamiliar challenges and require acquisition procedures that differ from traditional practices. Primarily, this means giving careful consideration to the notions of copyright (intellectual property), conservation and artist collaboration prior to the purchase of media-based art.
The Survey of New Media Cataloguing Practices report, produced by the DOCAM Cataloguing Structure Committee, indicates that few museum institutions have established a specific policy for acquiring new media works. Yet a policy of this sort is an important tool: used to assess the characteristics and short-, medium- and long-term conservation and exhibition needs of such works, it can help museums make informed choices when envisaging additions to their collections."
(DOCAM)
CONTRIBUTOR
David RogersonSHARE
Reading ban on leaked Harry Potter
"Fourteen fans bought Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from The Real Canadian Superstore in Coquitlam on the west coast of Canada before managers realised their mistake [selling books that were under embargo]. But readers will be unable to share their knowledge after Raincoast Books, the book’s Canadian publisher, was granted a 'John Doe' injunction prohibiting the buyers from even reading their copies before the publication date.
The supreme court of British Columbia issued a court order preventing anyone from 'displaying, reading, offering for sale, selling or exhibiting in public' their books. J. K. Rowling’s legal advisers said that the author was entitled to prevent buyers from reading their own books even though they had not broken the law.
'The fact is that this is property that should not have been in their possession,' said Neil Blair, a legal specialist for Christopher Little, the author’s literary agent. 'Copyright holders are entitled to protect their work. If the content of the book is confidential until July 16, which it is, why shouldn’t someone who has the physical book be prevented from reading it and thereby obtaining the confidential information? How they came to have access to the book is immaterial'."
(The Times Online)
CONTRIBUTOR
David RogersonSHARE
Did You Say “Intellectual Property”? It's a Seductive Mirage
"It has become fashionable to toss copyright, patents, and trademarks—three separate and different entities involving three separate and different sets of laws—into one pot and call it 'intellectual property'. The distorting and confusing term did not arise by accident. Companies that gain from the confusion promoted it. The clearest way out of the confusion is to reject the term entirely."
(Richard M. Stallman)
CONTRIBUTOR
David RogersonSHARE
CONTRIBUTOR
David RogersonSHARE
Obliquity: Why our goals are best achieved indirectly
"Strange as it may seem, overcoming geographic obstacles, winning decisive battles or meeting global business targets are the type of goals often best achieved when pursued indirectly. This is the idea of Obliquity. Oblique approaches are most effective in difficult terrain, or where outcomes depend on interactions with other people.
If you want to go in one direction, the best route may involve going in the other. Paradoxical as it sounds, goals are more likely to be achieved when pursued indirectly. So the most profitable companies are not the most profit-oriented, and the happiest people are not those who make happiness their main aim. The name of this idea? Obliquity"
(John Kay)
CONTRIBUTOR
David RogersonSHARE
