Michael Geist - Napster Drops Out of Canada, Warns Users Of Lost Purchases Due to Digital Locks http://t.co/lO3hLRvB

November 22, 2011 12:52 pm via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

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Fiacre O'Duinn

Yes, that’s right – as Michael Geist reports, if you are Canadian and have ever purchased music through Napster Canada, then you run the risk of losing access to content you have paid for:

These downloads are DRM-encoded WMA files and can be backed up by burning them to audio CDs. Doing this will allow you access to your music on any CD player and generally have a maintenance free permanent copy. If you do not back up your purchased Napster music downloads by burning them to CD and you later change or reinstall your computer’s operating system, have a system failure or experience DRM corruption, then the downloads will stop playing and you will permanently lose access to them.

(Source: Napster Canada PR via Geist’s blog)

Let’s put this into perspective:

• Customers have purchased items (music, objects, widgets, whatever) from a company with the assurance that these items can be accessed.  But the use of these music files are limited by a lock that the company will no longer support now that it has pulled out of the market and been bought by a competitor.
• Customers have been advised by the company to effectively circumvent their digital locks if they want to continue listening to their music.  

I suppose that Napster Canada/Rhapsody is acting in good faith when they explain to Canadian customers how to ensure that the content they have already purchased will always be accessible. Napster/Rhapsody has informed customers that all they need to do is copy the data to audio CDs to ensure that the music can be played even if the digital lock on the file is ever corrupted. But does anyone else find it a tiny bit illogical that a company that normally espouses the use of digital locks is now effectively telling its customers to break the law and circumvent the lock in order to make sure they will always be able to access this music?

Digital Rights Management is something we must be wary of.  DRM limits the consumer’s rights to the content he or she has purchased; it “manages” rights by taking them away from the consumer. This is of particular concern in Canada, when so many organizations are subsidiaries of larger companies located elsewhere. If Napster pulls out of the Canadian market, will the digital locks that limit access to the content you purchased still be supported? It seems not. If Amazon were ever to pull out of the Canadian market (which is an unlikely scenario, but a worthy point to make), would its digital locks that limit access to the content you purchased still be supported? That would be up to Amazon to decide.  Digital locks keep your purchases at the mercy of the vendor, which is reason enough to oppose them.

Copyright is a mess, especially in Canada.  The law is antiquated and it does need an overhaul to actually work in our digital landscape.  But DRM and digital locks place an undue burden and risk on consumers (be they individuals, families, or libraries), most of whom are law-abiding citizens, respect intellectually property and rights, and do not copy content.

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Post script: Am I suggesting we back out of all e-content on account of DRM?  No, I’m not. What I’m trying to show, like so many others, is that the system is out of balance right now and will remain so in the future.  Advocacy is required to fix this.

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Halifax’s Library and Information Science Holiday Social is back – Join your friends and colleagues for an evening of great food, door prizes, fun, and holiday cheer at our annual Holly Jolly!

Even Santa's elves need a break from cataloguing the toys.

The Holly Jolly costs only $10, or $8 for students. We’ll be taking over Argyle Fine Art at its new Barrington Street location on Thursday December 8, from 6pm to 9pm. There are many door prizes to give away, and once again we’ll have excellent catering from Certainly Cinnamon. In the spirit of the season, we ask that Holly Jolly’ers bring a non-perishable food item(s) to support the Parker Street Food and Furniture Bank.

Please RSVP to hollyjollysocial@gmail.com by December 5, 2011

Date: Thursday, December 8, 2011
Time: 6:00pm – 9:00 pm
Location: Argyle Fine Art, 1559 Barrington Street, Halifax, Suite 102
Price: $10.00 ($8.00 for students)

The Holly Jolly is brought to you by the Halifax Library Association with the support of NSALT, APLA, other and library associations in Nova Scotia.

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The Documentary History of the State of Maine (1869), Vol. 1, Scanned by "David" for Google Books

It seems that in the act of digitizing the text, David, our digitizer, has scanned his hand right into the book.  David, his ring, and his tiny-finger gloves have become digitized marginalia. Like a student’s note in the margins or a phone number quickly inscribed in the front matter, David’s fingers are now part of the text, forever.¹

Marginalia has always fascinated me. I owe this to a distinguished professor who held court in one of my undergraduate seminars many years ago.  He once explained to us the pleasure he found when discovering his students’ notes in the margins of texts in the university library.  As he was an older professor and had taught at the school for many years, he knew the library’s collection and his students’ use of texts in his field quite well. He enjoyed discovering hand-written notes in his assigned texts or in books that were pertinent to his subject matter since these notes became “analog trails” (my term, and a pun on “digital trails”, of course) that led back to the discussions held in his seminars and to the knowledge developed in them.

I’ve since come to look upon marginalia as tiny clues that show how a text has linked different people and ideas together. I often wonder, in a nostalgic way, how these bonds will change when ebooks become ubiquitous. We can append and share notes in digital texts, of course. But these notes, which were at one time inscribed in the book or on a piece of paper and left to be discovered by another reader, have been transformed by common fonts and encoding that might link and share thoughts but don’t show significance or meaning in quite the same way. In the e-book cloud and on our social websites, readers and the value of notes are flattened, which, I think, affects the importance and allure of this marginalia.²

It goes without saying that the e-book has altered our relationship to the text and to knowledge. No longer do we have a one-to-one relationship with the physical object in front of us. Now we can potentially have a one-to-many relationship with all of the text’s readers. There are clear benefits to be gained from this, i.e., don’t think that I’m a Luddite and want to turn my back on the new communities of readers that are developing thanks to e-book innovations.  But my thoughts today (and what this post is only scratching the surface of) are focused on how the physical manifestation of a text – i.e. the book, affects our relationship with its content. A book’s marginalia often represents one person’s relationship with a particular copy of a text rather than one’s relationship with a community of fellow readers. Reading marginalia is almost like reading a diary since one is reading notes and thoughts left primarily for personal consumption. When we encounter marginalia, we are discovering secrets and clues left behind by other readers – clues that can alter our interpretations of the text, but only in the copy we are holding in our hands.

Marginalia also individualizes or “makes unique” texts that are published in large volumes. Just as violinists treasure their violin’s lineage from one musician to another, many readers treasure the sign’s of a book’s “borrowing history”: the notes on the pages left behind by previous readers, the dog-eared corners, the discolored, yellowed pages which signify its age and in some ways, its value to the collection. All these marks, notes, dents, and scribbles create a “lineage” of readers for the text. They show the would-be reader the value that others have found in the text, and the added value he or she may acquire upon reading it.  These scribbles and folds haunt a physical book; they create a history of reading, marked in time and place by the thoughts of its previous readers.

We are shifting away from a centuries-old period where the content and its container were inseparable – where the content was signified by the container, and where the container gave the reader clues about the content’s worth. Although it hasn’t been difficult for our culture to make the transition to our new digital period where the container’s role has been diminished, I wonder if we should be paying more attention to how our interaction with texts – whether it is writing marginalia or selecting ebooks from a virtual shelf – affects our understanding of knowledge and the development of “collective wisdom.” That’s not to say that things are worse (or better) off today compared to “time before e-books” so much as it is to suggest that when our interaction with knowledge has for so long been focused on reading the written word with a pen and paper close at hand, it may be a useful to exercise to study how our new tools and technologies affect the ways we think and learn.

I’ll leave these theoretical and literary implications alone for another day when I have the courage to transform these meandering thoughts into a well-sourced argument that might provide understanding. And I’ll end by acknowledging the irony found in writing these thoughts in digital form for a larger community of readers.

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1.  For the record, David caught his mistake and re-scanned the page.  The next scans in the Google Books scroll of images are clean digital images of these pages.  Also, my research on early Nova Scotian documents continues.

2.  I am not suggesting that no extra meaning or significance can be found in e-book notes or on social reading websites. Social sites actually do an incredible job at adding meaning to a text, but they do this in different ways, e.g., crowd-sourced discussions and reviews.

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But I’ve now changed my mind. I’m not sure I like the Google Reader changes. The new interface’s clean lines means that readability has stayed the same, if not improved, i.e., its look and feel seem to promote the act of reading over skimming. But the changes to its sharing function really is an issue. Sure, I can share things to G+, but clicking on the +1 button is akin to shouting into the din of the Internet.  I can share and share and share as much as I like, but I don’t know if people are sharing their own Google Reader items back into my G+ stream. Furthermore, I don’t know what kind of content they’re sharing anymore.  Are the shared items in my Google+ Stream coming from a valued Google Reader store?  Or are these items just clicks and pages found while surfing the net?  At best, the former Google Reader dialogue is now feigned (it’s now a monologue on G+), and the quality of those shared pages on G+ is indeterminable.  I’m now looking for options.

The changes we’ve seen to Google Reader has got me thinking again about the nature of reading, skimming, and sharing on the Internet. What made Google Reader so great (aside from the emphasis on reading, see above) was the assurance of quality that came with its shared items.  Shared Items on Google Reader were posts that came from blogs and websites that people believed were important enough to read regularly as opposed to mere posts and pages found while they or their friends surfed – and skimmed – the Internet.  People who used Google Reader had a better assurance that the content they found in their shared folder was carefully chosen, was fit for consumption, and required some of their time and attention in order to synthesize.

The fact that blog posts and shared items in Google Reader sat in a folder until the user actually read them shows the importance of the items’ content.  Google Reader’s interface – like all RSS interfaces – demanded the user actually read the content he or she saved to the system: content did not disappear until you at least saw that it arrived for you to read. This premise behind Google Reader, i.e., posts are to be saved for later reading, meant that its users selected content that was not merely ephemeral.  By its very nature, Google Reader asked the user to choose only the best content on the web and to store it in a separate space to read at a later time.  By and large, shared items on Google Reader had a quality assurance label stuck to them: these posts were determined to be distinct from the general “of the moment” nature of the web and therefore should be treated with care. Anything shared on Google Reader required special attention because some one said, “This content came from a valued source and ought to be read, and it is not going away until you at least see that I’ve shared it with you.”

Google Plus, Twitter, Facebook, and so many other social sites do not do this.  Social networks promote connections above all else, so the content is almost always “of the moment” (that’s the second time I’ve said that).  Content on social sites is pinned to a moment in time, but the conversation always moves forward. If you log in to Facebook at 2pm, you only see the conversations happening at 2pm; you must look carefully for what your friends shared earlier in the day.  That shared content may have been valuable, but there is no easy way to flag that value on social networks since content is subordinated to relationships and connections as they exist the moment you are online.

I like Google Plus, I really do. But like other social media sites, Google Plus emphasizes shared connections and the constant stream of chatter that arrives on your screen.  Of course, we can stop that stream at any time, click on a link, and fully consume what has been offered to us, but a social site’s design promotes social conversations over thought and analysis. I still believe that the “Internet Age” is an age of skimming. We are living in a time where thorough, critical analysis has been subordinated to the conversation. I’d like to see a balance restored between the two. So long as we aren’t reading well – so long as we aren’t taking the time to think critically about what we visit and read online – we are preventing those conversations from reaching their full potential.

Internet 2.0! Now skim faster and shallower!

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If WorldCat Local has become your primary catalogue, then get to know the search operator I’ve used below, “dt=“.  This operator will limit your search results by document type, i.e, it will limit your WorldCat search results to only books:

“oryx and crake” dt=BKS

If you use this search function to look for Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood in your catalogue, as I did above, then WorldCat Local will limit your results only to books.  Articles will not appear in your search results.

The dt= function translates to “document type.”  This search function tells WorldCat to limit your results to a particular document type, in this case, “BKS,” which stands in for “books.”   To limit to articles, you need to type dt=SER, where “SER” stands in for “Serials”, which is librarian’s jargon for “articles.”

Take this knowledge and share it with your colleagues, students, and friends.  Adding this search function to your WorldCat Local searches will improve the search engine’s results for the most basic and essential searches you make in your everyday work in the humanities.

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"Reshare this post so we can test the new Google+ Ripples!"

This post is a request to share another post and an invitation to the check out Google+ Ripples.  Google+ Ripples is a Google+ feature that visualizes a post’s activitiy.  It will show you a post’s broadcast potential by visualizing who has shared it:

This is how Google Ripples has visualized the way the original post has been shared

Brad Matthies does a good job showing you how to view a Ripple for any G+ post – check out his blog for more information.

I don’t have much to say yet on Google Ripples – it’s still very new and novel and I think people are playing with it more than they are thinking about what it does, how it does it, and what it might mean (if it means anything.).

One thing did cross my mind as people in my own Google+ stream started to share my own share of the post, though. I’m curious to see how Google+ Ripples will turn out. It may only be visualizing and making public the links we all make to one post on the Goog, but I’m interested to know if there might be a backlash against it.

This is interesting because people, including myself, often become uncomfortable and vocal when information about our relationships between ourselves and the information that actually connects us is revealed on the Internet, so I’m almost expecting a public pushback against Google+ Ripples (even though the information and not the carrier is centered in its graphs).   But once the Info.Corps back down and put the cover back over our social graphs, we stop worrying and carry on with our day on the Internet – business as usual.  The thing that gets to me, though, is that we don’t really think twice about the fact that this information about us has already been collected, and on some social media networks, is being shared with third parties without our knowledge.

Don’t take that to think that I’m being alarmist – I’m not suggesting we shut down all of our accounts immediately. I’m only observing the way we sometimes object to the public display of our social graphs but don’t seem to worry that the information is being collected in the first place.

P.s. I think the + in Google+ is a little silly at this point.  I really want to just call it “Google Ripples.”

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(Cross-posted to Google+ and to Facebook.)

1. I’m wary of anyone with no legislative experience running for the leadership of a political party. The House requires a very demanding, public lifestyle that isn’t suitable for everyone. I’m not saying that Topp doesn’t fit the type. I am saying that an Official Opposition, just like a Government, should not take on an untested legislator as their leader. It’s foolhardy to do so.

2.  I’m a little offended by the way that Brian Topp talks about wanting to continue Jack Layton’s legacy. All the candidates will want to carry on Layton’s legacy. But what makes things so troublesome regarding Topp is the way that he makes it sound like he is Jack Layton Redux. If Brian wasn’t in the room when Jack Layton thought of any great idea being considered, then it seems like he’s trying to own a policy or platform as his very own when it was either Layton’s or the NDP’s as whole. Topp shouldn’t try to win the leadership by running on our collective memories of Jack Layton – he should try to win the leadership by presenting his own unique case for the leadership.

The first point is a political matter that shows why it makes sense for me, and other concerned NDPers, to vote for some one other than Topp. The second point is a matter of character that resonates with me negatively, which pretty much confirms that my vote will move in a different direction.

Addendum:

One more thing regarding Point no 2.: So long as Topp presents himself as Layton 2.0, there will be nothing unique or individual about his campaign, his motivations for the leadership, or his actual abilities to lead. It’s hard to differentiate his platform right now from the current NDP brand, i.e., I can’t look at Topp and figure out his vision for the future of the party since his vision for the future *is* the party line. You may think this is a good thing since it suggests that his principles are aligned with the party, but I see it as a weakness since it means that his principles are also all of his competitors’ principles. There is little there that actually sets him apart from the rest of the pack. I want love and hope and optimism, but I also want to see fresh ideas that will move forward our party and the values for which it stands.

This thread got me thinking about how research is presented in popular culture since the Internet and the search engine has become such a dominant part of our everyday lives. Some people feel that the scenes showing Twilight‘s Bella researching on the Internet reinforce the fact that there isn’t always one answer or dominant interpretation (this isn’t necessarily stated in the ILI-L thread – I’m speaking generally), however, I think research as we see it today is still glossed over in pop culture. Television and film don’t have time and space to feature the research process.  The research process is broadly used as a device to push the plot forward, so what we often get are scenes that look like this:

I’m using this clip from Vampire Diaries as an example because it aired just last Thursday, i.e., it’s on television right now and its target demographic is watching it, big-time.  If you don’t care to play the video, then let me tell you that Jeremy is telling Matt that he’s used the Internet to research how to contact his dead girlfriend, Vikki, who happens to be Matt’s dead sister.  And, he’s found out some things, like that fact that he doesn’t need the help of a witch like Bonnie, his current girlfriend to call upon this spirit.   Voila! Research is done!  Thanks, Interweb!

(Vampire Diaries is actually compelling drama. You should look past my snark and watch it. And in Jeremy’s case, the directors have shown him conducting something closer to “real” research in the past, so he’d a good guy that librarians should appreciate in the end.)

Admittedly, there are better “research clips” than this one. The best clips will spend a lot of time on the research process or even make it the focus of the scene.  But even the clips that show top-rate critical inquiry, evaluative reasoning, and strong synthesis will have to summarize much of this process in the interest of story’s plot and time.  And our students know this already.  So, instead of playing a clip that illustrates what parts of research are shown in the movies, I think it’s better to engage the students personally and research with them, on the spot, so they can learn by doing (which is especially important in a one-shot class).  If films are “show and tell,” then I try to emphasize “do and learn” when I’m working with students.

So much of this comes down to teaching styles and the way we present ourselves to a class. I’m real comfortable interacting closely with students to put the focus on what it means to actually do critical thinking and researching on a topic, first-hand.  Although I do use film clips from time to time, my own preference is to get the students actually “thinking about thinking” or even by doing some research with them in the classroom (or hopefully, in a computer lab).  In the end, I want them to focus on what I’ve got to say and how they are applying this advice to their own work in front of them, so I make sure that I’m animated, personable, and approachable throughout the session.

Research, as we see it in popular culture, is glossed over.  Watching it on film can’t show the full spectrum, so I try not to put too much of my time into these film clips.  In the end, I want to help my students learn real, proven strategies on how to research effectively in their courses, so I prefer to keep my eye on the prize and give them what they’re looking for: lessons, advice, and hints to turn their neat idea for a subject into a well-researched, well-written A-level submission to the prof.

[Post-script:  I'm not saying that I object to using film in class. On the contrary, I think film clips can be a great educational tool.  For example, I've used television commercials to great effect when teaching critical thinking in the past.  I played old Axe Bodywash commercials to help students analyze expectations and stereotypes surrounding sex and gender.  By the end of the class, the students had conducted a "close reading" of these commercials and were well on their way to writing an essay on gender stereotypes in popular culture.  But the difference here is that the film clip was the class's actual object of study.]

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Should you print whatever you like if you own a press?

The Annoyed Librarian has whipped up a storm one again.   The recent column that drew ridiculous connections between the University of Alabama‘s recent posting for an untenured First-Year Experience Librarian position and the history of the south, e.g., the Stand in the Schoolhouse Door; and southern stereotypes, e.g., constantly bad weather has turned into so large a controversy that LJ’s editor, Francine Fialkoff, had to write her own piece on the situation.

Librarians in the blogosphere followed suit, and here I am doing the same.  I’m actually directing you to Andy Woodworth’s blog since what follows is a comment I left on his site:

But something also should be said about journalistic principles, Andy. Regardless of its profit-making motives (because face it, most organizations, are for-profit), LJ does have a role in what is written in the AL column. Making a connection between the stand in the schoolroom door and U of A’s FYE posting is not only illogical, but it is crass and border-line offensive. I could put up with how offensive it is if there was a real thread between the two, but there isn’t, so it perhaps shouldn’t have been written or published.

And this is where LJ comes into the equation. LJ should consider pulling the plug on the column, or at the very least have asked the AL to tone down this piece in particular. Some one might cry foul, yell “censorship!” or talk about first amendment rights, but frankly, LJ is completely in its right to edit for content in its own publication, and they should have in this instance.

Librarians of all stripes hold by professional codes of conduct. We have our ethical codes drawn up by various professional associations, and we **choose** to abide by them in one form or in varying degrees. The same can be said about journalism: LJ should hold itself to a higher level than it is doing here. It shouldn’t be crass simply to garner more hits, especially when what was written in the column was as outlandish as it is (i.e., satire is used to prove a point and not to find eyeballs). LJ shouldn’t think that they just because they only publish AL they can wash their hands of the means and methods that column uses to carry its opinions forward.

In the end, this issue has whipped up a storm because it’s speaking to professional values and principles in two different professions. There won’t be an answer on this and a consensus likely won’t be reached. But I don’t think we can let LJ walk away thinking that they have no part in this.

You can see that my concern lies with professional principles and codes of conduct.  This is something I read about a lot and think we all should try to adhere to since we’re in the business of providing access to opinions, thoughts, and speech.   It’s also something that is important to journalism, a profession that is equally concerned about access to opinions, thoughts, and speech.

What matters here is knowing when to draw the line.  When is it wrong to write something?   It is probably wrong to write something that is not factual, but columns often carry matters of fact as well as matters of opinion, which can be neither right nor wrong.  But this is where oversight can be useful: the illogical connections the AL made in her piece should have been revised before publication.

To the Annoyed Librarian and to Library Journal, I say, “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”  To those of you who would tell me that I’m moving close to (self-)censorship or that I should just avoid LJ, I say that LJ is completely in their right to publish what they want, and for that reason we must hold them to account.

==

(Hats off to Brad Matthies, too, whose post got the discussion rolling between some of my own colleagues.)

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Facebook Messenger: How to stifle consumer choice

Do you like to text?  Do you like to SMS?  MMS?  You love it, you really do.  Well, guess what: If you shift all of your texting over to FB Messenger, then the way you text is going to be beholden to Facebook Inc.  If Facebook decides that changes are needed to FB Messenger and you don’t like that, it will still change them.  If Facebook decides to open up your privacy controls on FB Messenger, then hopefully you’ll get that memo before your creepy internet stalker figures you out.  If Facebook decides it doesn’t like the way FB Messenger is working, even though you, do, it will still make those changes.   Facebook owns the Facebook Messenger pipes, so the traffic you put on it is dependent on Facebook.

Look.  Right now, you are texting from your mobile or smartphone on a long-established open standard that is used by every mobile/cell carrier around.   That’s why I can text from my Canadian provider, Telus, to my father-in-law in California who is on Verizon, and to a good friend in the UK who is on Virgin.  SMS is a standard that’s been agreed to and used for years by the entire industry.  If you decide to go with FB Messenger, then you’re giving the keys of the castle to ONE COMPANY, who will make their own policies and decisions as it suits them instead of the consumer.

Don’t do that.  Don’t give up on an open standard because FB Messenger seems like the greatest thing since Kanye and Jay-Z laid down a track together.  Don’t switch over to FB Messenger, which conveniently went live one month before the start of a new school year everywhere in the west.  Stick with your open texting SMS/MMS standard.  Texting developed, works, and thrives because EVERYONE agrees to use it.  Choosing FB Messenger will shut out out all the major players in the industry who built your smartphone, let alone the hundreds of millions of people in the world who actually depend on a mobile phone and texting for real communication.

I am not saying that Facebook is an evil empire.  Facebook is as good (or as bad) at privacy as Google, Microsoft, or any other large web company.  But Facebook’s products are very much closed and proprietary and built to improve their bottom line.  This is bad news for the consumer.  You are giving up your ability to choose between products and you are stifling innovation when you choose closed products. FB Messenger is not good for anyone but Facebook.  So stick with SMS.  Why?  Because it’s something you all have already, and it’s still face better than what FB Messenger can offer.

(P.S.  It shouldn’t matter AT ALL that FB Messenger is a “free app.”  SMS texting is a standard feature on your phone already.  Oh look – a green texting button: it came with my iPhone already…)

Related articles

• Facebook aims to replace texting (bbc.co.uk)
• Facebook’s New Messenger App Aims to Kill SMS, BBM, and Everything Else (textually.org)
• Facebook takes on Blackberry Messenger with new app (telegraph.co.uk)
• Facebook takes on Blackberry Messenger with the launch of a standalone instant messaging app (mirror.co.uk)

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