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The Case for Copyright Exceptions and Fair Use

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

For on January 17, 1984, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that consumers could tape their favorite TV shows and watch them later without the copyright holder’s consent. 417 (1984), also known as the “ Betamax case ”, is a landmark copyright precedent that has had enormous implications for the media economy. of America v.

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Bringing Millions of Books to Billions of People: Making the Book Truly Accessible

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Today, we are poised at a moment in time where we can transcend the limitations of past book technologies and bring the power of books to all humans. However, as a technology, printed books come with serious challenges for some communities (like blind people) that technology can unlock. Love of the print book. We can do better!

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Receiving the 2013 Migel Medal

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

This is the field where I found my life’s calling, applying technology to meet critical needs of society, where the market is likely to fail. And when the idea of a peer-to-peer ebook library came to me, it was George who I went to with the idea. That treaty should replicate the successful copyright exception here in the U.S.

eBook 221
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Tribute to My Mentor

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

I needed help with business negotiations and software licensing and Gerry jumped in teaching me everything I know about doing business. As the prototypical technology social enterprise, Benetech became one of the first organizations using technology to solve social problems rather than seeking to make maximum financial returns.

Mentoring 167
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Increasing Accessible Publishing Globally

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

The world has finally moved beyond just electronically creating books that are then distributed as ordinary print books to actually delivering digital ebooks. In technical terms, this means that the next version of the DAISY format, version 4, will be the same as EPUB3, the main format used by commercial publishers of ebooks.

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Social DRM: It’s About Equal Access for All

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

There is no better place to engage with colleagues about new technologies, changing business models, fresh ideas, and shared standards. You can read much more about this in Jim Fruchterman’s blog post, “Upholding the Social Bargain: Bookshare and Copyright Compliance.”

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Accessibility Excitement in Geneva

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Bookshare’s role was mixed: we didn’t end up attending many of these meetings and critiqued early efforts that were crippled by heavy-handed publisher influence, although we did propose at one point to supply technology to TIGAR based on Bookshare. So, in the meanwhile, we will need to rely on licenses: permissions agreements.