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Free the Books

conjugating international copyright laws
As a Google Library Partner , The University of Texas Libraries will digitize at least one million books from the Libraries’ unique collections, starting with our Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection. This rich collection holds over 800,000 titles about and from Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean. Librarians, faculty and alumni acquired these works by gift, exchange and purchase over eight decades to create a comprehensive collection to support teaching and research at the university.

Current technologies enable us to provide virtual access to these collections for study anywhere, but a tangle of international treaties and copyright laws complicates our use and distribution of foreign works. There is little guidance to help us reliably identify which of our books are already in the public domain so we are piloting a project to develop new tools for ourselves and for anyone who wants to tackle these difficult public domain problems. We will document our process, our progress and our results on these pages along with links to web resources we find useful. We invite suggestions and comments from other Google Library Partners and anyone undertaking similar or related projects. Comment on our posts.

Email us at freethebooks@gmail.com. We are here; we are building an evidence base and we are looking for virtual partners!

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 / conjugating international copyright laws


Symposium on Copyright Laws and Intellectual Monopolies

From Wednesday, May 28 through Friday, May 30th, the Center for Intellectual Property at the University of Maryland  will be hosting the 8th Annual Intellectual Property Symposium at the UMUC Inn and Conference Center in Adelphi, Maryland.

This year’s symposium is titled MONOPOLY: PLAYING THE INNOVATION GAME. Three days of keynote addresses, panels, and round tables will address the conflicts resulting from the exclusive ownership and limited monopolies fostered by U.S. copyright laws and the technologies and practices that encourage sharing and collaboration.

The Center has invited an impressive line up of speakers and panelists including James Boyle, co-founder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain and professor of law at Duke University School of Law as well as Georgia Harper, the CIP’s Intellectual Property Scholar (2006-08) and Scholarly Communications Advisor for the University of Texas at Austin Libraries. For a longer list of presenters with brief bios, browse the link at  http://www.umuc.edu/distance/odell/cip/symposium/speakers.shtml

In addition the Center will host “The Institute for Copyright Leadership and Management,” which consists of pre- and post-conference seminars and workshops designed to help individuals or teams develop basic skills for effective leadership in copyright management while focusing on influencing skills and building strategic institutional partnerships and
bridges.

You may take advantage of the Early Bird registration fee, if you register before May 9th. The cost of the symposium is $350.00. For the Institute for Copyright Leadership and Management the cost is $900.00 per individual or $2,295.00 for a team of three.

Lodging is separate and runs $150 to $200.00 per night, depending on where you choose to stay.

Full symposium details may be found at http://www.umuc.edu/CIP2008 .

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