Piracy in the Library:When Internet Natives Go

Bad

John McDonaldCalifornia Institute of

TechnologyMarch 27, 2006

What does a pirate look like?

Or, more like this?

Library Sloop?

Security of licensed content

Online publishing led to licensing of academic research materials

Licenses adapted from database & software models

Clauses focused on explicit definitions of users and usage

Who (authorized users)

What (licensed content)

When (term and renewal)

Where (jurisdiction)

How (technical aspects)

And Why…(as in)… Restrictions on Use Prohibited users

Prohibited use

Prohibited Uses

Usual prohibited uses (…or duh!)

altering, recompiling, reselling, publishing or republishing, making persistent local copies, altering copyrights or changing publisher or authors names, etc.

Common breaches (…or what seems logical to the publisher but not to our users)

Systematic or programmatic copying or downloading.

Downloading by volume (too much or too much from the same issue)

Allowing unauthorized users to access content

Case Studies: Intentional Piracy

Open Proxy

Are ne’er-do-wells accessing licensed content?

Data Harvesting

Why screen-scrape an online dictionary?

Sequential/Excessive Downloads

Who needs 1,083 articles from one journal?

Systematic/Automated Downloads

Why would someone use a program to download content?

Case Studies: Accidental PiracyJSTOR Open Proxy

1st instance: misconfigured server

2nd instance: virus

Data Harvesting

Acquiring “Data as data”

Sequential/Excessive Downloads

Traveling / Sabbatical / Graduation

Systematic/Automated Downloads

Crossword puzzle assistance

Mozilla plugin (PDF capture)

Problems for libraries

Most security issues are reactive in nature

Incomplete information communicated to library

Inconsistent instructions among publishers

Unknown trigger events and breach cure procedures

Rare / inconsistent follow-up

Improving Content Security Libraries

Pro-active enforcement of license terms Improve technical infrastructure for compliance Reactive enforcement processIdentify users & breaches when notifiedCommunicate with publishers

PublishersImprove technical infrastructureDefine trigger eventsCommunicate to subscribersInvestigate – may lead to new views on content

Why should we care?

Provide seamless access to information with a minimum of intermediation

Negotiate clear and explicit licenses

Provide information according to license terms

Reduce impact of misuse by one on the potential use by others

Ensure that our usage metrics are accurate representations of usage.

Why should you care?

Protect content

Develop new content & revenue streams

Understand new information consumers

Usage enhances your content

If you don’t, then they are smart enough to do whatever they want...

Do they care?

They might value your content for a reason you don’t

Creative commons and educational use is a de-facto standard in academia

Interchangeable nature of content

Immediacy trumps everything

Keep track of it, or . . .

It might be taken & re-purposed!