U.S. to Digitize All Tangible Gov't. Publications 121
CETS writes "The U.S. Government Printing Office is working with the library community on a national digitization plan, with the goal of digitizing a complete legacy collection of tangible U.S. Government publications. The objective is to ensure that the digital collection is available, in the public domain, for no-fee permanent public access through the FDLP. See specific article for more detail."
LoC (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:LoC (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:LoC (Score:1)
Re:LoC (Score:2)
Violating that exclusivity violates the Constitution... at least as far as Congress has legislated. I don't think it would be legal to pass a retroactive exception for the government to publish the works in questi
Re:LoC (Score:2)
Re:LoC (Score:2)
Re:LoC (Score:2)
Re:LoC (Score:2)
Your forgetting the "neccesary and proper" clause tacted onto the end of Article 1. That, combined with the interstate commerace clause, gives congress all the authority in the world to do whatever the hell they want.
Now, extend that view to a strict construtionist view and see how quickly we can go to (and are already at) a very scary place.
Re:LoC (Score:2)
Takings clause? (Score:2)
I can see how a federal judge might rule that repealing even the Bono Act might not be constitutional: "The Congress shall have Power ... to secure ... exclusive Rights", not to un-secure them. Rolling back copyprivilege terms of an existing work might violate the takings clause of the fifth article of amendment.
Re:Takings clause? (Score:2)
Re:LoC (Score:1)
And kill the U.S. dollar? (Score:1)
We should ammend copyright to last a maximum of 7 years
That would require the United States to drop out of the Berne Convention, which mandates a copyright term of at least life plus 50 years. Given that only Berne parties may remain in the World Trade Organization, watch the value of the United States dollar drop even more than it already has.
Re:LoC (Score:2)
Re:LoC (Score:2)
Re:LoC (Score:1)
Re:LoC (Score:2)
Consider what would happ
Re:LoC (Score:1)
complete legacy collection of tangible U.S. Government publications
When will they digitize the intangible publications?
Digitalisation (Score:5, Insightful)
Marilyn vos Savant (I believe it was Von Savant)wrote about the entire collection of the worlds literature being contained on just 2 discs , it would be nice to think that we are one step closer to having something of that ilk easily accessible even if it is just for government records at the moments.
Hopefully within the next 50 years we shall see actually see paper go the way of the Dodo and which would certainly be rather grand from an ecological stand point considering how expensive printed publishing can be (storage space , ecological impact , and ink)
Re:Digitalisation (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Digitalisation (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Digitalisation (Score:3, Interesting)
You mean it would be more ecological to replace paper, which is relatively clean to produce and which also decomposeses naturally, with products of the semiconductor industry (hideously poisonous processes and materials which are not biodegradeable) ?
Then there's also the problem of reading large amounts of text on a screen. At least I have t
Re:Digitalisation (Score:2)
Re:Digitalisation (Score:1)
Printouts/films are also a more robust way to store important data than any digital media. I regularly print out all my important e-mails and store them in a binder. Why? Because I've lost such e-mails too many times. Partly because of my mistakes and partly because someone
Re:Digitalisation (Score:2)
Why i see paper as an unnecessary waste of resources is that we simply could do without it though i do believe till the technology is perfect it wont happen .
Re:Digitalisation (Score:1)
Re:Digitalisation (Score:1)
You got it [slashdot.org].
Re:Digitalisation (Score:2)
Re:Digitalisation (Score:1)
But then again maybe it's just because I personally hate reading any text on a computer screen -- no matter how good the display is. If there's a lot of text, I'll print it out on sheets of nice acid-free and recyclable pap
Re:Digitalisation (Score:2)
Excellent idea, which is why quite a few of us are doing just that. If you'd like to help Project Gutenberg's effort to digitise the public domain, then join our Distributed Proofreading [pgdp.net] site and get to work! Over 6000 books turned into electronic text form so far.
Re:Digitalisation (Score:2)
The Bono Barrier (Score:2)
If you'd like to help Project Gutenberg's effort to digitise the public domain, then join our Distributed Proofreading site and get to work!
What happens in a few decades once DP has digitized all "important" English literary works first published on or before 1922?
Re:The Bono Barrier (Score:2)
First, DP isn't just for works in English, important works, or literary works. Indeed, a significant proportion of the items we're currently processing are non-fiction
All works of text are "literary works" under copyright law. Even computer programs are "literary works", although it's not as important for this purpose because the von Neumann electronic digital computer was invented after the Bono barrier. I was primarily trying to distinguish works of text from, say, pictorial, graphic, or sculptural wo
Re:Digitalisation (Score:2)
Are these documents just scans of hardcopy (what you'd expect) or will some be transferred in some
It would be a great Summer of Code project to do some indexing and analysis to figure out WTF.
Government accounting, as Ghandi said of western civilization, would be a great idea.
Re:Digitalisation (Score:2)
http://thomas.loc.gov [loc.gov]
It's a real shame more people don't know about this.
Re:Digitalisation (Score:2)
Now, let's write a crawler that will help make this useful information.
Power to the peeps, an' junk!
Re:Digitalisation (Score:2)
History is already too maleable and subject to revision at a passing political whim. Why do you want to make it easier to lie about what has happened?
Re:Digitalisation (Score:2)
Re:Digitalisation (Score:1)
multiple backups at different physical locations, and preferably under the control of different authorities. Let a government rewrite, so long as blogs note the changes and link to diffs.
Why do you think that only a government would do rew
Great Expectations (Score:3, Funny)
When can we expect to see the intangible publications?
Well, as long as... (Score:2)
Have other governments around the world done this?
Re:Well, as long as... (Score:1, Interesting)
without identifying that recently the status "Public Domain" has changed (I think it was in 2003???) and no longer means freely available to the public domain rather you must go through an accredited public domain reseller to buy a copy.
This stinks.
Re:Well, as long as... (Score:1)
without identifying that recently the status "Public Domain" has changed (I think it was in 2003???) and no longer means freely available to the public domain rather you must go through an accredited public domain reseller to buy a copy.
In what country? Under US law, "public domain" means that copyright in the work has expired entirely, not that it has passed to a cartel of accredited publishers.
Re:Well, as long as... (Score:1)
that is how it used to be in the USA but not any more. Read up on your law.
Which section of US Code or of the Code of Federal Regulations are you referring to? When was this enacted?
Re:Well, as long as... (Score:1, Informative)
There are historical documents dating hundreds upon hundreds of years back so it'll take some time before the project is concluded.
The idea is to make available to the public domain any publication released henceforth as well as any previously published publication.
too bad (Score:2, Insightful)
If they succeed in putting all gov pubs online... (Score:2, Funny)
Wait! (Score:1)
Woah, close one.
Open Format? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Open Format? (Score:1)
Re:Open Format? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Open Format? (Score:1)
Not in Massachusetts, apparently. (Score:2)
Electric code? Building code? (Score:4, Interesting)
Note to any county/state workers out there. Stop adopting the above codes by reference. Print the codes into your public documents so they can't be copyrighted and withheld/sold to the public.
Being forced to spend $70+ per code may work for electricians making $100+ per hour, but it doesn't work for the rest of the citizens. Ignorance of the law is no excuse? How about lack of listing the law on your county/state websites in a printable format is no excuse either?
ASME or whatever the mechanic's organization was doing this also. Thankfully the company hired to put together the standards GPL'd them. The ruckus this created when the mechanic's organization found out (court case) they couldn't force their own mechanics to buy standards instead of copying them, someone should find this and post the link here. Its a very enlightening read. The mechanics organization forcing their own membership to buy standards. They represent the mechanics. They speak for them. And the organization turns around and hits them in the head so they can generate a slush fund for their headquarters.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Re:Electric code? Building code? (Score:2)
Taxpayers pay legislators' salaries (Score:2)
who pays for all the time and materials required to produce a code?
The same people who pay for all the time and materials required to produce any other piece of legislation. The taxpayers bought the code, and they should have the right to read [gnu.org] and copy it.
I hear there was a federal court decision on this (Score:2)
Somebody put up a web site with the full text of the electrical code (as adopted by a local jurisdiction, which included the whole thing by reference). Code publishing organization sued. Ruling was to the effect of:
- The standards document itself is copyright, but
- The code as adopted (including the expansion of references into the full text itself) was law and as such not subject to
Re:I hear there was a federal court decision on th (Score:2)
Note that this does NOT apply to standards unless they have been first proposed as legislation by the standards organization holding the copyright and then adopted as law by some US jurisdiction.
So if you go publishing your favorite ANSI, IEEE, ITU, or whatever standard without BOTH of those criteria being met you'll be breaking new legal ground. Expect to pay some very expensive lawyers to wield the shovels and picks for you when the standards committee in question comes after you.
Veeck vs. SBCCI decision (Score:2)
about 20 years ago (Score:4, Insightful)
The guy had to look up something about some shady government plot and as he began to dig into the computer banks, he began to notice big holes in history, big holes in time. The computer was deleting records to cover up crimes committed by big shots at the top.
The more he dug in, the more things vaporized.
And being it was the sole repository of knowledge in the universe, well, that was that..
The name of the computer? Yep. You guessed it.
The Beast.
I can not for the life of me remember what that movie was named and I've never seen it again since the early 80's.. Did it self-terminate also??
IMO, I would much rather have printed books in my hand, I can pick up a book and find something in seconds, I can spend endless hours trying to find something on the computer. Besides, reading from a screen is just not a very pleasant experience, compared to a book in hand.
Re:about 20 years ago (Score:2)
You must be the only person on /. who doesn't use google.
But seriously, any large scale document search, particularly done over a large geographical area, has to be electronic.
Electronic documents are more accessible, which can only be good for people who want information about their Government.
Re:about 20 years ago (Score:4, Interesting)
But seriously, any large scale document search, particularly done over a large geographical area, has to be electronic.
Electronic documents are more accessible, which can only be good for people who want information about their Government.
Actually, I do use google, among several search engines.
Yeah, it's out there, if you want to know what Brad Pitt eats for breakfast or Paris Hilton's panties color and size, or the lyrics to the hottest rap song. But, try to find obscure, OLD, non-mainstream information. Good luck to ya..
First off you have to wade through hundreds of bullshit commercial links. I often try to locate service information, articles, reviews, schematics, photos, etc. for antiquated things, electronics and mechanical. Things 10, 20, 30, 50 years old.. Eh eh..
90% of the information that I seek is NOT online. It USED to be in books but it's now too old and we all now that OLD is BAD and NEW is GOOD.
Out with the old and in with the new!
No, really, for example, I have an antique classic Mercedes. I have SOME of the factory service manuals for it. When I got the car some years back I went to the dealship and ordered a set of printed manuals. They cost me a pretty penny. Well, the kid at the service window informed me that there were about 12 manuals in all and that I didn't really need them all.
Already reeling from the shock of the first batch I ordered I trimmed the order down, so that I ended up with only the most critical manuals, engine, chassis, and wiring. Stupid me. At the time, it got me by. Now, I want the HVAC, body and drivetrain/transmission manuals plus some others on the power accessories. Eh eh....
Mercedes no longer prints manuals on paper.
Yeah, I prowl ebay trying to
I can order the manuals on CDROM but I do not want them on CDROM. I can't take a laptop out into my driveway when I'm all greasy, trying to find stuff and can't read it in the sun, worrying about dropping and breaking it, spilling something in it, etc.. That's stupid.
With the book I can drop it, get it dirty, etc. Big deal. And I can hold that book in my hand and flip the pages and find something in a fraction of the time I would spend trying to find it on a computer.
I'm sorry but I don't embrace this new digital revolution with all the enthusiasm as everyone else.
And one last thing. When those books are mine, in my house, on my shelf, no one is going to virus them up and knock them offline. I can read them anytime I like, under MY terms and conditions, not some draconian bullshit DRM communist copyright shit.
Re:about 20 years ago (Score:1)
Re:about 20 years ago (Score:2)
Communism and fascism share the characteristic of having one strong man, or small elite, in
Re:about 20 years ago (Score:2)
Re:about 20 years ago (Score:2)
I can order the manuals on CDROM but I do not want them on CDROM. I can't take a laptop out into my driveway when I'm all greasy, trying to find stuff and can't read it in the sun, worrying about dropping and breaking it, spilling something in it, etc.. That's stupid.
With the book I can drop it, get it dirty, etc. Big deal. And I can hold that book in my hand and flip the pages and find something in a fraction of the time I would spend trying to find it on a computer.
For about $150--which is pocket chan
Re:about 20 years ago (Score:1)
let's not forget that if you have the manual as a CD-ROM, you can do a bitcopy and back it up even if the darn thing uses DRM.
Not necessarily. What happens when the program used to read the manual detects whether the manual is being loaded from a pressed CD-ROM or from a CD-R?
Re:about 20 years ago (Score:2)
You return it back and demand your money back. Small claims court is good for this.
IIRC, US federal law guarantees you the right to make archival copies of every digital thing you purchase.
(And let's not forget the "you shouldnt' make doing the right thing harder than doing the wrong thing" line. Or that telling the medium of the CD-ROM requires a more direct interface
Re:DMCA (Score:2)
No, it doesn't. In fact, while 17 USC 1201 [usdoj.gov] (a)(1)(A) seems to make a bitcopy a crime, (B)-(E) make it clear that (A) is far from absolute.
And even if you never read down to 1201(c)(1)*, 1201(a)(1)(A) uses the verb CIRCUMVENT. A bit-for-bit copy do
Lack of infringement is no defense (Score:2)
And even if you never read down to 1201(c)(1)*, 1201(a)(1)(A) uses the verb CIRCUMVENT. A bit-for-bit copy doesn't circumvent any effective control.
A bit-for-bit copy would not run, as it would still include the code to check whether a pressed CD-ROM is present. In this case you need to apply a no-CD crack. The act of applying the crack is circumvention, and the no-CD crack software is a circumvention device. Circumvention without the consent of the Register of Copyrights is a crime, and making a circum
Re:about 20 years ago (Score:2)
Google can only find what IS online. There have been a number of times when I've wanted some tidbit of information, and you'd be surprised how much ISN'T online.
For example, I wanted to look up the old scandal around $400 screwdrivers. I found some things, but almost all of the references that I could find where MODERN references, many of which were contraditctory (prices varied, the actual items varied, etc). Then I found a lot of political sites
The line items we used to bury 'black' projects (Score:2)
Whoever assigned the line item names screwed up and the quantity/amounts for those line items didn't take into account that cost over runs would leave the line item exposed.
If YOU want to believe it was actually $3,000 for a toilet seat and that our government is run by idiots (well maybe
The
Re:The line items we used to bury 'black' projects (Score:2)
Re:about 20 years ago (Score:2)
LS
Colossus and the Beast. (Score:2)
The original was made into a movie. The sequel wasn't.
Re:about 20 years ago (Score:2)
'The Beast' is actually the invention of Christian fiction writer Joe Musser, who included it in his book Behold a Pale Horse in 1970. In the book a gigantic three-storey computer is located in the administrative headquarters of the then Common Market.
Said machine was supposed to track all world trade through monitoring the buying and selling of every citizen on the planet. The self-programming 'Beast' would use unique digital num
Electronic Dog Poo... (Score:1, Troll)
Well, it is possible that this idea would actually result in a digital collection of documents that were usable, but if it goes the way I've noted too many other digitisation efforts seem to go, then the result will be a stack of PDF documents that are no more than scanned images of pages with no OCR, thus no actual use.
Of course it is possible that some bright spark will come along and run an OCR process over the standard scans that many document scanning systems seem to produce.
Fr
Re:Electronic Dog Poo... (Score:2)
Re:Electronic Dog Poo... (Score:2)
Hmm, I cannot actually believe that I must confess that I didn't actually think of that.
Re:Electronic Dog Poo... (Score:2)
Or, indeed, a volunteer organisation [pgdp.net].
Re:Electronic Dog Poo... (Score:2)
The trouble with pdfs which are encoded images is that frequently the quality of the copy is insufficient to process automatically into a more efficient format. Otherwis
Future Historians (Score:1)
Re:Future Historians (Score:3, Informative)
Army technical manuals (Score:2)
Does the government really have time (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless of course... (Score:2)
Unless of course any of that information would be useful in questioning the current Presidential administration's actions, pointing out where they are wrong, or
Re:Unless of course... (Score:3, Interesting)
Time to buy Adobe Stock (Score:1)
Then ADOBE can start charging for it's reader:
"Aw shucks Martha in order to read our water bill we gotta SUBSCRIBE to ADOBE Reader"
Where's my broker's number? Crap - I let the phone subscription expire.
Nasa research Notes! (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
rm -R / (Score:2)
This would be great.... (Score:1)
Bank notes (Score:2)
Digitized, to be sold back to us... (Score:2)
Digitizing books/magazines at home... (Score:2)
Re:Rewrite history (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Rewrite history (Score:2)
Good luck finding your history when it has been edited by hackers or turned into to recycled pulp. Sigh.
/greger
Re:Rewrite history (Score:2)
Re:Rewrite history (Score:2)
Re:library of congress (Score:3, Funny)
1. didn't get first post, but have to make comment
2. how about dragging out a tired old cliche
3. can't think of a good soviet russia one, and I've already cut and pasted from bash.org twice today... wait.... I know which one to do!!!!11
4. ????
5. Then... as you click "submit"