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Greetings!
I was thinking about the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office after recent headlines in the news. Although I have never met Dr. Carla Hayden, I respect and support her work in the most valuable library in the world - the Library of Congress.
One of the issues that I saw was the removal of the head of the Copyright Office for the United States. Recently their department wrote a brief critical of fair use and AI models. Well, did you know that Facebook currently has an active lawsuit for using pirated books to create their AI model? They are claiming this is "fair use" so this has meant that no authors or artists were compensated for their works. More information on the ongoing lawsuit is at Wired, or you can search other news sources for the article. I find this fascinating, as the "fair use" of these books is different than the case that Internet Archive lost. In the case of the Internet Archive, items that were no longer in print were digitized and objects were then checked out by a digital library. One item scanned equaled one item borrowed at a time. The Internet Archive lost the case on "fair use" as they did not have explicit consent from the publishers. Facebook used the shadow library Library Genesis (LibraryGen) to pirate millions of creative works without consent, and with the intent to make new content based on the works of others.
Why is this important and what does this mean for our literary and royalty future? With 7.5 million books and 80+ million research papers scanned without consent to create an AI tool by a for-profit corporation, the artists who created content do not benefit. Arts, education, music, and culture are continually celebrated for their contributions - yet they are not always compensated. Large tech corporations are supporting the fair use of AI, as their control over the creative works of artists will substantially support their bottom lines and ability to allow users to expand their use of AI. But this begs the question for me: "how are the artists, educators, musicians, and others financially compensated for the work they have contributed to the AI models which will be controlled by others?" Will people be financially sustainable as artists or writers in the future if their work is stolen or copied by AI? Time will tell and the next head of the Copyright Office may help steer this issue...
On the Library of Congress (LOC) - one of the issues that I found fascinating and a bit absurd is the focus on the Library providing DEI books. Guess what? If you look at just about book that a publisher sells, it has a Library of Congress Control Number record in the inside page. That book helps identify it as a unique work. The Library of Congress is the largest holder of books in the United States, as items are there from publishers who send items that they want to sell to libraries or privately through online or physical distribution. So having DEI books also means that publishers and private authors have paid to have their Library of Congress Control Number added and protected by copyright. With access to millions of books and files, the LOC is one of the most important resources for preserving and sharing our collective stories. Note that the appointed Librarian also has access to the Congressional Research Service, a confidential record of all of the legislative research requests for Congress from the past 50 years.
These positions are being hotly contested in Washington D.C. right now! Stay tuned as these issues have the potential to impact how information is shared, how authors are published, and how contributors are adequately compensated for their work in creating culture.
Warmly~
Brian
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