CAA News Today

Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Parody Copyright Laws Set to Come into Effect

Changes to legislation in the United Kingdom allowing the parody of copyright works are set to come into force. Under current rules, there has been a risk of being sued for breach of copyright if clips of films, TV shows, or songs were used without consent. But the new European Copyright Directive will allow the use of the material so long as it is fair and does not compete with the original version. (Read more from BBC News.)

How the UK’s New Copyright Law Benefits Libraries, Archives, and Museums

A suite of new copyright exceptions in the United Kingdom’s legislative framework will mean that infringements, such as format shifting for personal use of legitimately bought or gifted works, will be legitimized, and as a result, bad and impossible to police laws will finally be removed from the statute books. But the other beneficiaries of these important and in some cases, sweeping changes, will be libraries, archives, educational establishments, and museums. (Read more from the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.)

Authors Guild vs. Google: Fair Use or Foul Play?

Google has digitized millions of books for its Google Books Library Project, a database that allows a user to search the content of all books that have been scanned into it. The Authors Guild maintains that the project constitutes mass copyright infringement, because Google did not obtain licenses from the rights holders for millions of the books. When the Authors Guild sued Google in the Southern District of New York for copyright infringement, Google prevailed via fair use. The Authors Guild has appealed the ruling to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where the case is pending and being briefed. The entertainment attorney Mark Robertson discussed the case with Jay Dougherty of Loyola Law School Los Angeles, where he is a professor of law. (Read more from the Los Angeles Review of Books.)

Inquiry: Art Law and Attribution

The quest for compensation and probing legal investigations into how alleged Knoedler Gallery fraud could have happened has exposed the processes behind art sales, forcing the thorny issue of what should be the reasonable and reasoned business of authentication and attribution into the spotlight. However, recent years have seen many expert sources become increasingly wary of assisting in authentication processes, something that can be equated directly with the pressure of market value and the difficulties inherent in the process. (Read more from Apollo.)

JSTOR, Daily

Much of the world’s knowledge is contained in JSTOR, a vast digital academic library. But most of that content is behind a subscription wall. And if you’re not looking for something specific—or even if you are—attempting to take in all that knowledge can be an overwhelming experience. Wanting to make JSTOR’s content more digestible and to engage a different kind of audience, the library has launched a new online magazine, JSTOR Daily. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)

For Adjuncts, a Lot Is Riding on Student Evaluations

In February 2012, Miranda Merklein received the email that many adjunct professors dread. “I am sorry to inform you that we cannot extend an employment offer to you at this time,” wrote a department chair at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, where Merklein had been teaching English and writing courses as an adjunct. “A review of your course evaluations, coupled with concerns filed by students and other contributing faculty, resulted in the decision to remove your application from the liberal arts adjunct pool.” At first, Merklein recalled, she was shocked. Then she got angry. (Read more from Vitae.)

An Open Letter to Journal Editors

I write to you today about the graduate-student submissions you receive. Most of you publish a lot of them. That’s because today’s students do first-rate work. Nonetheless, I’ve got an idea for you: What if you stopped publishing articles by doctoral students until they graduated? (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

What Is the Fair Market Value of a Museum Job?

Last week’s post on “The Museum Sacrifice Measure” generated much discussion on Twitter and Facebook and in the Center for the Future of Museum blog’s comment section. A number of commenters point out that various categories of people, in museums or other sectors, have “sacrificed” income for their chosen career but are quite pleased with the trade. (Read more from the Center for the Future of Museums.)