Thoughts on Privacy & Piracy

THOUGHTS ON PIRACY -- Even without popcorn, the talk by Elizabeth Stark was quite enjoyable. She was able to make a somewhat, dare I say? ... boring topic, interesting.  It remains a confusing subject though, at least for me, and the digital realm has only made it more complex. Elizabeth’s comment that "the norms are out of touch with the law" is a reflection that “the law” is having a difficult time keeping up with the changes taking place because of technology.  I took 7 pages of notes and really can’t get my head around the concept of copyright in the digital arena.  After experiencing the speed with which one jumps from place to place on these social media  sites…the number of places one can go in a matter of minutes…I am not sure how copyright can easily be attributed or claimed unless one is talking about a “significant” piece of work. The concepts of Fair Use and Creative Commons give latitude, but who monitors this? The court case around the Obama poster is … I can’t even find a word to describe it. I work in human resources and every day live on the edge of legal interpretation. Couldn’t help but draw some analogies while watching this video.

THOUGHTS ON PRIVACY – Another confusing topic . By the time I got to page 4 of this article I was writing notes in the column “This is a vicious circle!” Fernandez has a valid point about the need for librarians to be concerned about the patrons’ personal information being accessible to social media sites through the SM sites of the library. When he originally mentioned that some libraries give access to their catalog through Facebook, I thought it sounded like a good idea. Not so much by the time I finished the article. Found this applicable post on the LibraryLaw Blog: http://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/privacy/

All these shades of gray….