Category: Uncategorized

In July 2011, a 24-year old online activist was arrested in Boston on a number of charges, including computer hacking and wire fraud, which stemmed from his downloading articles which, under normal circumstances, he would have been entitled to get for free. It isn’t a crime to download entire articles from JSTOR; in fact, many of us have done so in the course of our work as teachers and scholars. Most college/university libraries pay for access to JSTOR so that their users (like teachers and students) are allowed to access the articles for free. But downloading 4.8 million JSTOR articles (and crashing some of its servers in the process) is another story. Or is it?

Who is Aaron Swartz?
Labeled as an “Internet Folk hero” and “hacktivist,” Aaron Swartz is not new to the “internet elite.”¹  As a teenager, he helped to create RSS, “a bit of computer code that allows people to receive automatic feeds of online notices and news.”²  He also founded Demand Progress and helped to launch Creative Commons.

In 2008, he wrote and released a “Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto” which “called for activists to ‘fight back’ against the sequestering of scholarly papers and information behind pay walls.”³  And his penchant for massive downloads (and for inspiring federal investigations) is not new either: in 2009, he downloaded close to 20 million pages of court documents for a project that made them free and available online.

At the time of his arrest, Swartz was a fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.

What’s at Stake?
The US Attorney’s office (via the US District Court of Massachusetts) has charged Aaron Swartz with “wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, and recklessly damaging a protected computer”⁴  charges that carry heavy penalties: up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines. Swartz pleaded “not guilty” to all counts and was released on $100,000 bail. According to the indictment, Swartz broke into a computer wiring closet at MIT and set up a laptop using the name “Gary Host” (which, when shortened for the email address, becomes “ghost”). He then used this fake MIT address to gain free JSTOR access through the school’s network. He would periodically retrieve the laptop, ostensibly to offload the contents, and then replace it in the wiring closet, hiding his face behind a bicycle helmet to conceal his identity.

David Segal, the executive director of ‘Demand Progress’ likens the indictment to “trying to put someone in jail for allegedly checking too many books out of the library.”⁵  Demand Progress set up a petition in support of Swartz (a petition that gained 15,000 signatures in the first few hours) that reinforced Segal’s sentiments: “As best we can tell,” the site reads, “he is being charged with allegedly downloading too many journal articles from the web.”⁶

Lawrence Lessig, a champion in the open access/fair use/commons arena and Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, spoke to the motive of the alleged “crime,” stating that “Aaron has never done anything in this context for personal gain – this isn’t a hacking case, in the sense of someone trying to steal credit cards…That’s something JSTOR saw, and the government obviously didn’t.”⁷  But US attorney Carmen Ortiz offered a much more stark assessment of Swartz’s acts: “Stealing is stealing, whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data, or dollars.  It is equally harmful to the victim whether you sell what you have stolen, or give it away.”⁸

In a statement released by JSTOR , they noted that they are “fully cooperating” with the US Attorney’s Office, but they have “no interest in this becoming an ongoing legal matter.” After securing the content that was taken and receiving confirmation [from Swartz] that “the content was not and would not be used, copied, transferred, or distributed,”  JSTOR  then seems to distance themselves from the criminal investigation, noting that “it was the government’s decision whether to prosecute, not JSTOR’s.” Heidi McGregor, vice president of marketing and communications at JSTOR, emphasized the fact that JSTOR’s main concern was that the information taken “was secure and wasn’t disseminated” and confirmed that none of the downloaded content included any information about particular database users.⁹

Implications for the Open Access Movement
As Aaron Swartz wrote in his manifesto: “It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture…we need to download scientific journals and upload them to file-sharing networks.”¹⁰

But even his friends seem a bit divided on the JSTOR incident. Carl Malamud, “an online activist who worked with Swartz on the court document project,” noted that “the JSTOR incident is very disturbing.”¹¹  Malamud continues: “My style, when I see a gate barring entry and that gate is sanctioned by the law, is to go up to that gate and pound on it hard and force them to open up. Others sometimes look for a back door. I’m not convinced that style is always effective, and it is certainly often dangerous.”¹²

Only days after Swartz’s indictment, however, another programmer posted JSTOR’s archive of historic science journals online via BitTorrent on the Pirate Bay website.¹³  Gregory Maxwell shared over 18,000 papers from The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, a journal that has been around since 1665 (and, as such, is out of copyright and in the public domain) but its contents are still “locked up” by the academic publishing system, in particular JSTOR’s subscription-only database.  In a note posted on the Pirate Bay website, Maxwell explains:

These documents are part of the shared heritage of all mankind and are rightfully in the public domain, but they are not available freely.  Instead the articles are available at $19 each – for one month’s viewing, by one person, on one computer.  It’s a steal.  From you.¹⁴

In an exclusive interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education, Maxwell acknowledged that he was inspired to post the Royal Society files because of the Swartz case:

I’ve had these files for a long time, but I’ve been afraid that if I published them, I would be subject to unjust legal harassment by those who profit from controlling access to these works. I now feel that I’ve been making the wrong decision.¹⁵

The case against Swartz also prompted Maxwell to release the documents “under his real name” so that people would not immediately suspect Swartz as the culprit.¹⁶

JSTOR confirmed that the Royal Society files that Maxwell uploaded were indeed copies of material that JSTOR had digitized.¹⁷  In response to Maxwell’s comments about the price of accessing these materials, JSTOR noted that it is equally important to understand “that there are costs associated with digitizing, preserving, and providing access to content.”¹⁸  The fact that there are costs associated with distribution is one accepted by Maxwell; what he cannot accept “is the position that making a century-old document available costs nearly $20 every single time it is accessed.”¹⁹

In his written statement on the Pirate Bay website, Maxwell deftly identifies what he sees as the root of the access problem:

Academic publishing is an odd system – the authors are not paid for their writing, nor are the peer reviewers (they’re just more unpaid academics), and in some fields even the journal editors are unpaid. Sometimes the authors must even pay the publishers. And yet scientific publications are some of the most outrageously expensive pieces of literature you can buy. In the past, the high access fees supported the costly mechanical reproduction of niche paper journals, but online distribution has mostly made this function obsolete. As far as I can tell, the money paid for access today serves little significant purpose except to perpetuate dead business models. The “publish or perish” pressure in academia gives authors an impossibly weak negotiating position, and the existing system has enormous inertia.²⁰

JSTOR, then, is just a symptom (and a remnant) from what has become a chronic disease: the seeming inability of old business models to adapt to new technology. Indeed, this is at the root of the problem in all areas of the content industry – whether journals or jpegs, medicine or mp3s, books or BitTorrents, the question of access is still being answered by the old models of distribution.

There have been rumors of a settlement in the Swartz case. Many at MIT questioned why the feds were involved in the first place. Christopher Capozzola, associate professor of history and interim dean of the school of humanities, arts, and social sciences at MIT, acknowledged that Swartz’s acts were “clear violations of the rules and protocols of the library and the [MIT] community,” but that the “penalties in this case, and the sources of those penalties are really remarkable…they [the penalties] really go against MIT’s culture of breaking down barriers.”²¹  Richard Stallman – a computer programmer, “free culture” advocate and MIT alum – stated the case even more bluntly, saying that he was “mystified” by the fact that Secret Service agents were brought in when Swartz’s laptop was discovered in the wiring closet: “At best – if they didn’t know what the laptop was doing – it was an overreaction….Surely MIT people can examine a laptop without police help.”²²

But the Swartz case catalyzes the debate about academic publishing, paywalls, and the public domain. As John H. Summers, historian and editor of a journal devoted to cultural criticism, wrote, “What Aaron’s case begs us to remember is that universities are supposed to be public, not-for-profit institutions…they owe a standing moral debt to the public.”²³

The interesting post-script to this story?
Two months after Swartz was indicted, JSTOR announced that users anywhere in the world would now have free access to JSTOR’s Early Journal Content – scholarly articles published prior to 1923 in the US and prior to 1870 elsewhere. In the announcement, Laura Brown, JSTOR’s managing director, “said the move was not prompted by a much-publicized incident this year involving Aaron Swartz, a hacktivist charged with violations related to making unauthorized downloads of millions of JSTOR files.”²⁴

¹  John Schwartz. “Open Access Advocate is Arrested for Huge Download.” New York Times online.  July 19, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/us/20compute.html
²  Qtd in Schwartz.
³  Ibid.
⁴  Jie Jenny Zou.  “Programmer is Charged with Hacking into Journal Database.”  The Chronicle of Higher Education.  July 19, 2011.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/programmer-is-charged-with-hacking-into-journal-database/32316
⁵  Qtd in Schwartz.
⁶  Qtd. In Zou.
⁷  Qtd. In Schwartz.
⁸  Qtd. In Schwartz.
⁹  Qtd. In Zou.
¹⁰ Qtd. In Schwartz.
¹¹ Qtd. In Schwartz.
¹² Qtd. In Schwartz.
¹³ Jennifer Howard.  “User Posts Thousands of JSTOR Files Online.”  The Chronicle of Higher Education.  July 21, 2011.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/user-posts-thousands-of-jstor-files-online/32378
¹⁴  Qtd. In Howard.
¹⁵ Qtd. In Howard.
¹⁶ Janko Roettgers.  “Thousands of Scientific Papers Uploaded to the Pirate Bay.”  Gigaom.  July 21, 2011.  http://gigaom.com/2011/07/21/pirate-bay-jstor/
¹⁷ See Howard.
¹⁸ Qtd. In Howard.
¹⁹ Qtd. In Howard.
²⁰ Qtd. In Roettgers.
²¹ David Glenn.  “Rogue Downloader’s Arrest Could Mark Crossroads for Open-Access Movement.”  The Chronicle of Higher Education.  July 31, 2011.  http://chronicle.com/article/Rogue-Downloaders-Arrest/128439/
²² Qtd. In Glenn.
²³ Qtd. In Glenn.
²⁴ Jennifer Howard.  “JSTOR Opens Up US Journal Content From Before 1923.”  The Chronicle of Higher Education.  September 7, 2011.  http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/jstor-opens-up-u-s-journal-content-from-before-1923/33057

Submitted by
Traci Zimmerman
Associate Professor
School of Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication
James Madison University

 

Intellectual Property Reports Main Page

A federal court decision handed down on May 11, 2012, may have an impact on what instructors can provide their students in the form of electronic reserves. The case is formally known as Cambridge University Press et al v. Patton et al. The plaintiffs, in addition to Cambridge University Press, were Oxford University Press and Sage Publications, and they were supported by the three-hundred member Association of American Publishers and the Copyright Clearance Center, which describes itself as “rights licensing experts” and “global rights broker for the world’s most sought after materials.” The respondents to the suit were representatives of Georgia State University, and the complaint was that faculty at Georgia State had—in number, length, and frequency—systematically exceeded the bounds of fair use in depositing readings in the e-reserves maintained by GSU’s library system. The judge in the case, however, found infringement of fair use in only five of the ninety-nine instances of misuse alleged by the plaintiffs. The 350-page decision not only cleared Georgia State of most of the charges of infringement but also outlined criteria for determining fair use that seem, on balance, favorable toward depositing copyrighted material in e-reserves for educational purposes. For example, it may be allowable to place on reserve up to ten percent of a text, or, alternately, up to one chapter of a book. It may also be permissible to place material on electronic reserve for more than one semester in a row.

The ninety-nine charges of infringement were whittled down to five in a three-stage process. First, the judge ruled that in some instances the publishers had failed to demonstrate that they owned the copyrights to the material in question. Second, in the legal equivalent to the no-harm, no-foul rule, the judge determined that the publishers were not injured if no students had in fact accessed material that had been placed on reserve. The judge then applied the four-pronged fair use test to the remaining instances of alleged infringement. The fact that the reserves were being used for an educational (1) purpose and that the (2) nature of the material was informative led the judge to conclude that the e-reserves were not infringing in those regards. In terms of (3) amount and substantiality of the resource posted, the judge favored the ten percent or one chapter approach mentioned above (ten percent for books consisting of nine or fewer chapters; one chapter for resources of ten or more chapters). For the fourth factor, whether placing a resource on e-reserve would have a negative (4) impact on sales, the decision went in favor of Georgia State whenever a digital version of the resource was not available for licensing. As one commenter observed, “no digital license meant an instant win for Georgia State.”

The full text of the Georgia State University e-reserve decision is available here:

Cambridge University Press et al v. Patton et al. Justia.com. Justia, 11 May 2012. Web. 15 May 2012.

Analyses of the decision and its implications, as well as a response from the Association of American Publishers (which includes links to statements from the three publishers who were parties to the suit) are available at the sites listed below:

Butler, Brandon C. “Issue Brief: GSU Fair Use Decision Recap and Implications.” Arl.org. Association of Research Libraries, 15 May 2012. Web. 15 May 2012.

Grimmelmann, James. “Inside the Georgia State Opinion.” Laboratorium.net. The Laboratorium, 13 May 2012. Web. 13 May 2012.

Howard, Jennifer. “Long-Awaited Ruling in Copyright Case Mostly Favors Georgia State U.” Chronicle.com. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 May 2012. Web. 13 May 2012.

Howard, Jennifer. “Publishers and Georgia State See Broad Implications in Copyright Ruling.” Chronicle.com. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 14 May 2012. Web. 14 May 2012.

Jaschik, Scott. “Some Leeway, Some Limits.” Insidehighered.com. Inside Higher Ed. 14 May 2012. Web. 14 May 2012.

Kolowich, Steve. “E-Reservations.” Insidehighereducation.com. Inside Higher Education. 15 May 2012. Web. 15 May 2012.

Smith, Kevin. “The GSU Decision—Not and Easy Road for Anyone.” Blogs.library.duke.edu. Scholarly Communications @ Duke, 12 May, 2012. Web. 12 May 2012.

Sporkin, Andi. “AAP Statement of on Georgia State University Lawsuit Ruling.” Publishers.org. Association of American Publishers, 14 May 2012. Web. 15 May 2012.

This column is sponsored by the Intellectual Property Committee of the CCCC and the by CCCC-Intellectual Property Caucus. The IP Caucus maintains a mailing list. If you would like to receive notices of programs sponsored by the Caucus or of opportunities to submit articles either to this column or to the annual report on intellectual property issues, please contact kgainer@radford.edu.

 

Intellectual Property Reports Main Page

The beginning of the new calendar year always gives us a moment to reflect on the importance of the public domain. January 1 is “Public Domain Day.” The public domain in the United States includes texts and materials that are “out of copyright”; that is, they have no copyright protection. The joy of the public domain is that unlike “fair use” or permissions-based or licensed-based use like that detailed on the Creative Commons website, public domain texts can be used in any way we wish: teaching, writing, remixing, reporting, designing, transforming – even for commercial purposes.

A number of international websites remind us of the public domain each year by listing works that are newly out of copyright. For example, publicdomainday.org reminds us work from authors such as Walter Benjamin, John Buchan, Mikhail Bulgakov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Emma Goldman, Paul Klee, Selma Lagerlof, Leon Trotsky, Vito Volterra, and Nathanael West  entered the public domain on January 1, 2011, if you live in Europe (See http://publicdomainday.org/node/37/). 

Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain importantly points out that for those of us in the US, “Not a single published work is entering the public domain this year. Or next year. Or the year after. Or the year after that. In fact, in the United States, no publication will enter the public domain until 2019.” That’s because copyright protection for published works in the US now extends in most cases to the life of the author plus 70 years (For works created in 1978 or later, the term is life plus 70 years unless the work is for hire or anonymous/pseudonymous. In the later case, the term is “95 years from the date of publication or 120 years from the date of creation whichever ends first” [Fishman, p. 336]). There is currently no requirement for a work to contain a notice or to be renewed in order for the work to be fully protected for the full length permitted by law.

As a general rule, texts published before 1923 are now in the US public domain. Works published first between 1923 and 1963 whose copyrights have not been renewed, as the old law required, are also in the US public domain. Unpublished works whose authors have been dead more than 70 years are in the US public domain, and “any work published outside the United States before January 1, 1923 had its U.S. copyright expire if it contained a copyright notice when it was published” (Fishman, 2010, p. 335). While seemingly simple, these rules can be very complex – and an added complexity is the research often required to learn when a work was actually “published,” when the author died, and if relevant, whether it contained a copyright notice. So while legal experts theorize as much as 85% of all work first published in the US between 1922 and 1963 is now in the public domain (Fishman, p. 5), researching and finding any certainty in that with respect to a particular work may be impossible. Much research though can be done on the US Copyright Office’s website.

An excellent resource outlining basics of the public domain is The Public Domain: How to Find & Use Copyright-Free Writing, Music, Art & More by Stephen Fishman (2010). The book is kind of a “how-to” book on the public domain for general audiences, but is a great resource for teachers as well. The book lists an “infinitesimal fraction” (pp. 40-41) of all written works currently in the public domain – works such as those by Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, Lewis Carroll, Joseph Conrad, Mary Shelley, Edith Wharton, and many more. Any of the listed works can be used in any way we wish – to create derivative works such as a screen play or other adaptation. As Fishman points out, “getting permission to create a screenplay from a novel by Stephen King, Michael Crichton . . . may cost millions of dollars” (p. 40), but to use works already in the public domain costs nothing.

A number of resources also provide information on music that is in the public domain – this is becoming more important as we increasingly teach remix writing which often involves the use of audio as well as text and visual. Some sources where public domain music can be found are:

Free Sheet Music Directory
http://www.free-scores.com/index_uk.php3

Public Domain Information Project
http://www.pdinfo.com/

The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music
http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/

While the public domain holds many possibilities for creation and invention, there are of course some important caveats to remember:

1. Public Domain works do not automatically guarantee you access. The owner of the work can limit or restrict how you can use the work – museums for example sometimes prohibit picture taking of paintings that are nonetheless in the public domain. As owner of the work the museum can condition your right to view the work on your agreement not to take pictures.
2. Only the original public domain work is actually freely available for use. Derivations, adaptations, and annotated versions already in existence may be copyrighted as to any new materials.
3. Rules for the public domain are dependent on the country. Different countries have different lengths of protection and other rules regarding when works go into the public domain.
4. Other laws might create liabilities when using public domain materials: laws such as trademark, patent, or right to publicity.

The public domain is an important tool we can use as writing teachers in order to help our students create without worrying about copyright law, and it’s also a place where we ourselves can find useful resources. So, in all of our focus on using under fair use or using licensed work like that provided through Creative Commons, it’s also important to remember, use, and celebrate the public domain!

Respectfully Submitted 21 Jan. 2011,

Martine Courant Rife, JD, PhD
Junior Chair, CCCC IP Caucus
Lansing Community College
Lansing, Michigan
martinerife@gmail.com

Intellectual Property Reports Main Page

Martine Courant Rife
Lansing Community College
rifem@email.lcc.edu

Use rights for educators have been expanded in the latest Tri-Annual Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Rulemaking Hearings. Numerous educators participated in the last round of hearings, including members of NCTE and the CCCC IP Caucus.

Exemptions from the anti-circumvention prohibition of section 1201 of the DMCA now include (from page 65266, Federal Register, Vol. 77, No. 208, Friday, October 26, 2012):

Motion Picture Excerpts—Commentary, Criticism, and Educational Uses

Motion pictures, as defined in 17 U.S.C. 101, on DVDs that are lawfully made and acquired and that are protected by the Content Scrambling System, where the person engaging in circumvention believes and has reasonable grounds for believing that circumvention is necessary because reasonably available alternatives, such as non-circumventing methods or using screen capture software as provided for in alternative exemptions, are not able to produce the level of high-quality content required to achieve the desired criticism or comment on such motion pictures, and where circumvention is undertaken solely in order to make use of short portions of the motion pictures for the purpose of criticism or comment in the following instances:

(i) in noncommercial videos;
(ii) in documentary films;
(iii) in nonfiction multimedia ebooks offering film analysis; and
(iv) for educational purposes in film studies or other courses requiring close analysis of film and media excerpts, by college and university faculty, college and university students, and kindergarten through twelfth grade educators.

For purposes of this exemption, ‘‘noncommercial videos’’ includes videos created pursuant to a paid commission, provided that the commissioning entity’s use is noncommercial.

The new exemptions also provide exemption for “motion pictures” that are “lawfully made and acquired via online distribution services” (see http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2012/77fr65260.pdf).

As noted in the recommendation, “exemptions do not apply to the use of motion picture excerpts [for use] in fictional films, as the Register was unable to conclude on the record presented that such use is noninfringing” (http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2012/77fr65260.pdf).

A limitation in the exemptions is that if a less intrusive means of obtaining a movie clip can be used, such as using screen capture technology rather than circumventing encryption codes, then the less intrusive means should be used. If a lower quality clip is satisfactory for a given educational purpose (to illustrate a historical event for example), and that lower quality clip can be obtained through screen capture, then screen capture should be used. But if the purpose of the educational use requires a high quality image – to show emotions or issues with lighting for example, then it is acceptable to circumvent technological protections.

The prior exemptions from 2010 (see http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2006/index.html) were more limited for educators, as in that case only motion pictures on DVDs were covered, and only “educational uses by college and university professors and by college and university film and media studies students.” The 2012 exemptions are expanded to cover motion pictures in other forms than DVD and “acquired via online distribution services.” The 2012 exemptions further have been expanded to include “college and university students [generally], and kindergarten through twelfth grade educators.”

The tri-annual rulemaking hearings continue to be one bright light in the copyright horizon for educational use.

For information in general on the DMCA hearings, or to review the 2012 final recommendation, testimony, and responses, please visit http://www.copyright.gov/1201/.

Intellectual Property Reports Main Page

Timothy R. Amidon, Graduate Assistant, University of Rhode Island

Increasingly, those with access to electronic tools use them to perform mundane tasks in both public and private spheres: searching for information, clicking within databases on websites, inputting numbers and words into networked computing devices. They also take breaks to use social networking sites to connect and catch up with friends and acquaintances. Never before in human history have we been so networked. Yet how often do people stop and reflect about these practices? How successful have attempts within the field of rhetoric/composition been at raising technology users’ awareness of the types of tacit arrangements upon which these types of technologies are founded? 

One such arrangement is the way in which people who use technologies—those who add value to these tools—often fail to be recognized for what they contribute. More specifically, as Bruce Sterling and Scott Klinker have argued ‘end users’ add value to technologies because they co-compose patterns (think massive data-sets) that tell designers how people use technology as well as what motivates those uses (e.g. business, political, and social goals). One benefit is that technology users often enjoy smarter, more efficient technologies. Yet there may be downsides to the tacit assumption that technology designers should be given all the credit for the creation of technologies. It is a matter of perspective—a difference between tool and tool in use.

It goes without saying that users of technologies must become more cognizant of economies of digital interface. Generally speaking, it is commonplace now to hear conversations about privacy in relation to these economies, but privacy is just a piece of the greater puzzle. For example, why haven’t we had more conversations about what levels of ownership of digital fingerprints technology users should have? Why are users unconcerned that the tacit arrangement currently assigns authorship, ownership, and access rights to information about how users do things with tools not to users themselves but to the designers of the tools? Again, it is a matter of perspective—a difference between tool and tool in use. When people use electronic tools they create information that is a byproduct of that use, as the following two examples illustrate.

The first example: A moment ago, I decided to update my Facebook status to inform my friends that I was writing a piece on copyright, spimes, and metatext for the NCTE Inbox (see Johndan Johnson-Eilola’s chapter in Stuart Selber’s Rhetorics and Technologies for a more thorough look at how spimes and metatext relate to composing in a digital age). I hit a couple of keys. I pushed the share button with my mouse, and subsequently the marketing algorithms suggested that I like “copyright” and “law.” I created value: Facebook now knows a little bit more about me as an individual, and that information might be used for a wide variety of purposes.

The second example: While searching for Johndan Johnson-Eilola’s Datacloud in Amazon, the database suggested—based on the information I had input—that I may also wish to buy Henry Jenkins’ Convergence Culture. Again, I created value. I have created value (with others like me who use the site)—by supplying information (because I cannot opt out, even if I wanted to) about my purchasing habits to the database that is Amazon. Taken with the data collected from others, it essentially allows Amazon to make ntuitive suggestions; it is also (at least partially) a reason why Amazon is a technology we tend to rely on to satiate our needs and desires in a consumer culture.

These are two of literally hundreds of ways that information about how we do things with electronic tools is collected on a daily basis. Moreover, these are two uses that are relatively harmless—I think. The fact that I didn’t ‘like’ copyright or the law—after Facebook suggested I do so—may say a great deal about me as an individual. The bigger point, though, is that when we start making these clicks as large collections of people, as a society of technology users, we essentially allow the designers of technologies to construct and assemble vast data-sets. What we actually do is construct—with tool providers—a digital habitus (Bordieu). In other words, we allow these technologies to conduct research on us and we don’t even ask to see what that data says. What does this phenomenon suggest, then, about how informed consent functions with regards to technology use?

Beyond the issue of informed consent, what about the question of who has access to, and thus de-facto ownership and stewardship of, the vast sea of information, the giant data-sets that are created within the electronically networked, socially-constructed, environments? In short, why haven’t we conceived of meta-text and spimes as intellectual property?

Selected List of Works Cited

Bordieu, Pierre. Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998. Print.

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan. “Among Texts.” Rhetorics and Technologies: New Directions in  Writing and Communication. Ed. Stuart A. Selber. U of Southern Carolina P, 2011. 33-
55. Print.

This article will be continued in next month’s IP Report.

This column is sponsored by the Intellectual Property Committee of the CCCC and the CCCC-Intellectual Property Caucus. The IP Caucus maintains a mailing list. If you would like to receive notices of programs sponsored by the Caucus or of opportunities to submit articles to either this column or to an annual report on intellectual property issues, please contact kgainer@radford.edu.

Intellectual Property Reports Main Page

Entire Convention Program

 (Note: this is a large PDF file and may take several minutes to open)

Program by section

• Calendar 
• Individual CCCC Program 
• Contents 
• CCCC Officers 
• Greetings from the Program Chair 
• Information for Newcomers 
• Local Arrangements 
• General Information, Special Events, Award Winners, Sessions Presented by Two Year College Faculty Committee Meetings, Topic Index to Sessions 
• Preconvention Activities 
• Wednesday 
• Thursday 
• Friday 
• Saturday 
• Past Chairs, Exhibitors, Maps 
• Index

Entire Convention Program

(Note: this is a large PDF file and make take several minutes to open.)

Program by Section

• Calendar, Individual Program
• Table of Contents, CCCC Officers
• Greetings from the Program Chair, Acknowledgements
• Information for Newcomers
• Local Arrangements, About the Convention/a
• General Information, Special Events
• Award Winners, Sessions Presented by Two Year College Faculty, Committee Meetings
• Index of Concurrent Sessions
• Wednesday
• Thursday
• Friday
• Saturday
• Past CCCC Chairs
• Exhibit Hall
• Maps
• Advertisers
• Index of Participants
• Sponsors

For your reference, programs are currently available online from these past CCCC Annual Conventions:

 

2023 Program

2022 Program

2021 Program

2020 Program

2019 Program

2018 Program

2017 Program

2016 Program

2015 Program

2014 Program

2013 Program

2012 Program

2011 Program

2010 Program

2009 Program

2008 Program

2007 Program

2006 Program

2005 Program

2005 Reviews

2004 Program

2004 Reviews

2003 Reviews

 

Writing assessment can be used for a variety of purposes, both inside the classroom and outside: supporting student learning, assigning a grade, placing students in appropriate courses, allowing them to exit a course or sequence of courses, certifying proficiency, and evaluating programs. Given the high-stakes nature of many of these assessment purposes, it is crucial that assessment practices be guided by sound principles that are fair and just and specific to the people for whom and the context and purposes for which they are designed. This position statement aims to provide that guidance for writing teachers and administrators across institutional types and missions. 

We encourage faculty, administrators, students, community members, and other stakeholders to reflect on the ways the principles, considerations, and practices articulated in this document are present in their current assessment methods and to consider revising and rethinking their practices to ensure that inclusion and language diversity, teaching and learning, and ethical labor practices inform every level of writing assessment.  

Read the full statement, Writing Assessment: A Position Statement (November 2006, revised March 2009, reaffirmed November 2014, revised April 2022)

CCCC Position Statements are statements on educational issues approved by the Conference on College Composition and Communication Executive Committee.  Please click on any of the titles below to view the summary and/or full statement.

The Process by which CCCC Position Statements are Created

CCCC Position Statement Guidelines

Not finding the information you need?  Click here to research the complete database of NCTE position statements.

Statements on Teaching and Learning in Postsecondary Language and Literacy Classrooms

Disability Studies in Composition: Position Statement on Policy and Best Practices [March 2020 (replaces A Policy on Disability in CCCC, November 2006, Reaffirmed April 2011)]
summary   —   full statement

Electronic Portfolios: Principles and Practices (November 2007, Revised March 2015)
summary   —   full statement

Joint Position Statement on Dual Enrollment in Composition [November 2019 (replaces the November 2012 CCCC “Statement Dual Credit/Concurrent Enrollment Composition: Policy and Best Practices”)]
full statement

Position Statement on the Role of Reading in College Writing Classrooms (March 2021)
full statement

Position Statement on Undergraduate Research in Writing: Principles and Best Practices (March 2017)
full statement   —   Bibliography of Resources Supporting UR in Rhetoric and Writing Studies (October 2018, pdf)

Statement on Globalization in Writing Studies Pedagogy and Research (November 2017)
full statement

Student Veterans in the College Composition Classroom: Realizing Their Strengths and Assessing Their Needs (March 2015, references and further reading updated November 2022)
summary   —   full statement

Writing Assessment Principles (November 2006, revised March 2009, reaffirmed November 2014, revised April 2022)
summary   —   full statement

Statements on Social and Linguistic Justice and Antiracist Pedagogies

Black Technical and Professional Communication Position Statement with Resource Guide (September 2020)
full statement

Ebonics Training and Research (May 1998, revised May 2016, revised June 2021)
summary   —   full statement

National Language Policy (March 1988, updated 1992, revised March 2015)
summary   —   full statement

Students’ Right to Their Own Language–with bibliography (April 1974, reaffirmed November 2003, annotated bibliography added August 2006, reaffirmed November 2014)
summary   —   full statement

Position Statement on Citation Justice in Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Studies (November 2022)
full statement

Statement on Language, Power, and Action (November 2022)
full statement

Statement on Second Language Writing and Multilingual Writers –with bibliography (January 2001, revised November 2009, reaffirmed November 2014, revised May 2020)
full statement

Statement on Support for Gender Diversity/Trans, Two-Spirit, and Nonbinary Students, Staff, and Faculty (February 2023)
full statement

Statement on White Language Supremacy (June 2021)
full statement

This Ain’t Another Statement! This is a DEMAND for Black Linguistic Justice! (July 2020)
full statement

Professional Standards and Resources: Research

Ethical Conduct of Research in Composition Studies (November 2003, revised March 2015)
summary   —   full statement

Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Human Participants: A Bibliography (November 2003, revised March 2015)
summary   —   full bibliography

Position Statement on Undergraduate Research in Writing: Principles and Best Practices (March 2017)
full statement   —   Bibliography of Resources Supporting UR in Rhetoric and Writing Studies (October 2018, pdf)

Statement on Editorial Ethics (April 2023)
full statement

The Range of Scholarship in Composition:  A Description for Department Chairs and Deans (1987)
summary   —   full statement

Professional Standards and Resources: Teaching and Learning

Preparing Teachers of College Writing [November 2015 (replaces the 1982 CCCC “Position Statement on the Preparation and Professional Development of Teachers of Writing”)]
summary   —   full statement

Principles for the Postsecondary Teaching of Writing (October 1989, Revised November 2013, Revised March 2015)
executive summary   —   full statement

Professional Standards and Resources: Working Conditions

Best Practices in Faculty Hiring for Tenure-Track and Non-Tenure-Track Positions in Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies (April 2016)
full statement

Position Statement on CCCC Standards for Ethical Conduct Regarding Sexual Violence, Sexual Harassment, and Workplace Bullying (November 2016; Revised March 2020)
full statement

Promotion and Tenure Guidelines for Work with Technology (November 1998, Revised November 2015)
summary   —   full statement

Statement of Professional Guidance for Mentoring Graduate Students (November 2019)
full statement

Statement of Professional Guidance for New Faculty Members (1987, Revised November 2015, Revised November 2022)
summary   —   full statement

Statement on Community-Engaged Projects in Rhetoric and Composition [April 2016 (replaces the CCCC Position Statement on Faculty Work in Community-Based Settings, November 2014)]
full statement

Statement on Effective Institutional Responses to Threats of Violence and Violent Acts Against Minoritized and Marginalized Faculty and Graduate Students (November 2019)
full statement

Working Conditions for Non-Tenure-Track Writing Faculty (April 2016)
full statement

Statements on Current Issues

CCCC Statement in Response to Proposed Cuts at WVU and Academic Austerity in Higher Education (September 2023)
full statement

CCCC Ukraine Statement of Support (April 2023)
full statement

CCCC Statement against War Crimes (June 2022)
full statement

CCCC Statement on Recent Violent Crimes against Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders (March 2021)
full statement

CCCC Statement on Violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 (January 2021)
full statement

CCCC and CWPA Joint Statement in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic (June 2020)
full statement