What lurks beneath the Network

There is a series of buzzwords that have become a naturalised part of discussions around digital social media—participation, collaboration, peer-2-peer, mobilisation and so on. Especially in the post Arab Spring world (and our own home-grown Anna Hazare spectacles), there is this increasing belief in the innate possibilities of social media as providing ways by which the world as we know it shall change for the better.

Information cannot be leashed

Recently, the Harvard University Faculty Advisory Council urged Harvard faculty to consider not submitting their work for publication in subscription-based journals. It cited prohibitive costs of subscription as the reason. Given that faculty submit most of their work to the journals for free, the Harvard library advised the faculty to submit their articles to open access journals instead.

The online answer to publishing industry tyranny

In mid-February this year, a new disease gripped me and many like me. We kept clicking on and refreshing a much used web link; pored over chat rooms, blogs and social networking sites sharing symptoms, discussing cures and hoping for a miracle. Library.nu had gone dead. Funerals tend to bring together people hitherto unknown to each other, and a large community discovered itself in this grief.

Google, Facebook officials exempted from personal appearance in trial court

The Delhi High Court on Thursday refused to stay trial proceedings against Google and Facebook, battling charges of objectionable content on their websites in India. The high court is hearing an appeal by the two web giants against criminal proceedings initiated by a trial court in December on a private complaint. The bench, however, granted temporary relief to Google and Facebook officials by exempting them from appearing in person on the next date of hearing in the trial court on March 13, and said they could be represented by their lawyers.

Blacked out & hacked

Suddenly, the cyber world knows SOPA, or at least something about it. SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act, the latest initiative by the US to stop theft of intellectual property rights (IPRs), primarily the illegal downloading of music, films and games. SOPA is in the House of Representatives, and it has an equally evil twin in the Senate, PIPA or Protection of IP Act.