(11 Jan 2021) Austria Labor Minister Christine Aschbacher has resigned amidst a plagiarism scandal that accuses her of plagiarizing two separate theses that she submitted as part of her academic career. According to allegations first levied by blogger Stefan Weber, Aschbacher has committed plagiarism and academic fraud in two theses. The first, a 2006 master’s thesis that was…
(1 Jan 2021) From Taipei Times: The government should create a public database to house academic theses and dissertations, lawmakers and academics said on Wednesday, after private database host Airiti (華藝) was last month accused of changing papers to conform to Chinese censorship rules. “Taiwan is already 20 years late; we cannot delay…
(26 Dec 2020) Sections of India’s science community have asked the Centre to oppose a petition by three international academic publishers in Delhi High Court seeking a ban on two alleged pirate websites that offer free access to academic research. Over 2,000 teachers, scholars and students from institutions across India in a statement released…
(26 Dec 2020) Three academic publishers are asking for blocking of Sci-Hub and Libgen in India, two websites who provide free downloads of research publications and books to research scholars and students. The three—Elsevier Ltd., Wiley India Pvt. Ltd., American Chemical Society—have filed a petition in Delhi High Court, which is now scheduled to be…
(7 Nov 2020) News from Japan: The Agency for Cultural Affairs is considering Copyright Law revisions to allow libraries to send digital versions of books directly to readers’ computers or smartphones, triggering fears among publishing houses of copyright infringement and a flood of pirated works. One proposal is to weaken the control copyright…
(24 Sept 2020) The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) today launched WIPO Lex-Judgments, a new database providing free-of-charge access to leading judicial decisions related to IP law from around the world. As technological innovation often outpaces the ability of legislatures and governments to create new rules and regulations, courts across the world are increasingly…
(30 Sept 2020) SPARC Europe is releasing an anticipated new report: Open Access: An Analysis of Publisher Copyright and Licensing Policies in Europe, 2020. This analysis, which presents the results of a research study that was completed in the summer of 2020, explores copyright and licensing practices amongst prominent journal publishers and OA publishers in DOAJ in Europe. …
Saying that the Internet Archive operates ‘the digital equivalent of traditional library lending,’ the nonprofit responds to four publishers’ test of ‘Controlled Digital Lending. (29 Jul 2020) Following the June 1 filing of a copyright infringement lawsuit by four publisher-members of the Association of American Publishers—including three of the Big Five—the Internet Archive has made its scheduled…
(9 Jun 2020) Japan has just passed a new law that criminalizes manga piracy and also to the websites that link to it. The parliament passed new copyright amendments last Friday that ban the unlicensed downloading of manga, magazines and academic texts from the Internet. The new law will take effect on January 1, 2021. The…
(6 Jan 2020) The Marrakesh Treaty, which allows easier access to materials for visually impaired, lets more people legally convert books into accessible formats, and allows all signatory countries to freely share copy. The Treaty is effective recently in New Zealand, but concerns are made by various parties. RNZ has the full report here.