LibrarianActivist.org

“New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon’s National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet technology - specifically the forthcoming “semantic web” championed by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals.” (via Boing Boing)

J.

This isn’t exactly a “fun” link but this photo has been making the rounds of various library blogs (not sure where I first saw it so I can’t give credit unfortunately)

Here’s the photo. Flickr has a few others plus some discussion you might want to check out as well.

J.

CALL FOR PAPERS - INFORMATION FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

INFORMATION FOR SOCIAL CHANGE (ISC)
ISSN 1364-694X

The summer 2007 issue of the online journal Information for Social Change (ISC)
will focus on the urgent theme of library and information workers as political
actors in times of war, civil war, military occupation, and social conflicts
worldwide.

ISC seeks both contemporary and historical submissions that address such topics
as:

– Library and information provision during times of war, civil war, military
occupation, and social conflict that provide insights and practical strategies
for potential library and information projects in
regions of conflict worldwide.

– Profiles of library and information workers as participants and
interventionists in conflicts, as political actors that offer some new
possibilities for strategies of resistance, or that challenge networks of
military or civil control worldwide.

– Access to library and information provision and the information needs of
oppressed peoples for empowerment and emancipation during times of war,
revolution, or social conflict worldwide.

– Dissemination of information about inside conflicts to the outside world.
Here, ISC is particularly interested in explorations of how to protect the
information provider in terms of privacy; confidentiality;
freedom of opinion and expression; freedom of thought, conscience and religion;
peaceful assembly and association; and protection from torture or cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment as expressed in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

Note: ISC has a special interest in receiving, publishing, documenting, and
giving memory to information about conflicts on which very little information
has been recorded to date.

Anyone interested in contributing an article, thought piece, bibliography,
review, or other work related to the expressed theme is invited to share their
ideas with issue co-editors Martyn Lowe
(martynlowe@usa.net) AND Toni Samek (toni.samek@ualberta.ca).

The closing date for submission is December 10, 2006 (HUMAN RIGHTS DAY).
Word limits are negotiable with Martyn and Toni.

For more information about ISC, see http://www.libr.org/isc/.

J.

Business Ethics magazine has released their list of 2006’s Top 100 Corporate Citizens. I’m not an expert in who’s good and who’s not so good but found a couple names on the list that were a bit surprising to me. (via Kottke)

It’s also interesting to compare this list to Fortune’s recently released list of “America’s 100 Most Admired Companies”.

Fending off copyright monopolization, the supreme court has decided that a restaurant called Barbies, cannot be confused with a doll for children. Go figure! Unanimously no less.

dj

From Saturday’s Globe and Mail:

Barbie not just a doll, top court rules
Trademarks not unassailable, judges decide in two cases

KIRK MAKIN

JUSTICE REPORTER

The Supreme Court broke the heart of the world’s most famous doll yesterday, ruling that Mattel Inc. does not have the exclusive right to use the Barbie name.

In a groundbreaking intellectual-property decision, the court ruled 8-0 that, while Barbie has achieved a distinctiveness within the doll world, that does not give Mattel the right to prevent very different businesses from using the name.

In a second, related case, the court again came down on the side of the underdog — a Quebec clothing store chain that adopted a name similar to a famous French champagne-maker, Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin.

The court said that there was no evidence to show that consumers were confused by the two names, nor is future confusion likely when two products are so different.

The ruling in the Barbie case was a victory for a small Montreal restaurant chain called Barbie’s that ran headlong into Mattel when it tried to register its name for use across the country in the restaurant, takeout and catering business.

“The doll business and the restaurant business appeal to the different tastes of largely different clienteles,” Mr. Justice Ian Binnie wrote for seven of the eight judges. “Whether or not there exists a likelihood of confusion is largely a question of fact.”

Lawyer Bill Mayo, an expert in the intellectual property field, said that owners of famous trademarks can take some solace in the fact that the court has left open the possibility of a trademark being so well known that virtually any use could result in confusion.

“There may be a greater likelihood of confusion when dealing with a famous trademark, but the question comes down to whether the ordinary consumer is likely to think there is a connection between the use of a given mark for a particular product and the owner of the famous mark,” Mr. Mayo said.

Lawyer Diane Cornish, another intellectual-property expert, said the ruling constitutes “a clear message to owners of famous marks that although the ‘fame’ of their mark is a consideration, it does not trump all other considerations.

“It will still be necessary to establish in the mind of consumers that the wares and services of the respective parties come from a common source or are in some way associated or linked,” she said.

Judge Binnie said that the original decision by the Trade-marks Opposition Board to disallow Mattel’s claim was reasonable in the circumstances — particularly since Mattel furnished little evidence of confusion in the minds of consumers.

Lawyers for Barbie’s restaurant had used a “slippery slope” argument, warning that if Barbie is permitted to become an unassailable patented trademark, then every Tom, Dick and Harry will be the next in line. They also pointed toward a failure of logic: Barbie dolls are marketed to girls under 12, while the restaurant’s clientele is exclusively adults.

Lawyers for the restaurant argued that its owners chose the name Barbie’s in 1992 as a play on words accenting the fact that it sells drinks and barbecued food. Mattel scoffed at that, saying that the only credible reason for it to use the name Barbie’s was to trade on the company’s famous line of dolls.

“Quite apart from the great difference between the appellant’s wares and the respondent’s services, they occupy different channels of trade, and the increased potential for confusion that might arise through intermingling in a single channel of trade is not present,” Judge Binnie said.

In the second case, the champagne maker argued that the Quebec clothing chain, Les Boutiques Cliquot, damaged its famous brand.

“The difference between the appellant’s luxury champagne and the respondents’ mid-priced women’s wear is significant,” Judge Binnie said. “While some trademarks transcend the wares, services and businesses with which they were originally associated, no witness in this case suggested that the Veuve Cliquot mark would be associated by ordinary consumers with mid-priced women’s clothing.”