ibiblio launches torrents, but loses sight of the goal

Created by Stuart Yeates (University of Oxford) on October 26, 2005

ibiblio, the famous Internet library and archive, recently launched a project to distribute content via bittorrent, a protocol which is very efficient at distributing large files over the Internet. Unfortunately, ibiblio missed an opportunity to set themselves apart from the many who use bittorrent to distribute content of dubious legality, by completely failing to include any kind of licensing information.

A random example is their speaker series, containing a raft of people I know to be both excellent speakers and supporters good licensing practise. Their presentations are being distributed with "License(s): None", which presumably translates into "we believe we have a (perhaps implicit) licence to distribute this content, but no record to hand of what that license might be."

Don't get me wrong, there is no doubt in my mind that ibiblio have a licence to distribute this content, it is just a shame to see them not taking this sterling opportunity to take the high moral and legal ground on this.

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I did not look beyond the

Submitted by Alan Wolf (University of Wisconsin-Madison) on October 27, 2005 - 3:16pm.

I did not look beyond the item you referenced as an example, which is a compilation of links to torrents. However, if you look at the subdocuments containing the links to the torrents, they all list a CC attribution license, the most liberal CC license. Do you have a better example?

Maybe I should have been

Submitted by Stuart Yeates (University of Oxford) on November 9, 2005 - 3:29am.

Maybe I should have been clearer. Within the torrent file there is no indication of the licence. Since there are alternative ways of getting the torrent file other than manually browsing the website (such as an RSS feed), the licensing information really should be in the torrent file as well as on the website.

The torrent file format does not contain a specific licence key, but there is a comment key which could easily be used.

		ibiblio launches torrents, but loses sight of the goal Created by Stuart Yeates (University of Oxford) on October 26, 2005 ibiblio, the famous Internet library and archive, recently launched a project to distribute content via bittorrent, a protocol which is very efficient at distributing large files over the Internet. Unfortunately, ibiblio missed an opportunity to set themselves apart from the many who use bittorrent to distribute content of dubious legality, by completely failing to include any kind of licensing information. A random example is their speaker series, containing a raft of people I know to be both excellent speakers and supporters good licensing practise. Their presentations are being distributed with "License(s): None", which presumably translates into "we believe we have a (perhaps implicit) licence to distribute this content, but no record to hand of what that license might be." Don't get me wrong, there is no doubt in my mind that ibiblio have a licence to distribute this content, it is just a shame to see them not taking this sterling opportunity to take the high moral and legal ground on this. Bittorrent \| intellectual property rights \| Licensing Policies Stuart's blog Login or register to post comments 4629 reads I did not look beyond the Submitted by Alan Wolf (University of Wisconsin-Madison) on October 27, 2005 - 3:16pm. I did not look beyond the item you referenced as an example, which is a compilation of links to torrents. However, if you look at the subdocuments containing the links to the torrents, they all list a CC attribution license, the most liberal CC license. Do you have a better example? Login or register to post comments Maybe I should have been Submitted by Stuart Yeates (University of Oxford) on November 9, 2005 - 3:29am. Maybe I should have been clearer. Within the torrent file there is no indication of the licence. Since there are alternative ways of getting the torrent file other than manually browsing the website (such as an RSS feed), the licensing information really should be in the torrent file as well as on the website. The torrent file format does not contain a specific licence key, but there is a comment key which could easily be used. Login or register to post comments
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