Electronic Frontier Foundation

In 1987, the Federal Bureau of Investigation approached Columbia University librarian Paula Kaufman with a request: keep an eye out for commies.

She refused to cooperate with the bureau's "library awareness" program and her defiance helped spark a nationwide backlash against government snooping into Americans' reading habits. Even knowing the government might be watching, people realized, could change what you choose to read—and in turn alter what you think

What does your e-reader know about you? More than you think, according to a new study by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The EFF, a nonprofit group that advocates for consumer rights and privacy, combed through the privacy policies of a number of e-readers and e-book platforms, including Google Books, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, and Indiebound, and found many devices track book searches, monitor what and how readers read downloaded books, record book purchases, and in some cases, even share information without a customer’s consent.

Puerto Rico-based prof's system will enforce textbook purchase, reduce piracy. Enlarge / Professor Vogel's new patent, if licensed widely, would compel students to prove that they've purchased a digital textbook. In a newly-approved patent, an economics professor hopes to bring to the academic publishing world what seems to be forthcoming in the video game industry—new restrictions that would seemingly eliminate a secondary market for digital goods and prevent legal borrowing. Last week, the 2006 patent for a “Web-based system and method to capture and distribute royalties for access to copyrighted academic texts by preventing unauthorized access to discussion boards

Digital rights management (DRM) is the most contentious topic in the world of digital media. The battle over DRM shows no signs of abating, and its outcome will shape the digital media landscape for decades to come.

December marked the opening of the third round of the triennial rule-making process mandated by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA was established in 1998 to encourage investment in new means of digital distribution of software, movies, books, sound recordings, video games and other works protected by copyright. The rule-making process is a period where copyright industry groups can review and respond to proposals for temporary exemptions from the provision of the DMCA, which prohibits the circumvention of technologies used to control access to copyrighted materials. The industry groups are comprised of the Association of American Publishers, the Business Software Alliance, the