DIGITAL DIVIDE
Disabled Access Now, More or Less (Wired)
Building Web Pages, Not Campfires (Wired)
INTERNATIONAL
Global treaty--threat to the Net? (ZDNet News)
JOURNALISM
Study Predicts Black Skies Ahead For Newspapers (WP)
High Court Sides With Freelance Writers in Electronic Rights Case
(NYT)
DIGITAL DIVIDE
DISABLED ACCESS NOW, MORE OR LESS
Issue: Digital Divide
New standards requiring the federal government to make its websites
accessible to the disabled will be enforced beginning Monday, and agencies
that are not in compliance with the new rules can be sued. It is rumored
that millions of government Web pages are still incompliant, then many
agencies just entered a new universe of legal jeopardy. The new
accessibility standards also apply to all new computer and software
purchases as well, ensuring that the 122,000 disabled federal workers can
use any new equipment. Since the federal government is such a huge customer,
manufacturers are likely to change their standard products rather than
develop a customized version for the government alone. The prospect of
commercial vendors competing with one another to see which can make their
standard products most accessible is great news for the entire disabled
community.
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Jeffrey Benner]
(http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,44724,00.html)
BUILDING WEB PAGES, NOT CAMPFIRES
Issue: Digital Divide
IBM offers summer EXITE camps to girls to train them how to use and install
computers and build Web sites. EXITE stands for Exploring Interests in
Technology and Engineering, and that's what over 600 sixth- and
seventh-grade girls who attend one of the 21 camps around the world will be
doing for one week. Women working in technology at IBM will lead the
pre-teen girls in collaborating over the Internet with girls around the
world. IBM wants to encourage girls who often lose interest in math and
science at this age, and will expose them to robotics, laser optics and
animation.
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Katie Dean]
(http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,44683,00.html)
INTERNATIONAL
GLOBAL TREATY--THREAT TO THE NET?
Issue: Internet Policy
An international treaty on online trade and commerce was debated over the
last two weeks by policy-makers, but divisions threaten to delay the
agreement. If approved, the little-known international treaty called the
Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments would have broad
implications on copyright, free speech and electronic commerce. The treaty
would require the 52 member nations to enforce each others' laws on various
issues, even if those laws prohibit action legal under local laws.
Currently, international trade law allows states to require businesses doing
business in their borders to comply to local laws, but because trade can
occur without entering or leaving physical national boundaries it is
becoming increasingly difficult to determine what state has jurisdiction
over the transaction. Critics in the United States and elsewhere warned that
the treaty threatens free speech and has the potential to turn the Internet
service providers into "content police." "In a nutshell, it will strangle
the Internet with a suffocating blanket of overlapping jurisdictional
claims, expose every Web page publisher to liabilities for libel, defamation
and other speech offenses from virtually any country, (and) effectively
strip Internet service providers of protections from litigation over the
content they carry," reported the director of the Consumer Project on
Technology Jamie Love.
[SOURCE: ZDNet News, AUTHOR: Lisa M. Bowman]
(http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5093109,00.html?chkpt=zdnn_tp
_)
JOURNALISM
STUDY PREDICTS BLACK SKIES AHEAD FOR NEWSPAPERS
Issue: Journalism
According to a study by Content Intelligence Group that will be released
next week, the Internet poses a long-term threat to newspapers because of
the way people use the Web to obtain information. The study found that
nearly 60 percent of people expect their Web usage to increase either
"somewhat" or "substantially." Fewer than half of respondents expect their
usage of newspaper Web sites to increase. The study also showed that, over
time, people with the most Internet experience used the Internet more. "The
Internet is stealing audience from all media, including TV, radio, magazines
and newspapers," John McIntyre, managing editor for Content Intelligence
said. "Those with the most [Internet] experience rely on the newspaper the
least."
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Michael Bartlett]
(http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/167200.html)
HIGH COURT SIDES WITH FREELANCE WRITERS IN ELECTRONIC RIGHTS CASE
Issue: Copyright
The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that compilation in an electronic database is
different from other kinds of archival or library storage of material that
once appeared in print. The decision means that big media companies such as
The New York Times need to get free-lancers' permission before posting their
work online. Six free-lance writers sued The New York Times, Newsday, Time
Inc. and other publishers over inclusion of their work in electronic
databases, some of which require the user to pay a fee, such as LEXIS/NEXIS,
while others are available free over the Internet. The case turned on
whether electronic reproduction of a newspaper or periodical constitutes a
revision of the original print edition. Under copyright law, publishers do
not need authors' permission to produce a revised version of the original
edition.
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Associated Press]
(http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Scotus-Free-Lance.html)
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