The premise of this presentation is quite simple. Cory Doctorow (2012) stated in his talk entitled ‘An elegy for a book’ that, “The library of tomorrow should be better than the library of today”. When framed in the context of the Internet, the current Information Age, and the foreseen Internet of Things this becomes an obvious statement that many would assume to be true. However, upon closer examination of the issues surrounding libraries, Doctorow’s statement is quite complex, especially with regards to libraries making the transition to including eBooks as an ever expanding portion of their book collections under the current legal structures of extended copyright and Digital Right Management software and systems. In order to comprehend the root causes of the why Doctorow would need to make such an apparent statement about future libraries, the presentation will introduce the concepts of the traditional commons (Hardin, 1968), current anticommons (Heller, 1998), and how extended copyright has reduced the number of print books and eBooks available (Heald, 2008 & 2014, Smith, Telang & Zhang, 2012). Less available content is cause for concern for English educators as learning management systems are becoming common place which in turn need to be content rich and perhaps compete on a more global scale for students. One solution of a mashup of open domain content will be proposed. Specifically, a real world example of providing lexically analyzed eBooks and audio books for teachers of English in Lesser Developed (LD) countries by using books in the public domain will be presented.

1. Libraries and
the Digital Now
English Scholars Beyond
Boarders 3rd Annual
Conference. Providence
University, Taichung, Taiwan.
May 20, 2016
Dubhgan Hinchey
Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

2. The library of tomorrow
should be better than the
library of today.
- Cory Doctorow from, "An elegy for a book'.

3. Hardin (1968) introduced
the concept of the
“tragedy of the commons”.
Private property rights are
the solution to the
destruction of an
unregulated ‘commons’.
Example: Goats are grazing
in communal areas that are
unregulated, hence
destroying the communal
space of the mountain
slope via erosion from
overgrazing and damaging
young trees.

4. Heller (1998) proposed the
tragedy of the anticommons,
over privatization of resources
with multiple right holders,
prevents utilization of a
resource.
Example: The Piercefield
House as a current Tragedy of
the Anticommons. Efforts to
repair or restore the house
were unsuccessful. Currently,
"the main house has been
separated from the land and
parceled off into an off-shore
company".

5. Tragedy of the Commons
• Unregulated, communal spaces will be over used and destroyed since no one
individual has a vested interest in preserving the communal space.
Solution = Private property
Tragedy of the Anticommons
• Over privatization of resources with multiple right holders, prevents utilization of
a resource.
Solution = Incentivizing right holders to negotiate, reform legal barriers.
Tragically,

6. In a digital environment, both tragedies are solved.
Boyle (2003), states property law defines tangible property (physical stuff) as
having two characteristics
•Rivalrous in use (I can't eat the apple that you are eating.)
•Susceptible to overuse (Overfishing in a lake.)
BUT,

7. Digital resources can never be rivalrous in use because infinite,
perfect copies of a resource can be made at almost no cost.
• This then solves the problem of overuse and underuse. Everyone who wants a digital
resource can have it, with no determent to other potential users.
BECAUSE,

8. Yup, particularly extended copyright resulting in less print books and
eBooks.
• Extension of copyright "limited term“. The Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of
1998, copyright term retroactively extended to 95 years maximum.
• Limited economic value. Only famous books continue to produce profits over time with
most books becoming out of print.
• Fewer copyrighted print & eBooks. 4 times more editions of public domain books v.
copyrighted books. More books under extended copyright (post 1923) are out-of-print or
not available as an eBook.
• Orphaned works are not utilized. Copyright law makes institutions risk adverse, i.e.
institutions with orphaned works do not make them available, derivative works are also
not created.
Umm, Copyright?

9. We have a legal structure in the form of extended copyright trying to
impose restrictions on digital resources that by nature are
unrestrictable.
• You don't own the eBooks that you purchase that are locked with Digital Rights
Management software or systems.
• The eBooks that you have subscribed to (not purchased) are tied to single user accounts
or a few devices.
• Print books are covered under the First Sales Doctrine, but eBooks are not. Therefore
libraries own less books, but pay more to companies like OverDrive or 3M to provided
eBooks access to patrons.
In summary,

10. What is an Open Educational Resource if not a some form of a
derivative work?
• No commons to use to create derivative works extremely limits creation of new, digital
educational resources.
• EFL teacher has to create (time consuming) materials for online use or
subscribe/purchase (expensive) to online sites that host the materials.
• Libraries spend more for fewer books, with no option to own eBooks.
• DRM makes devices and systems more susceptible to hacking because reporting software
bugs is illegal.
• Current legal systems surrounding eBooks is the opposite of the open access movement
and the mashup/maker movement.
So what?

11. Public domain eBooks via Project Gutenberg and Public domain
audio books via Librivox.
• Both Projects have cleared books as open domain as defined by U.S. copyright law.
• Works of both projects share the creative commons license which encourages the
creation of dirivative works (class materials) with the citation of source.
• All books are online and accessible in different formats (.txt, .epub, .mobi, .html, & mp3).
• Books are somewhat searchable via outdated bookshelves, author, title, and sometimes
genre.
What is missing is the lexical metadata that EFL students would need in order to find a
level appropriate eBook and audio book.
But wait,

12. Magic of Pearl scripts and open sourced software
• Collected text => Cleaned text => Counted total tokens => Ran tests and compared with
Common Core. (Common Core frequency list , most common words from COCA and BNC)
• Readability tests: Flesch Ease, Kincaid, and Fog.
• Overlap with each ban of the Common Core. 4 bands plus off list tokens.
• Collected gutenberg_ids for each eBook via 4 Project
Gutenberg bookshelves.
• Cross references with Librivox for an audio book version
of the same eBook and checked for illustrations.

13. 60
65
70
75
80
85
90
95
100
level 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 6
Core Library: 535 eBooks
Flesch Score Core1&2
Level 1:
60 eBooks
Level 2:
129 eBooks Level 3:
133 eBooks
Level 4:
133 eBooks
Level 5:
61 eBooks
Level 6:
21 eBooks

14. 40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Total
4
8
12
16
20
24
28
32
36
40
44
48
52
56
60
64
68
72
76
80
84
88
92
96
100
104
108
112
116
120
124
128
132
136
140
144
148
152
156
160
164
168
172
176
Peripheral Library: 181 eBooks
Flesch Score Core 1&2

15. 0
20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
120000
140000
160000
11111111111122222222222222222222222222333333333333333333333333333444444444444444444444444445555555555556666
Levels & Length of 535 eBooks
Total Tokens
A
B
C
A
B
D
E
F
G
G
A
B
C
D

16. www.dubhgan.com/moodle

17. References
Note: The Lessig (2000) paper is not freely accessible on the Internet, but behind a paywall at HeinOnline.
Akerlof, G. A., Arrow, K. J., Bresnahan, T. F., Buchanan, J. M., Coase, R. H., Cohen, L. R., Friedman, M., Green, J. R., Hahn, R., Hazlett, T. W., Hemphill, S. C., Litan,
R. E., Noll, R. G., Schmalensee, R., Shavell, S., Varian, H. R. & Zeckhauser, R. J. (2002). The copyright term extension act of 1998: An economic analysis.
Washington DC: AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies. Retrieved October 27, 2015 from
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2002/05/copyright-litan
Boyle, J. (2003). The second enclosure movement and the construction of the public domain. Law and contemporary problems, 33-74.
http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1273&context=lcp
Brauneis, R. (2015). A Brief Illustrated Chronicle of Retroactive Copyright Term Extension. Social Science Research Network. Retrieved October 30, 2015 from
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2611311
Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162(3859), 1243-1248. https://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full
Heald, P. J. (2008). Property rights and the efficient exploitation of copyrighted works: an empirical analysis of public domain and copyrighted fiction best
sellers. Minnesota Law Review, 92, 1031.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=955954
Heald, P. J. (2014). How Copyright Keeps Works Disappeared. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 11(4), 829-866.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2290181
Heller, M. A. (1998). The tragedy of the anticommons: property in the transition from Marx to markets. Harvard law review, 621-688.
http://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1608&context=articles
Korn, N. (2009). In from the Cold: An assessment of the scope of ‘Orphan Works’ and its impact on the delivery of services to the public. JISC and the
Collections Trust. Retrieved November 5, 2015 from http://sca.jiscinvolve.org/wp/ipr-publications/files/2009/06/sca_colltrust_orphan_
works_v1-final.pdf
Lessig, L. (2000). Copyright's First Amendment. UCLA L. Rev., 48, 1057.
Rappaport, E. B. (1998). Copyright term extension: Estimating the economic values. Congressional Research Service Report for Congress. Library of Congress.
Retrieved October 30, 2015 from http://ipmall.info/hosted_resources/crs/98-144.pdf

18. References continued
Smith, M. D., Telang, R., & Zhang, Y. (2012). Analysis of the potential market for out-of-print eBooks. Retrieved October 30, 2015 from
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2141422
U.S. Copyright Office. (2015). Orphan Works and Mass Digitization: A Report of the Register of Copyrights. Retrieved November 5, 2015 from
http://copyright.gov/orphan/reports/orphan-works2015.pdf
Piercefield House. (2016, May 6). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 01:09, May 10, 2016, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Piercefield_House&oldid=718927431