Monday News: Facebook is tracking you, Pandora sues the Turtles, amazing urban photos, and Abe’s most expensive book

JanetPublishing NewsArt / censorship / copyright / Facebook / Free Speech / music / photography / privacy / public domain / rare books / security / SLAPP / used books2 Comments

Facebook can see what users type even if status is not posted – And here we go again. Facebook conducted another study on its users, this time to determine how often they self-censor. This was measured by tracking anything more than five characters long, even if it was not published. If the user did not publish it within 10 minutes of typing it, the content was said to be self-censored. Because that’s way more important than the fact that Facebook is keeping track of what you type. Among other things…

“We receive data about you whenever you use or are running Facebook, such as when you look at another person’s timeline, send or receive a message, search for a friend or a Page, click on, view or otherwise interact with things …. ,” the Data Use Policy says in the section titled “Information we receive and how it is used.”

Concerned users can do two things to protect themselves. They can stop using the service, or they can browse the website using a browser with Javascript turned off. –Los Angeles Times

Pandora: New copyright claims on oldies music violate free speech – So I reported on this issue of musicians using a loophole in state law to claim copyright for songs that should, under federal copyright law, be in the public domain. Music service Pandora has now filed suit against the Turtles, using an anti–SLAPP motion. What’s interesting about this is that anti-SLAPP motions are usually filed in speech cases, because SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) suits are those determined to be an attempt to unlawfully shut down another’s speech rights. You can read the entire filing by clicking on the story link.

The move is perhaps a bold one by Pandora since anti-SLAPP procedures are not typically used in copyright cases, and because Flo and Eddie have already had some success in their campaign to wring out extra royalty dollars on behalf of the music industry.

The underlying copyright issues in the case are complex even by entertainment law standards but, in essence, they amount to performers demanding new money for old recordings on the basis of obscure state laws. –Gigaom

What Cities Would Look Like if Lit Only by the Stars – This is such an interesting undertaking. Thierry Cohen has created images of major cities and combined them with unlighted shots of the stars, in an attempt to ‘reveal’ what these cities would look like if all of our electric output wasn’t masking the natural light of the night sky. What’s fascinating about this to me is the way so many historical novels rely on atmospheric description of a landscape that at the very least would be illuminated very differently, if at all. Although these are modern cities in the photos, they may help us visualize what our environment would look like without so very many forms of artificial light, from the glow from a cordless phone handset to car headlights.

“By combining two realities, I am making a third that you cannot see … but it exists! I am showing you the missing stars,” says Cohen. “Photography is way of showing things that we can’t see. Photography is a way to dream. I am not showing you post-apocalyptic cities, merely cities without electricity. I am bringing back the silence.”

Cohen has visited nine cities including New York, San Francisco, Rio De Janeiro, and Hong Kong. Using an equatorial tripod mount and polar-scope, Cohen captures an urban landscape, then travels to a less populated location at the same latitude with greater atmospheric clarity. Using this method, the skies above Shanghai are actually in Western Sahara and Paris is illuminated by the stars over Montana. –Wired

Abe Books Reveals the Most Expensive Used Books It Sold in 2014 – Canadian used book marketplace, which is owned by Amazon, is a great place to find out of print and rare but not necessarily antique books. Each year they detail the most expensive books on the site that actually sold (it’s amusing to survey some of the ridiculously overpriced titles, as well as the ‘not necessarily overpriced but still incredibly expensive’ books. And the winner for 2014 is. . .

The most expensive book was a 19th century French work called Les Maîtres de L’Affiche. It sold for $43,450, edging out an original German copy of Das Kapital for the title. Other notable titles on this list include a signed first edition of John le Carré’s Call for the Dead ($22,000). –The Digital Reader

Janet

isn't sure if she's an average Romance reader, or even an average reader, but a reader she is, enjoying everything from literary fiction to philosophy to history to poetry. Historical Romance was her first love within the genre, but she's fickle and easily seduced by the promise of a good read. She approaches every book with the same hope: that she will be filled from the inside out with something awesome that she didnʼt know, didnʼt think about, or didnʼt feel until that moment. And she's always looking for the next mind-blowing read, so feel free to share any suggestions!

→ Janet