Sensible Censorship: Surfing for Porn
Shouldn't Be a Public Library Service
by Elizabeth Hovde, Oregonian columnist
The Oregonian
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Shouldn't Be a Public Library Service
by Elizabeth Hovde, Oregonian columnist
The Oregonian
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Libraries can't and don't house every book ever written or every magazine in circulation. And library employees are continually making decisions about what goes on the shelf and what gets left out of a given collection. Rarely are they criticized for what is left behind, accused of censorship or sued.
But when libraries don't supply unfiltered Internet access to the masses (or even to children), the American Civil Liberties Union and others go after the taxpayer-funded institutions, treating them as if library board members were standing in the parking lot burning every copy of "Pride and Prejudice" and "To Kill a Mockingbird."
The North Central Regional Library District in Washington state is one library district that has decided it isn't a library's job to peddle Net porn and that filtering software for library computers can help create a more family-friendly library experience. For that reasonable stance, the Wenatchee-based district has been sued. Late last month, the case finally made it all the way to the Washington state Supreme Court. And now the court will decide whether public libraries can refuse to disable library Internet filters for adults who want access to blocked content.
The ACLU of Washington is representing three library users and a pro-gun foundation in the case. The organization found the right test cases. The three library patrons the ACLU is representing were trying to access information that would upset no one. The patrons include a woman who was doing research on tobacco use by youth, a photographer who was blocked from using YouTube and a man who was unable to access his blog, as well as information related to gun use by hunters.
It's easier to gather sympathy for ACLU's cause when a library policy hinders the Internet searches of people seeking benign information. It's much harder to do so for middle-aged guys who go to the library to look at pornography in a building frequented by children.
That's what filtering policies are all about, of course. They are an attempt to keep: libraries safe for all patrons and library workers; children away from materials they can't legally buy in a store; and taxpayers from having to finance someone's porn habits.
Instead of imagining the limited Internet searches of students and hunters, picture the 25-year-old man accused of downloading illegal child pornography at the Lake Oswego Public Library last October or the Milwaukie man who was arrested for repeatedly downloading child pornography from a public computer in Milwaukie's Ledding Library last fall.
Like a lot of libraries, the Lake Oswego Public Library offers patrons the option of filtered or unfiltered Net access and doesn't monitor the use of legal materials and information. But child pornography is not legal and violates both libraries' policies.
It should make all of us uncomfortable that pedophiles have access to pornography in public places where children are present. And there are many examples across the nation of library patrons who've left pornographic images where minors or librarians can come across them. When the fight over Internet filtering on library computers was going on in Seattle in the 1990s, the crusade for filtered Net access was led, in part, by a well-spoken librarian who didn't feel comfortable helping men access pornography or being exposed to the peep shows.
Concern for librarians and children led the federal government to tie some federal dollars for library Internet access to a requirement that libraries have the ability to block minors from pornography and other potentially harmful sites. The ACLU opposed even this modest move, calling it a threat to free speech and saying parents, not libraries, should control what kids view.
But some library districts listened to common sense and constituents instead of the ACLU. And like North Central Regional Library District, they chose to filter out smut not only for minors, but for adults, too. Sometimes, an unintended consequence resulted: Other content was blocked along with offensive materials -- leading to the current case before the Washington state Supreme Court.
I hope the library district wins, despite the valid searches for YouTube, gun use and teen smoking habits. Libraries are financed by taxpayers and offer a lot of information to the public. But they don't offer every piece of information available and shouldn't have to.
Limiting what's on the shelves -- or accessible on a public computer -- is not censorship. It's discretion. And pornography and other materials blocked by some filtering programs are still widely available for personal use and purchase elsewhere.
Elizabeth Hovde writes a Sunday column for The Oregonian and also posts during the week on oregonlive.com/thestump. Reach her at ehovde@earthlink.net.
© 2009 Oregon Live LLC. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission of the author.
Hi - not sure if you know this, but the accepted interpretation of the fair use provision of US copyright law doesn't allow for copying entire articles. You should quote only passages which you are providing additional commentary, and merely link to the original article.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Local MLIS Student. You may be right. However, in this case, I have the author's implicit permission.
ReplyDeleteFurther, I may be wrong, but I think Oregonian links go stale after a while. The editorial is right up this blog's alley and its educational efforts, so it should not be lost to stale links.
MLIS - i've tried to educate mr. kleinman on the intricacies of copyright law, to little avail.
ReplyDeleteDan: MLIS is absolutely correct. And, to be sure, the Oregonian owns the copyright to that story, despite what permission the author might have given you.
Okay, Concerned West Bend Citizen, what is the suggested course of action?
ReplyDelete"You may not in any way make commercial or other unauthorized use, by publication, re-transmission, distribution, performance, caching, or otherwise, of material obtained through the Website, except as permitted by the Copyright Act or other law or as expressly permitted in writing by this Agreement, Service Provider or the Website."
ReplyDelete"[E]xcept as permitted by the Copyright Act...." I think that clears me. See Fair Use.
Dan,
ReplyDeleteFair use isn't a magic wand. If you read Title 17 of the US Code you'll see that it allows for a series of criteria used to judge whether a use is "fair use."
One of the standards is the amount of copyrighted material. Since you used all of it and some of the art (nice touch) you are on terribly legal ground.
And the flesh-eating lawyers a media syndicate employs will not be as nice to you as the Sisters have.
Try reading a few books instead of banning them.
Chuck
Right. This all was pointed out to Dan a month ago in the comments here, upon which I was labeled a troll.
ReplyDeleteFirst, ditto on the copyright.
ReplyDeleteAll of my library users always think their use is 'fair use'--even when it is so absolutely NOT (like copying an entire journal article so they can use it to prepare an expert report they are being paid to write).
It just sounds so 'fair' that they should be able to use it, because they want it! I wish I could walk into a clothing store and just assert that it seemed 'fair' that I should have some jeans!
Stealing intellectual property is stealing. End of story.
My second point: I love how this article essentially asserts that it doesn't matter what the practical affect of a policy is, all that matters is it's intent. If we INTEND to stop pedophiles, she says, it doesn't matter what the policy ends up doing.
The whole problem librarians have with filters is the practical affect. Frankly, they suck. They block all sorts of material that should be accessible by library patrons. Which is why LIBRARIANS should be responsible for enforcing no-porn policies, no strings of bits and bytes.
You can't justify a policy with terrible affects because the intent was good.
Marjorie makes five people trying to stop me from publicizing that legal porn need not be allowed in a public library. After one or two people, it looked sincere. After three or four people, I began to wonder. Now five people who want me to curtail my own speech--self-censor, as people like them like to claim. And these are the freedom of speech people. I know I'm being effective when five people are trying to shut me down, at least in part, while never addressing a single substantive issue raised.
ReplyDeleteBe that as it may, at least Marjorie actually raised a legitimate viewpoint about a legitimate issue. Took five people to finally get to the issues, but I appreciate it nonetheless.
So Marjorie, I am sorry your experience with filters has been "sucky."
However, even an ACLU expert now says filters are 95% effective and no longer block out health-related information. See ACLU v. Gonzales, E.D.Pa., 2007. I say "even an ACLU expert" because the ACLU was a party with the ALA in US v. ALA that the ALA lost, and lost big, as in spending a ton of money for very little gain.
Dude, no one is "trying to stop me from publicizing" anything. We're just pointing out to you than your wholesale copying of copyright-protected articles is not in compliance with copyright law.
ReplyDeleteYou can quote snippets, link, and provide all the commentary you want.
Enjoy, and lay off the melodrama a bit.
Local MLIS Student, you are the one who first commented on it. You are the one who appears sincere. The problem here is not you, rather its the piling on by the others.
ReplyDeleteNow five people who want me to curtail my own speech--self-censor, as people like them like to claim. And these are the freedom of speech people. I know I'm being effective when five people are trying to shut me down, at least in part, while never addressing a single substantive issue raised.
ReplyDeleteHow is anyone trying to curtail your free speech? YOU haven't said anything. You've merely copied and pasted someone else's article on your blog, without providing any commentary.
Clever, Maria. And you are correct. As you stated, I have "merely copied and pasted someone else's article on your blog, without providing any commentary." Yet 5 people, now 6 out of 6, make comments about my posting of the article. Only one, and only as an aside, actually addressed a substantive issie.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be nice if we all addressed issues instead of people, and not only here?
Think about it. That West Bend, WI, matter in which you are involved is filled with blogs and blogs of people attacking each other, hundreds and hundreds of comments that completely avoid the real issues. Vicious too, like calling people fat or ugly or blogsluts (though you're saying that was a joke and was funny). I've never seen anything like it in any other library matter nationwide. The West Bend people even go to non West Bend blogs discussing non West Bend issues and attack or praise people personally, depending on the circumstance.
Surely you see that, Maria. Why is that?
The reason so many people are talking about copyright law is that it is a library issue, and librarians are required to be well acquainted with copyright law to help make sure we or our patrons don't run afoul of it. I took an entire class in copyright law in graduate school.
ReplyDeletePointing out that you are abridging copyright law is no more 'shutting you down' than is telling a kid they need to stop downloading music from Torrents sites.
Anyway; 95% seems like a terrible effectiveness rate to me, though without parsing the data more it's hard to judge (what does 95% effective mean, anyway? That only 5% of users will view porn? That only 5% of pages blocked are NOT porn?)
You might want to tell people at the Leo Flesh Public Library in Ohio about these bang-up filters. They had such problems adjusting their porn filter so that patrons could view the library's OWN WEB SITE (since it had the naughty word flesh in the url) that they eventually had to change the library's Web address.
If you think filters are a good solution, it means you don't really understand how they work.
Marjorie, you provide an example of how ALA acolytes like you purposefully and knowingly mislead people. You tell everyone about the Leo Flesh library and how awful filters are. You even mock a 95% effective rate.
ReplyDeleteThe Leo Flesh story you linked was from 2002. That's seven years ago. Years! You talk as if filters have not improved one iota in seven years. You said, "If you think filters are a good solution, it means you don't really understand how they work." You are correct, I don't know how they worked in 2002, but I don't care and neither does anyone else.
When I talked about the 95% effective rate, that was from 2007, but you mocked that as "terrible." Is was so "terrible" that the court overturned COPA (not CIPA) precisely because filters were the exact opposite of terrible. The exact opposite.
You are purposefully and knowingly misleading people with out of date and with false information. It's shameful.
Dan, yes local and non-local bloggers have name-called. On both sides. I'll remind you that you have also participated in this, calling me and others the "anything goes" group. I don't condone name calling or personal attacks and I have not participated in it. Do I dissect someone's statement and point out the fallacies I see? Yes. Do I argue about the logic and merit of their requests? Certainly.
ReplyDeleteCommenters complained about your interpretation of the fair use provision, and you responded by saying they were infringing on your free speech rights. I merely pointed out that you did not offer any commentary on the piece, just copied and pasted someone else's article.
If you don't want readers to bring up these kinds of points, there are actions you can take. You can, instead of pasting an entire article on your blog, make your own argument, such as, in this case..."this is going on in Oregon and this is what I think," with some quotes from the Oregon columnist's article (credited accordingly). You seem to have a lot of time to write long comments on this blog and others......maybe you could devote more time to writing your own blog posts.
Do you know how filters work now?
ReplyDeleteDo you really think they work in a fundamentally different way than they did in 2002?
Do you realize that is not possible unless there have been fundamental changes in http and html, which there have not been?
Also, remember, a majority of justices said that filters were not a very good idea, but that Congress had the right to require filters if libraries wanted to receive discounted Internet rates from a federal program--BUT ONLY IF those frequently failing filters could easily be disabled.
The exact opposite of terrible? So the SCOTUS said filters were great? Please quote that section of the decision.
It never ceases to amaze me when people arrive on your blog and proceed to tell you what to write and how to write it, never really addressing the issues. w/e
ReplyDeleteI imagine you are referring to my comment, Ginny. If you read it carefully you'll see I've suggested how Dan could avoid allegations of abusing fair use provisions (the previous comments) by changing his blog style. Suggested, not told.
ReplyDeleteAnd how does one address the issues of this topic when Dan, the blog owner, has actually made no commentary on the issues? He simply cut and pasted someone else's opinion/writing.
Maria, you like playing games, don't you. The issue is "Surfing for Porn Shouldn't Be a Public Library Service." It's right in the title. The whole editorial is about it. You are not stupid. You would just rather make ad hominem arguments. Your loss, not mine.
ReplyDeleteAnd I have not "abused fair use provisions," by "changing my blog style," no less. You really make incredible statements designed to attack the messenger so as to avoid or obscure the issues. Since when does my "blog style" have even the slightest thing to do with "Surfing for Porn Shouldn't Be a Public Library Service"?
The issue is "Surfing for Porn Shouldn't Be a Public Library Service." It's right in the title. The whole editorial is about it. You are not stupid. You would just rather make ad hominem arguments. Your loss, not mine.
ReplyDeleteI see the issue of the editorial, but it is not YOUR editorial and YOU do not provide any discussion of the issue. Therefore, any discussion of the editorial wouldn't apply to you. As I said before, you have not said anything about the issues in the article.
I've read up on fair use, and I agree with others that have commented that you have abused this provision by posting this editorial in this manner. You may have received permission by the author, but did you receive it from Oregon Live LLC as well? According to the editorial, they hold the copyright, not Ms. Hovde. And the fair use provision provides for citing from the original work (not using the whole thing) for the purpose of criticism, commentary, etc. You offer no criticism or commentary of the editorial.
Your use of the editorial does not jive with the fair use provision as it is described in the link that you yourself reference. Pointing that out is not a personal attack or ad hominem argument.
Talking to you is useless. You are always right, I am always wrong. Plus, I'm an "abuser," according to you, but "Pointing that out is not a personal attack or ad hominem argument."
ReplyDeleteRight.
Maria, I have tried long and hard to converse with you on the issues. It is nearly impossible. I give up.
And with that Dan drops his toys and storms out of the sandbox, full of righteous indignation.
ReplyDeleteNo, just ennui.
ReplyDeleteTHe real issue here is that Dan trots his interpretation of US v. ALA as if it is gospel, yet can't properly interpret fair use. It brings his legal judgment into question.
ReplyDeleteThat last comment shows the true intent of the "fair use" comments--another means to attack the messenger and obscure the issues. My "legal judgment" is irrelevant. "Surfing for Porn Shouldn't Be a Public Library Service" is the issue being avoided.
ReplyDeleteCan anyone believe my "legal judgment" is being questioned? Who cares? My point in getting people to read US v. ALA is for them to make up their own minds, not adopt my "legal judgment." Their point in attacking me is to induce people to think like them.
I say people should think for themselves, whereas the "anything goes" people say think like them about anything *but* the issues. Ironic, no?
Sheesh, you people never stop.
Do you all realize all these comments are here and all but one fail to address a single issue raised in the editorial?
ReplyDeleteAh, I get it now. This is the issue you don't want people to know. Porn should not be a public library service.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, everyone please read the editorial again.
Thank you.
Dan,
ReplyDeleteIs a library responsible for the misuse of any equipment or objects it offers the use of? Why not the ISP, for offering access to porn?
Or, you know, the pornographer?
-Chuck
ps. You broke copyright law. Get over and stop crying.
Chuck, tell me more. I don't understand what you are asking.
ReplyDeleteWhy is a service provider liable for all the things that might happen with with its services or facilities?
ReplyDeleteIf someone checks out a James Dobson parenting book and then beats their kids to death, is that my fault as a librarian?
Why is the library and the librarians responsible for something that they did not create, facilitation the propagation of, approve or or condone? Why not the ISP?
Or why isn't your ire directed at the creators and consumers of child porn?
That's the problem I have with you and the editorial. It's like you come up to the scene of a drunken driving accident with fatalities and start screaming about Coors Brewery being at fault.
-Chuck
Good point, Chuck, but that's not what I do. I just point to US v. ALA. I also point out where the ALA misleads communities about US v. ALA or related issues, and it does. I leave it to the community to decide for themselves.
ReplyDeleteUS v. ALA, etc., is the source of authority for my efforts. Those other things you mentioned are not in US v. ALA, etc., therefore I generally do not address them.
You seem to use US v ALA as a kind of totem to ward off all arguments against filters, Dan. I say again: it is not the job of SCOTUS, or SCOTUS decisions, to decide what policies are good or bad ideas. The only thing that SCOTUS does is decide whether a particular policy--EVEN IF IT IS PHENOMENALLY BAD--is allowable according to the U.S. Constitution.
ReplyDeleteEven if a slim majority of the court found that a law requiring filters is permissable under the Constitution does by no stretch mean filters are good.
The court has also found that flag-burning is permissible under the Constitution. Should we all go out and set flags on fire?
You want to mandate a technology that you freely admit you don't understand. Don't you ever stop and think that maybe that's a bad idea? Does any humility ever kick in, when you realize that the more people understand filters, the more likely they are to oppose them (unless they are the people selling them, of course).
Well, at least we have moved from attack the messenger to attack the messenger and the message and the source of the message. That's progress. Downward.
ReplyDeleteWhy are sex offenders even given library cards? When I visit my local library, internet access is only given when I input my card identification number. Thus, the most efficient solution is to just not issue library cards to those that are on sex offender lists. As government employees, librarians should have no problem accessing such databases.
ReplyDeleteThere, problem solved. And all without the millions of dollars wasted on useless filtering software.
I'm curious how parents would feel about minors having easy access to this adult orientated web site and it's in your back yard - Oregon.
ReplyDeleteFor example, you don't need an ID / Password to access mature photos at http://2kmodels.com. At least Model Mayhem, requires users to flag those images as 18+ and it's required to have an account.
*Allows explicit adult content with no security measures.*
http://2kmodels.com/
Now that the Washington State Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Elizabeth Hovde's position, she writes the following:
ReplyDelete"Library Needn't Supply Pornography, Court Rules," by Elizabeth Hovde, The Oregonian, 7 May 2010.
It is a must read.
Well, I've been browsing around your site tonight, and while I agree with your fundamental assertation that libraries/schools should reflect their local communities' priciples - and thus agree, grudgingly, with a lot of your conclusions - I am adamantly in favor of accessing porn on library computers. My local library filters the computers in the Juvenille section, and I belief parents can set their kids' cards to only work down there when they sign up. Heck, I'm reading this on a library computer and I have http://archiveofourown.org/works/959122 open in the next window. Sure, in an ideal world I'd have private internet access at home, but frankly that's true for all of us. You don't crowd into a freezing cold computer lab to borrow someone else's mid-speed internet connection in fifteen-minute increments unless there's some serious financial hamperings in your life.
ReplyDeletePersonally, if it were up to me and only me, I'd nix the internet computers altoghether - maybe keep a pop3/imap client so people can pull and respond to emails, type resumes, print their email attachments, but no internet surfing. The sheer amount of shelf square footage *alone* that had to be sacrificed to squeeze in a couple dozen more terminals...
But I'm not in charge. Taxpayers as a whole are, and as a whole we want free access to the internet and for some reason have decided that chronically underfunded and cramped public libraries should bear this burden for us. I can't say I think all too much of that decision.