The Concord Free Press has been publishing books and giving them away for two years. This unorthodox business model was profiled yesterday on NPR: A Novel Approach: Free Books For Donations. A fantastic story and fascinating proposition in the age of the e-book. Concord Free Press says of generosity-based publishing:

We publish great books and give them away. All we ask is that you make a voluntary donation to a charity or someone in need. Tell us about it. Then pass your book along so others can give.

The publisher boasts that more than $145,525 in donations have been reported from readers around the world.

The U.S. Copyright Office and Librarian of Congress announced six new exemptions to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Digital Rights Management (DRM)  measures stating, “Persons making noninfringing uses of the following [...] classes of works will not be subject to the prohibition against circumventing access controls (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)) until the conclusion of the next rulemaking.” The six classes of works include:

1. 1. Motion pictures on DVDs that are lawfully made and acquired and that are protected by the Content Scrambling System;
2. 2. Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications;
3. 3. Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that enable used wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telecommunications network;
4. 4. Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works;
5. 5. Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete; and
6. 6. Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling either of the book’s read-aloud function or of screen readers that render the text into a specialized format.

Of note is the fair use exemption for circumventing copyright protection technology on DVDs — when accomplished solely in order to incorporate short portions of motion pictures into new works for the purpose of criticism or comment in the following instances:

1. i. Educational uses by college and university professors and by college and university film and media studies students;
2. ii. Documentary filmmaking; and
3. iii. Noncommercial videos.

More from Ars Technica.

Two boxes of unknown Ansel Adams slides worth $200 million+

A decade ago, Rick Norsigian, of Fresno, CA purchased two boxes of glass slides at  a garage sale for $45 — unbeknown to Norsigian, the boxes contained 65 early glass negatives created by Ansel Adams. Thought to have been destroyed in a 1937 studio fire, the Adams plates were authenticated by forensic experts and valued at over $200 million. More from CNN.

Mystery Caravaggio a modest disappointment

A week after claiming that an obscure painting may be a long-lost Caravaggio, the Vatican newspaper l’Osservatore Romano confirms that the work “could be the work of one of the first followers of Caravaggio.” The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence was discovered to have all the markings of Caravaggio during a recent cleaning — the announcement also coincided with the 400th anniversary celebration of the artist’s death (1610). Via The Washington Post.

Daniel Grant wrote an interesting post about the importance of diligent recordkeeping. Grant discusses the difficulties multimedia sculptor Nam June Paik (1932-2006) faced in the twilight of his career. After suffering a debilitating stroke in 1996, Paik encountered a number of lawsuits surrounding the authenticity of certain works.

Had Paik kept documentary records, Grant notes, “signed and initialed by all parties involved – the confusion might have been resolved more quickly and with less expense.” Common recordkeeping omissions include loaning artwork to galleries and museums, gallery consignments, and licensing images for commercial use.

More from Daniel Grant at Huffington Post.

Late last month, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) announced the launch of Operation In Our Sites – an initiative aimed at Internet counterfeiting and piracy. Operating largely at the behest of the  Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the first action carried out as part of the initiative led to the seizure of nine websites, including tvshack.net, movie-links.tv, filepump.com, now-movies.com, planetmoviez.com, thepiratecity.org, zml.com, and ninjavideo.com. According to CNET, more than a dozen bank, investment and advertising accounts were wrangled — in addition to the URLs themselves:

The Glitch Mob announced its REMIX IT LIKE YOU STOLE IT competition. 2 winning tracks will be  featured on the upcoming DRINK THE SEA remix album. From Glitch Mob: “Proceeds from the sale of the release through Download to Donate for Haiti v2.0 will benefit  Music For Relief’s Haiti Earthquake Recovery, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to providing aid to victims of natural disasters and disaster prevention.”

For more information — including how to enter, visit REMIX IT LIKE YOU STOLE IT.

I meant to write about this some time ago when I stumbled across this post from Le geek c’est chic. Ciara notes that GreenGraffiti uses reverse graffiti to serve advertisements — while maintaining a carbon neutral footprint.

“With the help of a template and a high pressure water sprayer an advertising message is cleaned out of the dirt,” says GreenGraffiti, “[t]he result is a high impact message and a cleaner street.”

While the Dutch agency focuses on corporate messaging, variations on reverse graffiti are many. Environmental Graffiti has this post detailing 35 such works. Of note is Alexandre Orion’s Skulls in Sao Paolo:

The Art Newspaper ran an interesting blurb about works of art stored in the basement of the Vancouver Art Gallery. A member of the museum’s acquisitions committee recently noted that pot smoke from frequent pro-marijuana events may be damaging the contemporary collection — not so, claims the museum’s director.