Mourning Ke-Sen Huang's indexes ...

Just wanted to express here my HUGE disappointment on the fact that Ke-Sen Huang (http://kesen.huang.googlepages.com/)seems to have received a few notices from the ACM regarding his links...
So, his collection of HPG09 links just disappeared ... as well as a great number of other conferences.
Of course a great part of his links remain, but still .....

As an unaffiliated hobbyist with no access to the ACM (and not enough funds to subscribe), it really was one of my best ways to get hold of the papers that I wanted...

Not that my contribution to the State Of The Art was anything else than non-existant, but still, I think that it was a great ressource for researchers/students/hobbyists ...

Seeing Ke-Sen's work thus "amputated" really makes me sad ...

Shadow007

Edit : Added the fact that it's only a part of the indexes that are down ... and a link to his page

wow, that's a bummer. Shame on ACM.

[toxie]

this is madness!

I dont get it. All he was doing was linking to content that the authors had already put up on their own pages (which, IIRC, ACM allows them to do). They don't really have any legal grounds to stop him, do they?

I too find this sad. I'm not sure of the legality, but if it were me, I doubt I'd fight it too.

I saw his page is even linked from the official SIGGRAPH Asia website:
http://www.siggraph.org/asia2009/for_at ... al_papers/
I do not say this is a proof of ACM's approvement, but I can guess the policy is different from each conference. I wonder why they did this kind of thing. I do not think they excepted good effect on the graphics community by doing so (aside from the legality, which I am not sure either).

wow, that's a bummer. Shame on ACM.

I agree!

No way!

Also see this related post by Christer Ericson: http://realtimecollisiondetection.net/blog/?p=101

Here's a response from the ACM Publications Board. Still I think it's a good idea to write them to express what you're thinking of this.

These pages have been very popular, and clearly there is a lot of community support for them. We are currently listening to all comments and considering what can be done without damaging the sustainability of the ACM publications program, and ACM's commitment to making all of its publications available at minimum cost.

The issue here is copyright, not censorship. All of the author versions that were linked to on these pages are still available -- ACM explicitly grants individual authors the right to post their own versions of their papers on their own pages. If you want the copy of a SIGGRAPH paper and an author has posted it, you can still access it without an ACM subscription. Also note there would be no problem with these pages if they linked to the ACM version of the papers. Other lists of papers, compilations that Ke-Sen Huang built (rather than copying the table of contents from a publication) are not affected. Furthermore, the SIGAsia2009 pages Ke-Sen Huang makes available are still there until the papers are available in the ACM DL in the interest of promoting the conference.

The copyright issue that applies is described in this link:
http://www.acm.org/publications/policie ... licy#Links
" ACM treats links as citations (references to objects) rather than as incorporations (embedding of objects). Permission is not needed to create links to citations in The Portal (ACM Digital Library or Online Guide to Computing Literature). ACM encourages the widespread distribution of links to the definitive versions of its copyrighted works in the ACM Digital Library and does not require that authors obtain prior permission to include such links in their new works.

However, someone who creates a work or a service whose pattern of links substantially duplicates a copyrighted work should get prior permission from the copyright holder. One example: the creator of "A Table of Contents for the Current Issue of TODS" -- consisting of citations and active links to author-versions of the works in the latest issue of TODS -- needs ACM permission because that creator is reproducing an ACM-copyrighted work. If all the links in the "Table of Contents" pointed to the ACM-held definitive versions, ACM would normally give permission because then the new work advertises an ACM work. To avoid misunderstandings, consult with ACM before duplicating an ACM work via links."

Here's a response from the ACM Publications Board. Still I think it's a good idea to write them to express what you're thinking of this.

However, someone who creates a work or a service whose pattern of links substantially duplicates a copyrighted work should get prior permission from the copyright holder. One example: the creator of "A Table of Contents for the Current Issue of TODS" -- consisting of citations and active links to author-versions of the works in the latest issue of TODS -- needs ACM permission because that creator is reproducing an ACM-copyrighted work. If all the links in the "Table of Contents" pointed to the ACM-held definitive versions, ACM would normally give permission because then the new work advertises an ACM work. To avoid misunderstandings, consult with ACM before duplicating an ACM work via links."

So, their legal claim is that he violated the copyright on the table of contents from the proceedings? What if I made a similar page entitled, "links to papers that I like", scrambled the order of the pages, and assigned easily deciphered code words? (e.g. SIGGRAPH -> uberconference. I3D -> fastpixels. GH -> pretty silicon ).

If Ke-Sen would be in Europe, this would be 100% illegal by ACM, and I guess it's even illegal by (sometimes quite silly) US laws.
He has a right to cite and link other peoples works. And if this people have a right to publish their (own) work and if they do this,
there is no reason why ACM should have any right to stop him. ACM has a right to copy the works of this people and even to
sell copies of this works (which is nice of this people, as ACM didn't pay them, the creation of this works is mostly paid for by t
he tax payers or student fees or companies). ACM has no monopoly in this works (why should they?) They have no right to
maximize their profit by selling other peoples work and suppress the access to free versions.

It would be different, if Ke-Sen would have copied this papers to his own server to spread them. But he just gave the
links to freely available, legaly available information. He himself has no commercial gain in collecting this links (Google
Ads or something like that). So there is no form of abuse of other peoples works by aggregation or duplication.

This really sucks. While Google is happily scanning whole libraries of books without authors permission to make billions of
profit (with AdWords, etc.) and no-one seems able to really stop them, this brave guy is terrorized by ACM just for doing
academics dirty work.

Perhabs we should collect some bucks to sue them (ACM) or alarm EFF at least ?

Sounds like the typical BS from a corporate company.. But why would they be selling those documents if they are freely available?

I've had my issues with all these big organizations, too, and I can assure you that it is no fun.

Ke-Sen Huang's pages were of incredible value for all those researchers that were submitting their work to the ACM conferences. These pages also were free commercials for ACM events and assured the high quality that the ACM claims for its publications. So, no more free marketing, no more free reviewing of papers for the ACM, or what ? In the end it will be a major quality hit for the ACM. While we are talking about the ACM: Other organizations now may follow this bad example...

I was supporting Ke-Sen Huang's work over many years, because it has been really valuable for science. Thanks, guy !

Just wanted to add : I have NOTHING against the ACM, and don't know much about their "business model" (nor even if they have one), just I'm not sure about the legality of the 3.7 part of their copyright policy ... I don't understand how they have a standing against links to the papers...

[Phantom]

I don't think they need it to be 100% legal; someone like Ke-Sen Huang will not risk his career over something silly like this, so he will take down the list as soon as someone asks. I don't blame him. By the way, I got a notification from Eric Haines that someone is sending a little petition to ACM. Apparently, ACM is very aware of the issue. There's a simple way to solve this: ACM can give Ke-Sen Huang permission, and then everything will be legal again. Let's hope they do the right thing.

I don't blame him either ... and mailed him to express my support...

It's just simply too silly, but I also understand that the ACM wants/needs to keep it's IP under control...

Cross fingers that they are sensible and leave him resume his links...

Crossing your fingers won't do much for the cause. If you care about the issue I urge you to contact the ACM board as suggested at: http://realtimecollisiondetection.net/blog/?p=101

Good news, it's over, for now, with a happy ending: http://www.realtimerendering.com/blog/k ... o-back-up/

Eric

Thabks for the heads up, and thanks to the ACM for taking a better stance on the problem and agreeing/finding a practical resolution ...

Just to let you know I have at least a partial answer to my question about the 3.7 legality ... see
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode ... 98#c803276

Short stories are often published in books. The authors of the stories retain
copyright on the stories themselves. However, the collection is itself
copyrighted as a collection by its publisher independently of the copyrights on
the individual stories. The editor has exercised some judgement as to what
stories should be a part of the collection, the order in which they should be
presented, and also typically writes introductions for each story or provides
some other relevant background material.

It is conceivable that a collection of links could be copyrighted in the same
way, provided there was some creativity involved in the selection and
presentation of the links. This is different from the links provided by a search
engine because the search engine is merely providing a mechanical aggregation
without any originality or creativity.

Bollocks.

There's a conference. People that should know better present papers. Someone lists those papers. The required originality and creativity levels are that of an ungifted clam.

And it's no happy ending, or Right Thing to Do, when the drooling clown collective also known as ACM still thinks it's entitled to have any say whatsoever about it as in "Thou shall not link directly".

Bollocks.

There's a conference. People that should know better present papers. Someone lists those papers. The required originality and creativity levels are that of an ungifted clam.

And it's no happy ending, or Right Thing to Do, when the drooling clown collective also known as ACM still thinks it's entitled to have any say whatsoever about it as in "Thou shall not link directly".

100% ACK

A listing of accepted conference papers is no creative act by a publisher, like selecting stories and poems and arranging them to a bouquet of literature. It's a result of a
procedure of peer review by the scientific community with lots of volunteers and unpaid participants (as reviews and writers). And to be scientific, it has to agree to a
certain amount of openess and fair (re)use. This is not some "nice story telling" business. It's about the progress of knowledge and wisdom for human kind. So it does
not play by the short sighted view of commercial business and profit optimization.

And the ACM may make rules about citation of links in their own publications, but they can't make rules which override common laws. It's irrelevant how some ACM folks
think about hyperlinking and citation in "the proper way" to the "official version". It just doesn't matter. One can hyperlink to any legal content, if it's a
paper that was accepted by some ACM conference or just your grandma's online-cooking tips. ACM has no right to imply their rules of "cite and link the official version"
to anyone outside their own paper-world.

Ke-Sen couldn't infringe any copyright, as he copied nothing. He just cited and linked accepted conference papers, that is not only "fair use", it's the normal way
of scientific work, it's what every descent university library has to do in their catalogs.

Looks to me that ACM is to big and is ruled my to many idiots and careerists to be of any use for science anymore.

http://www.realtimerendering.com/blog/k ... o-back-up/
It will come back. Cheers!