Links Roundup for 29 August 2011

[otw_staff]

Here's a roundup of stories about fannish technology that may be of interest to fans:

• Last week the Electronic Frontier Foundation posted about a recent U.S. court decision on the legality of online music storage. While noting that the court upheld penalties for businesses who don't respond to valid takedown notices, the EFF concluded that "Overall, we were glad to see the Court get it right that music locker services fall safely within the DMCA’s safe harbors, which Congress designed to foster innovation on the Internet. MP3tunes and all the music locker services that have followed it give music fans more options for storing and listening to the music they already own, helping realize the promise of that innovation."
  


• While music fans have been adopting online music storage, many fanfic readers have been adopting eReaders to store and access their fannish materials. A recent survey by Nielsen concluded: "Looking at the data by gender underlines key changes in the eReader category. Sixty-one percent of all eReader owners are now female, compared to a mere 46 percent in Q3 2010." Most significant is the growth in users 55 and older who now account for 30% of the eReader market compared to owning a much smaller percentage of similar technology such as smartphones and tablets. The AO3 has been proactive in the inclusion of easy downloading formats for text content, which is not only a convenience for fans but enhances accessibility for all users.

If you're part of music fandoms or have long used eReaders to access fanfic, why not contribute your experiences to Fanlore? Additions to the site are welcome from all fans.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

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