Michael Stern Hart died this last week. Hart is credited with creating the first e-book in 1971 by typing the text of the Declaration of Independence into a computer and making it available for downloading via Arpanet, the government-sponsored predecessor to the internet. Hart personally added many more canonical texts through the years, and when the web exploded so did his project, which he called Project Gutenberg. The database now contains 30,000 books in sixty languages. Volunteers add hundreds of books each month, making works mostly within the public domain available for free to everyone with an internet connection.
Even in 1971, Hart envisioned the web as a place where information could be freely accessed and exchanged, and foresaw a time when e-books would be easily downloaded and transportable. To learn more about Hart and his life’s work, read one of many tributes written on the occasion of his death.
Technology in the Workplace
- ALJ Board Finds that Firings Based on Facebook Messages Violated NLRA (New York Labor & Employment Law Report)
- Freelance Revolution and Freelance Realities (Minding the Workplace)
- Court Imposes Social Networking Policy (Delaware Employment Law Blog)
- NLRB Social Media Memo Part III – Union Youtube Violation (Lawffice Space)
- Hacking Fears Prompt Workplace Social Media Ban (WSJ)
- Ethical and Legal Workplace Monitoring (i-Sight Blog)
- Workers Get Additional Feedback with Software and More Frequent Reviews (ABA Journal)
Technology and the Law More Generally
- Internet Sweepstakes Cafes Pose an Interesting Legal Debate (Sophisticated Litigation Support Blog)
- NY Court Dismisses Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Claim for Use of Supercookies and History Sniffing (Trading Secrets)
- Is a Client Sending You an Email on a Work Computer? Duty to Warn Could Apply (ABA Journal)
Technology this Week
- Apple Wins German Ban of Samsung Tablet (Reuters)
- Twitter Announces Activity: 400 Million Monthly Users (Twitter)
- Inside Walmart’s Super Social Shopping Agenda (Fast Company)
- Michael Hart, Founder of Project Gutenberg, Dies at 64 (Gutenberg.org)
Contributed and compiled by Scott Raver