Censorship in Prison/Carceral Settings (and thoughts about copyright education)

In August, Aaron Blumberg wrote three articles for Book Riot on current state of prison censorship. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, nearly 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States at any given time. It is likely that you know of someone who has been in detention facility (i.e., prison, jail) or in a processing facility. Perhaps you tried to communicate with that person and found it to be difficult because communication could only occur in specific ways (e.g., email and not paper mail). If you tried to send printed material to that person, then you may have encountered censorship. That censorship was a glimpse into what prison libraries, Books-to-prison (B2P) programs, and higher education in prison (HEP) programs go through.

As Blumberg writes, censorship can occur because of a perceived copyright violation, yet the person making that determination is someone who likely has not received proper copyright education. And those who would review any objection likely don't understand the law either. I'm sure that no one involved in creating our copyright law had in mind that it would be used to limited access to materials in prisons, including materials that "jailhouse lawyers" need.

Finally, I will note that this censorship can occur with both print and digital materials. While Blumberg doesn't say this, I expect that this censorship will soon be handled by AI, which could review digital materials faster and might even use digital bibliographic information to pass judgement on print items. Hopefully anti-censorship legislation will take the potential impact of AI into account. 

Aaron Blumberg's articles are: 

• Censorship in Prison: Fulfilling the Writ of Librarianship
• Request Denied (Again): Navigating Prison Censorship from the Outside 
• Anti-Censorship Legislation: Prisons Need Not Apply

Webinar Recording: 2026 Copyrighted Content Usage Trends: How AI Workflows Are Driving Content

Yesterday the Copyright Clearance Center hosted a LinkedIn event entitled, "2026 Copyrighted Content Usage Trends: How AI Workflows Are Driving Content."  I had not considered what AI is doing to the velocity on content, which then impacts copyright compliance. It was a worthwhile webinar and one worth watching if your organization is using AI as it creates, ingests, and/or disseminates content.

 

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Description: Employees are sharing content faster than ever, and now AI is consuming it too. 

Join us...for an exclusive first look at the results of the 2026 Copyrighted Content Usage Trends Report. In a conversation moderated by CCC’s VP & Managing Director Lauren Tulloch, SVP of Outsell Intelligence Grant Hunter and CCC Legal Advisor Roanie Levy will explore the results and discuss how executives can translate these insights into action.

AI has fundamentally changed how copyrighted content moves through the enterprise. Third-party content is no longer just shared between colleagues—it is regularly fed into AI tools for a variety of employee tasks.

Since 2007, CCC and Outsell have tracked the velocity of content: how often professionals share published material, with how many people, and through which channels. The 2025 study added its first AI questions, and the findings warranted a closer look. The 2026 study provides new data on how third-party content enters AI workflows, how often the outputs are shared, and with whom, offering a benchmark for leaders examining their own enterprise practices. 

Update on training offered by the Creative Commons

Below is text from Shanna Hollich, who is Senior Manager, Learning and Training for the Creative Commons.

 

JCLC 2026 Early Bird Registration has been extended to August 31st!

JCLC is a conference for everyone to enjoy! Held every four years, this national gathering is a collaborative effort organized by AILA, APAL, BCALA, CALA, and REFORMA. This year, we're excited to mark the 5th iteration of the conference. We hope to see you there!

Date and Location of the Conference:

The 5^th national Joint Conference of Librarians of Color will be held October 7-11, 2026, at the Spokane Convention Center in Spokane, Washington.

Who Should Attend and Why Is It Beneficial?

JCLC is a conference for everyone! JCLC brings together a diverse group of librarians, library staff, library supporters, and community participants to explore issues of diversity in libraries and how they affect the ethnic communities who use our services. JCLC is a unique and unparalleled opportunity for participants to share successes, opportunities, and challenges while networking and attending cutting-edge programs on pressing issues affecting both librarians and communities of color. The conference includes speakers, skills-building workshops, research-based panels, networking opportunities, and exhibits. In addition, JCLC deepens connections across constituencies and beyond, and unifies and strengthens the voices of each association.

Register Today!

Early registration rates are valid until August 31, 2026.

Article: Judge approves a $1.5B Anthropic settlement over pirated books used to train the Claude chatbot

According to the Associates Press, "A federal judge has approved a $1.5 billion copyright settlement in which artificial intelligence company Anthropic will pay thousands of authors about $3,000 per book after using pirated copies of their works to train its Claude chatbot." 

While this is a win for the authors, commenters note that companies have been training their AI systems on other data where creators/owners have not been compensated. This reminds me of the era when Google, Microsoft, and others were gobbling up books and other texts to train their search engines. Did all creators receive compensation then? Will all creators receive compensation now?