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Category: blip.tv, copyright, creativecommons, lawrencelessig, video
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An elegy for the book
16
Dec 2009
Read this transcript of a recent talk by Cory Doctorow. Seriously, read this! Here are a few choice excerpts.
…We are the people of the book. We love our books. We fill our houses with books. We treasure books we inherit from our parents, and we cherish the idea of passing those books on to our children. Indeed, how many of us started reading with a beloved book that belonged to one of our parents? We force worthy books on our friends, and we insist that they read them. We even feel a weird kinship for the people we see on buses or airplanes reading our books, the books that we claim. If anyone tries to take away our books—some oppressive government, some censor gone off the rails—we would defend them with everything that we have. We know our tribespeople when we visit their homes because every wall is lined with books. There are teetering piles of books beside the bed and on the floor; there are masses of swollen paperbacks in the bathroom. Our books are us. They are our outboard memory banks and they contain the moral, intellectual, and imaginative influences that make us the people we are today…
…Neil Gaiman, who I’m sure you’re all familiar with, is a wonderful and inspiring writer, has a lovely schtick that I’m going to do for you today. How many people here have a favourite writer? Put your hands up if you have a favourite writer. Keep your hand up if you paid for the first book you got by your favourite writer, put your hand down if you got it for free. About half of you got your first book by your favourite writer for free…
…Licenses that requires that librarians turn over their patrons’ reading habits? No librarian is going to do it, because we know that your behaviour changes when what you do is surveilled. We know that intellectual freedom requires a private space. So you guys that work in libraries, your collection acquisition people are really the suckers that every ebook publisher has square in their crosshairs, they really think that they can milk you for it, and that’s because many of you have bought these ridiculous subscriptions that disappear when you stop subscribing. They’ve got you marked for suckers. It’s time to stop being suckers. It’s time to start doing right by your collections and by your patrons…
Category: copyright, corydoctorow
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Category: copyright, corydoctorow, creativecommons, libraries, video, youtube
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I’m listening to the audio version of this right now and it’s brilliant. Here’s the video for your viewing pleasure.
In his new book The Public Domain, Professor James Boyle describes how our culture, science and economic welfare all depend on the delicate balance between those ideas that are controlled and those that are free, between intellectual property and the public domain —the realm of material that everyone is free to use and share without permission or fee
Intellectual property laws have a significant impact on many important areas of human endeavour, including scientific innovation, digital creativity, cultural access and free speech. And so Boyle argues that, just as every informed citizen needs to know at least something about the environment or civil rights, every citizen in the information age should also have an understanding of intellectual property law.
Is the public domain as vital to knowledge, innovation and culture as the realm of material protected by intellectual property rights? James Boyle thinks so and visits the RSA to call for a new movement to preserve it. If we continue to enclose the “commons of the mind”, Boyle argues, we will all be the poorer.
Category: copyright, creativecommons
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Don’t take data across the border
04
Aug 2009
Yet another good reason for keep your portable data in the cloud.
Category: copyright, video, youtube
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The DMCA is endangering American security
12
Jun 2009
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act effects more than copyright issues. According to Angel Gunn:
The cybersecurity review says we need to improve academic and industry collaboration on cybersecurity and other technology issues. It also states we should "expand university curricula; and set the conditions to create a competent workforce for the digital age."
What the cybersecurity review should have said is, "We are raising a nation of timid technophobes who mistake using MyTwitFace for being a geek. Meanwhile, we have comprehensively, at every educational level, stripped away useful teaching tools and criminalized modes of research and inquiry in the name of copyright and liability laws, and sooner rather than later we are going to reap the whirlwind."
Or, putting it simply: We made ourselves stupid and now we must pay.
Read the full article on betanews.
Category: copyright, security
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From the American University, School of Communication, Center for Social Media:
You can get a PDF of the full report on the AUSOC site.
Category: blip.tv, copyright, video
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For a while now, photos posted on flickr by the White House have been licensed under a CC-BY license. While this was the most lenient of the CC licensing options it wasn’t exactly appropriate as these photos were technically in the public domain. Because of this, the attribution requirement of the CC license, although a great suggestion that everyone should follow, was technically adding a requirement that wasn’t allowed by law.
The only other option previously available was that of the Flickr Commons project “no known copyright restrictions”. Again, not appropriate as in this case we know that there can’t possibly be even the potential of a copyright claim by anyone. Again, close but technically not appropriately.
So, the folks at flickr have come up with a new designation: “United States Government Works”.
What does this mean? Well, if you click on the link you’ll be taken to the relevant page of copyright law giving you the relevant information. At that point you’re on your own. Thanks, I think.
Why doesn’t flickr just have a “public domain” option? That’s a completely different discussion which I’m not going to have here. Check out the flickr discussion and flickr’s official opinion on the matter if you’re interested.
Category: copyright, creativecommons, flickr, government
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Change.gov changes to a CC license
02
Dec 2008
I just want to officially state how happy I am that the content of Change.gov has been officially licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license. I also have a response and a concern.
The response is to those that ask "but aren’t creations of the federal government automatically in the public domain?" Well, yes, but the content of Change.gov is coming out of the "office of the president-elect" which isn’t officially part of the federal government. Additionally, Obama has given up his Senate seat so he’s no longer part of the federal government either. That is, not until January 20th. Then, he gets control of Whitehouse.gov and that’s in the public domain.
The concern is about the page on Change.gov that has the license: http://change.gov/about/copyright_policy. The CC license is listed under the heading of "Copyright Notice". Trouble is, CC isn’t Copyright. Copyright is a law, Creative Commons is a license. A picky detail I’m sure, but an important one.
Category: copyright, creativecommons, obama
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Don’t try to take a studio portrait to Wal-Mart and scan it to make some prints. According to Wal-Mart "Copyright lasts forever. It’s the law." This is what one customer was told when trying to make prints of an 80 year old photo of her dead grandmother.
Read more stories about this problem in "100 years old / Discuss" on flickr.
Category: copyright, phtotgraphy
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