A documentary issue, finalizing our review of peer property modes, focusing on the precondition to peer production, i.e. open access to knowledge, and on the licenses which protect such open access. Next issue will be more exciting, covering political developments.
Don't forget to check out news about the Foundation, almost every week now there are interesting initiatives, and the miscelleneous section.
ISSUE 114, February 15, 2006, Table of Contents
P2P News,
Issue 114, February 15, 2006
Peer Property (2): Open content, open
knowledge
A monitor of P2P
developments; a continuous attempt to construct an emancipatory P2P theory; Preferred
themes: peer production, peer governance, peer property. P2P News aims to
stimulate the dialogue between the following social and cultural movements:
the participatory movement, the `open' movement (open access, open sources);
the Commons movement; the relational/participatory spirituality movement.
For
subscriptions write to compiler and editor Michel Bauwens at michelsub2003@yahoo.com
P2P News is an emanation of the FOUNDATION FOR PEER TO
PEER ALTERNATIVES
This newsletter is sponsored by WS, at http://www.ws-network.com/
QUOTES
-
David Winer,
How to Make Money on the Internet?, version 2.0
"To make money on the Internet, get a lot of people
writing for your site, nurture them, teach them, find the best, and grow grow
grow. Editorial people become talent scouts. Instead of employing writers,
employ facilitators and teachers. Rewrite the rules of journalism to reach into
the depths of our culture, in ways that print-based media can't. There's no
limit to the coverage of the Web. Where the front page of a newspaper is
finite, on the Web we have vertical scrollbars that can go (virtually) to infinity.
If another good story comes along, point to it. It's pretty simple."
Source: http://davenet.scripting.com/2001/02/13/howToMakeMoneyOnTheInternetV20
-
Closed
knowledge systems such as patents are slowing down innovation
"Part of the patent system is that it's supposed to
help by getting ideas published, but with those patents being so lucrative and
everyone keeping quiet it means that the various ideas were being held for as
long as possible -- slowing down all sorts of medical advancement. It appears
that some medical researchers are finally recognizing this. The Wall Street
Journal today has an article noting that only 20 new drugs were approved last
year, and researchers are blaming the lack of collaboration for the failure to
see any more breakthroughs. However, some are finally changing this practice
and looking to share more information, much earlier in the process in order to
try to build up more practical ideas more quickly"
From Techdirt, cited by Smart Mobs, at http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2006/01/23/closedsystem_k.html
CONTENTS
THE
FOUNDATION SITE
-
For a good summary of the key ideas
around P2P Theory, see the essay for CTheory, at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499;
in French: http://www.p2pfoundation.net/index.php/Le_peer_to_peer:_nouvelle_formation_sociale%2C_nouveau_model_civilisationnel.
Thai and Italian versions also available.
-
A completely updated bound version of
the P2P manuscript is available in PDF format, in print, for EURO 20.
Send me an email with your postal address. Please support this initiative by
ordering a copy.
-
The Foundation site now has available: a
Directory of P2P Individuals; a first listing of P2P Books; a
directory of P2P Movements; a directory of P2P Resources (tools and
software); a P2P Encyclopedia; and thematic access to the main
themes covered by the special issues. Contributions are welcome at http://www.p2pfoundation.net/index.php/Main_Page
-
Statistics on readership of the related
Integral Visioning material is available at http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=stats
-
Changes to the Foundation Wiki can be
tracked by subscribing to the following feed through bloglines or an RSS
reader: http://www.p2pfoundation.com/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&limit=150&hideminor=1&feed=rss
. It's a good way to keep track of new encyclopedia or directory entries
NEWS
-
Jim Puntasen and Paola Dimaio have been
working very hard to bring on the first ever Thai Bloggers conference,
on March 4 in Bangkok,
http://www.sf-day.org/wiki/index.php/Bloggers_Meeting_Bangkok
-
What
is a Technorati ranking, and how you could improve our own ranking, at http://www.centralityjournal.com/archives/what_is_a_technorati_ranking.html . Our ranking is a pretty dismal 306,609 (but it still means
that about 27 million blogs are worse off); Milestones for the P2P Foundation
is that our main site has just past the 10,000 visitors. We started putting
content mid-November. The P2P Encyclopedia has passed the 200 items mark as
well.
-
Thanks
to this Basque blogger Julen, for starting a dialogue on the topic of Peer to
Peer and cooperatives, at http://artesaniaenred.blogspot.com/2006/02/bloggers-simple-communication.html
-
George Dafermos, our
Greek sympathizer, is very active, here's a rundown of the resources he's
working on: the
Common Good Public License [cgpl.org],
Hyper(+)drome
[hyperdrome.net],
and opensource.gr.
Most of George's writings are
linked to from http://hyperdrome.net/people/dafermos/writings.html
-
Our blog has joined the audioweb, thanks to
James Burke, who implemented Skype voicemailing. You can now contact us by
voice!
-
Thai newspaper The Nation's Nophakhun
Limsamarnphun has published an opinion piece about `peer to peer
revolutionizing global society', at http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2006/01/22/opinion/index.php?news=opinion_19718609.html
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003593.html
1)
Free the Encyclopedia - Wikipedia is probably how
this will be accomplished, though the Wikipedia goal involves a freely
licensed, high quality encyclopedia in every language - while we're more or
less there for people who speak English or German and have broadband net
access, it's a long way away for speakers of Arabic, Hindi or Bengali...
2)
Free the Dictionary - While Wiktionary is working on this
problem, it's proved harder to accomplish than Wikipedia. One reason -
dictionary data is highly structured - every entry has certain things (an
authoritative spelling, a derivation, a pronunciation...) while encyclopedia
articles are less structured. A new version of MediaWiki software that better
supports structured data is in development, and Jimmy thinks this will move the
project forward.
3)
Free the Curiculum - Free textbooks and curicula, from kindergarten
through the university level. Jimmy's done some work on this with the WikiBooks project, though
the project is, again, not taking off with the same rapidity as Wikipedia.
Jimmy recognizes that WikiBooks hasn't been progressing rapidly, and mentioned
that Wikibooks has moved to a "book module" model, encouraging people
to write sections of books rather than the whole thing. Jimmy believes that
public school textbooks in some US
states would be easily built under the module model, since the modules are
clearly specified by state standards - this would allow teachers to contribute
small sections of curiculum and rapidly create free books.
4)
Free the Music. Most of the great works of classical music are in the
public domain. But most recordings of them aren't. And many scores and
arrangements aren't. The Free the Music project would encourage community
orchestras to create freely licensed recordings of great works.
5)
Free the Art. Again, many of the great sculptures and paintings that
represent our collective cultural heritage are no longer copyrighted. But many
photos of these works ARE copyrighted. Jimmy tells a story about receiving
complaints from museums that Wikipedia contains "unlicensed
reproductions" of works that they hold in their collections. These
complaints aren't quite cease and desist letters, because the images on
Wikipedia might be photos taken by Wikipedia users and released under a free
license. But they are threats, designed to deter users from reproducing works
of art that are in the public domain. Jimmy's response to these letters is to
write back letters encouraging museum directors to feel a sense of shame in
locking away cultural works from the public... he's not gotten any responses to
these letters.
6.
Free the File Formats - Jimmy argues that proprietary file formats are
worse than proprietary software. If your data is in a proprietary format,
you're trapped if you want to stop using a particular piece of software.
Wikipedia uses Ogg Vorbis instead of MP3 due
to patent concerns and fears of being locked into a proprietary format.
7.
Free the Maps - As Google Map hackers are proving, there's tremendous
interest in building GIS-enabled services. Open source hackers are concerned
about building services on Google Maps because Google owns the underlying data
- Jimmy believes that hackers will build their own maps database and start
creating GIS and GPS enabled services on top of this data.
8.
Free Product Identifiers - If you link to a book on Amazon.com, you have
two choices in constructing your URL - an ISBN number (non-proprietary) or an
ASIN number (proprietary). Jimmy recommends you link using an ISBN, so if you
decide not to continue selling books as an Amazon affiliate, you can migrate to
another bookseller, rather than being locked in by proprietary product
identifiers. He'd like to see a world where there's a full set of free product
identifiers where people could more easily participate in the world of
"long tail" sales by getting an LTIN: a "long-tail
identification number". (There was more than a little skepticism from the
group at Berkman on this one - yes, it's worrisome that Amazon numbers are
non-transferrable, but will open product ID numbers really help people sell to
a global market?)
9.
Free the search engine - Jimmy believes we'll see an open, transparent,
ad supported search engine in the future. Unlike Google et.al., its ranking
algorithms will be published and won't rely on security via obscurity. This
prediction/proposal was independent of proposals for the long-promised "semantic
web" - this is more a prediction of/call for a non-proprietary search
engine in the model of Google.
10.
Free the Communities - The terms of service agreements at many online
community sites (like my former venture, Tripod) include text giving the community
host either ownership of or a perpetual license to any content you create.
Jimmy believes that projects like WikiCities will start creating new community
spaces where users own their content and can decide whether or not hosts can
use it.
11.
Free the TV listings. If you want to build your own digital video
recorder, like MythTV, you need a good
source of data for what programs are on when. It's not hard to believe that a
group of end users could discover and enter this data on a free basis.
12.
Free academic publishing. Jimmy says he's slowly but surely coming
around to the Open Access model for academic publishing advocated by Peter Suber and others. Under
this model, peer-reviewed academic journals are free to readers (like journal First
Monday) and are edited either by volunteers or supported by
publication fees paid by authors included in the journal.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html
Description
of the aims of the movement by Peter Suber.
·
Open-access (OA) literature is digital,
online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
·
OA removes price barriers
(subscriptions, licensing fees, pay-per-view fees) and permission barriers
(most copyright and licensing restrictions). The PLoS shorthand definition --"free
availability and unrestricted use"-- succinctly captures both elements.
·
There is some flexibility about which
permission barriers to remove. For example, some OA providers permit commercial
re-use and some do not. Some permit derivative works and some do not. But all
of the major public definitions of OA agree that merely removing price
barriers, or limiting permissible uses to "fair use" ("fair
dealing" in the UK),
is not enough.
·
Here's how the Budapest Open Access
Initiative put it: "There are many degrees and kinds of wider and
easier access to this literature. By 'open access' to this literature, we mean
its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read,
download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these
articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them
for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers
other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The
only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for
copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity
of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited."
·
Here's how the Bethesda and Berlin
statements put it: For a work to be OA, the copyright holder must consent in
advance to let users "copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work
publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for
any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship...."
·
The Budapest (February 2002), Bethesda (June 2003),
and Berlin
(October 2003) definitions of "open access" are the most central and
influential for the OA movement. Sometimes I call refer to them collectively,
or to their common ground, as the BBB
definition.
·
While removing price barriers without
removing permission barriers is not enough for full OA under the BBB
definition, there's no doubt that price barriers constitute the bulk of
the problem for which OA is the solution. Removing price barriers alone will
give most OA proponents most of what they want and need.
·
In addition to removing access barriers, OA
should be immediate, rather than delayed, and should apply to full-text, not
just to abstracts or summaries.
More at the
blog of the movement, at http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html
Renaissance of
the Science Commons, at http://onthecommons.org/node/711
http://www.sourceopen.org/wiki/?pagename=OpenSourceEcology.About
The Open Source Ecology project is based on
a radical knowledge sharing model:
"The goal of OSE is to engage people
in a sustainable lifestyle as a means to addressing pressing world issues. We
do this by providing the opportunity to live sustainably at our land-based
facility. This
Facility is an intentional communy known as
Open Source Enterprise Learning Community. In this community, a sustainable
lifestyle involves providing many of
the basic needs from on-site resources - food, housing, energy, transportation,
and culture. We engage in what we call neo-subsistence,
Or technologically advanced subsistence
that blends ancient wisdom and new technology to provide a high quality of life.
The lifestyle includes meaningful work, service to the greater global
community, and leisure to pursue
one's true interests. Neo-subsistence involves wise utilization of resources
and best practices that keeps overhead low and helps us to focus on our
mission. To advance the goals of neo-subsistence, we engage in research aimed
at developing goods and services to outside markets.
These goods and services aim at the highest
level of ecological integrity and quality that contributes to local prosperity
in a global setting."
Read more here at http://www.sourceopen.org/wiki/?pagename=OpenSourceEcology.Mission
2. How open sourcing industrial processes
might lead to a distributed economy
"Open source is a mighty concept when it
comes to cracking through the industrial system. I noticed that even the
industrial nutrients are not open source.
First, it is hard to get some of the components, and formulas are key. Thus,
opening up this information may be a great service to society.If one can open
source industrial lettuce production, i predict that we will get closer to
Jeffersonian democracy (means of production in many hands). Thus my approach.
With initial economic power of open source industrial systems, we can then
start talking of transformation of the economicsystem in a mainstream fashion.
I can't tell what will happen after that, but i predict that open source
industrial processes lead to collapse of mass production and reinvention of
production by the masses, namely,
of quality goods.
3.Other `industrial'
Open source projects.
"Numerous other open source development projects are also under
way. One example is OSCar, or Open Source Car, the development of a state of
the art fuel cell vehicle which will be licensed freely to any social
entrepreneur and can be produced on a scale orders of magnitude smaller than
typical car manufacturers, such that it is appropriate for
regionally-appropriate development. (ref) Another example of open source
development is SolaRoof, a variable insulation and light throughput and state
of the art glazing system whose proponent transferred relevant patents into the
public domain to foster a collaborative deployment effort. (ref) Another
example is a project which developed a $1 blood plasma dispenser for third
world applications, where people were formerly not able to afford the only
available devices, which cost $100."
http://onthecommons.org/node/695
; http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2005_08_07_fosblogarchive.html#a112360020092342493
A review of various open
textbook projects.
"All of this brings me to the heartening rise of open
source textbook publishing. As Suber blogged on August 9, 2005,
there are now several full-blown open-access textbook initiatives underway.
These include the California
Open Source Textbook Project, CommonText, Libertas Academica, the Open Textbook Project, and Wikibooks.
Suber reports that there are also hybrid initiatives like BookPower,
whose ebooks are only free to developing countries.
Wikibooks explains the advantage of open source textbooks: The
textbooks on this site are all released under an open content license that
means that they are free forever. No one can keep you from using these
materials, modifying them or distributing them. Also, the license guarantees
that any works that are derived from these materials will be similarly free to
modify and distribute, forever.
Are you really going to spend $100 or more for a textbook when
you can get the same information for free? These texts are owned by the
community and the world. Our textbooks are started by people who are familiar
with the subject. Content is continually augmented by Wikibookians. This is no
lone professor seeking additional income, it is a community of people who are
there to learn the material in the least painful way to get the grade and be
prepared for the next step. That means textbooks that make sense.You will never
have to wait months or years for another edition to come out that incorporates
the latest changes in the field. The very minute a discovery or advancement is
made the text can be updated to reflect that change. Every module in the
textbooks has its own associated talk page where students can ask each other
questions and help each other with the material. Learners from around the globe
who have access to the Web can find quality educational information, regardless
of financial status, local/regional educational restrictions, or proximity to
an educational institution."
The Economic case
for creative commons based textbooks, at http://www.campus-technology.com/print.asp?ID=11891
See also,
information about the Open Document Format, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-license2/?ca=dgr-lnxw01OS-Licensing
An introduction into the
complexity of the open licensing schemes.
1. Academic vs. reciprocal Open Source Licenses
"All open source licenses share five fundamental intents
(borrowed from attorney Lawrence Rosen's book Open Source Licensing:
Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law and used with permission):
- Licensees are
free to use open source software for any purpose whatsoever.
- Licensees are
free to make copies of open source software and are free to distribute
those copies without payment of royalties to a licensor.
- Licensees are
free to create derivative works of open source software and are free to
distribute those works without payment of royalties to a licensor.
- Licensees are
free to access and use the source code of open source software.
- Licensees are free
to combine open source and other software.
All these intentions are affirmative; none prevents the licensor
or licensee from imposing additional terms. In fact, there are more than 50
unique Open Source Initiative (OSI)-approved licenses listed at Opensource.org,
each with its own mechanics, requirements, and restrictions. Fifty licenses may
seem like a daunting number, but most of those fall into two categories: academic
licenses and reciprocal licenses.
- Academic
licenses, such as the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license, allow
software to be used for any purpose without expectations of any kind.
Software obtained via an academic license can be freely modified, sold,
redistributed, sublicensed, and combined with other software, with the
caveat that other software licenses may preclude such combination. (While
academic licenses were originally created by universities to license
academic works to the public at large -- hence, the name -- the licensor
or licensee need not be an academic institution to abide by such a
license.)
- Reciprocal
licenses, like the prototypical GNU General Public License (GPL), also
allow software to be used for any purpose, but mandate that a derivative
work be relicensed under the exact same license terms. Like an academic license,
a work licensed under a reciprocal license is intended for the common
good. However, the reciprocal license goes further to ensure that all
subsequent derivations are also made available for the common good.
Software provided under an academic license is essentially a
"gift." You may use it unencumbered and may relicense your derivative
work under a new license of your own choosing. The BSD license is an academic
license, as is the Apache Software License and the MIT License. Of all the open source licenses, the GPL
is the most widely used and is the most influential. Written by the Free
Software Foundation's Richard Stallman, the GPL asks software developers to
simultaneously agree to and proffer a bargain to other software developers:
"You can use this source code freely, but if you change it and choose to
distribute your changes in any form, you must provide your source code to
others under the terms of this very bargain."
Part of this series described the "intent" of such licenses, at http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/views/opensource/libraryview.jsp?search_by=open+source+licensing
2. Open vs. Closed
Licenses
http://computerworld.com/developmenttopics/development/story/0,10801,106679,00.html
`Before letting open-source inside your company, there are a few
simple things to know. There are two general types of open-source licenses:
permissive and coercive. The first, exemplified by the BSD or MIT licenses,
puts no restrictions on whether you distribute the open-source software outside
your organization, modify the code or combine it with your code -- the three
cardinal sins covered by coercive licenses, says Mike Olson, CEO of Sleepycat
Software Inc. in Lincoln, Mass. He acknowledges that his own Sleepycat license
as well as the GPL on which it was based are good examples of coercive
licenses.'
http://mako.cc/writing/toward_a_standard_of_freedom.html
There is a substantial
amount of critique by those in the free software movement, on the lack of
radical clarity in the Creative Commons licenses, with Richard Stallman
refusing to endorse them. Here's some background to this.
"For the CC founders and many of CC's advocates, FOSS's success
is a source of inspiration. However, despite CC's stated desire to learn from and build upon
the example of the free software movement, CC sets no defined limits and
promises no freedoms, no rights, and no fixed qualities. Free software's
success is built upon an ethical position. CC sets no such standard.
At the core of most CC licenses are a hodge-podge of
pick-and-choose (and often incompatible) features that can include prohibitions
on commercial use, the requirement to release and redistribute derivative works
freely, the requirement to retain attribution, and a blanket ban on derivative
versions altogether. The only quality common to all of these licenses was that
verbatim copies would always be distributable non-commercially. In other words,
while works under CC licenses may be licensed under any number of terms, all
works allowed the non-commercial copying of unmodified versions without
permission.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=13&ItemID=9350
Interview of Richard Stallman.
"JP: Let's conclude with some of the other
issues the free software movement is dealing with.
RMS: The main issues are hardware with secret specifications,
software patents, and treacherous computing. On hardware with secret specifications:
it is hard to write free software for hardware whose specifications are secret.
In the 1970s the computer company would hand you a manual with information
about every level of interface, from the electrical signals to the software, so
you could properly use their products. But for the past 10-15 years, there has
been hardware whose specs are secret. Proprietary software developers can get
the specs if they sign a non-disclosure agreement; the public cannot. So we are forced to experiment and
reverse-engineer, which takes time, or pressure the companies, which sometimes
works. The worst example is in 3-D graphics, in which most chip specs are
secret. One company has published its specs, and drivers have been written for
another without help. But the company ``NVidious' (that's what I call it) has
not been co-operative, and I think people should not buy computers with its chips.
An illustration of software patents
is excerpted from my
op-ed from the UK Guardian:
A novel and a modern complex programme have certain points in
common: each is large and implements many ideas. Suppose patent law had been
applied to novels in the 1800s; suppose states such as France had
permitted the patenting of literary ideas. How would this have affected Hugo's
writing? How would the effects of literary patents compare with the effects of
literary copyright?
Consider the novel Les Misérables, written by Hugo. Because he
wrote it, the copyright belonged only to him. He did not have to fear that some
stranger could sue him for copyright infringement and win. That was impossible,
because copyright covers only the details of a work of authorship, and only
restricts copying. Hugo had not copied Les Misérables, so he was not in danger.
Patents work differently. They
cover ideas - each patent is a monopoly on practising some idea, which is
described in the patent itself.
Just as one novel could infringe many different literary patents
at once, one program can infringe many different patents at once. It is so much
work to identify all the patents infringed by a large program that only one
such study has been done. A 2004 study of Linux, the kernel of the GNU/Linux
operating system, found it infringed 283 different US software patents. That is to
say, each of these 283 different patents covers some computational process
found somewhere in the thousands of pages of source code of Linux. That's why software patents act like
landmines for software developers. And for software users, since the users can
be sued too.
Treacherous computing is a plan to change the design of future
PCs so that they will obey software developers instead of you. From the
purpetrators' point of view, it is "trusted", so they call it
"trusted computing"; from the user's point of view, it is
treacherous. Which name you call it expresses whose side you're on. The new
XBox is a preview--it is designed to prevent the user from installing any
software without getting Microsoft's authorization. Here's more explanation
from my essay, 'Can you trust your computer': http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html
The technical idea underlying treacherous computing is that the
computer includes a digital encryption and signature device, and the keys are
kept secret from you. Proprietary programs will use this device to control
which other programs you can run, which documents or data you can access, and
what programs you can pass them to. These programs will continually download
new authorization rules through the Internet, and impose those rules
automatically on your work. If you don't allow your computer to obtain the new
rules periodically from the Internet, some capabilities will automatically
cease to function. Programs that
use treacherous computing will continually download new authorization rules
through the Internet, and impose those rules automatically on your work. If
Microsoft, or the US
government, does not like what you said in a document you wrote, they could
post new instructions telling all computers to refuse to let anyone read that
document. Each computer would obey when it downloads the new instructions. Your
writing would be subject to 1984-style retroactive erasure. You might be unable
to read it yourself. Treacherous
computing puts the existence of free operating systems and free applications at
risk, because you may not be able to run them at all. Some versions of
treacherous computing would require the operating system to be specifically
authorized by a particular company. Free operating systems could not be installed.
Some versions of treacherous computing would require every program to be
specifically authorized by the operating system developer. You could not run
free applications on such a system. If you did figure out how, and told
someone, that could be a crime."
-
Innovation and intellectual property -
National Consumer Council
URL = http://www.ncc.org.uk/intellectualproperty/index.htm
"Traditionally, businesses and policy-makers have tended to
think of consumers as being at the end of the value chain, choosing from the
range of products and services offered by providers. This does not describe how
value is created in a modern economy and the role consumers can, and do, play
in innovation and the co-creation of products and services."
-
Treat IP like real property
URL = http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?sid=2006011009141979&pid=397999&title=Easy%20Solution%3A%20Treat%20IP%20like%20real%20property&type=article
"I've got an easy solution to IP issues. Treat intellectual
property just like real property. One of the big differences between IP and
real estate is property taxes. Every year or two, someone comes by to assess
the value of your property, and you pay a tax based on that. We could do the
same with IP. The value of some patent is based on the money you make from it.
The value of the patent would also go up a lot if you used it as the basis of a
lawsuit too."
-
The Adelphi Charter - Criteria for
copyright, patents, trademarks and other intellectual property in the 21st
Century
URL = http://www.ipcharter.org/adelphi_charter_document.asp
"Humanity's capacity to generate new ideas and knowledge is
its greatest asset. It is the source of art, science, innovation and economic
development. Without it, individuals and societies stagnate. This creative
imagination requires access to the ideas, learning and culture of others, past
and present. Human rights call on us to ensure that everyone can create,
access, use and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals,
communities and societies to achieve their full potential."
Information markets and the public domainhttp://www.indicare.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleIdu003d154nThe journal article reviewed here (Holtgrewe 2005) attempts to explore the changing boundaries and interrelations of information markets and the public domain in the light of digital technology, digital goods and changing intellectual property regimes. The music sector and scientific publishing are the cases studied in more depth. The concepts used are derived from a sociology of knowledge understood as an "interactionist" and "constructivist" endeavour. Intellectual Property, Communism and Contextualityhttp://www.sti-studies.de/articles/2005-01/holtgrewe/Holtgrewe-STI-2005.pdf This paper explores current changes in German copyright legislation in two fields in which the digitalisation of creative works has changed the relationship between commercial and non-profit activities: the music industry and scientific publishing. For years the music industry has been facing a decreasing demand due to Internet distribution and filesharing networks and a lock-in of traditional business models. Scientific work is confronted with a supply crisis of information. The resources of libraries, which traditionally used to mediate commercial and non-profit activities, are dwindling while the role of commercial databases and meta -information systems for academic reputation is gaining importance. Fair Usehttp://www.fepproject.org"
-
Information markets and the public domain
URL = http://www.indicare.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=154
The journal article reviewed here (Holtgrewe 2005) attempts to
explore the changing boundaries and interrelations of information markets and
the public domain in the light of digital technology, digital goods and
changing intellectual property regimes. The music sector and scientific
publishing are the cases studied in more depth. The concepts used are derived
from a sociology of knowledge understood as an "interactionist" and
"constructivist" endeavour.
-
Intellectual Property, Communism and
Contextuality
URL = http://www.sti-studies.de/articles/2005-01/holtgrewe/Holtgrewe-STI-2005.pdf
This paper explores current changes in German copyright
legislation in two fields in which the digitalisation of creative works has
changed the relationship between commercial and non-profit activities: the
music industry and scientific publishing. For years the music industry has been
facing a decreasing demand due to Internet distribution and filesharing
networks and a lock-in of traditional business models. Scientific work is
confronted with a supply crisis of information. The resources of libraries,
which traditionally used to mediate commercial and non-profit activities, are
dwindling while the role of commercial databases and meta -information systems
for academic reputation is gaining importance.
-
Fair Use
URL = http://www.fepproject.org/policyreports/fairuseflyer.html"Are increasingly heavy assertions of control by copyright and trademark owners smothering fair use and free expression? The product of more than a year of research, Will Fair Use Survive? paints a striking picture of an intellectual property system that is perilously out of balance." http://www.fepproject.org/policyreports/WillFairUseSurvive.pdf"Fair use" is a crucial part of our copyright system. It allows any of us to quote and reproduce parts - or sometimes all - of copyrighted works, if the use advances creativity and democratic discussion. There are similar free expression safeguards in trademark law. Together, they assure that the owners of "intellectual property" cannot close down the free exchange of ideas. These safeguards in our copyright and trademark systems are at risk today." Internet Rights Forumhttp://www.foruminternet.org/en/"This private body, supported by the French government, is a collective adventure: all the actors of the internet, private companies, non-profit organisations, public authorities and users are called to discuss and suggest the uses and rules of online activities. The Forum aims at finding a balance between self-regulation and legal regulation through open and pragmatic discussions. It will help to imagine and practise the virtual world through the debates it will organise on all legal aspects of the internet." Digital Rights Networkhttp://drn.okfn.org/
"Are increasingly heavy assertions of control by copyright
and trademark owners smothering fair use and free expression? The product of
more than a year of research, Will Fair Use Survive? paints a striking picture
of an intellectual property system that is perilously out of balance."
-
Fair Use 2
URL = http://www.fepproject.org/policyreports/WillFairUseSurvive.pdf
"Fair use" is a crucial part of our copyright system.
It allows any of us to quote and reproduce parts - or sometimes all - of
copyrighted works, if the use advances creativity and democratic discussion.
There are similar free expression safeguards in trademark law. Together, they
assure that the owners of "intellectual property" cannot close down
the free exchange of ideas. These safeguards in our copyright and trademark
systems are at risk today."
-
Internet Rights Forum
URL = http://www.foruminternet.org/en/
"This private body, supported by the French government, is
a collective adventure: all the actors of the internet, private companies,
non-profit organisations, public authorities and users are called to discuss
and suggest the uses and rules of online activities. The Forum aims at finding
a balance between self-regulation and legal regulation through open and pragmatic
discussions. It will help to imagine and practise the virtual world through the
debates it will organise on all legal aspects of the internet."
-
Digital Rights Network
URL = http://drn.okfn.org/
"Providing news and commentary on intellectual property and the regulation of information in the digital environment from a public interest perspective. Nick-- "
"Nicholas Bentley"
Providing news and commentary on intellectual property and the
regulation of information in the digital environment from a public interest
perspective.
EMPIRE
-
A must see video, downloadabe on the web, The
Power of Nightmares, a documentary about the emergence of the politics of fear,
by Adam Curtis, which chronicles the rise of the Jihadi's and neoconservatives,
at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=461187809452836609
; See also the remarkable four part series Century of the Self, at http://insanefilms.com/?p=119
-
Two articles by David Runciman in the London
Review of Books, discussing the possibility of a world state, and the concept
of a market state, at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n11/runc01_.html, and http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n14/runc01_.html ; Thanks to Valery Gilbos for
recommending it.
OPEN CONTENT
-
The Wikipedia entry on Copyleft, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft
-
Open Source Licenses and their legal
re-inforcement ("Open Source Compliance", at http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/47802.html
The IHT produced a nice little summary of activity in a growing
area of the Open Source world: Enforcement of Open Source licenses. As the
article correctly points out, violation of Open Source licenses is more
widespread than many people know. Reprint from Linux News
-
Why Linux is not Windows, it's wrong to
compare apples and oranges, or cars and motorbikes, very interesting essay at http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm
-
Based on a study of 512 U.S. companies,
Optaros found 87% were employing Open Source in some capacity, see the survey
at http://business.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/01/09/1614237&from=rss
"Gynn said the bulk of open source use -- primarily Linux,
Apache, open source Web browsers, JBoss, and Nagios -- is coming from workgroups, as
opposed to organization-wide use. "Anywhere it's not a corporate decision
and it is a workgroup decision, then you see the greater adoption because no
one had to approve it," he said. Gynn highlighted the use of open source
for content management, with Plone and eZ publish
earning favor over Vignette on many departmental servers. Another area where
open source is accelerating is CRM, an application area that won use by 16
percent of surveyed organizations -- are expected to double in the next three
years, Optaros said. Gynn said the two main drivers of more open source CRM use
were cost savings and easier integration with other applications. He explained
that while organizations may be able to reduce costs using SalesForce.com, they
did not get the level of control possible with open source. "As people
want to get control back, they still want to keep costs down," he said.
"Open source allows you to get both." In terms of costs savings
through open source, Optaros reported that organizations with annual revenue of
more than $1 billion saved an average $3.3 million in 2004 from open source.
Medium-sized companies with revenues between $50 million and $1 billion saved
an average $1.1 million, while companies making less than $50 million saved
about $500,000.
-
Thoughtful contribution to the French
debate on the new copyright law (DAVDSI), seeking a middle way in the DRM vs
Global License debate, at http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=353205
-
New book: Felix Stadler, Open Culture
and the Nature of Networks. New Media
Center, 2005, http://felix.openflows.org/html/kuda_book.html
-
Comparative review of open-source based
content management systems, at http://www.optaros.com/wp/wp_5_cms_report.shtml
-
How almost to make a living with blogging.
This Wired article contains some recommendations for those wishing to derive an
income from blogging, at http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70161-0.html? .
Thanks to Jeff Petry for recommending it.
MISCELLANEOUS
-
Video on the tension between free speech
and respect for Islam, at http://www.dailymotion.com/search/islamistes/video/46200
-
How To Set-up Bittorrent Tvr & Auto
Convert videos To iPod Video. Pls visit www.virtualtweak.com
-
The '60 Minutes' documentary about Google,
worth watching, at http://www.dailymotion.com/cluster/tech/video/45945
-
Thoughtful roundtable debate on the French
riots and the `geography of violence', organized by Esprit, and translated into
English, at http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-02-01-donzelot-en.html
-
French polemic against the meditation of
Alain Badiou on contemporary Jewishness, at http://multitudes.samizdat.net/article.php3?id_article=2291
TRANSHUMANISM
-
Medical nanotech and the need for a
precautionary approach, by Philippe Aigrain of Cause Commune, at http://grit-transversales.org/article.php3?id_article=76
-
Becoming Transhuman, a video by Mark Pesce,
on the history and the future of the universe, 72 minutes, at http://www.playfulworld.com/media.html
-
World Summit
on Free Information Infrastructures
URL = http://www.okfn.org/wsfii/
"We declare, as an ongoing international process of multiple,
local action oriented events which provide space for people to come together,
to share experiences, present practical solutions, to learn and to build, all
kinds of Free Information Infrastructures. Infrastructures, are shared across language,
cultural and other boundaries, and are natural meeting points for people. We
want to promote affordable, non-bureaucratic, participatory, do it yourself,
self-governing approaches in a wide variety of fields."
-
Open Knowledge Foundation
URL = http://www.openknowledgefoundation.org/
"The Open Knowledge Foundation exists to address
these challenges by promoting the openness
of knowledge in all its forms, in the belief that greater access to information
will have far-reaching social and economic benefits. In particular, we
-
Promote the idea of open knowledge. See the
three
meanings of open or the forums for more
information.
-
Campaign against restrictions, both legal
and non-legal, on open knowledge. See the Open Knowledge Trail
to learn more.
-
Develop, support and promote projects,
communities and tools that foster and facilitate open knowledge creation,
access and dissemination. To this end we sponsor the Open Knowledge Foundation Network ."
-
Open PoD
URL = http://www.openmute.org/
"OpenMute POD allows you to print books in numbers from 1 to
100+ at a fixed price of just £1.34 per book. Instead of having to fork out a
lot of money at the start of your book project you just pay as you print. POD
is a professional digital printing method that offers high quality black and
white print bound with colour covers. POD has existed in the corporate sector,
at a high price, but only now with new web services has it become accessible
and affordable to the public. In combination with the web, POD takes all the
headache out of print setup and delivery to the printers. It makes sales and
distribution simpler, too. Drawing on our expertise in web and print
publishing, OpenMute offers a full range of services at budget prices to help
you make your POD book. In the spirit of knowledge sharing we have a complete
`how to' available free online if you want to learn about the process and make
your own DIY PODs."
-
CommUnity of Minds
URL = http://www.synearth.net/index.html
Only by working together can community solve the problems facing
humanity circa 2006. By working together, I mean synergic relationship. This
requires co-Operation which can be defined as: Operating together to insure
that both parties win, and that neither party loses. The negotiation to insure
that both parties are helped, and that neither party is hurt. Co-Operation can also mean laboring
together as in Co-Laboration, acting together as in Co-Action. The goal of
synergic union is to accomplish a larger or more difficult task than can be
accomplished by individuals working separately. We are committed to a world
where I win, you win, others win and the Earth wins. Win-Win-Win-Win. A new
phenomena is emerging with the help of the internet called Peer to Peer
interaction. It lends itself particularly well to Co-Operation. See also
Syntearth's recommended news site, at http://www.synearth.net/index.html,
dedicated to what's important for the survival of the planet.
- The Peer to Patent Project, URL =
http://dotank.nyls.edu/communitypatent/ Community peer review of patents.
-
Camtrokers
URL = http://www.camtrokers.com/
Exemplary community site in Doula,
Cameroun, i.e. innovative
use of the internet in Africa:
"Nous sommes un groupe
de personnes résidant à Douala pour la plupart, mais pas tous. Très différents
par l'âge, l'origine ou la profession, nous avons en commun la volonté
d'apporter des réponses collectives à nos besoins individuels, notamment par la
mutualisation de nos moyens et l'appropriation des avantages qu'offre
l'Internet. »
-
Public Patent Foundation
URL = http://www.pubpat.org
Patent Commons Initiative
-
Bioforge
URL = http://www.bioforge.org/
BioForge is an Internet-based distributive community, based
around a platform of tools to allow scientists in diverse locations to work
together with each other, and with those who can apply and use their research.
BioForge is a means to create a dynamic protected commons of new enabling
technologies, available to everyone for improvement and to use in new
innovations, both commercial and non-commercial. BioForge is part of CAMBIA's BIOS Initiative, which also
includes the Patent
Lens™, an integrated informatics tool to survey, render transparent and to
navigate the complex thickets of patents and rights that can both aid and
inhibit problem solving in society.
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Tools: