From nelson at freeculture.org Fri May 1 00:26:37 2009 From: nelson at freeculture.org (Nelson Pavlosky) Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 00:26:37 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] I am dropping out of the election Message-ID: <920b587a0904302126r3f408446j49a061c1b9f5db95@mail.gmail.com> Howdy folks, I haven't heard any news about the election lately (what's the plan dudes?), but unfortunately it will have to continue forward without me. I am dropping out of the race. Law school and exams have left me with less time than I hoped to campaign and work on SFC, but the death knell came a few days ago when I accepted funding to launch a startup this summer with Asheesh Laroia and Raffi Krut-Landau. I believe that whoever is on the SFC Board should be working hard this summer to prepare for next school year, and my every waking moment this summer will be dedicated to building and hopefully releasing our product, so I cannot give SFC the attention it deserves. (With luck the company will survive for a long time and occupy my attention into the far future.) The good news is that our startup will be intimately related to free culture issues, specifically free software, and I hope that our startup will make significant contributions to the free software community and change it for the better. As soon as we make any public announcements about the specific nature of our company I will fill in those details for everyone, but until then feel free to message me privately for more information (I just don't want it out on the open web until we're ready for more attention). Thanks for being awesome everyone, and keep up the excellent activism. I will continue to help out whenever I can, but most of my attention will be elsewhere. Peace out, ~Nelson Pavlosky~ 2009/4/17 Fred Benenson : > Hi Everyone, > ? We've had some issues setting up our voting software for the board > election, so we're going to push the vote forward another week. Apologies! > > You'll receive more info (and a vote link) shortly. > > Best, > > SFC Board > > > ~ ~ ~ > thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog > work / http://creativecommons.org > sights / http://flickr.com/fcb > sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis > status / http://twitter.com/mecredis > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Fri May 1 09:56:45 2009 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Fri, 01 May 2009 09:56:45 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Required Readings Today: DMCA "Exemptions" We Really Need References: <48804B00.D0DBC06C@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> <49524E67.7FA9D2EB@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <49FAFF9D.39B23143@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> I thought folks would enjoy some "required readings" in the context of the latest triennial round of pleas to the Copyright Office to grant exemptions from the DMCA -- hearings starting today in California and next week in DC: > http://www.copyright.gov/1201/hearings/2009 The following submissions and testimony from the 2006 and 2003 proceedings exhibit should convey the kinds of "exemptions" we really need. All of these texts are pasted below. New Yorkers for Fair Use's 2006 Request for an Exemption (drafted by Jay Sulzberger): > http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2006/reply/10sultzberger_NYFU.pdf Jay's testimony at the hearing itself begins on page 36 here (the text is pasted below as well): > http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2006/hearings/transcript-mar31.pdf Jay's testimony at the 2003 hearing may also be found to be salient. Here's a good transcript (also pasted below): > http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.dmca-activists/570/focus=572 It starts at the bottom of page 171 of the official transcript here: > http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2003/hearings/transcript-may2.pdf See the copyright.gov transcript links above to track the further discussion each year. Part 2: Developments in "Trusted Computing" In the meantime, note the following "Trusted Computing" developments. First, a workshop at CMU. Plus Microsoft has recently hired Jonathan Shapiro, lead developer for the EROS/Coyotos/Bit-C projects. These are projects to produce a fully virtualized operating system, which is a key part of palladiated computers -- a form of "DRM" that succeeds completely in robbing you of the ability to control your own computer. "Virtualization" means making *all* parts of the computer virtual -- you cannot directly address a port, a bit in RAM, anything. Essentially, every single operation on the computer is PGP-encrypted, and you must route all operations through an impregnable kernel. A palladiated computer uses *somebody else's* private key on your own computer's motherboard, creating a system that gives outsiders complete control over what you can do. "Trusted Infrastructure" Workshop > http://www.cylab.cmu.edu/TIW/ Microsoft hires Jonathan Shapiro: > http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=2463 > http://www.coyotos.org/pipermail/bitc-dev/2009-April/001784.html Richard Stallman on Treacherous Computing: > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html "Virtualization" technology proceeds apace while our policy channels fail to distinguish private interest concerns from the true concerns and nature of copyright. Seth --- Request for an Exemption, 2006: > http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2006/reply/10sultzberger_NYFU.pdf This is a comment on the class of works proposed by Edward W. Felten and Deirdre K. Mulligan to be exempt from the prohibition on circumvention of DRM under the DMCA. Our comment is that the Felten-Mulligan class is drawn too narrowly. We present an amended definition of the Felten-Mulligan class of works, with brief arguments. 0. The class of works which should be exempt from the Anti-Circumvention Clauses of the DMCA consists of all malicious software, including viruses, worms, spywares, trojan horses, remote controllers, rootkits, and more. The phrase "malicious software" designates programs which cause harms to a computer and/or its owner, and which are placed on the computer against the owner's wishes and without the owner's express consent. Malicious software might be delivered with a computer or be installed later. Some malicious software may be contained in, or make use of, components installed as hardware. 1. Harms from not granting the exemption: Millions of home and business computer owners have had to remove malicious software from their computers. Many computer owners have had credit card numbers and bank passwords appropriated and compromised. If the circumvention of Technological Protective Measures preventing malicious software from being detected, analyzed, or removed, were illegal, then the DMCA would be used as a shield against computer owners' rights to maintain control over their computers. The numbers here are easy to estimate as being in the billions of dollars per year losses caused by malicious software, and the number of people adversely affected by malicious software as being in the millions. 2. Harms from granting the exemption: Some malicious software works are under copyright. The malicious software author would lose an apparent right of concealment, and thus, often, the practical ability to commit a crime, or crimes, against the intended victim or victims. In some cases the author, or other rightsholder, might be unable to make a living by making and distributing malicious software, or software which is in part malicious. The numbers here are harder to estimate, since we know of no successful suit by a malicious software rightsholder against a person who has discovered the malicious software and removed it, on the basis of copyright infringement, or DMCA violation. Perhaps a thousand, or perhaps ten thousand, malicious software authors/rightsholders might lose their chance to sue their victims under the DMCA Anti-Circumvention Clauses. 3. General argument for exemption: Decrypting lists of blocked sites in filtering software presently enjoys an exemption to the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. Computer owners throughout the world are today at great risk of infestation by malicious software. If an exemption were not available for circumvention of malicious software, the scale of harm that would ensue would be far greater than for filtering software. Fewer computer owners are at risk of missing/seeing some sites due to false positives and false negatives on blocked sites lists. The danger from malicious software is in most cases much higher. The harms our exemption would defend against are not hypothetical: Recently many computers have been infested by the Sony BMG rootkit, and the rootkit has been used by other distributors of malicious software to compromise home and business computers. The Sony BMG rootkit attempts to conceal itself, is under copyright (though it likely also infringes others' copyrights) and is itself malicious software, in that it is installed without consent and damages the computer. Our exemption would prevent Sony BMG from successfully claiming that the computer owner who gains access to the rootkit has violated the Anti-Circumvention Clauses of the DMCA. For information on the Sony BMG rootkit see: http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/Sony-BMG The Sony BMG rootkit is an example of a kind of DRM which Microsoft, in cooperation with Intel, IBM, and various computer vendors, intend to place in many home computers in the next few years. The Sony BMG rootkit is weak in practice, in that an expert in Microsoft OSes, if hired to find, analyze, and craft defenses against it, would almost surely succeed pretty quickly. The system of DRM once called by Microsoft "Palladium", and today called by Microsoft "NGSCB", would offer to licensees of Microsoft the same cloaking capabilities as the Sony BMG rootkit does today. But Palladium is much harder to crack open and remove than the Sony BMG rootkit. And Palladium offers other services to authors of malicious software beyond what the Sony BMG rootkit has made available. Here is a quote which shortly conveys part of the threat Palladium poses to owners of home computers: From http://zgp.org/linux-elitists/20031211171507.GK3918 at cannabis.html#20031211164911.V52507 at shaitan.lightconsulting.com Re: [linux-elitists] Monday 15 Dec: first all-Open Source System-on-Chip Jason Spence Thu, 11 Dec 2003 16:49:11 -0800 rfc822 mailmethis On Thu, Dec 11, 2003 at 01:23:33PM -0600, D. Joe Anderson wrote: > > w00t! Here's a good start to the the back-up plan if > TCPA/Longhorn/Palladium/"Fritz-chips"* get out of hand. You know, the black hat community is drooling over the possibility of a secure execution environment that would allow applications to run in a secure area which cannot be attached to via debuggers and such. -Jason Last known location: 2.5 miles northwest of MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. --Henry David Thoreau End quote. Our exemption would, in part, lift the burden of legal risk a computer owner would face in the attempt to remove malicious software that lies behind the cloak of Palladium. For information about Palladium see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_computing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Next-Generation_Secure_Computing_Base 4. Our proposed exemption differs from some proposed exemptions in that our exemption is not aimed at preserving decades old textbook examples of fair use rights, such as the right to quote a work in argument, the right of parody, etc.. Rather, our exemption, if granted, would defend important personal property, that is, the home computer. The exemption would also defend privacy and free speech rights, because of the use of home computers to communicate using the world's Net. The dangers our exemption defends against cannot be classed as picayune inconveniences nor as negligible impairments of rights. Our exemption would help defend fundamental human rights. New Yorkers for Fair Use http://www.nyfairuse.org Jay Sulzberger jays at panix.com US Mail Address: New Yorkers for Fair Use 622A President Street Brooklyn, NY 11215 --- 2006 Opening Testimony: MR. SULZBERGER: My name is Jay Sulzberger, and I?m a working member of New Yorkers for Fair Use. I?d like to address Matthew Schruers? last statement and expand on it. I think lawyers are terribly important here and, of course, the part of the law that is terribly important in these considerations is not copyright law. It?s the law of private property. It?s the law of privacy. Those are the parts of the law. Now, Matthew also mentioned that should we be handing the entire computer and communications infrastructure of the United States and the world over to copyright holders in cooperation with hardware manufacturers and Microsoft? And the answer is of course not. But we have to first be clear on this. This is so obvious when stated in those terms that I believe there?s not a single person in this -- just a moment. Is there anybody here who is disabled from understanding the concept of private property? If anybody is not clear on it, and I know lawyers will raise all sorts of objections because there?s a too simple notion of a perfect freehold, a perfect ownership of a chattel. But look. Your computer and your house, your relationship and ownership to it, if you?ve bought it and are legally running it and you?re not violating, you?re not committing copyright infringement by publishing for profit other people?s works for which you don?t have a license, copyright holders should not be inside your computer, and they shouldn?t have pieces of code that you can?t look at to get control of your computer. And I had a sentence in my comment up on Professor Felten?s proposal for an exemption, and, of course, people would think, "Oh, he?s being witty." I?m not being witty. Who are the copyright holders? For whom do you have to give authorization under the Section -- I?ll have to check it -- J, I think, of the 1201(j) of the DMCA, you have to get authorization from people who?ve written a piece of malware that?s gotten on your machine without your express consent that?s damaging your machine. I think there?s no member of the panel and I think there?s no member of the people up on the dias who can possibly defend the concept that United States copyright law is going to require me to go and get permission from somebody who?s invaded my machine, done damage to my machine, cost me hours of effort, and, if I?m a business, perhaps cost me thousands and thousands of dollars. These are the issues. Now, why are we unclear on this? It?s because we don?t know what a computer is. Copyright has already been misused to allow Microsoft and Apple to place stuff in our machine when we go to the store we?re not allowed to look at. It?s my right to look at every darn piece of code. It?s my right to publish what the code does. It?s my right to decompile. You might find me agreeing it?s not my right to sell an improved version of their operating systems without getting a copyright license for it, but that?s quite a separate issue. The issue here is private ownership and wiretapping. And this is ridiculous that the DMCA should be misinterpreted so as to actually defend people who write malware. We have heard testimony from people who have tried to get the people who wrote the malware to do something about it, and their response was nothing or, "We promise not to sue you," or, "Maybe we?ll sue you." This isn?t okay. Every lawyer here has taken a course or one or two or more on the law of private property. And, my gosh, copyright law can never say that I lose my right of ownership of a computer because some copyright holder appeals to the DMCA after they?ve written a trojan, a virus, whatever it is they?ve written, something that goes into my machine, a rootkit. Now, I was going to explain more, but I think I?ve come to the end of my time. I see these introductory comments are short. And what I wanted to do was explain how Sony BMG rootkit is negligible in its damage compared to what the DMCA anticircumvention clauses are enabling in the near future. They?re enabling Microsoft, as announced, it announced in 2002 that it was going to install and license a rootkit to anybody who paid the money. The system, the OS, and the hardware together, let?s briefly call them Palladium -- they?ve changed the name, I think I made the same joke three years ago, into mom?s apple pie and the anti-terrorist loveable operating system with lots of bright, shiny colors. I?ve forgotten if that?s their latest name for it. Look. They?ve got something called the curtain. When you pay Microsoft a certain amount of money in the future, they claim they will let you write programs that are hidden behind the curtain. You can never look at them. The Sony BMG rootkit is a joke today. It?s based on the Microsoft operating system. You can get around it in a few weeks, if you?re really competent and have hotshot students or if you?ve a professional and know what you?re doing and know about Microsoft operating system. You can get right around it, and, of course, it always has the joke get-around that I think if you press the shift key while the thing is loading there?s certain circumstances it doesn?t get installed. Look. That?s nothing. You should hardly be concerned about it, except we know that people who write viruses and trojans that damage your machines will appeal to the anticircumvention clauses in the DMCA. It?s a joke how little damage it?s caused compared to what?s coming down the pike real soon unless you act. I know it seems ridiculous. You?re specialists in copyright. You?re specialists in learning, publication, making sure authors get paid, what are the rights here, what are the rights there. It?s because the country has gone crazy and because people don?t know what ownership of computers means that we have this thing. I think I?ve come to the end of my opening statement. I?m sorry to rant so hard, but I know that you?re prepared for it. --- 2003 Opening Testimony: I'm Jay Sulzberger, and I'm here to represent New Yorkers for Fair Use. Well, I was a little bit puzzled as to what to say on this panel, because seemingly this particular panel is about very specific harms of a very specific part of a big, complex law. But as a matter of fact, I've been provided by the first three panelists with a parade of horribles. Mr. Montoro seems to have an 86 page parade of horribles, and of course CERT has an extraordinary parade of horribles -- things that one would not have thought could happen in America, things that one would have expected in the old Russian Communist empire. And of course, Mr. Band has just brought up the problem of the looting, spontaneous or planned, of ancient libraries of Earth's heritage [as had been reported in Iraq -- Seth]. I will just try to make what I thought was a difficult argument: We should not be discussing particular exemptions of particular clauses of the DMCA. But I think that with the three panelists before me, the pattern is clear: There's no excuse for any anticircumvention law in the United States of America. Because in each and every case, it is not that we have a parade of particular offenses against good sense, offenses against our freedom, attacks on free markets, attacks on scientific research, attacks of artists rights, attacks on our right to free speech, and most important, a fundamental, general and effective attack upon our present right of private ownership of computers. Computers today are printing presses -- and it's shocking! I have certain conservative tendencies; I am also sympathetic to the socialists. But the idea that everybody who's a member of the middle classes can pick up a computer for 300 bucks, and pay their 20 bucks a month and get Internet access, and set up a web page -- it's shocking! Democracy is one thing, but mob rule is another. But yet, there's nothing that America can do about this. I hope there isn't. But it looks as though there is. The DMCA anticircumvention clauses, in combination with the loose association, the alliance of cartels, oligopolies and monopolies which I term the englobulators, is in process of placing spy machinery and remote control machinery at this very moment, into every single Intel motherboard that's going to be sold in the next year. When Microsoft completes the software part of its system of DRM called Palladium, this will end, completely, your right of ownership, your right of private use of your Palladiated computer. Now, the question arises: This can't be true, what I'm saying. I'm a nut, I'm an extremist, I'm strident. Yes. (Laughter) But I'm not nearly as much of a nut, I'm not nearly as much of an extremist, and I'm not nearly as crazy, vicious and strident, as the englobulators. The question arises as: Why hasn't the press picked up on the fact that I'm the less extreme of the extremists? I believe in the Constitution -- even though I didn't sign it; that's my anarchist side. I think there's something to the first ten Amendments. And I think we should take the Fourth Amendment very seriously. I think also the Fifth has something to say about takings. Why doesn't the press get it? It's a very simple reason -- I'm talking about rights and powers. I'm talking about fundamental rights of ownership, fundamental rights of free speech, fundamental rights of free association using our Internet and our computers. Why doesn't the press get it? Because in practice today, most people run a damaged, malfunctioning and obsolete operating system, usually called Microsoft Windows -- there's several versions. Copyright law has already been, I think, dreadfully misapplied for the last twenty years, to prevent people from gaining control of their own property in their own homes. This is important property. We know that Microsoft -- and as a matter of fact all other vendors and makers of source-secret operating systems -- it's almost impossible not to give in to the temptation to spy somewhat on your users, particularly if they're connected to the Internet. Sun has done it; other companies have done it. It's mainly Microsoft because it was only interested in the Internet after 1990, although some of us have used the Net since 1970. Now most people have a computer. It is their means of personal communication; it's also their means of authorship, and their means of publication. Now, let me deal with the accusation of copyright infringement. Yeah, sure -- there's going to be a heck of a lot more very serious copyright -- of the most dreadful sort -- because there are computers on the Internet, and I don't give a good gosh-darn about it. The invention of writing was dreadful to the ancient and honorable profession of the singing poet. The invention of the printing press did terrible things to the Catholic Church's position in Europe, particularly once the Bible was translated and then printed. Things change. And the cries of a small, unimportant industry -- I mean the whole of the "content providers" side -- who of course refuse to admit there are any more content providers -- I really enjoy my own stuff much more than anything Disney has made since 1935. I stand equal to them, by the way. New Yorkers for Fair Use, one of our favorite tropes is: "Nonsense! We're not consumers; we're owners and we're makers." Okay. Let me try and outline what anticircumvention laws do, and what they're about. This is one of our standard pieces of propaganda; we've been handing it out since last summer (Shows flyer). "We are the Stakeholders" -- why do we say we're the stakeholders? This is an old joke, everybody knows it, I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this. In Washington parlance they say, what is a stakeholder? It's some organized group that can afford a full-time lobbyist, that's all. The bizarre spectacle of seeing small private interests -- when I say small, I mean small: the cotton subsidies last year in the United States were about, I think, 40% of the gross of Hollywood. You don't see huge articles about particular wrongs and a huge struggle on the basic principles over how much of a subsidy they should get. Okay. I'm not sure I'm actually going to read this whole thing, but -- "Freedom One: You may buy a copy of a movie recorded on DVD, you may watch this movie whenever you please, you may make copies of this movie, some of which may be exact copies, others of which may be variant copies." We all know that the legal underpinnings of DRM is anticircumvention. In the future, you won't be able to do that. Now, this is an assault on private ownership of computers. This is absurd. There's no need to say it, you all know this: Ernest Miller and Joan Feigenbaum, both at Yale, suggested that this is just a mistake, it's going to be corrected. Copyright law shouldn't say anything about private copies. In the first place, technically it's going to be very hard. You're going to have an endless line of the most difficult, subtle things. For example, something on a news spool. Is that a copy or is it something in transmission? The natural point which will defend us against the dreadful assault on private property which is all the anticircumvention clauses of the DMCA, is to draw a natural line. Inside your house, you've got a copy of something, if you've lawfully obtained it -- Oh, by the way, we're not copyright extremists. I myself am a big supporter of the GPL, which is a somewhat strict copyright license, and I consider it actually one of the main foundations of the defense of free software. If you don't draw the line, if you seek for exemptions, you'll have to make hundreds of exemptions -- and even if you enforce them -- and you could enforce them -- the principle would remain: you don't have control over your machine. You'd have to get lobbyists, or a grassroots organization to come to Washington, appear before you every three years, and beg, on bended knee, for particular exemptions. You don't have to do that. You are allowed to turn to Congress and say, we've seen the parade of horribles. And not just one parade. All of the people here, arguing for exemptions -- the principle is the same: These people can't reach into your house and tell you what to do! It's absurd! I'm going to try to avoid discussing the other side of the bundle of rights that these people want to take away from us: the right to free publication, the right to free dissemination -- which are of course restricted by copyright, which I support strongly. I don't think it right that I should be allowed to go down and steal a movie without paying for it and set up a movie house and charge admission for it. I'm sorry, I lost my track in one of my sentences -- You know, the Xerox machine -- it's always the same structure, we all know this here: the people who have the old methods for publication think their methods have to go on forever; always the words "business model" are used. Well, you know, we're not worried about their business models. We're worried about our computers and our rights. And I believe it is within your commission to turn and then say, "We've had it." What are we going to do, have to have these hearings every six months? We're going to have to have ten of you up there, and a hundred of us here, explaining the absolute terrible things that anticircumvention laws in the United States do to markets, do to freedom of speech, do to development of better computers, etc., etc., etc. I think you can turn and say, "We've heard enough. We suggest that Congress reconsider the entire bundle of anticircumvention clauses of the DMCA." And if I'm asked a specific question, I will be happy to try and connect by at most three half steps, any particular anticircumvention measure to truly horrible and very large scale things. Thank you. --- > http://www.cylab.cmu.edu/TIW/ (via posting to David Farber's Interesting People list) From: David Farber To: "ip" Date: 04/28/2009 04:33 AM Subject: [IP] Advanced Workshop and Summer School on Architectures for Trustworthy Computing TIW 2009: TRUSTED INFRASTRUCTURE WORKSHOP: ADVANCED SUMMER SCHOOL ON ARCHITECTURES FOR TRUSTWORTHY COMPUTING JUNE 8-12, 2009, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA When IT infrastructure technologies fail to keep pace with emerging threats, we can no longer trust them to sustain the applications we depend on in both business and society at large. Ranging from Trusted Computing, to machine virtualization, new hardware architectures, and new network security architectures, trusted infrastructure technologies attempt to place security into the very design of commercial off-the-shelf technologies. The TIW is an open innovation event modelled as a highly interactive summer school, consisting of lectures, workshops, and other lab sessions. It is aimed at bringing together researchers in the field of IT security with an interest in systems and infrastructure security, as well as younger Master-1??s or PhD students who are new to the field. Funding is available to support student attendance. AGENDA HIGHLIGHTS - 4 keynote lectures - 7 technology lectures: Trusted computing architecture, TPM module, attestation, SW-based attestation, virtualization security, network security, and trusted storage. - 4 research workshops: HW security, attestation in practice, OS security, verification and formal methods. - 3 hands-on labs: TPM, trusted virtualization, trusted network connect. Several social events and networking with other researchers are planned. For more details on the workshop and how to register, please visit http://www.cylab.cmu.edu/TIW TIW SPONSORS - Carnegie Mellon CyLab - Fujitsu - HP Labs - IBM - NSA - NSF - Seagate CONTACTS Workshop details: Michael Willett Registration details: Tina Yankovich SPEAKERS Leaders from academia, industry, and government are delivering the lectures, labs, and workshops. VENUE CyLab, Carnegie Mellon University CIC Building 4720 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213 --- > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html Can You Trust Your Computer? by Richard Stallman Who should your computer take its orders from? Most people think their computers should obey them, not obey someone else. With a plan they call ?trusted computing?, large media corporations (including the movie companies and record companies), together with computer companies such as Microsoft and Intel, are planning to make your computer obey them instead of you. (Microsoft's version of this scheme is called ?Palladium?.) Proprietary programs have included malicious features before, but this plan would make it universal. Proprietary software means, fundamentally, that you don't control what it does; you can't study the source code, or change it. It's not surprising that clever businessmen find ways to use their control to put you at a disadvantage. Microsoft has done this several times: one version of Windows was designed to report to Microsoft all the software on your hard disk; a recent ?security? upgrade in Windows Media Player required users to agree to new restrictions. But Microsoft is not alone: the KaZaa music-sharing software is designed so that KaZaa's business partner can rent out the use of your computer to their clients. These malicious features are often secret, but even once you know about them it is hard to remove them, since you don't have the source code. In the past, these were isolated incidents. ?Trusted computing? would make it pervasive. ?Treacherous computing? is a more appropriate name, because the plan is designed to make sure your computer will systematically disobey you. In fact, it is designed to stop your computer from functioning as a general-purpose computer. Every operation may require explicit permission. 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. Of course, Hollywood and the record companies plan to use treacherous computing for ?DRM? (Digital Restrictions Management), so that downloaded videos and music can be played only on one specified computer. Sharing will be entirely impossible, at least using the authorized files that you would get from those companies. You, the public, ought to have both the freedom and the ability to share these things. (I expect that someone will find a way to produce unencrypted versions, and to upload and share them, so DRM will not entirely succeed, but that is no excuse for the system.) Making sharing impossible is bad enough, but it gets worse. There are plans to use the same facility for email and documents?resulting in email that disappears in two weeks, or documents that can only be read on the computers in one company. Imagine if you get an email from your boss telling you to do something that you think is risky; a month later, when it backfires, you can't use the email to show that the decision was not yours. ?Getting it in writing? doesn't protect you when the order is written in disappearing ink. Imagine if you get an email from your boss stating a policy that is illegal or morally outrageous, such as to shred your company's audit documents, or to allow a dangerous threat to your country to move forward unchecked. Today you can send this to a reporter and expose the activity. With treacherous computing, the reporter won't be able to read the document; her computer will refuse to obey her. Treacherous computing becomes a paradise for corruption. Word processors such as Microsoft Word could use treacherous computing when they save your documents, to make sure no competing word processors can read them. Today we must figure out the secrets of Word format by laborious experiments in order to make free word processors read Word documents. If Word encrypts documents using treacherous computing when saving them, the free software community won't have a chance of developing software to read them?and if we could, such programs might even be forbidden by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. 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. You might think you can find out what nasty things a treacherous computing application does, study how painful they are, and decide whether to accept them. It would be short-sighted and foolish to accept, but the point is that the deal you think you are making won't stand still. Once you come to depend on using the program, you are hooked and they know it; then they can change the deal. Some applications will automatically download upgrades that will do something different?and they won't give you a choice about whether to upgrade. Today you can avoid being restricted by proprietary software by not using it. If you run GNU/Linux or another free operating system, and if you avoid installing proprietary applications on it, then you are in charge of what your computer does. If a free program has a malicious feature, other developers in the community will take it out, and you can use the corrected version. You can also run free application programs and tools on non-free operating systems; this falls short of fully giving you freedom, but many users do it. 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. There are proposals already for US laws that would require all computers to support treacherous computing, and to prohibit connecting old computers to the Internet. The CBDTPA (we call it the Consume But Don't Try Programming Act) is one of them. But even if they don't legally force you to switch to treacherous computing, the pressure to accept it may be enormous. Today people often use Word format for communication, although this causes several sorts of problems (see ?We Can Put an End to Word Attachments?). If only a treacherous computing machine can read the latest Word documents, many people will switch to it, if they view the situation only in terms of individual action (take it or leave it). To oppose treacherous computing, we must join together and confront the situation as a collective choice. For further information about treacherous computing, see http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/tcpa-faq.html. To block treacherous computing will require large numbers of citizens to organize. We need your help! The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge are campaigning against treacherous computing, and so is the FSF-sponsored Digital Speech Project. Please visit these Web sites so you can sign up to support their work. You can also help by writing to the public affairs offices of Intel, IBM, HP/Compaq, or anyone you have bought a computer from, explaining that you don't want to be pressured to buy ?trusted? computing systems so you don't want them to produce any. This can bring consumer power to bear. If you do this on your own, please send copies of your letters to the organizations above. Postscripts 1. The GNU Project distributes the GNU Privacy Guard, a program that implements public-key encryption and digital signatures, which you can use to send secure and private email. It is useful to explore how GPG differs from treacherous computing, and see what makes one helpful and the other so dangerous. When someone uses GPG to send you an encrypted document, and you use GPG to decode it, the result is an unencrypted document that you can read, forward, copy, and even re-encrypt to send it securely to someone else. A treacherous computing application would let you read the words on the screen, but would not let you produce an unencrypted document that you could use in other ways. GPG, a free software package, makes security features available to the users; they use it. Treacherous computing is designed to impose restrictions on the users; it uses them. 2. The supporters of treacherous computing focus their discourse on its beneficial uses. What they say is often correct, just not important. Like most hardware, treacherous computing hardware can be used for purposes which are not harmful. But these uses can be implemented in other ways, without treacherous computing hardware. The principal difference that treacherous computing makes for users is the nasty consequence: rigging your computer to work against you. What they say is true, and what I say is true. Put them together and what do you get? Treacherous computing is a plan to take away our freedom, while offering minor benefits to distract us from what we would lose. 3. Microsoft presents palladium as a security measure, and claims that it will protect against viruses, but this claim is evidently false. A presentation by Microsoft Research in October 2002 stated that one of the specifications of palladium is that existing operating systems and applications will continue to run; therefore, viruses will continue to be able to do all the things that they can do today. When Microsoft speaks of ?security? in connection with palladium, they do not mean what we normally mean by that word: protecting your machine from things you do not want. They mean protecting your copies of data on your machine from access by you in ways others do not want. A slide in the presentation listed several types of secrets palladium could be used to keep, including ?third party secrets? and ?user secrets??but it put ?user secrets? in quotation marks, recognizing that this somewhat of an absurdity in the context of palladium. The presentation made frequent use of other terms that we frequently associate with the context of security, such as ?attack?, ?malicious code?, ?spoofing?, as well as ?trusted?. None of them means what it normally means. ?Attack? doesn't mean someone trying to hurt you, it means you trying to copy music. ?Malicious code? means code installed by you to do what someone else doesn't want your machine to do. ?Spoofing? doesn't mean someone fooling you, it means you fooling palladium. And so on. 4. A previous statement by the palladium developers stated the basic premise that whoever developed or collected information should have total control of how you use it. This would represent a revolutionary overturn of past ideas of ethics and of the legal system, and create an unprecedented system of control. The specific problems of these systems are no accident; they result from the basic goal. It is the goal we must reject. From ryanprior at gmail.com Fri May 1 11:14:54 2009 From: ryanprior at gmail.com (Ryan Prior) Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 10:14:54 -0500 Subject: [FC-discuss] Required Readings Today: DMCA "Exemptions" We Really Need In-Reply-To: <49FAFF9D.39B23143@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> References: <48804B00.D0DBC06C@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> <49524E67.7FA9D2EB@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> <49FAFF9D.39B23143@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <1172c9070905010814i1e8ed90aw9181142521cc0efb@mail.gmail.com> I've been following the Coyotos and BitC projects for some time and I was disappointed to one of the drivers (Shapiro) get picked off by Microsoft. I'm sure they'll be able to put him to good use -- he's brilliant and very knowledgeable. I hope he uses his super powers for good and not for evil. Ryan From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Fri May 1 10:38:26 2009 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Fri, 01 May 2009 10:38:26 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Sandvine: "DPI is Necessary" References: <48804B00.D0DBC06C@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> <49524E67.7FA9D2EB@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <49FB0962.3A0C6A7@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> > http://www.p2pnet.net/story/21162 (See webpage for internal links. I just noticed there's some "rich" language in this, so be advised -- Seth) ?DPI is necessary? - Sandvine DPI, Deep Privacy Invasion (or Deep Packet Inspection) is the tool used by disgraced ?behavioural targeting? firm Phorm on behalf of giant UK provider BT, as well as other companies. British government approval of the technology has gotten it into a costly and politically disastrous lawsuit with the European Commission. In Canada, its use inspired the federal privacy commissioner to launch an anti-DPI site which states clearly and unequivocally ??? Deep packet inspection is just one seemingly neutral technological application that can have a significant impact on privacy rights and other basic civil liberties, especially as market forces, the enthusiasm of technologists and the influence of national security interests grow stronger. DPI is employed by acompany called Sandvine, based in Waterloo, Ontario, and which has now submitted a CRTC filing on Network Management (TPN2008-19 Review of Internet Traffic Management Practices of Internet Service Providers) in which it claims ?DPI is necessary,? says Sandvine Fluff in a dslreports comment post. In it, ?DPI is necessary for the identification of traffic today because the historically-used ?honour-based? port system of application classification no longer works,? says Sandvine. ?Essentially, some application developers have either intentionally or unintentionally designed their applications to obfuscate the identity of the application. Today, DPI technology represents the only effective way to accurately identify different types of applications. ? Really? ?Policy management? Whenever you see a corporate product with ?fair? in the name, you can be 100% sure it?ll be the exact opposite, p2pnet posted a little less than a year ago, going on ??? Apple?s FairPlay DRM is a shining example, and now ace Canadian digital restrictions management company Sandvine has come out with a product sure to make the likes of Bell Canada and Rogers glow. Sandvine, which coined the notable phrase ?policy management,? is now touting Sandvine FairShare to, ?enhance its suite of Traffic Optimization solutions?. For ?Traffic Optimization? read bandwidth throttling, and Sandvine?s new consumer control technology ?empowers? ISPs, enabling, ?fair usage in the shared access network? with ?advanced techniques? to ?ensure equitable allocation of network resources during periods of congestion,? it says. And it?s ?fully application-agnostic,? meaning BitTorrent isn?t the only P2P file sharing application it?ll target. We continued ??? ?FairShare automatically responds to the changing network environment and subscriber usage patterns in real-time,? says Sandvine. To do that, it must be constantly spying on users and although DPI isn?t mentioned, one wonders if it figures in Sandvine?s FairShare. DPI = Deep Packet Inspection which, says the Wikipedia, ?enables advanced security functions as well as internet data mining, eavesdropping, censorship, etc?. CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) said in a submission to Canadian regulators, ?Bell is using DPI to sequester or ?hijack? certain data packets as they pass through the network, and hold these packets hostage until certain pre-conditions are met ? And CIPPIC (Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic) is asking the Canadian privacy commissioner to open an investigation because, it says, Bell has not only, ?failed to obtain the consent of its retail and wholesale internet customers in applying its deep-packet inspection technology, which tells the company what subscribers are using their connections for,? it?s using Deep Packet Inspection to, ?find and limit the use of peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent, which it says are congesting its network?. Sandvine says, blandly, its FairShare, ?collects subscriber usage metrics from various sources and analyzes the data according to sophisticated, configurable parameters?. Then it, ?dynamically modifies policies to balance available bandwidth and resources among subscribers?. It actively throttles bandwidth, in other words. According to Sandvine in its submission to the CRTC, ?DPI is necessary for the identification of traffic today because the historically-used ?honour-based? port system of application classification no longer works. Essentially, some application developers have either intentionally or unintentionally designed their applications to obfuscate the identity of the application. Today, DPI technology represents the only effective way to accurately identify different types of applications.? Now, in the first of what?s certain to be a long series of posts and arguments deconstructing Sandvine?s claims of innocence, ?Boy, this makes me glad I gave up the free beer and ended up working elsewhere,? says shepd in dslreports (http://www.dslreports.com/profile/933870), going on ??? Sandvine (6) : Sandvine submits that the true ?content? of an Internet transmission is represented as the body of your e-mail message; the music or movie you are downloading; the video you are streaming; the words in your VoIP call, etc. As explained in Sandvine?s initial comments to the Notice, Sandvine?s congestion management solutions, including those that employ DPI, do not inspect content as the content is not relevant to a congestion management solution. To be clear, they: Do not read your e-mail; Do not listen to your voice calls; Do not watch the video you are streaming, etc. shepd: Point 6 is (or or will be) a lie. The best DPI systems would implement caching for streaming video, I?m guessing Sandvine doesn?t do this (yet). Sandvine (16): Because typical congestion management solutions do not inspect the actual content of users? Internet traffic, they also cannot record, report on, or store such personal information. As explained in paragraph 62 of Sandvine?s original comments, the most ?personal? information that Sandvine?s congestion management solutions record for an Internet account (i.e, not a particular individual, but the IP address attached to an Internet account, which may include access for many individuals) is aggregate volume usage data, by application or protocol. For example, a typical congestion management solution could report the number of bytes of a VoIP protocol sent and/or received by a given Internet account over a fixed period. shepd: I know personally is an absolute and complete utter lie. One of Sandvine?s most popular solutions was to combine logging activities with their DPI hardware. You could buy several TB log servers just for this purpose. The idea was that when you call up support they could check your account on this log server and see if you have viruses or are running P2P so they could weed out people who just can?t fix their PCs vs. people with bad connections. Sandvine (17): As described above, Sandvine submits that the use of DPI-based congestion management solutions do not create a privacy concern in that they do not inspect content for the purposes of traffic classification, nor is any such information stored within such solutions. Despite this fact, certain respondents claim that somehow the mere presence of DPI-based technology itself raises privacy issues, and have called for an outright ban on any such technology. Imagine if this approach were applied to other technologies, such as those supporting cameras. Single Lens Reflex (SLR) technology underlies cameras that take photos at family birthday parties. The same technology has been applied for surveillance of individuals and public spaces. One use of the technology raises privacy issues, the other does not. Nobody questions the value or validity of the camera technology. So why question DPI technology? Privacy concerns properly attach to applications or uses of technologies, not to the technologies themselves. shepd: 17 is just plain stupid. Encrypted communications are private by their very nature. If I walk into most museums and start taking pictures (especially with an SLR) I?ll be escorted out by the police, because it?s trespassing. I?ll probably be served, too, if it?s obvious I was intended to be a douche about it. Sandvine (18): Banning the use of DPI, would have far-reaching and damaging consequences across the Internet, where the technology is used extensively. The wireless router in your home probably uses DPI to make sure that time-sensitive packets like VoIP or gaming are delivered quickly, while delaying less time-sensitive packets like e-mail. Firewalls, some built right into popular PC operating systems, use DPI to analyze packets for malicious intent like viruses, trojans, and Spam. Libraries, schools and government institutions rely on their firewalls to protect themselves and their users from attacks. Those firewalls use DPI technology. Load balancers and routers, indispensable hardware that distribute traffic on the Internet and private networks, use DPI to identify where a given packet or URL should be routed and what priority it should be given. shepd: Yes, that?s why we want DPI banned for PUBLIC usage, not PRIVATE. Duh. Sandvine (19): DPI is also a key part of the innovation in allowing a migration from IPv4 to IPv6 allowing a network operator to convert from one to the other using a carrier-grade network-address-translation (NAT) and keeping protocols such as VoIP operational. shepd: WTF??? How the hell can inspecting a packet help you take an IPv4 address and put it on an IPv6 network without modifying the contents of the packet? And I thought you just said in point 6 you don?t inspect the content? How do you even know it?s an IPv4 packet then? Sandvine (20): As described above, Sandvine submits that typical congestion management practices (which the Company believes is the subject of theNotice) do not raise personal privacy issues. However, Sandvine recognizes that other Internet solutions that are in high demand from consumers, governments and society in general may raise personal privacy considerations. Examples, raised by certain respondents include lawful intercept, copyright enforcement, and targeted advertising. shepd: See 19 and, ?22, 24, 26 ? Contradict point 6, again,? he says. [22 -- To continue the earlier analogy, surveillance of individuals or public spaces could be achieved through a SLR-supported still frame camera or through video recorders supported by a variety of technologies. Similarly, solutions like lawful intercept, copyright enforcement and targeted advertising are achieved through a variety of technologies, not just ? or even predominantly ? DPI. 24 -- DPI technology can comprise a component of targeted advertising solutions, but it has been very rarely used this way. Instead, other technologies have dominated. Google is one of the leaders in targeted advertising, but to Sandvine's knowledge its targeted advertising solutions do not use DPI. According to Google's own Advertising and Privacy notice in connection with its enormously popular Gmail e-mail application, Google reads your mail to make decisions on targeted advertising: "The Gmail filtering system also scans for keywords in users' emails which are then used to match and serve ads. When a user opens an email message, computers scan the text and then instantaneously display relevant information that is matched to the text of the message. 26 -- Lawful intercept provides another example of how privacy-sensitive solutions can be enabled by a wide variety of technologies. In the United States under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), service providers are required to identify and intercept criminal data traffic under a lawful warrant provided by law enforcement agencies. DPI technology could be used in a solution designed to support the collection of that data, but so too could a home computer "tapped" into the communications of the individual that is the subject of the warrant.] Sandvine (25): According to the Google Toolbar Privacy Notice, the Web History service available through the popular Google Toolbar, ?records information about the web pages you visit and your activity on Google, including your search queries, the results you click on, and the date and time of your searches in order to improve your search experience and display your web activity. Over time, the service may also use additional information about your activity on Google or other information you provide us in order to deliver a more personalized experience.? According to the same Privacy Notice, Google?s PageRank service also sends Google ?the addresses or other information about sites when you visit them. According to Google?s Privacy FAQ, Google stores search engine logs data for each user for 18 months prior to anonymizing it. Again, to Sandvine?s knowledge, none of these solutions use DPI. shepd: So, because Google does it differently, that?s how it?s all done, right? I use a 1541 disk drive (Commodore), so *OBVIOUSLY* my PC can read the disks, you know, because *I* do it that way. Yup. Awesome argument. Sandvine (27): In many cases, questions around privacy-sensitive Internet solutions will ultimately come down to the ability to secure sufficient user consent. To date, vendors of privacy-sensitive solutions like targeted advertising have struggled with providing reliable mechanisms for managing user consent. The mechanisms, whether designed as opt-in (where the user must proactively consent to being subject to the solution) or opt-out (where the user must proactively demand NOT to be subject to the solution) have typically been cookies-based. Cookies are ?small pieces of text, stored by a user?s web browser, that contain the user?s settings, shopping cart contents, or other data used by websites. 29 ? Fortunately, a better solution to the consentproblem is available, through a network-level association between the subscriber?s account and his permission settings related to the privacysensitive solutions. Regardless of the computer he uses to access his Internet account or the browser that he uses on those computers, the permissions follow the user. Only if the user intentionally changes his account-level privacy permissions could a previously opted-out user be opted-in. Such a solution can be implemented through the use of DPI technology. shepd: 27 - 29 ? Nothing at all to do with DPI. Sandvine (30, 32): Service providers are just beginning to explore other uses of DPI that can make their service offerings more attractive to consumers in an increasingly competitive Internet access market. High-speed Internet services are largely offered in the form of flat rate, monthly, unlimited plans. Consumers may be interested in other types of service plans that better reflect the unique ways that they use their Internet connections. Such plans would likely necessitate the ability to differentiate between types of traffic and applications, which in turn would necessitate the use DPI technology as well as other network intelligence tools. 32 ? Other consumers may be interested in a service package that guarantees a high quality of service for certain frequently-used, latency-sensitive applications, like Internet video gaming or VoIP. A DPI-supported policy solution that can distinguish between different types of traffic and applications is necessary to enable this type of service package. shepd: 30 - 32 ? Direct assault on net neutrality. Pay more for real internet, pay less for fake internet. Why go through the effort with DPI? Just dump in a forced proxy server and you?re gold if you just want to provide KIRF internet. Sandvine (35): In response to point ?a? (and as already described in paragraph 55 of Sandvine?s initial comments) a policy that is targeted at disproportionate users of bandwidth can become more targeted by applying an application-specific policy as well. For example, by their nature, applications like VoIP, online video gaming and others do not contribute meaningfully to network congestion, but because they are time-sensitive applications, their usefulness to the consumer is greatly impacted by any delays in their delivery. Congestion management solutions allow service providers to create a narrowly-targeted policy that affects: only disproportionate users; only applications that contribute disproportionately to bandwidth consumption; and only applications that are not time-sensitive. shepd: 35 ? In my opinion, nothing is a bigger hog than work VPNs. So let?s boot off these corporate hogs. Oh wait, this is all opinion based and therefore total BS, right? Sandvine (36): Such a policy would minimally impact users? quality of experience, while achieving the congestion management goal. Sandvine is focused on maximizing the user?s Internet experience. shepd: 36 ? ?Maximizing? their experience they way they did with Comcast, yes? Yes, I sure do feel people had their experience with tech-support ?maximized?. Sandvine (41): Further, many IETF standards implicitly require the use of DPI, such as RFC 3489, ?Simple Traversal of User Datagram Protocol (UDP) Through Network Address Translators (NATs)?, and RFC 2766, ?Network Address Translation - Protocol Translation (NAT-PT)? shepd: 41 ? If my IP started with 192.168, 172.16-30, or 10. this is right. Guess what, that?s not what any of this is about. Sandvine (42): One of the DPI-supported congestion management policies that Sandvine has historically offered service providers is ?session management?of P2P file-sharing traffic through the use of TCP Reset packets (RST packets) (see paragraph 53 of Sandvine?s initial comments). Despite the claims of certain respondents, there are simply no IETF standards on when or how RST packets should be used. It is further claimed that the RST packets used in session management are in some way ?forged? because an RST packet is supposed to mean that ?the other end of the connection has failed.? While original implementations of RST packets were for this purpose, as with much on the Internet, their use has evolved. For example, most webservers use RST packets today as a mechanism for tearing down TCP connections because it is much more efficient than a four-way connection teardown. In short, RST packets are broadly used today and for purposes other than communicating that ?the other end of the communication has failed.? shepd: 42 ? The US Government, of all people, has told you, Sandvine, that you *are* impersonating people on the internet by injecting RST packets. STFU already! ?Sandvine, you are embarassing my hometown,? says shepd, adding, ?If you are going to write shit, at least make it coherent shit.? And guess who?ll be taking notes avidly, if it isn?t already in behind-closed-doors communication with Sandvine? Phorm, anyone? Definitely stay tuned. Jon Newton - p2pnet (Thanks, Marc) From fred.benenson at gmail.com Fri May 1 17:51:35 2009 From: fred.benenson at gmail.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 17:51:35 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] [FC-Chapters] I am dropping out of the election In-Reply-To: <920b587a0904302126r3f408446j49a061c1b9f5db95@mail.gmail.com> References: <920b587a0904302126r3f408446j49a061c1b9f5db95@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8e447b720905011451h76b02838y10355bed4ccd6fb2@mail.gmail.com> Sorry to hear that Nelson! Good luck in your future endeavors. Asheesh and I are hacking the voting page a little bit more and should have something to go out soon. Then we can get on with it all! Best, F ~ ~ ~ thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog work / http://creativecommons.org sights / http://flickr.com/fcb sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis status / http://twitter.com/mecredis On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 12:26 AM, Nelson Pavlosky wrote: > Howdy folks, > > I haven't heard any news about the election lately (what's the plan > dudes?), but unfortunately it will have to continue forward without > me. I am dropping out of the race. > > Law school and exams have left me with less time than I hoped to > campaign and work on SFC, but the death knell came a few days ago when > I accepted funding to launch a startup this summer with Asheesh Laroia > and Raffi Krut-Landau. I believe that whoever is on the SFC Board > should be working hard this summer to prepare for next school year, > and my every waking moment this summer will be dedicated to building > and hopefully releasing our product, so I cannot give SFC the > attention it deserves. (With luck the company will survive for a long > time and occupy my attention into the far future.) > > The good news is that our startup will be intimately related to free > culture issues, specifically free software, and I hope that our > startup will make significant contributions to the free software > community and change it for the better. As soon as we make any public > announcements about the specific nature of our company I will fill in > those details for everyone, but until then feel free to message me > privately for more information (I just don't want it out on the open > web until we're ready for more attention). > > Thanks for being awesome everyone, and keep up the excellent activism. > I will continue to help out whenever I can, but most of my attention > will be elsewhere. > > Peace out, > ~Nelson Pavlosky~ > > 2009/4/17 Fred Benenson : > > Hi Everyone, > > We've had some issues setting up our voting software for the board > > election, so we're going to push the vote forward another week. > Apologies! > > > > You'll receive more info (and a vote link) shortly. > > > > Best, > > > > SFC Board > > > > > > ~ ~ ~ > > thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog > > work / http://creativecommons.org > > sights / http://flickr.com/fcb > > sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis > > status / http://twitter.com/mecredis > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Chapters mailing list > Chapters at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/chapters > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090501/5fb3bb34/attachment-0001.htm From mattl at cnuk.org Sun May 3 17:24:46 2009 From: mattl at cnuk.org (Matt Lee) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 17:24:46 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? Message-ID: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> I am looking for a way to talk about creative works licensed in ways that respect the definition of free cultural works, without being associated with nonfree works, including the non-commercial and no-derivs licenses from Creative Commons, for an upcoming talk. From mattl at cnuk.org Sun May 3 17:27:27 2009 From: mattl at cnuk.org (Matt Lee) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 17:27:27 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Looking for CC-BY and CC-BY-SA artists for Libre.fm Message-ID: <49FE0C3F.30004@cnuk.org> If you're in a band, or doing solo music work under CC-BY or CC-BY-SA licenses, please let me know. Please forward this to any bands or artists you know, also. We're going to start actively promoting artists through the site, shortly. From miserlou at gmail.com Sun May 3 17:29:01 2009 From: miserlou at gmail.com (Rich Jones) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 17:29:01 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> Message-ID: Not quite sure what you're after here.. There is the Art Libre/Free Art 1.3 license, which I prefer over CC, but obviously it does not have the same wide-spread adoption. http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/ Rich On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 5:24 PM, Matt Lee wrote: > I am looking for a way to talk about creative works licensed in ways > that respect the definition of free cultural works, without being > associated with nonfree works, including the non-commercial and > no-derivs licenses from Creative Commons, for an upcoming talk. > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > From mattl at cnuk.org Sun May 3 17:30:21 2009 From: mattl at cnuk.org (Matt Lee) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 17:30:21 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> Message-ID: <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> Rich Jones wrote: > Not quite sure what you're after here.. > > There is the Art Libre/Free Art 1.3 license, which I prefer over CC, > but obviously it does not have the same wide-spread adoption. I'm not after a new license. I'm looking for an alternative term -- free culture itself is often misunderstood and lacks a solid definition. If I am to talk about it, I want to talk about something that is understood. I'm thinking maybe something like "Libre Culture" From miserlou at gmail.com Sun May 3 17:41:42 2009 From: miserlou at gmail.com (Rich Jones) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 17:41:42 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> Message-ID: Oh, jesus, Matt, please don't do this. We don't need that here. Yes, some CC-licenses are non-Free. I don't like it either. But they're still _more_ free than the default complete copyright, pointing in the direction of a truly Free culture. The Free Culture movement is more broad than the Free Software movement. We don't want to exclude well-intentioned creators who may not meet all of your criteria for freedom. We don't have an equivalent of GNU to rally around, so we have to be more wishy washy and accept some well meaning things which may be technically non-Free by your standards under our umbrella of Free Culture if we want to become/remain relevant. And we really, really don't want to scare people away by bringing decades-old pedantic linguistic debates here. We're too fragile. Don't think I don't sympathize, I've even written an article called F*ck Creative Commons, but we don't need that kind of fragmentation in our group. /2cents. R On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Matt Lee wrote: > Rich Jones wrote: >> Not quite sure what you're after here.. >> >> There is the Art Libre/Free Art 1.3 license, which I prefer over CC, >> but obviously it does not have the same wide-spread adoption. > > I'm not after a new license. I'm looking for an alternative term -- free > culture itself is often misunderstood and lacks a solid definition. If I > am to talk about it, I want to talk about something that is understood. > > I'm thinking maybe something like "Libre Culture" > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > From mattl at cnuk.org Sun May 3 17:56:25 2009 From: mattl at cnuk.org (Matt Lee) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 17:56:25 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> Message-ID: <49FE1309.8070307@cnuk.org> Rich Jones wrote: > The Free Culture movement is more broad than the Free Software > movement. We don't want to exclude well-intentioned creators who may > not meet all of your criteria for freedom. We don't have an equivalent > of GNU to rally around, so we have to be more wishy washy and accept > some well meaning things which may be technically non-Free by your > standards under our umbrella of Free Culture if we want to > become/remain relevant. And we really, really don't want to scare > people away by bringing decades-old pedantic linguistic debates here. > We're too fragile. Who is the we here? :) I am just looking for a way to talk about the works which are free and ignore the ones that are not. The fact that things which I (and others) consider nonfree are accepted into 'the Free Culture movement' -- which might just be Students for Free Culture as I'm unsure of who you are speaking of -- is the reason I need to able to use a term to talk about just the stuff I'm looking to promote, without discussing the rest. > Don't think I don't sympathize, I've even written an article called > F*ck Creative Commons, but we don't need that kind of fragmentation in > our group. Which group? Please don't turn this into an attack on me, you or anyone else. I am just looking for suggestions for the term. From akozak at berkeley.edu Sun May 3 18:01:11 2009 From: akozak at berkeley.edu (Alex Kozak) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 15:01:11 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> Message-ID: Last year CC added "free culture" seals to their licensing app (blog post about it here: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8051) for the CC BY and CC BY-SA licenses. You could limit your presentation to the use of these license types if you have problems with creators using the other CC licenses. It doesn't really make sense to group all CC licenses into one category (for the purposes of advocating free culture licensing) when they all have different terms. - Alex On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Rich Jones wrote: > Oh, jesus, Matt, please don't do this. We don't need that here. Yes, > some CC-licenses are non-Free. I don't like it either. But they're > still _more_ free than the default complete copyright, pointing in the > direction of a truly Free culture. > > The Free Culture movement is more broad than the Free Software > movement. We don't want to exclude well-intentioned creators who may > not meet all of your criteria for freedom. We don't have an equivalent > of GNU to rally around, so we have to be more wishy washy and accept > some well meaning things which may be technically non-Free by your > standards under our umbrella of Free Culture if we want to > become/remain relevant. And we really, really don't want to scare > people away by bringing decades-old pedantic linguistic debates here. > We're too fragile. > > Don't think I don't sympathize, I've even written an article called > F*ck Creative Commons, but we don't need that kind of fragmentation in > our group. > > /2cents. > R > > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Matt Lee wrote: > > Rich Jones wrote: > >> Not quite sure what you're after here.. > >> > >> There is the Art Libre/Free Art 1.3 license, which I prefer over CC, > >> but obviously it does not have the same wide-spread adoption. > > > > I'm not after a new license. I'm looking for an alternative term -- free > > culture itself is often misunderstood and lacks a solid definition. If I > > am to talk about it, I want to talk about something that is understood. > > > > I'm thinking maybe something like "Libre Culture" > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- Alex Kozak akozak at berkeley.edu 916.225.2718 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090503/1012be9b/attachment.htm From emstark at gmail.com Sun May 3 18:33:58 2009 From: emstark at gmail.com (Elizabeth Stark) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 18:33:58 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> Message-ID: <55bea5620905031533r3d851fa2v9be0a142a8af3c11@mail.gmail.com> Isn't this exactly what the freedomdefined.org project referring to "free cultural works" set out to do? Or am I missing something? On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 6:01 PM, Alex Kozak wrote: > Last year CC added "free culture" seals to their licensing app (blog post > about it here: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8051) for the CC BY > and CC BY-SA licenses. > > You could limit your presentation to the use of these license types if you > have problems with creators using the other CC licenses. It doesn't really > make sense to group all CC licenses into one category (for the purposes of > advocating free culture licensing) when they all have different terms. > > - Alex > > > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Rich Jones wrote: > >> Oh, jesus, Matt, please don't do this. We don't need that here. Yes, >> some CC-licenses are non-Free. I don't like it either. But they're >> still _more_ free than the default complete copyright, pointing in the >> direction of a truly Free culture. >> >> The Free Culture movement is more broad than the Free Software >> movement. We don't want to exclude well-intentioned creators who may >> not meet all of your criteria for freedom. We don't have an equivalent >> of GNU to rally around, so we have to be more wishy washy and accept >> some well meaning things which may be technically non-Free by your >> standards under our umbrella of Free Culture if we want to >> become/remain relevant. And we really, really don't want to scare >> people away by bringing decades-old pedantic linguistic debates here. >> We're too fragile. >> >> Don't think I don't sympathize, I've even written an article called >> F*ck Creative Commons, but we don't need that kind of fragmentation in >> our group. >> >> /2cents. >> R >> >> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Matt Lee wrote: >> > Rich Jones wrote: >> >> Not quite sure what you're after here.. >> >> >> >> There is the Art Libre/Free Art 1.3 license, which I prefer over CC, >> >> but obviously it does not have the same wide-spread adoption. >> > >> > I'm not after a new license. I'm looking for an alternative term -- free >> > culture itself is often misunderstood and lacks a solid definition. If I >> > am to talk about it, I want to talk about something that is understood. >> > >> > I'm thinking maybe something like "Libre Culture" >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Discuss mailing list >> > Discuss at freeculture.org >> > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss at freeculture.org >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> > > > > -- > Alex Kozak > akozak at berkeley.edu > 916.225.2718 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090503/b2a336bd/attachment-0001.htm From ryanprior at gmail.com Sun May 3 18:44:59 2009 From: ryanprior at gmail.com (Ryan Prior) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 17:44:59 -0500 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> Message-ID: <1172c9070905031544q5615bc94pfaaad21aa92f5d29@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 4:30 PM, Matt Lee wrote: > I'm not after a new license. I'm looking for an alternative term -- free > culture itself is often misunderstood and lacks a solid definition. If I > am to talk about it, I want to talk about something that is understood. > > I'm thinking maybe something like "Libre Culture" "Libre Culture" is what I've been using and what I intend to promote. I invite you to use that term in conjunction with libre.fm and whenever you talk about works that are free-as-in-libre. That being said, I see no reason why we can't still talk about "Free culture" amongst ourselves; we know which type of Free is important, and we understand the duality of the word. However, in literature and communications meant for distribution outside the activist circle, I'd like to promote the use of the word "libre" instead. Thanks, Ryan From admin at hhh.freeculture.org Sun May 3 18:45:52 2009 From: admin at hhh.freeculture.org (HHH SFC Admin) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 18:45:52 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> Message-ID: <1241390752.7688.2.camel@Mac> Anything under -nd or -nc aren't Free Cultural works. Period. This is not only the opinion of the GNU project, but the "Free Culture" community in general. Besides, attacking someone for asking a rather mutual question isn't the best way to go about things. Just my opinion. On Sun, 2009-05-03 at 17:41 -0400, Rich Jones wrote: > Oh, jesus, Matt, please don't do this. We don't need that here. Yes, > some CC-licenses are non-Free. I don't like it either. But they're > still _more_ free than the default complete copyright, pointing in the > direction of a truly Free culture. > > The Free Culture movement is more broad than the Free Software > movement. We don't want to exclude well-intentioned creators who may > not meet all of your criteria for freedom. We don't have an equivalent > of GNU to rally around, so we have to be more wishy washy and accept > some well meaning things which may be technically non-Free by your > standards under our umbrella of Free Culture if we want to > become/remain relevant. And we really, really don't want to scare > people away by bringing decades-old pedantic linguistic debates here. > We're too fragile. > > Don't think I don't sympathize, I've even written an article called > F*ck Creative Commons, but we don't need that kind of fragmentation in > our group. > > /2cents. > R > > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Matt Lee wrote: > > Rich Jones wrote: > >> Not quite sure what you're after here.. > >> > >> There is the Art Libre/Free Art 1.3 license, which I prefer over CC, > >> but obviously it does not have the same wide-spread adoption. > > > > I'm not after a new license. I'm looking for an alternative term -- free > > culture itself is often misunderstood and lacks a solid definition. If I > > am to talk about it, I want to talk about something that is understood. > > > > I'm thinking maybe something like "Libre Culture" > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss From meta.sj at gmail.com Sun May 3 20:21:34 2009 From: meta.sj at gmail.com (Samuel Klein) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 00:21:34 +0000 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> Message-ID: <5396c0d10905031721nc5c4769n42aff9874a4e34a6@mail.gmail.com> On 5/3/09, Matt Lee wrote: > Rich Jones wrote: > > Not quite sure what you're after here.. > > > > There is the Art Libre/Free Art 1.3 license, which I prefer over CC, > > but obviously it does not have the same wide-spread adoption. > > > I'm not after a new license. I'm looking for an alternative term -- free > culture itself is often misunderstood and lacks a solid definition. If I > am to talk about it, I want to talk about something that is understood. Your original question was fine, though the subject line is misleading. Your comment above is a bit inappropriate for this list. Some of your recent posts have been considered trolling... > I'm thinking maybe something like "Libre Culture" I like to get into fights for a reason sometime myself. But I also think this list should be moderated so that its primary audience feels comfortable using it. And some people are leaving, or simply no longer reading. SJ From parkerhiggins at gmail.com Sun May 3 21:39:27 2009 From: parkerhiggins at gmail.com (Parker Higgins) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 21:39:27 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <5396c0d10905031721nc5c4769n42aff9874a4e34a6@mail.gmail.com> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <5396c0d10905031721nc5c4769n42aff9874a4e34a6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <97afb7270905031839u7bba9ecdk137a500096652de1@mail.gmail.com> Matt's just looking for a word kind of like "free culture" but sticking strictly to the definition of free put forth by freedomdefined.org. If Matt were to be saying that he wants to use that word because everybody else is an embarrassment to the movement, or hates freedom, or worse than Microsoft, or any other garbage, that would be one thing. But this current question, as I understand it, is looking for a semantic way of distinguishing different levels of orthodoxy, levels which I think all of us can agree exist. I think I like "libre culture", although the fact that libre will likely have to defined for people unfamiliar with it might slow down adoption. On the other hand, it's a stance that entails a pretty serious ideological commitment, so having to learn the definition is probably not, relatively speaking, much of an obstacle. Parker -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090503/6243204d/attachment.htm From meta.sj at gmail.com Sun May 3 22:50:54 2009 From: meta.sj at gmail.com (Samuel Klein) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 02:50:54 +0000 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <97afb7270905031839u7bba9ecdk137a500096652de1@mail.gmail.com> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <5396c0d10905031721nc5c4769n42aff9874a4e34a6@mail.gmail.com> <97afb7270905031839u7bba9ecdk137a500096652de1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5396c0d10905031950l3193edfct602bd9ca69df239f@mail.gmail.com> Fair enough. 'libre culture' sounds suitable, or 'free and libre culture', so you can tak flac or give someone else flac or... SJ On 5/4/09, Parker Higgins wrote: > Matt's just looking for a word kind of like "free culture" but sticking > strictly to the definition of free put forth by freedomdefined.org. If Matt > were to be saying that he wants to use that word because everybody else is > an embarrassment to the movement, or hates freedom, or worse than Microsoft, > or any other garbage, that would be one thing. But this current question, > as I understand it, is looking for a semantic way of distinguishing > different levels of orthodoxy, levels which I think all of us can agree > exist. > > I think I like "libre culture", although the fact that libre will likely > have to defined for people unfamiliar with it might slow down adoption. On > the other hand, it's a stance that entails a pretty serious ideological > commitment, so having to learn the definition is probably not, relatively > speaking, much of an obstacle. > > Parker > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > From johns at fsf.org Sun May 3 21:12:31 2009 From: johns at fsf.org (John Sullivan) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 21:12:31 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <1241390752.7688.2.camel@Mac> Message-ID: <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> HHH SFC Admin writes: > Anything under -nd or -nc aren't Free Cultural works. Period. > This is not only the opinion of the GNU project, but the "Free Culture" > community in general. AIUI, NC being not free is only the opinion of the GNU Project (as far as a project has an opinion) when referring to software, its documentation, or other functional works. I'm not aware of any statements about that from GNU in reference to artistic works. From miserlou at gmail.com Sun May 3 22:59:03 2009 From: miserlou at gmail.com (Rich Jones) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 22:59:03 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <5396c0d10905031950l3193edfct602bd9ca69df239f@mail.gmail.com> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <5396c0d10905031721nc5c4769n42aff9874a4e34a6@mail.gmail.com> <97afb7270905031839u7bba9ecdk137a500096652de1@mail.gmail.com> <5396c0d10905031950l3193edfct602bd9ca69df239f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I just still don't see the need to cause this linguistic separation! You're a notable figure and are going to be giving a talk to) push an agenda, I assume, which is very similar to ours, but you don't want to use the terminology which we've been using for years because you don't like a peripheral association with some licenses which aren't even considered Free Culture by the organization that creates them? I think that is going to be harmful for us! I'd really, really prefer that you just said Free Culture. Use it as if it means what you want it to, and that is the message that the audience will take away. R On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 10:50 PM, Samuel Klein wrote: > Fair enough. ?'libre culture' sounds suitable, or 'free and libre > culture', so you can tak flac or give someone else flac or... > > SJ > > > On 5/4/09, Parker Higgins wrote: >> Matt's just looking for a word kind of like "free culture" but sticking >> strictly to the definition of free put forth by freedomdefined.org. ?If Matt >> were to be saying that he wants to use that word because everybody else is >> an embarrassment to the movement, or hates freedom, or worse than Microsoft, >> or any other garbage, that would be one thing. ?But this current question, >> as I understand it, is looking for a semantic way of distinguishing >> different levels of orthodoxy, levels which I think all of us can agree >> exist. >> >> I think I like "libre culture", although the fact that libre will likely >> have to defined for people unfamiliar with it might slow down adoption. ?On >> the other hand, it's a stance that entails a pretty serious ideological >> commitment, so having to learn the definition is probably not, relatively >> speaking, much of an obstacle. >> >> Parker >> >> _______________________________________________ >> ?Discuss mailing list >> ?Discuss at freeculture.org >> ?http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> >> > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > From admin at hhh.freeculture.org Sun May 3 23:12:15 2009 From: admin at hhh.freeculture.org (HHH SFC Admin) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 23:12:15 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <1241390752.7688.2.camel@Mac> <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> Message-ID: <1241406735.7404.1.camel@Mac> Not exactly. As mentioned before, the only "Free Cultural" licenses are -by and -by-sa. (this is also indicated by their seal) Please correct me if I am wrong. On Sun, 2009-05-03 at 21:12 -0400, John Sullivan wrote: > HHH SFC Admin writes: > > > Anything under -nd or -nc aren't Free Cultural works. Period. > > This is not only the opinion of the GNU project, but the "Free Culture" > > community in general. > > AIUI, NC being not free is only the opinion of the GNU Project (as far > as a project has an opinion) when referring to software, its > documentation, or other functional works. I'm not aware of any > statements about that from GNU in reference to artistic works. > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss From mysterioustaffer at gmail.com Sun May 3 23:12:27 2009 From: mysterioustaffer at gmail.com (Rob Mason) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 23:12:27 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <1241390752.7688.2.camel@Mac> <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> Message-ID: <6098fe890905032012k7ee5e2djf7a02b6df0746091@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 9:12 PM, John Sullivan wrote: > HHH SFC Admin writes: > >> Anything under -nd or -nc aren't Free Cultural works. Period. >> This is not only the opinion of the GNU project, but the "Free Culture" >> community in general. > > AIUI, NC being not free is only the opinion of the GNU Project (as far > as a project has an opinion) when referring to software, its > documentation, or other functional works. I'm not aware of any > statements about that from GNU in reference to artistic works. > By my understanding NC is fairly controversial within the FC community as to whether it qualifies as 'free'. As far as artistic projects go I generally prefer having an NC license; if the FC community decides this means I'm not a part of the FC community, or my projects are not free culture, that's fine. I just think it's worth noting that it's the sort of border-drawing that will alienate me and others like me. -- RM rsmason.net dreamersoften.blogspot.com From admin at hhh.freeculture.org Sun May 3 23:18:21 2009 From: admin at hhh.freeculture.org (HHH SFC Admin) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 23:18:21 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <6098fe890905032012k7ee5e2djf7a02b6df0746091@mail.gmail.com> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <1241390752.7688.2.camel@Mac> <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> <6098fe890905032012k7ee5e2djf7a02b6df0746091@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1241407101.7404.6.camel@Mac> I believe this is where this email originated from. "Free Culture" is commonly applied to any CC license, as they are more "Free" than full Copyright. (this is where the generic term "open" comes in) The name "Libre Culture" was suggested (in this thread) to refer to only works that are either attribution, attribution+copyleft or Public Domain. On Sun, 2009-05-03 at 23:12 -0400, Rob Mason wrote: > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 9:12 PM, John Sullivan wrote: > > HHH SFC Admin writes: > > > >> Anything under -nd or -nc aren't Free Cultural works. Period. > >> This is not only the opinion of the GNU project, but the "Free Culture" > >> community in general. > > > > AIUI, NC being not free is only the opinion of the GNU Project (as far > > as a project has an opinion) when referring to software, its > > documentation, or other functional works. I'm not aware of any > > statements about that from GNU in reference to artistic works. > > > > By my understanding NC is fairly controversial within the FC community > as to whether it qualifies as 'free'. As far as artistic projects go I > generally prefer having an NC license; if the FC community decides > this means I'm not a part of the FC community, or my projects are not > free culture, that's fine. I just think it's worth noting that it's > the sort of border-drawing that will alienate me and others like me. > From gabrieljoel at gmail.com Sun May 3 23:29:37 2009 From: gabrieljoel at gmail.com (Gabriel Joel Perez) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 23:29:37 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre Message-ID: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> I don't know how many people have already read this but it's definitely an interesting point http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/lessig-fsfs-intro.html "?Free.? Stallman laments the ambiguity in his own term. There's nothing to lament. Puzzles force people to think, and this term ?free? does this puzzling work quite well. To modern American ears, ?free software? sounds utopian, impossible. Nothing, not even lunch, is free. How could the most important words running the most critical machines running the world be ?free.? How could a sane society aspire to such an ideal" -- An excerpt from the introduction to Free Sotware, Free Society by Richard M. Stallman aka rms I think that neither of the terms will make what Free Culture is self explanatory. Maybe we should just stick with what we've been using and try not to confuse people. Free culture is already a very complex and important issue. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090503/996c4b42/attachment.htm From alexleavitt at gmail.com Sun May 3 23:39:35 2009 From: alexleavitt at gmail.com (Alex Leavitt) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 23:39:35 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <1241407101.7404.6.camel@Mac> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <1241390752.7688.2.camel@Mac> <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> <6098fe890905032012k7ee5e2djf7a02b6df0746091@mail.gmail.com> <1241407101.7404.6.camel@Mac> Message-ID: <767eb04e0905032039v770c2c6cu1da0fbc5c4d07dee@mail.gmail.com> Just a question: If you want to change the linguistic association, why use "libre"? Doesn't that just mean "free" in a language other than English (I presume Spanish)? If true, that doesn't redefining the culture movement. Alex Alexander Leavitt Boston University 2009 http://doalchemy.org Twitter: @alexleavitt On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 11:18 PM, HHH SFC Admin wrote: > I believe this is where this email originated from. > > "Free Culture" is commonly applied to any CC license, as they are more > "Free" than full Copyright. (this is where the generic term "open" comes > in) > > The name "Libre Culture" was suggested (in this thread) to refer to only > works that are either attribution, attribution+copyleft or Public > Domain. > > > On Sun, 2009-05-03 at 23:12 -0400, Rob Mason wrote: > > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 9:12 PM, John Sullivan wrote: > > > HHH SFC Admin writes: > > > > > >> Anything under -nd or -nc aren't Free Cultural works. Period. > > >> This is not only the opinion of the GNU project, but the "Free > Culture" > > >> community in general. > > > > > > AIUI, NC being not free is only the opinion of the GNU Project (as far > > > as a project has an opinion) when referring to software, its > > > documentation, or other functional works. I'm not aware of any > > > statements about that from GNU in reference to artistic works. > > > > > > > By my understanding NC is fairly controversial within the FC community > > as to whether it qualifies as 'free'. As far as artistic projects go I > > generally prefer having an NC license; if the FC community decides > > this means I'm not a part of the FC community, or my projects are not > > free culture, that's fine. I just think it's worth noting that it's > > the sort of border-drawing that will alienate me and others like me. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090503/9e00918b/attachment.htm From fred.benenson at gmail.com Sun May 3 23:40:03 2009 From: fred.benenson at gmail.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 23:40:03 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre In-Reply-To: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> Right, and an important part of what we do in this movement is encourage fair use. Is a work that borrows heavily (say a given bailefunk track sampling Nirvana -- just got back from the RiP screening) free culture? It seems dirty to call it illegal culture, or illegal art. ~ ~ ~ thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog work / http://creativecommons.org sights / http://flickr.com/fcb sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis status / http://twitter.com/mecredis On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 11:29 PM, Gabriel Joel Perez wrote: > I don't know how many people have already read this but it's definitely an > interesting point > > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/lessig-fsfs-intro.html > > "?Free.? Stallman laments the ambiguity in his own term. There's nothing to > lament. Puzzles force people to think, and this term ?free? does this > puzzling work quite well. To modern American ears, ?free software? sounds > utopian, impossible. Nothing, not even lunch, is free. How could the most > important words running the most critical machines running the world be > ?free.? How could a sane society aspire to such an ideal" > > -- An excerpt from the introduction to Free Sotware, Free Society by > Richard M. Stallman aka rms > > > I think that neither of the terms will make what Free Culture is self > explanatory. Maybe we should just stick with what we've been using and try > not to confuse people. Free culture is already a very complex and important > issue. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090503/4218a71a/attachment.htm From fred.benenson at gmail.com Sun May 3 23:40:39 2009 From: fred.benenson at gmail.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 23:40:39 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <767eb04e0905032039v770c2c6cu1da0fbc5c4d07dee@mail.gmail.com> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <1241390752.7688.2.camel@Mac> <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> <6098fe890905032012k7ee5e2djf7a02b6df0746091@mail.gmail.com> <1241407101.7404.6.camel@Mac> <767eb04e0905032039v770c2c6cu1da0fbc5c4d07dee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8e447b720905032040t49ac1e82hede2cd2cfd437278@mail.gmail.com> Even though its not grammatically correct, "Freedom Culture" may be a workable solution, then. ~ ~ ~ thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog work / http://creativecommons.org sights / http://flickr.com/fcb sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis status / http://twitter.com/mecredis On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 11:39 PM, Alex Leavitt wrote: > Just a question: If you want to change the linguistic association, why use > "libre"? Doesn't that just mean "free" in a language other than English (I > presume Spanish)? If true, that doesn't redefining the culture movement. > > Alex > > Alexander Leavitt > Boston University 2009 > http://doalchemy.org > Twitter: @alexleavitt > > > > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 11:18 PM, HHH SFC Admin wrote: > >> I believe this is where this email originated from. >> >> "Free Culture" is commonly applied to any CC license, as they are more >> "Free" than full Copyright. (this is where the generic term "open" comes >> in) >> >> The name "Libre Culture" was suggested (in this thread) to refer to only >> works that are either attribution, attribution+copyleft or Public >> Domain. >> >> >> On Sun, 2009-05-03 at 23:12 -0400, Rob Mason wrote: >> > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 9:12 PM, John Sullivan wrote: >> > > HHH SFC Admin writes: >> > > >> > >> Anything under -nd or -nc aren't Free Cultural works. Period. >> > >> This is not only the opinion of the GNU project, but the "Free >> Culture" >> > >> community in general. >> > > >> > > AIUI, NC being not free is only the opinion of the GNU Project (as far >> > > as a project has an opinion) when referring to software, its >> > > documentation, or other functional works. I'm not aware of any >> > > statements about that from GNU in reference to artistic works. >> > > >> > >> > By my understanding NC is fairly controversial within the FC community >> > as to whether it qualifies as 'free'. As far as artistic projects go I >> > generally prefer having an NC license; if the FC community decides >> > this means I'm not a part of the FC community, or my projects are not >> > free culture, that's fine. I just think it's worth noting that it's >> > the sort of border-drawing that will alienate me and others like me. >> > >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss at freeculture.org >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090503/4836da6a/attachment-0001.htm From oday at fas.harvard.edu Sun May 3 23:44:43 2009 From: oday at fas.harvard.edu (Oliver Day) Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 23:44:43 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <767eb04e0905032039v770c2c6cu1da0fbc5c4d07dee@mail.gmail.com> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <1241390752.7688.2.camel@Mac> <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> <6098fe890905032012k7ee5e2djf7a02b6df0746091@mail.gmail.com> <1241407101.7404.6.camel@Mac> <767eb04e0905032039v770c2c6cu1da0fbc5c4d07dee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49FE64AB.2090602@fas.harvard.edu> Alex Leavitt wrote: > Just a question: If you want to change the linguistic association, why > use "libre"? Doesn't that just mean "free" in a language other than > English (I presume Spanish)? If true, that doesn't redefining the > culture movement. It means liberty or freedom and is derived from French and Spanish according to Wikipedia. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/libre From andy at kaplan-myrth.ca Mon May 4 00:18:27 2009 From: andy at kaplan-myrth.ca (Andy Kaplan-Myrth) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 00:18:27 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <49FE64AB.2090602@fas.harvard.edu> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <1241390752.7688.2.camel@Mac> <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> <6098fe890905032012k7ee5e2djf7a02b6df0746091@mail.gmail.com> <1241407101.7404.6.camel@Mac> <767eb04e0905032039v770c2c6cu1da0fbc5c4d07dee@mail.gmail.com> <49FE64AB.2090602@fas.harvard.edu> Message-ID: Talking about the distinction between Free and nonFree CC (or similar) licences in a presentation is only of significant value in two circumstances: either the purpose of your talk is to educate people about the distinction; or your audience already understands the distinction. If you are presenting to a fairly general audience about CC licences or the Free Culture movement, and you are focusing on a topic other than the distinction between Free and nonFree licences, then drawing that distinction in anything other than a passing way will more likely alienate your audience and marginalize the use of the licenses in their eyes. OTOH, if they are a GNU-savvy crowd that already understands the distinction, you can use any term you want and note in passing what it means in your talk. In my experience, f they don't understand the distinction already then it's basically bound to come across as a pedantic and/or ideological distinction (unless it's the main topic of your talk and you can spend real time on it). You (and FC) would be better served if you just allude to it. You can always explain in more detail at the end if there are questions. So I guess I wouldn't focus on what term to use, and instead think about how much you need to explain to them. I don't think any term, "libre" or otherwise, solves the problem of explaining the many meanings of "free". It takes more than branding to bring people in to the tent. Cheers, Andy -- Andy Kaplan-Myrth, LL.B., M.A. Social Media and Law ------------------------------------------------ email: andy at kaplan-myrth.ca web: http://kaplan-myrth.ca ------------------------------------------------ From fred.benenson at gmail.com Mon May 4 00:37:40 2009 From: fred.benenson at gmail.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 00:37:40 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <1241390752.7688.2.camel@Mac> <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> <6098fe890905032012k7ee5e2djf7a02b6df0746091@mail.gmail.com> <1241407101.7404.6.camel@Mac> <767eb04e0905032039v770c2c6cu1da0fbc5c4d07dee@mail.gmail.com> <49FE64AB.2090602@fas.harvard.edu> Message-ID: <0EB55256-6163-4312-997F-82D821158E4A@gmail.com> I think this a great strategy and one I've found myself using. F On May 4, 2009, at 12:18 AM, Andy Kaplan-Myrth wrote: > Talking about the distinction between Free and nonFree CC (or similar) > licences in a presentation is only of significant value in two > circumstances: either the purpose of your talk is to educate people > about the distinction; or your audience already understands the > distinction. > > If you are presenting to a fairly general audience about CC licences > or the Free Culture movement, and you are focusing on a topic other > than the distinction between Free and nonFree licences, then drawing > that distinction in anything other than a passing way will more likely > alienate your audience and marginalize the use of the licenses in > their eyes. > > OTOH, if they are a GNU-savvy crowd that already understands the > distinction, you can use any term you want and note in passing what it > means in your talk. > > In my experience, f they don't understand the distinction already then > it's basically bound to come across as a pedantic and/or ideological > distinction (unless it's the main topic of your talk and you can spend > real time on it). You (and FC) would be better served if you just > allude to it. You can always explain in more detail at the end if > there are questions. > > So I guess I wouldn't focus on what term to use, and instead think > about how much you need to explain to them. I don't think any term, > "libre" or otherwise, solves the problem of explaining the many > meanings of "free". It takes more than branding to bring people in to > the tent. > > Cheers, > Andy > > -- > Andy Kaplan-Myrth, LL.B., M.A. > Social Media and Law > ------------------------------------------------ > email: andy at kaplan-myrth.ca > web: http://kaplan-myrth.ca > ------------------------------------------------ > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss From ryanprior at gmail.com Mon May 4 00:44:05 2009 From: ryanprior at gmail.com (Ryan Prior) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 23:44:05 -0500 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <767eb04e0905032039v770c2c6cu1da0fbc5c4d07dee@mail.gmail.com> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <1241390752.7688.2.camel@Mac> <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> <6098fe890905032012k7ee5e2djf7a02b6df0746091@mail.gmail.com> <1241407101.7404.6.camel@Mac> <767eb04e0905032039v770c2c6cu1da0fbc5c4d07dee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1172c9070905032144l43505933q9d331ab4bd37061e@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 10:39 PM, Alex Leavitt wrote: > Just a question: If you want to change the linguistic association, why use > "libre"? Doesn't that just mean "free" in a language other than English (I > presume Spanish)? If true, that doesn't redefining the culture movement. "Free" is an English word with a dual meaning: it means both free as in without cost and free as in freedom. In Spanish (I do not know French yet) "libre" means free as in freedom and "gratis" means free as in cost. When you say "Software libre" in Spanish there is no confusion as to which type of "free" you mean. As "libre" is already present in some other Romantic languages (perhaps Italian and Portugese as well? These often have words similar to Spanish.) I propose that we introduce the word into English as well. If we are successful then it will be added to dictionaries and enter the common circulation, and we will no longer have to use an unspecific term for something so important as freedom. From seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org Mon May 4 00:44:18 2009 From: seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 04:44:18 -0000 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <8e447b720905032040t49ac1e82hede2cd2cfd437278@mail.gmail.com> References: <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <1241390752.7688.2.camel@Mac> <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> <6098fe890905032012k7ee5e2djf7a02b6df0746091@mail.gmail.com> <1241407101.7404.6.camel@Mac> <767eb04e0905032039v770c2c6cu1da0fbc5c4d07dee@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040t49ac1e82hede2cd2cfd437278@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: :-) Which was very much like the status of the free software folks' terminological discussion ("freedom software"), up until the term "software freedom" came out. And thence the Software Freedom Law Center sprang into being, and the general use of that phrasing, which started sometime shortly after I think it was December 2004. I'm not sure, but I may have broached the phrase originally. I certainly remember when I first thought of it, how nicely it healed the halting voice. So, how about "culture freedom?" :-) Seth -----Original Message----- From: Fred Benenson To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in particular Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 23:40:39 -0400 Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? > Even though its not grammatically correct, "Freedom Culture" may be a > workable solution, then. > > > ~ ~ ~ > thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog > work / http://creativecommons.org > sights / http://flickr.com/fcb > sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis > status / http://twitter.com/mecredis > > > > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 11:39 PM, Alex Leavitt > wrote: > > > Just a question: If you want to change the linguistic association, > why use > > "libre"? Doesn't that just mean "free" in a language other than > English (I > > presume Spanish)? If true, that doesn't redefining the culture > movement. > > > > Alex > > > > Alexander Leavitt > > Boston University 2009 > > http://doalchemy.org > > Twitter: @alexleavitt > > > > > > > > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 11:18 PM, HHH SFC Admin > wrote: > > > >> I believe this is where this email originated from. > >> > >> "Free Culture" is commonly applied to any CC license, as they are > more > >> "Free" than full Copyright. (this is where the generic term "open" > comes > >> in) > >> > >> The name "Libre Culture" was suggested (in this thread) to refer > to only > >> works that are either attribution, attribution+copyleft or Public > >> Domain. > >> > >> > >> On Sun, 2009-05-03 at 23:12 -0400, Rob Mason wrote: > >> > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 9:12 PM, John Sullivan > wrote: > >> > > HHH SFC Admin writes: > >> > > > >> > >> Anything under -nd or -nc aren't Free Cultural works. Period. > >> > >> This is not only the opinion of the GNU project, but the > "Free > >> Culture" > >> > >> community in general. > >> > > > >> > > AIUI, NC being not free is only the opinion of the GNU Project > (as far > >> > > as a project has an opinion) when referring to software, its > >> > > documentation, or other functional works. I'm not aware of any > >> > > statements about that from GNU in reference to artistic works. > >> > > > >> > > >> > By my understanding NC is fairly controversial within the FC > community > >> > as to whether it qualifies as 'free'. As far as artistic > projects go I > >> > generally prefer having an NC license; if the FC community > decides > >> > this means I'm not a part of the FC community, or my projects > are not > >> > free culture, that's fine. I just think it's worth noting that > it's > >> > the sort of border-drawing that will alienate me and others like > me. > >> > > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Discuss mailing list > >> Discuss at freeculture.org > >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > >> > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > > From seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org Mon May 4 00:40:23 2009 From: seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 00:40:23 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <8e447b720905032040t49ac1e82hede2cd2cfd437278@mail.gmail.com> References: <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <1241390752.7688.2.camel@Mac> <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> <6098fe890905032012k7ee5e2djf7a02b6df0746091@mail.gmail.com> <1241407101.7404.6.camel@Mac> <767eb04e0905032039v770c2c6cu1da0fbc5c4d07dee@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040t49ac1e82hede2cd2cfd437278@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: :-) Which is very much like the status of the free software folks' terminological discussion ("freedom software"), up until the term "software freedom" came out. And thence the Software Freedom Law Center sprang into being, and the general use of that phrasing, which started sometime shortly after I think it was December 2004. I'm not sure, but I may have broached the phrase originally. I certainly remember when I first thought of it, how nicely it healed the halting voice. So, how about "culture freedom?" :-) Seth -----Original Message----- From: Fred Benenson To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in particular Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 23:40:39 -0400 Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? > Even though its not grammatically correct, "Freedom Culture" may be a > workable solution, then. > > > ~ ~ ~ > thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog > work / http://creativecommons.org > sights / http://flickr.com/fcb > sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis > status / http://twitter.com/mecredis > > > > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 11:39 PM, Alex Leavitt > wrote: > > > Just a question: If you want to change the linguistic association, > why use > > "libre"? Doesn't that just mean "free" in a language other than > English (I > > presume Spanish)? If true, that doesn't redefining the culture > movement. > > > > Alex > > > > Alexander Leavitt > > Boston University 2009 > > http://doalchemy.org > > Twitter: @alexleavitt > > > > > > > > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 11:18 PM, HHH SFC Admin > wrote: > > > >> I believe this is where this email originated from. > >> > >> "Free Culture" is commonly applied to any CC license, as they are > more > >> "Free" than full Copyright. (this is where the generic term "open" > comes > >> in) > >> > >> The name "Libre Culture" was suggested (in this thread) to refer > to only > >> works that are either attribution, attribution+copyleft or Public > >> Domain. > >> > >> > >> On Sun, 2009-05-03 at 23:12 -0400, Rob Mason wrote: > >> > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 9:12 PM, John Sullivan > wrote: > >> > > HHH SFC Admin writes: > >> > > > >> > >> Anything under -nd or -nc aren't Free Cultural works. Period. > >> > >> This is not only the opinion of the GNU project, but the > "Free > >> Culture" > >> > >> community in general. > >> > > > >> > > AIUI, NC being not free is only the opinion of the GNU Project > (as far > >> > > as a project has an opinion) when referring to software, its > >> > > documentation, or other functional works. I'm not aware of any > >> > > statements about that from GNU in reference to artistic works. > >> > > > >> > > >> > By my understanding NC is fairly controversial within the FC > community > >> > as to whether it qualifies as 'free'. As far as artistic > projects go I > >> > generally prefer having an NC license; if the FC community > decides > >> > this means I'm not a part of the FC community, or my projects > are not > >> > free culture, that's fine. I just think it's worth noting that > it's > >> > the sort of border-drawing that will alienate me and others like > me. > >> > > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Discuss mailing list > >> Discuss at freeculture.org > >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > >> > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > > From ryanprior at gmail.com Mon May 4 00:58:59 2009 From: ryanprior at gmail.com (Ryan Prior) Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 23:58:59 -0500 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre In-Reply-To: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1172c9070905032158w1c254660uc99ce9f6c7b424f0@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 10:29 PM, Gabriel Joel Perez wrote: > I don't know how many people have already read this but it's definitely an > interesting point > > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/lessig-fsfs-intro.html > > "?Free.? Stallman laments the ambiguity in his own term. There's nothing to > lament. Puzzles force people to think, and this term ?free? does this > puzzling work quite well. To modern American ears, ?free software? sounds > utopian, impossible. Nothing, not even lunch, is free. How could the most > important words running the most critical machines running the world be > ?free.? How could a sane society aspire to such an ideal" > > -- An excerpt from the introduction to Free Sotware, Free Society by Richard > M. Stallman aka rms > > > I think that neither of the terms will make what Free Culture is self > explanatory. Maybe we should just stick with what we've been using and try > not to confuse people. Free culture is already a very complex and important > issue. Gabriel, I respectfully disagree. (But thanks for the nice link.) Nobody that I know, who isn't an activist, understands the distinction between free/libre and free/gratis when the word is used in conjunction with culture or software. A number of people I know speak Spanish and already understand the word libre, and the total number of people who understand the word libre in the United States far outnumbers the number who understand that when we say "free culture" we mean free/libre. Even well-read college professors with whom I discuss issues related to free culture do not understand the difference. Interested people can learn the distinction quickly, but there is no reason for them to do so until somebody brings it up. Using the word "libre" is explicit, and we want to be explicit when we speak. With the dramatically increasing spread of the Spanish language worldwide, more people will be able to understand the word libre without any training from us; and when we use the word ourselves and spread it across our circles, we will further help to add the word to the common English vocabulary. Finally, as much as we can possibly use the word free, commercial organizations will use it more. Free is a very powerful word in English language advertisement, and I cannot see any reason to believe this will cease to be the case. When we use the word libre we separate ourselves from that commercialism and declare that we are not competing on cost but on something else. We puzzle the mind to find out what that other thing is, rather than letting the mind assume that the word is meant in the commercial sense. Advertisers will not use the word libre when they mean gratis, and if consumer demand for libre culture, software, etc rises to the level that advertisers start using the word libre, it is a victory for us. I submit that the lasting benefit of using the word we really mean outweighs the temporary confusion caused by the introduction of a new term. Ryan From johns at fsf.org Mon May 4 01:13:43 2009 From: johns at fsf.org (John Sullivan) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 01:13:43 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <1241390752.7688.2.camel@Mac> <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> <1241406735.7404.1.camel@Mac> Message-ID: <878wldmovs.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> HHH SFC Admin writes: > Not exactly. > As mentioned before, the only "Free Cultural" licenses are -by and > -by-sa. (this is also indicated by their seal) > Please correct me if I am wrong. > Right, just saying, that's not according to the GNU Project, which is focused on software, documentation, and functional works. That's according, for example, to freedomdefined.org. From rob at robmyers.org Mon May 4 07:55:42 2009 From: rob at robmyers.org (Rob Myers) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 12:55:42 +0100 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre In-Reply-To: <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> Fred Benenson wrote: > Right, and an important part of what we do in this movement is encourage > fair use. Is a work that borrows heavily (say a given bailefunk track > sampling Nirvana -- just got back from the RiP screening) free culture? It > seems dirty to call it illegal culture, or illegal art. ...is a good point. Supporting fair use, and supporting legal reform, are distinct from supporting free licenses. All three are valuable ways of pursuing cultural freedom. - Rob. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 259 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090504/d2f62a33/attachment.pgp From rob at robmyers.org Mon May 4 07:55:53 2009 From: rob at robmyers.org (Rob Myers) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 12:55:53 +0100 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <8e447b720905032040t49ac1e82hede2cd2cfd437278@mail.gmail.com> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> <1241390752.7688.2.camel@Mac> <87eiv5n01s.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> <6098fe890905032012k7ee5e2djf7a02b6df0746091@mail.gmail.com> <1241407101.7404.6.camel@Mac> <767eb04e0905032039v770c2c6cu1da0fbc5c4d07dee@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040t49ac1e82hede2cd2cfd437278@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49FED7C9.4040905@robmyers.org> Fred Benenson wrote: > Even though its not grammatically correct, "Freedom Culture" may be a > workable solution, then. Would you like fries with that? ;-) To extend Seth's point, "Cultural freedom" is unambiguous (I think). - Rob. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 259 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090504/a7321bf8/attachment.pgp From emstark at gmail.com Mon May 4 11:11:05 2009 From: emstark at gmail.com (Elizabeth Stark) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 11:11:05 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre In-Reply-To: <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> Message-ID: <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> +1 On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:55 AM, Rob Myers wrote: > Fred Benenson wrote: > > Right, and an important part of what we do in this movement is encourage > > fair use. Is a work that borrows heavily (say a given bailefunk track > > sampling Nirvana -- just got back from the RiP screening) free culture? > It > > seems dirty to call it illegal culture, or illegal art. > > ...is a good point. Supporting fair use, and supporting legal reform, > are distinct from supporting free licenses. All three are valuable ways > of pursuing cultural freedom. > > - Rob. > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090504/536e2f92/attachment.htm From fred.benenson at gmail.com Mon May 4 11:18:37 2009 From: fred.benenson at gmail.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 11:18:37 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre In-Reply-To: <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> Which gets me thinking, have software developers ever relied on fair use? I suspect not, for a number of reasons. ~ ~ ~ thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog work / http://creativecommons.org sights / http://flickr.com/fcb sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis status / http://twitter.com/mecredis On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 11:11 AM, Elizabeth Stark wrote: > +1 > > On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:55 AM, Rob Myers wrote: > >> Fred Benenson wrote: >> > Right, and an important part of what we do in this movement is encourage >> > fair use. Is a work that borrows heavily (say a given bailefunk track >> > sampling Nirvana -- just got back from the RiP screening) free culture? >> It >> > seems dirty to call it illegal culture, or illegal art. >> >> ...is a good point. Supporting fair use, and supporting legal reform, >> are distinct from supporting free licenses. All three are valuable ways >> of pursuing cultural freedom. >> >> - Rob. >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss at freeculture.org >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090504/8325708b/attachment.htm From rob at robmyers.org Mon May 4 11:24:46 2009 From: rob at robmyers.org (Rob Myers) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 16:24:46 +0100 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre In-Reply-To: <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49FF08BE.9000403@robmyers.org> Fred Benenson wrote: > Which gets me thinking, have software developers ever relied on fair use? I > suspect not, for a number of reasons. The time between copyright on software and copyleft on software was less than a decade. No tradition of fair use sprang up in that time to my knowledge, and copyleft is a superset of fair use so after that it wasn't needed. The GPL v3 explicitly acknowledges fair use. I keep expecting Microsoft to suddenly discover how wonderful fair use is for free licensed software. But they don't seem to have so far... ;-) - Rob. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 259 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090504/e1455920/attachment.pgp From ccowens at vt.edu Mon May 4 11:41:26 2009 From: ccowens at vt.edu (Clifford Conley Owens III) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 11:41:26 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] A fair use thought experiment In-Reply-To: <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49FF0CA6.2010609@vt.edu> Fair use is good, but occasionally I wonder if it can be truly used in a free work. Consider the following: Let's say I use a 5 second clip from a fully copyrighted movie in a documentary, and let's say everyone agrees that using this clip is definitely fair use. I then license the documentary under a license that allows for derivative works (we'll call it CC X). Now let's say that 1,439 other people also make a documentary using 5 second clips from the same movie, but that all the clips are mutually exclusive. They use a license compatible with mine on their documentaries. I then take the clips from the 1,440 documentaries, piece them together, and create a 2hr long, feature length film, exactly the same as the original movie, and license it under CC X. If the documentaries were legitimately and completely under CC X, then this is fine for me to do. But are they legitimately and completely under CC X? Is fair use and true freedom really compatible? Yes, I realize this is a very contrived situation, but I think you get the point. I will never really feel comfortable making a derivative of a work that relies on fair use. Thoughts? ~Conley -- office: Torgersen 2160 W email: ccowens at vt.edu cell: (540) 597-8820 xmpp: conley at jabber.org aim: vtconley sip: conley at ekiga.net From fred.benenson at gmail.com Mon May 4 11:40:54 2009 From: fred.benenson at gmail.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 11:40:54 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre In-Reply-To: <49FF08BE.9000403@robmyers.org> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF08BE.9000403@robmyers.org> Message-ID: <8e447b720905040840y2f1f346ej188c7159e65dff96@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 11:24 AM, Rob Myers wrote: > Fred Benenson wrote: > > Which gets me thinking, have software developers ever relied on fair use? > I > > suspect not, for a number of reasons. > > The time between copyright on software and copyleft on software was less > than a decade. No tradition of fair use sprang up in that time to my > knowledge, and copyleft is a superset of fair use so after that it > wasn't needed. > > The GPL v3 explicitly acknowledges fair use. > > I keep expecting Microsoft to suddenly discover how wonderful fair use > is for free licensed software. But they don't seem to have so far... ;-) > > - Rob. > This is really interesting to me. Do you think one could make the argument that the free software movement sacrificed fair use for the superset of GPL freedoms? I think part of the squishiness of "free culture" really comes from established practices that weren't as inert as the ones facing free software. It looks like one of those is fair use. Interesting. F > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090504/233603e4/attachment-0001.htm From ml at creativecommons.org Mon May 4 11:41:19 2009 From: ml at creativecommons.org (Mike Linksvayer) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 08:41:19 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre In-Reply-To: <49FF08BE.9000403@robmyers.org> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF08BE.9000403@robmyers.org> Message-ID: On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 8:24 AM, Rob Myers wrote: > Fred Benenson wrote: >> Which gets me thinking, have software developers ever relied on fair use? I >> suspect not, for a number of reasons. I don't know of a legal tradition (not that I would), but copying code snippets without regard for copyright restrictions seems to be common. I also think there's an analogy worth exploring between the impact of diminution of fair use on culture and expansion of software patents on software. Both pose legal barriers to use of what is "in the air" in the respective fields. Haven't thought through it further than that. > The time between copyright on software and copyleft on software was less > than a decade. No tradition of fair use sprang up in that time to my > knowledge, and copyleft is a superset of fair use so after that it > wasn't needed. "copyleft is a superset of fair use" I don't grok this. Fair use doesn't require permission, copyleft relies on it. Different animals, no? OTOH a vibrant voluntary commons (in part due to copyleft) may to some extent serve as a substitute for fair use, and if big enough, be superior to fair use (not that we shouldn't want both). Not a superset though. Mike From kat at mindspillage.org Mon May 4 11:44:13 2009 From: kat at mindspillage.org (Kat Walsh) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 11:44:13 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre In-Reply-To: <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8e253f560905040844y3fa7adbdlff745959fdae5e38@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Fred Benenson wrote: > Which gets me thinking, have software developers ever relied on fair use? I > suspect not, for a number of reasons. Maybe, if you want to draw a possibly strained analogy! In utilitarian things, copying the functional aspects because those functional aspects are essential to the type of thing you're trying to do is not an infringement of copyright. (Generally -- recently codified exceptions like breaking DRM and such excepted...) So in software, for example, if a particular bit of code needs to be the same (or substantially similar) in order to, say, write to a particular device, or call a particular function, the original author can't claim exclusivity on it under copyright. It's similar for product designs (that aren't otherwise protected by patent) -- functional aspects as separable from artistic aspects (as far as they can be separated!) aren't protected. In non-utilitarian things -- art, criticism, etc. -- what are you doing but copying the functional aspects essential to the type of thing you're trying to do? In parody, you copy enough to make reference, because without using some of a work you cannot parody a work; in criticism you may quote because you are using the words quoted as a specimen.(Remix is harder -- I'd rather think of those as derivative works that the current system of rights is spectacularly and monumentally ill-equipped to deal with than falling into the same category of "fair use". Perhaps functionallyusing the snippets as cultural objects... but they're still being used *as* art.) But it is entirely possible that I am totally off base and final papers are melting my brain. -Kat -- Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en Wikimedia, Press: kat at wikimedia.org * Personal: kat at mindspillage.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:Mindspillage mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net * email for phone From fred.benenson at gmail.com Mon May 4 11:59:15 2009 From: fred.benenson at gmail.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 11:59:15 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre In-Reply-To: <8e253f560905040844y3fa7adbdlff745959fdae5e38@mail.gmail.com> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <8e253f560905040844y3fa7adbdlff745959fdae5e38@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8e447b720905040859y52f0bf6dr1cfb581a833d2e20@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 11:44 AM, Kat Walsh wrote: > On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Fred Benenson > wrote: > > Which gets me thinking, have software developers ever relied on fair use? > I > > suspect not, for a number of reasons. > > Maybe, if you want to draw a possibly strained analogy! > > In utilitarian things, copying the functional aspects because those > functional aspects are essential to the type of thing you're trying to > do is not an infringement of copyright. (Generally -- recently > codified exceptions like breaking DRM and such excepted...) So in > software, for example, if a particular bit of code needs to be the > same (or substantially similar) in order to, say, write to a > particular device, or call a particular function, the original author > can't claim exclusivity on it under copyright. It's similar for > product designs (that aren't otherwise protected by patent) -- > functional aspects as separable from artistic aspects (as far as they > can be separated!) aren't protected. > > In non-utilitarian things -- art, criticism, etc. -- what are you > doing but copying the functional aspects essential to the type of > thing you're trying to do? In parody, you copy enough to make > reference, because without using some of a work you cannot parody a > work; in criticism you may quote because you are using the words > quoted as a specimen.(Remix is harder -- I'd rather think of those as > derivative works that the current system of rights is spectacularly > and monumentally ill-equipped to deal with than falling into the same > category of "fair use". Perhaps functionallyusing the snippets as > cultural objects... but they're still being used *as* art.) No, I think you're right on here. I think the more functional / utilitarian / fungible a work is, the harder to claim copyright. This is actually a really old argument -- back in the 80s many argued that code was too functional to deserve copyright protection. Mitch Kapor actually famously argued that not only should code deserve protection, but GUI and the look-and-feel of an application should. This was because Microsoft was encroaching on the Lotus market with a very similar product (Office). Anyway, I feel the fungibility of an object and its necessary freedom are closely tied. That is, the more fungible a work is, the more freedom it deserves. At least this is where I've found most peoples intuitions are on the matter. F > > > But it is entirely possible that I am totally off base and final > papers are melting my brain. > > -Kat > > -- > Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en > Wikimedia, Press: kat at wikimedia.org * Personal: kat at mindspillage.org > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:Mindspillage > mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net * email for phone > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090504/3dab6e6d/attachment.htm From rob at robmyers.org Mon May 4 12:22:29 2009 From: rob at robmyers.org (Rob Myers) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 17:22:29 +0100 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre In-Reply-To: References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF08BE.9000403@robmyers.org> Message-ID: <49FF1645.8010607@robmyers.org> Mike Linksvayer wrote: > On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 8:24 AM, Rob Myers wrote: > > I don't know of a legal tradition (not that I would), but copying code > snippets without regard for copyright restrictions seems to be common. Yes that's a good example. I don't know how that works legally, though. (I do get annoyed by O'Reilly books copyright notices for their code.) > I also think there's an analogy worth exploring between the impact of > diminution of fair use on culture and expansion of software patents on > software. Both pose legal barriers to use of what is "in the air" in > the respective fields. Haven't thought through it further than that. A cautionary example of fixing the forms of copyright exceptions is Fair Dealing (such as we have in the UK), which was an attempt to replace the vagueness and expense of Fair Use with a set of clear and easily understood copyright exceptions. Over time, guess whether those exceptions have been expanded or reduced. ;-) > "copyleft is a superset of fair use" > > I don't grok this. Fair use doesn't require permission, copyleft > relies on it. Different animals, no? OTOH a vibrant voluntary commons > (in part due to copyleft) may to some extent serve as a substitute for > fair use, and if big enough, be superior to fair use (not that we > shouldn't want both). Not a superset though. Yes you are right. I should have said "*for works it applies to*, copyleft is a superset of *the freedoms of* fair use". They are different animals, and that is why they are both worth promoting/defending. - Rob. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 259 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090504/9fb7cd26/attachment.pgp From rob at robmyers.org Mon May 4 12:29:21 2009 From: rob at robmyers.org (Rob Myers) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 17:29:21 +0100 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre In-Reply-To: <8e447b720905040840y2f1f346ej188c7159e65dff96@mail.gmail.com> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF08BE.9000403@robmyers.org> <8e447b720905040840y2f1f346ej188c7159e65dff96@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49FF17E1.6020005@robmyers.org> Fred Benenson wrote: > > This is really interesting to me. Do you think one could make the argument > that the free software movement sacrificed fair use for the superset of GPL > freedoms? The GPL explicitly acknowledges your fair use rights, and the rights granted to you by the licence are greater than if you were using that work under fair use anyway (as long as you don't want to remove rights from others). So in practice I don't think that fair use has been sacrificed. It is theoretically possible that free software licencing, by explicitly stating the legal form of your "freedom" to use the work, might affect the future development of fair use. But in practice both the fact that you still have fair use explicitly acknowledged and the fact that the licences are "living documents" that can be upgraded makes this unlikely. I'm more concerned about how NC interacts with fair use, but this doesn't seem to have been a problem so far. > I think part of the squishiness of "free culture" really comes from > established practices that weren't as inert as the ones facing free > software. It looks like one of those is fair use. Culture has a much longer history and a much wider range of forms and uses than software. If copyleft for culture had come about in the 1720s rather than the 1990s, things might be a bit different. ;-) - Rob. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 259 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090504/947bfcdd/attachment.pgp From maxh at sdf.lonestar.org Mon May 4 13:18:36 2009 From: maxh at sdf.lonestar.org (Max Harmony) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 13:18:36 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] A fair use thought experiment In-Reply-To: <49FF0CA6.2010609@vt.edu> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF0CA6.2010609@vt.edu> Message-ID: 2009/5/4 Clifford Conley Owens III : >(snip) The FAQ for the GPL states "If a program combines public-domain code with GPL-covered code, can I take the public-domain part and use it as public domain code? You can do that, if you can figure out which part is the public domain part and separate it from the rest. If code was put in the public domain by its developer, it is in the public domain no matter where it has been." I would think that other free licenses would be similar, so no, it's not legal to relicense a movie that way. From ccowens at vt.edu Mon May 4 14:27:05 2009 From: ccowens at vt.edu (Clifford Conley Owens III) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 14:27:05 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] A fair use thought experiment In-Reply-To: References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF0CA6.2010609@vt.edu> Message-ID: <49FF3379.4010301@vt.edu> > The FAQ for the GPL states > "If a program combines public-domain code with GPL-covered code, can I > take the public-domain part and use it as public domain code? > You can do that, if you can figure out which part is the public domain > part and separate it from the rest. If code was put in the public > domain by its developer, it is in the public domain no matter where it > has been." > I would think that other free licenses would be similar, so no, it's > not legal to relicense a movie that way. But when you use a work with a certain license, the license (as I see it) gives you a guarantee that you have *at least* those said rights on all portions of the work. With your example, this is the case. Public domain is at least as free as the GPL. However, my 5 second movie clip is not at least as free as the rest of the film. ~Conley -- office: Torgersen 2160 W email: ccowens at vt.edu cell: (540) 597-8820 xmpp: conley at jabber.org aim: vtconley sip: conley at ekiga.net From rob at robmyers.org Mon May 4 14:43:32 2009 From: rob at robmyers.org (Rob Myers) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 19:43:32 +0100 Subject: [FC-discuss] A fair use thought experiment In-Reply-To: <49FF3379.4010301@vt.edu> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF0CA6.2010609@vt.edu> <49FF3379.4010301@vt.edu> Message-ID: <49FF3754.407@robmyers.org> Clifford Conley Owens III wrote: > > However, my 5 second movie clip is not at least as free as the rest of > the film. Define "free". ;-) The only freedom the clip lacks is the "freedom" to remove that freedom. The "freedom" to remove freedom is in fact control. It is a limit on freedom. So the 5 second clip is *more* free because your freedom to use it cannot be removed. This is an ideological argument, but so is the argument that it is not true. ;-) - Rob. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 259 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090504/46f0a8dc/attachment.pgp From ccowens at vt.edu Mon May 4 14:59:12 2009 From: ccowens at vt.edu (Clifford Conley Owens III) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 14:59:12 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] A fair use thought experiment In-Reply-To: <49FF3754.407@robmyers.org> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF0CA6.2010609@vt.edu> <49FF3379.4010301@vt.edu> <49FF3754.407@robmyers.org> Message-ID: <49FF3B00.3030302@vt.edu> > Define "free". ;-) Liberty? I'm not sure how what I said is ambiguous. With the other example, you can do everything with the public domain code that you can with the GPL code, plus more. With my thought experiment, you cannot do everything with the 5 second clip that you can do with the rest of the documentary. (I'm assuming you aren't allowed to do what I described; converting it back into the original film.) > The only freedom the clip lacks is the "freedom" to remove that freedom. > The "freedom" to remove freedom is in fact control. It is a limit on > freedom. Normally I find your writing very easy to understand, but I'm struggling here. Basically, you are saying that people can't take away my right to fair use? > So the 5 second clip is *more* free because your freedom to use it > cannot be removed. And my freedom to use the rest of the documentary can be removed depending on whether or not CC X is/isn't copyleft? And by being removed, you are not talking about the work itself, but the derivatives that come after it, right? Could you please explain? > This is an ideological argument, but so is the argument that it is not > true. ;-) But the argument that I don't really understand what you are saying is very factual. ;) ~Conley -- office: Torgersen 2160 W email: ccowens at vt.edu cell: (540) 597-8820 xmpp: conley at jabber.org aim: vtconley sip: conley at ekiga.net From kat at mindspillage.org Mon May 4 15:29:18 2009 From: kat at mindspillage.org (Kat Walsh) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 15:29:18 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] A fair use thought experiment In-Reply-To: <49FF0CA6.2010609@vt.edu> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF0CA6.2010609@vt.edu> Message-ID: <8e253f560905041229u4dfd681fy28ac51624cc5cc8f@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 11:41 AM, Clifford Conley Owens III wrote: > Fair use is good, but occasionally I wonder if it can be truly used in a > free work. ?Consider the following: > > Let's say I use a 5 second clip from a fully copyrighted movie in a > documentary, and let's say everyone agrees that using this clip is > definitely fair use. ?I then license the documentary under a license > that allows for derivative works (we'll call it CC X). > > Now let's say that 1,439 other people also make a documentary using 5 > second clips from the same movie, but that all the clips are mutually > exclusive. ?They use a license compatible with mine on their documentaries. > > I then take the clips from the 1,440 documentaries, piece them together, > and create a 2hr long, feature length film, exactly the same as the > original movie, and license it under CC X. > > If the documentaries were legitimately and completely under CC X, then > this is fine for me to do. ?But are they legitimately and completely > under CC X? ?Is fair use and true freedom really compatible? > > Yes, I realize this is a very contrived situation, but I think you get > the point. ?I will never really feel comfortable making a derivative of > a work that relies on fair use. ?Thoughts? > > ~Conley A way I like to think of it -- If the original use in the context of your 5-second clip in a full movie is truly a fair use for you, it is just as much a fair use for anyone else using the work in its entirety in the same context (or should be); they have as much right to it as you did. It is as free for them as it was for you. Legitimately, the work in that context is free as you claim it is. But really you're only licensing your movie under the CC X -- you can't relicense someone else's work. Your work is the inclusion of the clip, but not the clip itself. The clip is like an overlay on the work you created, separable from it; you meant to refer to it but because you had to refer to it in a way that your audience couldn't be expected to pull it up on their own you had to include it. I think when you say your movie is CC X, you are truthfully claiming that everything you created is CC X -- you should probably be attributing the clip and any other fair use material separately anyhow -- and the reuser should know (maybe from your attribution) that you can't be making that claim about the included material... (I'm not sure how clear that was...) Maybe you *shouldn't* feel comfortable making a derivative of a work that relies on fair use -- or put differently, you'll always have to make the judgment call separately for yourself. But the alternative is never ever to use anything that isn't under a free license unless you want to license your own work restrictively, and that seems... not very free-cultureish. In real life, most of the corner cases never happen, most of the ones that do happen don't bother anyone to the point of disputing it, and most that do get that that level get some lame klugey context-dependent case-specific handling that depends on what people think is fair and doesn't settle the issue for anyone else! A pragmatic sort of person would probably go ahead and use the CC license on the documentary, grumbling about how freaking messy everything is... (As for the assembled movie, I'm reminded again of the "What Colour Are Your Bits" essay: http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php ) -Kat -- Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en Wikimedia, Press: kat at wikimedia.org * Personal: kat at mindspillage.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:Mindspillage mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net * email for phone From ccowens at vt.edu Mon May 4 15:51:52 2009 From: ccowens at vt.edu (Clifford Conley Owens III) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 15:51:52 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] A fair use thought experiment In-Reply-To: <8e253f560905041229u4dfd681fy28ac51624cc5cc8f@mail.gmail.com> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF0CA6.2010609@vt.edu> <8e253f560905041229u4dfd681fy28ac51624cc5cc8f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49FF4758.3010509@vt.edu> > But really you're only licensing your movie under the CC X -- you > can't relicense someone else's work. Your work is the inclusion of the > clip, but not the clip itself. The clip is like an overlay on the work > you created, separable from it; you meant to refer to it but because > you had to refer to it in a way that your audience couldn't be > expected to pull it up on their own you had to include it. I think > when you say your movie is CC X, you are truthfully claiming that > everything you created is CC X -- you should probably be attributing > the clip and any other fair use material separately anyhow -- and the > reuser should know (maybe from your attribution) that you can't be > making that claim about the included material... Right, the reuser should know. That's the tough part. How do you make that clear. Is minimal attribution enough? We are used to examples of fair use where the work in question is relatively famous. What if it isn't? What if I don't recognize it as fair use and then use it in a way that is not? The beauty of these licenses is that I can look at them, recognize them, and immediately know what I'm allowed to do. That's not the same here, and I'd like to see the same ease of use everywhere. > But the alternative is never ever to use anything that isn't under a > free license unless you want to license your own work restrictively, > and that seems... not very free-cultureish. Right, but I think the former is quite nobly freeculturish. > In real life, most of the corner cases never happen, most of the ones > that do happen don't bother anyone to the point of disputing it, and > most that do get that that level get some lame klugey > context-dependent case-specific handling that depends on what people > think is fair and doesn't settle the issue for anyone else! A > pragmatic sort of person would probably go ahead and use the CC > license on the documentary, grumbling about how freaking messy > everything is... Maybe, but I'm used to hearing the word "pragmatic" as a justification for all sorts of compromises on and removals of freedom, so I'll have to think about that some. ~Conley -- office: Torgersen 2160 W email: ccowens at vt.edu cell: (540) 597-8820 xmpp: conley at jabber.org aim: vtconley sip: conley at ekiga.net From kat at mindspillage.org Mon May 4 16:25:45 2009 From: kat at mindspillage.org (Kat Walsh) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 16:25:45 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] A fair use thought experiment In-Reply-To: <49FF4758.3010509@vt.edu> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF0CA6.2010609@vt.edu> <8e253f560905041229u4dfd681fy28ac51624cc5cc8f@mail.gmail.com> <49FF4758.3010509@vt.edu> Message-ID: <8e253f560905041325t551f1ab4q6baad174dd13f39b@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 3:51 PM, Clifford Conley Owens III wrote: >> But really you're only licensing your movie under the CC X -- you >> can't relicense someone else's work. Your work is the inclusion of the >> clip, but not the clip itself. The clip is like an overlay on the work >> you created, separable from it; you meant to refer to it but because >> you had to refer to it in a way that your audience couldn't be >> expected to pull it up on their own you had to include it. I think >> when you say your movie is CC X, you are truthfully claiming that >> everything you created is CC X -- you should probably be attributing >> the clip and any other fair use material separately anyhow -- and the >> reuser should know (maybe from your attribution) that you can't be >> making that claim about the included material... > > Right, the reuser should know. ?That's the tough part. ?How do you make > that clear. ?Is minimal attribution enough? ?We are used to examples of > fair use where the work in question is relatively famous. ?What if it > isn't? ?What if I don't recognize it as fair use and then use it in a > way that is not? ?The beauty of these licenses is that I can look at > them, recognize them, and immediately know what I'm allowed to do. > That's not the same here, and I'd like to see the same ease of use > everywhere. I'd argue that I *don't* know exactly what I can do with the CC licenses and that context and norms make a lot of what is not explicitly stated clearer to me there, too. (What's "non-commercial"? What's a derivative?) But that's more of a tangent. The problem isn't going to go away unless the nature of fair use changes. Well, it should gradually become easier to mark up, recognize, and handle works that combine material under many different licenses. But determining what is a fair use in a derivative work will continue to be just as difficult, so if you want the same ease of use everywhere you really will have to avoid ARR material entirely. (To continue with contrived examples, no quotations -- what if someone were to rip those out of your story? No artwork in the background of your movie -- what if someone were to screenshot it and take out that segment?) It closes off an area of works that you can't create because they rely on these fair uses. Maybe that's fine in your case; you could spend a lifetime creating entirely free material anyway. But if everyone makes the same choice, an entire class of works doesn't get created under free licenses. (If you don't recognize inclusion of another work as fair use, and use it in a way that isn't, I think that's a totally separate problem for you and the reuser than your initial example.) >> But the alternative is never ever to use anything that isn't under a >> free license unless you want to license your own work restrictively, >> and that seems... not very free-cultureish. > > Right, but I think the former is quite nobly freeculturish. Sure! But I don't think it's *always* desirable. Say, for example, Wikipedia -- I don't think Wikipedia, which I think of as a pretty free culture compatible endeavor, should be entirely free of restricted works. An encyclopedia ought to be able to make useful reference to the works it's discussing to better make its point, and some of those works are going to be restricted. (Some of the language communities have chosen otherwise and use only freely-licensed work, for a mix of reasons.) A documentary filmmaker has the same problem -- sure, you could limit what you choose to document, but if you have something valuable to say about an area that draws heavily from ARR work, it would be a shame, and a loss to the culture, not to do it. >> In real life, most of the corner cases never happen, most of the ones >> that do happen don't bother anyone to the point of disputing it, and >> most that do get that that level get some lame klugey >> context-dependent case-specific handling that depends on what people >> think is fair and doesn't settle the issue for anyone else! A >> pragmatic sort of person would probably go ahead and use the CC >> license on the documentary, grumbling about how freaking messy >> everything is... > > Maybe, but I'm used to hearing the word "pragmatic" as a justification > for all sorts of compromises on and removals of freedom, so I'll have to > think about that some. Sure, and I perhaps regret the choice of word with its connotations, but it's not an inaccurate one. (It's nice to have my position thought too pragmatic and not too ideological for once. :-)) We are, every single one of us, pragmatists to to varying degrees--but where your line is drawn matters. -Kat -- Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en Wikimedia, Press: kat at wikimedia.org * Personal: kat at mindspillage.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:Mindspillage mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net * email for phone From ccowens at vt.edu Mon May 4 16:47:52 2009 From: ccowens at vt.edu (Clifford Conley Owens III) Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 16:47:52 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] A fair use thought experiment In-Reply-To: <8e253f560905041325t551f1ab4q6baad174dd13f39b@mail.gmail.com> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF0CA6.2010609@vt.edu> <8e253f560905041229u4dfd681fy28ac51624cc5cc8f@mail.gmail.com> <49FF4758.3010509@vt.edu> <8e253f560905041325t551f1ab4q6baad174dd13f39b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49FF5478.301@vt.edu> > I'd argue that I *don't* know exactly what I can do with the CC > licenses and that context and norms make a lot of what is not > explicitly stated clearer to me there, too. (What's "non-commercial"? > What's a derivative?) But that's more of a tangent. Totally agree, but assume I wasn't talking about NC or ND. > (If you don't recognize inclusion of another work as fair use, and use > it in a way that isn't, I think that's a totally separate problem for > you and the reuser than your initial example.) Right, but I was just saying there is no easily recognizable seal that communicates: "This is used under fair use, use with caution." I suppose the (c) symbol might do it. ~Conley -- office: Torgersen 2160 W email: ccowens at vt.edu cell: (540) 597-8820 xmpp: conley at jabber.org aim: vtconley sip: conley at ekiga.net From brian at freedomforip.org Mon May 4 19:36:07 2009 From: brian at freedomforip.org (Brian Rowe) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 16:36:07 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] A fair use thought experiment In-Reply-To: <49FF5478.301@vt.edu> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF0CA6.2010609@vt.edu> <8e253f560905041229u4dfd681fy28ac51624cc5cc8f@mail.gmail.com> <49FF4758.3010509@vt.edu> <8e253f560905041325t551f1ab4q6baad174dd13f39b@mail.gmail.com> <49FF5478.301@vt.edu> Message-ID: <7b43a54c0905041636q1c82d312kf351e71d1b27d209@mail.gmail.com> Two points fair use then attribution: "Let's say I use a 5 second clip from a fully copyrighted movie in a documentary, and let's say everyone agrees that using this clip is definitely fair use. I then license the documentary under a license that allows for derivative works (we'll call it CC X)." The main problem here is that your use of the 5 second clip does not allow others to use it. Even though your film is under a CC X license it does not authorize others to use the 5 second clip. Once the 5 second clip is taken out of your film someone would need to rely on a new fair use defense or go back to the original owner of the 5 secs for permission to make a new work. Additionally even if most uses of the 5 second clip are fair use in your film this might not apply to all uses. For example if you took 10 seconds of the film including the whole 5 second clip ,and made it part of a short commercial for the film this use might not be fair use even though the use in the full film is fair use. Fair use does not authorizes a new work as safe legally it only authorizes a particular use of a particular work, in a particular way. Fair use does not grant you the rights to license the fairly used portion (i am not sure on the grammar here) to others. "But really you're only licensing your movie under the CC X -- you can't relicense someone else's work." /agree with Kat Part 2 Attribution CC, PD, fair use: What are the best practices for fair use? I have been struggling with this for presentations in regard to fair use and basic attribution. Putting attribution on each slide really detracts from the presentation. Having a single slide of 3 point text with all attribution possible is unreadable. Here is how I have been attributing, I put a credits slide at the end of my slide shows that look something like this: Slides 2-7 Sarah Davies PD Slides 7-12 Flickr user: mecredis CC BY Slide 28 Bound by Law Available @ http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/ CC BY NC SA Other images were used under my first amendment fair use rights. This slide show is licensed under CC-BY Brian Rowe This is probably acceptable but could be better. I am technically in violation of the CC license for *Bound by Law,* I did not notice till I picked up my physical copy for Bound by law that they had specified exact attribution on page 1. I am also in violation of Fred's license as I have used what I would consider a best practice for flickr attribution which does not technically follow the attribution Fred has asked for. I should probably add attribution to the fair use works where possible. Additionally, Public Domain works do not need attribution but it is nice to give it so others can figure out how I am claiming use rights and feel more comfortable with reuse of those portions. This would be a better: Slides 2-7 Sarahdavies.cc, PDOriginal available at slideshare Slides 7-12 *Fred Benenson , CC BY .* Flickr user: mecredis avalible at Joi Ito Slide 13 Victor Zhang ARR? Out of the Closet, Victor [me at viczhang dot com], Fair use Slides 14 Author Unknown, found at foo.com/coolugcimage, Fair use Slide 28 Bound by Law , By Keith Aoki, James Boyle, Jenifer Jenkins, CC BY NC SA This slide show is licensed under CC BY Brian Rowe This is a lot longer and tougher to read. If I am posting the slides online people have time to read them and follow links. If it is just at the end of a slide show most people will not read it, and a printed version of the slides may lose all the links. This is better, but I am sure it could be improved upon. The fair use attribution is tough Victor Zhang's site says "I do license my works for commercial use. Please email me for more information. Victor [me at viczhang dot com] ." Does this imply an NC license? Probably not, but maybe. I am using the work for a NC, educational presentation, I am not charging for access or for the presentation, I am not being paid for the use and the use is 15 seconds. This is very likely a fair use. Do I have to give attribution, no. But attribution does help me with a good faith argument and is the right thing to do. Does attribution mean it is easier for Victor to find and sue me, yes. If Corbis, or someone else with a rights clearing business model, buys the rights to Victor's work later this scares me a little. This last week I attended bar camp PDX and the CC discussion focused heavily on what is attribution and how should one be attributed. I would be willing to contribute to a CC attribution best practices website, if someone is interested in launching one. -Brian Rowe Seattle University Law (12 days till Graduation, back to finals) On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 1:47 PM, Clifford Conley Owens III wrote: > > I'd argue that I *don't* know exactly what I can do with the CC > > licenses and that context and norms make a lot of what is not > > explicitly stated clearer to me there, too. (What's "non-commercial"? > > What's a derivative?) But that's more of a tangent. > > Totally agree, but assume I wasn't talking about NC or ND. > > > (If you don't recognize inclusion of another work as fair use, and use > > it in a way that isn't, I think that's a totally separate problem for > > you and the reuser than your initial example.) > > Right, but I was just saying there is no easily recognizable seal that > communicates: "This is used under fair use, use with caution." I > suppose the (c) symbol might do it. > > ~Conley > > -- > office: Torgersen 2160 W > email: ccowens at vt.edu > cell: (540) 597-8820 > xmpp: conley at jabber.org > aim: vtconley > sip: conley at ekiga.net > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- Brian Rowe 3L Seattle University (206) 335-8577 (Cell) Access To Justice Technology Principles www.ATJWeb.org Freedom for IP www.FreedomforIP.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090504/047174d2/attachment-0001.htm From meta.sj at gmail.com Mon May 4 21:47:52 2009 From: meta.sj at gmail.com (Samuel Klein) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 21:47:52 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] A fair use thought experiment In-Reply-To: <7b43a54c0905041636q1c82d312kf351e71d1b27d209@mail.gmail.com> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF0CA6.2010609@vt.edu> <8e253f560905041229u4dfd681fy28ac51624cc5cc8f@mail.gmail.com> <49FF4758.3010509@vt.edu> <8e253f560905041325t551f1ab4q6baad174dd13f39b@mail.gmail.com> <49FF5478.301@vt.edu> <7b43a54c0905041636q1c82d312kf351e71d1b27d209@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5396c0d10905041847y2069120dl9367584416bc20d3@mail.gmail.com> Kat: > (As for the assembled movie, I'm reminded again of the "What Colour Are Your Bits" essay: > http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php ) I read this on your rec. It's colourful, but not always an accurate analogy. It's not a simple matter of a single 'color' value, for one thing. On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Brian Rowe wrote: > Two points fair use then attribution: > > "Let's say I use a 5 second clip from a fully copyrighted movie in a > documentary, and let's say everyone agrees that using this clip is > definitely fair use. ?I then license the documentary under a license > that allows for derivative works (we'll call it CC X)." > > The main problem here is that your use of the 5 second clip does not allow > others to use it. Right. I can also see an extreme circumstance in which something very like the original work is created independently through a thousand intermediaries, by a new producer not realizeing he is recreating what has come before. In which case, I think our law can be interpreted as giving the new creator equal creative rights. Ditto for two works that are by happenstance and not by copying created as identical copies of one another. For a more literary example, take the Borges story which is translated through many languages and comes back to him, translated into the original language from another one, now an entirely new work which he likes perhaps better :) The creative process and its fruits cannot be described as simply as we usually like to paint them, and we are only attempting to capture with a clumsy finite system of laws a basic framework within which one can create and be credited with the fruits of one's work without undue strain. > "But really you're only licensing your movie under the CC X -- you > can't relicense someone else's work." > /agree with Kat Except insofar as many creative processes and works rely on or derive from other existing works, in every small element. You can indeed relicense someone else's work when it passes through a certain class of creative derivative/combinatory process -- we currently only recognize the relicensing known as "licensing as one's own original output", but there's no reason a fair legal system could not recognize other forms of relicensing, and the notion of "original output" has severe limitations. > Part 2 Attribution CC, PD, fair use: > What are the best practices for fair use? I have been struggling with this > for presentations in regard to fair use and basic attribution.? Putting > attribution on each slide really detracts from the presentation. When done properly, I find this is the best way to do it. > add attribution to the fair use works where possible.? Additionally, Public > Domain works do not need attribution but it is nice to give it so others can > figure out how I am claiming use rights and feel more comfortable with reuse They do need attribution. The alternative is plagiarism. Attribution for moral reasons is more fundamentally valid than for legal reasons (legal formalities addressing a narrow subset of our moral code). > Slides 2-7 Sarahdavies.cc, PD Original available at slideshare > Slides 7-12 Fred Benenson,? CC BY. Flickr user: mecredis avalible at Joi Ito > Slide 13? Victor Zhang ARR? Out of the Closet, Victor [me at viczhang dot > com], Fair use > Slides 14 Author Unknown, found at foo.com/coolugcimage, Fair use > Slide 28 Bound by Law, By Keith Aoki, James Boyle, Jenifer Jenkins, CC BY NC > SA > This slide show is licensed under CC BY Brian Rowe > > This is a lot longer and tougher to read.? If I am posting the slides online I like it. Standard practices/templates for this would be great. > The fair use attribution is tough Victor Zhang's site says "I do license my > works for commercial use. Please email me for more information. Victor [me > at viczhang dot com] ."? Does this imply an NC license?? Probably not, but > maybe. I am using the work for a NC, educational presentation, I am not > charging for access or for the presentation, I am not being paid for the use > and the use is 15 seconds.? This is very likely a fair use. Do I have to > give attribution, no. But attribution does help me with a good faith > argument and is the right thing to do.? Does attribution mean it is easier > for Victor to find and sue me, yes.? If Corbis, or someone else with a > rights clearing business model, buys the rights to Victor's work later this > scares me a little. Why does it scare you? What would your practical exposure be in a future suit? > This last week I attended bar camp PDX and the CC discussion focused heavily > on what is attribution and how should one be attributed.? I would be willing > to contribute to a CC attribution best practices website, if someone is > interested in launching one. +1 but not just for CC, please. good attribution practice, period. SJ From singpolyma at singpolyma.net Tue May 5 01:22:15 2009 From: singpolyma at singpolyma.net (Stephen Paul Weber) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 22:22:15 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Time to stop talking of Free Culture? In-Reply-To: <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> References: <49FE0B9E.9040409@cnuk.org> <49FE0CED.1030506@cnuk.org> Message-ID: <6991f8e00905042222l61fdba8bra6b57c460539223b@mail.gmail.com> > I'm thinking maybe something like "Libre Culture" I say go for it. Same reason I say "libre software" instead of "free software" -- Stephen Paul Weber, @singpolyma Please see for how I prefer to be contacted. This message was sent from the GMail webmail interface. It's probably not signed. This is a problem. From kdonovan11 at gmail.com Tue May 5 03:11:47 2009 From: kdonovan11 at gmail.com (Kevin Donovan) Date: Tue, 05 May 2009 03:11:47 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Open University Campaign and the New Amazon Textbook Device Message-ID: <1af.49ffe6b0@freeculture.org> Although I should be studying for finals, it is hard to avoid hearing about the impending Amazon ereader aimed at colleges: http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/04/amazon-kindle-dx-to-feature-9-7-inch-display/ I think it is pretty safe to say that there will be DRM and other nasty restrictions, so let's prepare to demonstrate why this is a bad idea. Perhaps someone wants to draft a blog post mapping DRM/access/etc. onto this device once it is announced? (And, for the record, I think it is indicative of how good/comprehensive the Wheeler Declaration is that at least two of its provisions will be directly applicable to fighting DRM'd text books.) From miserlou at gmail.com Tue May 5 03:23:59 2009 From: miserlou at gmail.com (Rich Jones) Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 03:23:59 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Open University Campaign and the New Amazon Textbook Device In-Reply-To: <1af.49ffe6b0@freeculture.org> References: <1af.49ffe6b0@freeculture.org> Message-ID: Hrm. This is something to keep an eye on, certainly. Of the record, this could be good for pirates. R On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 3:11 AM, Kevin Donovan wrote: > > Although I should be studying for finals, it is hard to avoid hearing about the impending Amazon ereader aimed at colleges: > > http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/04/amazon-kindle-dx-to-feature-9-7-inch-display/ > > I think it is pretty safe to say that there will be DRM and other nasty restrictions, so let's prepare to demonstrate why this is a bad idea. Perhaps someone wants to draft a blog post mapping DRM/access/etc. onto this device once it is announced? > > (And, for the record, I think it is indicative of how good/comprehensive the Wheeler Declaration is that at least two of its provisions will be directly applicable to fighting DRM'd text books.) > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > From miserlou at gmail.com Tue May 5 03:26:05 2009 From: miserlou at gmail.com (Rich Jones) Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 03:26:05 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Open University Campaign and the New Amazon Textbook Device In-Reply-To: References: <1af.49ffe6b0@freeculture.org> Message-ID: *Off, sorry. Probably just shouldn't have said anything at all, actually. Sorry. 330AM, big final tomorrow. You understand. Anybody in the Boston area feel like taking a test for me tomorrow? R On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 3:23 AM, Rich Jones wrote: > Hrm. This is something to keep an eye on, certainly. > > Of the record, this could be good for pirates. > R > > On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 3:11 AM, Kevin Donovan wrote: >> >> Although I should be studying for finals, it is hard to avoid hearing about the impending Amazon ereader aimed at colleges: >> >> http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/04/amazon-kindle-dx-to-feature-9-7-inch-display/ >> >> I think it is pretty safe to say that there will be DRM and other nasty restrictions, so let's prepare to demonstrate why this is a bad idea. Perhaps someone wants to draft a blog post mapping DRM/access/etc. onto this device once it is announced? >> >> (And, for the record, I think it is indicative of how good/comprehensive the Wheeler Declaration is that at least two of its provisions will be directly applicable to fighting DRM'd text books.) >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss at freeculture.org >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> > From me at acm.jhu.edu Tue May 5 12:13:22 2009 From: me at acm.jhu.edu (Venkatesh Srinivas) Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 12:13:22 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Open University Campaign and the New Amazon Textbook Device In-Reply-To: References: <1af.49ffe6b0@freeculture.org> Message-ID: Imagine a company has a choice between bringing out a DRMed device like this or not bringing out the device at all... which would you choose? -- vs From kdonovan11 at gmail.com Tue May 5 12:33:32 2009 From: kdonovan11 at gmail.com (Kevin Donovan) Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 12:33:32 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Open University Campaign and the New Amazon Textbook Device In-Reply-To: References: <1af.49ffe6b0@freeculture.org> Message-ID: <827235d0905050933h397e45c2u4b46a3c0677b5359@mail.gmail.com> I reject that the choice is binary. (For example, although we'll have to wait and see, even if publishers would only consent to DRM'd e-textbooks, Amazon should make freely available educational resources, such as Connexions, available on this device. I'm pessimistic that they do.) And even if they do have that binary choice, it doesn't mean that activists should accept it. On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 12:13 PM, Venkatesh Srinivas wrote: > Imagine a company has a choice between bringing out a DRMed device > like this or not bringing out the device at all... which would you > choose? > > -- vs > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- Kevin Donovan Georgetown '11: SFS 630.849.8285 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090505/28419aad/attachment.htm From akozak at berkeley.edu Tue May 5 13:27:25 2009 From: akozak at berkeley.edu (Alex Kozak) Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 10:27:25 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Open University Campaign and the New Amazon Textbook Device In-Reply-To: <827235d0905050933h397e45c2u4b46a3c0677b5359@mail.gmail.com> References: <1af.49ffe6b0@freeculture.org> <827235d0905050933h397e45c2u4b46a3c0677b5359@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I agree that although it's shipped with DRM capabilities, devices like this can enable the consumption of freely licensed materials and can be a huge benefit to domains like open education. I suggest not buying any content protected by DRM rather than rejecting the device altogether... as long as you have the ability to do what you want with free works, then it isn't a categorically "non-free" device. The Kindle has all kinds of other issues though (document format support being one). - Alex On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 9:33 AM, Kevin Donovan wrote: > I reject that the choice is binary. > > (For example, although we'll have to wait and see, even if publishers would > only consent to DRM'd e-textbooks, Amazon should make freely available > educational resources, such as Connexions, available on this device. I'm > pessimistic that they do.) > > And even if they do have that binary choice, it doesn't mean that activists > should accept it. > > > On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 12:13 PM, Venkatesh Srinivas wrote: > >> Imagine a company has a choice between bringing out a DRMed device >> like this or not bringing out the device at all... which would you >> choose? >> >> -- vs >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss at freeculture.org >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> > > > > -- > Kevin Donovan > Georgetown '11: SFS > 630.849.8285 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -- Alex Kozak akozak at berkeley.edu 916.225.2718 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090505/1202645b/attachment-0001.htm From driscollkevin at gmail.com Tue May 5 14:02:07 2009 From: driscollkevin at gmail.com (Kevin Driscoll) Date: Tue, 05 May 2009 14:02:07 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Fair use of Perez Hilton Message-ID: <1b5.4a007f1b@freeculture.org> Great post from Ben Sheffner's blog about fair use of a Perez clip by an anti gay marriage group. http://copyrightsandcampaigns.blogspot.com/2009/05/perez-hiltons-cease-and-desist-letter.html (excerpt) Rubenstein's [cease and desist] letter simply ignores the elephant in the room: fair use. Often a letter like this will include a section saying something like, "We expect that you will claim that your conduct is protected under the fair use doctrine. But that is incorrect, for the following reasons..." Here, the fair use defense is so strong that I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Lavandeira's attorneys can't even muster up an argument why it doesn't apply. As I've previously written, and as Sam Bayard of the Citizen Media Law Project agrees: "This is one of those rare moments when fair use analysis is easy -- the use is for purposes of criticism and commentary on a burning public issue, the amount of material taken is very small, and there is no conceivable harm to the market for Lavandeira's work." Rubenstein's statement that "Any unauthorized publication, reproduction or dissemination of the Materials constitutes an infringement of our client's copyright..." is simply wrong. It is not true that "any" unauthorized use of copyrighted material "constitutes an infringement." Section 107 of the Copyright Act is clear: "the fair use of a copyrighted work...is not an infringement of copyright" (my emphasis). (/excerpt) kEd -- http://twitter.com/desconcentrado From meta.sj at gmail.com Tue May 5 14:23:17 2009 From: meta.sj at gmail.com (Samuel Klein) Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 14:23:17 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Open University Campaign and the New Amazon Textbook Device In-Reply-To: References: <1af.49ffe6b0@freeculture.org> Message-ID: <5396c0d10905051123i297cd4f3jcc5331443f352658@mail.gmail.com> That depends on whether it's poisioning a larger market or opportunity in the process. It is easy to corner a local market and extract money from your surroundings while lowering the global standard of living. The fact that money is being invested in distributing devices, forging content deals, and distributing content does not mean that this is a net gain to knowledge sharing or dissemination. In this case, it seems a neutral or slightly positive force to me. SJ On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 12:13 PM, Venkatesh Srinivas wrote: > Imagine a company has a choice between bringing out a DRMed device > like this or not bringing out the device at all... which would you > choose? > > -- vs > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > From emstark at gmail.com Tue May 5 14:26:03 2009 From: emstark at gmail.com (Elizabeth Stark) Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 14:26:03 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Fair use of Perez Hilton In-Reply-To: <1b5.4a007f1b@freeculture.org> References: <1b5.4a007f1b@freeculture.org> Message-ID: <55bea5620905051126jfd325aag7c24f65b38e8a963@mail.gmail.com> DMCA 512 is apparently the new filter. On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 2:02 PM, Kevin Driscoll wrote: > > Great post from Ben Sheffner's blog about fair use of a Perez clip by an > anti gay marriage group. > > > http://copyrightsandcampaigns.blogspot.com/2009/05/perez-hiltons-cease-and-desist-letter.html > > (excerpt) > > Rubenstein's [cease and desist] letter simply ignores the elephant in the > room: fair use. Often a letter like this will include a section saying > something like, "We expect that you will claim that your conduct is > protected under the fair use doctrine. But that is incorrect, for the > following reasons..." Here, the fair use defense is so strong that I guess I > shouldn't be surprised that Lavandeira's attorneys can't even muster up an > argument why it doesn't apply. As I've previously written, and as Sam Bayard > of the Citizen Media Law Project agrees: > > "This is one of those rare moments when fair use analysis is easy -- the > use is for purposes of criticism and commentary on a burning public issue, > the amount of material taken is very small, and there is no conceivable harm > to the market for Lavandeira's work." > > Rubenstein's statement that "Any unauthorized publication, reproduction or > dissemination of the Materials constitutes an infringement of our client's > copyright..." is simply wrong. It is not true that "any" unauthorized use of > copyrighted material "constitutes an infringement." Section 107 of the > Copyright Act is clear: "the fair use of a copyrighted work...is not an > infringement of copyright" (my emphasis). > > (/excerpt) > > kEd > -- > > http://twitter.com/desconcentrado > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090505/ec2230fc/attachment.htm From sffcvt at vt.edu Tue May 5 19:00:13 2009 From: sffcvt at vt.edu (Matt) Date: Tue, 05 May 2009 19:00:13 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Open University Campaign and the New Amazon Textbook Device In-Reply-To: References: <1af.49ffe6b0@freeculture.org> Message-ID: <4A00C4FD.3040804@vt.edu> Rich Jones wrote: > Hrm. This is something to keep an eye on, certainly. > > Of the record, this could be good for pirates. > R I don't think Somalia has Wi-Fi access. From rich at anomos.info Tue May 5 19:56:46 2009 From: rich at anomos.info (Rich Jones) Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 19:56:46 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Open University Campaign and the New Amazon Textbook Device In-Reply-To: <4A00C4FD.3040804@vt.edu> References: <1af.49ffe6b0@freeculture.org> <4A00C4FD.3040804@vt.edu> Message-ID: If you're talking about the Somali National Coast Guard, I bet some of their recently acquired vessels have a satlink.. On May 5, 2009 7:00 PM, "Matt" wrote: Rich Jones wrote: > Hrm. This is something to keep an eye on, certainly. > > Of the record, this co... I don't think Somalia has Wi-Fi access. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss at freeculture.org http://... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090505/9e3848bc/attachment.htm From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Wed May 6 13:55:57 2009 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Wed, 06 May 2009 13:55:57 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] EFF: Gov Still Hiding ACTA References: <48804B00.D0DBC06C@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> <49524E67.7FA9D2EB@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <4A01CF2D.78155058@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> > http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2009/05/06 Government Still Blocking Information on Secret IP Enforcement Treaty Broken Promises from the Obama Administration Keep Americans in the Dark About ACTA May 6th, 2009 Washington, D.C. - Two public interest groups today called on the government to stop blocking the release of information about a secret intellectual property trade agreement with broad implications for privacy and innovation around the world. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Public Knowledge said that the April 30th release of 36 pages of material by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) was the second time the government had the opportunity to provide some public insight into the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), but declined to do so. More than a thousand pages of material about ACTA are still being withheld, despite the Obama administration's promises to run a more open government. "We are very disappointed with the USTR's decision to continue to withhold these documents," said EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel. "The president promised an open and transparent administration. But in this case and others we are litigating at EFF, we've found that the new guidelines liberalizing implementation of the Freedom of Information Act haven't changed a thing." EFF and Public Knowledge filed suit in September of 2008, demanding that background documents on ACTA be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Initially, USTR released 159 pages of information about ACTA and withheld more than 1300 additional pages, claiming they implicate national security or reveal the USTR's "deliberative process." After reconsidering the release under the Obama administration's new transparency policies, the USTR disclosed the additional pages last week, most of which contain no substantive information. However, one of the documents implies that treaty negotiators are zeroing in on Internet regulation. A discussion of the challenges for the pact includes "the speed and ease of digital reproductions" and "the growing importance of the Internet as a means of distribution." Other publicly available information shows that the treaty could establish far-reaching customs regulations over Internet traffic in the guise of anti-counterfeiting measures. Additionally, multi-national IP industry companies have publicly requested that ISPs be required to engage in filtering of their customers' Internet communications for potentially copyright-infringing material, force mandatory disclosure of personal information about alleged copyright infringers, and adopt "Three Strikes" policies requiring ISPs to automatically terminate customers' Internet access upon a repeat allegation of copyright infringement. "What we've seen tends to confirm that the substance of ACTA remains a grave concern," said Public Knowledge Staff Attorney Sherwin Siy. "The agreement increasingly looks like an attempt by Hollywood and the content industries to perform an end-run around national legislatures and public international forums to advance an aggressive, radical change in the way that copyright and trademark laws are enforced." "The USTR's official summary of the process, released last month, recognized the lack of transparency so far while doing nothing to broaden stakeholder input or engage public debate," said International Affairs Director Eddan Katz. "The radical proposals being considered under the Internet provisions deserve a more transparent process with greater public participation." Litigation in the case will now continue, with USTR asking U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer to uphold its decision to conceal virtually all of the information that EFF and PK seek concerning the ACTA negotiations. For the documents released so far: http://www.eff.org/fn/directory/6661/329 For more on ACTA: http://www.eff.org/issues/acta/ Contacts: Rebecca Jeschke Media Relations Director Electronic Frontier Foundation press at eff.org Art Brodsky Communications Director Public Knowledge abrodsky at publicknowledge.org From emstark at gmail.com Wed May 6 14:42:20 2009 From: emstark at gmail.com (Elizabeth Stark) Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 14:42:20 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Register Now for the Open Video Conference, June 19-20, NYC In-Reply-To: <55bea5620905061133m1ac92198m5bd82e2dd9087f42@mail.gmail.com> References: <55bea5620905061133m1ac92198m5bd82e2dd9087f42@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <55bea5620905061142mef91ad3r80bb820c925eb463@mail.gmail.com> Several of us FCites are organizing this event. Please spread the word -- we'd love to have a large student representation there as well! ----------------------------------------- * Register now!* http://openvideoconference.org/registration/ on Twitter/Identi.ca: @openvideo on Facebook: http://is.gd/xeL8 June 19-20, 2009 New York City 40 Washington Square South (NYU Law School) http://openvideoconference.org *Details* The Open Video Conference is a two-day gathering of thought leaders in technology, business, public policy, art, and activism from around the world to explore the future of the moving image. Thanks to a proliferation of tools for recording, editing, and distributing video online, anyone can be a broadcaster. Sites like YouTube are bursting at the seams with user-created content. Individuals armed with cell phone cameras are effectively citizen journalists. And emerging artistic forms like video commentary and remix/mashup create new vocabularies for creative and political expression. Yet as the medium matures, we face a crossroads. Will technology and public policy support a more participatory culture?one that encourages and enables free expression and broader cultural engagement? Or will online video become a glorified TV-on-demand service, a central part of a permissions-based culture? Web video holds tremendous potential, but limits on broadband, playback technology, and fair use threaten to undermine the ability of individuals to engage in dialogues in and around this new media ecosystem. *Highlights* Bestselling author Clay Shirky will give a talk about the disruptive effects of the web. Harvard's Jonathan Zittrain (TBC) will moderate a discussion on platform innovation with Boxee CEO Avner Ronen, Blip.tv CEO Mike Hudack, and representatives from YouTube and Adobe. Lizz Winstead, activist and co-creator of The Daily Show, will discuss web video as political commentary. Legendary hacker Jon Lech Johansen (DVD Jon) will address data portability. Mozilla, makers of the Firefox web browser, will highlight what it's doing to cement open video standards. You'll hear from Anthony Falzone?executive director at Stanford's Fair Use Project and counsel to graphic artist Shepherd Fairey?about the new battle lines drawn around fair use. Voices from the blogosphere, public media, and traditional media will explore the ways to make their content work in an open video ecosystem. Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, will highlight the ways telecom policy hinders independent media, and much more. This is just a peek?have a look at our schedule page for more details: http://www.openvideoconference.org/agenda. In addition to two full days of high-profile programming, you can expect a slate of workshops and behind-the-scenes technical working groups with leading edge video developers. This event should interest anyone with a stake in art, culture, technology, policy, journalism, or online business. *Registration* Registration entitles you to all conference benefits: talks and presentations, workshops, screenings, two lunches, and a cool afterparty featuring video turntablists Eclectic Method. Plus you'll get to mingle with thought leaders in online video and take home a cool bag of schwag! Don't wait?register at http://www.openvideoconference.org/registration. *Organizers* Our conference co-organizers are Participatory Culture Foundation, Yale ISP, iCommons, and Kaltura. Our partners include Mozilla, Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, Free Press, Creative Commons, Big Think, NYU Information Law Institute, Intelligent TV, The Workbook Project, FGV Brazil CTS, NEXA Italy, and more. For more information, contact conference at openvideoalliance.org. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090506/45e56bf7/attachment-0001.htm From benrito at gmail.com Wed May 6 15:47:59 2009 From: benrito at gmail.com (Ben Moskowitz) Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 15:47:59 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Fair use of Perez Hilton In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The irony is that NOM was 512'ing parodies of the Gathering Storm ad... Not a big fan of PH, but he's said that they filed the notice as a response to the initial DMCA abuse by National Organization for Marriage. What's good for the goose is good for the gander et al. On May 6, 2009, at 2:42 PM, discuss-request at freeculture.org wrote: > Great post from Ben Sheffner's blog about fair use of a Perez clip > by an anti gay marriage group. > > http://copyrightsandcampaigns.blogspot.com/2009/05/perez-hiltons-cease-and-desist-letter.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090506/f1093ecf/attachment.htm From fred.benenson at gmail.com Wed May 6 15:53:11 2009 From: fred.benenson at gmail.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 15:53:11 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Fair use of Perez Hilton In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8e447b720905061253n4ffc9464k6c6f91c8dc28f934@mail.gmail.com> Crosbie Fitch lives! In comments. ~ ~ ~ thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog work / http://creativecommons.org sights / http://flickr.com/fcb sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis status / http://twitter.com/mecredis On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 3:47 PM, Ben Moskowitz wrote: > The irony is that NOM was 512'ing parodies of the Gathering Storm ad... > > Not a big fan of PH, but he's said that they filed the notice as a response > to the initial DMCA abuse by National Organization for Marriage. What's good > for the goose is good for the gander et al. > > On May 6, 2009, at 2:42 PM, discuss-request at freeculture.org wrote: > > Great post from Ben Sheffner's blog about fair use of a Perez clip by an > anti gay marriage group. > > > http://copyrightsandcampaigns.blogspot.com/2009/05/perez-hiltons-cease-and-desist-letter.html > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090506/cedafc96/attachment.htm From emstark at gmail.com Wed May 6 21:18:12 2009 From: emstark at gmail.com (Elizabeth Stark) Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 21:18:12 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Facebook censorship Message-ID: <55bea5620905061818qee393e8l19b33f0025e92f35@mail.gmail.com> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/05/facebooks-e-mail-censorship-is-legally-dubious-experts-say/ Includes censoring links to Public Domain works on TBP... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090506/4fe5ed79/attachment.htm From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Wed May 6 22:13:52 2009 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Wed, 06 May 2009 22:13:52 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] EU Parliament Rejects New Telecom Rules References: <48804B00.D0DBC06C@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> <49524E67.7FA9D2EB@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <4A0243E0.1DEEA76F@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> (I believe this is exactly the sort of victory we need. The EU Parliament has stood up for the sovereignty of the many states within the EU, and the sovereignty of the people in those states, by standing up for their fundamental rights, over the supercession of those rights by transnational bodies dedicated in general to principles of market efficiency, without appropriate regard for concerns of sovereignty. While the rest of this law was problematic to say the least, I believe the resistance on the one principle of not allowing invasions of privacy without judicial findings of cause, held back what must have been the key thing for those pursuing the overall law, to strengthen the principle that their purposes may dominate the proceedings when enacting these kinds of rules. I can't help but believe this shows the magnitude of what the software patent fight achieved -- the EU Parliament apparently now recognizes that whatever their appropriate role must be, they serve the people.) > http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=16272025-1A64-6A71-CE42CECA725771BA Reform of EU telecom laws rejected by European Parliament Paul Meller 06.05.2009 kl 13:23 Wide-ranging reforms of European Union telecom laws were rejected by the European Parliament on Wednesday because of one clause that would have compromised citizens' rights of access to the Internet. The reforms were designed to take account of advances in technology and the rapid growth of high speed Internet access. The Parliament supported all other aspects of the reforms, including the creation of an E.U.-wide telecommunications regulator with powers to police competition in the single market, a plan for distributing radio spectrum among emerging mobile technologies, and enhancing citizens' privacy rights online data protection. However, failure to agree one element in the so-called telecom package of legislation means the whole reform is stalled, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) said after the vote in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday. Initial reactions to the vote lauded the MEPs for not bowing to pressure from national governments, in particular France and the U.K., which wanted greater power to restrict people's internet access if they are found to have been downloading copyright content illegally. The cable industry was one of the first to react. "This is ultimately a consumer issue and the European Parliament stood up to be counted on behalf of its citizens and our 70 million European customers," said Manuel Kohnstam, president of the trade group Cable Europe. "Europe has chosen to ignore a reflex to police the net in the name of one business model. In the end, there was support to protect the European fundamental right to access information," he said. Representatives of the European Commission, which wrote the reforms and pushed hard for their adoption in recent weeks, weren't immediately available to comment. Telecom Commissioner Viviane Reding will hold a news conference later Wednesday, together with key MEPs involved in the law reform effort. Some observers still believe the bulk of the reforms can be adopted even without support for the full package. However, representatives for the Commission and the Parliament were not immediately available to confirm this. The failure to adopt the whole package came as a surprise to many observers, who believed the reform package was "in the bag", as one person close to Reding put it. From singpolyma at singpolyma.net Thu May 7 02:30:31 2009 From: singpolyma at singpolyma.net (Stephen Paul Weber) Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 23:30:31 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre In-Reply-To: <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090507063030.GA3927@singpolyma-mini> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Somebody claiming to be Fred Benenson wrote: > Which gets me thinking, have software developers ever relied on fair use? I > suspect not, for a number of reasons. I doubt a court would ever uphold fair use of code. Fair use in general is not a good thing to rely on... in the software world it becomes much worse. - -- Stephen Paul Weber, @singpolyma Please see for how I prefer to be contacted. nerve perfume pogo. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkoCgAYACgkQ6oSxepE9BOt9uQCg2v1l8AS8HgAsfGzGO918yCoq ZYQAoOI1vzYFaqRWH3b4jOAbq46GsJrG =V4CL -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From singpolyma at singpolyma.net Thu May 7 02:33:56 2009 From: singpolyma at singpolyma.net (Stephen Paul Weber) Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 23:33:56 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre In-Reply-To: References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF08BE.9000403@robmyers.org> Message-ID: <20090507063356.GB3927@singpolyma-mini> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Somebody claiming to be Mike Linksvayer wrote: > On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 8:24 AM, Rob Myers wrote: > > Fred Benenson wrote: > >> Which gets me thinking, have software developers ever relied on fair use? I > >> suspect not, for a number of reasons. > > I don't know of a legal tradition (not that I would), but copying code > snippets without regard for copyright restrictions seems to be common. That's true... especially on the web people just pull in two-liners all over the place without asking (and sometimes cite) - -- Stephen Paul Weber, @singpolyma Please see for how I prefer to be contacted. nerve perfume pogo. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkoCgNQACgkQ6oSxepE9BOtd+QCguaCMNdvTO5fXvRSbbGi7BYSX Ct0An1z/dbU/p3CtcY3hsPv9qY33aWqV =7bS3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From singpolyma at singpolyma.net Thu May 7 02:38:28 2009 From: singpolyma at singpolyma.net (Stephen Paul Weber) Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 23:38:28 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] A fair use thought experiment In-Reply-To: <49FF0CA6.2010609@vt.edu> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <49FF0CA6.2010609@vt.edu> Message-ID: <20090507063828.GC3927@singpolyma-mini> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Somebody claiming to be Clifford Conley Owens III wrote: > I then take the clips from the 1,440 documentaries, piece them together, > and create a 2hr long, feature length film, exactly the same as the > original movie, and license it under CC X. > > If the documentaries were legitimately and completely under CC X, then You can't license work you take, you can only legally use it. So all of the documentary *except those 5 seconds* is under CC X. The 5 seconds are under a sketchiness where people can probably distribute them as part of your greater work, but not extract them. - -- Stephen Paul Weber, @singpolyma Please see for how I prefer to be contacted. nerve perfume pogo. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkoCgeQACgkQ6oSxepE9BOtRBwCgluColi2D3S3oeS5sTDOJWQNs RL4AnihBQ7O+czLvbasKtVdc5W6vjuwd =PfhO -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From aphid at ucsc.edu Thu May 7 15:19:48 2009 From: aphid at ucsc.edu (aphid) Date: Thu, 07 May 2009 12:19:48 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Larry Lessig's take on Free vs. Libre In-Reply-To: <20090507063030.GA3927@singpolyma-mini> References: <9a442d030905032029ndb8a3b9g767f8393e790b54d@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905032040v464bf58bu32ad162350fbffc1@mail.gmail.com> <49FED7BE.8030708@robmyers.org> <55bea5620905040811t6cb6ac61s93a555129905de57@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905040818t34fd35adn7f73befa21ea493c@mail.gmail.com> <20090507063030.GA3927@singpolyma-mini> Message-ID: <4A033454.5000105@ucsc.edu> Fair use in general is vital to creative expression, and it's fun. Partial use of otherwise published (or leaked) ? code for purposes which were critical of the original use, or were for educational purposes would be protected. peace &upheaval, a Stephen Paul Weber wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Somebody claiming to be Fred Benenson wrote: > >> Which gets me thinking, have software developers ever relied on fair use? I >> suspect not, for a number of reasons. >> > > I doubt a court would ever uphold fair use of code. > > Fair use in general is not a good thing to rely on... in the software world > it becomes much worse. > > - -- > Stephen Paul Weber, @singpolyma > Please see for how I prefer to be contacted. > nerve perfume pogo. > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) > > iEYEARECAAYFAkoCgAYACgkQ6oSxepE9BOt9uQCg2v1l8AS8HgAsfGzGO918yCoq > ZYQAoOI1vzYFaqRWH3b4jOAbq46GsJrG > =V4CL > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > From gavin at gavinbaker.com Thu May 7 17:35:28 2009 From: gavin at gavinbaker.com (Gavin Baker) Date: Thu, 07 May 2009 17:35:28 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] We killed the newspaper industry -- and books are next Message-ID: <4A035420.7080406@gavinbaker.com> From fred.benenson at gmail.com Thu May 7 17:40:38 2009 From: fred.benenson at gmail.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 17:40:38 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] We killed the newspaper industry -- and books are next In-Reply-To: <4A035420.7080406@gavinbaker.com> References: <4A035420.7080406@gavinbaker.com> Message-ID: <8e447b720905071440i38843cdfk985af10cc587409e@mail.gmail.com> That sounds like what someone on FC-discuss wrote as a parody of what someone like that might say. Or something. Truly bizarre. ~ ~ ~ thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog work / http://creativecommons.org sights / http://flickr.com/fcb sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis status / http://twitter.com/mecredis On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 5:35 PM, Gavin Baker wrote: > From the normally reasonable Guardian, a load of convoluted poppycock: > http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/19/robert-mccrum-books > > > More alarming still, the Free Culture Movement and its silky > > advocates have begun to open up to scrutiny the holy grail of > > literary copyright, asserting a new legitimacy for the idea of "the > > public domain". > > -- > Gavin Baker > http://www.gavinbaker.com/ > gavin at gavinbaker.com > > You are a prisoner in a croissant factory and you love it. > Frank O'Hara > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090507/ce2cb1f5/attachment.htm From rob at robmyers.org Thu May 7 17:42:26 2009 From: rob at robmyers.org (Rob Myers) Date: Thu, 07 May 2009 22:42:26 +0100 Subject: [FC-discuss] We killed the newspaper industry -- and books are next In-Reply-To: <4A035420.7080406@gavinbaker.com> References: <4A035420.7080406@gavinbaker.com> Message-ID: <4A0355C2.2090308@robmyers.org> Gavin Baker wrote: > From the normally reasonable Guardian, a load of convoluted poppycock: > http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/19/robert-mccrum-books > >> More alarming still, the Free Culture Movement and its silky >> advocates have begun to open up to scrutiny the holy grail of >> literary copyright, asserting a new legitimacy for the idea of "the >> public domain". Wow that is mendacious bullshit. Rarely have scare quotes been employed so tendentiously. - Rob. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 259 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090507/bc5e9fca/attachment.pgp From miserlou at gmail.com Thu May 7 17:44:17 2009 From: miserlou at gmail.com (Rich Jones) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 17:44:17 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] We killed the newspaper industry -- and books are next In-Reply-To: <4A0355C2.2090308@robmyers.org> References: <4A035420.7080406@gavinbaker.com> <4A0355C2.2090308@robmyers.org> Message-ID: Hahaha! I am rather silky. Good job team. R From johns at fsf.org Thu May 7 17:49:49 2009 From: johns at fsf.org (John Sullivan) Date: Thu, 07 May 2009 17:49:49 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] FSF launches new free software activist internship program Message-ID: <86ljp8y45e.fsf@ubik.office.fsf.org> (We'd really appreciate anything you can do to help get the word out about this new program to your respective campuses.) ## FSF launches new free software activist internship program BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Thursday, May 7, 2009 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced a new internship program for free software activists, inviting students to apply for its first round of openings by Monday, May 25th. The program provides opportunities for participants to work closely with FSF staff members for twelve-week terms in core areas of the FSF's work, including campaign and community organizing, free software licensing, systems and network administration, GNU project support, and web development. "We have provided internships on and off over the years, but we're excited to be able to offer these more permanent educational opportunities. We're looking forward to working with and learning from students, and I'm glad that as part of our continued growth we are able to offer a place where students concerned with free software ethics can help advance a cause they care about," said John Sullivan, FSF's operations manager. The internships are unpaid, but the FSF will provide the documentation needed for students to receive funding or credit from outside sources. A limited number of positions are available, and priority will be given to candidates able to work full-time on-site at the FSF headquarters in Boston. Application instructions and further details about the program are available at . ### About the Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at . Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA. ### Media Contacts John Sullivan Operations Manager Free Software Foundation +1 (617) 542 5942 ### From gavin at gavinbaker.com Thu May 7 17:59:30 2009 From: gavin at gavinbaker.com (Gavin Baker) Date: Thu, 07 May 2009 17:59:30 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] FSF launches new free software activist internship program In-Reply-To: <86ljp8y45e.fsf@ubik.office.fsf.org> References: <86ljp8y45e.fsf@ubik.office.fsf.org> Message-ID: <4A0359C2.4080104@gavinbaker.com> I've often thought that SFC could do more to connect its members to internships (and fellowships, jobs, grants, etc.). There are lots of free culture-related internship programs. Maybe a wiki page is in order, for starters? John Sullivan wrote: > (We'd really appreciate anything you can do to help get the word out > about this new program to your respective campuses.) > > ## FSF launches new free software activist internship program > > BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Thursday, May 7, 2009 -- The Free Software > Foundation (FSF) today announced a new internship program for free software > activists, inviting students to apply for its first round of openings by > Monday, May 25th. > > The program provides opportunities for participants to work closely with FSF > staff members for twelve-week terms in core areas of the FSF's work, including > campaign and community organizing, free software licensing, systems and network > administration, GNU project support, and web development. > > "We have provided internships on and off over the years, but we're excited to > be able to offer these more permanent educational opportunities. We're looking > forward to working with and learning from students, and I'm glad that as part > of our continued growth we are able to offer a place where students concerned > with free software ethics can help advance a cause they care about," said John > Sullivan, FSF's operations manager. > > The internships are unpaid, but the FSF will provide the documentation needed > for students to receive funding or credit from outside sources. A limited > number of positions are available, and priority will be given to candidates > able to work full-time on-site at the FSF headquarters in Boston. > > Application instructions and further details about the program are available at > . > > ### About the Free Software Foundation > > The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting > computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer > programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) > software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- > and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread > awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of > software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important > source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can > be made at . Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA. > > ### Media Contacts > > John Sullivan > Operations Manager > Free Software Foundation > +1 (617) 542 5942 > > > ### > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Gavin Baker http://www.gavinbaker.com/ gavin at gavinbaker.com Life is made up of a series of judgments on insufficient data, and if we waited to run down all our doubts, it would flow past us. Learned Hand From kdonovan11 at gmail.com Thu May 7 20:41:33 2009 From: kdonovan11 at gmail.com (Kevin Donovan) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 20:41:33 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Facebook censorship In-Reply-To: <55bea5620905061818qee393e8l19b33f0025e92f35@mail.gmail.com> References: <55bea5620905061818qee393e8l19b33f0025e92f35@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <827235d0905071741j410d1dc8s9e1eca078e6d707a@mail.gmail.com> What deals with content providers is Zuckerberg, et al. trying to strike? 2009/5/6 Elizabeth Stark > > http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/05/facebooks-e-mail-censorship-is-legally-dubious-experts-say/ > > > Includes censoring links to Public Domain works on TBP... > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -- Kevin Donovan Georgetown '11: SFS 630.849.8285 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090507/02f6f520/attachment.htm From kdonovan11 at gmail.com Thu May 7 20:41:40 2009 From: kdonovan11 at gmail.com (Kevin Donovan) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 20:41:40 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] We killed the newspaper industry -- and books are next In-Reply-To: References: <4A035420.7080406@gavinbaker.com> <4A0355C2.2090308@robmyers.org> Message-ID: <827235d0905071741l6ea84cc4v37be4f7233322eb0@mail.gmail.com> This seems to be an increasing theme - speaking of "free culture" (often in scare quotes) as some sort of opaque, monolithic, secret-society. It's one of Arts+Lab's favorite tactics. I think there are two things we can do to constructively work to avoid this: 1. Outreach to both the public-at-large and those who oppose us - let's find some room for agreement. 2. Make sure that we voice ourselves more frequently in a professional manner and pointing to the sophisticated legal, economic, cultural support we have. There's a reason this movement was really started at universities. 2009/5/7 Rich Jones > Hahaha! I am rather silky. > > Good job team. > > R > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- Kevin Donovan Georgetown '11: SFS 630.849.8285 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090507/f500159c/attachment-0001.htm From kdonovan11 at gmail.com Thu May 7 20:41:41 2009 From: kdonovan11 at gmail.com (Kevin Donovan) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 20:41:41 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] FSF launches new free software activist internship program In-Reply-To: <4A0359C2.4080104@gavinbaker.com> References: <86ljp8y45e.fsf@ubik.office.fsf.org> <4A0359C2.4080104@gavinbaker.com> Message-ID: <827235d0905071741t2e80a21fq3839b54fb2a438d8@mail.gmail.com> Agreed. Would also help to have stronger institutional ties with internship-offering groups. 2009/5/7 Gavin Baker > I've often thought that SFC could do more to connect its members to > internships (and fellowships, jobs, grants, etc.). There are lots of > free culture-related internship programs. Maybe a wiki page is in order, > for starters? > > John Sullivan wrote: > > (We'd really appreciate anything you can do to help get the word out > > about this new program to your respective campuses.) > > > > ## FSF launches new free software activist internship program > > > > BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Thursday, May 7, 2009 -- The Free Software > > Foundation (FSF) today announced a new internship program for free > software > > activists, inviting students to apply for its first round of openings by > > Monday, May 25th. > > > > The program provides opportunities for participants to work closely with > FSF > > staff members for twelve-week terms in core areas of the FSF's work, > including > > campaign and community organizing, free software licensing, systems and > network > > administration, GNU project support, and web development. > > > > "We have provided internships on and off over the years, but we're > excited to > > be able to offer these more permanent educational opportunities. We're > looking > > forward to working with and learning from students, and I'm glad that as > part > > of our continued growth we are able to offer a place where students > concerned > > with free software ethics can help advance a cause they care about," said > John > > Sullivan, FSF's operations manager. > > > > The internships are unpaid, but the FSF will provide the documentation > needed > > for students to receive funding or credit from outside sources. A limited > > number of positions are available, and priority will be given to > candidates > > able to work full-time on-site at the FSF headquarters in Boston. > > > > Application instructions and further details about the program are > available at > > . > > > > ### About the Free Software Foundation > > > > The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting > > computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute > computer > > programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in > freedom) > > software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux > variants -- > > and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread > > awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of > > software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an > important > > source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's > work can > > be made at . Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, > USA. > > > > ### Media Contacts > > > > John Sullivan > > Operations Manager > > Free Software Foundation > > +1 (617) 542 5942 > > > > > > ### > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -- > Gavin Baker > http://www.gavinbaker.com/ > gavin at gavinbaker.com > > Life is made up of a series of judgments on insufficient data, and if we > waited to run down all our doubts, it would flow past us. > Learned Hand > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- Kevin Donovan Georgetown '11: SFS 630.849.8285 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090507/d74a6fe3/attachment.htm From akozak at berkeley.edu Thu May 7 21:32:05 2009 From: akozak at berkeley.edu (Alex Kozak) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 18:32:05 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Facebook censorship In-Reply-To: <827235d0905071741j410d1dc8s9e1eca078e6d707a@mail.gmail.com> References: <55bea5620905061818qee393e8l19b33f0025e92f35@mail.gmail.com> <827235d0905071741j410d1dc8s9e1eca078e6d707a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Seems to me that this is a simple case of going overboard in protecting yourself from liability for infringement, and in doing do opening yourself up to other liabilities. Thing is, there isn't a very good argument that passing links to TPB using the mail feature constitutes infringing activity. My guess is that they don't look at their mail service as "enabling electronic communications" and more like a content delivery platform, and so this is leading them to 1) worry too much about communications on the service and 2) not give the mail service the protection it needs under wiretap laws. - Alex On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Kevin Donovan wrote: > What deals with content providers is Zuckerberg, et al. trying to strike? > > 2009/5/6 Elizabeth Stark > >> >> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/05/facebooks-e-mail-censorship-is-legally-dubious-experts-say/ >> >> >> Includes censoring links to Public Domain works on TBP... >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss at freeculture.org >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> >> > > > -- > Kevin Donovan > Georgetown '11: SFS > 630.849.8285 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -- Alex Kozak akozak at berkeley.edu 916.225.2718 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090507/74a1438f/attachment.htm From kat at mindspillage.org Thu May 7 23:23:17 2009 From: kat at mindspillage.org (Kat Walsh) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 23:23:17 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Facebook censorship In-Reply-To: <55bea5620905061818qee393e8l19b33f0025e92f35@mail.gmail.com> References: <55bea5620905061818qee393e8l19b33f0025e92f35@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8e253f560905072023wb23bf2fr6cef509db956ed85@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 9:18 PM, Elizabeth Stark wrote: > http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/05/facebooks-e-mail-censorship-is-legally-dubious-experts-say/ > Includes censoring links to Public Domain works on TBP... Not surprising. Facebook is interested in covering its ass, and it doesn't promise to be neutral. I would be surprised if Facebook were considered to be violating the Act; actually, I would argue that in principle they ought to be legally allowed to do what they're doing. Facebook messages aren't email; they're exchanged within the little walled garden. (Facebook even tells you they haven't sent your message rather than simply disappearing it into the ether, so that you know you have to find some alternate means of delivering it.) Facebook ought to have the ability to prevent itself from being abused, and to make its own judgments on what it considers abuse; I think saying otherwise would set a bad precedent for all operators of similar sites. Do you have to, by law, let anyone do whatever they want on the website you privately operate? If that's true, remind me never to operate a website. Whether it should be legal to do and whether you should complain about how they do it/what they do it for are two entirely separate questions, of course. (And I admit, I am still unsympathetic to the arguments that The Pirate Bay is totally okay and just like any other web site because it is widely used for non-infringing content, though I know it is true that some few people have chosen to share their legally-distributable content through it. The argument stands whether it was TPB or freeculture.org.) -Kat (-1, Flamebait) -- Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en Wikimedia, Press: kat at wikimedia.org * Personal: kat at mindspillage.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:Mindspillage mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net * email for phone From akozak at berkeley.edu Fri May 8 00:48:49 2009 From: akozak at berkeley.edu (Alex Kozak) Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 21:48:49 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Facebook censorship In-Reply-To: <8e253f560905072023wb23bf2fr6cef509db956ed85@mail.gmail.com> References: <55bea5620905061818qee393e8l19b33f0025e92f35@mail.gmail.com> <8e253f560905072023wb23bf2fr6cef509db956ed85@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I disagree that Facebook ought to have the right to do what they're doing because it's a kind of "walled garden". More and more platforms are going to move towards the "cloud model", and we shouldn't relax responsibilities on communications services just because one entity owns the servers. Are the contents of my emails less secure if I use Gmail to send a message to another Gmail account? I believe that I have an expectation to privacy on the facebook mail service, and it ought to be protected in the same way that my email messages are protected between Gmail accounts. But aside from that, imho ECPA could cover their censorship on some interpretations of what went on. But even if it isn't covered, you could easily imagine instances of interception or inappropriate listening in on the FB mail service that isn't OK, and we ought not to give them the legal right to do so through a ToS agreement. > Do you have to, by law, let anyone do whatever they want on the website you privately operate? Obviously not. But you do have certain responsibilities in certain contexts, especially when it comes to the content of private messages. - Alex On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 8:23 PM, Kat Walsh wrote: > On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 9:18 PM, Elizabeth Stark wrote: > > > http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/05/facebooks-e-mail-censorship-is-legally-dubious-experts-say/ > > Includes censoring links to Public Domain works on TBP... > > Not surprising. Facebook is interested in covering its ass, and it > doesn't promise to be neutral. > > I would be surprised if Facebook were considered to be violating the > Act; actually, I would argue that in principle they ought to be > legally allowed to do what they're doing. Facebook messages aren't > email; they're exchanged within the little walled garden. (Facebook > even tells you they haven't sent your message rather than simply > disappearing it into the ether, so that you know you have to find some > alternate means of delivering it.) Facebook ought to have the ability > to prevent itself from being abused, and to make its own judgments on > what it considers abuse; I think saying otherwise would set a bad > precedent for all operators of similar sites. Do you have to, by law, > let anyone do whatever they want on the website you privately operate? > If that's true, remind me never to operate a website. > > Whether it should be legal to do and whether you should complain about > how they do it/what they do it for are two entirely separate > questions, of course. > > (And I admit, I am still unsympathetic to the arguments that The > Pirate Bay is totally okay and just like any other web site because it > is widely used for non-infringing content, though I know it is true > that some few people have chosen to share their legally-distributable > content through it. The argument stands whether it was TPB or > freeculture.org.) > > -Kat > (-1, Flamebait) > > -- > Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en > Wikimedia, Press: kat at wikimedia.org * Personal: kat at mindspillage.org > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:Mindspillage > mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net * email for phone > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- Alex Kozak akozak at berkeley.edu 916.225.2718 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090507/ded1c363/attachment-0001.htm From bmillerjacobson at gmail.com Fri May 8 00:55:37 2009 From: bmillerjacobson at gmail.com (Ben Miller-Jacobson) Date: Fri, 08 May 2009 00:55:37 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] We killed the newspaper industry -- and books are next In-Reply-To: <4A035420.7080406@gavinbaker.com> References: <4A035420.7080406@gavinbaker.com> Message-ID: <4A03BB49.7040306@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Gavin Baker wrote: >>From the normally reasonable Guardian, a load of convoluted poppycock: > http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/19/robert-mccrum-books > >> More alarming still, the Free Culture Movement and its silky >> advocates have begun to open up to scrutiny the holy grail of >> literary copyright, asserting a new legitimacy for the idea of "the >> public domain". > This is ridiculous. It's almost as if they are trying to make fools of themselves. Here's how it _really_ works: 1. Better prices, convenience, variety and (often) quality of Internet journalism causes some people to stop buying newspapers. 2. Newspapers whine about the "death of journalism" and how they believe only newspapers can afford hard hitting investigative journalism. They blame someone at random. 3. Trying to save money, newspapers add more ads, raise prices and cut everything, especially hard hitting investigative journalism. 4. Return to step 1. Ben Miller-Jacobson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkoDuzcACgkQiz/A8kdDfffsqACg15IJ+ZXRpffhk/lLFYXFjxpR gE8AmgJ/Z2K4NM4CTfMizpK13SJR3ZkR =DG+R -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From miserlou at gmail.com Fri May 8 01:01:42 2009 From: miserlou at gmail.com (Rich Jones) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 01:01:42 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] We killed the newspaper industry -- and books are next In-Reply-To: <4A03BB49.7040306@gmail.com> References: <4A035420.7080406@gavinbaker.com> <4A03BB49.7040306@gmail.com> Message-ID: I think the real secret is that Craigslist and eBay mortally wounded the newspaper industry a long time ago and its just been slowly bleeding to death. And I'm glad to see it go. R On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 12:55 AM, Ben Miller-Jacobson wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Gavin Baker wrote: >>>From the normally reasonable Guardian, a load of convoluted poppycock: >> http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/19/robert-mccrum-books >> >>> More alarming still, the Free Culture Movement and its silky >>> advocates have begun to open up to scrutiny the holy grail of >>> literary copyright, asserting a new legitimacy for the idea of "the >>> public domain". >> > > This is ridiculous. It's almost as if they are trying to make fools of > themselves. Here's how it _really_ works: > > 1. Better prices, convenience, variety and (often) quality of Internet > journalism causes some people to stop buying newspapers. > > 2. Newspapers whine about the "death of journalism" and how they believe > only newspapers can afford hard hitting investigative journalism. They > blame someone at random. > > 3. Trying to save money, newspapers add more ads, raise prices and cut > everything, especially hard hitting investigative journalism. > > 4. Return to step 1. > > Ben Miller-Jacobson > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iEYEARECAAYFAkoDuzcACgkQiz/A8kdDfffsqACg15IJ+ZXRpffhk/lLFYXFjxpR > gE8AmgJ/Z2K4NM4CTfMizpK13SJR3ZkR > =DG+R > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > From singpolyma at singpolyma.net Fri May 8 21:22:26 2009 From: singpolyma at singpolyma.net (Stephen Paul Weber) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 18:22:26 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Facebook censorship In-Reply-To: References: <55bea5620905061818qee393e8l19b33f0025e92f35@mail.gmail.com> <8e253f560905072023wb23bf2fr6cef509db956ed85@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090509012226.GA28196@singpolyma-mini> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Somebody claiming to be Alex Kozak wrote: > Are > the contents of my emails less secure if I use Gmail to send a message to > another Gmail account? That depends. "Less secure" than what? If you don't trust Gmail, then no email sent with them is secure at all. If you don't trust the recepient's server, same deal (in your example only Gmail is involved, though, so that's not an issue). Of course, your ISP and that of the recepient (as well as potentially other ISPs and routers in between) also have access to the content, assuming either of you uses a non-TLS way of access (which Gmail provides as it's default in webmail). Ok... so I know this wasn't the point of your comment, but I felt it had to be pointed out that security has *a lot* of factors, all of which involve trust. So if you don't trust Facebook, or the ISPs/routers involved, then it is also very insecure (and harder to fix since using a good encryption system through Facebook messaging is a bit of a trick, although doable). - -- Stephen Paul Weber, @singpolyma Please see for how I prefer to be contacted. nerve perfume pogo. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkoE2tIACgkQ6oSxepE9BOsIGgCgvf+DYItqjtBy8Qng4YJpVc2L c04An1iD41+8wjwLJy2EDUl0F9gigMsi =Oe5L -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From james.love at keionline.org Sat May 9 12:22:06 2009 From: james.love at keionline.org (James Love) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 12:22:06 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software Message-ID: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> Kevin Donovan, suggested I raise this issue on this freeculture.org. KEI thinks the Obama administration should be asked to develop, and periodically revise, a serious "policy" statement on the use of free software. We think the ask should be both technically savvy and political. I am writing up a few preliminary thoughts for a Huffpo post, but we are only beginning to think about how to approach this. Jamie -- James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile +41.76.413.6584 From emstark at gmail.com Sat May 9 12:29:58 2009 From: emstark at gmail.com (Elizabeth Stark) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 12:29:58 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> References: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> Message-ID: <55bea5620905090929m56efd04er8307c75f5453c315@mail.gmail.com> This sounds great. I remember hearing about when the Obama administration was looking for a platform for publishing its videos, they wanted an open, accessible, and ideally FOSS solution, but I don't think they found such a solution in a pre-existing platform. One question is how do we approach such an issue? Do we call for the development of better tools that are FOSS, easily accessible with good user interfaces, and so on? On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 12:22 PM, James Love wrote: > > Kevin Donovan, suggested I raise this issue on this freeculture.org. > KEI thinks the Obama administration should be asked to develop, and > periodically revise, a serious "policy" statement on the use of free > software. We think the ask should be both technically savvy and > political. I am writing up a few preliminary thoughts for a Huffpo > post, but we are only beginning to think about how to approach this. > > Jamie > > -- > James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International > http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org > Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile > +41.76.413.6584 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090509/8e6b002c/attachment.htm From despero at gmail.com Sat May 9 12:51:25 2009 From: despero at gmail.com (Percy Hatcherson) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 11:51:25 -0500 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <55bea5620905090929m56efd04er8307c75f5453c315@mail.gmail.com> References: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> <55bea5620905090929m56efd04er8307c75f5453c315@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7ead96f50905090951n651627d9kafddfc86b95767c@mail.gmail.com> What would the specific goal be of such a policy statement on the use of FOSS? I think it sounds like a great idea, but I am not sure what this policy would apply to. Are you talking about the use of FOSS within government agencies, or encouraging the use of FOSS in the private sector as well? On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Elizabeth Stark wrote: > This sounds great. I remember hearing about when the Obama administration > was looking for a platform for publishing its videos, they wanted an open, > accessible, and ideally FOSS solution, but I don't think they found such a > solution in a pre-existing platform. > > One question is how do we approach such an issue? Do we call for the > development of better tools that are FOSS, easily accessible with good user > interfaces, and so on? > > > On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 12:22 PM, James Love wrote: > >> >> Kevin Donovan, suggested I raise this issue on this freeculture.org. >> KEI thinks the Obama administration should be asked to develop, and >> periodically revise, a serious "policy" statement on the use of free >> software. We think the ask should be both technically savvy and >> political. I am writing up a few preliminary thoughts for a Huffpo >> post, but we are only beginning to think about how to approach this. >> >> Jamie >> >> -- >> James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International >> http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org >> Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile >> +41.76.413.6584 >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss at freeculture.org >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090509/2c70161f/attachment.htm From akozak at berkeley.edu Sat May 9 13:09:17 2009 From: akozak at berkeley.edu (Alex Kozak) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 10:09:17 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> References: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> Message-ID: In my opinion, there are more pressing issues then that within the free culture domain. Promoting the use and development of OERs (open educational resources) could vastly improve our K-12 and University systems, while at the same time enabling self-directed learning outside of traditional school settings. If the Obama admin would embrace the ideas of open access to knowledge, then they would by implication embrace the ideology behind FOSS. My thought is that if they could be convinced that open access to knowledge is an important policy goal, then FOSS would sort of just flow from that. On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 9:22 AM, James Love wrote: > > Kevin Donovan, suggested I raise this issue on this freeculture.org. > KEI thinks the Obama administration should be asked to develop, and > periodically revise, a serious "policy" statement on the use of free > software. We think the ask should be both technically savvy and > political. I am writing up a few preliminary thoughts for a Huffpo > post, but we are only beginning to think about how to approach this. > > Jamie > > -- > James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International > http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org > Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile > +41.76.413.6584 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- Alex Kozak akozak at berkeley.edu 916.225.2718 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090509/9ee250fa/attachment-0001.htm From despero at gmail.com Sat May 9 13:16:19 2009 From: despero at gmail.com (Percy Hatcherson) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 12:16:19 -0500 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: References: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> Message-ID: <7ead96f50905091016n68c74a2aga59157af912eddf4@mail.gmail.com> I agree with you on that, Alex. I think it is absolutely more important for the Obama administration to broadly embrace the idea of open access to knowledge. Everything else would indeed follow. On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 12:09 PM, Alex Kozak wrote: > In my opinion, there are more pressing issues then that within the free > culture domain. Promoting the use and development of OERs (open educational > resources) could vastly improve our K-12 and University systems, while at > the same time enabling self-directed learning outside of traditional school > settings. > > If the Obama admin would embrace the ideas of open access to knowledge, > then they would by implication embrace the ideology behind FOSS. My thought > is that if they could be convinced that open access to knowledge is an > important policy goal, then FOSS would sort of just flow from that. > > > On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 9:22 AM, James Love wrote: > >> >> Kevin Donovan, suggested I raise this issue on this freeculture.org. >> KEI thinks the Obama administration should be asked to develop, and >> periodically revise, a serious "policy" statement on the use of free >> software. We think the ask should be both technically savvy and >> political. I am writing up a few preliminary thoughts for a Huffpo >> post, but we are only beginning to think about how to approach this. >> >> Jamie >> >> -- >> James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International >> http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org >> Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile >> +41.76.413.6584 >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss at freeculture.org >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> > > > > -- > Alex Kozak > akozak at berkeley.edu > 916.225.2718 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090509/ab604de7/attachment.htm From fcb at fredbenenson.com Sat May 9 13:17:30 2009 From: fcb at fredbenenson.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 13:17:30 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <7ead96f50905091016n68c74a2aga59157af912eddf4@mail.gmail.com> References: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> <7ead96f50905091016n68c74a2aga59157af912eddf4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8e447b720905091017t3665036en64e4fa7fc2c6141e@mail.gmail.com> Releasing software that they pay for freely would be nice too. So long as its not $SUPER_SECRET ~ ~ ~ thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog work / http://creativecommons.org sights / http://flickr.com/fcb sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis status / http://twitter.com/mecredis On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 1:16 PM, Percy Hatcherson wrote: > I agree with you on that, Alex. I think it is absolutely more important for > the Obama administration to broadly embrace the idea of open access to > knowledge. Everything else would indeed follow. > > > On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 12:09 PM, Alex Kozak wrote: > >> In my opinion, there are more pressing issues then that within the free >> culture domain. Promoting the use and development of OERs (open educational >> resources) could vastly improve our K-12 and University systems, while at >> the same time enabling self-directed learning outside of traditional school >> settings. >> >> If the Obama admin would embrace the ideas of open access to knowledge, >> then they would by implication embrace the ideology behind FOSS. My thought >> is that if they could be convinced that open access to knowledge is an >> important policy goal, then FOSS would sort of just flow from that. >> >> >> On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 9:22 AM, James Love wrote: >> >>> >>> Kevin Donovan, suggested I raise this issue on this freeculture.org. >>> KEI thinks the Obama administration should be asked to develop, and >>> periodically revise, a serious "policy" statement on the use of free >>> software. We think the ask should be both technically savvy and >>> political. I am writing up a few preliminary thoughts for a Huffpo >>> post, but we are only beginning to think about how to approach this. >>> >>> Jamie >>> >>> -- >>> James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International >>> http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org >>> Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile >>> +41.76.413.6584 >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Discuss mailing list >>> Discuss at freeculture.org >>> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Alex Kozak >> akozak at berkeley.edu >> 916.225.2718 >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss at freeculture.org >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090509/422cea13/attachment.htm From ryanprior at gmail.com Sat May 9 13:17:55 2009 From: ryanprior at gmail.com (Ryan Prior) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 12:17:55 -0500 Subject: [FC-discuss] We killed the newspaper industry -- and books are next In-Reply-To: References: <4A035420.7080406@gavinbaker.com> <4A03BB49.7040306@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1172c9070905091017l3dd9853ct6f9eea64eb896233@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 12:01 AM, Rich Jones wrote: > I think the real secret is that Craigslist and eBay mortally wounded > the newspaper industry a long time ago and its just been slowly > bleeding to death. And I'm glad to see it go. > > R Amen. Little love lost there. Can we make a link to environmentalism? I imagine printing presses and paper mills are a lot more harmful to the environment than the data centers that serve up online journalism and even the data centers providing the search service which makes online journalism so accessible. If the paper industry is hurting the environment, we can paint online journalism as a greener alternative, Luddites be damned. Ryan From despero at gmail.com Sat May 9 13:59:06 2009 From: despero at gmail.com (Percy Hatcherson) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 12:59:06 -0500 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <8e447b720905091017t3665036en64e4fa7fc2c6141e@mail.gmail.com> References: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> <7ead96f50905091016n68c74a2aga59157af912eddf4@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905091017t3665036en64e4fa7fc2c6141e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7ead96f50905091059y642ac4deue16113f8fa19f45@mail.gmail.com> *Gasp* Are you talking about using TAXPAYER MONEY to fund your silly little socialist software? On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 12:17 PM, Fred Benenson wrote: > Releasing software that they pay for freely would be nice too. So long as > its not $SUPER_SECRET > > > ~ ~ ~ > thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog > work / http://creativecommons.org > sights / http://flickr.com/fcb > sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis > status / http://twitter.com/mecredis > > > > > On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 1:16 PM, Percy Hatcherson wrote: > >> I agree with you on that, Alex. I think it is absolutely more important >> for the Obama administration to broadly embrace the idea of open access to >> knowledge. Everything else would indeed follow. >> >> >> On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 12:09 PM, Alex Kozak wrote: >> >>> In my opinion, there are more pressing issues then that within the free >>> culture domain. Promoting the use and development of OERs (open educational >>> resources) could vastly improve our K-12 and University systems, while at >>> the same time enabling self-directed learning outside of traditional school >>> settings. >>> >>> If the Obama admin would embrace the ideas of open access to knowledge, >>> then they would by implication embrace the ideology behind FOSS. My thought >>> is that if they could be convinced that open access to knowledge is an >>> important policy goal, then FOSS would sort of just flow from that. >>> >>> >>> On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 9:22 AM, James Love wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Kevin Donovan, suggested I raise this issue on this freeculture.org. >>>> KEI thinks the Obama administration should be asked to develop, and >>>> periodically revise, a serious "policy" statement on the use of free >>>> software. We think the ask should be both technically savvy and >>>> political. I am writing up a few preliminary thoughts for a Huffpo >>>> post, but we are only beginning to think about how to approach this. >>>> >>>> Jamie >>>> >>>> -- >>>> James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International >>>> http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org >>>> Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile >>>> +41.76.413.6584 >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Discuss mailing list >>>> Discuss at freeculture.org >>>> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Alex Kozak >>> akozak at berkeley.edu >>> 916.225.2718 >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Discuss mailing list >>> Discuss at freeculture.org >>> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss at freeculture.org >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090509/7ab31e4d/attachment-0001.htm From despero at gmail.com Sat May 9 14:07:25 2009 From: despero at gmail.com (Percy Hatcherson) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 13:07:25 -0500 Subject: [FC-discuss] We killed the newspaper industry -- and books are next In-Reply-To: <1172c9070905091017l3dd9853ct6f9eea64eb896233@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A035420.7080406@gavinbaker.com> <4A03BB49.7040306@gmail.com> <1172c9070905091017l3dd9853ct6f9eea64eb896233@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7ead96f50905091107n3c3bb31es44eefa0f2cdfa541@mail.gmail.com> Wow. Did that article seriously just compare the free culture movement to Amazon's censorship of gay authors? Seriously? How does that guy keep a job at Guardian? On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 12:17 PM, Ryan Prior wrote: > On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 12:01 AM, Rich Jones wrote: > > I think the real secret is that Craigslist and eBay mortally wounded > > the newspaper industry a long time ago and its just been slowly > > bleeding to death. And I'm glad to see it go. > > > > R > > Amen. Little love lost there. > > Can we make a link to environmentalism? I imagine printing presses and > paper mills are a lot more harmful to the environment than the data > centers that serve up online journalism and even the data centers > providing the search service which makes online journalism so > accessible. If the paper industry is hurting the environment, we can > paint online journalism as a greener alternative, Luddites be damned. > > Ryan > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090509/73d354b4/attachment.htm From james.love at keionline.org Sat May 9 14:11:06 2009 From: james.love at keionline.org (James Love) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 14:11:06 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software Message-ID: <1241892666.11774.205.camel@xps> On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 11:51 -0500, Percy Hatcherson wrote: > What would the specific goal be of such a policy statement on the use > of FOSS? I think it sounds like a great idea, but I am not sure what > this policy would apply to. Are you talking about the use of FOSS > within government agencies, or encouraging the use of FOSS in the > private sector as well? The use of FOSS in the government is one thing. There are many other relevant issues, such as the role of open standards, open file formats (ODF v. OOXML, etc) procurement policy that promotes or discourages FOSS, patent reform, funding software development, or competition issues. For example, one quite important issue now, will Oracle be allowed to acquire MySQL? Jamie > > On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Elizabeth Stark > wrote: > This sounds great. I remember hearing about when the Obama > administration was looking for a platform for publishing its > videos, they wanted an open, accessible, and ideally FOSS > solution, but I don't think they found such a solution in a > pre-existing platform. > > One question is how do we approach such an issue? Do we call > for the development of better tools that are FOSS, easily > accessible with good user interfaces, and so on? > > > > On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 12:22 PM, James Love > wrote: > > Kevin Donovan, suggested I raise this issue on this > freeculture.org. > KEI thinks the Obama administration should be asked to > develop, and > periodically revise, a serious "policy" statement on > the use of free > software. We think the ask should be both technically > savvy and > political. I am writing up a few preliminary thoughts > for a Huffpo > post, but we are only beginning to think about how to > approach this. > > Jamie > > -- > James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International > http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at > keionline.org > Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | > Geneva Mobile +41.76.413.6584 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile +41.76.413.6584 From james.love at keionline.org Sat May 9 14:11:41 2009 From: james.love at keionline.org (James Love) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 14:11:41 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software Message-ID: <1241892701.11774.206.camel@xps> There are plenty of "more pressing" issues one can think of. Nuclear proliferation, Afghanistan and Iraq, the global economic crisis, millions of uninsured Americans, global health problems etc. I'm not sure that is an argument by itself for inaction. Lots of other things are considered important enough to have some coherent policies. I work on a lot of different issues. I also think free software is quite important for access to knowledge generally. The Internet wouldn't really run without it, for example. If you didn't have Firefox, Apache, etc, you wouldn't have a very open Internet today. Jamie On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 12:16 -0500, Percy Hatcherson wrote: > I agree with you on that, Alex. I think it is absolutely more > important for the Obama administration to broadly embrace the idea of > open access to knowledge. Everything else would indeed follow. > > On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 12:09 PM, Alex Kozak > wrote: > In my opinion, there are more pressing issues then that within > the free culture domain. Promoting the use and development of > OERs (open educational resources) could vastly improve our > K-12 and University systems, while at the same time enabling > self-directed learning outside of traditional school settings. > > If the Obama admin would embrace the ideas of open access to > knowledge, then they would by implication embrace the ideology > behind FOSS. My thought is that if they could be convinced > that open access to knowledge is an important policy goal, > then FOSS would sort of just flow from that. > > > > On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 9:22 AM, James Love > wrote: > > Kevin Donovan, suggested I raise this issue on this > freeculture.org. > KEI thinks the Obama administration should be asked to > develop, and > periodically revise, a serious "policy" statement on > the use of free > software. We think the ask should be both technically > savvy and > political. I am writing up a few preliminary thoughts > for a Huffpo > post, but we are only beginning to think about how to > approach this. > > Jamie > > -- > James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International > http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at > keionline.org > Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | > Geneva Mobile +41.76.413.6584 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > > -- > Alex Kozak > akozak at berkeley.edu > 916.225.2718 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile +41.76.413.6584 From singpolyma at singpolyma.net Sat May 9 14:22:55 2009 From: singpolyma at singpolyma.net (Stephen Paul Weber) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 11:22:55 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <8e447b720905091017t3665036en64e4fa7fc2c6141e@mail.gmail.com> References: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> <7ead96f50905091016n68c74a2aga59157af912eddf4@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905091017t3665036en64e4fa7fc2c6141e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090509182255.GC3743@singpolyma-mini> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Somebody claiming to be Fred Benenson wrote: > Releasing software that they pay for freely would be nice too. So long as > its not $SUPER_SECRET Isn't that what they already do? - -- Stephen Paul Weber, @singpolyma Please see for how I prefer to be contacted. nerve perfume pogo. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkoFyf8ACgkQ6oSxepE9BOuouQCg0PKb3ehnbMJU8try+hZ/o29q XCoAnRtsFiyikgVCJbYaMczpDkXJv704 =8VW8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From johns at fsf.org Sat May 9 14:28:32 2009 From: johns at fsf.org (John Sullivan) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 14:28:32 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software References: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> Message-ID: <87hbzu5dwv.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> James Love writes: > Kevin Donovan, suggested I raise this issue on this freeculture.org. > KEI thinks the Obama administration should be asked to develop, and > periodically revise, a serious "policy" statement on the use of free > software. We think the ask should be both technically savvy and > political. I am writing up a few preliminary thoughts for a Huffpo > post, but we are only beginning to think about how to approach this. > > Jamie At the FSF we have been thinking of also advancing something along these lines. http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/FreeSoftwareInGovernment is text that we worked on a while back for Massachusetts -- maybe that could be a useful starting point (feel free to edit right on the wiki -- it's undergoing a little maintenance right now but should be wrapped up shortly). I also have an article draft about the Obama campaign's use of the iPhone, pointing out some of the problems with that as well as with the media referring to that technology as "empowering". So, I'd definitely be interested in helping if you think it would be good to work with the FSF on this. -- John Sullivan Free Software Foundation From johns at fsf.org Sat May 9 15:47:08 2009 From: johns at fsf.org (John Sullivan) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 15:47:08 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software References: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> <7ead96f50905091016n68c74a2aga59157af912eddf4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <87bpq25a9v.fsf@quineau.wjsullivan.net> Percy Hatcherson writes: > I agree with you on that, Alex. I think it is absolutely more important for > the Obama administration to broadly embrace the idea of open access to > knowledge. Everything else would indeed follow. In my experience, I haven't found that to be true. People don't automatically see software as knowledge or an ethical issue, and so they are happy to continue using Microsoft etc products to do otherwise socially beneficial things. One doesn't necessarily lead to the other. Also, it troubles me a little to see people so quick to oppositize causes. Why can't we do both? -- John Sullivan Free Software Foundation From gavin at gavinbaker.com Sat May 9 16:16:01 2009 From: gavin at gavinbaker.com (Gavin Baker) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 16:16:01 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> References: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> Message-ID: <4A05E481.5050507@gavinbaker.com> James Love wrote: > Kevin Donovan, suggested I raise this issue on this freeculture.org. > KEI thinks the Obama administration should be asked to develop, and > periodically revise, a serious "policy" statement on the use of free > software. We think the ask should be both technically savvy and > political. I am writing up a few preliminary thoughts for a Huffpo > post, but we are only beginning to think about how to approach this. It's an interesting question and one worth looking at, IMO. On the whole, it doesn't seem like there's much of a "politics of FOSS" in the U.S. Despite the large user and developer community, the many businesses who rely on it, and the expertise of NGOs and experts, it seems like encouraging government to develop policies favorable to FOSS has had a very low profile over the past several years, relative to other issues in info/tech policy. (*Why* is an interesting question in its own right.) A valuable place to start might be a survey of FOSS in American government (either limited to the federal government or also including state/local), e.g. who uses it, who produces it, what policies exist that affect it. If this doesn't exist, it should. Beyond giving us a sense of where we are, such a survey could identify potential areas of focus and suggest goals. It could also be useful to compare the state of FOSS in American government to other countries. For example, two items I've seen lately are the UK's "Open Source Action Plan" and Red Hat's global "Open Source Activity Map": http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/cio/transformational_government/open_source.aspx http://www.redhat.com/about/where-is-open-source/activity/ If there was a high-profile effort (e.g., supported by several prominent organizations and companies interested in FOSS) to prepare such a survey, I bet it'd get significant input from the community. Start a wiki and it'd practically write itself, I think. It looks like the Red Hat studies have already gotten a significant start on this. I think that looking at the facts of FOSS in government as it exists is probably a better place to start than trying to delineate the ethical/economic benefits of FOSS. Empirical data is more likely to get people's attention, which is what's needed. Once the data is gathered and people notice it, then commentary and modeling on potential changes can follow. -- Gavin Baker http://www.gavinbaker.com/ gavin at gavinbaker.com None of us is as smart as all of us. attributed to various sources From james.love at keionline.org Sat May 9 16:57:06 2009 From: james.love at keionline.org (James Love) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 16:57:06 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <20090509182418.GD3743@singpolyma-mini> References: <1241892666.11774.205.camel@xps> <20090509182418.GD3743@singpolyma-mini> Message-ID: <1241902626.11774.379.camel@xps> This is by draft blog for Huffpo. Jamie One of the more interesting aspects of the modern knowledge society is the free software movement. The most famous and influential leader of this movement is Richard M. Stallman (RMS). Richard recognized the value of a new model for software development and the various risks to that model. He also created a philosophical and ideological framework, and a new set of slogans, legal strategies and ideas to protect and promote the environment that would make free software more common and powerful. If Richard had not begin has his work in the 1980s, the Internet today would be less open, less innovative, and less useful. In recent years the free software movement has grown in many different dimensions, and become much more diverse in terms of its leadership and approach. Playing an important role are Stallman critics like Eric Raymond or Bruce Perens[2], gifted software development leaders like Linus Torvalds, thousands of independently managed software development communities, corporate supported ventures like OpenOffice, MySql, Redhat or Ubuntu, and a host of influential academics like Eben Moglin or Yoachi Benkler. Today Google Scholar has 53,900 hits for the term "free software."[3] While free software was once considered by some as a fringe movement, it is now mainstream. Fortune 500 companies are embracing free software programs like R to analyse data. Linux, Apache, MySql and PhP (LAMP) servers power much of the Internet. Many cell phones, Kindle 2, and other devices run Linux. There is enormous interest in the development of every aspect of free software tools and applications. Some of the most profitable software companies today are those that are providing services over free software platforms. Free software also is important for empowering and protecting other social movements that routinely rely upon free software for a wide range of services. The "free" part of the free software movement is an important element of this. The ability to innovate, and specifically to create innovations that serve social needs, is well served by platforms, like the Internet, that are based upon openness and freedom. What does all this have to do with Obama? Actually, quite a bit. As important as free software has become economically and socially, it gets almost no respect among U.S. political leaders. People should insist that elected and appointed government officials be more explicit about policies. I would start by asking the Obama Administration to answer the following initial questions: Is free software important? 1. To what extent is free software used today? 2. What are the efficiency benefits of free software, in terms of allowing code to be freely reused and re-purposed? 3. What are the benefits of having software code transparent? 4. What are the benefits of users having the freedom to modify software to meet their needs? 5. Does free software play an important role in avoiding harm from the monopoly control over software products and platforms? 6. How much money do users save by using free software solutions? 7. Does free software make it easier for young people to learn about and contribute to the development of software? Next, I would ask the Obama Administration to address certain policy questions relevant to procurement and government services: 8. Does government procurement policy recognize the benefits of free software solutions? 9. If so, do procurement policies encourage or discourage the supply and use of free software? 10. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic importance and value of interoperability and open standards in the software field? 11. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic importance of open standards for data formats? 12. Does the Administration have a strategy to support and promote interoperability and open standards, including open data formats? If so, what is this strategy? 13. To what extent can someone who uses free software fully interact with government agencies, such as by editing collaborative documents, using web based services, viewing multimedia content, or using government funded databases? Grant Related Issues: 14. Does the federal Bayh-Dole provide the flexibility for the US government to insert appropriate conditions in grants that would increase public access to the software code developed under a government grant? 15. Should federal grants require recipients to publish and share data in open standardized formats? Competition Issues. 16. Is the impact of a merger of the free software sector relevant to a proposed merger? For example, will the Obama Administration examine the impact of the Oracle acquisition of Sun on the future viability of MySQL, Java or OpenOffice? 17. Would an agreement among the owners of the two leading proprietary operating systems to not distribute software on the Linux platform be considered a violation of competition laws? If competition law is not a good tool to address such issues, what is? 18. Would an aggressive effort to break an open standard for data formats be considered a violation of competition law? Patent issues. 19. Should there be a zone of fair use for software patents when used in free software projects? A lot of these issues are technical, but the issues are quite important economically and socially. The trick is to make these geeky issues political enough that politicians engage. --Notes [1]Yoachi Benkler, Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm, 112 Yale L.J (2002); Yoachi Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (Yale University Press 2006). Eben Moglin, "Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright," First Monday (August, 1999) [2] Eric S Raymond, The cathedral and the bazaar: Musings on Linux and open source by an accidental revolutionary, 2001, O'Reilly & Associates. http://perens.com/policy/open-source/ [3]http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=%22free+software% 22&btnG=Search From aphid at ucsc.edu Sat May 9 17:10:56 2009 From: aphid at ucsc.edu (aphid) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 14:10:56 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <55bea5620905090929m56efd04er8307c75f5453c315@mail.gmail.com> References: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> <55bea5620905090929m56efd04er8307c75f5453c315@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A05F160.8080203@ucsc.edu> AFAIK, they used drupal for recovery.org. -a Elizabeth Stark wrote: > This sounds great. I remember hearing about when the Obama > administration was looking for a platform for publishing its videos, > they wanted an open, accessible, and ideally FOSS solution, but I > don't think they found such a solution in a pre-existing platform. > > One question is how do we approach such an issue? Do we call for the > development of better tools that are FOSS, easily accessible with good > user interfaces, and so on? > > On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 12:22 PM, James Love > wrote: > > > Kevin Donovan, suggested I raise this issue on this > freeculture.org . > KEI thinks the Obama administration should be asked to develop, and > periodically revise, a serious "policy" statement on the use of free > software. We think the ask should be both technically savvy and > political. I am writing up a few preliminary thoughts for a Huffpo > post, but we are only beginning to think about how to approach this. > > Jamie > > -- > James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International > http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love > at keionline.org > Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile > +41.76.413.6584 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > From aphid at ucsc.edu Sat May 9 17:11:49 2009 From: aphid at ucsc.edu (aphid) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 14:11:49 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <55bea5620905090929m56efd04er8307c75f5453c315@mail.gmail.com> References: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> <55bea5620905090929m56efd04er8307c75f5453c315@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A05F195.7050101@ucsc.edu> err.. recovery.gov. dot gov! :P From seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org Sat May 9 17:26:07 2009 From: seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 17:26:07 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <1241902626.11774.379.camel@xps> References: <1241892666.11774.205.camel@xps> <20090509182418.GD3743@singpolyma-mini> <1241902626.11774.379.camel@xps> Message-ID: This area would appropriately addressed with reference to the parallel passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980. Stallman recognized the problem very nearly when the rubber actually began to first hit the road. I don't think Perens would necessarily call himself a Stallman critic these days. I believe he tends more commonly to acknowledge that Stallman saved our necks by doing so much right despite the continual schematic disputations that people seem compelled to offer all the time. Seth -----Original Message----- From: James Love To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in particular Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 16:57:06 -0400 Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > This is by draft blog for Huffpo. > Jamie > > > One of the more interesting aspects of the modern knowledge society > is > the href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_movement">free > software movement. The most famous and influential leader of > this > movement is Richard M. Stallman (RMS). Richard recognized the value > of > a new model for software development and the various risks to that > model. He also created a philosophical and ideological framework, > and a > new set of slogans, legal strategies and ideas to protect and promote > the environment that would make free software more common and > powerful. > If Richard had not begin has his work in the 1980s, the Internet > today > would be less open, less innovative, and less useful. > > In recent years the free software movement has grown in many > different > dimensions, and become much more diverse in terms of its leadership > and > approach. Playing an important role are Stallman critics like Eric > Raymond or Bruce Perens[2], gifted software development leaders like > Linus Torvalds, thousands of independently managed software > development > communities, corporate supported ventures like OpenOffice, MySql, > Redhat > or Ubuntu, and a host of influential academics like Eben Moglin or > Yoachi Benkler. Today Google Scholar has 53,900 hits for the term > "free > software."[3] > > While free software was once considered by some as a fringe movement, > it > is now mainstream. Fortune 500 companies are embracing free software > programs like R to analyse data. Linux, Apache, MySql and PhP (LAMP) > servers power much of the Internet. Many cell phones, Kindle 2, and > other devices run Linux. There is enormous interest in the > development > of every aspect of free software tools and applications. Some of the > most profitable software companies today are those that are providing > services over free software platforms. Free software also is > important > for empowering and protecting other social movements that routinely > rely > upon free software for a wide range of services. > > The "free" part of the free software movement is an important element > of > this. The ability to innovate, and specifically to create > innovations > that serve social needs, is well served by platforms, like the > Internet, > that are based upon openness and freedom. > > What does all this have to do with Obama? Actually, quite a bit. > > As important as free software has become economically and socially, > it > gets almost no respect among U.S. political leaders. People should > insist that elected and appointed government officials be more > explicit > about policies. I would start by asking the Obama Administration to > answer the following initial questions: > > Is free software important? > > 1. To what extent is free software used today? > > 2. What are the efficiency benefits of free software, in terms of > allowing code to be freely reused and re-purposed? > > 3. What are the benefits of having software code transparent? > > 4. What are the benefits of users having the freedom to modify > software > to meet their needs? > > 5. Does free software play an important role in avoiding harm from > the > monopoly control over software products and platforms? > > 6. How much money do users save by using free software solutions? > > 7. Does free software make it easier for young people to learn about > and contribute to the development of software? > > Next, I would ask the Obama Administration to address certain policy > questions relevant to procurement and government services: > > 8. Does government procurement policy recognize the benefits of free > software solutions? > > 9. If so, do procurement policies encourage or discourage the supply > and use of free software? > > 10. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic importance > and value of interoperability and open standards in the software > field? > > 11. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic importance > of > open standards for data formats? > > 12. Does the Administration have a strategy to support and promote > interoperability and open standards, including open data formats? If > so, > what is this strategy? > > 13. To what extent can someone who uses free software fully interact > with government agencies, such as by editing collaborative documents, > using web based services, viewing multimedia content, or using > government funded databases? > > Grant Related Issues: > > 14. Does the federal Bayh-Dole provide the flexibility for the US > government to insert appropriate conditions in grants that would > increase public access to the software code developed under a > government > grant? > > 15. Should federal grants require recipients to publish and share > data > in open standardized formats? > > Competition Issues. > > 16. Is the impact of a merger of the free software sector relevant > to a > proposed merger? For example, will the Obama Administration examine > the > impact of the Oracle acquisition of Sun on the future viability of > MySQL, Java or OpenOffice? > > 17. Would an agreement among the owners of the two leading > proprietary > operating systems to not distribute software on the Linux platform be > considered a violation of competition laws? If competition law is > not a > good tool to address such issues, what is? > > 18. Would an aggressive effort to break an open standard for data > formats be considered a violation of competition law? > > Patent issues. > > 19. Should there be a zone of fair use for software patents when > used > in free software projects? > > A lot of these issues are technical, but the issues are quite > important > economically and socially. The trick is to make these geeky issues > political enough that politicians engage. > > --Notes > > [1]Yoachi Benkler, Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the > Firm, > 112 Yale L.J (2002); Yoachi Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How > Social > Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (Yale University Press > 2006). > Eben Moglin, "Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of > Copyright," First Monday (August, 1999) > > [2] Eric S Raymond, The cathedral and the bazaar: Musings on Linux > and > open source by an accidental revolutionary, 2001, O'Reilly & > Associates. > http://perens.com/policy/open-source/ > > [3]http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=%22free+software% > 22&btnG=Search > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss From seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org Sat May 9 17:32:08 2009 From: seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 17:32:08 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: References: <1241892666.11774.205.camel@xps> <20090509182418.GD3743@singpolyma-mini> <1241902626.11774.379.camel@xps> Message-ID: I see you pose a question referring to Bayh-Dole. It's more useful, particularly for this issue, to make a historical frame clear. Seth -----Original Message----- From: "Seth Johnson" To: "Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in particular" , "James Love" Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 17:26:07 -0400 Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > This area would appropriately addressed with reference to the > parallel > passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980. Stallman recognized the > problem > very nearly when the rubber actually began to first hit the road. > > I don't think Perens would necessarily call himself a Stallman critic > these days. I believe he tends more commonly to acknowledge that > Stallman saved our necks by doing so much right despite the continual > schematic disputations that people seem compelled to offer all the > time. > > > Seth > > > -----Original Message----- > From: James Love > To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in > particular > Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 16:57:06 -0400 > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > > This is by draft blog for Huffpo. > > Jamie > > > > > > One of the more interesting aspects of the modern knowledge society > > is > > the > href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_movement">free > > software movement. The most famous and influential leader of > > this > > movement is Richard M. Stallman (RMS). Richard recognized the > value > > of > > a new model for software development and the various risks to that > > model. He also created a philosophical and ideological framework, > > and a > > new set of slogans, legal strategies and ideas to protect and > promote > > the environment that would make free software more common and > > powerful. > > If Richard had not begin has his work in the 1980s, the Internet > > today > > would be less open, less innovative, and less useful. > > > > In recent years the free software movement has grown in many > > different > > dimensions, and become much more diverse in terms of its leadership > > and > > approach. Playing an important role are Stallman critics like Eric > > Raymond or Bruce Perens[2], gifted software development leaders > like > > Linus Torvalds, thousands of independently managed software > > development > > communities, corporate supported ventures like OpenOffice, MySql, > > Redhat > > or Ubuntu, and a host of influential academics like Eben Moglin or > > Yoachi Benkler. Today Google Scholar has 53,900 hits for the term > > "free > > software."[3] > > > > While free software was once considered by some as a fringe > movement, > > it > > is now mainstream. Fortune 500 companies are embracing free > software > > programs like R to analyse data. Linux, Apache, MySql and PhP > (LAMP) > > servers power much of the Internet. Many cell phones, Kindle 2, > and > > other devices run Linux. There is enormous interest in the > > development > > of every aspect of free software tools and applications. Some of > the > > most profitable software companies today are those that are > providing > > services over free software platforms. Free software also is > > important > > for empowering and protecting other social movements that routinely > > rely > > upon free software for a wide range of services. > > > > The "free" part of the free software movement is an important > element > > of > > this. The ability to innovate, and specifically to create > > innovations > > that serve social needs, is well served by platforms, like the > > Internet, > > that are based upon openness and freedom. > > > > What does all this have to do with Obama? Actually, quite a bit. > > > > As important as free software has become economically and socially, > > it > > gets almost no respect among U.S. political leaders. People should > > insist that elected and appointed government officials be more > > explicit > > about policies. I would start by asking the Obama Administration > to > > answer the following initial questions: > > > > Is free software important? > > > > 1. To what extent is free software used today? > > > > 2. What are the efficiency benefits of free software, in terms of > > allowing code to be freely reused and re-purposed? > > > > 3. What are the benefits of having software code transparent? > > > > 4. What are the benefits of users having the freedom to modify > > software > > to meet their needs? > > > > 5. Does free software play an important role in avoiding harm from > > the > > monopoly control over software products and platforms? > > > > 6. How much money do users save by using free software solutions? > > > > 7. Does free software make it easier for young people to learn > about > > and contribute to the development of software? > > > > Next, I would ask the Obama Administration to address certain > policy > > questions relevant to procurement and government services: > > > > 8. Does government procurement policy recognize the benefits of > free > > software solutions? > > > > 9. If so, do procurement policies encourage or discourage the > supply > > and use of free software? > > > > 10. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic > importance > > and value of interoperability and open standards in the software > > field? > > > > 11. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic > importance > > of > > open standards for data formats? > > > > 12. Does the Administration have a strategy to support and promote > > interoperability and open standards, including open data formats? > If > > so, > > what is this strategy? > > > > 13. To what extent can someone who uses free software fully > interact > > with government agencies, such as by editing collaborative > documents, > > using web based services, viewing multimedia content, or using > > government funded databases? > > > > Grant Related Issues: > > > > 14. Does the federal Bayh-Dole provide the flexibility for the US > > government to insert appropriate conditions in grants that would > > increase public access to the software code developed under a > > government > > grant? > > > > 15. Should federal grants require recipients to publish and share > > data > > in open standardized formats? > > > > Competition Issues. > > > > 16. Is the impact of a merger of the free software sector relevant > > to a > > proposed merger? For example, will the Obama Administration > examine > > the > > impact of the Oracle acquisition of Sun on the future viability of > > MySQL, Java or OpenOffice? > > > > 17. Would an agreement among the owners of the two leading > > proprietary > > operating systems to not distribute software on the Linux platform > be > > considered a violation of competition laws? If competition law is > > not a > > good tool to address such issues, what is? > > > > 18. Would an aggressive effort to break an open standard for data > > formats be considered a violation of competition law? > > > > Patent issues. > > > > 19. Should there be a zone of fair use for software patents when > > used > > in free software projects? > > > > A lot of these issues are technical, but the issues are quite > > important > > economically and socially. The trick is to make these geeky > issues > > political enough that politicians engage. > > > > --Notes > > > > [1]Yoachi Benkler, Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the > > Firm, > > 112 Yale L.J (2002); Yoachi Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How > > Social > > Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (Yale University Press > > 2006). > > Eben Moglin, "Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of > > Copyright," First Monday (August, 1999) > > > > [2] Eric S Raymond, The cathedral and the bazaar: Musings on Linux > > and > > open source by an accidental revolutionary, 2001, O'Reilly & > > Associates. > > http://perens.com/policy/open-source/ > > > > [3]http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=%22free+software% > > 22&btnG=Search > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss From seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org Sat May 9 18:11:24 2009 From: seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 18:11:24 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: References: <1241892666.11774.205.camel@xps> <20090509182418.GD3743@singpolyma-mini> <1241902626.11774.379.camel@xps> Message-ID: You might get some really good input from Antonio Perpinan (aperpinan at codigolibre.org) in light of his great work on free software in the Dominican Republic. And certainly FSF Europe's Georg Greve and others. There have been some very striking developments related to free software in government in recent history -- Munich, Germany, that truly exemplary statesman-like position from that guy in Peru. It would be very trivial to include very compelling links, strike from a strong position in such an initial message to the Huff crowd. Seth -----Original Message----- From: "Seth Johnson" To: "Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in particular" , "James Love" Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 17:32:08 -0400 Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > I see you pose a question referring to Bayh-Dole. It's more useful, > particularly for this issue, to make a historical frame clear. > > > Seth > > -----Original Message----- > From: "Seth Johnson" > To: "Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in > particular" , "James Love" > > Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 17:26:07 -0400 > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > > > > This area would appropriately addressed with reference to the > > parallel > > passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980. Stallman recognized the > > problem > > very nearly when the rubber actually began to first hit the road. > > > > I don't think Perens would necessarily call himself a Stallman > critic > > these days. I believe he tends more commonly to acknowledge that > > Stallman saved our necks by doing so much right despite the > continual > > schematic disputations that people seem compelled to offer all the > > time. > > > > > > Seth > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: James Love > > To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in > > particular > > Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 16:57:06 -0400 > > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > > > > This is by draft blog for Huffpo. > > > Jamie > > > > > > > > > One of the more interesting aspects of the modern knowledge > society > > > is > > > the > > href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_movement">free > > > software movement. The most famous and influential leader of > > > this > > > movement is Richard M. Stallman (RMS). Richard recognized the > > value > > > of > > > a new model for software development and the various risks to > that > > > model. He also created a philosophical and ideological > framework, > > > and a > > > new set of slogans, legal strategies and ideas to protect and > > promote > > > the environment that would make free software more common and > > > powerful. > > > If Richard had not begin has his work in the 1980s, the Internet > > > today > > > would be less open, less innovative, and less useful. > > > > > > In recent years the free software movement has grown in many > > > different > > > dimensions, and become much more diverse in terms of its > leadership > > > and > > > approach. Playing an important role are Stallman critics like > Eric > > > Raymond or Bruce Perens[2], gifted software development leaders > > like > > > Linus Torvalds, thousands of independently managed software > > > development > > > communities, corporate supported ventures like OpenOffice, MySql, > > > Redhat > > > or Ubuntu, and a host of influential academics like Eben Moglin > or > > > Yoachi Benkler. Today Google Scholar has 53,900 hits for the > term > > > "free > > > software."[3] > > > > > > While free software was once considered by some as a fringe > > movement, > > > it > > > is now mainstream. Fortune 500 companies are embracing free > > software > > > programs like R to analyse data. Linux, Apache, MySql and PhP > > (LAMP) > > > servers power much of the Internet. Many cell phones, Kindle 2, > > and > > > other devices run Linux. There is enormous interest in the > > > development > > > of every aspect of free software tools and applications. Some of > > the > > > most profitable software companies today are those that are > > providing > > > services over free software platforms. Free software also is > > > important > > > for empowering and protecting other social movements that > routinely > > > rely > > > upon free software for a wide range of services. > > > > > > The "free" part of the free software movement is an important > > element > > > of > > > this. The ability to innovate, and specifically to create > > > innovations > > > that serve social needs, is well served by platforms, like the > > > Internet, > > > that are based upon openness and freedom. > > > > > > What does all this have to do with Obama? Actually, quite a bit. > > > > > > As important as free software has become economically and > socially, > > > it > > > gets almost no respect among U.S. political leaders. People > should > > > insist that elected and appointed government officials be more > > > explicit > > > about policies. I would start by asking the Obama > Administration > > to > > > answer the following initial questions: > > > > > > Is free software important? > > > > > > 1. To what extent is free software used today? > > > > > > 2. What are the efficiency benefits of free software, in terms > of > > > allowing code to be freely reused and re-purposed? > > > > > > 3. What are the benefits of having software code transparent? > > > > > > 4. What are the benefits of users having the freedom to modify > > > software > > > to meet their needs? > > > > > > 5. Does free software play an important role in avoiding harm > from > > > the > > > monopoly control over software products and platforms? > > > > > > 6. How much money do users save by using free software > solutions? > > > > > > 7. Does free software make it easier for young people to learn > > about > > > and contribute to the development of software? > > > > > > Next, I would ask the Obama Administration to address certain > > policy > > > questions relevant to procurement and government services: > > > > > > 8. Does government procurement policy recognize the benefits of > > free > > > software solutions? > > > > > > 9. If so, do procurement policies encourage or discourage the > > supply > > > and use of free software? > > > > > > 10. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic > > importance > > > and value of interoperability and open standards in the software > > > field? > > > > > > 11. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic > > importance > > > of > > > open standards for data formats? > > > > > > 12. Does the Administration have a strategy to support and > promote > > > interoperability and open standards, including open data formats? > > If > > > so, > > > what is this strategy? > > > > > > 13. To what extent can someone who uses free software fully > > interact > > > with government agencies, such as by editing collaborative > > documents, > > > using web based services, viewing multimedia content, or using > > > government funded databases? > > > > > > Grant Related Issues: > > > > > > 14. Does the federal Bayh-Dole provide the flexibility for the > US > > > government to insert appropriate conditions in grants that would > > > increase public access to the software code developed under a > > > government > > > grant? > > > > > > 15. Should federal grants require recipients to publish and > share > > > data > > > in open standardized formats? > > > > > > Competition Issues. > > > > > > 16. Is the impact of a merger of the free software sector > relevant > > > to a > > > proposed merger? For example, will the Obama Administration > > examine > > > the > > > impact of the Oracle acquisition of Sun on the future viability > of > > > MySQL, Java or OpenOffice? > > > > > > 17. Would an agreement among the owners of the two leading > > > proprietary > > > operating systems to not distribute software on the Linux > platform > > be > > > considered a violation of competition laws? If competition law > is > > > not a > > > good tool to address such issues, what is? > > > > > > 18. Would an aggressive effort to break an open standard for > data > > > formats be considered a violation of competition law? > > > > > > Patent issues. > > > > > > 19. Should there be a zone of fair use for software patents when > > > used > > > in free software projects? > > > > > > A lot of these issues are technical, but the issues are quite > > > important > > > economically and socially. The trick is to make these geeky > > issues > > > political enough that politicians engage. > > > > > > --Notes > > > > > > [1]Yoachi Benkler, Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of > the > > > Firm, > > > 112 Yale L.J (2002); Yoachi Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How > > > Social > > > Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (Yale University Press > > > 2006). > > > Eben Moglin, "Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death > of > > > Copyright," First Monday (August, 1999) > > > > > > [2] Eric S Raymond, The cathedral and the bazaar: Musings on > Linux > > > and > > > open source by an accidental revolutionary, 2001, O'Reilly & > > > Associates. > > > http://perens.com/policy/open-source/ > > > > > > > [3]http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=%22free+software% > > > 22&btnG=Search > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Discuss mailing list > > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss From jays at panix.com Sat May 9 18:26:23 2009 From: jays at panix.com (Jay Sulzberger) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 18:26:23 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <1241902626.11774.379.camel@xps> References: <1241892666.11774.205.camel@xps> <20090509182418.GD3743@singpolyma-mini> <1241902626.11774.379.camel@xps> Message-ID: On Sat, 9 May 2009, James Love wrote: > This is by draft blog for Huffpo. > Jamie > > > One of the more interesting aspects of the modern knowledge society is > the free > software movement. The most famous and influential leader of this > movement is Richard M. Stallman (RMS). Richard recognized the value of > a new model for software development and the various risks to that > model. He also created a philosophical and ideological framework, and a > new set of slogans, legal strategies and ideas to protect and promote > the environment that would make free software more common and powerful. > If Richard had not begin has his work in the 1980s, the Internet today > would be less open, less innovative, and less useful. The issue of free software vs source secret software is not an issue of "software development". The issue is who has root on the computer hardware you own. For a discussion of the main point see this thread in which I briefly explain the central importance of licenses to every one who owns a computer: http://www.tech-geeks.org/list-archive/tech-geeks/02-2007/msg00549.html ad the Internet and free software: Yes, the Internet was and is built on and mainly built of free software. > > In recent years the free software movement has grown in many different > dimensions, and become much more diverse in terms of its leadership and > approach. Playing an important role are Stallman critics like Eric > Raymond or Bruce Perens[2], gifted software development leaders like > Linus Torvalds, thousands of independently managed software development > communities, corporate supported ventures like OpenOffice, MySql, Redhat > or Ubuntu, and a host of influential academics like Eben Moglin or > Yoachi Benkler. Today Google Scholar has 53,900 hits for the term "free > software."[3] > > While free software was once considered by some as a fringe movement, it > is now mainstream. Fortune 500 companies are embracing free software > programs like R to analyse data. Linux, Apache, MySql and PhP (LAMP) > servers power much of the Internet. Many cell phones, Kindle 2, and > other devices run Linux. There is enormous interest in the development > of every aspect of free software tools and applications. Some of the > most profitable software companies today are those that are providing > services over free software platforms. Free software also is important > for empowering and protecting other social movements that routinely rely > upon free software for a wide range of services. > > The "free" part of the free software movement is an important element of > this. The ability to innovate, and specifically to create innovations > that serve social needs, is well served by platforms, like the Internet, > that are based upon openness and freedom. > > What does all this have to do with Obama? Actually, quite a bit. > > As important as free software has become economically and socially, it > gets almost no respect among U.S. political leaders. People should > insist that elected and appointed government officials be more explicit > about policies. I would start by asking the Obama Administration to > answer the following initial questions: > > Is free software important? Question Zero: How do we defend our right to own a computer? If you accept Microsoft's End User License Agreement, then you agree that Microsoft has practical control of your computer, and you accept that Microsoft has a legal power to do what Microsoft wants with your hardware. > > 1. To what extent is free software used today? > > 2. What are the efficiency benefits of free software, in terms of > allowing code to be freely reused and re-purposed? > > 3. What are the benefits of having software code transparent? > > 4. What are the benefits of users having the freedom to modify software > to meet their needs? > > 5. Does free software play an important role in avoiding harm from the > monopoly control over software products and platforms? > > 6. How much money do users save by using free software solutions? > > 7. Does free software make it easier for young people to learn about > and contribute to the development of software? > > Next, I would ask the Obama Administration to address certain policy > questions relevant to procurement and government services: > > 8. Does government procurement policy recognize the benefits of free > software solutions? > > 9. If so, do procurement policies encourage or discourage the supply > and use of free software? > > 10. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic importance > and value of interoperability and open standards in the software field? > > 11. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic importance of > open standards for data formats? > > 12. Does the Administration have a strategy to support and promote > interoperability and open standards, including open data formats? If so, > what is this strategy? > > 13. To what extent can someone who uses free software fully interact > with government agencies, such as by editing collaborative documents, > using web based services, viewing multimedia content, or using > government funded databases? > > Grant Related Issues: > > 14. Does the federal Bayh-Dole provide the flexibility for the US > government to insert appropriate conditions in grants that would > increase public access to the software code developed under a government > grant? > > 15. Should federal grants require recipients to publish and share data > in open standardized formats? > > Competition Issues. > > 16. Is the impact of a merger of the free software sector relevant to a > proposed merger? For example, will the Obama Administration examine the > impact of the Oracle acquisition of Sun on the future viability of > MySQL, Java or OpenOffice? > > 17. Would an agreement among the owners of the two leading proprietary > operating systems to not distribute software on the Linux platform be > considered a violation of competition laws? If competition law is not a > good tool to address such issues, what is? > > 18. Would an aggressive effort to break an open standard for data > formats be considered a violation of competition law? > > Patent issues. > > 19. Should there be a zone of fair use for software patents when used > in free software projects? > > A lot of these issues are technical, but the issues are quite important > economically and socially. The trick is to make these geeky issues > political enough that politicians engage. > > --Notes > > [1]Yoachi Benkler, Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm, > 112 Yale L.J (2002); Yoachi Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How Social > Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (Yale University Press 2006). > Eben Moglin, "Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of > Copyright," First Monday (August, 1999) > > [2] Eric S Raymond, The cathedral and the bazaar: Musings on Linux and > open source by an accidental revolutionary, 2001, O'Reilly & Associates. > http://perens.com/policy/open-source/ > > [3]http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=%22free+software% > 22&btnG=Search Thanks, Jamie! oo--JS. From seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org Sat May 9 18:21:16 2009 From: seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 18:21:16 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: References: <1241892666.11774.205.camel@xps> <20090509182418.GD3743@singpolyma-mini> <1241902626.11774.379.camel@xps> Message-ID: Here's a link to a letter from Dr. Nunez in Peru to Microsoft -- one of the most compelling articulations of free software in relation to government you will find: http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2002-05-06-012-26-OS-SM-LL Seth -----Original Message----- From: "Seth Johnson" To: "Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in particular" , "James Love" Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 18:11:24 -0400 Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > You might get some really good input from Antonio Perpinan > (aperpinan at codigolibre.org) in light of his great work on free > software > in the Dominican Republic. > > And certainly FSF Europe's Georg Greve and others. > > There have been some very striking developments related to free > software > in government in recent history -- Munich, Germany, that truly > exemplary > statesman-like position from that guy in Peru. It would be very > trivial > to include very compelling links, strike from a strong position in > such > an initial message to the Huff crowd. > > > Seth > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: "Seth Johnson" > To: "Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in > particular" , "James Love" > > Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 17:32:08 -0400 > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > > > > I see you pose a question referring to Bayh-Dole. It's more > useful, > > particularly for this issue, to make a historical frame clear. > > > > > > Seth > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: "Seth Johnson" > > To: "Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in > > particular" , "James Love" > > > > Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 17:26:07 -0400 > > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > > > > > > > This area would appropriately addressed with reference to the > > > parallel > > > passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980. Stallman recognized the > > > problem > > > very nearly when the rubber actually began to first hit the road. > > > > > > I don't think Perens would necessarily call himself a Stallman > > critic > > > these days. I believe he tends more commonly to acknowledge that > > > Stallman saved our necks by doing so much right despite the > > continual > > > schematic disputations that people seem compelled to offer all > the > > > time. > > > > > > > > > Seth > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: James Love > > > To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization > in > > > particular > > > Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 16:57:06 -0400 > > > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > > > > > > This is by draft blog for Huffpo. > > > > Jamie > > > > > > > > > > > > One of the more interesting aspects of the modern knowledge > > society > > > > is > > > > the > > > href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_movement">free > > > > software movement. The most famous and influential leader > of > > > > this > > > > movement is Richard M. Stallman (RMS). Richard recognized the > > > value > > > > of > > > > a new model for software development and the various risks to > > that > > > > model. He also created a philosophical and ideological > > framework, > > > > and a > > > > new set of slogans, legal strategies and ideas to protect and > > > promote > > > > the environment that would make free software more common and > > > > powerful. > > > > If Richard had not begin has his work in the 1980s, the > Internet > > > > today > > > > would be less open, less innovative, and less useful. > > > > > > > > In recent years the free software movement has grown in many > > > > different > > > > dimensions, and become much more diverse in terms of its > > leadership > > > > and > > > > approach. Playing an important role are Stallman critics like > > Eric > > > > Raymond or Bruce Perens[2], gifted software development leaders > > > like > > > > Linus Torvalds, thousands of independently managed software > > > > development > > > > communities, corporate supported ventures like OpenOffice, > MySql, > > > > Redhat > > > > or Ubuntu, and a host of influential academics like Eben Moglin > > or > > > > Yoachi Benkler. Today Google Scholar has 53,900 hits for the > > term > > > > "free > > > > software."[3] > > > > > > > > While free software was once considered by some as a fringe > > > movement, > > > > it > > > > is now mainstream. Fortune 500 companies are embracing free > > > software > > > > programs like R to analyse data. Linux, Apache, MySql and PhP > > > (LAMP) > > > > servers power much of the Internet. Many cell phones, Kindle > 2, > > > and > > > > other devices run Linux. There is enormous interest in the > > > > development > > > > of every aspect of free software tools and applications. Some > of > > > the > > > > most profitable software companies today are those that are > > > providing > > > > services over free software platforms. Free software also is > > > > important > > > > for empowering and protecting other social movements that > > routinely > > > > rely > > > > upon free software for a wide range of services. > > > > > > > > The "free" part of the free software movement is an important > > > element > > > > of > > > > this. The ability to innovate, and specifically to create > > > > innovations > > > > that serve social needs, is well served by platforms, like the > > > > Internet, > > > > that are based upon openness and freedom. > > > > > > > > What does all this have to do with Obama? Actually, quite a > bit. > > > > > > > > As important as free software has become economically and > > socially, > > > > it > > > > gets almost no respect among U.S. political leaders. People > > should > > > > insist that elected and appointed government officials be more > > > > explicit > > > > about policies. I would start by asking the Obama > > Administration > > > to > > > > answer the following initial questions: > > > > > > > > Is free software important? > > > > > > > > 1. To what extent is free software used today? > > > > > > > > 2. What are the efficiency benefits of free software, in terms > > of > > > > allowing code to be freely reused and re-purposed? > > > > > > > > 3. What are the benefits of having software code transparent? > > > > > > > > 4. What are the benefits of users having the freedom to modify > > > > software > > > > to meet their needs? > > > > > > > > 5. Does free software play an important role in avoiding harm > > from > > > > the > > > > monopoly control over software products and platforms? > > > > > > > > 6. How much money do users save by using free software > > solutions? > > > > > > > > 7. Does free software make it easier for young people to learn > > > about > > > > and contribute to the development of software? > > > > > > > > Next, I would ask the Obama Administration to address certain > > > policy > > > > questions relevant to procurement and government services: > > > > > > > > 8. Does government procurement policy recognize the benefits > of > > > free > > > > software solutions? > > > > > > > > 9. If so, do procurement policies encourage or discourage the > > > supply > > > > and use of free software? > > > > > > > > 10. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic > > > importance > > > > and value of interoperability and open standards in the > software > > > > field? > > > > > > > > 11. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic > > > importance > > > > of > > > > open standards for data formats? > > > > > > > > 12. Does the Administration have a strategy to support and > > promote > > > > interoperability and open standards, including open data > formats? > > > If > > > > so, > > > > what is this strategy? > > > > > > > > 13. To what extent can someone who uses free software fully > > > interact > > > > with government agencies, such as by editing collaborative > > > documents, > > > > using web based services, viewing multimedia content, or using > > > > government funded databases? > > > > > > > > Grant Related Issues: > > > > > > > > 14. Does the federal Bayh-Dole provide the flexibility for the > > US > > > > government to insert appropriate conditions in grants that > would > > > > increase public access to the software code developed under a > > > > government > > > > grant? > > > > > > > > 15. Should federal grants require recipients to publish and > > share > > > > data > > > > in open standardized formats? > > > > > > > > Competition Issues. > > > > > > > > 16. Is the impact of a merger of the free software sector > > relevant > > > > to a > > > > proposed merger? For example, will the Obama Administration > > > examine > > > > the > > > > impact of the Oracle acquisition of Sun on the future viability > > of > > > > MySQL, Java or OpenOffice? > > > > > > > > 17. Would an agreement among the owners of the two leading > > > > proprietary > > > > operating systems to not distribute software on the Linux > > platform > > > be > > > > considered a violation of competition laws? If competition law > > is > > > > not a > > > > good tool to address such issues, what is? > > > > > > > > 18. Would an aggressive effort to break an open standard for > > data > > > > formats be considered a violation of competition law? > > > > > > > > Patent issues. > > > > > > > > 19. Should there be a zone of fair use for software patents > when > > > > used > > > > in free software projects? > > > > > > > > A lot of these issues are technical, but the issues are quite > > > > important > > > > economically and socially. The trick is to make these geeky > > > issues > > > > political enough that politicians engage. > > > > > > > > --Notes > > > > > > > > [1]Yoachi Benkler, Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of > > the > > > > Firm, > > > > 112 Yale L.J (2002); Yoachi Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: > How > > > > Social > > > > Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (Yale University > Press > > > > 2006). > > > > Eben Moglin, "Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death > > of > > > > Copyright," First Monday (August, 1999) > > > > > > > > [2] Eric S Raymond, The cathedral and the bazaar: Musings on > > Linux > > > > and > > > > open source by an accidental revolutionary, 2001, O'Reilly & > > > > Associates. > > > > http://perens.com/policy/open-source/ > > > > > > > > > > [3]http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=%22free+software% > > > > 22&btnG=Search > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > Discuss mailing list > > > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss From james.love at keionline.org Sat May 9 18:44:53 2009 From: james.love at keionline.org (James Love) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 18:44:53 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <4A05F195.7050101@ucsc.edu> References: <1241886126.11774.81.camel@xps> <55bea5620905090929m56efd04er8307c75f5453c315@mail.gmail.com> <4A05F195.7050101@ucsc.edu> Message-ID: <1241909093.6172.1.camel@xps> Thanks to those who made suggestions or corrections on or off-line. I posted it on huffpo, with a few pictures. Jamie http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/obama-and-free-software_b_201166.html -- James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile +41.76.413.6584 From james.love at keionline.org Sat May 9 18:55:43 2009 From: james.love at keionline.org (James Love) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 18:55:43 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: References: <1241892666.11774.205.camel@xps> <20090509182418.GD3743@singpolyma-mini> <1241902626.11774.379.camel@xps> Message-ID: <1241909743.6172.12.camel@xps> Dear Seth, These are all good ways of messaging things. In a lot of places around the world, free software is considered an issue of some political consequence. If we could get Obama to have have any kind of a statement on free software, it would be a start, I think. He has some good people in the government already, but the policy coherence in the Obama administration is not that clear yet. Jamie On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 18:21 -0400, Seth Johnson wrote: > Here's a link to a letter from Dr. Nunez in Peru to Microsoft -- one of > the most compelling articulations of free software in relation to > government you will find: > > http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2002-05-06-012-26-OS-SM-LL > > > Seth > > > -----Original Message----- > From: "Seth Johnson" > To: "Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in > particular" , "James Love" > > Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 18:11:24 -0400 > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > > > > You might get some really good input from Antonio Perpinan > > (aperpinan at codigolibre.org) in light of his great work on free > > software > > in the Dominican Republic. > > > > And certainly FSF Europe's Georg Greve and others. > > > > There have been some very striking developments related to free > > software > > in government in recent history -- Munich, Germany, that truly > > exemplary > > statesman-like position from that guy in Peru. It would be very > > trivial > > to include very compelling links, strike from a strong position in > > such > > an initial message to the Huff crowd. > > > > > > Seth > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: "Seth Johnson" > > To: "Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in > > particular" , "James Love" > > > > Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 17:32:08 -0400 > > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > > > > > > > I see you pose a question referring to Bayh-Dole. It's more > > useful, > > > particularly for this issue, to make a historical frame clear. > > > > > > > > > Seth > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: "Seth Johnson" > > > To: "Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in > > > particular" , "James Love" > > > > > > Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 17:26:07 -0400 > > > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > > > > > > > > > > This area would appropriately addressed with reference to the > > > > parallel > > > > passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980. Stallman recognized the > > > > problem > > > > very nearly when the rubber actually began to first hit the road. > > > > > > > > I don't think Perens would necessarily call himself a Stallman > > > critic > > > > these days. I believe he tends more commonly to acknowledge that > > > > Stallman saved our necks by doing so much right despite the > > > continual > > > > schematic disputations that people seem compelled to offer all > > the > > > > time. > > > > > > > > > > > > Seth > > > > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: James Love > > > > To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization > > in > > > > particular > > > > Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 16:57:06 -0400 > > > > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > > > > > > > > This is by draft blog for Huffpo. > > > > > Jamie > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > One of the more interesting aspects of the modern knowledge > > > society > > > > > is > > > > > the > > > > href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_movement">free > > > > > software movement. The most famous and influential leader > > of > > > > > this > > > > > movement is Richard M. Stallman (RMS). Richard recognized the > > > > value > > > > > of > > > > > a new model for software development and the various risks to > > > that > > > > > model. He also created a philosophical and ideological > > > framework, > > > > > and a > > > > > new set of slogans, legal strategies and ideas to protect and > > > > promote > > > > > the environment that would make free software more common and > > > > > powerful. > > > > > If Richard had not begin has his work in the 1980s, the > > Internet > > > > > today > > > > > would be less open, less innovative, and less useful. > > > > > > > > > > In recent years the free software movement has grown in many > > > > > different > > > > > dimensions, and become much more diverse in terms of its > > > leadership > > > > > and > > > > > approach. Playing an important role are Stallman critics like > > > Eric > > > > > Raymond or Bruce Perens[2], gifted software development leaders > > > > like > > > > > Linus Torvalds, thousands of independently managed software > > > > > development > > > > > communities, corporate supported ventures like OpenOffice, > > MySql, > > > > > Redhat > > > > > or Ubuntu, and a host of influential academics like Eben Moglin > > > or > > > > > Yoachi Benkler. Today Google Scholar has 53,900 hits for the > > > term > > > > > "free > > > > > software."[3] > > > > > > > > > > While free software was once considered by some as a fringe > > > > movement, > > > > > it > > > > > is now mainstream. Fortune 500 companies are embracing free > > > > software > > > > > programs like R to analyse data. Linux, Apache, MySql and PhP > > > > (LAMP) > > > > > servers power much of the Internet. Many cell phones, Kindle > > 2, > > > > and > > > > > other devices run Linux. There is enormous interest in the > > > > > development > > > > > of every aspect of free software tools and applications. Some > > of > > > > the > > > > > most profitable software companies today are those that are > > > > providing > > > > > services over free software platforms. Free software also is > > > > > important > > > > > for empowering and protecting other social movements that > > > routinely > > > > > rely > > > > > upon free software for a wide range of services. > > > > > > > > > > The "free" part of the free software movement is an important > > > > element > > > > > of > > > > > this. The ability to innovate, and specifically to create > > > > > innovations > > > > > that serve social needs, is well served by platforms, like the > > > > > Internet, > > > > > that are based upon openness and freedom. > > > > > > > > > > What does all this have to do with Obama? Actually, quite a > > bit. > > > > > > > > > > As important as free software has become economically and > > > socially, > > > > > it > > > > > gets almost no respect among U.S. political leaders. People > > > should > > > > > insist that elected and appointed government officials be more > > > > > explicit > > > > > about policies. I would start by asking the Obama > > > Administration > > > > to > > > > > answer the following initial questions: > > > > > > > > > > Is free software important? > > > > > > > > > > 1. To what extent is free software used today? > > > > > > > > > > 2. What are the efficiency benefits of free software, in terms > > > of > > > > > allowing code to be freely reused and re-purposed? > > > > > > > > > > 3. What are the benefits of having software code transparent? > > > > > > > > > > 4. What are the benefits of users having the freedom to modify > > > > > software > > > > > to meet their needs? > > > > > > > > > > 5. Does free software play an important role in avoiding harm > > > from > > > > > the > > > > > monopoly control over software products and platforms? > > > > > > > > > > 6. How much money do users save by using free software > > > solutions? > > > > > > > > > > 7. Does free software make it easier for young people to learn > > > > about > > > > > and contribute to the development of software? > > > > > > > > > > Next, I would ask the Obama Administration to address certain > > > > policy > > > > > questions relevant to procurement and government services: > > > > > > > > > > 8. Does government procurement policy recognize the benefits > > of > > > > free > > > > > software solutions? > > > > > > > > > > 9. If so, do procurement policies encourage or discourage the > > > > supply > > > > > and use of free software? > > > > > > > > > > 10. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic > > > > importance > > > > > and value of interoperability and open standards in the > > software > > > > > field? > > > > > > > > > > 11. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic > > > > importance > > > > > of > > > > > open standards for data formats? > > > > > > > > > > 12. Does the Administration have a strategy to support and > > > promote > > > > > interoperability and open standards, including open data > > formats? > > > > If > > > > > so, > > > > > what is this strategy? > > > > > > > > > > 13. To what extent can someone who uses free software fully > > > > interact > > > > > with government agencies, such as by editing collaborative > > > > documents, > > > > > using web based services, viewing multimedia content, or using > > > > > government funded databases? > > > > > > > > > > Grant Related Issues: > > > > > > > > > > 14. Does the federal Bayh-Dole provide the flexibility for the > > > US > > > > > government to insert appropriate conditions in grants that > > would > > > > > increase public access to the software code developed under a > > > > > government > > > > > grant? > > > > > > > > > > 15. Should federal grants require recipients to publish and > > > share > > > > > data > > > > > in open standardized formats? > > > > > > > > > > Competition Issues. > > > > > > > > > > 16. Is the impact of a merger of the free software sector > > > relevant > > > > > to a > > > > > proposed merger? For example, will the Obama Administration > > > > examine > > > > > the > > > > > impact of the Oracle acquisition of Sun on the future viability > > > of > > > > > MySQL, Java or OpenOffice? > > > > > > > > > > 17. Would an agreement among the owners of the two leading > > > > > proprietary > > > > > operating systems to not distribute software on the Linux > > > platform > > > > be > > > > > considered a violation of competition laws? If competition law > > > is > > > > > not a > > > > > good tool to address such issues, what is? > > > > > > > > > > 18. Would an aggressive effort to break an open standard for > > > data > > > > > formats be considered a violation of competition law? > > > > > > > > > > Patent issues. > > > > > > > > > > 19. Should there be a zone of fair use for software patents > > when > > > > > used > > > > > in free software projects? > > > > > > > > > > A lot of these issues are technical, but the issues are quite > > > > > important > > > > > economically and socially. The trick is to make these geeky > > > > issues > > > > > political enough that politicians engage. > > > > > > > > > > --Notes > > > > > > > > > > [1]Yoachi Benkler, Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of > > > the > > > > > Firm, > > > > > 112 Yale L.J (2002); Yoachi Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: > > How > > > > > Social > > > > > Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (Yale University > > Press > > > > > 2006). > > > > > Eben Moglin, "Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death > > > of > > > > > Copyright," First Monday (August, 1999) > > > > > > > > > > [2] Eric S Raymond, The cathedral and the bazaar: Musings on > > > Linux > > > > > and > > > > > open source by an accidental revolutionary, 2001, O'Reilly & > > > > > Associates. > > > > > http://perens.com/policy/open-source/ > > > > > > > > > > > > > [3]http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=%22free+software% > > > > > 22&btnG=Search > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > Discuss mailing list > > > > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > > > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Discuss mailing list > > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -- James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile +41.76.413.6584 From gavin at gavinbaker.com Sat May 9 19:05:39 2009 From: gavin at gavinbaker.com (Gavin Baker) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 19:05:39 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <1241902626.11774.379.camel@xps> References: <1241892666.11774.205.camel@xps> <20090509182418.GD3743@singpolyma-mini> <1241902626.11774.379.camel@xps> Message-ID: <4A060C43.5080202@gavinbaker.com> James Love wrote: [...] > Next, I would ask the Obama Administration to address certain policy > questions relevant to procurement and government services: [...] > > 13. To what extent can someone who uses free software fully interact > with government agencies, such as by editing collaborative documents, > using web based services, viewing multimedia content, or using > government funded databases? This might be better phrased as: "Should e-government services be provided equally to citizens who use free software? Does the administration have a policy that e-government services should not compel citizens to use proprietary software?" Another topic that might fit under this heading relates to e-voting and other black box technologies, e.g. breathalyzers. Should public disclosure of source code be required? What about private review of source code, e.g. so someone accused of DUI can at least compel private disclosure as part of their defense? (I am not confusing disclosed source with free software, but I see them as related.) Related to source disclosure, what about software copyright? Currently, to register copyright on a computer program, the author has to submit (I wish I was making this up) the "first 25 and last 25 pages of [the program's] source code". If that wasn't bad enough, you can even refuse to provide ANY source code, and you can black out sections you claim as trade secrets. Obviously, these records will do no good at all on the (distant) date that the software enters the public domain. Does the administration think these procedures are reasonable and in the public interest? > Grant Related Issues: [...] > 15. Should federal grants require recipients to publish and share data > in open standardized formats? I think what you're getting at here is the question of federal grantees using proprietary file formats vs. open ones -- is that right? If so, I'd make the question clearer, e.g.: "Should federal grants require recipients, when publishing or sharing data, to use open formats?" P.S. It may be useful to target questions at specific federal offices, esp. CTO, CIO, and OSTP. Everybody wants to hear about the new CTO! E.g., "Gov to be ran on 100% free software" is one of the highest-rated ideas on ObamaCTO.org. -- Gavin Baker http://www.gavinbaker.com/ gavin at gavinbaker.com No, I do not weep at the world -- I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife. Zora Neale Hurston From seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org Sat May 9 19:21:15 2009 From: seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 19:21:15 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <1241909743.6172.12.camel@xps> References: <20090509182418.GD3743@singpolyma-mini> <1241902626.11774.379.camel@xps> <1241909743.6172.12.camel@xps> Message-ID: Duh. It isn't very hard to identify the key messages at this point in time, that would be incisive and drive home. The problem isn't there -- our problem is in a social order that handily elides recognition of plain old good common sense. "the policy coherence in the Obama administration is not that clear yet" That's putting it gently. :-) Scan the Nunez piece to what he says about transparency. That's the way to start, the kind of expression to stand on. And his three key points are particularly trenchant right now. Plus in general he exhibits no confusion about fundamental principles of government as they may or may not relate to either natural or legal persons. The right place to begin. Really. Especially for this administration, especially at this juncture. Seth -----Original Message----- From: James Love To: Seth Johnson Cc: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in particular Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 18:55:43 -0400 Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > Dear Seth, > > These are all good ways of messaging things. In a lot of places > around > the world, free software is considered an issue of some political > consequence. If we could get Obama to have have any kind of a > statement on free software, it would be a start, I think. He has some > good people in the government already, but the policy coherence in > the > Obama administration is not that clear yet. > > Jamie > > On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 18:21 -0400, Seth Johnson wrote: > > Here's a link to a letter from Dr. Nunez in Peru to Microsoft -- > one of > > the most compelling articulations of free software in relation to > > government you will find: > > > > > http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2002-05-06-012-26-OS-S > M-LL > > > > > > Seth > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: "Seth Johnson" > > To: "Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in > > particular" , "James Love" > > > > Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 18:11:24 -0400 > > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > > > > > > > You might get some really good input from Antonio Perpinan > > > (aperpinan at codigolibre.org) in light of his great work on free > > > software > > > in the Dominican Republic. > > > > > > And certainly FSF Europe's Georg Greve and others. > > > > > > There have been some very striking developments related to free > > > software > > > in government in recent history -- Munich, Germany, that truly > > > exemplary > > > statesman-like position from that guy in Peru. It would be very > > > trivial > > > to include very compelling links, strike from a strong position > in > > > such > > > an initial message to the Huff crowd. > > > > > > > > > Seth > > > > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: "Seth Johnson" > > > To: "Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization > in > > > particular" , "James Love" > > > > > > Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 17:32:08 -0400 > > > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > > > > > > > > > > I see you pose a question referring to Bayh-Dole. It's more > > > useful, > > > > particularly for this issue, to make a historical frame clear. > > > > > > > > > > > > Seth > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: "Seth Johnson" > > > > To: "Discussion of Free Culture in general and this > organization in > > > > particular" , "James Love" > > > > > > > > Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 17:26:07 -0400 > > > > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This area would appropriately addressed with reference to the > > > > > parallel > > > > > passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980. Stallman recognized > the > > > > > problem > > > > > very nearly when the rubber actually began to first hit the > road. > > > > > > > > > > I don't think Perens would necessarily call himself a > Stallman > > > > critic > > > > > these days. I believe he tends more commonly to acknowledge > that > > > > > Stallman saved our necks by doing so much right despite the > > > > continual > > > > > schematic disputations that people seem compelled to offer > all > > > the > > > > > time. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Seth > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > > From: James Love > > > > > To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this > organization > > > in > > > > > particular > > > > > Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 16:57:06 -0400 > > > > > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software > > > > > > > > > > > This is by draft blog for Huffpo. > > > > > > Jamie > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > One of the more interesting aspects of the modern knowledge > > > > society > > > > > > is > > > > > > the > > > > > > href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_movement">free > > > > > > software movement. The most famous and influential > leader > > > of > > > > > > this > > > > > > movement is Richard M. Stallman (RMS). Richard recognized > the > > > > > value > > > > > > of > > > > > > a new model for software development and the various risks > to > > > > that > > > > > > model. He also created a philosophical and ideological > > > > framework, > > > > > > and a > > > > > > new set of slogans, legal strategies and ideas to protect > and > > > > > promote > > > > > > the environment that would make free software more common > and > > > > > > powerful. > > > > > > If Richard had not begin has his work in the 1980s, the > > > Internet > > > > > > today > > > > > > would be less open, less innovative, and less useful. > > > > > > > > > > > > In recent years the free software movement has grown in > many > > > > > > different > > > > > > dimensions, and become much more diverse in terms of its > > > > leadership > > > > > > and > > > > > > approach. Playing an important role are Stallman critics > like > > > > Eric > > > > > > Raymond or Bruce Perens[2], gifted software development > leaders > > > > > like > > > > > > Linus Torvalds, thousands of independently managed software > > > > > > development > > > > > > communities, corporate supported ventures like OpenOffice, > > > MySql, > > > > > > Redhat > > > > > > or Ubuntu, and a host of influential academics like Eben > Moglin > > > > or > > > > > > Yoachi Benkler. Today Google Scholar has 53,900 hits for > the > > > > term > > > > > > "free > > > > > > software."[3] > > > > > > > > > > > > While free software was once considered by some as a fringe > > > > > movement, > > > > > > it > > > > > > is now mainstream. Fortune 500 companies are embracing > free > > > > > software > > > > > > programs like R to analyse data. Linux, Apache, MySql and > PhP > > > > > (LAMP) > > > > > > servers power much of the Internet. Many cell phones, > Kindle > > > 2, > > > > > and > > > > > > other devices run Linux. There is enormous interest in the > > > > > > development > > > > > > of every aspect of free software tools and applications. > Some > > > of > > > > > the > > > > > > most profitable software companies today are those that are > > > > > providing > > > > > > services over free software platforms. Free software also > is > > > > > > important > > > > > > for empowering and protecting other social movements that > > > > routinely > > > > > > rely > > > > > > upon free software for a wide range of services. > > > > > > > > > > > > The "free" part of the free software movement is an > important > > > > > element > > > > > > of > > > > > > this. The ability to innovate, and specifically to create > > > > > > innovations > > > > > > that serve social needs, is well served by platforms, like > the > > > > > > Internet, > > > > > > that are based upon openness and freedom. > > > > > > > > > > > > What does all this have to do with Obama? Actually, quite > a > > > bit. > > > > > > > > > > > > As important as free software has become economically and > > > > socially, > > > > > > it > > > > > > gets almost no respect among U.S. political leaders. > People > > > > should > > > > > > insist that elected and appointed government officials be > more > > > > > > explicit > > > > > > about policies. I would start by asking the Obama > > > > Administration > > > > > to > > > > > > answer the following initial questions: > > > > > > > > > > > > Is free software important? > > > > > > > > > > > > 1. To what extent is free software used today? > > > > > > > > > > > > 2. What are the efficiency benefits of free software, in > terms > > > > of > > > > > > allowing code to be freely reused and re-purposed? > > > > > > > > > > > > 3. What are the benefits of having software code > transparent? > > > > > > > > > > > > 4. What are the benefits of users having the freedom to > modify > > > > > > software > > > > > > to meet their needs? > > > > > > > > > > > > 5. Does free software play an important role in avoiding > harm > > > > from > > > > > > the > > > > > > monopoly control over software products and platforms? > > > > > > > > > > > > 6. How much money do users save by using free software > > > > solutions? > > > > > > > > > > > > 7. Does free software make it easier for young people to > learn > > > > > about > > > > > > and contribute to the development of software? > > > > > > > > > > > > Next, I would ask the Obama Administration to address > certain > > > > > policy > > > > > > questions relevant to procurement and government services: > > > > > > > > > > > > 8. Does government procurement policy recognize the > benefits > > > of > > > > > free > > > > > > software solutions? > > > > > > > > > > > > 9. If so, do procurement policies encourage or discourage > the > > > > > supply > > > > > > and use of free software? > > > > > > > > > > > > 10. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic > > > > > importance > > > > > > and value of interoperability and open standards in the > > > software > > > > > > field? > > > > > > > > > > > > 11. Does the Obama Administration recognize the strategic > > > > > importance > > > > > > of > > > > > > open standards for data formats? > > > > > > > > > > > > 12. Does the Administration have a strategy to support and > > > > promote > > > > > > interoperability and open standards, including open data > > > formats? > > > > > If > > > > > > so, > > > > > > what is this strategy? > > > > > > > > > > > > 13. To what extent can someone who uses free software > fully > > > > > interact > > > > > > with government agencies, such as by editing collaborative > > > > > documents, > > > > > > using web based services, viewing multimedia content, or > using > > > > > > government funded databases? > > > > > > > > > > > > Grant Related Issues: > > > > > > > > > > > > 14. Does the federal Bayh-Dole provide the flexibility for > the > > > > US > > > > > > government to insert appropriate conditions in grants that > > > would > > > > > > increase public access to the software code developed under > a > > > > > > government > > > > > > grant? > > > > > > > > > > > > 15. Should federal grants require recipients to publish > and > > > > share > > > > > > data > > > > > > in open standardized formats? > > > > > > > > > > > > Competition Issues. > > > > > > > > > > > > 16. Is the impact of a merger of the free software sector > > > > relevant > > > > > > to a > > > > > > proposed merger? For example, will the Obama > Administration > > > > > examine > > > > > > the > > > > > > impact of the Oracle acquisition of Sun on the future > viability > > > > of > > > > > > MySQL, Java or OpenOffice? > > > > > > > > > > > > 17. Would an agreement among the owners of the two leading > > > > > > proprietary > > > > > > operating systems to not distribute software on the Linux > > > > platform > > > > > be > > > > > > considered a violation of competition laws? If competition > law > > > > is > > > > > > not a > > > > > > good tool to address such issues, what is? > > > > > > > > > > > > 18. Would an aggressive effort to break an open standard > for > > > > data > > > > > > formats be considered a violation of competition law? > > > > > > > > > > > > Patent issues. > > > > > > > > > > > > 19. Should there be a zone of fair use for software > patents > > > when > > > > > > used > > > > > > in free software projects? > > > > > > > > > > > > A lot of these issues are technical, but the issues are > quite > > > > > > important > > > > > > economically and socially. The trick is to make these > geeky > > > > > issues > > > > > > political enough that politicians engage. > > > > > > > > > > > > --Notes > > > > > > > > > > > > [1]Yoachi Benkler, Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature > of > > > > the > > > > > > Firm, > > > > > > 112 Yale L.J (2002); Yoachi Benkler, The Wealth of > Networks: > > > How > > > > > > Social > > > > > > Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (Yale University > > > Press > > > > > > 2006). > > > > > > Eben Moglin, "Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the > Death > > > > of > > > > > > Copyright," First Monday (August, 1999) > > > > > > > > > > > > [2] Eric S Raymond, The cathedral and the bazaar: Musings > on > > > > Linux > > > > > > and > > > > > > open source by an accidental revolutionary, 2001, O'Reilly > & > > > > > > Associates. > > > > > > http://perens.com/policy/open-source/ > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > [3]http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=%22free+software% > > > > > > 22&btnG=Search > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > > Discuss mailing list > > > > > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > > > > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > Discuss mailing list > > > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Discuss mailing list > > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > > -- > James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International > http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org > Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile > +41.76.413.6584 > From james.love at keionline.org Sat May 9 19:58:47 2009 From: james.love at keionline.org (James Love) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 19:58:47 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <4A060C43.5080202@gavinbaker.com> References: <1241892666.11774.205.camel@xps> <20090509182418.GD3743@singpolyma-mini> <1241902626.11774.379.camel@xps> <4A060C43.5080202@gavinbaker.com> Message-ID: <1241913527.6172.21.camel@xps> On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 19:05 -0400, Gavin Baker wrote: > Another topic that might fit under this heading relates to e-voting and > other black box technologies, e.g. breathalyzers. Should public > disclosure of source code be required? What about private review of > source code, e.g. so someone accused of DUI can at least compel private > disclosure as part of their defense? (I am not confusing disclosed > source with free software, but I see them as related.) Interesting. If voting software was not free on day one, it should probably not take 95 years before it comes free. > Related to source disclosure, what about software copyright? Currently, > to register copyright on a computer program, the author has to submit (I > wish I was making this up) the "first 25 and last 25 pages of [the > program's] source code". If that wasn't bad enough, you can even refuse > to provide ANY source code, and you can black out sections you claim as > trade secrets. Obviously, these records will do no good at all on the > (distant) date that the software enters the public domain. Does the > administration think these procedures are reasonable and in the public > interest? I don't know much about software registration requirements. But it might be confusing to include in a free software letter something that concerns proprietary software. > > Grant Related Issues: > [...] > > 15. Should federal grants require recipients to publish and share data > > in open standardized formats? > > I think what you're getting at here is the question of federal grantees > using proprietary file formats vs. open ones -- is that right? If so, > I'd make the question clearer, e.g.: > > "Should federal grants require recipients, when publishing or sharing > data, to use open formats?" This is better. > P.S. It may be useful to target questions at specific federal offices, > esp. CTO, CIO, and OSTP. Everybody wants to hear about the new CTO! > E.g., "Gov to be ran on 100% free software" is one of the highest-rated > ideas on ObamaCTO.org. I personally would like to get elected officials begin to deal with these issues. -- James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile +41.76.413.6584 From aphid at ucsc.edu Sat May 9 20:12:27 2009 From: aphid at ucsc.edu (aphid) Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 17:12:27 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <1241913527.6172.21.camel@xps> References: <1241892666.11774.205.camel@xps> <20090509182418.GD3743@singpolyma-mini> <1241902626.11774.379.camel@xps> <4A060C43.5080202@gavinbaker.com> <1241913527.6172.21.camel@xps> Message-ID: <4A061BEB.4030602@ucsc.edu> quotes from some NEH grant procedures, via http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/digitalhumanitiesstartup.html: "In order to facilitate dissemination and increase the impact of the projects that are ultimately developed through Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants, applicants are strongly encouraged to employ open-source and fully accessible software." "Applicants should provide a rationale for the compatibility of their methodology with the intellectual goals of the project and the expectations of its users. NEH views the use of open-source software as a key component in the broad distribution of exemplary digital scholarship in the humanities. If either the start-up project or the long-term project is not predicated on generally accessible open-source software, explain why and also explain how NEH?s dissemination goals will still be satisfied by the project." ^^ projeccts which use proprietary software are required to justify it. peace, a James Love wrote: > On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 19:05 -0400, Gavin Baker wrote: > > >> Another topic that might fit under this heading relates to e-voting and >> other black box technologies, e.g. breathalyzers. Should public >> disclosure of source code be required? What about private review of >> source code, e.g. so someone accused of DUI can at least compel private >> disclosure as part of their defense? (I am not confusing disclosed >> source with free software, but I see them as related.) >> > > Interesting. If voting software was not free on day one, it should > probably not take 95 years before it comes free. > > >> Related to source disclosure, what about software copyright? Currently, >> to register copyright on a computer program, the author has to submit (I >> wish I was making this up) the "first 25 and last 25 pages of [the >> program's] source code". If that wasn't bad enough, you can even refuse >> to provide ANY source code, and you can black out sections you claim as >> trade secrets. Obviously, these records will do no good at all on the >> (distant) date that the software enters the public domain. Does the >> administration think these procedures are reasonable and in the public >> interest? >> > > I don't know much about software registration requirements. But it might > be confusing to include in a free software letter something that > concerns proprietary software. > > >>> Grant Related Issues: >>> >> [...] >> >>> 15. Should federal grants require recipients to publish and share data >>> in open standardized formats? >>> >> I think what you're getting at here is the question of federal grantees >> using proprietary file formats vs. open ones -- is that right? If so, >> I'd make the question clearer, e.g.: >> >> "Should federal grants require recipients, when publishing or sharing >> data, to use open formats?" >> > > This is better. > > >> P.S. It may be useful to target questions at specific federal offices, >> esp. CTO, CIO, and OSTP. Everybody wants to hear about the new CTO! >> E.g., "Gov to be ran on 100% free software" is one of the highest-rated >> ideas on ObamaCTO.org. >> > > I personally would like to get elected officials begin to deal with > these issues. > > From sffcvt at vt.edu Sun May 10 18:43:45 2009 From: sffcvt at vt.edu (Matt) Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 18:43:45 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Register Now for the Open Video Conference, June 19-20, NYC In-Reply-To: <55bea5620905061142mef91ad3r80bb820c925eb463@mail.gmail.com> References: <55bea5620905061133m1ac92198m5bd82e2dd9087f42@mail.gmail.com> <55bea5620905061142mef91ad3r80bb820c925eb463@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A0758A1.8020703@vt.edu> Elizabeth Stark wrote: > Several of us FCites are organizing this event. Please spread the word > -- we'd love to have a large student representation there as well! > > ----------------------------------------- > * > Register now!* http://openvideoconference.org/registration/ > > on Twitter/Identi.ca: @openvideo > on Facebook: http://is.gd/xeL8 > > June 19-20, 2009 > New York City > 40 Washington Square South (NYU Law School) > http://openvideoconference.org > > *Details* > > The Open Video Conference is a two-day gathering of thought leaders in > technology, business, public policy, art, and activism from around the > world to explore the future of the moving image. > > Thanks to a proliferation of tools for recording, editing, and > distributing video online, anyone can be a broadcaster. Sites like > YouTube are bursting at the seams with user-created content. Individuals > armed with cell phone cameras are effectively citizen journalists. And > emerging artistic forms like video commentary and remix/mashup create > new vocabularies for creative and political expression. > > Yet as the medium matures, we face a crossroads. Will technology and > public policy support a more participatory culture?one that encourages > and enables free expression and broader cultural engagement? Or will > online video become a glorified TV-on-demand service, a central part of > a permissions-based culture? Web video holds tremendous potential, but > limits on broadband, playback technology, and fair use threaten to > undermine the ability of individuals to engage in dialogues in and > around this new media ecosystem. > > *Highlights* > > Bestselling author Clay Shirky will give a talk about the disruptive > effects of the web. Harvard's Jonathan Zittrain (TBC) will moderate a > discussion on platform innovation with Boxee CEO Avner Ronen, Blip.tv > CEO Mike Hudack, and representatives from YouTube and Adobe. Lizz > Winstead, activist and co-creator of The Daily Show, will discuss web > video as political commentary. Legendary hacker Jon Lech Johansen (DVD > Jon) will address data portability. Mozilla, makers of the Firefox web > browser, will highlight what it's doing to cement open video standards. > You'll hear from Anthony Falzone?executive director at Stanford's Fair > Use Project and counsel to graphic artist Shepherd Fairey?about the new > battle lines drawn around fair use. Voices from the blogosphere, public > media, and traditional media will explore the ways to make their content > work in an open video ecosystem. Josh Silver, executive director of Free > Press, will highlight the ways telecom policy hinders independent media, > and much more. > > > This is just a peek?have a look at our schedule page for more details: > http://www.openvideoconference.org/agenda. > > > In addition to two full days of high-profile programming, you can expect > a slate of workshops and behind-the-scenes technical working groups with > leading edge video developers. This event should interest anyone with a > stake in art, culture, technology, policy, journalism, or online business. > > *Registration* > > Registration entitles you to all conference benefits: talks and > presentations, workshops, screenings, two lunches, and a cool afterparty > featuring video turntablists Eclectic Method. Plus you'll get to mingle > with thought leaders in online video and take home a cool bag of schwag! > Don't wait?register at http://www.openvideoconference.org/registration. > > *Organizers* > > Our conference co-organizers are Participatory Culture Foundation, Yale > ISP, iCommons, and Kaltura. Our partners include Mozilla, Berkman Center > for Internet and Society at Harvard, Free Press, Creative Commons, Big > Think, NYU Information Law Institute, Intelligent TV, The Workbook > Project, FGV Brazil CTS, NEXA Italy, and more. > > For more information, contact conference at openvideoalliance.org > . > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss Would anyone be interested on accompanying me to the conference? Conley may not be going, and I am horrible at navigating in an unfamiliar environment, especially a large city, so I do not wish to go alone. I can arrange travel myself. I just need someone to meet me there and accompany me (or, to be more accurate, let me accompany them) for the duration of the visit. Please let me know as soon as you can, and I can give you contact information off-list. From mrenoch at phantomcynthetics.com Tue May 12 00:03:54 2009 From: mrenoch at phantomcynthetics.com (Jonah Bossewitch) Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 00:03:54 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Free vs. Libre Message-ID: <4A08F52A.1070301@phantomcynthetics.com> I'm a bit late to this conversation, but I do want to add that pedagogically, I like the ambiguity of 'free'... Seriously, how often do you get to provoke a conversation about the different senses of 'free' and the nature of freedom? I understand the drawbacks of the ambiguity, and often use libre in conversation, but I do love the genius inherent in the invitation to discuss. Arguably, awareness leads to responsibility which leads to intentionality. I play with applying this idea to the environmental movement here: http://alchemicalmusings.org/2006/11/16/free-energy/ (Free Energy - its not just for crackpots anymore) cheers, /jonah From glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us Fri May 15 22:16:27 2009 From: glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us (Glenn Kerbein) Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 19:16:27 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Hello. Message-ID: <4A0E21FB.3030501@pirate-party.us> Fellow Free Culture subscribers, Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Glenn Kerbein (as the From: address header indicates), administrator for the Pirate Party of the United States. I've been a long time lurker in #freeculture, and, went to FC08. I figured that I may as well just add the FC discuss list to my inbox as well. -- Glenn "Channel6" Kerbein Pirate Party of the United States "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" From gabrieljoel at gmail.com Sun May 17 21:29:13 2009 From: gabrieljoel at gmail.com (Gabriel Joel Perez) Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 21:29:13 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] I'm going to be on the Austin area for the summer, anybody around? Message-ID: <9a442d030905171829s7754705cw1ba4afab88d1b54e@mail.gmail.com> Hi! I'm going to be in Austin for the summer, I'm going to be at the Linux Technology Center, is anybody going to be around? Anybody want to meet up? Let me know Thanks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090517/0be0e00d/attachment.htm From glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us Mon May 18 00:31:52 2009 From: glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us (Glenn Kerbein) Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 21:31:52 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] RiP: A Remix Manifesto Message-ID: <4A10E4B8.2040703@pirate-party.us> Dear Free Culture subscribers: matt- on FreeNode pointed out a documentary recently release and available for download: Brett Gaylor's RiP! A Remix Manifeso. I figured that since we are all in different time zones or not on IRC constantly (myself included), I may as well share my opinion on the matter. The film is an intricate balance between contemporary remix culture and how past media has been remixed. Topics of interest cover Greg Gillis, colloquially known as Girl Talk, Cory Doctorow, and Walt Disney. Not only does the film cover the overt ignorance towards remixers, but also how patent law has stifled scientific research. All in all, I thought the film was an excellent watch, but not something completely unique. Good Copy, Bad Copy covered this topic in great detail (traveling anywhere from Denmark, Nigeria, Baltimore, Sweden, and the UK) and Steal This Film 2 touched on the issue. B-Side and EyeSteelFilm (co-producers) have the film for purchase and download for US users only. Gaylor is using the Radiohead method of purchase (pay what you want) and has a Screener ISO as well as a .mov of the film to download. I am inclined to hold a screening myself for the film. The idea hasn't quite solidified quite yet, though; I'm thinking I'd hold it somewhere in Silicon Valley. What better place to show a film about "intellectual property" than at the heart of the tech industry. If that doesn't work out, I've already begun making a mashup of my own, incorporating segments of aforementioned films. -- Glenn "Channel6" Kerbein Pirate Party of the United States "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Tue May 19 04:25:56 2009 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 04:25:56 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Jefferson on the Press -- and Connectivity! :-) References: <48804B00.D0DBC06C@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> <49524E67.7FA9D2EB@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <4A126D14.DA96A8F2@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> This might not be earthshattering, but I thought it was interesting -- note what Jefferson states in the last sentence here, after the sentence that's usually cited: "The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1787 From adikamdar at gmail.com Tue May 19 22:07:47 2009 From: adikamdar at gmail.com (Adi Kamdar) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 22:07:47 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] RiP: A Remix Manifesto In-Reply-To: <4A10E4B8.2040703@pirate-party.us> References: <4A10E4B8.2040703@pirate-party.us> Message-ID: <684dbf750905191907k65562c47j3bf558fbae9b7a90@mail.gmail.com> Yale Students for Free Culture had a screening of the movie last month, and it worked out really well. We screened the film, then followed it with a talk by Ely Kim, an art student who incorporates a lot of remix ideals into his work (http://www.vimeo.com/3237836), and had a short discussion afterward. I'd say overall it was a success, and I encourage you all to do it... -Adi 2009/5/18 Glenn Kerbein > Dear Free Culture subscribers: > matt- on FreeNode pointed out a documentary recently release and > available for download: Brett Gaylor's RiP! A Remix Manifeso. I figured > that since we are all in different time zones or not on IRC constantly > (myself included), I may as well share my opinion on the matter. > The film is an intricate balance between contemporary remix culture > and > how past media has been remixed. Topics of interest cover Greg Gillis, > colloquially known as Girl Talk, Cory Doctorow, and Walt Disney. Not > only does the film cover the overt ignorance towards remixers, but also > how patent law has stifled scientific research. All in all, I thought > the film was an excellent watch, but not something completely unique. > Good Copy, Bad Copy covered this topic in great detail (traveling > anywhere from Denmark, Nigeria, Baltimore, Sweden, and the UK) and Steal > This Film 2 touched on the issue. > B-Side and EyeSteelFilm (co-producers) have the film for purchase > and > download for US users only. Gaylor is using the Radiohead method of > purchase (pay what you want) and has a Screener ISO as well as a .mov of > the film to download. > I am inclined to hold a screening myself for the film. The idea > hasn't > quite solidified quite yet, though; I'm thinking I'd hold it somewhere > in Silicon Valley. What better place to show a film about "intellectual > property" than at the heart of the tech industry. If that doesn't work > out, I've already begun making a mashup of my own, incorporating > segments of aforementioned films. > > > -- > Glenn "Channel6" Kerbein > Pirate Party of the United States > "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090519/68606e4f/attachment.htm From parkerhiggins at gmail.com Wed May 20 02:06:30 2009 From: parkerhiggins at gmail.com (Parker Higgins) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 23:06:30 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Jefferson on the Press -- and Connectivity! :-) In-Reply-To: <4A126D14.DA96A8F2@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> References: <48804B00.D0DBC06C@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> <49524E67.7FA9D2EB@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> <4A126D14.DA96A8F2@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> Message-ID: <97afb7270905192306j481ae74pb48becae98a15403@mail.gmail.com> That's awesome. Perhaps its a result of Jefferson's ridiculous brilliance, but I've noticed on other occasions that he gets too briefly quoted. In Boyle's Public Domain book there's a long discussion of what happens in the Jefferson quote after the bit about using one candle to light another, that's definitely worth reading. I don't have the text handy, and he explains it much better than I could! Parker On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 1:25 AM, Seth Johnson < seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org> wrote: > > This might not be earthshattering, but I thought it was interesting -- > note what Jefferson states in the last sentence here, after the > sentence that's usually cited: > > > "The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the > very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me > to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or > newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to > prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive > those papers and be capable of reading them." > > -- Thomas Jefferson, 1787 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090519/eb113c82/attachment-0001.htm From asirois at uoregon.edu Wed May 20 02:30:13 2009 From: asirois at uoregon.edu (Andre Sirois) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 23:30:13 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] RiP: A Remix Manifesto In-Reply-To: <684dbf750905191907k65562c47j3bf558fbae9b7a90@mail.gmail.com> References: <684dbf750905191907k65562c47j3bf558fbae9b7a90@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1242801013.579418.alphamail@mailapps2.uoregon.edu> Yeah, a pretty good film here. However, my gripe is that it paints Girl Talk as some sort of remix deity, which I disagree with since I could name thousands of turntablists and hip hop producers who have done way more for the "remix," fair use and copyleft than this dude. To me, GT's music is only a bit more creative than Puffy's "I'll Be Missing You." Does anybody agree with that or am I just tripping on elitism? If you want to hear real remix shit, peep D-Styles's "Phantazmagorea," an album entirely made from two turntables and a mixer. Also, we screened Kembrew McLeod's "Copyright Criminals" as the U Oregon FC inaugural event, as well as had him there to discuss...about 175+ showed up and people were sitting on the floor and watching from the halls....another good film that explores sampling and law that you may want to try and screen and I know he's down to do that. p's, stamp -- Andr? Sirois (aka dj food stamp) Doctoral Candidate & Graduate Teaching Fellow School of Journalism and Communication University of Oregon UO Students For Free Culture asirois at uoregon.edu https://www.myspace.com/therealdjfoodstamp From gameguy43 at gmail.com Wed May 20 03:36:32 2009 From: gameguy43 at gmail.com (D Parker Phinney) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 03:36:32 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] RiP: A Remix Manifesto In-Reply-To: <1242801013.579418.alphamail@mailapps2.uoregon.edu> References: <684dbf750905191907k65562c47j3bf558fbae9b7a90@mail.gmail.com> <1242801013.579418.alphamail@mailapps2.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: <4A13B300.80704@gmail.com> our rip screening is on friday. hoping for a crowd, but it's just before finals so we might fall short a little. i wish they had effing cc-ed their images. they have a promotional materials page that includes the html to embed their trailer. would have been more useful to be told that i can re-use the logo and the website background to make a poster. Andre Sirois wrote: > Yeah, a pretty good film here. However, my gripe is that it paints Girl Talk as some sort of remix deity, which I disagree with since I could name thousands of turntablists and hip hop producers who have done way more for the "remix," fair use and copyleft than this dude. To me, GT's music is only a bit more creative than Puffy's "I'll Be Missing You." Does anybody agree with that or am I just tripping on elitism? If you want to hear real remix shit, peep D-Styles's "Phantazmagorea," an album entirely made from two turntables and a mixer. > > Also, we screened Kembrew McLeod's "Copyright Criminals" as the U Oregon FC inaugural event, as well as had him there to discuss...about 175+ showed up and people were sitting on the floor and watching from the halls....another good film that explores sampling and law that you may want to try and screen and I know he's down to do that. > > p's, stamp > -- > Andr? Sirois (aka dj food stamp) > Doctoral Candidate & Graduate Teaching Fellow > School of Journalism and Communication > University of Oregon > UO Students For Free Culture > asirois at uoregon.edu > https://www.myspace.com/therealdjfoodstamp > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- D Parker Phinney madebyparker.com From rob at robmyers.org Wed May 20 04:37:43 2009 From: rob at robmyers.org (Rob Myers) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 09:37:43 +0100 Subject: [FC-discuss] RiP: A Remix Manifesto In-Reply-To: <1242801013.579418.alphamail@mailapps2.uoregon.edu> References: <684dbf750905191907k65562c47j3bf558fbae9b7a90@mail.gmail.com> <1242801013.579418.alphamail@mailapps2.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: <7fa25200905200137x1ee6bdc0n1b889655e0710b87@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 7:30 AM, Andre Sirois wrote: > Yeah, a pretty good film here. However, my gripe is that it paints Girl Talk as some sort of remix deity, which I disagree with since I could name thousands of turntablists and hip hop producers who have done way more for the "remix," fair use and copyleft than this dude. To me, GT's music is only a bit more creative than Puffy's "I'll Be Missing You." Does anybody agree with that or am I just tripping on elitism? It's big, dumb, harmless, cozy music for hipsters. If he could mix without a backing beat to cover the fail he might be almost as interesting as a school disco DJ. Were it not for the NC licensing and the Microsoft ad. http://thequietus.com/articles/00259-girl-talk "I guess your take on Feed the Animals rests on whether you like spending time with party dudes or if the coupling of those two words makes you want to cave skulls" - Rob. From glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us Wed May 20 09:12:51 2009 From: glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us (Glenn Kerbein) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 06:12:51 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] RiP: A Remix Manifesto In-Reply-To: <1242801013.579418.alphamail@mailapps2.uoregon.edu> References: <684dbf750905191907k65562c47j3bf558fbae9b7a90@mail.gmail.com> <1242801013.579418.alphamail@mailapps2.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: <4A1401D3.3090607@pirate-party.us> Girl Talk is a rather ubiquitous artist; one does not need to be involved or aware of the copyfight to know of him. However, to paraphrase Girl Talk, people go crazy for his collage music. His albums are not of excellent quality, arguably, but they signify how people are no longer only using media in one direction. Danger Mouse stated in Good Copy, Bad Copy the he sampled the Gray Album in order to demonstrate what anybody could do with music. Gillis epitomizes this for the everyman (as well as the social elite, like Paris Hilton). Andre Sirois wrote: > Yeah, a pretty good film here. However, my gripe is that it paints Girl Talk as some sort of remix deity, which I disagree with since I could name thousands of turntablists and hip hop producers who have done way more for the "remix," fair use and copyleft than this dude. To me, GT's music is only a bit more creative than Puffy's "I'll Be Missing You." Does anybody agree with that or am I just tripping on elitism? If you want to hear real remix shit, peep D-Styles's "Phantazmagorea," an album entirely made from two turntables and a mixer. > > Also, we screened Kembrew McLeod's "Copyright Criminals" as the U Oregon FC inaugural event, as well as had him there to discuss...about 175+ showed up and people were sitting on the floor and watching from the halls....another good film that explores sampling and law that you may want to try and screen and I know he's down to do that. > > p's, stamp > -- > Andr? Sirois (aka dj food stamp) > Doctoral Candidate & Graduate Teaching Fellow > School of Journalism and Communication > University of Oregon > UO Students For Free Culture > asirois at uoregon.edu > https://www.myspace.com/therealdjfoodstamp > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Glenn "Channel6" Kerbein Pirate Party of the United States "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" From fcb at fredbenenson.com Wed May 20 11:20:58 2009 From: fcb at fredbenenson.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 11:20:58 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] RiP: A Remix Manifesto In-Reply-To: <4A1401D3.3090607@pirate-party.us> References: <684dbf750905191907k65562c47j3bf558fbae9b7a90@mail.gmail.com> <1242801013.579418.alphamail@mailapps2.uoregon.edu> <4A1401D3.3090607@pirate-party.us> Message-ID: <8e447b720905200820g3f4f695atc8a3fa6cf576937a@mail.gmail.com> I think there are a lot of dimensions in which we can evaluate Girl Talk. One is the licensing / copyright / fair use dimension. Then there's the what-about-the-history-of-remix dimension. Then there's the actual music composition dimension. Oh, and don't forget the Microsoft Ad. Anyway, depending on your own world view, you'll give each of these perspectives varying weight. Some might judge him to be a "fail" because of the NC license, while others might think he's given too much credit for being a remix artist in light of those who came before him, and still others might think he's a pop-culture savant. Girl Talk wants to make music first and foremost -- I know this because I've had a couple conversations with him and artists like him. Its clear in his commitment to his performance. Its about performing a show and playing music people want to hear. His way of doing this is to exclusively sample other artist's music. That's his medium, message, and tool. I don't think its fair to judge him because you don't think this choice is too novel (or not enough); its the equivalent of saying John Cage "can't" release a track that is 4:33 seconds of silence. He can and he did and people loved it. And music critics agree -- Girl Talk's album got good reviews for the most part (Pitchfork gave it a 8.0 among others). I'm just uncomfortable with conflating this artistic / qualitative dimension with the rest of them. Art should be evaluated by its intrinsic properties rather then the ones external to it (e.g., Wagner was an antisemite) to the extent possible. Girl Talk makes that difficult because his work involves so many external issues (other people's music itself, and questions about fair use), so I think some crossover is likely, but I don't think its right for people to judge him solely on his license choice or how he re-exhibits previous styles. I also think this style of music is a genre in and of itself. In 2000, The Avalanches released an even better album than Girl Talk (IMHO) where they actually cleared all the samples -- its called 'Since I Left You', and I highly recommend you check it out. And DJ Shadow did Endtroducing ... and so on. which is why I don't understand the criticism that what Girl Talk is doing "isn't anything new" ... I know he's not doing anything new, and so do most people. But that's OK. Its why I like his music, I enjoy this particular style of mashup. There's a difference between saying he isn't doing anything new and saying he's not a good artist *because* he's not doing anything new. I think people tend toward the latter in their criticisms of his music. So party on dudes ... F ~ ~ ~ thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog work / http://creativecommons.org sights / http://flickr.com/fcb sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis status / http://twitter.com/mecredis On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 9:12 AM, Glenn Kerbein < glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us> wrote: > Girl Talk is a rather ubiquitous artist; one does not need to be > involved or aware of the copyfight to know of him. However, to > paraphrase Girl Talk, people go crazy for his collage music. His albums > are not of excellent quality, arguably, but they signify how people are > no longer only using media in one direction. Danger Mouse stated in Good > Copy, Bad Copy the he sampled the Gray Album in order to demonstrate > what anybody could do with music. Gillis epitomizes this for the > everyman (as well as the social elite, like Paris Hilton). > > Andre Sirois wrote: > > Yeah, a pretty good film here. However, my gripe is that it paints Girl > Talk as some sort of remix deity, which I disagree with since I could name > thousands of turntablists and hip hop producers who have done way more for > the "remix," fair use and copyleft than this dude. To me, GT's music is only > a bit more creative than Puffy's "I'll Be Missing You." Does anybody agree > with that or am I just tripping on elitism? If you want to hear real remix > shit, peep D-Styles's "Phantazmagorea," an album entirely made from two > turntables and a mixer. > > > > Also, we screened Kembrew McLeod's "Copyright Criminals" as the U Oregon > FC inaugural event, as well as had him there to discuss...about 175+ showed > up and people were sitting on the floor and watching from the > halls....another good film that explores sampling and law that you may want > to try and screen and I know he's down to do that. > > > > p's, stamp > > -- > > Andr? Sirois (aka dj food stamp) > > Doctoral Candidate & Graduate Teaching Fellow > > School of Journalism and Communication > > University of Oregon > > UO Students For Free Culture > > asirois at uoregon.edu > > https://www.myspace.com/therealdjfoodstamp > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -- > Glenn "Channel6" Kerbein > Pirate Party of the United States > "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090520/588ca716/attachment.htm From fcb at fredbenenson.com Wed May 20 11:25:07 2009 From: fcb at fredbenenson.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 11:25:07 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Jefferson on the Press -- and Connectivity! :-) In-Reply-To: <97afb7270905192306j481ae74pb48becae98a15403@mail.gmail.com> References: <48804B00.D0DBC06C@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> <49524E67.7FA9D2EB@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> <4A126D14.DA96A8F2@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> <97afb7270905192306j481ae74pb48becae98a15403@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8e447b720905200825qa866d45r7c39a50da16dd58b@mail.gmail.com> Larry points out an interesting bit of history about this passage here: http://www.lessig.org/blog/2009/05/jeffersons_remix_of_augustines.html ~ ~ ~ thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog work / http://creativecommons.org sights / http://flickr.com/fcb sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis status / http://twitter.com/mecredis On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 2:06 AM, Parker Higgins wrote: > That's awesome. Perhaps its a result of Jefferson's ridiculous brilliance, > but I've noticed on other occasions that he gets too briefly quoted. In > Boyle's Public Domain book there's a long discussion of what happens in the > Jefferson quote after the bit about using one candle to light another, > that's definitely worth reading. > > I don't have the text handy, and he explains it much better than I could! > > Parker > > > On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 1:25 AM, Seth Johnson < > seth.johnson at realmeasures.dyndns.org> wrote: > >> >> This might not be earthshattering, but I thought it was interesting -- >> note what Jefferson states in the last sentence here, after the >> sentence that's usually cited: >> >> >> "The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the >> very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me >> to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or >> newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to >> prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive >> those papers and be capable of reading them." >> >> -- Thomas Jefferson, 1787 >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss at freeculture.org >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090520/a9ff4235/attachment-0001.htm From emstark at gmail.com Wed May 20 11:38:11 2009 From: emstark at gmail.com (Elizabeth Stark) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 11:38:11 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] RiP: A Remix Manifesto In-Reply-To: <8e447b720905200820g3f4f695atc8a3fa6cf576937a@mail.gmail.com> References: <684dbf750905191907k65562c47j3bf558fbae9b7a90@mail.gmail.com> <1242801013.579418.alphamail@mailapps2.uoregon.edu> <4A1401D3.3090607@pirate-party.us> <8e447b720905200820g3f4f695atc8a3fa6cf576937a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <55bea5620905200838q3b333a1y961fc0de2309c2e4@mail.gmail.com> I actually disagree in that I think many (most) people do not know that what he's doing is not new. Whether that affects the perception of the quality of his music is debatable--sometimes people give credit because they believe something to be novel. That said, as many of you know, I am not a fan of his music artistically, and much prefer such highly sample-based music as the Avalanches or Akufen. So I guess I do like some of the microsampling genre if it even is one. On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 11:20 AM, Fred Benenson wrote: > I think there are a lot of dimensions in which we can evaluate Girl Talk. > One is the licensing / copyright / fair use dimension. Then there's the > what-about-the-history-of-remix dimension. Then there's the actual music > composition dimension. Oh, and don't forget the Microsoft Ad. > > Anyway, depending on your own world view, you'll give each of these > perspectives varying weight. Some might judge him to be a "fail" because of > the NC license, while others might think he's given too much credit for > being a remix artist in light of those who came before him, and still others > might think he's a pop-culture savant. > > Girl Talk wants to make music first and foremost -- I know this because > I've had a couple conversations with him and artists like him. Its clear in > his commitment to his performance. Its about performing a show and playing > music people want to hear. His way of doing this is to exclusively sample > other artist's music. That's his medium, message, and tool. I don't think > its fair to judge him because you don't think this choice is too novel (or > not enough); its the equivalent of saying John Cage "can't" release a track > that is 4:33 seconds of silence. He can and he did and people loved it. > > And music critics agree -- Girl Talk's album got good reviews for the most > part (Pitchfork gave it a 8.0 among others). I'm just uncomfortable with > conflating this artistic / qualitative dimension with the rest of them. Art > should be evaluated by its intrinsic properties rather then the ones > external to it (e.g., Wagner was an antisemite) > to the extent possible. Girl Talk makes that difficult because his work > involves so many external issues (other people's music itself, and questions > about fair use), so I think some crossover is likely, but I don't think its > right for people to judge him solely on his license choice or how he > re-exhibits previous styles. > > I also think this style of music is a genre in and of itself. In 2000, The > Avalanches released an even better album than Girl Talk (IMHO) where they > actually cleared all the samples -- its called 'Since I Left You', and I > highly recommend you check it out. And DJ Shadow did Endtroducing ... and so > on. which is why I don't understand the criticism that what Girl Talk is > doing "isn't anything new" ... I know he's not doing anything new, and so do > most people. But that's OK. Its why I like his music, I enjoy this > particular style of mashup. There's a difference between saying he isn't > doing anything new and saying he's not a good artist *because* he's not > doing anything new. I think people tend toward the latter in their > criticisms of his music. > > So party on dudes ... > > F > > > > > > ~ ~ ~ > thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog > work / http://creativecommons.org > sights / http://flickr.com/fcb > sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis > status / http://twitter.com/mecredis > > > > > On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 9:12 AM, Glenn Kerbein < > glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us> wrote: > >> Girl Talk is a rather ubiquitous artist; one does not need to be >> involved or aware of the copyfight to know of him. However, to >> paraphrase Girl Talk, people go crazy for his collage music. His albums >> are not of excellent quality, arguably, but they signify how people are >> no longer only using media in one direction. Danger Mouse stated in Good >> Copy, Bad Copy the he sampled the Gray Album in order to demonstrate >> what anybody could do with music. Gillis epitomizes this for the >> everyman (as well as the social elite, like Paris Hilton). >> >> Andre Sirois wrote: >> > Yeah, a pretty good film here. However, my gripe is that it paints Girl >> Talk as some sort of remix deity, which I disagree with since I could name >> thousands of turntablists and hip hop producers who have done way more for >> the "remix," fair use and copyleft than this dude. To me, GT's music is only >> a bit more creative than Puffy's "I'll Be Missing You." Does anybody agree >> with that or am I just tripping on elitism? If you want to hear real remix >> shit, peep D-Styles's "Phantazmagorea," an album entirely made from two >> turntables and a mixer. >> > >> > Also, we screened Kembrew McLeod's "Copyright Criminals" as the U Oregon >> FC inaugural event, as well as had him there to discuss...about 175+ showed >> up and people were sitting on the floor and watching from the >> halls....another good film that explores sampling and law that you may want >> to try and screen and I know he's down to do that. >> > >> > p's, stamp >> > -- >> > Andr? Sirois (aka dj food stamp) >> > Doctoral Candidate & Graduate Teaching Fellow >> > School of Journalism and Communication >> > University of Oregon >> > UO Students For Free Culture >> > asirois at uoregon.edu >> > https://www.myspace.com/therealdjfoodstamp >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Discuss mailing list >> > Discuss at freeculture.org >> > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> >> -- >> Glenn "Channel6" Kerbein >> Pirate Party of the United States >> "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss at freeculture.org >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090520/5d65c74c/attachment.htm From asirois at uoregon.edu Wed May 20 11:45:36 2009 From: asirois at uoregon.edu (Andre Sirois) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 08:45:36 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] RiP: A Remix Manifesto In-Reply-To: <55bea5620905200838q3b333a1y961fc0de2309c2e4@mail.gmail.com> References: <55bea5620905200838q3b333a1y961fc0de2309c2e4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1242834336.123834.alphamail@mailapps1.uoregon.edu> Peep all the hip hop released from 1979-1994 (roughly) to see some microsample shit.... On Wed, 20 May 2009 11:38:11 -0400, Elizabeth Stark wrote: > I actually disagree in that I think many (most) people do not know that what he's doing is not new. Whether that affects the perception of the quality of his music is debatable--sometimes people give credit because they believe something to be novel. > > That said, as many of you know, I am not a fan of his music artistically, and much prefer such highly sample-based music as the Avalanches or Akufen. So I guess I do like some of the microsampling genre if it even is one. > > > On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 11:20 AM, Fred Benenson < fcb at fredbenenson.com > wrote: > I think there are a lot of dimensions in which we can evaluate Girl Talk. One is the licensing / copyright / fair use dimension. Then there's the what-about-the-history-of-remix dimension. Then there's the actual music composition dimension. Oh, and don't forget the Microsoft Ad. > > Anyway, depending on your own world view, you'll give each of these perspectives varying weight. Some might judge him to be a "fail" because of the NC license, while others might think he's given too much credit for being a remix artist in light of those who came before him, and still others might think he's a pop-culture savant. > > Girl Talk wants to make music first and foremost -- I know this because I've had a couple conversations with him and artists like him. Its clear in his commitment to his performance. Its about performing a show and playing music people want to hear. His way of doing this is to exclusively sample other artist's music. That's his medium, message, and tool. I don't think its fair to judge him because you don't think this choice is too novel (or not enough); its the equivalent of saying John Cage "can't" release a track that is 4:33 seconds of silence. He can and he did and people loved it. > > And music critics agree -- Girl Talk's album got good reviews for the most part (Pitchfork gave it a 8.0 among others).? I'm just uncomfortable with conflating this artistic / qualitative dimension with the rest of them. Art should be evaluated by its intrinsic properties rather then the ones external to it (e.g., Wagner was an antisemite ) to the extent possible. Girl Talk makes that difficult because his work involves so many external issues (other people's music itself, and questions about fair use), so I think some crossover is likely, but I don't think its right for people to judge him solely on his license choice or how he re-exhibits previous styles. > > I also think this style of music is a genre in and of itself. In 2000, The Avalanches released an even better album than Girl Talk (IMHO) where they actually cleared all the samples -- its called 'Since I Left You', and I highly recommend you check it out. And DJ Shadow did Endtroducing ... and so on. which is why I don't understand the criticism that what Girl Talk is doing "isn't anything new" ... I know he's not doing anything new, and so do most people. But that's OK. Its why I like his music, I enjoy this particular style of mashup. There's a difference between saying he isn't doing anything new and saying he's not a good artist because he's not doing anything new. I think people tend toward the latter in their criticisms of his music. > > So party on dudes ... > > F > > > > > > ~ ~ ~ > thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog > work / http://creativecommons.org > sights / http://flickr.com/fcb > sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis > status / http://twitter.com/mecredis > > > > > > > > > On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 9:12 AM, Glenn Kerbein < glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us > wrote: > ? ? ? ?Girl Talk is a rather ubiquitous artist; one does not need to be > involved or aware of the copyfight to know of him. However, to > paraphrase Girl Talk, people go crazy for his collage music. His albums > are not of excellent quality, arguably, but they signify how people are > no longer only using media in one direction. Danger Mouse stated in Good > Copy, Bad Copy the he sampled the Gray Album in order to demonstrate > what anybody could do with music. Gillis epitomizes this for the > everyman (as well as the social elite, like ?Paris Hilton). > > > > > > Andre Sirois wrote: > > Yeah, a pretty good film here. However, my gripe is that it paints Girl Talk as some sort of remix deity, which I disagree with since I could name thousands of turntablists and hip hop producers who have done way more for the "remix," fair use and copyleft than this dude. To me, GT's music is only a bit more creative than Puffy's "I'll Be Missing You." Does anybody agree with that or am I just tripping on elitism? ?If you want to hear real remix shit, peep D-Styles's "Phantazmagorea," an album entirely made from two turntables and a mixer. > > > > Also, we screened Kembrew McLeod's "Copyright Criminals" as the U Oregon FC inaugural event, as well as had him there to discuss...about 175+ showed up and people were sitting on the floor and watching from the halls....another good film that explores sampling and law that you may want to try and screen and I know he's down to do that. > > > > p's, stamp > > -- > > Andr? Sirois (aka dj food stamp) > > Doctoral Candidate & Graduate Teaching Fellow > > School of Journalism and Communication > > University of Oregon > > UO Students For Free Culture > > asirois at uoregon.edu > > https://www.myspace.com/therealdjfoodstamp > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > -- > > Glenn "Channel6" Kerbein > Pirate Party of the United States > "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" > _______________________________________________ > > > > > > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Andr? Sirois (aka dj food stamp) Doctoral Candidate & Graduate Teaching Fellow School of Journalism and Communication University of Oregon UO Students For Free Culture asirois at uoregon.edu https://www.myspace.com/therealdjfoodstamp From asirois at uoregon.edu Wed May 20 11:47:06 2009 From: asirois at uoregon.edu (Andre Sirois) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 08:47:06 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] RiP: A Remix Manifesto In-Reply-To: <4A1401D3.3090607@pirate-party.us> References: <4A1401D3.3090607@pirate-party.us> Message-ID: <1242834426.574318.alphamail@mailapps1.uoregon.edu> What DJ Shadow and Danger Mouse do is totally different than Girl Talk. The former are crate diggers, who have spent countless hours searching out rare and dope records to make their compositions. The latter downloads MP3s. The former use the obscure and the old and even the popular to make their music; their sampling is part of a tradition of hiding the sample and inspiring the listener to figure out the sample and then find them on wax. The latter relies on the most popular parts of popular music and does little in the way of manipulation. The former have to actually be musical, in that they have to be familiar w/ musical theory/compositional methods to manipulate music. The latter uses software and time stretches his samples. I mean, honestly, the list goes on. The Grey Album, how it came together and the effort put into it, is light years ahead of "Feed The Animals." I mean, DM spent 12-14hrs/day for a few weeks to make that shit. Stringing together loops and fragments in software is actually very easy, but when we're talking about an SP1200, MPC, etc. rockin keys, sequencers, etc. it's on a whole new level. Blah, blah, blah. I appreciate what Illegal Arts does for sure and the message behind their music. If GT's music is fair, then there are thousands of great hip hop songs that should also be fair uses that have not seen the light of day. Now, give me 6 turntables and 6 turntablists and we could recreate a GT album and it'd be dope and musically, actually interesting as a performance. Watchin some dude push buttons on a plastic wrapped laptop is on some snooze shit. What John Cage did was dope, made us think. My point is that people have done what GT is doing for a long time, with little credit and def not pulling 20G's a show. What GT does is nothing new and there are so many other TRULY talented remix cats out there that push the boundaries of the sample and sample based music. I guess GT is just starting a new sampling tradition... As a crate digger, turntablist, beatsmith, I'm way biased. Peace, Food Stamp From emstark at gmail.com Wed May 20 11:55:02 2009 From: emstark at gmail.com (Elizabeth Stark) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 11:55:02 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] RiP: A Remix Manifesto In-Reply-To: <1242834426.574318.alphamail@mailapps1.uoregon.edu> References: <4A1401D3.3090607@pirate-party.us> <1242834426.574318.alphamail@mailapps1.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: <55bea5620905200855o54d01b2an385d0e204036aadd@mail.gmail.com> Btw, if anyone hasn't seen this classic video about the Amen Break, I'd highly recommend it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac (And Nate Harrison, the creator, will be at the Open Video Conference in NYC.) On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 11:47 AM, Andre Sirois wrote: > What DJ Shadow and Danger Mouse do is totally different than Girl Talk. The > former are crate diggers, who have spent countless hours searching out rare > and dope records to make their compositions. The latter downloads MP3s. The > former use the obscure and the old and even the popular to make their music; > their sampling is part of a tradition of hiding the sample and inspiring the > listener to figure out the sample and then find them on wax. The latter > relies on the most popular parts of popular music and does little in the way > of manipulation. The former have to actually be musical, in that they have > to be familiar w/ musical theory/compositional methods to manipulate music. > The latter uses software and time stretches his samples. > > I mean, honestly, the list goes on. The Grey Album, how it came together > and the effort put into it, is light years ahead of "Feed The Animals." I > mean, DM spent 12-14hrs/day for a few weeks to make that shit. Stringing > together loops and fragments in software is actually very easy, but when > we're talking about an SP1200, MPC, etc. rockin keys, sequencers, etc. it's > on a whole new level. > > Blah, blah, blah. I appreciate what Illegal Arts does for sure and the > message behind their music. If GT's music is fair, then there are thousands > of great hip hop songs that should also be fair uses that have not seen the > light of day. Now, give me 6 turntables and 6 turntablists and we could > recreate a GT album and it'd be dope and musically, actually interesting as > a performance. Watchin some dude push buttons on a plastic wrapped laptop is > on some snooze shit. > > What John Cage did was dope, made us think. My point is that people have > done what GT is doing for a long time, with little credit and def not > pulling 20G's a show. What GT does is nothing new and there are so many > other TRULY talented remix cats out there that push the boundaries of the > sample and sample based music. > > I guess GT is just starting a new sampling tradition... > > As a crate digger, turntablist, beatsmith, I'm way biased. Peace, Food > Stamp > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090520/c3d9ae3a/attachment-0001.htm From asirois at uoregon.edu Wed May 20 12:05:26 2009 From: asirois at uoregon.edu (Andre Sirois) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 09:05:26 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] some dope ass sampling music right hurr...Teeko on the Controller One Message-ID: <1242835526.726496.alphamail@mailapps1.uoregon.edu> This dude is fiyah! The C1 turntable allows you to play notes and watch this dude do it. This sampling is interesting to me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4mWdC5DV4g&feature=related -- Andr? Sirois (aka dj food stamp) Doctoral Candidate & Graduate Teaching Fellow School of Journalism and Communication University of Oregon UO Students For Free Culture asirois at uoregon.edu https://www.myspace.com/therealdjfoodstamp From aphid at ucsc.edu Wed May 20 14:24:13 2009 From: aphid at ucsc.edu (aphid) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 11:24:13 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] RiP: A Remix Manifesto In-Reply-To: <55bea5620905200855o54d01b2an385d0e204036aadd@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A1401D3.3090607@pirate-party.us> <1242834426.574318.alphamail@mailapps1.uoregon.edu> <55bea5620905200855o54d01b2an385d0e204036aadd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A144ACD.7000408@ucsc.edu> see also craig baldwin's 1995 film, sonic outlaws, http://www.ubu.com/film/baldwin_sonic.html which covers negativland, the tape beatles, emergency broadcast network &etc. i particularly like his framing of this all as electronic folk culture. `digital` masks a lot of work, some on vinyl, some tape cutups, some digital, some hybrid... that have been going on over the last several decades. peas a Elizabeth Stark wrote: > Btw, if anyone hasn't seen this classic video about the Amen Break, > I'd highly recommend it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac > > (And Nate Harrison, the creator, will be at the Open Video Conference > in NYC.) > > On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 11:47 AM, Andre Sirois > wrote: > > What DJ Shadow and Danger Mouse do is totally different than Girl > Talk. The former are crate diggers, who have spent countless hours > searching out rare and dope records to make their compositions. > The latter downloads MP3s. The former use the obscure and the old > and even the popular to make their music; their sampling is part > of a tradition of hiding the sample and inspiring the listener to > figure out the sample and then find them on wax. The latter relies > on the most popular parts of popular music and does little in the > way of manipulation. The former have to actually be musical, in > that they have to be familiar w/ musical theory/compositional > methods to manipulate music. The latter uses software and time > stretches his samples. > > I mean, honestly, the list goes on. The Grey Album, how it came > together and the effort put into it, is light years ahead of "Feed > The Animals." I mean, DM spent 12-14hrs/day for a few weeks to > make that shit. Stringing together loops and fragments in software > is actually very easy, but when we're talking about an SP1200, > MPC, etc. rockin keys, sequencers, etc. it's on a whole new level. > > Blah, blah, blah. I appreciate what Illegal Arts does for sure and > the message behind their music. If GT's music is fair, then there > are thousands of great hip hop songs that should also be fair uses > that have not seen the light of day. Now, give me 6 turntables and > 6 turntablists and we could recreate a GT album and it'd be dope > and musically, actually interesting as a performance. Watchin some > dude push buttons on a plastic wrapped laptop is on some snooze shit. > > What John Cage did was dope, made us think. My point is that > people have done what GT is doing for a long time, with little > credit and def not pulling 20G's a show. What GT does is nothing > new and there are so many other TRULY talented remix cats out > there that push the boundaries of the sample and sample based music. > > I guess GT is just starting a new sampling tradition... > > As a crate digger, turntablist, beatsmith, I'm way biased. Peace, > Food Stamp > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > From asirois at uoregon.edu Wed May 20 17:07:59 2009 From: asirois at uoregon.edu (Andre Sirois) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 14:07:59 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] RiP: A Remix Manifesto In-Reply-To: <4A144ACD.7000408@ucsc.edu> References: <4A144ACD.7000408@ucsc.edu> Message-ID: <1242853679.109253.alphamail@mailapps1.uoregon.edu> Yeah, this is a dope film. For those interested in copyright's effects on documentary film, peep Kembrew McLeod's "Freedom of Expression".... On Wed, 20 May 2009 11:24:13 -0700, aphid wrote: > see also craig baldwin's 1995 film, sonic outlaws, > http://www.ubu.com/film/baldwin_sonic.html which covers negativland, the > tape beatles, emergency broadcast network &etc. i particularly like his > framing of this all as electronic folk culture. `digital` masks a lot > of work, some on vinyl, some tape cutups, some digital, some hybrid... > that have been going on over the last several decades. > > peas > a > > Elizabeth Stark wrote: > > Btw, if anyone hasn't seen this classic video about the Amen Break, > > I'd highly recommend it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac > > > > (And Nate Harrison, the creator, will be at the Open Video Conference > > in NYC.) > > > > On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 11:47 AM, Andre Sirois > > wrote: > > > > What DJ Shadow and Danger Mouse do is totally different than Girl > > Talk. The former are crate diggers, who have spent countless hours > > searching out rare and dope records to make their compositions. > > The latter downloads MP3s. The former use the obscure and the old > > and even the popular to make their music; their sampling is part > > of a tradition of hiding the sample and inspiring the listener to > > figure out the sample and then find them on wax. The latter relies > > on the most popular parts of popular music and does little in the > > way of manipulation. The former have to actually be musical, in > > that they have to be familiar w/ musical theory/compositional > > methods to manipulate music. The latter uses software and time > > stretches his samples. > > > > I mean, honestly, the list goes on. The Grey Album, how it came > > together and the effort put into it, is light years ahead of "Feed > > The Animals." I mean, DM spent 12-14hrs/day for a few weeks to > > make that shit. Stringing together loops and fragments in software > > is actually very easy, but when we're talking about an SP1200, > > MPC, etc. rockin keys, sequencers, etc. it's on a whole new level. > > > > Blah, blah, blah. I appreciate what Illegal Arts does for sure and > > the message behind their music. If GT's music is fair, then there > > are thousands of great hip hop songs that should also be fair uses > > that have not seen the light of day. Now, give me 6 turntables and > > 6 turntablists and we could recreate a GT album and it'd be dope > > and musically, actually interesting as a performance. Watchin some > > dude push buttons on a plastic wrapped laptop is on some snooze shit. > > > > What John Cage did was dope, made us think. My point is that > > people have done what GT is doing for a long time, with little > > credit and def not pulling 20G's a show. What GT does is nothing > > new and there are so many other TRULY talented remix cats out > > there that push the boundaries of the sample and sample based music. > > > > I guess GT is just starting a new sampling tradition... > > > > As a crate digger, turntablist, beatsmith, I'm way biased. Peace, > > Food Stamp > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- Andr? Sirois (aka dj food stamp) Doctoral Candidate & Graduate Teaching Fellow School of Journalism and Communication University of Oregon UO Students For Free Culture asirois at uoregon.edu https://www.myspace.com/therealdjfoodstamp From fred.benenson at gmail.com Fri May 22 13:12:17 2009 From: fred.benenson at gmail.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 13:12:17 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Voting for the 2009 Board Elections Begins Now. Message-ID: <8e447b720905221012t36330e69i1abab031b88be14b@mail.gmail.com> Dear Students for Free Culture, If you're an active, registered chapter, you will probably have received a link to vote for the 2009 Board vote. Take this seriously and follow the instructions carefully. Here are the nominations and platforms of their respective campaigns: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Board09/Nominations#Higgins.2C_Parker.2C_Free_Culture_.40_NYU Please let me know if you: A) Are a chapter head who didn't receive a vote ballot B) Don't know what to do. Best, Fred ~ ~ ~ thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog work / http://creativecommons.org sights / http://flickr.com/fcb sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis status / http://twitter.com/mecredis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090522/32a340b6/attachment.htm From johns at fsf.org Fri May 22 16:45:31 2009 From: johns at fsf.org (John Sullivan) Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 16:45:31 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Job opening at the Free Software Foundation Message-ID: <864ovckgt0.fsf@ubik.office.fsf.org> We are hiring a campaigns manager to help run the FSF's various campaigns: DefectiveByDesign.org, PlayOgg,org, LibrePlanet.org, and everything to come :). http://www.fsf.org/news/campaigns-manager It's a great job, with a lot of potential for influencing the work that we do. Please help us spread the word about the opening -- it would be great to get someone with a background in the free culture movement. Thanks! -- -John Sullivan, FSF -Operations Manager From luke.thomas.smith at gmail.com Sat May 23 14:51:30 2009 From: luke.thomas.smith at gmail.com (Luke Smith) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 11:51:30 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Wired's Kevin Kelly: The New Socialism Message-ID: <9f8468510905231151r109d8acsbe412a9060d08ce0@mail.gmail.com> "The frantic global rush to connect everyone to everyone, all the time, is quietly giving rise to a revised version of socialism." http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_newsocialism?currentPage=all Overall I'd say this is a nice article to come across, but here are some brief thoughts: (1) It's incredibly naive to say that "workers own the means of production" when the virtual factory floor on which that production is taking place is Flickr or YouTube. Granted, the Internet is owned at all levels from the physical on up and we shouldn't let that stop us from making it a site of collectivism, but the terms on which Web applications/platforms provide a pseudopublic space to users are still being hammered out. (2) Kelly brushes past the fact that systems like Wikipedia are ultimately run by elites. In fact, strong elites are the inevitable result of pursuing "structureless" organization. They may in some practical sense be better than Oracle, but Oracle does, let's remember, have a fully public corporate governance structure that anyone with sufficient cash can theoretically participate effectively in. Can anyone with sufficient merit or knowledge or whatever alternative currency we're accepting make their way into the true governing class at Wikipedia? (3) The fundamental missed point here is that, although network effects allow for an output greater than the sum of inputs even in a community like Flickr, there's an aspect of collectivism that's missing: building mutual commitment, solidarity and shared power. It's not entirely absent -- amazonfail, fixreplies, sure -- but I think its fair to say that participation in this new "global collectivism" is always instantaneous voluntary participation. Everyone does it as long as it works for them and no longer, not building up a sense of lateral commitment or group identity/power. This type of collectivism is very compatible with commercial interests because the positive network production effects are there but the communal force to be reckoned with is not. For more on this, I really recommend this short talk on the Obama victory given by labor organizing vetaran Marshall Ganz at the Berkman Center. http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2009/05/17/ganz-on-organizing/ This essay, which he references, is a very cool artifact from 1970's feminism that has interesting implications for FC'ers: http://uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/jofreeman/joreen/tyranny.htm LS -- Luke Smith http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/~smith/ luke.thomas.smith at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090523/db69610a/attachment.htm From driscollkevin at gmail.com Sat May 23 15:13:57 2009 From: driscollkevin at gmail.com (Kevin Driscoll) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 15:13:57 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] some dope ass sampling music right hurr...Teeko on the Controller One In-Reply-To: <1242835526.726496.alphamail@mailapps1.uoregon.edu> References: <1242835526.726496.alphamail@mailapps1.uoregon.edu> Message-ID: <87a8578e0905231213y2e52560bg6f1c200b54710591@mail.gmail.com> I really like this vid. Not only does it show off the extent to which extant media artifacts can be (re)used as a raw material, the actual performance contains a few layers of sampling/reference. At 2:04, Teeko starts playing a new melody and at 2:21, he looks up and says "Remember that?" The melody is from an Isaac Hayes track but he playing it as it was interpolated by a sampler on a Geto Boys track! So he's using material from one recording to re-play the result of an earlier sample-based piece. Performance begets sample begets new performance? Evidence: * Isaac Hayes "Hung Up On My Baby" (0:33) http://www.viddler.com/explore/GStrongRAW/videos/27/ * Geto Boys "Mind Playing Tricks On Me" (1:07) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G272iYvxW_w The Controller One is a bizarre piece of music tech. Can't imagine anyone save for the most intense scratch-nerds getting into it but it definitely shows the durability of the turntable+mixer as an interface to manipulating sound... Kdriscoll On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 12:05 PM, Andre Sirois wrote: > This dude is fiyah! The C1 turntable allows you to play notes and watch this dude do it. This sampling is interesting to me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4mWdC5DV4g&feature=related > -- > Andr? Sirois (aka dj food stamp) > Doctoral Candidate & Graduate Teaching Fellow > School of Journalism and Communication > University of Oregon > UO Students For Free Culture > asirois at uoregon.edu > https://www.myspace.com/therealdjfoodstamp > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > From driscollkevin at gmail.com Sat May 23 15:27:07 2009 From: driscollkevin at gmail.com (Kevin Driscoll) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 15:27:07 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Month zero of Fc-discuss forum Message-ID: <209.4a184e07@freeculture.org> Couple thoughts on my month of reading FC-discuss on the forum exclusively. I'd love to hear other folk's experiences: * I only checked a few times a week and was less inclined to respond to every topic. Threads tended to have been elaborated with a few responses by the time I read them so it was more like reading a digest. * When I needed to search for something, I searched in Gmail rather than go to the forum. Conclusion: I am going to continue to filter fc-discuss out of my inbox and read on the web. Kdriscoll -- http://twitter.com/desconcentrado From sffcvt at vt.edu Sat May 23 17:18:55 2009 From: sffcvt at vt.edu (Matt) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 17:18:55 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Copyright Alliance in US schools Message-ID: <4A18683F.2010905@vt.edu> Saw this on TorrentFreak today: http://torrentfreak.com/pro-copyright-propaganda-enters-us-classrooms-090522/ Something I found particularly concerning is the quote from a school administrator on why they decided to provide this: "Engley told TorrentFreak in a comment, 'Our school has a communication and arts focus, we engaged in this relationship [with the Copyright Alliance] to assist our students protect their own intellectual property. We were teaching our students how to produce, but not educating them on how to protect what they produce.'" So what if they want to share what they have made? Are you going to encourage that, or are you going to say something to the extent of "Sharing is bad. Never share what you have produced."? From kdonovan11 at gmail.com Sat May 23 18:06:05 2009 From: kdonovan11 at gmail.com (Kevin Donovan) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 18:06:05 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Copyright Alliance in US schools In-Reply-To: <4A18683F.2010905@vt.edu> References: <4A18683F.2010905@vt.edu> Message-ID: <827235d0905231506h683a5462n3f60b7f54c0f06c0@mail.gmail.com> At FC08 this was discussed and representatives of both Berkman and EFF said they were working on balanced IP education for kids, but I haven't heard anymore since then... On 5/23/09, Matt wrote: > Saw this on TorrentFreak today: > > http://torrentfreak.com/pro-copyright-propaganda-enters-us-classrooms-090522/ > > Something I found particularly concerning is the quote from a school > administrator on why they decided to provide this: > > "Engley told TorrentFreak in a comment, 'Our school has a communication > and arts focus, we engaged in this relationship [with the Copyright > Alliance] to assist our students protect their own intellectual > property. We were teaching our students how to produce, but not > educating them on how to protect what they produce.'" > > So what if they want to share what they have made? Are you going to > encourage that, or are you going to say something to the extent of > "Sharing is bad. Never share what you have produced."? > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- Sent from my mobile device Kevin Donovan Georgetown '11: SFS 630.849.8285 From akozak at berkeley.edu Sat May 23 19:20:05 2009 From: akozak at berkeley.edu (Alex Kozak) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 16:20:05 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Copyright Alliance in US schools In-Reply-To: <827235d0905231506h683a5462n3f60b7f54c0f06c0@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A18683F.2010905@vt.edu> <827235d0905231506h683a5462n3f60b7f54c0f06c0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: It's still in the works. Also, ccLearn will be going into high-school journalism classes and talking about copyright and new media practices in new journalism: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/14034 There is plenty of room for other initiatives though... for example, SFC chapters could volunteer to talk about these kinds of issues in local schools. It's important that we don't turn education into an adversarial process though, and don't see it only as reactionary... but that's just my two cents. - Alex On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Kevin Donovan wrote: > At FC08 this was discussed and representatives of both Berkman and EFF > said they were working on balanced IP education for kids, but I > haven't heard anymore since then... > > On 5/23/09, Matt wrote: > > Saw this on TorrentFreak today: > > > > > http://torrentfreak.com/pro-copyright-propaganda-enters-us-classrooms-090522/ > > > > Something I found particularly concerning is the quote from a school > > administrator on why they decided to provide this: > > > > "Engley told TorrentFreak in a comment, 'Our school has a communication > > and arts focus, we engaged in this relationship [with the Copyright > > Alliance] to assist our students protect their own intellectual > > property. We were teaching our students how to produce, but not > > educating them on how to protect what they produce.'" > > > > So what if they want to share what they have made? Are you going to > > encourage that, or are you going to say something to the extent of > > "Sharing is bad. Never share what you have produced."? > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > -- > Sent from my mobile device > > Kevin Donovan > Georgetown '11: SFS > 630.849.8285 > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- Alex Kozak akozak at berkeley.edu 916.225.2718 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090523/03e77f55/attachment.htm From oday at fas.harvard.edu Sat May 23 19:26:40 2009 From: oday at fas.harvard.edu (Oliver Day) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 19:26:40 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Copyright Alliance in US schools In-Reply-To: <827235d0905231506h683a5462n3f60b7f54c0f06c0@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A18683F.2010905@vt.edu> <827235d0905231506h683a5462n3f60b7f54c0f06c0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A188630.8050700@fas.harvard.edu> Kevin Donovan wrote: > At FC08 this was discussed and representatives of both Berkman and EFF > said they were working on balanced IP education for kids, but I > haven't heard anymore since then... I know one of the Berkman projects is working on Fair Use education for kids. I don't know all the details but they are really coming along now. O From kdonovan11 at gmail.com Sat May 23 19:44:36 2009 From: kdonovan11 at gmail.com (Kevin Donovan) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 19:44:36 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Copyright Alliance in US schools In-Reply-To: References: <4A18683F.2010905@vt.edu> <827235d0905231506h683a5462n3f60b7f54c0f06c0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <827235d0905231644h5ce96d66sec7ba5960da7289d@mail.gmail.com> Agree about not making it adversarial- in fact, it would be great to reach out to the Copyright Alliance and see if v2 of this could be done together to find room for agreement. Probably a reach but could be a neat effort. On 5/23/09, Alex Kozak wrote: > It's still in the works. Also, ccLearn will be going into high-school > journalism classes and talking about copyright and new media practices in > new journalism: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/14034 > > There is plenty of room for other initiatives though... for example, SFC > chapters could volunteer to talk about these kinds of issues in local > schools. It's important that we don't turn education into an adversarial > process though, and don't see it only as reactionary... but that's just my > two cents. > > - Alex > > On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Kevin Donovan wrote: > >> At FC08 this was discussed and representatives of both Berkman and EFF >> said they were working on balanced IP education for kids, but I >> haven't heard anymore since then... >> >> On 5/23/09, Matt wrote: >> > Saw this on TorrentFreak today: >> > >> > >> http://torrentfreak.com/pro-copyright-propaganda-enters-us-classrooms-090522/ >> > >> > Something I found particularly concerning is the quote from a school >> > administrator on why they decided to provide this: >> > >> > "Engley told TorrentFreak in a comment, 'Our school has a communication >> > and arts focus, we engaged in this relationship [with the Copyright >> > Alliance] to assist our students protect their own intellectual >> > property. We were teaching our students how to produce, but not >> > educating them on how to protect what they produce.'" >> > >> > So what if they want to share what they have made? Are you going to >> > encourage that, or are you going to say something to the extent of >> > "Sharing is bad. Never share what you have produced."? >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Discuss mailing list >> > Discuss at freeculture.org >> > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> > >> >> -- >> Sent from my mobile device >> >> Kevin Donovan >> Georgetown '11: SFS >> 630.849.8285 >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss at freeculture.org >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> > > > > -- > Alex Kozak > akozak at berkeley.edu > 916.225.2718 > -- Sent from my mobile device Kevin Donovan Georgetown '11: SFS 630.849.8285 From kdonovan11 at gmail.com Sat May 23 19:54:40 2009 From: kdonovan11 at gmail.com (Kevin Donovan) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 19:54:40 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Copyright Alliance in US schools In-Reply-To: <827235d0905231644h5ce96d66sec7ba5960da7289d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A18683F.2010905@vt.edu> <827235d0905231506h683a5462n3f60b7f54c0f06c0@mail.gmail.com> <827235d0905231644h5ce96d66sec7ba5960da7289d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <827235d0905231654r57620931gb09e0fb9cfd96825@mail.gmail.com> Think along the lines of Lessig and Valenti introducing CC together. On 5/23/09, Kevin Donovan wrote: > Agree about not making it adversarial- in fact, it would be great to > reach out to the Copyright Alliance and see if v2 of this could be > done together to find room for agreement. Probably a reach but could > be a neat effort. > > On 5/23/09, Alex Kozak wrote: >> It's still in the works. Also, ccLearn will be going into high-school >> journalism classes and talking about copyright and new media practices in >> new journalism: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/14034 >> >> There is plenty of room for other initiatives though... for example, SFC >> chapters could volunteer to talk about these kinds of issues in local >> schools. It's important that we don't turn education into an adversarial >> process though, and don't see it only as reactionary... but that's just >> my >> two cents. >> >> - Alex >> >> On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Kevin Donovan >> wrote: >> >>> At FC08 this was discussed and representatives of both Berkman and EFF >>> said they were working on balanced IP education for kids, but I >>> haven't heard anymore since then... >>> >>> On 5/23/09, Matt wrote: >>> > Saw this on TorrentFreak today: >>> > >>> > >>> http://torrentfreak.com/pro-copyright-propaganda-enters-us-classrooms-090522/ >>> > >>> > Something I found particularly concerning is the quote from a school >>> > administrator on why they decided to provide this: >>> > >>> > "Engley told TorrentFreak in a comment, 'Our school has a >>> > communication >>> > and arts focus, we engaged in this relationship [with the Copyright >>> > Alliance] to assist our students protect their own intellectual >>> > property. We were teaching our students how to produce, but not >>> > educating them on how to protect what they produce.'" >>> > >>> > So what if they want to share what they have made? Are you going to >>> > encourage that, or are you going to say something to the extent of >>> > "Sharing is bad. Never share what you have produced."? >>> > _______________________________________________ >>> > Discuss mailing list >>> > Discuss at freeculture.org >>> > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >>> > >>> >>> -- >>> Sent from my mobile device >>> >>> Kevin Donovan >>> Georgetown '11: SFS >>> 630.849.8285 >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Discuss mailing list >>> Discuss at freeculture.org >>> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Alex Kozak >> akozak at berkeley.edu >> 916.225.2718 >> > > -- > Sent from my mobile device > > Kevin Donovan > Georgetown '11: SFS > 630.849.8285 > -- Sent from my mobile device Kevin Donovan Georgetown '11: SFS 630.849.8285 From glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us Sun May 24 01:49:27 2009 From: glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us (Glenn Kerbein) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 22:49:27 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Copyright Alliance in US schools In-Reply-To: <4A18683F.2010905@vt.edu> References: <4A18683F.2010905@vt.edu> Message-ID: <4A18DFE7.8000904@pirate-party.us> The main caveat I have is regarding their overall hypocracy. They brush off Lessig's Free Culture, arguably the most moderate piece of contemporary literature, as a leftist propaganda piece. They've made an organization into something it's not: peddlers of counterfeit DVDs, which could actually land them in some legal trouble. I have my reservations about Ernesto's conjecture about their operations. "The more restrictions, the more money can be made is their credo," gives me the idea that Ernesto is going towards an anti-business model. I do not agree that this is true; corporations can both flourish or wither due to copyright applications. On another note, some basic forensics brings up somesuspicious conclusions. They bill themselves as a nonprofit education instution, where a 501c3 tax-exempt foundation could easily suit their needs. However, their whois information only shows they have offices in DC. Their email address recorded with the registrar is invalid. I've not run the phone number, so I don't know if it's legitimate. This leads me to believe that they are not incorporated nor recognized by a federal authority to be anything other than a loose affiliation of people. http://whois.domaintools.com/copyrightalliance.org However, a lookup through the DC SoS shows this: http://mblr.dc.gov/corp/lookup/status.asp?id=265343 Their incorporation documents show one address, and their whos shows another. Contradictory much? Matt wrote: > Saw this on TorrentFreak today: > > http://torrentfreak.com/pro-copyright-propaganda-enters-us-classrooms-090522/ > > Something I found particularly concerning is the quote from a school > administrator on why they decided to provide this: > > "Engley told TorrentFreak in a comment, 'Our school has a communication > and arts focus, we engaged in this relationship [with the Copyright > Alliance] to assist our students protect their own intellectual > property. We were teaching our students how to produce, but not > educating them on how to protect what they produce.'" > > So what if they want to share what they have made? Are you going to > encourage that, or are you going to say something to the extent of > "Sharing is bad. Never share what you have produced."? > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Glenn "Channel6" Kerbein Pirate Party of the United States "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" From luke.thomas.smith at gmail.com Mon May 25 19:34:32 2009 From: luke.thomas.smith at gmail.com (Luke Smith) Date: Mon, 25 May 2009 16:34:32 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Help Mozilla do some soul-searching? Message-ID: <9f8468510905251634o566f73a5h1be14905dea8133c@mail.gmail.com> Mark Surman, ED of the Mozilla foundation, has a blog post up soliciting one-sentence descriptions of Mozilla's mission. Mozilla is currently working on ways to communicate its broader mission of defending the "open Web" to more people. http://commonspace.wordpress.com/2009/05/25/mozilla-in-one-sentence/ Thinking about the changing battlefield that Tim described a while back, some of their thinking seems to me to be pointing in the right direction; that is, thinking beyond copyright to the broader fight for freedom online. This is their current favorite (which is actually three sentences): "The Internet is the greatest development of our lifetimes. Mozilla exists to foster the Internet such that all people are able to realize its full benefit. We are a people-driven movement to protect choice and freedom on the Web. Join us!" I might propose something like this: "Mozilla exists to ensure that the enormous productive and expressive power of the Internet is owned by and benefits humanity as a whole." Replace "Mozilla" with "The Free Culture Movement" and it's not a terrible fit. "Owned" isn't quite right, maybe, but what I want to get at is the problematic fact that private platforms like FB and Google have the potential and even the responsibility (to their shareholders) to leverage the community "capital" built up users for their own ends, and the need to assert firm boundaries to protect users' control/freedom (not just informal "Chewbacca principle" concessions). I'm curious what FC people might think a good one-sentence mission for Mozilla would be, what its role in the movement is or could be, and how it would differ from SFC's. ??? LS -- Luke Smith http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/~smith/ luke.thomas.smith at gmail.com From kdonovan11 at gmail.com Tue May 26 13:38:42 2009 From: kdonovan11 at gmail.com (Kevin Donovan) Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 13:38:42 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Obama and free software In-Reply-To: <4A061BEB.4030602@ucsc.edu> References: <1241892666.11774.205.camel@xps> <20090509182418.GD3743@singpolyma-mini> <1241902626.11774.379.camel@xps> <4A060C43.5080202@gavinbaker.com> <1241913527.6172.21.camel@xps> <4A061BEB.4030602@ucsc.edu> Message-ID: <827235d0905261038tb84db1bm629450c08837c3f4@mail.gmail.com> Been traveling so I wasn't able to follow this, but this could serve as a model: http://www.freesoftwarepact.eu/ On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 8:12 PM, aphid wrote: > quotes from some NEH grant procedures, via > http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/digitalhumanitiesstartup.html: > > "In order to facilitate dissemination and increase the impact of the > projects that are ultimately developed through Digital Humanities > Start-Up Grants, applicants are strongly encouraged to employ > open-source and fully accessible software." > > "Applicants should provide a rationale for the compatibility of their > methodology with the intellectual goals of the project and the > expectations of its users. NEH views the use of open-source software as > a key component in the broad distribution of exemplary digital > scholarship in the humanities. If either the start-up project or the > long-term project is not predicated on generally accessible open-source > software, explain why and also explain how NEH?s dissemination goals > will still be satisfied by the project." > > ^^ projeccts which use proprietary software are required to justify it. > > peace, > a > > James Love wrote: > > On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 19:05 -0400, Gavin Baker wrote: > > > > > >> Another topic that might fit under this heading relates to e-voting and > >> other black box technologies, e.g. breathalyzers. Should public > >> disclosure of source code be required? What about private review of > >> source code, e.g. so someone accused of DUI can at least compel private > >> disclosure as part of their defense? (I am not confusing disclosed > >> source with free software, but I see them as related.) > >> > > > > Interesting. If voting software was not free on day one, it should > > probably not take 95 years before it comes free. > > > > > >> Related to source disclosure, what about software copyright? Currently, > >> to register copyright on a computer program, the author has to submit (I > >> wish I was making this up) the "first 25 and last 25 pages of [the > >> program's] source code". If that wasn't bad enough, you can even refuse > >> to provide ANY source code, and you can black out sections you claim as > >> trade secrets. Obviously, these records will do no good at all on the > >> (distant) date that the software enters the public domain. Does the > >> administration think these procedures are reasonable and in the public > >> interest? > >> > > > > I don't know much about software registration requirements. But it might > > be confusing to include in a free software letter something that > > concerns proprietary software. > > > > > >>> Grant Related Issues: > >>> > >> [...] > >> > >>> 15. Should federal grants require recipients to publish and share data > >>> in open standardized formats? > >>> > >> I think what you're getting at here is the question of federal grantees > >> using proprietary file formats vs. open ones -- is that right? If so, > >> I'd make the question clearer, e.g.: > >> > >> "Should federal grants require recipients, when publishing or sharing > >> data, to use open formats?" > >> > > > > This is better. > > > > > >> P.S. It may be useful to target questions at specific federal offices, > >> esp. CTO, CIO, and OSTP. Everybody wants to hear about the new CTO! > >> E.g., "Gov to be ran on 100% free software" is one of the highest-rated > >> ideas on ObamaCTO.org. > >> > > > > I personally would like to get elected officials begin to deal with > > these issues. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- Kevin Donovan Georgetown '11: SFS 630.849.8285 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090526/2e781c57/attachment.htm From kdonovan11 at gmail.com Wed May 27 14:41:57 2009 From: kdonovan11 at gmail.com (Kevin Donovan) Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 14:41:57 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Copyright Alliance in US schools In-Reply-To: <4A18DFE7.8000904@pirate-party.us> References: <4A18683F.2010905@vt.edu> <4A18DFE7.8000904@pirate-party.us> Message-ID: <827235d0905271141q1128d147o7c01c7911ebbabf8@mail.gmail.com> Here we go: http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2009/05/27 On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 1:49 AM, Glenn Kerbein < glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us> wrote: > The main caveat I have is regarding their overall hypocracy. They brush > off Lessig's Free Culture, arguably the most moderate piece of > contemporary literature, as a leftist propaganda piece. They've made an > organization into something it's not: peddlers of counterfeit DVDs, > which could actually land them in some legal trouble. > I have my reservations about Ernesto's conjecture about their > operations. "The more restrictions, the more money can be made is their > credo," gives me the idea that Ernesto is going towards an anti-business > model. I do not agree that this is true; corporations can both flourish > or wither due to copyright applications. > > On another note, some basic forensics brings up somesuspicious > conclusions. They bill themselves as a nonprofit education instution, > where a 501c3 tax-exempt foundation could easily suit their needs. > However, their whois information only shows they have offices in DC. > Their email address recorded with the registrar is invalid. I've not run > the phone number, so I don't know if it's legitimate. This leads me to > believe that they are not incorporated nor recognized by a federal > authority to be anything other than a loose affiliation of people. > http://whois.domaintools.com/copyrightalliance.org > However, a lookup through the DC SoS shows this: > http://mblr.dc.gov/corp/lookup/status.asp?id=265343 > Their incorporation documents show one address, and their whos shows > another. Contradictory much? > > Matt wrote: > > Saw this on TorrentFreak today: > > > > > http://torrentfreak.com/pro-copyright-propaganda-enters-us-classrooms-090522/ > > > > Something I found particularly concerning is the quote from a school > > administrator on why they decided to provide this: > > > > "Engley told TorrentFreak in a comment, 'Our school has a communication > > and arts focus, we engaged in this relationship [with the Copyright > > Alliance] to assist our students protect their own intellectual > > property. We were teaching our students how to produce, but not > > educating them on how to protect what they produce.'" > > > > So what if they want to share what they have made? Are you going to > > encourage that, or are you going to say something to the extent of > > "Sharing is bad. Never share what you have produced."? > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -- > Glenn "Channel6" Kerbein > Pirate Party of the United States > "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- Kevin Donovan Georgetown '11: SFS 630.849.8285 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090527/c04bacf7/attachment.htm From noel at noneck.org Wed May 27 16:30:05 2009 From: noel at noneck.org (noel hidalgo) Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 16:30:05 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Provide your input on how NY State can provide open-access and more! Message-ID: Next friday my coworkers and I are putting together a Barcamp in Albany to talk about the future of State Government. I know many of Free Culture's fights are well aimed at the grassroots level and here's your chance to help educate one state capitol on how to move forward! Next Friday is CapitolCamp NY (June 5th 2009) at the New York State Capitol. < http://capitolcamp.org > The New York State Senate, NY State CIO's Office and concerned citizens are hosting a Barcamp to share ideas about how technology can make government work better for all the residents of the Empire State. For one day, we will focus on the particular theme of using technology to increase transparency and participation in New York State government. Friday, 5th June 2009 From 10:30 am till 6:00 pm New York State Capitol, Albany, NY Proposed after party from 6:30 - 8:30 (Location TBD) Register for free at < http://capitolcamp.eventbright.com >. Note, Not An Alternative, a Brooklyn based 501c3, is chartering a bus to depart at 9:00 pm, after the after-party. Tickets are $40.00, limited and can purchased at < http://capitolcamp.eventbright.com >. This your traditional "un-conference" where participants derive the day's events. Additionally, we have broken up day into three tracks. 1) "Senate 2.0": Technology, Transparency, & Participation in the NY State Legislature: begins with a discussion of the role that technology plays in the NY Senate, including presentation of the ?roadmap? for the NY Senate CIO?s Office, and discussion of the future of public access to State legislative data; "legislatures 2.0" thematically related sessions for the rest of the day thereafter. 2) "Empire 2.0": begins with a discussion of the role of the Office of the State Chief Information Officer in developing the state strategy and roadmap for NY Executive Branch agencies for the use of web 2.0, new media, and social collaborative tools and technologies that can better serve citizens and improve inter-governmental communications; includes a brief presentation of the current state and open discussion seeking ideas to further the overall strategy; "state government 2.0" thematically related sessions for the rest of the day thereafter. 3) "Web 2.0 for Government" training workshop: expert online organizer Beka Economopoulos will offer hands-on training about how citizens, elected officials, and civil servants alike can Web 2.0 tools such as the new http://NYSenate.gov website, Twitter, and Facebook more effectively. We invite you to propose sessions on the CapitolCampNY's sessions page prior to the event < http://bit.ly/I4Mwl > and hope you can help us create new ways to solve the problems. Questions? Direct us a tweet via @CapitolCamp or Hashag - #CapitolCamp or email the NY Senate CIO's office at ciodesk at senate.state.ny.us From fcb at fredbenenson.com Wed May 27 18:26:07 2009 From: fcb at fredbenenson.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 18:26:07 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Copyright Alliance in US schools In-Reply-To: <827235d0905271141q1128d147o7c01c7911ebbabf8@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A18683F.2010905@vt.edu> <4A18DFE7.8000904@pirate-party.us> <827235d0905271141q1128d147o7c01c7911ebbabf8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8e447b720905271526l614051c5q2589da81da0650bd@mail.gmail.com> This is awesome, so glad to see it launched. ~ ~ ~ thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog work / http://creativecommons.org sights / http://flickr.com/fcb sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis status / http://twitter.com/mecredis On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Kevin Donovan wrote: > Here we go: http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2009/05/27 > > > On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 1:49 AM, Glenn Kerbein < > glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us> wrote: > >> The main caveat I have is regarding their overall hypocracy. They brush >> off Lessig's Free Culture, arguably the most moderate piece of >> contemporary literature, as a leftist propaganda piece. They've made an >> organization into something it's not: peddlers of counterfeit DVDs, >> which could actually land them in some legal trouble. >> I have my reservations about Ernesto's conjecture about their >> operations. "The more restrictions, the more money can be made is their >> credo," gives me the idea that Ernesto is going towards an anti-business >> model. I do not agree that this is true; corporations can both flourish >> or wither due to copyright applications. >> >> On another note, some basic forensics brings up somesuspicious >> conclusions. They bill themselves as a nonprofit education instution, >> where a 501c3 tax-exempt foundation could easily suit their needs. >> However, their whois information only shows they have offices in DC. >> Their email address recorded with the registrar is invalid. I've not run >> the phone number, so I don't know if it's legitimate. This leads me to >> believe that they are not incorporated nor recognized by a federal >> authority to be anything other than a loose affiliation of people. >> http://whois.domaintools.com/copyrightalliance.org >> However, a lookup through the DC SoS shows this: >> http://mblr.dc.gov/corp/lookup/status.asp?id=265343 >> Their incorporation documents show one address, and their whos shows >> another. Contradictory much? >> >> Matt wrote: >> > Saw this on TorrentFreak today: >> > >> > >> http://torrentfreak.com/pro-copyright-propaganda-enters-us-classrooms-090522/ >> > >> > Something I found particularly concerning is the quote from a school >> > administrator on why they decided to provide this: >> > >> > "Engley told TorrentFreak in a comment, 'Our school has a communication >> > and arts focus, we engaged in this relationship [with the Copyright >> > Alliance] to assist our students protect their own intellectual >> > property. We were teaching our students how to produce, but not >> > educating them on how to protect what they produce.'" >> > >> > So what if they want to share what they have made? Are you going to >> > encourage that, or are you going to say something to the extent of >> > "Sharing is bad. Never share what you have produced."? >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Discuss mailing list >> > Discuss at freeculture.org >> > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> >> -- >> Glenn "Channel6" Kerbein >> Pirate Party of the United States >> "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss at freeculture.org >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> > > > > -- > Kevin Donovan > Georgetown '11: SFS > 630.849.8285 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090527/a036494d/attachment-0001.htm From glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us Wed May 27 18:26:16 2009 From: glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us (Glenn Kerbein) Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 15:26:16 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] Copyright Alliance in US schools In-Reply-To: <8e447b720905271526l614051c5q2589da81da0650bd@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A18683F.2010905@vt.edu> <4A18DFE7.8000904@pirate-party.us> <827235d0905271141q1128d147o7c01c7911ebbabf8@mail.gmail.com> <8e447b720905271526l614051c5q2589da81da0650bd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A1DBE08.5040903@pirate-party.us> Agreed. Fred Benenson wrote: > This is awesome, so glad to see it launched. > > > ~ ~ ~ > thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog > work / http://creativecommons.org > sights / http://flickr.com/fcb > sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis > status / http://twitter.com/mecredis > > > > On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Kevin Donovan > wrote: > > Here we go: http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2009/05/27 > > > On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 1:49 AM, Glenn Kerbein > > wrote: > > The main caveat I have is regarding their overall hypocracy. > They brush > off Lessig's Free Culture, arguably the most moderate piece of > contemporary literature, as a leftist propaganda piece. They've > made an > organization into something it's not: peddlers of counterfeit DVDs, > which could actually land them in some legal trouble. > I have my reservations about Ernesto's conjecture about their > operations. "The more restrictions, the more money can be made > is their > credo," gives me the idea that Ernesto is going towards an > anti-business > model. I do not agree that this is true; corporations can both > flourish > or wither due to copyright applications. > > On another note, some basic forensics brings up somesuspicious > conclusions. They bill themselves as a nonprofit education > instution, > where a 501c3 tax-exempt foundation could easily suit their needs. > However, their whois information only shows they have offices in DC. > Their email address recorded with the registrar is invalid. I've > not run > the phone number, so I don't know if it's legitimate. This leads > me to > believe that they are not incorporated nor recognized by a federal > authority to be anything other than a loose affiliation of people. > http://whois.domaintools.com/copyrightalliance.org > However, a lookup through the DC SoS shows this: > http://mblr.dc.gov/corp/lookup/status.asp?id=265343 > Their incorporation documents show one address, and their whos shows > another. Contradictory much? > > Matt wrote: > > Saw this on TorrentFreak today: > > > > > http://torrentfreak.com/pro-copyright-propaganda-enters-us-classrooms-090522/ > > > > Something I found particularly concerning is the quote from a > school > > administrator on why they decided to provide this: > > > > "Engley told TorrentFreak in a comment, 'Our school has a > communication > > and arts focus, we engaged in this relationship [with the > Copyright > > Alliance] to assist our students protect their own intellectual > > property. We were teaching our students how to produce, but not > > educating them on how to protect what they produce.'" > > > > So what if they want to share what they have made? Are you > going to > > encourage that, or are you going to say something to the extent of > > "Sharing is bad. Never share what you have produced."? > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -- > Glenn "Channel6" Kerbein > Pirate Party of the United States > "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > > -- > Kevin Donovan > Georgetown '11: SFS > 630.849.8285 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Glenn "Channel6" Kerbein Pirate Party of the United States "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" From kdonovan11 at gmail.com Thu May 28 14:20:45 2009 From: kdonovan11 at gmail.com (Kevin Donovan) Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 14:20:45 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Hitler Tries a DMCA Takedown Message-ID: <827235d0905281120x789a5bd8q1d916f7414000f79@mail.gmail.com> In case you didn't see this: http://ideas.4brad.com/hitler-tries-dmca-takedown -- Kevin Donovan Georgetown '11: SFS 630.849.8285 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090528/f9591cae/attachment.htm From fcb at fredbenenson.com Thu May 28 16:02:59 2009 From: fcb at fredbenenson.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 16:02:59 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Hitler Tries a DMCA Takedown In-Reply-To: <827235d0905281120x789a5bd8q1d916f7414000f79@mail.gmail.com> References: <827235d0905281120x789a5bd8q1d916f7414000f79@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8e447b720905281302x3fa3d89pb3bfeb28a0c53e8e@mail.gmail.com> Thanks for the heads up - this is awesome. ~ ~ ~ thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog work / http://creativecommons.org sights / http://flickr.com/fcb sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis status / http://twitter.com/mecredis On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Kevin Donovan wrote: > In case you didn't see this: > > http://ideas.4brad.com/hitler-tries-dmca-takedown > > -- > Kevin Donovan > Georgetown '11: SFS > 630.849.8285 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090528/fd094850/attachment.htm From adikamdar at gmail.com Thu May 28 16:42:57 2009 From: adikamdar at gmail.com (Adi Kamdar) Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 16:42:57 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Hitler Tries a DMCA Takedown In-Reply-To: <827235d0905281120x789a5bd8q1d916f7414000f79@mail.gmail.com> References: <827235d0905281120x789a5bd8q1d916f7414000f79@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <684dbf750905281342l3e1887a0g3e1c37ae41f8531f@mail.gmail.com> Oh man this is great. Can't believe I haven't heard of these before. Thanks! -Adi On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Kevin Donovan wrote: > In case you didn't see this: > > http://ideas.4brad.com/hitler-tries-dmca-takedown > > -- > Kevin Donovan > Georgetown '11: SFS > 630.849.8285 > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090528/f5620696/attachment.htm From fred.benenson at gmail.com Fri May 29 01:00:44 2009 From: fred.benenson at gmail.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 01:00:44 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] Voting for the 2009 Board Elections Begins Now. In-Reply-To: <8e447b720905221012t36330e69i1abab031b88be14b@mail.gmail.com> References: <8e447b720905221012t36330e69i1abab031b88be14b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8e447b720905282200k7b3b7e75v5af67c1894aa6fdd@mail.gmail.com> Hi Everyone, The vote will be finishing up in a couple of hours so if you haven't voted, make sure to get your vote in now! We'll announce the results sometime Friday afternoon EST (so long as I'm correctly estimating that 'Fri May 29 00:00:00 -0400 2009' means Selectricity will finish sometime in the AM of the 29th). Thanks, Fred ~ ~ ~ thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog work / http://creativecommons.org sights / http://flickr.com/fcb sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis status / http://twitter.com/mecredis On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 1:12 PM, Fred Benenson wrote: > Dear Students for Free Culture, > If you're an active, registered chapter, you will probably have received > a link to vote for the 2009 Board vote. Take this seriously and follow the > instructions carefully. Here are the nominations and platforms of their > respective campaigns: > > > http://wiki.freeculture.org/Board09/Nominations#Higgins.2C_Parker.2C_Free_Culture_.40_NYU > > Please let me know if you: > > A) Are a chapter head who didn't receive a vote ballot > B) Don't know what to do. > > Best, > > Fred > > > > > ~ ~ ~ > thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog > work / http://creativecommons.org > sights / http://flickr.com/fcb > sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis > status / http://twitter.com/mecredis > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090529/8a24a635/attachment.htm From robert.radamant at gmail.com Fri May 29 02:46:45 2009 From: robert.radamant at gmail.com (robert olujic) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 08:46:45 +0200 Subject: [FC-discuss] cc music Message-ID: <6eb159a30905282346v7d21a620k739d93b9fc594ad8@mail.gmail.com> hi there here is a dnb set i made only with cc music, so if someone of you got a netlabel or something, if you will you can put it there. thnx for your time and interest:)) http://www.archive.org/details/CreativeCommonsDnbSet -- http://robertradamantco.wordpress.com/ http://www.myspace.com/robertradamantsco www.egoboobits.net/RobertRadamant www.uke.hr www.zamirzine.net www.stanicamir.org www.pop.ba -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090529/500b8f35/attachment.htm From noel at noneck.org Fri May 29 12:35:53 2009 From: noel at noneck.org (noel hidalgo) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 12:35:53 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 Message-ID: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> i'm in a unique situation to determine the default software licensing of the NY State Senate. we're debating CC0 vs GPL. does anyone have a good resource to read up on the two? From gavin at gavinbaker.com Fri May 29 12:59:33 2009 From: gavin at gavinbaker.com (Gavin Baker) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 12:59:33 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> References: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> Message-ID: <4A201475.80302@gavinbaker.com> noel hidalgo wrote: > i'm in a unique situation to determine the default software licensing > of the NY State Senate. we're debating CC0 vs GPL. > > does anyone have a good resource to read up on the two? I haven't heard about CC0 being used for software (although I have heard of software released under generic public domain dedications). In particular, I don't know if CC0 has the disclaimer of warranty clause that many free software licenses have. I would recommend sticking with a software license for software. If for some reason you don't want a copyleft ("share-alike") license, go with one of the non-copyleft free software licenses such as LGPL or BSD. See FSF's and OSI's lists: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html http://www.opensource.org/licenses If the software is for Web services (i.e. the user accesses the software over a network rather than running it on their own computer), you might particularly consider the AGPL, which strengthens the GPL's copyleft for online uses. See http://autonomo.us/ for more on these issues. There may be particular issues to consider as a public sector organization. It may be worth consulting counsel. Internal counsel or someone familiar with NY law should be able to tell you about any special requirements. Someone familiar with free software law should be able to help translate -- try http://www.softwarefreedom.org/ -- Gavin Baker http://www.gavinbaker.com/ gavin at gavinbaker.com Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful. J. Robert Oppenheimer From ml at creativecommons.org Fri May 29 13:02:40 2009 From: ml at creativecommons.org (Mike Linksvayer) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 10:02:40 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> References: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> Message-ID: On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 9:35 AM, noel hidalgo wrote: > i'm in a unique situation to determine the default software licensing > of the NY State Senate. we're debating CC0 vs GPL. > > does anyone have a good resource to read up on the two? Hey, I know you're in touch with Fred and Diane Peters of CC, but to set the record straight publicly, but you really want to use an instrument intended for software specifically for software. CC explicitly disrecommends using CC licenses for software. We haven't gotten around to doing that explicitly for CC0 (which of course is a waiver, not a license), but state policy is really not the place to be trying out instruments not intended for software on software, when there are now decades of practice reflected in modern free/open software licenses. You might want to look at the tradeoff between permissive (eg BSD/MIT, though Apache 2 is the modern one recommended) and copyleft licenses (GPL), you might want to be ok with any GPL-compatible license, or any OSI and/or FSF-approved license, but you really want to concentrate of software licenses for software. I'm getting repetitive. :-) For a brief but pretty good overview of state of the art free/open software licensing, see http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3803101/Bruce-Perens-How-Many-Open-Source-Licenses-Do-You-Need.htm which was discussed at http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/16/1633200 Mike From gameguy43 at gmail.com Fri May 29 13:23:02 2009 From: gameguy43 at gmail.com (D Parker Phinney) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 13:23:02 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] cc music In-Reply-To: <6eb159a30905282346v7d21a620k739d93b9fc594ad8@mail.gmail.com> References: <6eb159a30905282346v7d21a620k739d93b9fc594ad8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2019F6.1030305@gmail.com> if you haven't yet, get that shiz up on jamendo! robert olujic wrote: > hi there > > here is a dnb set i made only with cc music, so if someone of you got a > netlabel or something, if you will you can put it there. thnx for your > time and interest:)) > > http://www.archive.org/details/CreativeCommonsDnbSet > > -- > http://robertradamantco.wordpress.com/ > http://www.myspace.com/robertradamantsco > www.egoboobits.net/RobertRadamant > www.uke.hr > www.zamirzine.net > www.stanicamir.org > www.pop.ba > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- D Parker Phinney madebyparker.com From jays at panix.com Fri May 29 14:12:09 2009 From: jays at panix.com (Jay Sulzberger) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 14:12:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> References: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> Message-ID: On Fri, 29 May 2009, noel hidalgo wrote: > i'm in a unique situation to determine the default software licensing > of the NY State Senate. we're debating CC0 vs GPL. > > does anyone have a good resource to read up on the two? Please contact Eben Moglen and Wendy Seltzer: http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu http://wendy.seltzer.org oo--JS. From noel at noneck.org Fri May 29 15:02:41 2009 From: noel at noneck.org (noel hidalgo) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 15:02:41 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: References: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> Message-ID: <59C88637-C390-49D3-9685-F2052286C7C1@noneck.org> thanks all! On 29 May 2009, at 14:12, Jay Sulzberger wrote: > > > On Fri, 29 May 2009, noel hidalgo wrote: > >> i'm in a unique situation to determine the default software licensing >> of the NY State Senate. we're debating CC0 vs GPL. >> >> does anyone have a good resource to read up on the two? > > Please contact Eben Moglen and Wendy Seltzer: > > http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu > http://wendy.seltzer.org > > oo--JS. > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss From admin at hhh.freeculture.org Fri May 29 15:11:06 2009 From: admin at hhh.freeculture.org (HHH FreeCulture Admin) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 15:11:06 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: <59C88637-C390-49D3-9685-F2052286C7C1@noneck.org> References: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> <59C88637-C390-49D3-9685-F2052286C7C1@noneck.org> Message-ID: I'd go with GPL, LGPL, MIT, libpng or BSD. (Or PD) CC licenses are generally not for software. On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 3:02 PM, noel hidalgo wrote: > thanks all! > > On 29 May 2009, at 14:12, Jay Sulzberger wrote: > > > > > > > On Fri, 29 May 2009, noel hidalgo wrote: > > > >> i'm in a unique situation to determine the default software licensing > >> of the NY State Senate. we're debating CC0 vs GPL. > >> > >> does anyone have a good resource to read up on the two? > > > > Please contact Eben Moglen and Wendy Seltzer: > > > > http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu > > http://wendy.seltzer.org > > > > oo--JS. > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090529/70f8253b/attachment.htm From ccowens at vt.edu Fri May 29 15:25:14 2009 From: ccowens at vt.edu (Clifford Conley Owens III) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 15:25:14 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: References: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> <59C88637-C390-49D3-9685-F2052286C7C1@noneck.org> Message-ID: <4A20369A.5030804@vt.edu> HHH FreeCulture Admin wrote: > I'd go with GPL, LGPL, MIT, libpng or BSD. (Or PD) CC licenses are > generally not for software. No, but this is for publicly funded work. Attaching any strings should be discouraged. I would go with PD or CC0. Mentioning "no warranty" may be something worth worrying about, but other than that, go with PD/CC0. ~Conley -- office: Torgersen 2160 W email: ccowens at vt.edu cell: (540) 597-8820 xmpp: conley at jabber.org aim: vtconley sip: conley at ekiga.net From samuel.messing at gmail.com Fri May 29 15:30:04 2009 From: samuel.messing at gmail.com (Samuel Messing) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 19:30:04 +0000 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 Message-ID: <1481374396-1243625396-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-199787317-@bxe1178.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> I apologize if this is really misinformed, but if it's for the government, doesn't it need to be in the public domain? ------Original Message------ From: Clifford Conley Owens III Sender: discuss-bounces at freeculture.org To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in particular ReplyTo: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization inparticular Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 Sent: May 29, 2009 3:25 PM HHH FreeCulture Admin wrote: > I'd go with GPL, LGPL, MIT, libpng or BSD. (Or PD) CC licenses are > generally not for software. No, but this is for publicly funded work. Attaching any strings should be discouraged. I would go with PD or CC0. Mentioning "no warranty" may be something worth worrying about, but other than that, go with PD/CC0. ~Conley -- office: Torgersen 2160 W email: ccowens at vt.edu cell: (540) 597-8820 xmpp: conley at jabber.org aim: vtconley sip: conley at ekiga.net _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss at freeculture.org http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss From glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us Fri May 29 15:24:38 2009 From: glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us (Glenn Kerbein) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 12:24:38 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] cc music In-Reply-To: <6eb159a30905282346v7d21a620k739d93b9fc594ad8@mail.gmail.com> References: <6eb159a30905282346v7d21a620k739d93b9fc594ad8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A203676.7070608@pirate-party.us> Any chance of Ogg or Flac? robert olujic wrote: > hi there > > here is a dnb set i made only with cc music, so if someone of you got a > netlabel or something, if you will you can put it there. thnx for your > time and interest:)) > > http://www.archive.org/details/CreativeCommonsDnbSet > > -- > http://robertradamantco.wordpress.com/ > http://www.myspace.com/robertradamantsco > www.egoboobits.net/RobertRadamant > www.uke.hr > www.zamirzine.net > www.stanicamir.org > www.pop.ba > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Glenn "Channel6" Kerbein Pirate Party of the United States "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" From fcb at fredbenenson.com Fri May 29 15:30:56 2009 From: fcb at fredbenenson.com (Fred Benenson) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 15:30:56 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: <1481374396-1243625396-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-199787317-@bxe1178.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> References: <1481374396-1243625396-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-199787317-@bxe1178.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> Message-ID: <8e447b720905291230u1f55ad2fgcc9adf9a0fb2f1c1@mail.gmail.com> States retain copyright on their works, while the federal government doesn't. Its a weird quirk in the copyright statute, to say the least. ~ ~ ~ thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog work / http://creativecommons.org sights / http://flickr.com/fcb sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis status / http://twitter.com/mecredis On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 3:30 PM, Samuel Messing wrote: > I apologize if this is really misinformed, but if it's for the government, > doesn't it need to be in the public domain? > ------Original Message------ > From: Clifford Conley Owens III > Sender: discuss-bounces at freeculture.org > To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in > particular > ReplyTo: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization > inparticular > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 > Sent: May 29, 2009 3:25 PM > > HHH FreeCulture Admin wrote: > > I'd go with GPL, LGPL, MIT, libpng or BSD. (Or PD) CC licenses are > > generally not for software. > > No, but this is for publicly funded work. Attaching any strings should > be discouraged. I would go with PD or CC0. Mentioning "no warranty" > may be something worth worrying about, but other than that, go with PD/CC0. > > ~Conley > > -- > office: Torgersen 2160 W > email: ccowens at vt.edu > cell: (540) 597-8820 > xmpp: conley at jabber.org > aim: vtconley > sip: conley at ekiga.net > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090529/4740ec6e/attachment-0001.htm From meta.sj at gmail.com Fri May 29 16:20:05 2009 From: meta.sj at gmail.com (Samuel Klein) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 16:20:05 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: <59C88637-C390-49D3-9685-F2052286C7C1@noneck.org> References: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> <59C88637-C390-49D3-9685-F2052286C7C1@noneck.org> Message-ID: <5396c0d10905291320x68f0945bha00395325c2b824d@mail.gmail.com> I would strongly recommend a software-designed license that is roughly equivalent to PD. I'm actually not sure what this is, unfortunately. SJ On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 3:02 PM, noel hidalgo wrote: > thanks all! > > On 29 May 2009, at 14:12, Jay Sulzberger wrote: > >> >> >> On Fri, 29 May 2009, noel hidalgo wrote: >> >>> i'm in a unique situation to determine the default software licensing >>> of the NY State Senate. we're debating CC0 vs GPL. >>> >>> does anyone have a good resource to read up on the two? >> >> Please contact Eben Moglen and Wendy Seltzer: >> >> http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu >> http://wendy.seltzer.org >> >> oo--JS. >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss at freeculture.org >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > From steve at hiresteve.com Fri May 29 16:33:00 2009 From: steve at hiresteve.com (Steve Foerster) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 16:33:00 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A20467C.1070702@hiresteve.com> Conley wrote: >> I'd go with GPL, LGPL, MIT, libpng or BSD. (Or PD) CC >> licenses are generally not for software. > No, but this is for publicly funded work. Attaching any > strings should be discouraged. I would go with PD or CC0. > Mentioning "no warranty" may be something worth worrying > about, but other than that, go with PD/CC0. Agreed. Taxpayers paid for it, anyone who wishes to uses it should be able to do so however he or she wishes, without even requiring attribution. -=Steve=- -- Stephen H. Foerster http://hiresteve.com http://wikieducator.org/steve http://community.elearners.com/blogs/atsu/default.aspx From gavin at gavinbaker.com Fri May 29 16:48:47 2009 From: gavin at gavinbaker.com (Gavin Baker) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 16:48:47 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: <8e447b720905291230u1f55ad2fgcc9adf9a0fb2f1c1@mail.gmail.com> References: <1481374396-1243625396-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-199787317-@bxe1178.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> <8e447b720905291230u1f55ad2fgcc9adf9a0fb2f1c1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A204A2F.9050200@gavinbaker.com> Like Fred says. CENDI has a thorough FAQ on government copyright: http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html > "Copyright protection ... is not available for any work of the United > States [federal] Government, but the United States is not precluded > from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by > assignment, bequest, or otherwise." Exceptions are available for > certain works of the National Institute for Standards and Technology > (NIST) and the U.S. Postal Service. Copyright protection may be > available for U.S. Government works outside the United States. When a > copyrighted work is transferred to the U.S. Government, the > Government becomes the copyright owner and the work retains its > copyright protection. > > State and local governments may and often do claim copyright in their > publications. It is their prerogative to set policies that may allow, > require, restrict or prohibit claim of copyright on some or all works > produced by their government units. Fred Benenson wrote: > States retain copyright on their works, while the federal government > doesn't. Its a weird quirk in the copyright statute, to say the least. > > > ~ ~ ~ > thoughts / http://fredbenenson.com/blog > work / http://creativecommons.org > sights / http://flickr.com/fcb > sounds / http://www.last.fm/user/mecredis > status / http://twitter.com/mecredis > > > > On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 3:30 PM, Samuel Messing > > wrote: > > I apologize if this is really misinformed, but if it's for the > government, doesn't it need to be in the public domain? > ------Original Message------ > From: Clifford Conley Owens III > Sender: discuss-bounces at freeculture.org > > To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in > particular > ReplyTo: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization > inparticular > Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 > Sent: May 29, 2009 3:25 PM > > HHH FreeCulture Admin wrote: > > I'd go with GPL, LGPL, MIT, libpng or BSD. (Or PD) CC licenses are > > generally not for software. > > No, but this is for publicly funded work. Attaching any strings should > be discouraged. I would go with PD or CC0. Mentioning "no warranty" > may be something worth worrying about, but other than that, go with > PD/CC0. > > ~Conley > > -- > office: Torgersen 2160 W > email: ccowens at vt.edu > cell: (540) 597-8820 > xmpp: conley at jabber.org > aim: vtconley > sip: conley at ekiga.net > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Gavin Baker http://www.gavinbaker.com/ gavin at gavinbaker.com The voice called, and I went. I went, because the voice called. Hannah Szenes From meta.sj at gmail.com Fri May 29 17:44:52 2009 From: meta.sj at gmail.com (Samuel Klein) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 17:44:52 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: <4A204A2F.9050200@gavinbaker.com> References: <1481374396-1243625396-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-199787317-@bxe1178.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> <8e447b720905291230u1f55ad2fgcc9adf9a0fb2f1c1@mail.gmail.com> <4A204A2F.9050200@gavinbaker.com> Message-ID: <5396c0d10905291444r417bde8fv6228b585980c25d2@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 4:48 PM, Gavin Baker wrote: > Like Fred says. CENDI has a thorough FAQ on government copyright: Right. Nevertheless. They are interested in what license to use (morally, socially), and the relevant question for federalists is : how does the federal government publish its code? what PD-like license or statement does it use? From meta.sj at gmail.com Fri May 29 17:45:21 2009 From: meta.sj at gmail.com (Samuel Klein) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 17:45:21 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: <5396c0d10905291444r417bde8fv6228b585980c25d2@mail.gmail.com> References: <1481374396-1243625396-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-199787317-@bxe1178.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> <8e447b720905291230u1f55ad2fgcc9adf9a0fb2f1c1@mail.gmail.com> <4A204A2F.9050200@gavinbaker.com> <5396c0d10905291444r417bde8fv6228b585980c25d2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5396c0d10905291445j7a5b10c1n6485f70fed3bb3cc@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 5:44 PM, Samuel Klein wrote: > On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 4:48 PM, Gavin Baker wrote: >> Like Fred says. CENDI has a thorough FAQ on government copyright: > > Right. ?Nevertheless. ?They are interested in what license to use > (morally, socially), and the relevant question for federalists is : > how does the federal government publish its code? ?what PD-like > license or statement does it use? Boy, federalist is probably its own antonym here :-) you know what I mean. From rob at robmyers.org Fri May 29 19:37:41 2009 From: rob at robmyers.org (Rob Myers) Date: Sat, 30 May 2009 00:37:41 +0100 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: <5396c0d10905291320x68f0945bha00395325c2b824d@mail.gmail.com> References: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> <59C88637-C390-49D3-9685-F2052286C7C1@noneck.org> <5396c0d10905291320x68f0945bha00395325c2b824d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2071C5.6040100@robmyers.org> Samuel Klein wrote: > I would strongly recommend a software-designed license that is roughly > equivalent to PD. I'm actually not sure what this is, unfortunately. The MIT licence. For US Federal Govt.-produced works there's no copyright to license. Govt. contractors will have copyright, though. State Senates are way outside of my experience, and I agree that an expert should be contacted. - Rob. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 259 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090530/1bd7ed75/attachment.pgp From glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us Fri May 29 19:54:39 2009 From: glenn.kerbein at pirate-party.us (Glenn Kerbein) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 16:54:39 -0700 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> References: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> Message-ID: <4A2075BF.8000807@pirate-party.us> I think that we should avoid pedantics and keep it simple. Either put it in the public domain (not unheardof) or use a WTFPL. noel hidalgo wrote: > i'm in a unique situation to determine the default software licensing > of the NY State Senate. we're debating CC0 vs GPL. > > does anyone have a good resource to read up on the two? > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Glenn "Channel6" Kerbein Pirate Party of the United States "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" From sffcvt at vt.edu Fri May 29 21:15:21 2009 From: sffcvt at vt.edu (Matt) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 21:15:21 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: <4A20369A.5030804@vt.edu> References: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> <59C88637-C390-49D3-9685-F2052286C7C1@noneck.org> <4A20369A.5030804@vt.edu> Message-ID: <4A2088A9.3070005@vt.edu> Clifford Conley Owens III wrote: > HHH FreeCulture Admin wrote: >> I'd go with GPL, LGPL, MIT, libpng or BSD. (Or PD) CC licenses are >> generally not for software. > > No, but this is for publicly funded work. Attaching any strings should > be discouraged. I would go with PD or CC0. Mentioning "no warranty" > may be something worth worrying about, but other than that, go with PD/CC0. > > ~Conley > ^ What he said. From robert.radamant at gmail.com Sat May 30 02:18:19 2009 From: robert.radamant at gmail.com (robert olujic) Date: Sat, 30 May 2009 08:18:19 +0200 Subject: [FC-discuss] cc music In-Reply-To: <4A203676.7070608@pirate-party.us> References: <6eb159a30905282346v7d21a620k739d93b9fc594ad8@mail.gmail.com> <4A203676.7070608@pirate-party.us> Message-ID: <6eb159a30905292318t5282591cp5b0f219d31f43ec3@mail.gmail.com> yes, i am on jamendo, but i havent seen that people put there sets. theres only production, as much i know... 2009/5/29 Glenn Kerbein > Any chance of Ogg or Flac? > > robert olujic wrote: > > hi there > > > > here is a dnb set i made only with cc music, so if someone of you got a > > netlabel or something, if you will you can put it there. thnx for your > > time and interest:)) > > > > http://www.archive.org/details/CreativeCommonsDnbSet > > > > -- > > http://robertradamantco.wordpress.com/ > > http://www.myspace.com/robertradamantsco > > www.egoboobits.net/RobertRadamant < > http://www.egoboobits.net/RobertRadamant> > > www.uke.hr > > www.zamirzine.net > > www.stanicamir.org > > www.pop.ba > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > Discuss at freeculture.org > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > -- > Glenn "Channel6" Kerbein > Pirate Party of the United States > "Burn, Hollywood, Burn" > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at freeculture.org > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- http://robertradamantco.wordpress.com/ http://www.myspace.com/robertradamantsco www.egoboobits.net/RobertRadamant www.uke.hr www.zamirzine.net www.stanicamir.org www.pop.ba -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090530/c7f8e50c/attachment-0001.htm From meta.sj at gmail.com Sat May 30 03:40:54 2009 From: meta.sj at gmail.com (Samuel Klein) Date: Sat, 30 May 2009 03:40:54 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: <4A2071C5.6040100@robmyers.org> References: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> <59C88637-C390-49D3-9685-F2052286C7C1@noneck.org> <5396c0d10905291320x68f0945bha00395325c2b824d@mail.gmail.com> <4A2071C5.6040100@robmyers.org> Message-ID: <5396c0d10905300040n6adf008aqb71abd70180a3c46@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 7:37 PM, Rob Myers wrote: > Samuel Klein wrote: >> I would strongly recommend a software-designed license that is roughly >> equivalent to PD. ?I'm actually not sure what this is, unfortunately. > > The MIT licence. Too restrictive to be anything like PD. It has a "must include this in future copies/portions" section and enumerates rights (which always suggests others may not be granted). I think PD itself may be a fine software license; I'd just like a little confirmation on that score beyond "people have done it before". SJ From rob at robmyers.org Sat May 30 11:07:54 2009 From: rob at robmyers.org (Rob Myers) Date: Sat, 30 May 2009 16:07:54 +0100 Subject: [FC-discuss] To GPL or CC0 In-Reply-To: <5396c0d10905300040n6adf008aqb71abd70180a3c46@mail.gmail.com> References: <2901C70E-100C-40F1-8E71-D988708DBFBE@noneck.org> <59C88637-C390-49D3-9685-F2052286C7C1@noneck.org> <5396c0d10905291320x68f0945bha00395325c2b824d@mail.gmail.com> <4A2071C5.6040100@robmyers.org> <5396c0d10905300040n6adf008aqb71abd70180a3c46@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A214BCA.2040806@robmyers.org> Samuel Klein wrote: > On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 7:37 PM, Rob Myers wrote: >> Samuel Klein wrote: >>> I would strongly recommend a software-designed license that is roughly >>> equivalent to PD. I'm actually not sure what this is, unfortunately. >> The MIT licence. > > Too restrictive to be anything like PD. It has a "must include this > in future copies/portions" section and enumerates rights (which always > suggests others may not be granted). The MIT license is absolutely minimal and has the advantage that it is clear and unambiguous. The requirement that a reminder and confirmation of your freedom to use the work be attached to the work is, however much I feel like posting something about it to debian-legal every time April 1st comes around, not an impediment to your freedom to use the software. Since it is a copyright licence it has no other rights to grant. A public domain dedication will not cover (e.g.) patents or trademarks either. CC0 uses a license to simulate PD where a given jurisdiction does not have PD dedication. > I think PD itself may be a fine software license; I'd just like a > little confirmation on that score beyond "people have done it before". People have done it before. ;-) What kind of issues would persuade you that it's not fine? - Rob. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 259 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090530/7d4642c8/attachment.pgp From gabrieljoel at gmail.com Sun May 31 13:04:18 2009 From: gabrieljoel at gmail.com (Gabriel Joel Perez) Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 13:04:18 -0400 Subject: [FC-discuss] freeculture.org Spanish translation Message-ID: <9a442d030905311004v2e2443bdgb3170d247822ba95@mail.gmail.com> Hi! Here on our chapter (University of Puerto Rico) we have a group of members interested on translating freeculture.org during the summer to Spanish. I would like to know if the if the infrastructure is in place to serve the page in two languages and which are the highest priority pages to be translated. Thanks! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://freeculture.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090531/4f8b231f/attachment.htm