Kategorie: English

Simply because it’s a great post — here’s a repost from ninapaley.com:

In my endless attempt to explain what’s wrong with Creative Commons’ “non-commercial” and “no derivatives” restrictions, I came across this 2005 article by Benjamin Mako Hill: Vollständigen Artikel lesen »

The following video is picked out of a big stream of skype-based interviews on open design, especially in architecture — driven by the Berlin based project opensimsim.net. The interview was done by Natalia Fentisova.

[german version]

Recently, StefanMz was skeptical about the inflationary use of the word Commons, so here is a similarly ambiguous case, which to me nevertheless seems very interesting:

The Austrian city of Linz has launched an initiative to become the first »open commons region« in Europe. The initiative is designed to stimulate the use of open-access and electronic dissemination of data, software, teaching and learning materials and other so called »Open Commons« (common good) stored content. Linz had previously taken pioneering steps to bring the citizens to the Internet. In 2005 the hot spot initiative started, which has been built 118 hotspots for free access to the Internet. In addition, for each citizen, web space and a personal e-mail inbox is available on the servers of the city – as well as programs for non-commercial publication of content on the Internet.

Vollständigen Artikel lesen »

A nice film about some preposterous effects of copyright, however, still in the frame of finding a »balance« between profit making and consumer benefit, of seeking for a »better business«. Eva Galperin from EFF introduces:

»Consumers International has released an excellent short film, When Copyright Goes Bad, which chronicles the rise of copyright as a global consumer rights issue and the ongoing fight for fairer copyright laws. The film features interviews with EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann, Professor Michael Geist from the University of Ottowa Law School, Sunil Abraham from the Centre for Internet and Society, Hank Schocklee, co-founder of Public Enemy, and more.«

[via]

[via]

[Deutsche Version]

In our economy-driven society it is taken for granted, that it is »the economy« which produces the societally necessary goods. However, this is not the case, which can be impressively shown by looking into official statistics.

Vollständigen Artikel lesen »

Sometimes ministers are not under well control of the media industry. The portuguese Minister of Science and Technology, Mariano Gago, stated that »piracy« increases the value for the producers due to the distribution of their content and that this is not surprising, since piracy has always been a source of progress and globalization.

Bad boy: Pressure from the media industry lobby forced the minister to publicly retract his statement. [via]

Another great clip from Nina Paley:

DE: Ken Loach, bekannter sozialkritischer Regisseur, gibt nach und nach seine Filme frei. Sie können in voller Länge und in Originalfassung auf YouTube angesehen werden. Bereits verfügbar sind:

EN: Ken Loach, famous social critical director, is releasing his movies step by step. They can be viewed in full length and original version on YouTube. Already available:

• Cathy Come Home (1966)
• Poor Cow (1967)
• Kes (1970)
• Hidden Agenda (1990)
• Riff Raff (1991)
• The Navigators (2001)
• Ae Fond Kiss (2004)

Vollständigen Artikel lesen »

The movie Patent Absurdity is based on a series of interviews conducted during the Supreme Court’s review of »in re Bilski« — a case that could have profound implications for the patenting of software in the US. The most impressive movie part is the acoustical demonstration (27:45–28:33) of Richard Stallman’s illustration (16:26–17:45) of what would have happened to Beethoven’s symphony when they have had patents on musical elements in Beethoven’s times.

The movie was released unter CC BY-ND license allowing copying and (commercial) usage, but disallow publication of derivative works. The movie can be watched here or downloaded here in free OGG format. Subtitles are partly available here. [via-via-via]