Copyright

Orphaned Work

While I was visiting Uppsala University I attended a guided tour which included the famous anatomical theatre built by Olof Rudbeck during 1662-63. The theatre has place for about 200 people and was used to teach anatomy. Between 1663 and 1766 there were only about 10 demonstrations since only the corpses of criminals executed locally could be used.

While on tour I had a discussion with the guide about literature on the theatre. The best work on the subject is a book which is no longer in print. Even worse the publisher no longer exists and the author cannot be identified. The university wants to publish the book but since it is an orphaned work* they do not dare to do so.

One idea would be to find the book and to scan it and put it online anonymously! While this should not be the way to go but it may be the only way to goâ?¦

*Orphaned works are any copyrighted works where the rights holders are hard to find. Because the cost of finding the owner is so high, creators cannot build on orphan works, even when they would be willing to pay to use them.

Posted on by mklang

Elephants Dream

Licensed under the Creative Commons license and created by using open source tools the animated short “Elephants Dream” is now ready for download. The movie and production files are licensed under “Creative Commons Attribution 2.5”, which only requires a proper crediting for public screening, re-using and distribution.

 

 

“Elephants Dream” is the result of almost a year of work, a project initiated and coordinated by the Blender Foundation. Six people from the Blender user/development community were selected to come over to Amsterdam to work together on an animated short movie, utilizing Open Source tools only.

More information about the film here.

(via Free the Mind)

Posted on by mklang

Flickr & CC

Flickr has included new features in its advanced search function. You now can filter the results to search for material which has been licensed under specific Creative Commons terms.

This means that you can search the approximately 12,753,778 CC-licensed photos on Flickr across all CC licenses or only those that allow commercial use or derivative works.

Posted on by mklang

CC to version 3

At present the state-of-the-art Creative Commons licenses are at version 2.5 and now we begin the public process of making the transition to version 3. There are four main reasons for this move:

(a) Incorporate MIT negotiated amendments to all licenses (incl. Sampling) to enable MIT to switch over to using a standard CC BY-NC-SA license.
(b) Incorporate Debian negotiated amendments in the hope that they will declare some of our licenses (those without the NonCommercial and NoDerivatives license elements) â??freeâ?? according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
(c) Spin off the current â??genericâ?? license to be the US license & (hopefully) create a real generic license.
(d) For those jurisdictions that protect the moral right of integrity, (i) incorporate an icon signifying the retention of this important right in the Commons Deed and, (ii) to ensure that the Legal Code for all of these jurisdictions expressly retains the right of integrity.

These are all important reasons but I am particularly interested in the moral rights (d) issue (maybe becuase I am from a jurisdiction which has moral rights) and the chance of being recognised as “free” according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines (b) because it is important to interact with the Free Software movement in a deeper way. The Free Software movement not only predates CC it remains the most stringent among the movements which most people carelessly lump together as Open Source. For a longer discussion on this and the meaning of free software look here.

Do you want to participate in the process? Here is how…

Getting to Version 3.0

It’s that fun time again when we start contemplating versioning up the licenses. An outline of why we’re thinking about doing this and how CC proposes to do this has just been posted to the cc-licenses list. Please participate in the discussions on the cc-licenses list – you can sign up here.

Submitted by Mia Garlick on 2006-05-17 04:07 PM.
Posted on by mklang

Digital solidarity

Tomorrow its back to Stockholm for the third time in two weeks. Itâ??s a good thing that I like trains! I shall be giving a talk about Free Information in Practice. It is part of a half day seminar on Digital Solidarity and Waking Public Opinion.

Also participating are Rasmus Fleischer from the Pirate Bureau presenting a talk on â??Shared Information, effective informationâ?? and Lars Ilshammar who will be talking about the global effort to free information.

So if you are in Stockholm and have the time drop in for what looks like an exciting seminar (and its free)

Starts 12.30 ends 16.45

Place: Solidaritetshuset, Tegelviksgatan 40, Stockholm

Information online

Posted on by mklang

Plagiarism again!

Right â?? its official. Teaching students about plagiarism is absolutely pointless (see earlier post). Once again my university has sunk to a new low-point.

Background: At the department of business studies two students wrote their masters thesis. Their supervisor then took parts of the text and included it word for word in an article she presented at an international conference. The students were not acknowledged in any way. The head of department defended the supervisorâ??s actions in the student press â?? which is sad, but in a sense an understandable defence. Still sad and it shows a definite lack of backbone.

The errand was to pass through the research ethics committee (Rådet för ärenden om oredlighet i forskning) of the university. Great, honour will be served. A blow will be struck for academic integrity and also show that the stealing student work cannot be considered to be the praxis of our university.

But! I do not believe it. The majority of the research ethics committee found that while it was wrong that the supervisor did not ask the students, it was too far to say that the supervisor had cheated. This position was motivated that by calling the supervisor actions plagiarism would effectively be damage scientific research.

What?? The lack of backbone from the research ethics committee is what damages research. This weak, spineless position legitimises cheating by academics and drags our university through the mud.

Shame on you.
With any luck the students will take the supervisor/university to court and win easily in a copyright violation case. This is not a good development but one which the university has begged for through its spineless attitude.

Posted on by mklang

This is a pirate

Something that everyone should think about in an age when recording companies are sueing minors for piracy!

The Consumer Electronics Association is taking a brave stand against the entertainment companies’ attacks on the public’s right to record from digital radio. This is brilliant — and maybe it signals that the CEA’s members will stop manufacturing technnoloogy that controls their customers instead of empowering them. (writes Boing Boing)

Posted on by mklang

So where the bloody hell are you?

In an attempt to grab attention the Australian Tourism has created a typical beautiful tourist add but with a twist. The tagline at the end is â??So where the bloody hell are you?â?? (referring to the tourists I guess!) The original ad can be seen here or here.

The tagline has sparked some debate. In Japan it simply does not work so it was changed to the more polite â??So why donâ??t you come?â?? (The Age). The television ad was banned in the UK for the use of â??bloodyâ??, in Canada for the line â??weâ??ve bought you a beerâ?? (Wikipedia).

The media company (Downwind Media) made a parody of the film which has caused lawyers for Tourism Australia (TA) to threatened legal action over the use of the music used in the parody (the music is similar but tune and tempo are different), TA claim that the offending tune still infringed on their copyright regardless of the musical differences. TA demanded the parody be removed from Downwind Media’s website.

See the spoof on You Tube.

The parody of the tourist advert is a legitimate form of cultural remix. It is particularly relevant since the ad sells Australian cultural icons/stereotypes. Therefore there is a great deal of legitimacy in providing alternative images of that which is sold. As in many cases such as these we can see that the supression has only increased the longevity of the spoof.

The main idea of the spoof is to juxtapose the “traditional” tourist images of tourism & Australia (e.g. outback, hospitality, kangaroos, pubs, watersports, nightlife, aborigines and beaches)

with the more negative images of Australia: violence, racism, drugs, immigration detention centers, dingos, human rights violations.

Posted on by mklang

Digital solidaritet och opinionsbildning

Digital Solidaritet och opinionsbildning

Information ses allt mer som en vara att tjäna pengar på och allt mindre som en social rättighet. Upphovsrätten stärks och patent breder ut sig till det immateriella området.

Politiker och företag ser i ökad omfattning information som ett problem som måste kontrolleras, övervakas och beläggas med sekretess. Samtidigt finns idag möjligheter att samla, kopiera och sprida information i en helt ny omfattning. Informationen blir inte mindre värd för att den används. Tvärtom ökar den i värde.

Det är dags att solidaritets- och rättviserörelser tar hänsyn till allt detta i sitt informationsarbete. Vi måste utveckla en mer solidarisk och gemensam informationshantering och opinionsbildning. Förutsättningarna är bättre än någonsin. Med denna konferens vill vi stimulera den gemensamma diskussionen i dessa frågor.

Ur programet:
Delad information, effektiv information â?? Rasmus Fleischer, frilansjournalist och aktiv i PiratbyrÃ¥n, argumenterar för det rationella med att vara solidarisk pÃ¥ informationsomrÃ¥det.

Fri information i praktiken: Creative Commons och Open Access â?? Mathias Klang, doktorand vid Göteborgs Universitet och projektledare för Creative Commons i Sverige, hjälper dig att befria informationen.

Kampen om informationen â?? Lars Ilshammar, författare och förestÃ¥ndare för Arbetarrörelsens Arkiv och Bibliotek, ger oss en övergripande bild av den globala kampen mellan Ã?ppnare som vill frigöra informationen och Stängare som vill lÃ¥sa in den.

Mer information finns hos Världsbiblioteket
När: 15/5, kl. 12:30â??17:00
Var: Solidaritetsrörelsens Hus, Tegelviksgatan 40, Stockholm
Arr: Globalportalen och Världsbiblioteket

Posted on by mklang