Culture

Web 2.0 Licentiate thesis

Does the term Web 2.0 confuse or annoy you? Is there anything beyond the flashy buzzword? Well I guess the best way to begin to understand Web 2.0 is to experience it (insert your Matrix jokes here!) but if you prefer to be guided by someone else then I can recommend Peter Gigerâ??s (2006) Licentiate Thesis on the topic. The title is â??Participation Literacyâ?? and it is an interesting exploration in the termâ??s growth and meaning.

From the abstract:

The thesis concerns the Web 2.0 concept construction. Web 2.0 is a new mindset on the Internet. The main characteristics include â??Web as a Platformâ??, Collective Intelligence, Folksonomy and interfaces build with lightweight technologiesâ?¦Web 2.0 is not only a technique, but also an ideology â?? an ideology of participation. A Web 2.0 service is completely web based and generally draws on open access. It includes tools for people to interact within areas such as encyclopaedias, bookmarks, photos, books or research articles. All Web 2.0 services are web communities. A web community is a group of individuals, linked together by a network of social relations with some degree of continuity. Community members learn from each other and the knowledge base of the community grows for every interaction. The core values of Web 2.0 are democracy and participation.

Download it here or visit Peter’s research blog.

Posted on by mklang

Copyleft@LSE

On Thursday I will be lecturing at the London School of Economics (LSE) on a course entitled Intellectual Property Law and Policy. The focus of my 1,5 hour talk will be on

1.    Peer-to-Peer Systems and Copyright Infringement
2.    The Rise of Copyleft, the Free Software Foundation and The Creative Commons Project

Even though I did not pick the topics, these are subjects close to my heart and the broad sweep of topics should make the lecture an interesting discussion rather than just getting stuck in the individual details.

Point 1 is the development of technology while point 2 refers to the development of social systems to ensure that the technology does not deprive users of basic freedoms enjoyed prior to the advent of the technology.

Posted on by mklang

Serendipity

Serendipity is making fortunate discoveries by accident. It is also one of those words that both sounds good and denotes a good thing.

While looking for the bibliographic data on Lawrence Rosenâ??s book â??Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Lawâ?? (itâ??s the best on FOSS licensing and it’s also online here), I came across another Lawrence Rosen and his new book â??Law as Cultureâ??. The title was enough â?? I bought it.

Now that I have the book I read the front flap of the dust jacket:

Law is integral to culture, and culture to law. Often considered a distinctive domain with strange rules and stranger language, law is actually a part of a cultureâ??s way of expressing its sense of the order of things.

Rosen is a legal anthropologist and he presents a nice intro to the area of law and culture. All this is good stuff and I am looking forward to reading the rest. How did this book end up in my library and on my â??must readâ?? list? A case of mixed identity, two authors with the same name, an interest in software licensingâ?¦

Serendipity isnâ??t it great?

Posted on by mklang

Michael of Rhodes

It sounds like a fictional mystery â?? just look at the ingredients: a lost manuscript about an ancient mariner sailing the Mediterranean (and beyond), fighting naval battles and piratesâ?¦

At the age of 16, Michael of Rhodes signed onto a Venetian galley in 1401 as a common oarsman. Over the next four decades he sailed on dozens of voyages, either in the war galleys of the Venetian navy, or in the commercial galleys of the merchant fleet. He rose in the ranks, attaining a number of different offices, including the highest rank a non-noble could have in Venetian service. In 1434, Michael sat down to write out the manuscript for which he is remembered. The Michael of Rhodes manuscript was lost for 400 years until it resurfaced in 1966 and again in 2000.

Today selected pages of the beautiful work are available online along with maps and illustrations. It’s not all there and it’s not CC licensed (or similar) but it’s a great site.
(via BibliOdyssey)

Posted on by mklang

Firefly – the documentary

It has been called “possibly the best Creative Commons-licensed content yet”…hmm maybe you have to be a fan to say this! But whatever I am downloading it now and looking forward to seeing it (and finding out what the fuss is all about).

What is it? It’s the documentary Done The Impossible – The Fans’ Tale of Firefly & Serenity. This is the story of the rise and fall and rebirth of the cult TV show “Firefly,”
as told from the perspective of the fans who helped save it. It was first released on DVD – and the fans loved it. So the creators went a step further – they released a Creative Comons by-nc-sa this means that it’s free to download edit and spread. As the post on P2P blog wrote: “For free, and for the right reasons”.

Read more about the projecy from the release notes:

We philosophically agree with the concepts of Creative Commons. In our opinion, the modern state of copyright is counter productive to creativity and free culture. It puts unnatural restraints on “fair use”, hinders the creative process and has fundamentally destroyed an entire industry before it was even born. Just think of the amazing products, enhancements, embellishments and re-mixes to creative works that could be built with today’s technology and talents. But because modern copyrights are so restrictive, nobody dares do anything that *might* infringe on somebody’s oh so holy copyright. Thus, we have chosen to not go down that road with our documentary. Enjoy it, share it, re-mix it all you like, just be sure to follow the license below.

Done the Impossible Torrent (hosted by Legaltorrents.com)

(via P2P blog)

Posted on by mklang

La Stampa goes (partly) CC

In an act which is begins to show that some mainstream media is begining to get it! La Stampa, a leading Italien daily has just released its two cultural supplements, TuttoScienze (science) and TuttoLibri (books), under a Creative Commons license (Att-NC-ND 2.5).

Ok so the license is one of the less permissable, but at least it shows that they are thinking and acting with an awareness of what is really happinging rather than attempting to fight against the current legal-technical developments online.

Posted on by mklang

Social and cultural aspects of mobile phones

The social and cultural impact of mobile media has received too little study so here is an interesting call for papers to an international conference on social and cultural aspects of mobile phones, convergent media, and wireless technologies – The conference website Mobile Media 2007 will be up in August 2006.

Date: 2-4 July 2007

Place: The University of Sydney, Australia

…This relatively short history of mobile telephony is concurrently marked by the shift of the role of users from consumers to active producers – and mobile media is being heralded as a new site for consumption, democratic expression, individualism, citizenship, and creativity.

We also invite papers on all aspects of mobile media, including, but certainly not restricted to:

* what does it mean to talk about mobiles as media?
* how do we map and theorise the transformations underway with mobile platforms, applications, and networks?
* mobile art
* mobiles and photography
* emerging cultural and narrative forms for mobiles (such as mobile films and videos)
* intersections between mobiles and Internet technologies
* wireless technologies and cultures
* mobile television, radio, and other kinds of broadcasting
* video calling and communications
* sexuality, intimacy, and mobile media
* mobile media and national or regional cultures
* subcultures, minority cultures, majoritarian cultures, and mobile media
* how do gender, sexuality, disability, socio-economics, cultural and linguistic contexts inflect cultural practices in the far-from-even-and-even terrain of mobiles?
* mobile media and political economy
* mobile gaming
* what are the implications of mobile media for our concepts of culture, communication, and media
* mobiles, community, and public sphere
* mobile media, place and space
* ramifications of mobile media for creative, cultural and media industries
* challenges of mobile media for policy, regulation, and legislation.

Posted on by mklang

GPLv3 audio & video

The audio & video recordings from the 3rd International GPLv3 Conference held in Barcelona during June 22nd & 23rd 2006 are now online. The torrent files can be downloaded from here and include presentations by Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen and Georg Greve (amongst others). My own claim to fame was that I was on the enforcement panel on day 2.

Posted on by mklang