Property

Hanging with TJ

On my way home I was wandering aimlessly browsing stores and walked into a second hand bookstore and found The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson for 1.99 euros! The book includes many of his longer and shorter works and a large selection of letters. My favorite is Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Isaac McPherson (13 August 1813) which includes the wonderful quote:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

Thomas Jefferson was also in Paris during the French revolution and I am looking forward to reading his letters during this period. Some red wine and an interesting discussion with Thomas is my idea of a good Friday.

Posted on by mklang

Fairey gets two years

On Friday Shepard Fairey was sentenced to two years’ probation by the Boston Municipal Court. The sentence is based upon the images he posted on public and private property over the years. (via Designboom)

the well-known illustrator and graphic designer has pleaded guilty to three charges of vandalism, including defacing property and wanton destruction of property under 250 USD. he had 11 other chargers which have been dropped. he has been fined 2,000 USD for graffiti removal. Designboom

Fairey’s most widely spread and famous work (probably) is the André the giant obey mashup (or whatever it should be called).

Multi-affiches Boulevard St Germain 06e? .jpg by yoyolabellut (CC BY-NC-ND)

But he reached new peaks of fame for his wonderful “hope” poster designed during the Barack Obama campaign.

Obama Posters by el clinto (CC BY-NC-ND)

Is this the plight of all known street artists who become famous enough to be identified?

Posted on by mklang

Disrespectful handling of digitalized cultural artifacts

On several occasions I have had the opportunity to discuss digitalization of traditional media. In particular to images that are no longer covered by copyright. Those who act as caretakers and gatekeepers for these cultural treasures have long been positive to digitalization – but were quick to discover that digitalization alone is not enough. The turning point of public opinion occurred when the Library of Congress began its pilot project with Flickr in the Flickr Commons. Read more about it on the Library of Congress blog or the report from the pilot.

Despite the anecdotal evidence, the gut feeling and the report some gatekeepers are still concerned about what will happen to “their” images if the plebeian mass can access them freely.

At first I thought their fears stemmed from a loss of income from selling prints, but this seems not to be their main concern even if some do refer to this. There main concern is the way in which the images will be treated.

They fear the disrespectful handling of digitalized cultural artifacts.

Now you may well ask yourselves how a digitalized artifact may be manhandled? Obviously it is not about destruction but there are concerns about use. The legal protection is long gone. The photographs are long since in the public domain and can be used and abused at will. This is of concern to the caretakers/gatekeepers since they have been entrusted with the images in physical form. In almost all cases they have received the photographs with a promise that they are preserving a part of cultural heritage. They believe that in their role as cultural preservers lies a duty to ensure that the photographers honor is not sullied by disagreeable online use.

And they know all too well that once digitalization and access has been granted there is no longer any control.

While I am a copyright minimalist and I think our protection terms are way too long I do feel there is a point here. How can museums and archives fulfill their duty to preserve what they have received in trust while maintaining their duty to provide access to culture?

Then I look at the work done by the Swedish National Heritage Board in relation to this question. They have put a small selection of their images on the Flickr Commons. A mere 274 photographs by Carl Curman (1833-1913).

The photographs have been accessed over 200  000 time since 17 March this year, that’s less than four months! Or 50 000 views per month (K-Blogg).

Besides pushing the almost unknown Carl Curman to a portion of internet fame the project at the Swedish National Heritage Board has brought back to life a set of dead photographs. Image how many times a photograph is seen in it’s lifetime. The average must be depressingly low. The most popular photograph in their project has been viewed 7805 times. Stop. Read the numbers and think. Seven thousand eight hundred and five times.

Stockholm by Carl Curman now seen by one more person: You…

Sure the photo will be ripped off. It will be posted on websites, stored on computers, used in presentations and the name of Carl Curman will be disassociated from the picture he took. Even more certain is that the Swedish Cultural Heritage Board will not be attributed enough for their thankless task of bringing this dead cultural artifact to life. But let us remember the old adage – no good dead goes unpunished.

The role of the caretaker/gatekeeper is, not a they once believed it to be, to prevent access. In the real world, grubby fingers and clumsy handling destroy the real artifact and lose it to the whole world. That is why we should be kept away from the real thing. But in the digital world the same is not true. What the flickr commons shows beyond a doubt is that while digitalization is good, it is nothing without access.

Ask Carl Curman.

Posted on by mklang

The trial of the decade! Or maybe a non-event?

Tomorrow the long awaited file sharing/internet piracy trial will begin. The Times Online called it the Internet piracy trial of the decade. It’s the Pirate Bay website (or rather four men behind the site) that go on trial for enabling millions of internet users to make illegal downloads of music, movies, games and software. The courts will look into subjects like

– what is a link

– what is a search engine

– aiding criminal offences

Most of the stuff is interesting from a legal-technical point of view since the outcome will hardly have any effect on file sharing on the Internet. The most probably outcome will be a court “victory” for the copyright industry and an appeal to the next level. The case will move towards the inevitable Supreme Court trial. The whole affair should be very interesting and yet, in practical terms, not relevant the total amount of file sharing online. User may have to switch to another provider or service but most probably the Pirate Bay will remain online in some form.

The story so far on ars technica, Times Online, Guardian. Also take a look at the Pirate Bays own dedicated trial site The Spectrial.

To understand how big this is take a look at the torrent user statistics on a map in real time here. Killing a website like the Pirate Bay will not stop this.

Posted on by mklang

File Sharing and Cannibalization

Fred Benenson comments the Nine Inch Nails Ghosts I-IV album over at the Creative Commons blog. The album is a great example that tears apart the arguments put forward by many “content” industry know-it-alls.

The argument, often repeated, is that putting material online will destroy all sales and therefore profits. There are several examples of books making great sales even after the content has been made available for free online. But thick academic books have been seen as a strange exception to the rule. In a recent discussion with a Swedish publisher they included the condition that making material available online only could work in English books – the Swedish market was too small to cope.

But books are not the only successful free content. The Nine Inch Nails Ghosts I-IV album is available online via file sharing networks – the entire content was licensed via Creative Commons license (BY-NC-SA) which allowed users to download it legally and many, many did so. But the fascinating thing is that Ghosts I-IV is ranked the best selling MP3 album of 2008 on Amazon’s MP3 store.

NIN Best Selling MP3 AlbumNIN’s Creative Commons licensed Ghosts I-IV has been making lots of headlines these days.

First, there’s the critical acclaim and two Grammy nominations, which testify to the work’s strength as a musical piece. But what has got us really excited is how well the album has done with music fans. Aside from generating over $1.6 million in revenue for NIN in its first week, and hitting #1 on Billboard’s Electronic charts, Last.fm has the album ranked as the 4th-most-listened to album of the year, with over 5,222,525 scrobbles.

The natural question is why fans bother buying files that were identical to the ones on the file sharing networks? According to Fred explanations vary from the convenience and ease of use of NIN and Amazon’s MP3 stores to the desire of fans to support the music and career of musicians they like.

The point is that “the next time someone tries to convince you that releasing music under CC will cannibalize digital sales, remember that Ghosts I-IV broke that rule, and point them here.”

Posted on by mklang

The Quality of Code, Law and Journalism

In the IT newspaper Computer Sweden a Swedish IT/IP lawyer (Malin Forsman) is quoted as saying that proprietary software is of “better quality” than Free or Open Source software (my translation):

She recommends against Swedish software providers from going ‘open souce’. According to her using licensing costs is a much better method.
– You need a carrot to exert yourself properly. If the large source of income is dependent upon the quality of the code then I believe that you will try harder.

My first problem is with the journalism and the article itself. Like many other short newspaper articles it does not seem to have a point. What is the newsworthiness of this article? That an individual has an opinion? So what? We all have opinions but this does not make them newsworthy. Mind you if this had been my only complaint it would not have been worth blogging about.

My second problem is with journalistic integrity. By simply blogging the lawyer we arrive at the law firm where she works and her brief bio, where under Memberships we see that she is a member of: Board member of the IT group of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, Board Member of the Association for IT and Law, Member of the Swedish Copyright Association and Member of the International Technology Law Association. Her main legal experience outside law firms was working for Microsoft Corporation. Shouldn’t this maybe have been indicated in the article? If the journalist is presenting an opinion as news then shouldn’t some sort of critical analysis be added? I know that journalists are supposed to be objective but this article is hardly reporting the news as it is.

The next problem is with the lawyer herself. I have no doubt that she is a qualified lawyer and an expert in the IT/IP field but what is wrong with her statements? Unless of course this is simply a case of journalistic misquote she is a legal expert speaking of the quality of code. She does not attempt to define quality even if such a definition was at all possible. By her logic an Open Source project that makes it’s code proprietary immediately improves its code and a proprietary software project that releases its code under an Open Source license immediately deteriorates the quality of its code. Obviously these are ridiculous statements. But when the IT/IP legal expert says them we are supposed to nod our heads in agreement.

So who would be the right person to make such a statement? Well that person would need to have a vast experience of code not law. This imaginary person would need to have a vast experience of both open and proprietary projects and be able to define the concept of quality in a way that will enable these projects to be measurable and comparable. In addition to this the person would need to be free from suspicions of bias. I doubt whether such a super person exists.

But what may be said about quality? Here are two quotes:

Peter Drucker: (Innovation and entrepreneurship, 1985) “Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. “ISO 9000: “Degree to which a set of inherent characteristic fulfills requirements.”

Now lets complicate the issue even more:

While both these definitions are relatively common neither takes into full account the nature of software quality. The problem arises from the fact that software is a mix of product and service. The actual code is not what customers buy – they buy a function. Who cares what the software of a word processor looks like? It’s function is what the customer believes he/she has bought. If this is true then the customer has also bought an expectation of support in the case of software failure.

This was just meant as an illustration of the complexity of software quality and why neither a journalist nor a lawyer can deal with such a question in the space of a 350 word article. What they are really doing is pure advertising in the form of journalism. Advertising a personal, political and business stance on software while puffing up their own egos.

Posted on by mklang

More than a commodity

While browsing around for a starting point on my next project I came across an article I had forgotten. The article “Copying Kill Bill” is written by Laikwan Pang (Social Text 2005) and is an exploration of the connections between copyright and cultural borrowing, or stealing depending on the perspective I suppose.

A film is not only a commodity but also a complex system of cultural representation, in which cultural exchanges are so complex that today’s copyright discourse can never clearly differentiate between copyright infringement and cultural appropriations, as clearly shown in Kill Bill.

This was just the type of article I was looking for to inspire me to move forward. We have to take a step back and look seriously at the larger picture which is infinately more complex and much more interesting.

Posted on by mklang