rights

Mashing-up Culture: The Rise of User-generated Content

Sampling and remixing, mash-ups and appropriation, wikis and podcasts are part of the digital creative milieu of the twenty-first century. Sites such as YouTube, Flickr and deviantART have offered new outlets for creativity and become hubs for innovative forms of collaboration thus playing their part in challenging modernist notions of what it means to be a creator as well as a consumer. User-generated content has draw upon the reuse of existing texts as well as new creations, bringing forward possibilities for new audiences and meanings while also raising questions about how digital texts are controlled through copyright and how intellectual property is managed.

Drawing on this background, papers are invited for the two-day workshop – Mashing-up Culture: The Rise of User-generated Content – which will take place at Uppsala University, Sweden on May 13th-14th, 2009. The event will be the first organised by the European research project COUNTER which explores the socio-economic and cultural impacts of the consumption of counterfeit goods and will bring together COUNTER researchers with scholars and stakeholders to explore the current state and dilemmas surrounding copyright and the production, consumption and distribution of culture.

Papers are invited which explore the possibilities and pitfalls surrounding the creative use of copyrighted materials with possible themes including but not limited to:

  • Sampling, mash-ups, and appropriation
  • Creativity and collaborative practices
  • Creative industries and intellectual property
  • Copyright, Cultural Heritage and Cultural Policy
  • Regulating intellectual property (formal and informal protection)

The aim of the workshop is to provide a creative and stimulating forum for an interdisciplinary and international discussion. We especially invite researchers at the earlier stages of their career to submit proposals coming from across the humanities and social sciences. Accepted papers will be published in the workshop proceedings and further publishing outlets will be explored following the workshop.

Abstracts must be no longer than 1000 words and should consider key questions addressed in the paper, data used, theoretical perspective, as well as key findings and/or contribution to the field. The title, author(s) names, email contact(s), institutional affiliation(s) and references cited must be clearly given in the submission but is not included in the 1000 word limit. Further a 200 word biography of each author should also be appended to the abstract.

Abstracts must be submitted as word processing files (not PDFs) to Eva Hemmungs Wirtén – ehw@abm.uu.se – no later than Wednesday 7th January 2009.

Proposals will be evaluated on the basis of originality, quality of research, theoretical innovation and relevance to the central themes of the COUNTER project. Accepted authors will be notified by email by 30th January 2009. Successful applicants will be invited to attend the workshop at no fee and receive significant reimbursement of travel costs and workshop accommodation.

Delegates are expected to participate in the whole of the two-day event.

Key dates:

  • 7th January: Deadline for submission of abstracts and author biographies
  • 30th January: Successful authors notified by email
  • 10th April: Full papers submitted for inclusion in proceedings
  • 24th April: Papers circulated to workshop delegates and discussants
  • 13th-14th May: Mashing-up Culture workshop

A document picturing some of the venues to be used for the workshop and the social events is available online. For further information on the workshop please cotact the workshop chair, Eva Hemmungs Wirtén – ehw@abm.uu.se.

Posted on by mklang

Protecting Digital Rights

Internet service providers are hardly known for their efforts to protect the rights of their clients. This is hardly surprising considering they low amount of money they make per client compared to the legal costs which would be entailed in attempting to defend a client. For example: A cheap web hosting service costs less per year than a lawyer costs per hour. It’s not too difficult to work it out.

At the same time the ISPs are our lifeline and basis of our ability to participate in a digital society so this lack of help is a serious flaw. So it was nice to see that the Council of Europe have published Human rights guidelines for Internet service providers

Developed by the Council of Europe in close co-operation with the European Internet Services Providers Association (EuroISPA), these guidelines provide human rights benchmarks for internet service providers (ISPs). While underlining the important role played by ISPs in delivering key services for the Internet user, such as access, e-mail or content services, they stress the importance of users’ safety and their right to privacy and freedom of expression and, in this connection, the importance for the providers to be aware of the human rights impact that their activities can have.

in addition to this document the Council of Europe have also published Human rights guidelines for online games providers

Developed by the Council of Europe in close co-operation with the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE), these guidelines provide human rights benchmarks for online games providers and developers. While underlining the primary value of games as tools for expression and communication, they stress the importance of gamers safety and their right to privacy and freedom of expression and, in this connection, the importance for the games industry to be aware of the human rights impact that games can have.

Documents such as these are the early steps at ensuring the protection of individuals online rights and as such should be applauded even if it is kind of worrying that we still see a need to attempt to define rights in online environments as something fundamentally different from human rights in the offline world.

Posted on by mklang

Dawkins site censored

Technollama point to an article in the Guardian that Richard Dawkins, has had his website banned in Turkey because a Creationist has found it “defamatory and blasphemous”.

Apparently the whole thing blew up when Dawkins commented on a the book of a Muslim Creationist (that had been sent to him by the creationist) and called it preposterous and wrote on his website that he was at “a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the ‘breathtaking inanity’ of the content.”.

Some comments from the Creationists office say it all:

We are not against freedom of speech or expression but you cannot insult people.

We found the comments hurtful. It was not a scientific discussion. There was a line and the limit has been passed.

And I thought mindless creationists were a particularly american thing but apparently they, as with all stupidity, are international.

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Buzzing with FRA

The whole of Sweden is buzzing with the new surveillance law entering into effect in 2009. Or at least many of the Swedish blogs I follow. The outside world is a mystery to me since I am stuck inside writing. Paddy K has written an English version of what’s going on that is well worth reading. Not only that he also lightens my guilt of not actually being more active in publicising the anti-FRA to the non-Swedish speaking world, which is most of you out their since there are only 9 million swedes.

Paddy K also includes the brilliant line:

I guess politicians have short memories. Or scriptwriters with a developed sense of irony.

Thanks I needed a laugh!

The Swedish wikipedia has a good background on FRA. For more about this in English check out EDRIgram, jill/txt, English wikipedia and the Economist.

Posted on by mklang

Voodoo Science

In what is one of the best examples of voodoo science and the gullibility of the law that I have seen in a long time (ever?) a court in India has accepted a scientist claims that his machine can measure guilt.

The International Herald Tribune reports a case concerns a woman who was accused of killing her former fiancé by poisoning him.The legal system decided to test the Brain Electrical Oscillations Signature test of Neuroscientist Champadi Raman Mukundan.

The test to measure her guilt consisted of placing 32 electrodes on the accused head. They interrogators then read aloud their version of events, speaking in the first person along with with neutral statements. From this the software distinguishes memories from normal cognition. Even if the accused said nothing her brain reacted when the crime was described. The judge agreed that the scans were proof of “experiential knowledge” of having committed the murder, rather than just having heard about it.

Obviously there are too many reactions to this! But let’s ignore the obvious lack of technical reliability, the need to prove the technology and the differences in legal and scientific methods and standards of proof.

Lets just say that the accused may have a guilty conscience in relation to the victim for several reasons other than the fact she may or may not have poisoned him. In addition to this she may lack any emotions of guilt even if she poisoned him.

The scary part is that the dignity of science is accepted without too many pertinent questions by the court and create real consequences.


Voodoo Fetish Market, Lomé by themanwithsalthair

Posted on by mklang

My licensing book is out

My short book on open licenses in Swedish Copyright – Copyleft: En guide om upphovsrätt och licenser på nätet is finished and it is online at the IIS, the organisation who commissioned the work. The book covers seven licenses and the Creative Commons system.

The licenses discussed/explained are the Free Art License 1.3, GNU Free Documentation License, the Sparc Author Addendum, the Ethymonics Free Music License, the Common Documentation License, the, the BSD Free Documentation License and the Open Game License.

I am happy that the work is done and I hope that it will serve to help the curious learn more about licensing.

Posted on by mklang

Torture Established

CNN reports that the organization Physicians for Human Rights have conducted clinical evaluations of 11 former detainees from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan. The report from Physicians for Human Rights shows that the prisoners have been tortured

“We found clear physical and psychological evidence of torture and abuse, often causing lasting suffering,” said Dr. Allen Keller, a medical evaluator for the study.

In a 121-page report, the doctors’ group said that it uncovered medical evidence of torture, including beatings, electric shock, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, sodomy and scores of other abuses.

The report is prefaced by retired U.S. Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the Army’s investigation into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in 2003. “There is no longer any doubt that the current administration committed war crimes,” Taguba says. “The only question is whether those who ordered torture will be held to account.”

The rights group demands:

• “Repudiate all forms of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”;

• Establish an independent commission to investigate and report publicly the circumstances of detention and interrogation at U.S.-run prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay;

• Hold individuals involved in torturing detainees accountable through criminal and civil processes; and

• Monitor thoroughly the conditions at U.S.-run prisons all over the world.

Posted on by mklang

Gender & Technology

Most of us (should) know that the net is not a particularly nice place. It is a neutral tool that allows all users to go out there and be themselves. Unfortunately the technology also offers people pseudo-anonymity or the illusion of real anonymity. I say unfortunately because this really brings the weirdos out of the woodwork. One of the most casual forms is the misogynist – but racism may be more common.

In an article on Women on the Web, Caitlin Fitzsimmons writes about the way in which men use technology to spread fear against women and approaches ways in which to deal with the issue. Many tend to think that the best approach is to ignore those who behave badly. This approach can be justified in different ways:

1. The simplest reason many ignore the problem is by claiming to be too tired/busy to react. This is usually connected to arguments that there are simply too many things to react to. So in general I agree with this argument except for the problem that too many people use this as an excuse all the time and react to nothing. If you cannot fight against everything then at least pick one injustice and fight against that!

2. Social shunning as punishment. In real life when someone behaves badly we often do not tell them or make a big fuss. Often it is enough to ignore what has happened, in particular if we ignore it visibly. We can, for example, create an embarrassing silence. This is the social equivalent of banishment and the socially aware individual recognizes that boundaries have been crossed and will adjust his/her behavior in the future. The problem with attempting this online is that the offender must feel the need to belong to the group for this to work. Also embarrassing silences only work when the whole social group falls unnaturally silent. This does not work online.

3. The third approach is the concept of the marketplace of ideas. This basically means that it is actually good for the weirdo’s to get out in the open and test their ideas since this will only encourage the opposition to develop better arguments and convince the weirdo’s that they are wrong. In an offline world this may work in theory in an open debate but it is hardly likely to work in practice.  In an online environment this approach is misguided. It also gives the weirdo’s way too much leeway and opportunity to cause pain to others.

Fitzsimmons writes:

The question is then how to tackle the problem. The panellists agreed that while there was no point in engaging directly with hateful comments, ignoring them was not really a viable option. Feministing.com’s Valenti said online misogyny was different to offline abuse in two key respects. “Unlike someone coming up to you on the street, it can be really hard to assess what kind of danger you’re in,” she added. “You don’t know if it’s a 15 year-old in Idaho spouting off or a really scary guy who really is likely to come around and rape you.”

The online/offline worlds are different and attempting to apply theoretical approaches to handling uncomfortable/threatening/harmful situations in the online world may only cause more harm. No I do not have a solution but I really like the way in which blogs like Feministing are using  technology to reach new readers – or actually viewers since Feministing uses YouTube videos (check out their channel here).

Posted on by mklang

Sports, Politics and Resistance

Tommie Smith was the winner of the 200-meter dash at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico. His teammate John Carlos came third.

carlos-smith.jpg

“The two American athletes received their medals shoeless, but wearing black socks, to represent black poverty…” Both the americans and the silver medalist wore Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) badges. “Carlos had forgotten his black gloves, but Norman suggested that they share Smith’s pair, with Smith wearing the right glove and Carlos the left. When “The Star-Spangled Banner” played, Smith and Carlos delivered the salute with heads bowed, a gesture which became front page news around the world. As they left the podium they were booed by the crowd.” Wikipedia

This is a classic image in symbolic resistance which has been an inspiration to all those who struggle.

The coming Chinese Olympics have already been the target of political campaigns. The Chinese civil rights record is a natural target for acts of civil disobedience – whether symbolic or not.

In order to prevent any such things the British Olympic chiefs are going to force athletes to sign a contract promising not to speak out about China’s appalling human rights record – or face being banned from traveling to Beijing. (Daily Mail)

OK, so maybe there cannot be any official positions taken from the participating countries but to prevent individuals from protesting is going to far. The Chinese naturally see the Olympics as a perfect opportunity to present their position and of course this has not gone unopposed – for example AOL video, RSF, and Yahoo.

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Defending Security by Obscurity

Almost as soon as Google launched its “Social Graph API” the discussions began. As with other innovations in the field of social networking the Google social graph will be a potential new threat to privacy – and like everything else produced by Google it will be well-packaged and presented in a non-threatening manner.

So what is the social graph and why is it important?

Basically the social graph is a way to take existing data and to use it in new ways. By analyzing the information available the social graph will present relationships between data and people online. One of the examples used in the instructional video (found here) is this:

social graph by Google

the user Brad joins twitter and searches for friends. The social graph knows that b3 belongs to Brad (maybe his blog), from the Blog the social graph knows that Bradfitz is also Brad. Bradfitz is friends with Jane274 who is also known as Jane on twitter. Since they are friends on livejournal Brad can ask Jane to be friends on twitter.

The criticism against this model is that Jane274 may accept Bradfitz on livejournal but Jane may be trying to avoid Brad on twitter – even if they are the same people. Maybe Jane is trying to avoid Brad alltogether but has failed on livejournal? Who knows? Whatever the reason Jane may be using different names to create watertight compartments of her online life. This model of security is not particularly strong but it works reasonably well and is known as security by obscurity.

Tim O’Reilly argues that the weakness or false sense of security created by security by obscurity is dangerous and therefore social graphs should be implemented. He realises people will get hurt when the obscurity is lost but considers this to be a necessary cost of evolution

It’s a lot like the evolutionary value of pain. Search creates feedback loops that allow us to learn from and modify our behavior. A false sense of security helps bad actors more than tools that make information more visible…But even here, analogies to living things are relevant. We get sick. We develop antibodies and then we recover. Or we die.

Basically it’s evolve or die to Tim.

This is OK if you are pretty sure to be among those who survive the radical treatment. But what about those who are hurt by the treatment – what about those who die? Danah Boyd at apophenia writes:

…I’m not jumping up and down at the idea of being in the camp who dies because the healthy think that infecting society with viruses to see who survives is a good idea. I’m also not so stoked to prepare for a situation where a huge chunk of society are chronically ill because of these experiments. What really bothers me is that the geeks get to make the decisions without any perspective from those who will be marginalized in the process.

The problem is that the people who will get hurt in large scale social experiments such as these are never those who are responsible in carrying them out. The costs will be carried by those who are not techie enough to defend themselves. The experts will continue to go about their lives because they will always have the ability (time, money, knowledge) to defend themselves.

Those in the position of privilege should remember that with great strength comes great responsibility. In other words those who have the ability to create systems such as these should really think about the social implications of the tools they are creating. Not as seen from their positions of privilege but from the perspective of the users who may be hurt.

Posted on by mklang