blogs

Online material and copyright

While commenting on the distinction between the professional and amateur Clair from Mummys Bracelet pointed to an interesting discussion (and here) in relation to this topic. The whole thing started when JonnyB was told be a neighbor that he was published in the newspaper The Mail on Sunday. This was news to JonnyB who found that The Mail had printed entire posts from his blog on their Blog of The Week section without permission.

OK – so it’s copyright violation. No biggie, nothing to blog about you might think. JonnyB sent an invoice and the Mail paid up. Problem solved? No, not really. The newspaper paid but it also wrote in response to JonnyB

We generally take the view that blogs published on the internet have already been placed in the public domain by their authors and, in case of amateur writers, most people are happy to have their work recognised and displayed to a wider audience.

The really strange thing that follows from this story is the misguided belief that what is online is somehow in the public domain and that these mistakes are being made not only by amateurs but also be the “professional” media. And this is despite the fact that the discussion on online copyright is almost as old as the internet.

When lecturing to my students I keep trying to push into their minds three steps:

1. Almost nothing online is outside copyright.

2. Assume everything is owned.

3. What risks will you be running by using other people material? (who do you represent)

Maybe I should start lecturing for the news media…

Posted on by mklang

Trusting Technology

Claire over at Mummys Bracelet has written about the drawbacks in the blind trust in technology and used a row of fun/scary examples about people who have followed the advice of their satellite navigation systems into dead ends, rivers and other traps. Ignoring their better judgment and the evidence of their own eyes.

This is the kind of stuff I have written about before but it reminded me that I had a book chapter called “Trust & Technology” in Swedish which has never been online so I decided that it was time to but the preprint where it belongs – unfortunately it’s in Swedish but I was very happy with the way in which the chapter turned out.

The basic point of the article is that we should not trust technology more than necessary and, more importantly, we should not allow experts exclude us from discussing the pros and cons of technology.

Posted on by mklang

Eva joins the blogosphere

A colleague, photographer and fellow flickr abuser has just joined the blogosphere and I am looking forward to seeing the blog grow. If it is anything like her photography it should be well worth following. Check out her work at Homespun and why not drop by her Flickr site.

 

 

Posted on by mklang

Better Podcasts

Finding good podcasts is really difficult. Not because they are rare but because, like everything online, there is too much to search through. Martin (from the blog with the impossible name Aardvarchaeology) has asked his readers to recommend some better podcasts for him to subscribe to.

So, Dear Reader, you clearly aren’t a moron: in aggregate, Aard’s readers should be a much better authority than the unwashed masses when it comes to podcasts. Please tell me your favourite podcasts with a sentence or two explaining what they’re about…

The list makes a good starting point for those who are looking for better podcasts. My own suggestion to Martin’s list was the University of Bath Public Lecture Podcast. The series features leading names from the worlds of science, humanities and engineering talking about the latest research in their field.

Some of my favorites are:
General Sir Rupert Smith: The utility of force
Professor Allan Kellehear: The history of death and dying
Steve Jones: Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right
Lord Desai: Why is poverty persistent?
Professor Jacque Lynn Foltyn: Dead sexy: The corpse is the new “porn star” of pop culture

Posted on by mklang

Treat them like crap

Explaining the inner workings of the university to outsiders is complicated enough my family and friends don’t get what the university is, or how it works and often enough the comments that I have “stayed” in university are flung at me as if this is a simple, cosy sinecure. Ignore the fact that we have an incredible series of qualifications (both formal and informal), ignore the fact that we have internal politics, real budgets, tough evaluations and working conditions which do not match our salaries – no other group works for free as much as we do – ignore all that. Just remember that universities can, and do, treat many of their valued workers like shit.

Purse Lips and Square Jaw blogged an excerpt from Marc Bousquet’s new book How The University Works (the introduction in pdf)

Degree in hand, loans coming due…the degree holder asks a question to which the system has no answer: If I have been a splendid teacher and scholar while nondegreed for the past ten years, why am I suddenly unsuitable? Nearly all of the administrative responses to the degree holder can already be understood as responses to waste: flush it, ship it to the provinces, recycle it through another industry, keep it away from the fresh meat.

Several of my friends have written their PhDs and are still struggling to get fixed jobs in academia despite several years of teaching and research experience. Martin over at Aardvarcheology has written his experiences at getting hired within academia.

Read more over at Bousquet’s How The University Works Blog and Tiziana Terranova and Marc Bousquet, Recomposing the University, Mute Magazine, 2004

Posted on by mklang

inclusionists vs deletionists

The Economist has an interesting article about the battle between the inclusionists and the deletionists in Wikipedia. The fascinating thing about wikipedia is that it is the largest encyclopedia ever created and that it is growing continuously. But this growth has not gone unquestioned. What should be on wikipedia and who should be allowed to put it there?

The latter question seems stupid since the whole point of wikipedia is that it is a space which can be edited by anyone. But, in reality, this is not the truth. Anyone can create an account and anyone can begin creating and editing pages but there are limitations here. One limitation is the (albeit minor) learning curve. Most people will be able to overcome this relatively easily, it only requires a bit of effort.

A more difficult limitation is the barrier created by the administrators who vet new pages and delete those which they find do not reach up to the wikipedia quality standards. The pages discussed in the Economist article dealt with whether or not fictional Pokemon characters should be included in the dictionary.

From my point of view I have attempted to create two different posts on the Swedish wikipedia only to have the both deleted after a short moment. I understand the reference my censor pointed me to on both occasions (the quality standards linked above but in Swedish). But I disagree since the articles I was attempting to write was similar to several other articles in the Swedish wikipedia.

Basically anyone can join in but after being censored twice by a deletionist my point of view is Sod it! I just can’t be arsed to try to contribute…

Update: When I decided to write this post I was a bit embarrassed to admit that my stuff was not good enough for wikipedia – but my irritation got the better of me. Now I have read that I am not alone, Martin over at Aardvarchaeology, writes that he too is a inclusionist that has had articles deleted. Sorry to here it Martin but I am glad to hear that I was not alone. By the way – I highly recommend Martin’s blog.

Posted on by mklang

Revisting the Hoax

Back in 1996 Alan Sokal published an article called “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity” in the journal Social Text. The article was praised as a breakthrough, written by Sokal the physics professor, it was filled with complex terms and post-modernist arguments. It was laced with references to mathematics and physics (it was a sociology text but this was the trend of the time).

Arguing that quantum gravity has progressive political implications, the paper claims the New Age concept of the “morphogenetic field” (not to be confused with the developmental biology use of the same term) could be a cutting-edge theory of quantum gravity. It concludes that, since “physical ‘reality’ … is at bottom a social and linguistic construct”, a “liberatory science” and “emancipatory mathematics” must be developed that spurn “the elite caste[‘s] canon of ‘high science'” for a “postmodern science [that] provide[s] powerful intellectual support for the progressive political project”. (The Sokal Affair – Wikipedia)

The problem was that the article was not truthful but was written to see if the journal could be fooled to, in Sokal’s words, “publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions.” Obviously when the scandal broke out lots of people were very annoyed (The Sokal Affair – Wikipedia).

Via Ting och Tankar I learned that Alan Sokal has now written a book on the affair “Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture” you can also listen to a podcast interview from the Guardian science weekly. Here is the blurb from the Oxford University Press

Now, in Beyond the Hoax , Sokal revisits this remarkable chapter in our intellectual history to illuminate issues that are with us even more pressingly today than they were a decade ago. Sokal’s main argument, then and now, is for the centrality of evidence in all matters of public debate. The original article, (included in the book, with new explanatory footnotes), exposed the faulty thinking and outright nonsense of the postmodernist critique of science, which asserts that facts, truth, evidence, even reality itself are all merely social constructs. Today, right wing politicians and industry executives are happily manipulating these basic tenents of postmodernism to obscure the scientific consensus on global warming, biological evolution, second-hand smoke, and a host of other issues. Indeed, Sokal shows that academic leftists have unwittingly abetted right wing ideologies by wrapping themselves in a relativistic fog where any belief is as valid as any other because all claims to truth must be regarded as equally suspect. Sokal’s goal, throughout the book, is to expose the dangers in such thinking and to defend a scientific worldview based on respect for evidence, logic, and reasoned argument over wishful thinking, superstition, and demagoguery of any kind.

Posted on by mklang

The Information Society for None

Free the Mind has blogged about the report Cultural industries in the context of the Lisbon strategy [PDF] being discussed in the European Parliaments Committee on Culture and Education.

Article 9 in the report attempts to address online piracy and should be seen as a step in the right direction. The authors have reached the understanding that …criminalising consumers so as to combat digital piracy is not the right solution.

However the committee members did not agree with this and several of them have submitted proposals for changes [PDF]. The most serious is the proposal from Christopher Hilton-Hearris. His proposal will force Internet providers into action and to close the accounts of those caught violating others copyright:

This cooperation of Internet service providers should include the use of filtering technologies to prevent their networks being used to infringe intellectual property, the removal from the networks or the blocking of content that infringes intellectual property, and the enforcement of their contractual terms and conditions, which permit them to suspend or terminate their contracts with those subscribers who repeatedly or on a wide scale infringe intellectual property

He even proposes that the EU-Commission launch pro intellectual property campaigns to the general public and as a subject in schools. He is not alone in his suggestion to cut off Internet supply to those involved in copyright violations. The Committee on Industry, Research and Energy has recommended the Committee for Culture and Education to:

Calls on the internet service providers to cooperate in the fight against internet piracy and enforce their contractual terms and conditions or terminate contracts with subscribers who infringe intellectual property rights. Internet service providers should apply filtering measures to prevent copyright and stop existing infringements

Photo hear hear by massdistraction

This is an extremely simplistic and naive approach to the problem of copyright violation in digital environments.

Now that politicians are actively attempting to shut down connections the dream of creating an inclusive society based upon a technological infrastructure (for example Information Society for All) seems to be on its way out.

Why is banning people from the Internet a bad idea?

The Internet has been promoted and become our most basic communications infrastructure (obviously my focus here is Europe since this is where the proposal is being discussed).

1. The punishment does not fit the crime: We have changed the way Banks, Post Offices, ticket sales, hotel booking, insurance (etc, etc) work and banning someone from the Internet will be tantamount to branding a symbol of guilt onto the person. Not to mention the increased costs involved in time and money. Indeed why should copyright violation prevent me from online banking?

2. Group punishment: If an Internet connection is involved in copyright violation this does not mean that all those dependent upon that connection should be punished. The actual violator may be underage or the network may be open to others.

3. Privatizing the law: The ability to punish copyright violators should not be delegated to private bodies. Internet providers are not equipped to mete out legal punishments.

The proposals seen above are simplistic, naive and dangerous they show a fundamental lack of understanding not only of technology or its role in society but also a lack of understanding of the role of communication in a democratic society. The actions of the politicians proposing such measures show that they are not acting in the interests of the individuals they are there to serve.

Posted on by mklang

Seven Random Things

After reading the results of the Seven Random Things meme at both The Mummy’s Bracelet and The Little Professor I want to join in.

  • I grew up on the island of Malta where I attended an all boys catholic school. I have been an atheist as long as I can remember.
  • I once predicted that I would never need a mobile phone. I have lost count of how many I have owned.
  • As a child I was accident prone and required stitches on several occasions, I lost half a finger before I was two – but I have never broken a bone.
  • My first job was at McDonalds I survived 4 days before quitting.
  • I have been a vegetarian for twenty years but recently I have become aware of the fact that I don’t know why.
  • Science Fiction/Fantasy books bore me, but I like the films. Deep films bore me but I like to read the books. But I rarely read fiction.
  • I almost didn’t survive law school. Bad study routines, computer games (especially Diablo) and insufficient interest in general law almost made me quit. I wonder where I would be today.

Naturally its easy to tag friends like TechnoLlama, Jonas, Hesa, Cyberlaw… But I would also like to tag some of the blogs I regularly read so Mothugg, Stephen, Joi & Jill consider yourselves tagged!

Posted on by mklang