A public discussion of the third version of the Creative Commons licenses has been launched. The main news in version three is (1) New US and “generic” license, and (2) the Anti-DRM language.
Also take a look at the future of Free Media Licensing in two Wikimania sessions:
Lawrence Lessig on The Ethics of the Free Culture Movement
Eben Moglen on Document Licenses and the Future of Free Culture, (includes Q&A with both Moglen and Lessig).
Looking for books distributed under a CC license? Then here is a wiki for you. Actually these kinds of pages are really good unless they become too popular and all of a sudden they implode because of their own success â?? information overload, too many books make the search for the book you want impossible.
But letâ??s not get carried away with early Sunday morning pessimism. If you know of a book which belongs on this wiki â?? add it. If the concept of book confuses you (which all concepts have done since the great Plato/Aristotle disagreement on the theory of forms) then you might be helped by the wiki definition.
By “book” we generally mean works over 35,000 words that are or have been commercially available in hardcopy and have an ISBN. We’ve expanded the definition in two added sections below, however, to include the most popular books published through do-it-yourself press Lulu, and “books” published on websites of established organizations or notable blogs.
(via Open Access News)
Have you seen the Get-a-mac adverts? Basically a minimalistic, humorous set of adverts (watch them here) begging for someone to do a good spoof â?? and of course someone has!
The spoof is on the working conditions in Chinese factories manufacturing (among other things) Apple products. These factories are infamous for their low wage, long hours and brutality. More info in this article from MacForum.
See this spoof and others over at MacSpoofs â??Get-a-macâ?? category.
Mandatory fingerprinting for all over children over 12. Does this sound like an idea straight out of a dystopian nightmare? Wrong! This comes from a report (EU doc no: 9403/1/06) from the EU Council Presidency meeting of 26 June 2006. And it gets worse individual states will be fingerprinting infants from day one â?? as soon as this becomes technically possible.
Why the age of six? Is it to protect the integrity of the youngest? No such luck. As the report states: â??Scientific tests have confirmed that the papillary ridges on the fingers are not sufficiently developed to allow biometric capture and analysis until the age of six.â??
This issue was previously discussed in the meeting of the Visa Working Party (EU doc no: 10540/06). This latter discussion shows an unanimous will to adopt compulsory fingerprinting and no real integrity objections to states to adopt fingerprinting at an earlier age.
In May the BBC reported that children under the age of five were being fingerprinted to attempt to ensure that fraudulent benefit claims made by asylum seekers were unsuccessful.
(via Statewatch)
Three 12-year olds were arrested in the UK for breaking some branches while climbing a cherry tree. The three children were climbing a cherry tree when the police came and carted them off to the police station. The children had their pictures taken for mug-shots, DNA samples were taken and finally they had their shoes removed before being made to wait in police cells for two hours before being released.
Naturally I believe that trees deserve protection but this is ridiculous. The children now have criminal records which will be stored for five years. Also the DNA samples will not be destroyed after the five years (unless the UK has special rules for minors & DNA).
The word proportionality is very popular right now – it should be applied more often…
(via Daily Mail)
It’s a busy time. Returning from vacation and catching up on the news. This quote is too good to miss. It’s straight of CNN from the Saturday press conference held by Bush & Putin. This is George Bush’s vision of democracy:
“I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world, like Iraq where there’s a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same,” Bush said.
To that, Putin replied, “We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy that they have in Iraq, quite honestly.”
Earlier today I posted on George Bush’s attempts to give the German Chancellor an unwanted massage only later did I read this report from the press conference. And now this! Does George Bush really think that any country would want to change places with Iraq? Doesn’t he even watch the news or read a newspaper? Putin’s reply smacks of dignity and exasperation.
If this is one of his good weeks then I would hate to see his bad weeks…
Incredible! The world seems to be in the process of erupting into more and more violence. Afghanistan is ongoing but rarely reported, Gaza has fallen in the shadow of Lebanon. Iraq shows no sign of stabilising. Not to mention the hotspots in the rest of the world.
So when the world leaders meet in the G8 conference in St Petersburg one expects that the gravity of world affairs will ensure that the world leaders would act with an enhanced level of decorum that maybe could reflect the situation.
What does Bush do? Itâ??s unbelievable!!!
The actions of little George are totally unacceptable even if it was in the privacy of his own office and the victim was the office temp. But Angela Merkel is not the office temp but she is the German Chancellor. The unwelcome actions of George Bush go beyond ugly sexism and condescending male-female relations. The actions are an inexcusable insult on Germany. Actually it could be interpreted as the patronising US attitude towards the rest of the world.
More on this Unfogged, Bild.t, The News Blog, Talking Points Memo.
(via Bitch PhD)
Most of us have been in the position where we wanted to ask a stupid question â?? but did not ask it for fear of being seen to be stupid. We practice the noble art of silence. That this is common can be seen when someone else asks the stupid question and immediately a group of people in the audience gratefully acknowledge the importance of the question. Fear of standing out from the group is a powerful force of censorship.
The main problem with consensus is that anyone who disagrees is in the unfortunate position of being abnormal. The group is the norm â?? therefore disagreement with the group is abnormal. This is why censorship is dangerous. It creates the impression that anyone with a dissenting voice is abnormal. Fear of being considered outside the group leads most people to conform with the group and practice self-censorship â?? which in turn reinforces the illusion of consensus and the oddity of the dissenter.
Therefore to ensure that social discussions are not limited or quashed voicing dissent is important since it may encourage others to think and participate. Naturally the object of criticism would prefer not to be criticised and may work to prevent the voicing of criticism. This is, in most cases, not taken to extremes. But in the recent years the limitation of dissent has become a legitimate form of government activity.
Since government has a legitimate interesting in protecting all citizens it can be forced to prevent the actions of some citizens to ensure the safety of all. But this principle is being perverted. By identifying themselves as the nation, politicians are beginning to protect themselves from open criticism. Through the use of the extended public defence argument politicians now argue that it is wrong to criticise them since they are acting in the best interests of the nation.
In 2003 Stephen Downs was arrested for wearing a T-shirt with the text â??Give Peace a Chanceâ??.
In 2004 Nicole and Jeff Rank were removed from the event at the West Virginia Capitol in handcuffs after revealing T-shirts with President Bushâ??s name crossed out on the front. Nicole Rankâ??s shirt had the words â??Love America, Hate Bushâ?? on the back and Jeff Rankâ??s said â??Regime change starts at home.â??
In 2005 Charlotte Denis was arrested for wearing a T-shirt with the text â??Bollocks to Blairâ??.
In 2006 Cindy Sheehan was arrested for wearing a T-shirt with the text â??2,245 Dead. How many more?â??
In 2006 Mike Ferner was arrested for drinking coffee while wearing a T-shirt with the text â??Veterans for Peaceâ??.
Another example is the UK law that prevents ANY demonstrations within a mile radius of parliament. This has led demonstrators to meet and conduct an extremely civilised form of protest â?? a tea party at the Winston Churchill statue. On occasion police arrest these demonstrators.
In the continuing discussion on the governance of the iCommons (the international Creative Commons) we have seen warnings raised by some (for example Tomâ??s article) about the loss of the grassroots. Attempting to address these concerns writers are attempting to explain why the iCommons works and therefore criticism of it is unjustified. For example Golden Swamp writes that the iCommons is a network joining up the nodes. While the network is a nice metaphor vague enough to incorporate almost all fuzzy feelgood thoughts on the virtual organisation and loose alliances working towards common goals â?? what does the network really mean?
If the Commons was a network power would be evenly (more or less) spread over the network â?? this is not so. The power of the Commons emanates clearly from the central point of San Francisco. The closer you are to the epicentre the greater the power.
After experiencing the presence of Microsoft and the Soros Foundation at the iCommons summit Becky Hogge at Open Democracy writes a post with the title that says it all â??Who owns a movement?â??
The Creative Commons is a great idea. It is a set of licenses which people can use. It helps â??ordinaryâ?? people participate in the copyright discourse by visualising the fact that the binary situation of all or nothing copyright is not enough. But the Commons is not a movement in the sense of the Free Software Foundation whose basis is on ideology â?? the Copyleft ideology.
By being pragmatic the Commons has grown faster than many contemporary movements. However this pragmatism is also part of the problem. The emptiness of its ideology means that many of the participants in this movement fill it with what they think it represents. The shock (?) then of seeing Microsoft at â??theirâ?? summit shows the effects of pragmatism. Those who want to see the Commons as being based upon a Copyleft ideology quickly must realise that this is not going to happen.
Does ideology matter?
Yes! If the Commons is to be seen as a movement. Without a central ideology the movement (can it be a movement without an ideology?) cannot define its core values and eventually will splinter.
No! The licenses are simple, standard licenses and nothing else. Naturally even licenses reflect ideologies but they are not in themselves ideologies.
If the iCommons wants to become more than a set of licenses (which it seems to want) it must then discard its all to pragmatic position and be prepared to make some people unhappy. Without taking a stance, setting up a camp somewhere, attempting to please everyone â?? it cannot grow.
Tom Chance has written a thought provoking article about the governance and finances of iCommons summit in Rio
The second iCommons summit…proved many things about the free culture movement. The most exciting development is that we’re growing rapidly, both in terms of the numbers of activists and advocates who identify themselves with the movement…But the summit also highlighted some issues that iCommons needs to address if it is to maintain its vitality and legitimacy.
From this humble begining Tom explains what the iCommons needs to do to develop into a the organisation it hopes to become. Well worth reading.
The position held by CC is to a large part due to the reputation of the organisation. The belief the users have in what the CC is and what its goal’s are. The question (reflected in Tom’s article) is whether the organisation has a clear ideological goal with which the organisation can grow and develop?