commons

Moving South

Over the last several years I have been based at the University of Göteborg working as a lecturer and carrying out my research. Last year my research resulted in the defense of my thesis. During my time at Göteborg I have managed to be a researcher in Italy, a visiting fellow in England, I joined the Free Software Foundation and became project lead for Creative Commons Sweden.

In recent years I have come to focus greatly on copyright and open access questions so it was with great interest that I applied for a role in an open access project based at the University of Lund. Yesterday I was offered (and accepted the position).

The main thrust of my work will be:

  • The analysis of copyright interpretation and practice at Swedish universities.
  • The study of the relationship between copyright law and license agreements.
  • An analysis of the relation between authors/researchers, university departments and publishers.
  • Developing proposals and recommendations to deal with the complex of copyright problems that exist in scientific communication.

This all means that after the summer most of my work will be based at the University of Lund. Lund is one of the oldest universities in Sweden (established 1666) and it is one of the driving forces in the open access arena. But, fortunately for me I will also be able to keep a small position at the University of Göteborg.

Photo Al Monner (1935) Historic photoarchive

Posted on by mklang

Theories, Movement & Collected Stories

James Boyle has just given an excellent presentation on what the environmental movement did right. He points to the right mix of theory, movements and the collection of stories in the creation of the concept of the environment. The environment as a concept did not exist prior to its creation, establishment and acceptance in the wider public.

What he means is that the movement to protect public domain and develop creative commons requires more than the creation of licenses and preaching to the choir. The theory is required as a base but the broader public does not want to read theory. Therefore what is required is a movement of people to enable the transfer of dry theory in the communication to the public.

How should this be done? Well the environmental movement added a collection of stories. Individual examples of environmental damage. Burning streams, smog cities, nuclear waste and silent springs. The collection of stories have become established and iconic. They are established in the mental image of the public to such a degree that protection of the environment becomes an obvious step.

So, in order to establish the protection of the public domain, open access and creative commons the organisations working with these issues should look at the strategies of the environmental movement.

Posted on by mklang

iSummit Friday

Today the iSummit (iCommons Summit 2007 in Croatia) begins in earnest. Yesterday was the legal day so today it’s the “real” thing. With keynotes and tracks till 9.30 pm. This is followed by gallery opening and a concert till after midnight. Long days with interesting people. The location today is inside the old fort called the Revelin. We are in a huge old space with limestone walls and arched ceilings and no windows. It’s brilliant, cool and dark enough to make you forget that the sun is shining outside.

 For those of you who want to see pictures from the iSummit you can go to my Flickr site or check out the iCommons group on Flickr. And if you want even more then just look at the photo’s on Flickr which are tagged iCommons.

Posted on by mklang

Dubrovnik

Tomorrow I leave for Croatia and the yearly Creative Commons meeting, the iCommons Summit, which will be held in Dubrovnik this year. This is an event that I am really looking forward to attending and I shall be blogging from the summit – so will many others be.

Posted on by mklang

Harvard Thesis Repository

With so many discussions on Free Culture, Open Access and the problems connected with making academic publishing available outside academia it is surprising how few good places there are to find thesis’ online.

This is why I was happy when Peter Murray-Rust pointed me towards the Harvard College Thesis Repository (a project of Harvard College Free Culture).

Here Harvard students make their senior theses accessible to the world, for the advancement of scholarship and the widening of open access to academic research.

Too many academics still permit publishers to restrict access to their work, needlessly limitingâ??cutting in half, or worseâ??readership, research impact, and research productivity. For more background, check out our op-ed article in The Harvard Crimson.

If you’ve written a thesis in Harvard College, you’re invited to take a step toward open access right here, by uploading your thesis for the world to read. (If you’re heading for an academic career, this can even be a purely selfish moveâ??a first taste of the greater readership and greater impact that comes with open access.)
If you’re interested in what the students at (ahem) the finest university in the world have to say at the culmination of their undergraduate careers, look around.

The FAQ explains much of the process. It is also good to see that they are applying Creative Commons Attribution License

Q. What permissions do I have to grant to free my thesis?

A. To make sure your thesis is always available for scholars to build on, we ask that you give everyone permission to do the things you’d want to be able to do with a scholarly work you liked: download the work, read it, keep copies, share it with other people, and adapt it into fresh works. The specific legal permission we ask for is the Creative Commons Attribution License, the same one required by the world’s leading biology journal PLoS Biology and the other journals of the Public Library of Science.

My only (small) complaint is that I wish the repository was clearer in showing the license terms for their content. I only found it in the faq. Normally I would not bother reading the faq. To increase the usability of the site the terms should be on the download page and preferably on the essay file.
Despite this I think this is an excellent initiative and I would hope that the fact that Harvard has taken a step such as this would work as an incentive for other universities to follow suite.

Posted on by mklang

Grumpy Old Man

Yesterday I hit forty – or maybe I should say that forty hit me. Naturally I fully intend to ignore this momentous occasion and not let it disrupt my life. Naturally there will be a party. Today I am plagued by a shitty little cold, lack of sleep and have spent the day traveling to and from Stockholm.

The purpose of the trip was to give a Creative Commons lecture at the University of Stockholm but I also had a birthday lunch with my family and grandmother. In reality this is supposed to be a good thing. But sitting on the train with a ways to go before I can have a shower, a decent cup of tea and sleep – I feel like crap.

Naturally I needed to share this with everyone and prove beyond a doubt that I am developing into a grumpy old man….

Posted on by mklang

Academy Award Film under CC

A Story of Healing a film from 1997 has just been re-released under a Creative Commons license. This makes it the first academy award winning film to be released under the Creative Commons license.

About the film from IMDB:

In January, 1997, a team of five nurses, four anesthesiologists, and three plastic surgeons arrive in Vietnam from the United States for two weeks’ of volunteer work. They operate on 110 children who have various birth defects and injuries. They also talk to the film crew about why they’ve made this trip and what it means to them. We watch them work, and we see the children, their families, and their surroundings in the Mekong Delta. Over the closing credits, Dionne Warwick sings Bacharach and David’s “What the World Needs Now Is Love.”

To view A Story of Healing visit the Interplast website. The film is also downloadable from blip.tv, and wherever you share it!

(via Creative Commons blog)

Posted on by mklang

iCommons Summit

The third annual iCommons summit will be held in Dubrovnik, Croatia (15-17 June) and this year I have the good fortune to be able to attend.

The event includes people like Creative Commons CEO, Larry Lessig, CC Chairman and Digital Entrepreneur, Joi Ito, Wikipedia Founder, Jimmy Wales and CTO of Linden Labs, Cory Ondrejka. We have also add some new voices to the debate this year including Indiaâ??s Lawrence Liang who has become renowned for his considered commentary on the positive impact of piracy in developing countries, Jonathan Zittrain discussing themes from his new book â??The Future of the Internet and How to Stop Itâ??, Benjamin Mako Hill from MIT who will talk about competing visions of â??free cultureâ?? from the free software perspective, and Becky Hogge from the Open Rights Group, who will talk about successful campaigns to rid the world of restrictive IP laws.

I am really looking forward to it and to meeting all the other commoners. Naturally the event will be blogged 🙂

Posted on by mklang

Capitalism 3.0

Are you drowning in books to be read? Sometimes I think that I am. Then while I am in the middle of the deep end of the pool, instead of a life buoy, another book comes skimming across the water. This time it was Peter Barnes’ book Capitalism 3.0 which is available both as in a Pdf file (licensed under Creative Commons naturally) and in the more comfortable paper variety.

After scanning through the pdf I ordered the book. Barnes’ argument is based on the idea that capitalism is flawed and needs to take the Commons into consideration. He takes a broad view of the commons which includes headings such as nature, community and culture. Based upon this view he attempts to draw together the diversity of our commons and connect it to the capitalist approach to business.

 

 The book is critical of the accesses of old capitalism (which Barnes calls Capitalism 2.0). But he is also a bit too positive to what capitalism has done well – but a good book must be one that you disagree with in parts. Barnes attempts to show that Capitalism 3.0 has a chance of alleviating some of the access of capitalism 2.0 and he ends his book on a positive note:

Capitalism 2.0 had its moments. It defeated communism, leveled national boundaries to trade, and brought material abundance never seen before. But its triumph was accompanied by huge unpaid bills, debts that are now coming due. Perhaps we ought to think of ourselves as a company in bankruptcy. We canâ??t pay all of our bills, but we can pay some, especially if we stretch the payments out. In some cases, we can compensate debt holders with equity. In any event, we need to reorganize our economy so, in the future, we donâ??t run up the same debts again. Thatâ??s what
Capitalism 3.0 would do.

But Capitalism 3.0 also has a higher purpose: to help both capitalism and the human species achieve their full potential. To do that, our economic machine must stop destroying the commons and start protecting it. At the same time, it must lift the bottom 95 percent of humans at a faster rate than it raises the top 5 percent. This requires more than compassionate rhetoric, or a few bandages around the edges. It requires an upgrade of our operating system.

You can either buy a copy of the book or, if you prefer it, download it from the Capitalism 3.0 website.

Posted on by mklang

Middlemen Wanted

Cheaper computers, better software, more intuitive software, the net, cheaper and faster connectivity have all worked together to make interesting audio and video content available at no cost. In addition to this the Creative Commons licensing system has provided a support for those who want to both share and maintain some control over their content.

The problem is that there is too much content online. It’s disorganized and hard to find. All this opens up an exciting niche for the middleman. Someone who will trawl the internet looking for content worthy of listeners and viewers. Naturally these middlemen have already appeared and are able to recommend good content for those of us who want but lack the time and inclination to attempt to find and wade through all the less interesting stuff.

BlocSonic is one such middleman and they (or he/she) have now released their “Volume 4: Soundtrack for the coming revolution“. They write:

Once again, we’ve got a terrific collection of 10 tracks culled from the wide world of net audio. In this one we feature one from ccMixter, a couple from Jamendo and others from various netlabels. Hip-Hop, Trip-Hop, Unplugged Electronica, Post-Rock, Indie Rock, Drum & Bass are all represented. So download it, give it a listen, contact us and leave feedback. If you’d like, we’d love it if you leave a review at netBloc Vol. 4’s archive.org page.

It’s surprising that these services have not been more widespread. Or maybe it’s just because I have not found them earlier. Here is volume 4:

01 – Sun Zoo – New Pirates (featuring DJ HDL)

02 – Maniax Memori – It’s Not Jazzz

03 – Dirge – Phone

04 – deutscheunschuld – Just One Night (DU Remix Edit) (Featuring Vocals by Jeremy Carr)

05 – You Are My Everything – Can You Feel What It Takes?

06 – Bersarin Quartett – St. Petersburg

07 – Lucas CK – Tu cries

08 – Crepusculum – A Sheltered Life (Herzog Reprise)

09 – BSK – October

10 – L’Onomatopeur – Pour Petite Tete

(via the Creative Commons blog)

Posted on by mklang