Culture

CC tool for Microsoft Office

Microsoft and Creative Commons (CC) have released a copyright licensing tool that enables the easy addition of CC licenses in the Microsoft Office package. The tool will enable users of the Office package to select a CC license from within the specific application. The copyright licensing tool will be available free of charge at Microsoft Office, and CC. The tool also provides a way for users to dedicate a work to the public domain.

Quotes from the press release:

â??Weâ??re delighted to work with Creative Commons to bring fresh and collaborative thinking on copyright licensing to authors and artists of all kinds,â?? said Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft. â??We are honored that creative thinkers everywhere choose to use Microsoft tools to give shape to their ideas. Weâ??re committed to removing barriers to the sharing of ideas across borders and cultures, and are offering this copyright tool in that spirit.â??

â??The goal of Creative Commons is to provide authors and artists with simple tools to mark their creative work with the freedom they intend it to carry,â?? said Lawrence Lessig, professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of Creative Commons. â??Weâ??re incredibly excited to work with Microsoft to make that ability easily available to the hundreds of millions of users of Microsoft Office.â??

â??Itâ??s thrilling to see big companies like Microsoft working with nonprofits to make it easier for artists and creators to distribute their works,â?? said Gilberto Gil, cultural minister of Brazil, host nation for the Creative Commons iSummit in Rio de Janeiro June 23 through 25, where the copyright licensing tool will be featured. Gil, who will keynote at the iSummit, has released one of the first documents using the Creative Commons add-in for Microsoft Office.

The full list of licenses available from Creative Commons is available online.

Posted on by mklang

Death Vans

In a move that is eerily echoes the mobile Nazi gas chambers China has begun to use specially designed busses as mobile centres of execution where they administer death by lethal injection. It is no secret that China has capital punishment, but the amount of capital punishments undertaken remains undeclared by the Chinese government.

Death Van

Product Specifications (via USA Today):
Cost: $37,500 to $75,000, depending on vehicle’s size
Length: 20 to 26 feet
Top speed: 65 to 80 mph

The van is divided into three sections:

Execution chamber: in the back, with blacked-out windows; seats beside the stretcher for a court doctor and guards; sterilizer for injection equipment; wash basin
Observation area: in the middle, with a glass window separating it from execution area; can accommodate six people; official-in-charge oversees the execution through monitors connected to the prisoner and gives instruction via walkie-talkie.
Driver area


Banality of Evil
In an earlier post I wrote about the banality of evil â?? here is another excellent example. How does it feel to design such a vehicle? Does the designer add this to his/her CV? What about the company that sells them? What does the sales rep think when he/she wakes up in the morning? Is it a good thing that they are selling well?

This is an excellent example of the responsibility of the designer which I hope to make use of in my teaching. The main point is to problematize around designer responsibility and the issue of whether it is right (ethically & morally) that the designer does his/her best to solve the needs and meet the requirements of the customer.

Death in China
Amnesty International writes that capital punishment can be used â??â?¦for as many as 68 crimes, including non-violent crimes such as tax fraud, embezzlement and drug offences. 1,770 executions were reportedly carried out in China during 2005.â??

USA Today report that the majority of these executions are by firing squad but death by lethal injection is growing. China has introduced mobile execution vehicles where lethal injections are administered as a

â??â?¦civilized alternative to the firing squad, ending the life of the condemned more quickly, clinically and safely.â??

It has been speculated that one reason for the transfer to lethal injection is that the method keeps the organs in better condition for removal and sale. For a longer report on the Chinese death penalty read this Amnesty report (March 2004)

(via Space and Culture)

Posted on by mklang

Seeds of Change

A scary issue which I keep meaning to look more at is the politics and technology of food production, treatment, transportation and selling. Here is a very interesting documentary about GM foods from the University of Manitoba

Everyone has heard both the positives and negatives of genetically modified crops, from biotech companies like Monsanto and from environmental and consumer groups like Greenpeace, yet no one has actually heard from those who actually grow the food we eat – the farmers.

The film can be downloaded from the film website.

The film Seeds of Change is a seventy-minute documentary film made by University of Manitoba (U of M) professor Stéphane McLachlan, U of M PhD student Ian Mauro, and independent videographer Jim Sanders, is a balanced yet hard-hitting exposé of the controversy surrounding genetically modified crops and how they have changed the face of agriculture in western Canada.

Posted on by mklang

Stockholm Challenge

Yesterday I was in Stockholm representing Creative Commons as a finalist in the Stockholm Challenge awards. The dinner was held at the Stockholm City Hall which also houses the Nobel Prize dinner. I was determined not to be impressed but I must admit it is a very impressive building.

First we had champaigne in the Golden Hall which is a room covered with a gold and glass mosaic made of over 18 million pieces.

The Golden Hall

This was followed by dinner in the Blue Hall and the winners in each category were announced. For my category (Culture) the project Biblioredes from Chile was the winner.

The Blue Hall

The whole event was very impressive and the range of projects participating made for a very interesting evening.

Posted on by mklang

Thesis peer review

Today at 1pm is the second seminar for my thesis. This seminar gives all the Phd students a chance to discuss my work and give me feedback.

This is usually an interesting session with some good discussions. Lots of notetaking from my part. If you happen to be in the area the session is at the IT University at Göteborg room “Grace Hopper” “Vin Cerf” and the work is online here.

Posted on by mklang

Law & Internet Cultures

I reviewed Kathy Bowrey’s Law & Internet Cultures, Cambridge University Press for Web Journal of Current Legal Issues. Bowrey’s book is a very good piece of research and writing. Here is the punchline of my review:

This is not a book for someone looking for a quick answer or a legal ruling. It is not a howto book. It is a book for large groups of academics, activists, businessmen, lobbyists politicians and technologists who want to understand more about how the Internet as a sociotechnical system works. It is a book for anyone who wants to think and discuss the role of the Internet in society today.

Once again we see an example of how Australian legal authors are rising to the challenge to define Internet culture and legislation. The view from the antipodes is not particularly different or odd so as to be outside the interest of Internet scholars but rather refreshing, like familiar stories told with a different flavour. Even those who have heard them before will take something new with them from reading this book. ([2006] 2 Web JCLI).

In other words. Buy it or borrow it – its a great read. For more on Bowrey’s research take a look at her web site: Chickenfish.cc/copy.

Posted on by mklang

Street Art & Advertising

Yesterday I saw this poster.

Its an advert for an energy substitute. The basic premise is that many people have a banana in their training bags but the banana is not good enough to help the body get the amounts of carbohydrates and proteins it needs after a workout. Therefore bananas are for monkeys.

While I could argue about the eating habits of monkeys (not that many bananas) that is not what I want to do. The point of this post is to talk about advertising.

The inspiration for this poster has been taken from grafitti – this can be seen by the imitation of stencils and the mock access paint running down the poster. The ad-company has obviously been inspired by street artists, such as Banksy. This is one of Banksy’s works below.

My question is wouldnt it be nice if the commercial use of art in advertising was openly recognised and acknowledged?
Advertisers tend to rely on the outside world for their inspiration but see no need to admit the fact that they are borrowing from a wider culture. I realise that this is asking a lot but shouldnt advertisers acknowledge these sources?

Posted on by mklang

23 days

Todays production was +1478 bringing the total up to 177 pages and 87 064 words. It was a good day.

And the countdown is still in the twenties. Today was lots of work on filters & censorship (Look at OpenNet iniative). On Yahoo! helping China chase cyberdissidents and Google creating a ideologically clean (Chinese style) search engine for China. Its obvious that the companies are bending over backwards to gain access to the Chinese market. Despite all the corporate retoric their actions speak louder than words.

censorship
Censorship by Eric Drooker

Reading tip for the weekend: Rosemary Coombe “Commodity Culture, Private Censorship, Branded Environments, and Global Trade Politics: Intellectual Property as a Topic of Law and Society Research“

Posted on by mklang

Memory & Art

This painting has been with me since I was born. Its almost strange to have had something for this long and still discuss who owns it. Does it belong to the culture from where it came? Many cultures claim art that has ended up in foreign countries. Does it belong to the artist? Intellectual property is life + 70 years and moral rights last forever… What did my distant relative agree upon (and with whom) when he bought the painting in Africa and transported it to Sweden? It has since then travelled to many other places in the world. Does it matter? One day I must write a longer analysis on this topic… a book maybe?

pilipili

About the artist: Pilipil Mulongoy
Born in 1916, he occupies an exceptional place in Congolese painting; they call him the Sorcerer of African luxuriance. Son of a fisherman from Lualaba, he participated in hunting and fishing where he gathered these themes which he later transposed onto his canvas. Pilipili Mulongoy studied in the atelier and later, the Academy of Beaux-Arts of Romain Desposes in Lubumbashi where he developed an essential understanding and skill in the plastic arts in the vast African subcontinent. Pilipili became a professor and integrated a new studio, the “Hangar” at the Academy.
The text was taken long ago from somewhere else… I would love to acknowledge the source but I cannot remember or find where I found it. Another flaw with a copyright system is that you have to remember things like this! (last part in italics added later).

Posted on by mklang