Culture

Seminar: In the Line of Copyright Fire

Uppsala (Sweden) Thursday, September 15th

18.00-20.00 Geijersalen, Engelska Parken: In the Line of Copyright Fire: Culture, Knowledge, and the Information Age

Exacerbated by technological innovation and digitization, the means by which the ownership of informational resources is to be managed in a time of global flows and networks is a question of critical importance to the Information Age. Today, few resources are as valuable as information and knowledge. What are the possible ramifications for civil society, higher education, and cultural institutions in this scenario, where both increased access and increased control struggle for domination? Archives, Libraries, and Museums are organizations that together with their users face a number of challenges in respect to copyright. In what sense do private and public interests collide when it comes to the dissemination of information, knowledge, and culture today? How can we make images and text available in a way that will be conducive rather than detrimental to future research? Is copyright obsolete or still viable?

These and other questions relating to the nexus between culture, knowledge, and property, will be explored in this panel discussion hosted by the Department of Archival Science, Library- and Information Science and Museology (ALM). Confirmed panelists include: Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, Associate Professor, Swedish Research Council Postdoctoral Research Fellow 2002-2006, the Department of ALM, Uppsala University; Mathias Klang, Project Lead for the Swedish Creative Commons license and Graduate Student at the Department of Informatics, Göteborg University; Matthew Rimmer, Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Australian National University and member of the Copyright and Intellectual Property Advisory Group of the Australian Library and Information Association; Jette Sandahl, Director, Museum of World Culture, Göteborg.

All welcome!

For further information, please contact Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, ehw@abm.uu.se

Posted on by mklang

The Demise of the Public Domain

“Within every culture, there is a public domain?a lawyer-free zone, unregulated by the rules of copyright. Throughout history, this part of culture has been vital to the spread and development of creative work. It is the part that gets cultivated without the permission of anyone else.”

Lessig predicts that the public domain will be unable to survive the next three decades… Unfortunately I think he is right.

Foreign Policy: The Public Domain

Posted on by mklang

Abstract submitted to First Monday

www.firstmonday.org

Recently the University of Göteborg held an online course in the theory and philosophy of free software and open source. During this course a lively discussion on the terminology took place, in particular the concept of free was discussed. Without arriving at particular conclusions the posts included views in part on the lack of user awareness on what was property within the computer, on the difference between free, gratis and libre in different languages and cultures and the need for both a common terminology and infrastructure. This paper is not an attempt to resolve these issues but to bring these questions to the attention of a wider audience in the hope that the discussion will continue.

To most outsiders the ethics of software is not something usually considered. To most proficient computer users with a passing interest in this question the ethics of software is recognised as one of the fundamental questions in the digital rights area. To most of the latter group terms Free Software, Open Source and their derivatives (FLOSS, FOSS, Software Freedom) are interchangeable. Choosing one over the other is a matter of taste rather than politics. However, to most insiders the question is not one of taste. There is a fundamental difference between the two areas even if they share a similar root. Free Software is not the same as Open Source. The two groups differ in their fundamental philosophical approach to software and its importance to society as a whole. This paper examines the two groups? differing philosophies and explores how their actions have affected software development, access to fundamental software infrastructure and the development of the concept of freedom.

Posted on by mklang