license

Now, Can You Picture Me?

About time too! Fredrik Jonasson, a Swedsh artist form Jönköping, has released his new album Now, Can You Picture Me? You can download the album from (download it here) under a Creative Commons license (by-nc-sa).

Fredrik has been making music in different constellations all his life. The past 4 years he has been focusing on Phace O.S. a, as Fredrik himself puts it, “band of different and strong personalities”. But now, he figured, it was time to put 100% of him into a project and the result of it is his new album. It is his first solo album, but over 5000 downloads in just over a week say it will probably not be his last.

About the style of his music the artist says: “My only concern is to find my personal expression and I don’t care that much for fitting into a given genre. If I have to describe it, then I’d say it’s some kind of electronica with strong melodies. At least I’d like to think that.” And in the true spirit of Free Culture Fredrik says: “After all, isn’t that what it’s all about? To write great songs, regardless of which clothes you present them in?”

This is not the first Swedish musician to release under creative commons but it is a bit strange that Sweden has not produced many more than we have…

Posted on by mklang

Why Nietzsche bores me…

Finally I found the reason. Here is a quote from Nietzsche’s sister:

The days of his youth — of his carefree, merry gamboling — were over. Hereafter he was all solemnity and all seriousness. ‘From these early experiences,’ says his sister, ‘there remained with him a life-long aversion to smoking, beer-drinking and the whole biergemütlichkeit …’ He maintained that people who drank beer and smoked pipes were absolutely incapable of understanding him. Such people, he thought lacked the delicacy and clearness of perception necessary to grasp profound and subtle propositions. (via Noniclolasos)

267297472_63fc90515d.jpg

The Quite Pint by Monster (CC  ATT-NC-SA)

Given the choice between being bored by Nietzsche or a beer I choose a beer anytime.

Posted on by mklang

Open Content Licensing in Swedish

Right now I am putting the finishing touches to a booklet on Open Content Licensing in Swedish and I am struggling to make it interesting as well as informative – not an easy combination when it comes to copyright licenses. Another difficulty is working with the topic in Swedish since it is not a language I am used to working with.

Anyway I would really appreciate any Swedish readers who would like to take a look at the text and send me comments.  So feel free to read it: licensbok_iis_15.pdf

Posted on by mklang

Books not dead – bookshops are dying

For a long time there have been claims that the book is dead or at least terminally ill. The most recent revival of these claims was with the launch of the kindle ebook reader.

In the 1979 book The Micro Millennium, Christopher Evans forecasted that due to electronic media, “…the 1980s will see the book as we know it, and as our ancestors created and cherished it, begin a slow but steady slide into oblivion. . . . there are a number of reasons this is imminent.” Naturally Evans was wrong.

Again when the Internet became commonplace the book was given another obituary and again, judging from book sales, it was another premature prediction.

The thing is that technology will not kill the book. Technology has the ability to organize, reorganize information. It facilitates storage and searching but it will not kill the traditional book form. The book has other values that will not be easily replaced by technology. Steven Poole has written a great post on this.

Old Spines
Creative Commons License photo: Old Spines by brighterorange

So the book is not dying but the bookshop is! So this was nothing new but it was driven home to me in force when I happened to walk past one of my favorite small bookstores, it was having a moving sale (not a closing down sale).

News of a book sale usually makes me happy, but after browsing the generous 30-50% sale offers I realized that even with the discount the books were cheaper to buy new ones online. So this is not something new but I thought that a discount this large would even things out – but it didn’t.

Posted on by mklang

Silly Friday

The Mayor of Graz in Austria has reacted to polls showing that almost half of the people in the city felt that listening to other people’s mobile calls highly irritating – he has now ordered that mobile phones have to be put on silent mode when their owners get on a bus or a tram. (BBC Online)

Sure it is irritating listening to other peoples mobile phone calls, but why limit ourselves to public transportation? Why not make it illegal in parks and public buildings? I am also irritated by bad taste in clothes, body odors, drunks, boisterous kids, angry pensioners and people who insist on standing in the way. So why don’t we ban the all?

communication age
Creative Commons License Communication Age by credit: Dom Dada

Attempts at banning mobiles on public transport have been tested before and failed. In Stockholm the attempts failed and now the subway has excellent mobile coverage instead. Trains have silent compartments but this doesn’t stop people from talking on their phones. Its just something everyone will have to get used to.

The Mayor of Graz may not get this and even if he believes his ban it will fail (for so many reasons). All I can say is – thank god it’s Friday!

Posted on by mklang

We are not alone

Techno Tuesday captures the reality of travel

nomads.jpg

Picture by Andy Rementer (CC BY-NC)

Wifi searching has become more common due to the costs being charged by commercial actors and the closing up of so many networks. This is mainly due to the default settings of the major Internet providers who are now automatically providing wifi routers with closed defaults (more about this stuff here). In addition to the scare tactics in the media. Using a scanner I walked around my new apartment and found 40 wireless networks but only two were open – these were too far away for me to be able to use.

Posted on by mklang

Camera License

Not long ago in a recent awareness campaign the London police managed to link photography to terrorism.

1.jpg

This was silly enough and would only really have two effects – either it is ignored or it creates panic. But even worse is the example when a policeman asked a person taking photographs whether he has a license to do so…

The BBC reports that Phil Smith was taking pictures in a public place and was challenged by a police officer who asked if he had a licence for the camera.

After explaining he didn’t need one, he was taken down a side-street for a formal “stop and search”, then asked to delete the photos and ordered not take any more. So he slunk home with his camera.

Obviously the policeman was wrong but the considering the strange climate of fear and paranoia coupled with the official power of the police the potential for abuse is great indeed.

Posted on by mklang

Boyle Book Cover Competition

Via an email list I found out that James Boyle, the new Chairman of the Board at Creative Commons and a founder of Science Commons, is holding a contest to design a cover for his new book, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. In the book, Boyle argues that more and more of material that used to be free to use without having to pay a fee or ask permission is becoming private property — at the expense of innovation, science, culture and politics.

Details, including specs and a link to some great source material for imagery, are available at the Worth1000 website. Both the book and the cover will be distributed under a CC Attribution-NonCommercial license.

Boyle is a great writer and enjoys exploring legal questions surrounding property in a way which makes it accessible and interesting to the reader. His book Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society was a real eye opener for me. I am definitely going to get his new book.

When my PhD was almost finished I announced a similar competition for the design of the book cover and was lucky to get it widely publicized. The whole idea of the competition was actually quite resented and discussed on my blog. Professional designers felt I was cutting them out of the market by asking for free work. Interesting discussions ensued. The results of the competition were posted on my blog and the winner was chosen by popular vote and used on the cover of my PhD.

Posted on by mklang