- "If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers."
- "DrupalART is a site dedicated to helping people build and develop Drupal sites for artists and musicians."
- "One personal pronoun is enough to address men, women, whatever lies between, and any lifeform capable of producing something like language. It should still be possible to identify people by their sex, but only as a linguistic exception, not in everyday l
- "We work on a TrueType font family. It is designed to give you an alternative for fonts like T*mes New Roman. We're creating free software and publish our fonts under terms of the General Public License, GPL."
- "The GNU General Public License (GPL) is one of the most widely used software licenses -- and, undoubtedly, the most misunderstood."
- "THE BBS DOCUMENTARY DVD SET IS AVAILABLE FOR ORDER!!"
- "Publishing your own magazine is romantic, exciting... and bloody hard work. Join Indy&Ink and you can share equipment, skills, experience, advice, and even work on each other's mags."
- "News and updates from robot society"
- A free culture web site.
- "Apple's copy-protection technology makes media companies into its servants. Other copy-protection technologies, like Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, are just as bad, says Internet activist Cory Doctorow."
August 2006 Archives
Some years before the DMCA became law, Debian filed the serial number off the Free Software Definition, added some confusion, and produced the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG). Over the years the DFSG have suffered bitrot as copyright law and the strategies used to attack freedom have evolved. In particular, the DFSG predate the laws used to support DRM. With the emergence of the Creative Commons licenses, the DFSG have started to cause problems for free licensing, not surprisingly around the issue of DRM.
Debian (or rather Debian Legal) believe that the ability for DRM vendors to impose DRM on users is an important freedom that should not be limited by licenses. This is based on a misunderstanding of clause 3 of the FSD/DFSG and a romanticisation of the nature of DRM.
The misunderstanding of clause 3 (no restriction of where or how work can be used) is a simple one. Taken literally clause 3 means that the GPL is not free because you cannot "use" the code to produce proprietary works. This is the line that BSD apologists take. It is a simple category error. DRM can make copyleft content effectively proprietary and undo the freedoms given by the license if the license on the work does not recognise the existence of DRM. It is illogical to argue that licenses that recognise this possible removal of freedom are restrictive. A society that forbids people from owning slaves is not less free than a society that allows slavery. Restrictions on restrictions on freedom are protections of freedom, not impositions of unfreedom in any meaningful sense.
The romanticisation of DRM comes because Debian Legal are mistakenly viewing DRM as a technology rather than as a strategy of copyright law extension. Computers are a technology, so is the printing press. Their use can be regulated, and indeed this is where we get copyright from. But copyright is hundreds of years old, whereas DRM law, which is an extension of copyright, is recent. Had Debian Legal and the FSF been around in the time of Queen Anne, Debian would have argued against copyleft on the basis that it restricted printing press owners' right to use their technology as they see fit. DRM is an extension of copyright in law assisted by technological measures. This seems to make it a dog whistle for Debian Legal, who are unable to consider DRM as anything other than software or data, which freedom demands that users be able to modify as they wish. But writing "All Rights Reserved" in a GPL licensed program is simply a modification to a file. It is the legal impact of this act that removes freedom, and so users are disallowed from changing a few bytes of data in a few files in this particular way in order to protect freedom.
DRM is a way of removing users freedom. It is a way of making work proprietary. It is part of the extension of copyright law, but can remove the freedom to use even public domain works. If all it takes to circumvent the DFSG is a code element, I can easily write a shell script to remove the copyright headers from BSD-licensed code. I can even modify the files themselves to do so. Or I could were it not for the fact that BSD-licensed code forbids me from doing so. Which is a restriction on my freedom and so a breach of DFSG 3 which makes the BSD license unfree.
There will be better and worse ways of tackling DRM. Free culture licenses may well not be the place to attempt it. The way CC have done it may well not be the right way. But Debian Legal's confused and dogmatic argument against the current CC license measures based on a misunderstanding of their own guidelines and of the issue at hand, or confused and emotive pleas to "pragmatism" in favour of pro-DRM zealotry, are not sufficient cause for CC to simply abandon their current measures, or to hastily adopt a dual distribution clause.
Some details on the FDL revision from the second audio file linked from: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/6019
• 95% done.
• 3 licenses, Russian-doll style.
• A "simple fdl", for example for wikis.
• BY-SA interoperability a goal. CC have been working with them on this.
• No invariant clauses. This removes my only practical objection to compatibility!
• Some ominous rumblings about flexible copyleft.
What does the title of this post call to mind? An indie publisher publishing a Mickey Mouse mash-up perhaps. That marxist version of Tintin possibly. You'd be wrong.Nowdays indie publishers are more likely to be slapping an excessive copyright claim inside their books than treading on anyone else's copyright. The "Bear" graphic novels I have claim, quite incorrectly, that you can only copy them for the purpose of review. This ignores private study in the UK and Fair Use in the US.The most shocking example I've seen, shocking both for its severity and how cool the publisher doing it used to be, is Fantagraphics discalimer in the back of the new "Castle Waiting" graphic novel. Fantagraphics claim that if you want to reproduce anything from the book for review, you have to contact them for permission.This is just wrong. Review is explicitly covered by Fair Dealing in the UK, and a standard feature of Fair Use in the US. Fantagraphics should know better, and if they do know better their attempt to reduce the scope of fair use in this way really doesn't do them any favours. I've been reading Fantagraphics books for twenty years. I don't expect this sort of thing from them.Every indie publisher should place a notice saying "[Publisher X] respects Fair Use, including at least the right to reproduce this work for review and personal study" on their copyright page or in their copyright block. Any who refuse (possibly out of fear of offending Disney or UPS) suck like a vampire bat undr a cow.Â
One of the things that always makes me feel very proud is supporting people in little ways to help them achieve big things.Today was one such day. Woo! Â
Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog: Serpentes on a Shippe! (spoylerez)And thus cam aftir vespers Sir Stuntman Number Oon and Sir Stuntman Number Two, son of Expendable Extra who had done manye deedes in the dayes of Uther Pendragon, and wyth hem Sir Stuntman Number Thre.Yup. Snakes on a Plane given the Chaucerblog treatment.
The Madonna Code Revealed: Pointing to the Uplifted BlossomIn my research, I have noticed the affinity between the artists' rendering of the various apparitions of female saints and the vulva.Via Happy Famous Artists. Surprisingly convincing, but not safe for work.
PooterGeek » Blog Archive » Running RingsI'd ascribe one other quality to crop circles that is lacking in most contemporary British art: they are (or were) genuinely subversive. Their delicious Englishness shows up graffiti artist Banksy for what he is: the art business equivalent of a rich white pop singer acting out a fantasy of being a poor black man.Amen.
Flickr photos with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike LicenseGet an RSS feed of the latest BY-SA photos on Flickr. I have one set up for images of drawings as well.
Paul Laffoley on Flickr - Photo Sharing!Piece I saw at Kohler Art Center in a show called Utopia. It immediately reminded me of the Army DARPA posters I've seen, which are of course dystopic since they are for planning war and the aftermath.
CopyCamp | An unconference for artists about the Internet and the challenge to copyrightCopyCamp is a place to meet people making art and making waves, an opportunity to discover how the Internet can work for artists and fans, and a chance to debate the value(s) of copyright with some of the key players. It is an event in which participants drive the programming, and debates are genuine round-tables. There are no observers: everyone has something to offer and is expected to contribute.
Linda Medley's "Castle Waiting" is a wonderful graphic novel. It looks like a hardback novel until you open in, when the gorgeous art and engaging characters threaten to wipe out your evening. It's a feminist fairytale, a look at what happens after happily ever after, a multi-layered mediaeval soap opera with daemons, talking animals, and bearded nuns. The first third is the best version of "sleeping beauty" you'll ever read. Then there's Lady Jain's story, which is the narrative and emotional heart of the series. The end of the book is a long but enjoyable diversion from the main story. Now the regular series is starting again we may find out more about some of the questions that aren't answered in the graphic novel.
It's page-turningly fantastic. Go and get a standing order for the regular series afterwards.
Here is the cover:
Here's an interior page:
David Bowie and the OccultTo some degree all these personæ are re-creations of the Pierrot figure, a disguised Gnosis in the form of parody. Bowie has repeatedly appeared on stage (and still stages) as the 'Pierrot in Turquoise', a sort of a Threepenny Pierrot (the colour turquoise connoting "the British symbol of everlastingness" as one of his early teachers gnomically recollected).Moorcock's "Cornelius Chronicles", one of the few pieces of literature produced in England in the second half of the twentieth century, also treats life as a harlequinade. Amongst other things. I must post about Cornelius at some point.
Volunteerism
A licence that tries to support non-creative interests by adopting them as part of its terms is volunteerist. Anti-military and human-rights licences are volunteerist. This is a form of instrumentalism.
WMIMWYIM
"What's mine is mine what's yours is mine". Licenses or contracts that privilege upstream users or project hosts over downstream users and contributors, usually financially but sometimes attributionally.
Exploitation
A project or license that tries to keep or accrue value for a privileged party is exploitative. Or iniquitous. Good examples of this are WMIMWYIM contracts on media hosting sites and the use of noncommercial licensing. This is a form of instrumentalism.
Given the feedback I have received I'd like to be able to replace Instrumentalism with Volunteerism and Exploitation, but I don't think they quite divide the concept between them.
Further feedback gratefully received.
Zero Influence Wiki: Culture BondsMusic & Entertainment Royalty SecuritizationGenius.
REMIXWORLDWelcome! This is the first post on the REMIXWORD Blog. This is an experiment in creativity, and I am very excited.A few details to get out of the way first...-All the content on this blog is original and created by yours truly, Mitch Featherston.-All of the content on this blog is free.-All content on this blog is covered under a Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike 2.5 license.-In time, there will be a wide range of content on this blog, including texts, photos, illustrations, procedural art, fractals, textures, abstract material, sounds, video, and much more!The main reason this blog exists is to encourage creativity. I will not be accepting content or remixes from others on this site... I am a one-person operation, and I simply don't have the time to clear rights or deal with such things. I encourage you to create your own blog, use any material you wish from this site, and make up your own material. REMIX!!!
Fine Art Adoption NetworkFAAN is an online network, which uses a gift economy to connect artists and potential collectors. All of the artworks on view are available for adoption. This means acquiring an artwork without purchasing it, through an arrangement between the artist and collector. Our goal is to help increase and diversify the population of art owners and to offer artists new means for engaging their audience.
[...] in my view, any self-respecting artist should refuse to participate in any sharecropping mash-up. You did the work. You should own the rights to the work you did.
I have never heard of NC-SA either.
Boing Boing: 3D prints of World of Warcraft avatarsA World of Warcraft player has had her/his favorite character -- a gnome -- run off a Zcorp 3D printer.Scary. And the technology is kewl too.
The Public Domain: Our Shared Culture: Judith's WebShown in this 1972 image is Lexington, Massachusetts, high school student Judith Miles, who discusses her proposed Skylab experiment [...] called "Web Formation in Zero Gravity,"Not quite space art, but close enough.
Future Feeder » Archive » Capturing RefractionHere's a beautiful set of photographs exploring refractions through various glass and transparent objects by Alan Jaras. Spectacular Flickr sets : Bending Light, Twisting Light, MicroWorld
internet soul portrait - data visualization & visual design - information aestheticsan intriguing set of illustrations that represent web designs as pure structural representationsAny designer worth their salt will sketch out a web page design, in pencil or pen, as blocks before they go anywhere near a computer screen. I'd like to see those sketches, but these illustrations are a good insight into the compositional design of web pages and are very cool in themselves.
Eyebeam reBlog: Pic of the dayNever mind Allah in an aubergine or Christ on a crisp, here's a plane Touched By His Noodly Appendage! Almost!
Rhizome.org: New media art shouldn't suckMTAA has been wanting to move into the gallery for quite some time now. In order to do so, we'll need to start thinking that our audience is completely ignorant of digital culture. We can't expect them to be geeks that are excited about a good hack. We'll need to communicate our emotion, interest and excitement. We can't expect them to share it until we communicate every bit of it.I can't believe it took me so long to realize this…Welcome to the dark side, MTAA. ;-)
A couple of links to this site. Thanks guys!Cultura libre y creación digital en la Red - Fernando Flores Recursos sobre arte computacional y cultura libre - Juan Freire
Thinking About Art: New to the Collection: William Betts (again)I think it needs to go sideways. :-) More blurs...
Boing Boing: FreeCulture UK launches monthly free culture zineUs at Free Culture UK and the folks at iCommons have have started to publish a monthly digest of free culture/commons related/copyfighting events going on globally. It's distributed across various email lists, and is also published by the Free Sotware Magazine. What's more, it's released under a CC-BY license and collaboratively maintained on the iCommons wiki so anyone can syndicate it, or add details of events.This is great, it's a continuation of the UK newsletter started by Tom Chance (that I did some work on occasionally as well :-) ).
