Across the globe, from Peru to Croatia to Korea to South Africa, a new cultural space is emerging - the digital commons. In it, users are creating culture and knowledge, be it by blogging, making videos, remixing songs, or writing software. While it may manifest itself in different ways in different places, this movement, much like the nature of the internet itself, has become a truly global one, and has served to transcend barriers across cultures.

Many of these barriers are already breaking down - the lines between "amateur" and "professional," and "user" and "creator" are becoming increasingly blurred. A little less than a year ago, I posted a mix of Brazilian Baile funk music on my blog. This style of music, while quite well known in Brazil, had just recently been getting a lot of attention in the US and Europe. As a result, it was picked up by various other blogs, and tens of thousands of downloads later, it had made its way into the best mixes of 2005 in one of the premiere electronic music magazines, The Wire. In many ways for me, it was a lesson in semiotic democracy and the grassroots, viral nature of the internet. I had merely published something to my blog, and without any further effort on my part, people around the world started listening to my mix. I had become a part of the digital cultural revolution without even realising it.

By posting my mix online and allowing others free access to it, I had entered the "cultural commons", or a common space of cultural information that is available for the public at large to share, rework, and remix. For example, old books or films (before 1923 in the US) where the copyright has expired and is now in the public domain as well as the massive amount of knowledge contained in Wikipedia, the world's largest user-created encyclopedia, would be a part of this growing pool of global information. As opposed to opting for traditional copyright, which would lock down a work and prevent such access or reworking, creators may opt for various licenses, including those of Creative Commons, to add to this knowledge space.

Brazil, despite its relatively strong copyright law on the books, has been a hotbed of commons-based activity in practice. The entire genre of Baile funk, which has emerged from Brazil's ghetto-like favelas and has begun to pervade mainstream culture there, relies almost exclusively on remixing. Go to a Funk Ball, or Baile, in the favela of Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro, and you will likely recognize samples and snippets of a good amount of the music you hear - from Prince to New Order to 50 Cent.

What's more, the music is created without any regard to copyright, and this is what allows it to flourish. Artists freely borrow and remix from others, and CDs are sold on the streets for little more than the cost of the production of the physical CD. Artists don't receive royalties from the CDs, but instead view them as promotion of their work and their performances, and some of the parties that are organised attract tens of thousands of fans. Needless to say, these Bailes can be extremely lucrative for the funk artists. Brazil has also been extremely progressive in supporting open business models (or those that do not rely on restricting access to content or culture), has been active in patent-busting, and has generally viewed culture as a space to which citizens have a right to access, as opposed to a commodity to which consumers have a right to purchase.

A creative revolution

What the digital commons recognises is that creation is not produced out of a vacuum; we inevitably build upon the works of others, be it consciously or subconsciously. Thanks to advances in digital technology and communications networks, we are entering a new era of creative production. In the mid-to-late 1990s, the internet was viewed as having unlimited, even unrealistic potential as a medium for commerce.

Now, it has increasingly become a platform for cultural communication, with everything from citizen journalism via blogging to tagged photo albums via Flickr to melding together songs or movies via mashups. Yet much like the great failed hopes for e-commerce, some question whether this new digital cultural revolution will actually affect our culture in fundamental ways. While it will clearly morph and evolve in various and perhaps unexpected ways, this cultural revolution is here to stay.

The very heart of this revolution rests on a simple concept: semiotic democracy, or the ability of users to produce and disseminate new creations and to take part in public cultural discourse. You've all probably seen a YouTube video where someone is lip synching to a song or heard a mashup of two popular tracks, yet this new form of cultural creation goes far beyond faddish remixes or home videos. Users are by and large developing and posting their own "original" creations as well. (Original may be a misnomer, but let's suffice it to say that examples such as blog posts, photographs, and songs written by a band are not blatant remixes.)

Anyone can now become a creator, a publisher, an author via this new form of cultural discourse, a platform to publish to the world at large that grants near instant publication and access. While the concept of, say, being able to post or comment on one's blog may seem mundane at this point, if I had told you fifty years ago that you'd be able to publish something so that almost anyone, anywhere could read it instantly, it would have sounded like something out of a science fiction model.

Individual artists, producers, and musicians need no longer depend on the power of major corporations as producers or distributors. Take MySpace, where many new and up and coming bands have posted their music. Instead of relying on a record label, they can now gain exposure and disseminate their music via the site, where some bands have had sold-out tours or sold countless CDs thanks to their MySpace page.

Despite the increasing ease of doing so, though, we see that many professional creators are still relying on the publisher-centric business models of the 20th century. This will not last. We will see massive disintermediation in the next decade or so. More artists and creators will self-publish, and they will find ways to do so in a sustainable way, perhaps by selling mp3s on their website, opportunities for production work, or touring to a greater number of fans.

That's not to say that everyone will become a professional, or that there won't be a space for those who merely wish to create as a hobby. Yet the age of the superstar is set to decline. As more people have more access to culture that interests them, coupled with the proper tools to get them there, it is highly likely that they will not all gravitate toward the same megastars. Throughout the last fifty years, culture in the western world has primarily been filtered by a few major corporate entities, sometimes looking for the next best thing, and increasingly trying just to recreate it. The digital cultural revolution, if it materialises, will enable us to forgo those filters and seek out more of what we like, or perhaps enable us to discover something we love, but would have never known it otherwise.

Threats to progress

Yet as we enter this era of democratic cultural production, the law is increasingly out of touch with reality. There's a complete lack of congruence between what is on the books and what is actually happening in the real (or digital) world. The vast majority of the remixes out there, believe it or not, are illegal. Ranging from video lip synching to recreating film trailers, they infringe the copyright law that has been harmonized throughout most of the modern world.

In fact, just last week the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced that it would start tackling the "problem" of users creating videos that infringed on their copyrighted works. (Bands sign away the copyright to their recorded works in virtually all major label contracts, leaving it in control of the labels.) As a result, they have sent "cease and desist" letters to those who have made the videos, and they are working with YouTube to develop technologies to identify their music in such videos so that it can be taken down.

It's quite interesting, then, that these are the same record companies that spend hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising and marketing, and yet when such users are arguably doing so for free, they immediately seek to put a stop to it under the guise of "intellectual property" violations. Music videos are primarily utilized for the promotion of CD sales to begin with, and it is completely conceivable that such videos would serve as a benefit to the owners of the music as an albeit unintentional yet effective tool of marketing and advertising.

Further, digital rights management (DRM), or technologies that restrict access to a particular digital work, such as not allowing users to print pages of eBooks or make a copy of a digital music file, poses a serious threat to the development of the digital commons.

Laws have traditionally allowed for fair uses of copyrighted works, whereby an author can, for example, take a clip or excerpt of a work for artistic, critical, or educational use, or record a copy of a TV programme for later viewing. Technologies such as DRM stand to prohibit such legally granted rights, and laws that prohibit the circumvention of these access control measures can even stand to criminalise what would otherwise be a completely legal use (for example, getting around the technological access controls in an eBook of a public domain work would be a violation of such laws).

The increasingly burdensome application of copyright law to uses that were previously given a blind eye, such as quick clips of other videos in documentaries or songs with 3-second samples from others, stands to pose serious burdens to creators, while the fear of potentially getting sued has resulted in the stifling of creative work that makes even legal uses of others' works. So as we have an increasing amount of culture produced that completely disregards copyright, it has been coupled with a backlash from those that view such creation as a threat to their current business models.

The implications of the backlash can be seen in the example of a song called Amen Brother released by a soul band called The Winstons. It contained an irresistible drum riff, one that would later capture the minds and ears of producers and the listening public at large. A multi-second portion of the song, what has become to be known as the Amen Break, was discovered by hip-hop artists in the 1980s and utilised to produce the underlying beat that has been in countless songs since.

In fact, an entire genre of music, known primarily as drum'n'bass, is almost completely reliant on this portion of the song that lasts less than 20 seconds. Luckily for us, this music developed in a culture where sampling was a new art aided by the development of samplers, or machines that allowed the replaying and modifications of portions of audio tracks, and where artists were able to essentially freely sample and borrow from others.

A remixed future?

In the last several years, this golden era of sampling has come to a close, with courts in the US declaring that a mere three-second sample is sufficient to constitute a copyright violation, and that any sample of a digital recording whatsoever, even lasting a millisecond, would be an infringement of copyright. If the laws of today had been exercised twenty-five years ago, hip-hop, among other genres, may very well not exist today as we know it.

While the legal threats to the digital commons are often the expression of business or corporate interest, different concerns arise. Some worry about the dangers of having such an explosion of available culture and knowledge, and these concerns are not without merit. We are increasingly entering an age where we have too much information and too little time, perpetual multitasking with shortened attention spans.

Sifting through the information and the culture, especially when there may be a lot of stuff out there that is just plain bad, is not an easy task. There is thus an ever-increasing role for aggregators, or ways of sifting through and recommending various forms of culture, be it a cool, new band, or an interesting article. Such filtering mechanisms, which could range from a blog that readers trust to provide quality links to articles (i.e. BoingBoing) to a website that users rely on to provide reliable critical music reviews (a la Pitchfork) may serve a critical role as the amount of available content out there increases.

Others stay awake at night fretting about the decline of a "common culture", a common space, be it one of political events or popular TV shows, that can bind a society together. It is true that the net may enable us to increasingly fragment as, say, territorial border-based societies, yet the need for trusted sources - be it aggregators, recommendations of friends, or major news media outlets - will continue to serve to bind societies together to an extent. Further, the ability for citizens to better specialise in particular areas (say, I'm an electronic music expert, and you are a connoisseur of jazz), may serve to enable greater interaction across societies and cultures.

The movement does not solely touch on a small, tech savvy elite. Instead, such new forms of cultural discourse are reshaping the way that we view our environment, media, and society. It can affect us on a micro-level (even if 20 people read one's blog, that's still 20 people more than before), or a macro-level (how many people saw the JibJab or BusUncle videos?), yet it is here to stay. Our culture, be it global or local - or more likely a rich, uncategorisable mixture of both - will never be the same.

Please note the article is published by Elizabeth Stark, and openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons licence. You may republish it free of charge with attribution for non-commercial purposes following these guidelines. Additionally, you are permitted to make derivative works from this article, on condition that you release any resulting work under similar terms. If you teach at a university we ask that your department make a donation. Commercial media must contact us for permission and fees.

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. [...] Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

I then had the class find where in the US constitution a provision is made to establish copyright and patent law. Using a search engine, they quickly came up with the appropriate passage from Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

I then asked them to respond to the following question:

Does the clause support or stand in opposition to Jefferson's argument?

A few struggled with this as the answer appears to be both yes and no. The fact that the constitution establishes "exclusive Right[s]" seems to conflict with Jefferson's position. Many students immediately saw it this way. My rhetorical follow-up question helped balance their view:

So when you buy a car, how long do you think you should be allowed to keep it?

Our next task is to examine how digital technology and global networks have increased the conflict in an "exclusive Right[s]" environment as compared to our analog past. The plan is to then look at a framework that helps bring 21st-century balance to All Rights Reserved copyright law and find out why many software developers are up in arms over patents.

This unit has been interesting so far. Most students had heard phrases like "intellectual property", "piracy", and "stealing" numerous times. In fact, virtually all of them had seen this "educational" video prior to my instruction and held the belief that without All Rights Reserved, artists would not be able to make money. We'll be examining these phrases and beliefs closely over the coming days.

• ABC Now, an ABC branded application to download ABC content to your gombuter
• ABC Earth, which combines Google Earth with the ABC's news resources
• Pool, a social media experiment which allows users to share almost anything under the Creative Commons license -- dauntingly broad in scope
• The Radio National Survey: tell the ABC why you do or don't listen to Radio National, and what would change that.

Published under a Creative Commons licence by Ken Treloar.

La noche del 4 de Octubre Chile sufrio una revolucion sobre el concepto de show. La visita de Trent Reznor y Asociados descabezo al publico.

Si quieres saber por que, sigue leyendo.

Los años de espera llegaron a su fin y ahora podemos "morir" tranquilos, descubrimos lo que es un concierto-show de verdad; potente, intimo, buen sonido, buenos musicos .... sublime!

Con Elke, Fernando, Javier B., Javier K., Jorge K. y Yo estuvimos en la fila para entrar desde las 6 de la tarde .... ansiosos con la espera de lo que prometia (y lo fue) un concierto de aquellos. Abrieron las puertas temprano por lo que tuvimos que esperar un rato.

Cuando empezamos a sentir 999.999 se dio la largada a una noche que Santiago ni ninguno de los presentes podremos olvidar jamas. La noche siguio y el despliegue de talento inundo el Arena Santiago, desbordo la cancha hasta las galerias, ahogo al publico, nos dejo en un coma musical que choco nuestros sentidos y luego Reznor y Asociados nos devoro para vomitarnos renovados, dejando en claro lo que es una puesta en escena potente y una interpretacion de esas que se ven pocas veces en vivo.

Los musicos que acompañaron a Trent Reznor la verdad es que fue un lujo para mis oidos .... no se cual de todos era mas increible, Robin Finck en guitarra (fue uno de mis favoritos), Josh Freese en bateria, Justin Meldal-Johnsenen bajo y Alessandro Cortini al teclado. Muchos bajos, muchas guitarras, buena puesta en escena de todos hizo ver en la banda un dominio total de todo lo que pasa alrededor y una solides brutal.

Parte importante de la presentacion y que nos dejo asombrados a todos fue la Screen gigante que se desplega en dos fases: la primera en el fondo del escenario y la segunda que es a modo de cortina que se baja en la parte frontal del escenario (por delante de los musicos). La banda jugo con esta Screen y mostro al publico lo impresionante y versatil que es, en una ocacion la barrieron de la imagen que tenia como si alguien la estuviese limpiando y en otra bajaron la parte delantera para que el baterista tocara la base de una cancion con las imagenes que respondian a su tacto y asi la base se quedara sonando dando origen a la cancion .... fue un momento increible en que estabamos todos impresionados.

Aqui les dejo el impresionante catalogo de canciones que tocaron:

• 999,999
• 1,000,000
• Letting You
• Discipline
• March of the Pigs
• Piggy
• The Frail
• The Wretched
• Head Down
• Closer
• Gave Up
• Corona Radiata
• The Warning
• Vessel
• Pinion
• Wish
• Terrible Lie
• Survivalism
• The Big Come Down
• 31 Ghosts IV
• Only
• The Hand That Feeds
• Head Like a Hole
• Echoplex
• Reptile
• God Given
• Hurt
• In This Twilight
• Zero sum

Mis favoritas son muchas pero creo que las que mas me tocaron fueron: 1.000.000, March of the pigs, Closer, Terrible lie, Echoplex y por sobre todo Hurt. Cuando llego el momento de March of the pigs el publico se revoluciono fue como si el monstruo hubiese despertado con sed de musica. Pero cuando llego Hurt el silencio reino y la emocion me lleno .... cantada e interpretada desde las viceras.

Cuando el concierto termino la screen del frente desplegaba en gigante el logo NIN encerrado en un rectangulo todo en letras rojas. Muchos de los comentarios al final fueron "LA CAGOOOO!!!!" y de impresion por lo increible que fue, tambien los hubo por que a muchos nos hubiese gustado haber escuchado alguna cancion mas pero la verdad de las cosas es que si hubiesen tocado algunas de la canciones que nos falto el oncierto en vez de haber durado las dos o poco mas de dos horas que duro tendria que haber durado unas 3 horas por lo menos. A mi me dejo mas que conforme, mostraron su disco nuevo (The Slipt), del disco anterior tambien (Ghosts I - IV) y tocaron muchos clasicos que todos queriamos escuchar.

Trent incluyo en su show las disculpas por la existencia de George W. Bush en la presidensia de US y ademas se encargo de ponerlo en la screen que estaba en el fondo y transformarlo en McCain .... notable.

Tambien tuvo la cortecia de decir que pronto le gustaria volver a Chile, ojala asi fuese por que aqui lo vamos a estar esperando.

Siempre es agradable ver a buenos musicos en escena, pero poder ver a uno de los musicos mas influyentes, eso es impagable.

Recordemos que NIN en sus ultimos discos a adquirido derechos de autor del tipo Creative commons lo que hace que su musica sea libremente archivada y distribuida por las personas sin ningun tipo de costo y ademas permite al que se anime a realizar mezclas lo que la potencia aun mas .... a todos nos quedo claro el exito que ha tenido la banda por lo tanto es un clarisimo ejemplo de que Creative commons funciona.

Por ultimo debo decir que las fotos de este post no son mias y las he sacado de dos fuentes principalmente:

• Pagina disorder.cl y las fotos pertenecen a Rosario Oddo buenisimas fotos.
• La galeria de SrLapiz en Flickr.com tambien muy buenas fotos.

"No puedo permitirme hacer un show que no sea perfecto cada noche" Trent Reznor.

Les licences CC sont des contrats de mise à disposition d'une œuvre que l'auteur consent dans le cadre d'une diffusion en ligne de ses créations. Ils lui permettent d'exercer son droit d'auteur tout en autorisant certaines utilisations de ses œuvres

>>> Les salons Creative Commons

Fall dates/times:
November 11, 4 pm
November 25, 1 or 2 pm
December 16, 1 or 2 pm

Spring dates/times:
February 24, 4 pm
March 3, 9:30 or 11 am
March 17, 9:30 or 11 am

]]> http://ipfaber.wordpress.com/?p=184 Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:52:46 +0000 Enrico http://blog.ipfaber.net/2008/10/07/licenza-e-copyright-legenda-e-simboli/ Photo credit: A. Diez Herrero

In relazione alla diverse tipologie di diritti di proprietà intellettuale, esistono ormai una moltitudine di licenze standard.

Molto spesso la gente fa confusione fra i simboli che si usano a livello internazionale per segnalare l'esistenza di diritti di proprietà intellettuale o non sa come indicare correttamente le licenze standard.

Negli interessi del consumatore e dei creativi o di chi si confronta con marchi e copyright o si serve delle licenze standard su questi diritti, pubblichiamo una piccola guida utile alla loro comprensione e al loro uso. In aggiunta a questo chiunque può leggere brevemente quanto scritto nel sito www.right2create.com che mette a disposizione di tutti in modo divulgativo le informazioni di base sui marchi e sulle licenze

© ("C" dentro un cerchio) indica diritto d'autore, copyright: l'opera è protetta secondo le leggi sul diritto d'autore

™ ("TM" scritto come apice) indica marchio depositato (dall'inglese trade mark), quindi un marchio (segno distintivo) utilizzato nel commercio, ma che pur essendo già stato depositato, non è ancora stato registrato. Talora in commercio si può osservare l'indicazione del simbolo TM anche solo per rivendicare un diritto esclusivo su un marchio usato, ma non ancora registrato: in realtà, bisogna ricordare che un marchio puramente usato (detto marchio di fatto) dà diritto ad un'esclusiva entro limiti ben precisi.

® ("R" dentro un cerchio) indica marchio registrato, quindi se ne può fare uso in quanto gli uffici competetenti hanno accettato il marchio, la legge stabilisce limiti e principi di tale uso

("CC" dentro un cerchio) indica licenza di Creative Commons, una particolare serie di licenze (vedi questo link per ulteriori specifiche) che consente un utilizzo libero in tutto o in parte dell'opera (sia essa figurativa, testuale, software o altro)

(IP Faber può aiutarti a tutelare le tue opere e i tuoi prodotti, musica, testi, foto e media)

Wenn man für sich privat ein Bild herunterladen möchte so ist das meistens kein Problem. Ein Klick auf den Herunterladen-Button (Lupe) über dem jeweiligen Bild genügt und schon ist das Foto auf der eigenen Festplatte. Wer auf diesen Button Zugriff hat entscheidet jeder Fotograf selbst.

Die nächste Möglichkeit ist der Bloggen-Button über dem Bild.  Jeder angemeldete Flickr-User kann einen oder mehrere Blogs registrieren lassen. Möchte man ein Bild bloggen, öffnet sich ein Fenster, wo der Blogger sogar mit einer Layout-Auswahl einen Post und dem jeweiligen Bild erstellen kann und dann zum Beispiel zu Wordpress schicken kann. Flickr setzt unter dem Bild automatisch den Namen des Fotografen und das Bild selbst ist ein Link zurück zum Flickr Fotostream des Fotografen. In diesem Blog sind alle Bilder Links zu meinem Fotostream. Gibt es einen Button über dem Bild, darf man bloggen, gibt es keinen, dann erlaubt es der Nutzer nicht.

Die einfachste Antwort auf diese Frage ist: Frag den Fotografen selbst! Flickr hat ein internes Mailsystem, womit es sehr einfach ist, Bedingungen für die Bildnutzung zu regeln. Auch hier muss man bei Flickr angemeldet sein, um das Mailsystem nutzen zu können. Auch sollte man ein bißchen Geduld mitbringen, denn eine Antwort lässt meistens auf sich warten.

Und dann gibt es auf Flickr noch die mit Creative Commons lizenzierten Bilder. Diese Bilder kann man als registrierter Benutzer immer herunterladen. Creative Commons ist eine Non-Profit Organisation die eine Alternative zum kompletten Urheberschutz bietet. Es gibt verschiedene Lizenztypen, welche auch von internationalen Gerichten anerkannt werden. Für den Bildnutzer ist es daher sehr ratsam sich an diese Lizenzen zu halten. Eine detailierte Erklärung findet man hier. Übrigens, alle Bilder in meinem Flickr Fotostream haben eine Creative Commons Lizenz und sind somit kostenlos, aber eingeschränkt nutzbar.

Kartei

A spring lunges,
dark earth bursting apart
as it swells.

The needless
blossom is cracked.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

JNN goes pop?! Well wait till you hear this excellent experimentalistic release that is filled with pop, glitch, noise, lofi and experimentalism. Crossing between the likes of Zappa, Boards of Canada and electro-psychedelics this release will surely peak your ears!

Mirror:

01 Kiss on the frozen window
02 Cats are gone
03 Glue
04 Post Meridiem
05 Unnecessary sip
06 Grruuu
07 Improvizija44
08 In through, brown melody

Dzlav - Post Meridiem zip files
All tracks 320 kbs. Run time: 27,49 minutes

review this release

Nunn Johnson of Kidz Centz, Incorporated will present single sessions on October 9, 2008 and November 6, 2008, both connections running 4-5pm CT. Cost per session is $100 for New Links to New Learning members and $125 for non members (cost is associated with site, not individuals). What does that include? An interactive discussion (see below) plus one free Kidz Centz publication workbook is provided for every participating site and additional publications provided at 20% discount of retail price. To sign up, contact rmorrison@csd.org.

The agenda for the discussion “Introduction to Children Financial Skills” includes:

• A positive attitude toward finances: Learn how a positive attitude facilitates the learning process making concepts simple for children to comprehend by teaching an affirmation that money management is fun to do, easy to learn and will work for you.
• Fundamental Principles for Personal Finance: We use four basic principles of giving, investing, sharing family expenses and saving money to explain a budget.
• Prosperity Conscious Management: We teach prosperity conscious management as the discovery, appreciation and utilization of life changing information required for character development.
• Parental Involvement with Financial Education: We encourage parental involvement with their children by reading and showing interest in their lessons.
• Knowledge for Wisdom, Prosperity and Financial Freedom: The curriculum is designed to incorporate financial fundamentals at an early age to develop a good reference for financial decisions.
• Managing Personal Income and Resources: We stress character development and educational skills for habits to become a good manager by definition.  A good manager is anyone that uses wise management skills to benefit everyone.

photo by jenn_jenn on Flickr

This school year marks Pat McKissack’s 10th anniversary of videoconferencing with New Links to New Learning and Cooperating School Districts! We hope you can join us as we start this new chapter! To sign up for her autumn Creative Writing videoconference series, and to find out about pricing and connections, contact me. (She is also doing a spring session for Creative Writing!)

We do limit each videoconference time slot to three schools, with no more than 30 kids at each site. If there are a variety of grade levels interested, we group accordingly. A former teacher, Pat works with elementary through high school students.The first videoconference is with the participating teacher, and the second and third videoconference are with the students. This is an interactive writing series; during the first student session, the kids are given their writing assignment, in the second student session, they share their writing with Pat.

Fall Creative Writing dates
Teacher Session: November 11, 2008 @ 4 pm CT
Session I:  November 25, 2008  @ 1 or 2 pm CT
Session II: December 16, 2008  @ 1 or 2 pm CT

To read more about Pat and her books, visit her blog, Can You Imagine? at www.authorvisit.wordpress.com.

Si la Wikipedia lo define y explica, pero aún de esta forma no entiendes lo mejor es aprender de manera visual, por eso te invito a dar un click sobre la imagen a continuación:

]]> http://andypiper.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/creative-commons-and-attributions/ Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:01:43 +0000 Andy Piper http://andypiper.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/creative-commons-and-attributions/ I noticed Laura Fitton (aka @pistachio) twittering about Flickr and Creative Commons licensing of photos recently.

You can find the photos which I have CC-licensed here on my Flickr stream. This accounts for less than 20% of my total photostream.

I’m a big fan of CC. I use a lot of CC-licensed materials in presentations, for instance. Let me explain the rationale as to how I decide which of my images to make available under Creative Commons.

1. If they are from a social media event, then generally I guess other people might want to blog them.
2. If they are of gadgets or objects, or are quick snapshots, then the likelihood is that I’m going to blog them, and others might want to as well.
3. If someone specifically asks to use an image, I’ll consider whether or not it could / should be CC-licensed. Generally, it’s nice when people want to use one of my images, so I try to oblige.
4. If I find that an image has been used on a blog without the author checking and it is marked All Rights Reserved, and I subsequently decide that the image is generally shareable, then I’ll open it up.
5. If they are family, portraits or landscape shots – i.e. the bulk of my work – then there’s a chance I might want to do something with them commercially in the future, or else there’s a good reason for me not wanting just anyone to use them (plus there may be rights issues outside of my control anyway). In these cases, I generally will not apply a CC license.

The license I most frequently apply is Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. The annoyance is that I seem to find myself having to “police” the use of the images… I have some web search feeds set up which look for references to my Flickr URL, and when I see them used, I’ll take a look at the site. The most frequently-used image seems to be this one of one of my favourite blogging books… but 90% of the time I have to go and ask for the blogger in question to add an attribution or reference back to the original site. I always add a link to the original Flickr page to the bottom of slides, and details of the images used in the notes for any slide deck. It’s part of playing fair.

I like Creative Commons. I just wish that more people understood how to use CC-licensed content.

Update: I just want to emphasise that 99% of the folks I do correspond with on this issue are very polite, helpful, and made the honest mistake of not necessarily knowing the background on CC licensing. The issue is usually fixed without hesitation. In the example I cited in this post, the author did link back to the Flickr page, and the alt text of the img tag very clearly references me - it's just that many browsers won't show that even in a tooltip, as the link URL will be shown in preference. A clear credit is usually a better option, in my own opinion.

Il codice è legge. Lessig è anche scrittore, e si batte da sempre per il diritto ad avere una cultura assolutamente libera anche - ma soprattutto - su internet. Suo il termine ormai famosissimo "Code is Law", dove indica due strade da percorrere: quella tecnologica e quella giuridica. Parlando per quella tecnologica, il "codice informatico" è un insieme di dati e testo (chiamato, appunto, codice) che permettono di creare un software per computer; in giurisprudenza invece, il termine "codice" indica una fonte del diritto il testo che permette di risalire alle fonti di una legge. In entrambi i casi nel suo libro Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lessig dice chiaramente che il codice può diventare uno strumento di controllo sociale, da qui il termine "Code is Law".

Metodo Lessig. Pluripremiato da associazioni e organizzazioni che si battono a favore del libero scambio senza restrizioni, Lessig è particolarmente noto anche per il suo modo di concepire le presentazioni in pubblico. Questo stile, caratterizzato soprattutto da frasi molto brevi e addirittura da sole immagini, è stato definito dal fotoreporter canadese James MacLennan il "metodo Lessig".

Cultura libera. Fermo restando di queste idee, nel 2002 fonda la Free Culture (tradotta in Cultura libera), organizzazione contro i brevetti software, che considera una minaccia in ascesa sia all'innovazione che al software libero/open source. Nel 2004 il concetto Free Culture diventa un libro divenuto ben presto bestseller in America. Per non smentirsi mai, Lessig pubblicò Free Culture sotto licenza CC, pertanto esiste sia la copia cartacea (anche in italiano) a pagamento, che quella in digitale (anche qui presente in italiano) gratuita: tutte e due le versione sotto licenza generica CC by-nc 1.0.

Tutto 'sto gran preambolo era solamente per dire che Amazon, la più grande libreria (e non solo) online esistente, sta commercializzando il libro "Free Culture" in formato digitale da leggere negli e-book Kindle. Tutto bene sarebbe da pensare, peccato sia venduto con i lucchetti digitali DRM e  si fanno beffe del titolo inglese del libro “Free Culture. How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity" e di quello in italiano (mai letterale chiaramente) "Cultura Libera. Un equilibrio fra anarchia e controllo, contro l'estremismo della proprietà intellettuale". La cultura non è poi così libera quando ci sono di mezzo gli affari.

Articolo pubblicato originariamente su AgoraVox

O Creative Commons ajuda você a publicar seus textos, imagens, videos, áudios, materiais educacionais online e deixar claro para todos o que exatamente eles podem e não podem fazer com sua obra. O Creative Commons disponibiliza licenças que abrangem um espectro de possibilidades entre a proibição total dos usos sobre uma obra - todos os direitos reservados- e o domínio público - nenhum direito reservado. As licenças ajudam você a manter seu direito autoral ao mesmo tempo em que permite certos usos de sua obra - um licenciamento com "alguns direitos reservados". Para entender melhor ou registrar sua obra, clique no link abaixo .

Link Add: Creative Commons Brasil

Lawrence Lessig, criador do Creative Commons, na boa entrevista publicada na Folha de S. Paulo.

¡No dudéis la próxima vez que tengáis que elegir!

Gracias a Renata Avila me entero que el sitio web de Creative Commons Guatemala ya está activo. En el sitio están los datos sobre la conferencia de Jimmy Wales para el lazamiento de Creative Commons en Guatemala:

Los boletos para dicho evento estarán a la en el Centro Henry Hazlitt, Edificio Académico D-411 en la UFM, el precio será:

• Estudiante (con carné) Q150
• Público en general Q350

He estado siguiendo el proceso de CC Guatemala, y me da gusto que ya estemos tan pronto de contar con estas licencias válidas a nuestra legislación. Será un gusto ver algunas caras conocidas ese día.

Si usas Facebook, considera confirmar tu asistencia al evento.

Imagen: Renata Avila