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Matthew J. Agnello | 5 Jan 2008 21:02
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New free culture documentary in development

This is an announcement regarding a new documentary on free culture. If this is deemed inappropriate for this list, please ignore/remove the post.

I wanted to let everyone know about a new documentary being developed about the free culture movement, tentatively titled COPYCAT. I'm exploring the effect the Internet has had on our culture and our behavior as a society. Specifically, I'm looking into the myriad of communication tools available on the Internet and exploring how they have affected the way we create and experience our own culture. The result will be a series of short episodes culminating with a final feature-length piece that draws them all together, similar to what Steal This Film is doing. The episodes as well as the final project will be released BY-SA.

I've set up a variety of outlets for users to track and contribute to the development of the project. Using Lessig's corruption wikinotes as an example, I've set up a series of pages on my wiki for keeping track of required reading, current events, people I should know about, etc. You can find the portal at http://www.hungryfilmmaker.com/wiki/Portal:Copycat. If you'd like to contribute, please go to the wiki, create an account, and poke around a bit.

I also have a del.icio.us page for keeping track of online research and a twitter account for short-form updates. I've made a post with all the details on my blog at http://hungryfilmmaker.blogspot.com/ titled "Open notes."

I'll also be at the SPARC-ACRL forum on scholarship in the 21st century in Philadelphia. If you'd like to contribute in other ways, please send me an e-mail.

Best,
// Matt

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Ringo Kamens | 6 Jan 2008 00:15
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Re: New free culture documentary in development

Just so you know, gmail put this in my spam folder and I'm guessing this happened to others as well.
Comrade Ringo Kamens

On Jan 5, 2008 3:02 PM, Matthew J. Agnello < matt.agnello <at> gmail.com> wrote:
This is an announcement regarding a new documentary on free culture. If this is deemed inappropriate for this list, please ignore/remove the post.

I wanted to let everyone know about a new documentary being developed about the free culture movement, tentatively titled COPYCAT. I'm exploring the effect the Internet has had on our culture and our behavior as a society. Specifically, I'm looking into the myriad of communication tools available on the Internet and exploring how they have affected the way we create and experience our own culture. The result will be a series of short episodes culminating with a final feature-length piece that draws them all together, similar to what Steal This Film is doing. The episodes as well as the final project will be released BY-SA.

I've set up a variety of outlets for users to track and contribute to the development of the project. Using Lessig's corruption wikinotes as an example, I've set up a series of pages on my wiki for keeping track of required reading, current events, people I should know about, etc. You can find the portal at http://www.hungryfilmmaker.com/wiki/Portal:Copycat. If you'd like to contribute, please go to the wiki, create an account, and poke around a bit.

I also have a del.icio.us page for keeping track of online research and a twitter account for short-form updates. I've made a post with all the details on my blog at http://hungryfilmmaker.blogspot.com/ titled "Open notes."

I'll also be at the SPARC-ACRL forum on scholarship in the 21st century in Philadelphia. If you'd like to contribute in other ways, please send me an e-mail.

Best,
// Matt

----------
Matt Agnello




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Denver Gingerich | 6 Jan 2008 04:52
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Re: New free culture documentary in development

On Jan 5, 2008 3:02 PM, Matthew J. Agnello <matt.agnello <at> gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
> I've set up a variety of outlets for users to track and contribute to the
> development of the project. Using Lessig's corruption wikinotes as an
> example, I've set up a series of pages on my wiki for keeping track of
> required reading, current events, people I should know about, etc. You can
> find the portal at http://www.hungryfilmmaker.com/wiki/Portal:Copycat. If
> you'd like to contribute, please go to the wiki, create an account, and poke
> around a bit.

I've added a page on international copyright treaties to the Topics
section.  Let me know if you have any questions about it.

Since the wiki happened to omit information on international copyright
treaties, but included a note on US copyright treaties, I'll talk a
bit about that.  I am in no way picking on you specifically, Matt; it
just so happens that I have time to expand on this now and your e-mail
was the most recent one that brought it to mind.

I find that it is often the case that discussions relating to
copyright law (at least on FC-discuss and other lists I'm on) center
around what US law says about a particular issue.  While these are
great for people that live in the US, the discussions are not very
useful for people that live in other countries.

Although one may not be able to get into as much legal depth (since
each country implements treaties differently), it may be much more
useful in these discussions to talk about international copyright
treaties such as the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the Berne Convention.
These treaties are signed by most countries on the planet [1] so are
quite relevant for most people.

One can include notes on optional parts of the treaties that specific
countries have implemented when discussing these treaties.  For
example, you may wish to note when talking about the length of
copyright terms that the Berne Convention states this is at least 50
years for signing countries while the US has chosen to implement a
longer term.

Talking about international copyright treaties is not only useful for
people in more countries, but it also promotes awareness of which laws
are specific to certain countries and which laws are internationally
recognized.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments about this.  I'm
always up for discussion.

Denver

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_international_copyright_treaties
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Matthew J. Agnello | 6 Jan 2008 07:52
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Re: New free culture documentary in development

It's definitely an important topic, and I'm glad you added it because I hadn't thought of it myself. How copyright operates internationally is already of supreme importance when talking about the Internet. Both 'Steal This Film' and 'Good Copy, Bad Copy' touch on the subject, and it's a good idea for US citizens and policymakers to look at how other countries are experimenting with copyright law. I read a very interesting post on William Patry's blog on Israel's new copyright law[1]. He writes of it glowingly, and more than once he says how he wishes certain statutes were written into US law to make things more clear. It's obvious the rest of the world has been watching the US and has learned a few lessons.

About a week ago, Patry also mentioned another piece of interesting news that the WTO now allows the island-state of Antigua to circumvent US copyright law because the US illegally blocked access to their online gambling services.[2]

As the Internet becomes more accessible to everyone, copyright laws across borders will become one of the most important issues facing US and international economy, especially if IP really is the "oil of the 21st century."

Best,
// Matt

and

On Jan 5, 2008, at 10:52 PM, Denver Gingerich wrote:

On Jan 5, 2008 3:02 PM, Matthew J. Agnello <matt.agnello <at> gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
I've set up a variety of outlets for users to track and contribute to the
development of the project. Using Lessig's corruption wikinotes as an
example, I've set up a series of pages on my wiki for keeping track of
required reading, current events, people I should know about, etc. You can
find the portal at http://www.hungryfilmmaker.com/wiki/Portal:Copycat. If
you'd like to contribute, please go to the wiki, create an account, and poke
around a bit.

I've added a page on international copyright treaties to the Topics
section.  Let me know if you have any questions about it.


Since the wiki happened to omit information on international copyright
treaties, but included a note on US copyright treaties, I'll talk a
bit about that.  I am in no way picking on you specifically, Matt; it
just so happens that I have time to expand on this now and your e-mail
was the most recent one that brought it to mind.

I find that it is often the case that discussions relating to
copyright law (at least on FC-discuss and other lists I'm on) center
around what US law says about a particular issue.  While these are
great for people that live in the US, the discussions are not very
useful for people that live in other countries.

Although one may not be able to get into as much legal depth (since
each country implements treaties differently), it may be much more
useful in these discussions to talk about international copyright
treaties such as the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the Berne Convention.
These treaties are signed by most countries on the planet [1] so are
quite relevant for most people.

One can include notes on optional parts of the treaties that specific
countries have implemented when discussing these treaties.  For
example, you may wish to note when talking about the length of
copyright terms that the Berne Convention states this is at least 50
years for signing countries while the US has chosen to implement a
longer term.

Talking about international copyright treaties is not only useful for
people in more countries, but it also promotes awareness of which laws
are specific to certain countries and which laws are internationally
recognized.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments about this.  I'm
always up for discussion.

Denver


1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_international_copyright_treaties
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Joe Born | 6 Jan 2008 20:52
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Article on Open Media Hardware in New York Times

Interesting article in the NY Times about the Neuros open approach to product development [1] It's pretty interesting to see how a mainstream reporter views open source.  After years of pitching the benefits to a mainstream audience, I've come to use the term "openness" to try to describe the phenomenon generally: inviting community cooperation and feedback, releasing documentation, using open source software, using open standards, etc. It's really splitting hairs to a mainstream audience to get them to understand the distinctions that are so clear to the folks here. In many ways, I've come to embrace this broader definition because to a large extent it gets more to the point of freedom of communication anyway.

For years, we'd try to explain open source in more precise terms, only to get reactions like "so that means its recordings will play on my iPod?" so we ultimately came to focus more on "openess" as an umbrella term to describe all the related aspects. It's certainly more ambiguous, but look at the article and you'll understand what I'm talking about. That was not a casually written piece, she interviewed not only Neuros employees, but community members as well as references from the EFF and Cory Doctorow, etc.  Slashdot discussion too [2]


[1]http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/business/06novel.html
[2]http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/06/084242


Joe Born
Neuros Technology

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Robert E. Moran | 6 Jan 2008 21:13

Re: Article on Open Media Hardware in New York Times

Awesome! This is what the US should have demandid regarding voting machines. You guys rock!! 

Best

Bob Moran
On Jan 6, 2008, at 2:52 PM, Joe Born wrote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/business/06novel.html

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Gavin Baker | 12 Jan 2008 20:16
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Big news in open access: 2 new mandates from US and EU


Two big stories in the past few days:

* On Jan. 11, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (the world's
largest single funder of scientific research) implemented its mandate to
ensure public access to grantee research, which had been signed into law
on Dec. 26. Links to the policy and commentary here:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/01/nih-releases-its-new-oa-policy.html

The NIH mandate is the first public access mandate in the U.S., and the
first worldwide approved by a legislature (other public mandates were
adopted by the agency).

* On Jan. 10 (apparently), the European Research Council released its
public access mandate. The ERC accounts for about 15% of the EU's
research budget. This is the first EU-wide public access mandate. Policy
and commentary here:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/01/oa-mandate-from-european-research.html

The ERC mandate is stronger than the NIH's in two regards:
1. The ERC mandate allows authors to deposit in any open access
repository, while the NIH requires authors to deposit only in the NIH's
own database (PubMed Central)
2. The ERC mandate allows a maximum 6 month "embargo" from publication
until open access is provided, while the NIH allows up to 12 months of
embargo.

Both mandates are stronger than the mandates of some other public
agencies, which allow a loophole if the author's chosen publisher claims
to prohibit self-archiving. The ERC mandate doesn't discuss any such
loophole, and the NIH policy specifically prohibits it.
--
Gavin Baker
http://www.gavinbaker.com/
gavin <at> gavinbaker.com
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FreeCulture.org - Students for Free Culture | 15 Jan 2008 05:15
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Victories for open access!

Writes Karen Rustad on our blog:

The day after Christmas, President Bush signed into law the Consolidated
Appropriations Act of 2007 (H.R. 2764), part of which [contained a
mandate for all research funded by the National Institutes of Health to
be made publicly accessible][1] within a year of publication in the
National Library of Medicine's online archive, [PubMed Central][2]. This
is huge news for many reasons, as SPARC's Peter Suber [notes][3], in
particular because

> The NIH is the world's largest funder of scientific research (not
counting classified military research). Its budget last year, $28
billion, was larger than the gross domestic product of 142 nations. As
my colleague Ray English points out, it's more than five times larger
than all seven of the Research Councils UK combined. NIH-funded research
results in 65,000 peer-reviewed articles every year or 178 every day. …
Its OA mandate will not only free up an unprecedented quantity of high-
quality medical research. It will also make a giant step toward
cultivating new expectations -among researchers, funders, governments,
and voters- that publicly-funded research should be OA.

Around the same time, the European Research Council also [released its
guidelines for open access][4], which affirm academia's principles of
sharing knowledge as widely as possible and make open access mandatory
for all ERC-funded research.

Of course, there's still work to be done. The federal government funds
plenty of research through agencies other than the NIH, not to mention
research not funded by the government at all. The yearlong embargo in
getting the latest medical research is also less than ideal. But this is
still a great step forward, one which will hopefully encourage other
agencies and individual academics to release their research freely.

Students for Free Culture is proud to have participated, along with many
of its member chapters and other organizations, in last February's
[National Open Access Day of Action][5] to raise awareness of access to
research issues among students and pressure congresspeople to support HR
2764.

Read Students for Free Culture's Open Access Director Gavin Baker's
analysis of [the bill's passage][6] and [the NIH's subsequent policy
changes][7].

Also, the winner of [SPARC's viral video contest][8], of which I was a
judge, was announced at last weekend's American Library Association
Midwinter Meeting. Check it out:

   [1]: http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/media/release07-1226.html

   [2]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

   [3]: http://www.arl.org/sparc/publications/an-open-access-mandate-
fo.html

   [4]: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/01/oa-mandate-from-
european-research.html

   [5]: http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/media/Release07-0201.html

   [6]: http://www.gavinbaker.com/2008/01/02/public-access-is-law-at-
the-nih-whats-next/

   [7]: http://www.gavinbaker.com/2008/01/11/nih-predictions-some-right-
some-wrong/

   [8]: http://www.sparkyawards.org/

URL: http://freeculture.org/blog/2008/01/14/victories-for-open-access/
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FreeCulture.org - Students for Free Culture | 15 Jan 2008 06:15
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Students for Free Culture holding elections

Writes Karen Rustad on our blog:

In accordance with our new [bylaws][1], Students for Free Culture is
having an election for a new board of directors.

The candidates, in alphabetical order:

Brendan Ballou, Columbia University

Fred Benenson, New York University*

Kevin Driscoll, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Christina Ducruet, Brown University

Jan Hendrik Grahl, University of Florida

Nicholas LaRacuente, Swarthmore College

Ben Mazer, Swarthmore College

Hani Morsi, The American University in Cairo

Nelson Pavlosky, George Mason University School of Law*

Parker Phinney, Chadwick School

Karen Rustad, Claremont Colleges*

Elizabeth Stark, Harvard Law School*

*incumbent

Chapter liaisons will be casting their votes between now and February 3.
You can read the candidates' [platforms][2] and their [responses to
questions][3] during one of our IRC debates.

Good luck to all the candidates!

   [1]: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Bylaws

   [2]: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Board07/Nominations

   [3]: http://wiki.freeculture.org/2007-11-27

URL: http://freeculture.org/blog/2008/01/14/students-for-free-culture-holding-elections/
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Gavin Baker | 16 Jan 2008 10:06
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Brilliant video on open Web services


http://www.vimeo.com/610179

Let's hope 2008 is the year this really takes off.
--
Gavin Baker
http://www.gavinbaker.com/
gavin <at> gavinbaker.com

No, there's going to be no even tenor with me. The more uneven it is the
happier I shall be.
~  --Richard Halliburton
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