Recent Articles

A Historical View of the Cultural Commons

August 24, 2010 14:05

My father sent me a pointer to Robert Darnton's review in the NY Times titled "A Republic of Letters". The review discusses the new book by Lewis Hyde (see also http://www.lewishyde.com/) called Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership. As you can guess from the title and my interest, the...

Experimental Derivative Art

August 20, 2010 17:17

Xeni Jardin at Boingboing pointed at an experimental film by François Vautier that is a great example of the way digital technology is enabling new forms of (derivative) art. For this project, Vautier took every frame of the film Blade Runner and laid them out on a vast plane. He then made his ...

This is Remix Culture Courtesy of Sunday Girl

August 09, 2010 20:40

As part of my music listening I came across Sunday Girl, covering the old Laura Branigan song "Self Control." And there on her MySpace page is an open invitation - want to remix? Here, have a free download of the a capella version. Like so many other artists out there, her biggest problem isn't...

Remix Age Youth and Plagiarism

August 05, 2010 19:21

A story in the New York Times from earlier this week examines the challenges of defining and educating around plagiarism for remix-culture youth. Trip Gabriel's story notes that what we might call inadvertent plagiarism is on the rise - students copy material that has no obvious author and don't...

The Revolution Will Have Permission

August 03, 2010 15:20

Iranian trio Blurred Vision are getting some notice for their remake/update of the Pink Floyd classic "Another Brick in the Wall." What caught my eye was the notice that Floyd founder Roger Waters had green-lighted the release of the video which, as of this writing, is approaching 150,000 views on...

Is Wikileaks the Napster of Confidential Information?

July 28, 2010 19:04

Boingboing's Xeni Jardin was on the Rachel Maddow show earlier this week making an interesting point. Xeni suggests we look past Wikileaks itself to the question of who owns secrets. She and guest host Chris Hayes discuss the idea that this is a transformative moment similar to the mass emergence...

Breaking DRM Gets New Protections

July 27, 2010 15:28

In yesterday's post about the 5th Circuit decision, I noted that most other courts have not agreed with this interpretation of the DMCA. Well, that may be about to change largely due to the strenuous efforts of the EFF and its allies in pushing the US Copyright Office and the Librarian of...

DMCA, Dongles, and Breaking DRM

July 26, 2010 19:29

Over the weekend both Slashdot and Boingboing pointed to a story about GE and the DMCA. Formally, the case is known as MGE UPS Systems Inc. v. GE Consumser and Industrial Inc. What drew the blogs' attention was that in this case a 3-judge panel of the 5th circuit has ruled that using a hacked...

Killed by Code?

July 23, 2010 14:22

Slashdot and Boingboing both pointed this week to a publication by the Software Freedom Law Center titled "Killed by Code: Software Transparency in Implantable Medical Devices". The page at that URL has the full text and you can download PDF and Postscript versions if you want. The SFLC, chaired...

CCC Promoting its "Rightslink" Tool Upgrade

July 20, 2010 15:57

The Copyright Clearance Center sent out a blurb announcing that they've upgraded their Rightslink tool, a set of software and services that is designed to help creators figure out what they want to license, to whom, and on what basis. There are a variety of tools that creators need if they're going...