Those members living in the EU might want to review these amendments (PDF) to the Second Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED2) 2005/0127 (COD) that have been produced by a coalition of groups representing librarians, consumers and innovators. The main thrust of the coalition’s amendments would: LIMIT the scope of IPRED2 to true criminal enterprises,… Continue reading
Date archives "April 2007"
Re-Public: special issue on Wiki politics
Re-public, the Greek-English webzine, continues its tradition of publishing specially themed issues on participatory politics, this time focusing on “Wiki Politics” They write that “Wiki politics is a concept that encompasses existing practices which instantly give birth to new democratic forms. They produce a particular form of political participation -horizontal and equitable- which operates on… Continue reading
GNU draft GPLv3 needs a Fifth Freedom
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has released draft 3 of version 3 of the GNU General Public License and it is up for discussion this month. There is also an audio by Richard Stallman introducing the latest changes and the philosophy behind the license. FSF defines Free Software as giving the user has four essential… Continue reading
The UNESCO swosh?
The US has decided to file two cases at the WTO over intellectual property. The cases are against China where the enforcement of of IP protection is notoriously lax., in particular regarding consumer brands, music and dvds, for which there is a massive cottage boot-legging industry. And they really have no reason to behave differently:… Continue reading
The Citysense distributed science project
Interesting report from Forbes, about a scientific initiative which combines both open data, with a meshwork of sensors, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more context, see our P2P Science pages. Excerpt: “Engineers at Harvard University and BBN Technologies Inc. are collaborating on what they believe is a first-of-its kind wireless sensor network atop Cambridge light poles…. Continue reading
The role of the state as meta-regulator
Some time ago, on one of my travels, I had the opportunity to visit the French city of Brest (Bretagne) and discover the innovative work of the city authorities with their Democratie Locale section under particular impulse of Michel Briand, but supported by many participants from civil society. Brittany has hundreds of miles of old… Continue reading
Is there something wrong with the play ethic?
We have already reported on the interesting ideas of our friend Pat Kane on The Play Ethic and want to share a recent controversy on the ever interesting mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity. The contribution is from Julian Kücklich who wonders if the ideology of play, as put forward by Pat Kane… Continue reading
New research on the new work practices of the ‘technobohemians
We are reproducing the announcement on this new publication: Network Notebooks is a series of publications on recent new media theory. Network Notebooks nr.1 is a publication by Rosalind Gill. Title: Technobohemians or the new Cybertariat? New media work in Amsterdam a decade after the web About the publication Accounts of new media working draw… Continue reading
Peer property: The coordination of sharing is improving
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang of IFTF writes a post reproduced here: “From time to time, we’ve written about experiments using pervasive computing technologies to turn private goods into sharable public ones: using virtualization tools to make computers more green, using computers and mobile phones to make carsharing programs easier to use or create dynamic ridesharing systems,… Continue reading
Communications authority looks towards a ‘share aware’ future
In a recent consultation paper, Ofcom, the UK Office of Communications, considers the future of Public Service Broadcasting in a digital interactive environment. The main thrust of the paper focuses on a Public Service Publisher (PSP) that might commission public service content for broadcasting over traditional and digital media in the normal way but would… Continue reading
Design innovation without production?
In a chapter of the P2P Manifesto, entitled How far can peer production be extended?, it is argued that, wherever design can be separated from production, peer to peer based design process can emerge, leading to a kind of ‘built-only’ capitalism. The discussion below stresses that design is inextricably linked to a production process, and… Continue reading
Video: Ethan Zuckerman interviewed about Global Voices Online
(click the link the watch the video as it won’t appear in some feedreaders)
Internationalizing the P2P foundation: Now also a Dutch P2P blog!
The P2P foundation blog has another daughter, after the French blog started on September 15th 2006 by Remi Sussan, the Dutch blog started last week on March 28th 2007! Like the wiki, the blog is internationalizing. Our stories until today: March 30th, 2007, P2P-Foundation nu ook Nederlands en een oproep, is about what this new… Continue reading
Learning on the same bench
My interest in peer to peer models really began with my work as a teacher in a secondary school several years ago. It was a school where there were many ‘at-risk’ youths, clustered together in classes so as not to ‘impede other youths who have better academic abilities’. I hated the sound of that. But… Continue reading
Prospects for Open Science
This is not new material but of interest to those monitoring the development of the open paradigm in all sectors of human life. At the Mozilla Foundation blog, Mitchell asks himself two important questions. One: how does open science differ from open source models and what extra difficulties does it face; Two: given those extra… Continue reading
World’s first open source car is showcased
“Earlier this week c,mm,n (website in Dutch), the world’s first open-source car, was revealed at AutoRAI, the Amsterdam car show. The initiative and vision behind the c,mm,n (pronounced “common”) comes from the “Stichting Natuur en Milieu” (The Netherlands Society for Nature and Environment) and the three technical universities of Delft, Eindhoven and Enschede. The vehicle’s… Continue reading