Here is the problem.  Copyright is supposed to protect the rights of the producer who fixes expression onto media for distribution.  However, copyright has become, through its expansion to programming languages, related algorythmic expression and similar extensions a way to protect the rights of the most powerful distributor of expressed knowledge.  That is, copyright fails to make clear the difference between the knowledge and the expression of knowledge, because it fails to limit the techniques of enclosure that seek to put copyright on expressed knowledge in order to limit access to that knowledge.  In short, I argue that copyright has slid into the realm of a form closer to the intent of the patent.  It will take several laws to changes this.  Policy alone won’t work.

What role does CC and copyleft have in this issue?  They are licenses that recognize the current copyright system as valid, that is to say they recognize that people can put a copyright on an expression of knowledge, and thus come to own that expression, and if they cover enough expressions of said knowledge they can defend that expression in court.  However, because people can license things under copyright and ‘give them away’ or enter into other terms of contract.  There is no felt necessity for resolving the real problem of copyright.  For if it is in your interest to resist copyright, you now have a legal framework to do so that does not require any legal change, but in all likelihood could be wiped out by one of the forthcoming treaties or other similar changes.  Thus what one has done by entering into a license such as these is reified the regime they exist within, not resisted it in any way.  It is like people in a park playing frisbee(tm), some are playing with a copyrighted expression and others have said, I’ll play with a frisbee that i’ll paint black, and paint  a different logo on it. It is the same basic problem, only they are performing the problem slightly differently in order, they think to make a point, but what it only does is detract from the point that the people with the frisbee brand frisbee(tm) are playing the same games and having the same fun they have always had and you are just performing the same form of fun in the same park, with the same rules.  Both are perpetuating the game of frisbee, they are defining the field by their play, and really changing nothing.  Similarly, CC and copyleft are playing the game of copyright, maintaining the system through their actions instead of actively trying to change it in a meaningful manner.

Call for Participation

1-5pm, Friday 24th July, QUT Gardens Point, QUT – Rm S405A

RSVP deadline July 15th 2009

Second Life(R) is a 3d virtual environment created by Linden Lab which has captured the attentions of researchers and teachers from around the world from a variety of disciplines.

This 1/2 day workshop aims to improve the understanding of Second Life as a Learning and Research environment. It will bring 20-30 researchers together to collaborate, discuss and workshop diverse topics related to research and learning in Second Life. We will pursue a schedule in which participants will discuss their work and interests on three different topics: learning in Second Life, research practices in virtual worlds, and ethical research methods. In the end we will try to come to terms with how can we better integrate our research learning practices in this sphere?

This workshop is targeted at people who have experience in virtual worlds and wish to work with others to improve their research and their learning experiences in world.

The workshop encourages researchers to share papers by submitting them before hand and to send a short biography to jeremy.hunsinger at gmail.com. The papers and bios will be distributed amongst participants before the workshop. These papers and bios have the purpose of providing a common platform for understanding our research together during the workshop.

We welcome professionals, faculty and graduate students to participate.

This workshop is organized by Jeremy Hunsinger and Ross Brown

Sponsored by QUT, Faculty of Creative Industries.

Contact Dr Ross Brown – r.brown at qut.edu.au for any further details.

QUT Location – http://tinyurl.com/l3hd97
Campus Map -
http://www.qut.edu.au/about/location/pdf/gardenspoint_map_colour.pdf

15 million ebooks… wow. That is no footnote to universal information. I’ve been using google books for some time and I have to say sometimes it is handy, but most of the time the publishers restrictions just ruins any capacity to do research. However, the likelihood of actually having the books that I want in the local library, even the esteemed NYPL is not really happening. Of course, then again I’ve never really had a library with the books that I want in it, other than my own library.