Copyright conundrums [R]

During the Mobilizethis09 conference run by Bill Wade in Darwin last week the question of; "What is 'legal media content' these days?"... when, as part of our Uni studies and daily life we want to use Web 2.0 mashups to get our points across.

Great question, still no clear answer. The following three articles attest to the fact that change is afoot and will hopefully provide a good overview of what the current state of play is for; copyright, copyleft, digital commons, patent rights, IP etc.  All that 'stuff' we're used to thinking of as belonging to someone is now more or less dead in the water unless its being viewed and freely altered over the grid. This is what I refer to in later posts as memes [ideas with attitude] that culturally evolve as they are replicated, with variation, on the grid.

Its mid 2007 and I've been in touch with ABC radio national and asked them if it was okay to use  whole or excerpted bits of their Radio national program podcasts.  I made 4 inconclusive phone calls asking if I could use their content and I never really thought the question was clearly answered until the 5th call.  I explained again how I wanted to populate an Augmented Reality tour with some ABC/rn content, pointed him to the 2007-2008 blog and continued to describe what we were doing. Finally he said "Are you going to on-sell this?" - "No", "Then go ahead and use whatever you want and please don't alter the ABC metadata".  That was it, leave the meta intact and don't make money off it.

Other places like ted.com and youtube expect you to share, alter and evolve their content.  So long as their content is being viewed and/or morphed, they are doing good business.  Economics 101 in the weightless economy.

Anyway, the following 3 ABC/rn podcasts make for excellent listening, I have listed them in what I consider the priority order. The Alfred Deakin lecture is by three gents who really know what they are talking about, and although this was broadcast Dec 2007, its a really nice piece of work.

TASTE:

Alfred Deakin Innovation Lecture 29 December 2007

Are we missing out on the full benefits of science and technology because of outdated ideas about copyright and patenting? Could the key to feeding the world be locked up in a company fridge somewhere? Open-source software has transformed the internet, underpinning the phenomenal growth of Google, Ebay and YouTube. What can science learn from this revolution? In our rush to protect intellectual property, have we damaged our capacity to deliver solutions for the critical issues of the 21st century?

In this lecture, John Wilbanks, Executive Director of Science Commons at Harvard Law School, will describe how existing social and legal infrastructures are choking science, and how we can create new ways to share research. Brian Fitzgerald, Head of the Law School at Queensland University of Technology, will discuss the success of open source in the information technology world, and the lessons for other fields of science.

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This is a great overview of Advertising, and how it is dragging itself, kicking and screaming, into digital paradise. Three wonderful speaker and the 1st Professor Veran from Murdoch Uni WA, well worth listening to.

TASTE:

The changing face of advertising

A look at the way in which the Australian advertising industry is adapting to the challenges of the modern age of communication.(This program was first broadcast on 11 October 2007)

Antony Funnell: Welcome to another edition of the Media Report on ABC Radio National ... I'm Antony Funnell. Today's highlight program looks at future trends in advertising.

Like journalism, the industry is much disparaged...and we often overlook its importance in terms of underpinning the viability of much of the media we consume.

That is -- in blunt terms -- without the revenue generated by advertising there'd be very little to watch, hear or read (leaving public broadcasting aside of course).

So, today on the program, we'll look again at the way the advertising industry is adapting to the rapidly changing media environment of the 21st century.

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Internet Piracy Oct 2009

TASTE:

Oscar McLaren: The copyright industries say their enemies are everywhere, from multi-billion dollar internet companies to the millions of people around the world who pirate films and music on the net.

But also in the cross-hairs is a growing band of mash-up and remix artists and everyday computer users for whom the internet has sparked a wave of creativity.

Around the world, some say the copyright industry's war is already lost. At a conference in Canberra earlier this year, here's Harvard University's Professor Lawrence Lessig.

Lawrence Lessig: We have to recognise we can't kill this form of creativity, we're only going to criminalise it. There's no way we can stop our kids from engaging in this form of creativity, we can only drive their creativity underground. We can't make them passive, the way at least I was growing up, we can only make them pirates. And the question we have to ask is, Is that any good?

Oscar McLaren: Today, Background Briefing explores this question. Hello, I'm Oscar McLaren on ABC Radio National.

The battle is really about how copyright law should adapt in an age when everyone can be a pirate.

Should it crack down on every download of a film or song? Should it stop every unauthorised remix? Should it stand aside? Or should it find another way of regulating intellectual property.

There are enormous corporate interests involved on all sides, and the laws are complex. But at their most basic level they're meant to encourage creative people to produce work and release it to the public.

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