In the United States, we celebrated Thanksgiving Day yesterday. Many of us ate the traditional turkey and stuffing with some cranberry sauce while sharing our heritage and food with relatives and friends.

Another great day is coming in just about a month. Yes, there is Christmas; that will be nice, too, but this year I plan to celebrate Public Domain Day on January 1, 2010. The celebration has been going on for a few years, but this will be the first time for me.

January first is the day, each year, when the works of some authors enter the public domain. Their works become officially a part of our cultural heritage in a way that makes them open for use, and not hampered by restrictions. The terms of copyright expire and give us the opportunity to remix and build upon the works of those who have gone before us. Building on the heritage of our shared culture is the key element, I think. Public domain status certainly also means that individuals get the first legal opportunity to simply copy a work. That’s great, but not the equal of making something new that wasn’t legal before.

Hey, if you are in the mood, not too overcome by the other associated activities of New Year’s Eve, join in the fun. Get a group together. Put up some signs in the town square. Wave to the drivers as they go by. Have a party. Celebrate Public Domain Day this year.

All is not completely rosy, though, for the time being, in the U.S. there is a freeze on release of works under copyright that goes all the way back to 1922. This is the result of the U.S. Congress extending copyright to “life of author + 70 years” instead of the more common (and former U.S. term) of  “life of author + 50 years”.  So U.S. citizens can only celebrate in a generic way. Our country isn’t going to actually have any works enter the public domain this year, or indeed until January 1, 2019, apparently, because of the law’s change of term.

As a citizen of the world, though, I’ll still celebrate our common, shared cultural heritage.

Links that might give you ideas and support for planning y0ur celebration.

Wikipedia article on the public domain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain

A Logo from the celebration planned in Poland:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Publicdomaindaylogo.svg

List of works entering the public domain from the Open Knowledge Foundation:
http://blog.okfn.org/2009/11/25/which-works-fall-into-the-public-domain-in-2010/

The first copyright law (The Copyright Act gave protection for a period of 14 years, with the right of renewal for another 14 years.):
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/copyright/

The story of copyright:
http://www.edwardsamuels.com/ILLUSTRATEDSTORY/index.htm

Har följt diskussionen i media om de arma grisarna som inte har fått leva ett särskilt gott liv, knappt något strö i boxarna, liggsår som får vara smutsiga, döda grisar som andra grisar äter på och så vidare. Jordbruksminister Eskil Erlandsson säger att han blir ledsen när han ser detta. Måste bara få säga – ledsen räcker inte! Det behövs agerande! Inte bara sitta och vara ledsen!

Nu agerar i stället stora livsmedelskedjor och restauranger. Bra tycker jag, för då talar pengarna! Det mesta och bästa styrmedel som finns (lite synd kan man tycka men så är det). Konsumentmakt kan man komma långt med!

Själv har jag gjort ställningstagandet sedan tidigare att jag köper lokalt producerat och slaktat kött som jag vet var det kommer ifrån. Har faktiskt varit – för ett ganska långt tag sedan – och kikat hos en av uppfödarna. Där gick grisarna ute i stora hagar och hade små söta hus att gå in i. De såg ganska nöjda, glada – och skitiga – ut. Grisar har ju en förkärlek för att rulla sig i leran så att de var skitiga var ju ingen nackdel för dom, bara naturligt! Fotot kommer inte därifrån dock, det är från Wikipedia och är public domain. Men de såg ungefär lika nöjda ut i alla fall!

Ett annat alternativ är ju så klart att sluta äta kött, jag är ingen stor köttätare men just nu känns det inte som ett alternativ!

Mer om grisskandalen i media: SvD, SvD, SvD, Aftonbladet, DN

[The First Part of this series was <<A: Open Source. The second installment of the Stop Usage Based Billing alphabet series was <<B: Packets and the Internet. The third installment was <a href="<<C: Deep Packet Inspection, and the final installment will be E: Open Source Deep Packet Inspection]

What is BitTorrent Anyway??

“BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing large amounts of data. BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files, and it has been estimated that it accounts for approximately 27-55% of all Internet traffic (depending on geographical location) as of February 2009.”

– Wikipedia on BitTorrent

BitTorrent is an extremely fast and efficient means of uploading and downloading. BitTorrent is an excellent way to distribute large materials to many people via the internet.

Radical Ideas

Like so many of the radical new ways to do things that technology and the internet have made possible, BitTorrent can only work through co-operation. BitTorrent requires a network of “peers”, or other people’s computers who are willing to share the file. This is referred to as “peer to peer” or “p2p.

If I have a large file I want to transfer, the first step is to “seed” the file, transferring portions of the file to multiple members of the p2p network.

Diagram 1: Seeding

It only takes a small fraction of the file to be passed along before the process speeds up enormously.

Diagram 2: Seeding and Sharing

Once I have a small portion, i pass it along at the same time as I’m receiving new bits of the same file, either from the original seed source of another peer.

Diagram 3: Upload + Download = Speed

With many participants (peers) uploading and downloading at the same time, large files can be distributed very quickly indeed.

Diagram 4: Finish Fast

Bell Canada “Throttles” BitTorrent

Bell Canada

When Bell Canada was first caught “throttling” internet traffic to the Independent ISP customers, Bell Canada’s justification to the CRTC was that the internet was too crowded, and that it was necessary to “manage” the traffic. Bell claimed that they needed to employ Deep Packet Inspection to identify BitTorrent Traffic so that they can “throttle” it.

Mandate:
“The CRTC’s mandate is to ensure that both the broadcasting and telecommunications systems serve the Canadian public. ”

—CRTC Role, CRTC Website

Amazingly, the CRTC had nothing to say about Bell Canada’s plans to discriminate against particular Canadian internet users.

The CRTC has accepted Bell’s unsubstantiated contention that this discrimination was necessary, and in approving it they have allowed Bell Canada to think that this discrimination is acceptable. In no way does this serve the Canadian public.

You might almost think that the CRTC mandate was to suppress Canadian creativity and the creation of Canadian movies and music. The availability of the technologies that exist to make it easy to create our own movies and music should be welcomed as an opportunity to add to and help grow our Canadian Culture.

Why single out BitTorrent traffic for throttling if it is an efficient use of the available bandwidth?

One of Bell Canada’s arguments for implementation of Usage Based Billing is that Canadian internet bandwidth is in short supply, making it necessary for them to “manage” bandwidth by penalizing heavy users.

So how could anything as efficient as BitTorrent possibly be seen as a bad thing if the Internet is so crowded?

It doesn’t make sense to discriminate against BitTorrent use. There is nothing inherently bad about BitTorrent use or BitTorrent internet traffic. But Bell Canada’s contention is that BitTorrent is bad because people use it to download movies and music.

Which begs the question: how does that make BitTorrent bad?

The Copyright Red Herring

The “Copyright Lobby”, which consists of large media producers and distributors (like Disney), and corporations and organizations (like MPAA), who distribute commercial movies and music, want us to believe that this is a bad thing.

This corporate special interest group has spent a great deal of time, energy and cash trying to promote the “pravda” that any digital copying of copyright works is bad. Making no distinction between commercial bootleggers who distribute illegal copies for profit and legal purchasers who seek to make a back-up copy or digital format shift for personal use, the Copyright Lobby has been pressuring governments the world over to criminalize personal use copying.

The problem for ordinary citizens is that these corporate interests have vast quantities of money to spend and a great deal of media power. This makes it incredibly difficult for governments to stand up to their onslaught. In some parts of the world this persistent advocacy has paid off for the Copyright Lobby, as lawmakers knuckle under and legislate to the detriment of their own citizens by making it illegal even to copy or download movies or music for personal use.

Here in Canada the Copyright Lobby is seeking to influence our lawmakers to criminalize personal use copying. They are trying to make Canadians think that people who make copies for personal use are performing criminal acts, and should be penalized the same as a a bootlegger who films the latest theatrical release off a theatre screen and proceeds to sell hundreds of thousands of bootleg DVDs.

Once again, Channel Four’s hilarious I.T. Crowd puts this question in perspective with this send-up of a video piracy commercial I found on YouTube.

Strong and free?

Canadian Law says

RIGHT NOW, in Canada, personal use copying is simply not illegal.

RIGHT NOW, in Canada, use of the BitTorrent file transfer protocol is also perfectly legal.

RIGHT NOW, in Canada, peer to peer (p2p) file sharing is legal; Canadians break no laws simply by joining in a p2p network.

The Copyright Lobby’s smear tactics have gone a long way toward making the world believe that BitTorrent is inherently bad.

Bell Canada has convinced the CRTC that it is acceptable to “throttle” BitTorrent, because of BitTorrent’s reputed connection with possible copyright infringement. So although BitTorrent is perfectly legal, Canadian internet users are paying the price for the success of this Copyright Lobby propaganda.

Myth: All BitTorrent/p2p internet traffic consists of copyright movies and music

The Corporate world doesn’t understand radical ideas like Open Source software and p2p file sharing because these concepts are so different from anything appearing in the old business models. Even more incomprehensible to the outdated business models is the fact that it may or may not generate a direct monetary profit.

The classic example of corporate myopia is:

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. ”

—attributed to Thomas J. Watson, president of International Business Machines, circa 1943

For many years IBM has taken the rap for this quote whether or not Mr. Watson really did say it. (Most likely not.) Maybe proving it wrong is part of why IBM is such a going concern in the 21st Century. Having weathered the storms of fortune today’s IBM is a world leader by continuing to innovate and adapt alongside evolving attitudes and technologies. IBM has been steadily increasing their participation and involvement with Open Source software in this new century.

The reality is that IBM not only understands the importance of open source, the corporation has actively supported and promoted adoption of Linux and Open Office in the corporate world. And naturally BitTorrent is a part of the equation because it is such an efficient means to distribute large files (like for instance, Canonical’s Ubuntu.)

“Think.”

—Thomas J. Watson, president of International Business Machines

Seems IBM actually does heed their most enduring slogan (which definitely was coined by Mr. Watson). Sadly, this type of foresight is uncommon. Because BitTorrent is such a radical idea, most entrenched corporations simply aren’t capable of understanding it.

There are other uses for BitTorrent that are not only legal, but even perfectly acceptable in polite society.

Probably my favorite use of BitTorrent is the amazing Project Gutenberg. This organization has been digitizing books in the public domain and distributing them freely… via BitTorrent, since this is such an efficient method of digital distribution. After all, BitTorrent is used for transferring very large files like music and movies because it is very efficient.

BitTorrent file sharing is not all movies and music. Like IBM, many people actually use p2p to help distribute open source software like OpenOffice via p2p. There is a growing body of open source software available, for instance my favorite web browser is Mozilla’s Firefox.

In fact, there the awesome SourceForge website which provides a place to find all manner of open source software, or where you can release your own.

When a new distribution of Ubuntu is released, people around the world gather together and have Ubuntu Release Parties making more good use of BitTorrent

And of course the Pirate Party of Canada has established Captain: the Canadian Pirate Tracker, their own BitTorrent site where Recording Artists and Filmmakers (and I imagine novelists, and software creators as well would be welcome to utilize this) to freely distribute their work.

Every bit of music and every movie transferred is not a copyright infringement. If I get to the point where my home made movies may prove marketable, I would certainly be looking at BitTorrent Distribution. In fact it would probably be easier to distribute home movies to family via BitTorrent than it would be to try to burn DVDs. (DRM makes the two commercial movie making software packages I’ve purchased almost unusable. Of course it doesn’t slow down the bootleggers.) If YouTube is an indicator, I’m not the only person who wants to transfer music and movies freely … not as copyright infringements. I have paid levies to the music industry for home movies I have made and burrned to CD for distribution to friends and family. If I choose to transfer them via BitTorrent now I can avoid the levy but instead suffer the added expense of Bell Canada’s deliberate throttling inflation?

Another really good legal use of BitTorrents are the actual commercial websites where people can go to to purchase downloads of music. So far no one seems to have found anything wrong with this practice.

But that’s not all. Canada’s own CBC Television Network tried their own experiment by releasing an episode of their program Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister via BitTorrent. Unfortunately the BitTorrent didn’t work so well because of Bell Canada’s CRTC approved BitTorrent “throttling”.

Geist tweets about the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation

Which is not to say it wasn’t a good idea. Not too long ago Michael Geist tweeted about the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s foray into BitTorrent use. All accounts indicate that their experiment was very successful indeed, which is having a big impact in the way they do business.

Ink Poster

The sad tale of a pirated Independent film can be found in this TorrentFreak article Indie Movie Explodes on BitTorrent, Makers Bless Piracy.

I guess it isn’t such a sad story after all.  

Thanks to piracy this Indie film called INK was has been achieving a distribution level that the filmmakers had never dreamed of.  They are of course extraordinarily pleased.

I think what is being called piracy here is BitTorrent p2p personal use sharing. Friends sharing with friends is one of the most effective ways to achieve recognition. They used to call it a “grass roots” movement. This is one of the major issues for the large movie studios. This is the place where they complain of being ripped off. What they don’t seem to realize is that this is a good thing. Exposure garners fans, makes a “name”. Fans buy stuff.

BitTorrent Traffic is not the only thing Bell Canada is Throttling

Rumour has it that there are people who actually work from home.

Time was the government encouraged the idea of people working from home. There are all sorts of advantages to society, like reduced congestion on actual highways, less wear and tear on our roads, a decrease in commuting based pollutants in our environment, a reduction of human depletion of fossil fuels.

But if you work from home, you are probably going to have to transfer files back and forth between your home and workplace. Chances are good that you are going to encrypt this type of traffic for security reasons. Although Bell Canada says they are only “throttling” BitTorrent traffic, in fact there have been instances of Bell throttling encrypted internet traffic on the assumption that if it’s encrypted, it must be BitTorrent traffic.

Bell places the onus on the customer to prove their “innocence” before they will consider stopping throttling.

Since the CRTC gave Bell Canada permission to use Deep Packet Inspection to inspect our packets, the only way to ensure that our private information remains private is through encryption. And in Canada any encrypted internet traffic will most likely to be throttled.

Canadian Copyright Consultation

The Canadian Government is looking at updating Canadian copyright law. They held a copyright consultation process this year, traveling around Canada soliciting opinions of stakeholders. Even better, they set up a website where they accepted submissions from any Canadian who wished to contribute. This website was flooded with thousands of submissions. Some are simply a few lines, some are extensive essays covering all sorts of topics, but all I’ve read are heartfelt. Because of the overwhelming response it took a long time to get all the submissions posted. (My own submission finally made online.)

This process led a lot of Canadians, including me, to believe that the copycon process might actually mean that our elected representatives were listening to us.

Unfortunately there is currently a lot of pressure on our government to make copying movies, software and music for personal use illegal. The secret ACTA meetings have caused a feeling of dread to settle over most Canadians. There has been deprecating talk about weak Canadian copyright law.

Except it isn’t true.

If anything, Canadian copyright law is probably more robust than is good for us.

The essential problem that the copyright lobby is attempting to overcome the problem of suing their own customers for what they imagine are infringements. They have noticed that fighting personal use copying garners bad publicity. This problem can be neatly solved by passing the responsibility for finding and prosecuting copyright infringement to governments. And of course the only was to get government to take ob the responsibility is to convince them that the copyright infringement is a criminal offense.

Regardless, currently copyright law is imprecise as regards personal use copying. So we’ll just have to wait for an actual law to be passed before it becomes illegal. (This pressure is actually largely from foreign owned interests– like Disney. It will be interesting to see if our government caves to this outside pressure.)

mixed messages

The government mandated levy we pay every time we purchase a blank CD is a tacit governmental admission that it is legal to burn CDs of our own music.

In the pre-Tivo era, Canadian cable networks actively encouraged Canadians to videotape the movies that they showed so we could watch them when it was convenient. They called it “time shifting” in their massive advertising campaigns. But no media giants took our cable companies to court back then. For the same reason artists will lend or give away their work for free when they’re starting out (because they need to build and audience– exactly like the INK producers mentioned above), back then even Disney didn’t have a channel in Canada. So Disney didn’t kick up a fuss even though they had to have known this was happening. They let it go because it was in their best interests to allow time shifting (i.e personal use copying). Disney knew this was in their best interests because it would help the Canadian cable companies build their market.

Of course now Disney doesn’t want us to record their movies for personal use. Disney would be happy if our government decided personal use copying was illegal. They would be happier still if our government spent time and energy searching out and charging people who download Disney movies.

Disney would be happy they no longer had to expend time and energy chasing down copyright infringements. They would be ecstatic if our Mounties were to do it for them. Gratis.

But this precedent indicates copying movies for personal use is also legal in Canada

So even though p2p networks or copying movies and music are not actually illegal in Canada, our friends the CRTC gave Bell Canada permission to “throttle” anyone using BitTorrent transfers. Because the assumption is that even if you’re not technically performing criminal acts, per se, anyone who uses BitTorrent can’t be very nice.

The CRTC, the government body that is supposed to safeguard Canadian telecommunication consumers, gave Bell Canada legal permission to mess with BitTorrent traffic. Its discriminatory for one thing. If there are copyright infringements happening, there are laws to handle them. It isn’t any of Bell Canada’s business. Or the CRTC’s.

[More on copyright in my other blog-- in the wind: Personal Use Copying vs. Bootlegging]

Dudley Do-Right?

Eirik Solheim's metaphorical image of the internet is the best I've seen: The internet is a series of tubes

Even if it were true that Canadian consumers were downloading music or movies, and even if it had been made illegal under Canadian Law, it should not make a whit of difference.

Because Internet Service Providers or Internet Carriers are NOT branches of Canadian law enforcement. They have not been deputized to enforce the law by the RCMP. If Bell Canada was in fact a Law Enforcement entity they would not be allowed to peek in any citizen’s packets without first acquiring a search warrant. Corporations don’t exist to uphold laws, they exist to make money.

The internet has been called dumb pipes, or a series of tubes, or a highway. It doesn’t really matter what you call it, what is most important is access for all.  
The people who control the pipes should not be allowed to discriminate against particular users for ANY reason. Net Neutrality is so important: the internet should be accessible to all.

revolutionary ideas

In the United Kingdom The Times Online Do music artists fare better in a world with illegal file-sharing? article looked at the benefits of personal use copying applied as peer to peer file sharing with some dramatic results.

Canada’s own ThisMagazine presented this thought provoking article Pay indie artists and break the music monopoly — Legalize Music Piracy which advocates making the law serve the artists and consumers rather than just the corporations.

Further rumblings about changing the way we look at this issue were reported recently by the The Globe and Mail blogs article NDP, Billy Bragg make case for free music

STOP Usage Based Billing

PC World explains the new settlement timeline now that Google has submitted a revised settlement.

Since the holidays are fast approaching, I decided to look for some wonderful happy people illustrations to share.  The copyright free images I chose this week are from vintage Charles Dickens.  I have a set of books that are a collection of Dickens works.  The books are “The Anniversary Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens, February 7, 1812″.  They were published in 1911 by P.F. Collier & Son of New York.

All of the illustrations I’m showing here are from Pickwick Papers Part I.  Because this is a collection,  the illustrations are done by a variety of  artists.  I’m going to present them in the order that they appear in the book.

The style in this illustration is distinctly different from the first.  I am not familiar enough with the history of the illustrations or illustrating in general to  state any facts.  I can share my observations.  It is unsigned by the artist and appears, with the cross-hatching, to be specifically designed for printing.

 When I saw the illustration above of Mr. Pickwick, I immediately pulled this book out.  I was specifically looking for some characters that made me happy.   With the demolished picnic set in front of him and his hand resting on a jug of spirits(?), he is the picture of contentment.

  The previous 3 illustrations are from a pre-1923 copyright book.  They should be copyright-free.  All the images have been uploaded to my flickr page.  They have been attributed to Creative Commons.  If you click on the image, you will be taken to the image on my flickr page where you can chose the size of image to download for free.

• Universities add their own custom Google Book search.
• Gavin Baker (outside of Open Access News) examines the revised settlement.
• Irvin Munchnick on why the Justice department is the one to watch.
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation looks at the silver lining of the revised settlement.

Get this free high resolution background at Deviant Art.

http://picaflor-azul.deviantart.com/art/Old-Paper-143821212

I came across this really cool image of a page in an old book from the Library of Congress and thought that I would share it with everyone. I have used it in web design, but the possibilities are endless. Use is for personal or commercial, no restrictions. If you make something cool with it though, I would love to see what you have made. You can email me at info@picaflor-azul.com. And, if you want to be really nice, you can put a link to my site somewhere on your site using the following code:

Picaflor Azul Web Design–www.picaflor-azul.com

Picaflor Azul web design speciales in Zen Cart ecommerce design and web development.

• Songwriters Guild of America (SGA) has withdrawn opposition to the settlement.(warning: some pop-ups)
• Mike Linksvayer on the relationship between Creative Commons and the settlement.
• Sherwin Siy at Public Knowledge gives his reaction to the revised settlement.

You could easily make your own tags, place cards or whatever! with these Victorian graphics. Just click on the image to save the full size.

Kite Eagle Photo and Wallpaper

High resolution image download available here (Link)

Listed under Birds Category

This work is dedicated to the Public Domain. You may use this photo for any purpose, including commercial.

I don’t know who this is but he came from an old book with an expired copyright. If you need a guy with a nose then this is your man.

As always click on the image for the full size.

Again this week, I’m uploading colored illustrations from my shabby Webster’s.   Actually with the number of illustrations in this book, I could be uploading for several more weeks.   Like last week,  all the illustrations are in color.  The illustrations this week  are even larger.  They are full-pagers.   Since they take forever to upload, I’m only uploading 3 freebie images this week.

 The public domain book is Webster’s New Illustrated Dictionary Based on Noah Webster’s dictionary, revised and edited by Edward T. Roe and Charles Leonard-Stuart.  The book was published by Syndicate Publishing Company of New York in 1911.

The first color illustration, at top, is titled Flags of All Nations.  It has a copyright of 1910 by F.E. Wright.  You can count the number of stars on the United States flag in the middle to see how many state were part of the U.S. at the time.  Looking at the flags from different countries in 1910 really illustrates the dynamic world boundaries.

The second image is titled Fruits and Their Blossoms.  The image has a copyright of 1910 by F.E. Wright.

The third image is titled Coats of Arms of the States of the American Union.  It has a copyright of 1910 by F.E. Wright.  If you couldn’t figure out what states were in the union at the time, you will know by looking at this illustration.

The illustrations are from a pre-1923 copyright book.  The images should be copyright-free.  All the images have been uploaded to my flickr page.  They have been attributed to Creative Commons.  If you click on the image, you will be taken to the image on my flickr page where you can chose the size of image to download for free.

RiP!: A Remix Manifesto: the “world’s first open source documentary”

essential:

<intro>MEET GIRL TALK</intro>

CULTURE ALWAYS BUILDS ON THE PAST

COPYRIGHT VS. COPYLEFT

OPEN SOURCE ART IN BRASÍL

THE PAST TRIES TO CONTROL THE FUTURE

°

Open Source Cinema was the brainchild of Canadian, Brett Gaylor.

OSC has received the support of the Canadian Film Fund and the National Film Board of Canada. Follow Brett Gaylor on Twitter, and consider joining the Remix group on Facebook.

from the Register-Guard:

The order issued Monday afternoon came after The Register-Guard and the Eugene Weekly separately asked the District Attorney’s Office to overturn a city decision that asserted state laws pertaining to personnel records required the police reports to remain secret until the city completes a misconduct investigation into officer Judd Warden’s actions. [...]

Two weeks ago, [Eugene Police Chief] Kerns held a news conference and wrote a guest opinion piece in The Register-­Guard arguing that he could not share even basic details about the case with the media or the public because the misconduct investigation was under way. City attorneys advised him that releasing any information under those circumstances would violate state personnel records law and the city’s contract with the police officers’ union…

Um, yeah. Because, obviously, what matters most is protecting this taser-happy cop’s contract. I’m sure that keeping the records secret had nothing to do with trying to avoid a lawsuit. Nothing at all.

Public Domain - Steve Saiz, Ray Barbee, Eric Sanderson, Chet Thomas, 1988, el año del dragon

The Open Book Alliance is announcing that the revised settlement submission has been delayed until Friday, Nov. 13. From the post:

Meanwhile, our position on the settlement has not changed — a revised proposal that does not meet or exceed certain requirements will threaten the rights of all, the livelihoods of many, and the rule of law.

John Herman at Gizmodo writes an article informing us that in Apple Appstore in october the number of books released was bigger than applications, though is increasing the number of people spamming or releasing same copies of public domain books (full article at http://gizmodo.com/5395396/iphone-ebooks-the-new-fart-apps).

I agree on everything said. Selling crappy versions of public domain books is easy, costless and could get some cash.

I’m surprised that Apple authorizes this.

Though I’m quite convinced that if  books will be sold on App store with a kindle like approach and with App store prices, this would be a great channel for  selling.

This post as a comment also at http://gizmodo.com/5395396/iphone-ebooks-the-new-fart-apps

Wild Wolf Photo and Wallpaper

High resolution image download available here (Link)

Listed under Animals Category

This work is dedicated to the Public Domain. You may use this photo for any purpose, including commercial.

This week I’ve decided to upload a few more from Webster.  The copyright free this week are animals.  Like last week,  all the illustrations are in color.  They are large (I hate waiting for uploads!), so I’m only uploading 3 freebie images this week.

 The public domain book is Webster’s New Illustrated Dictionary Based on Noah Webster’s dictionary, revised and edited by Edward T. Roe and Charles Leonard-Stuart.  The book was published by Syndicate Publishing Company of New York in 1911.

The first image illustrates breeds of cats.  It is titled “Cute Kittens”.  The copyright is 1911 by F.E. Wright.

The second image illustrates breeds of dogs.  Titled “Leading Breeds of Dogs”, this is a two page spread with a copyright of 1910 by F.E. Wright.

The last image illustrates the breeds of cows.  The illustration is titled “Standard Cattle.  The copyright is 1910 by F.E. Wright.

The illustrations are from a pre-1923 copyright book.  The images should be copyright-free.  All the images have been uploaded to my flickr page.  They have been attributed to Creative Commons.   They are a freebie.  If you click on the image, you will be taken to the image on my flickr page where you can chose the size of image to download for free.

This third pick of a character that shaped my childhood, and in a roundabout way of which they’re pleasantly oblivious landed me in the “career” where I currently dwell came about through unpleasant circumstances; the death of Sinisa Eglia last week, the man who made Airwalk good prior to its crumble into the cut-price phantom zone.

I loved Airwalk for a few years – even the colourways were influential but in line with Syd Field’s ‘Screenplay’ which espouses a dated formula, his paradigm rings true for this fallen brand -in the beginning, it’s 1986, and Bill Mann starts a shoe company. Plot Point 1 sees Sinisa recruited from a skatepark. Plot Point 2 sees the brand flourish, implementing the young man’s ideas before the company changes tact after Mann leaves. The ending is the shoes entering the mid ’90s as the official shoe of ‘The Next Karate Kid’… Someone needs to make an Airwalk documentary.

I never got to meet Sinisa, but Mr. Wood at Sneaker Freaker confirmed that he was quite a character, and his interview for the magazine remains a fascinating cautionary tale for startups everywhere, shoe-orientated or otherwise.

But I’m not here to talk sneakers. You can read about that shit elsewhere. Pondering Airwalk, I remembered that musician and skater Chuck Treece has a brief sponsorship deal with them. Are you starting to comprehend my thought processes? No? Okay then. I’ll continue with this steer in direction toward the career of Mr. Treece. Who else could session on a half-pipe as well as in the studio with Billy Joel (I believe he’s on bass during ‘River Of Dreams’, though it could be a remix), King Britt and Schooly D? Only Chuck – one of Philly’s finest.

The year is 1988 – a bunch of town-trapped kids spend a summer watching the same segment of Powell’s ‘Public Domain’ video, eating Mars Bars and drinking Bass shandy. The footage of Steve Saiz, Ray Barbee, Eric Snderson and a fresh-faced Chet Thomas sends us out attempting the same street level antics, resulting in failed kickflips aplenty, and on returning to school, hearing that some older pupils had damaged a particularly expensive piece of camera equipment, attempting to ollie it in tribute to the same sequence. I don’t blame Barbee (a frequent musical collaborator for Chuck). The blame lays squarely at the feet of McRad – Treece’s group, with him on guitar and occasional vocals, whose testosterone-powered, catchy chords on ‘Weakness’ soundtracked these months of misbehaviour, whether amateurishly taped from the telly, or loudly hummed while rolling down those smalltown streets.

Powell’s ‘Ban This’, which proved equally powerful year later used McRad’s ‘LA 4′ and Thrasher’s ‘Savannah Slamma’ from ‘87 also used their music. It just worked. Much skate rock, as promoted by Thrasher, hasn’t stood the test of time at all – it’s kind of in the name, unless it evokes memories so vivid, you can taste the steel taste of your blood when face met pavement – much like our Summer of ‘88. ‘Weakness’ and McRad’s work in general, but primarily 1987’s ‘Absence Of Sanity’ LP are sturdier and more proficient than, say, Drunk Injuns.

Treece also briefly played guitar for NYHC legends Underdog, and replaced ex-Cro Mag (and latterly, Fun Lovin’ Criminals) drummer Mackie in the slightly fragmented ‘89 Bad Brains ‘Quickness’ lineup. I also noticed him in a 2006 Bad Brains lineup alongside Chino from the Deftones too, and later on, rocking the Bad Brains approved Barack t-shirt.

His ‘91 one LP Voicebox side project with Dan O’Mahony is less essential, but still worth investigating. I attribute the power of Treece and McRad to Philadelphia’s ability to take something, whether it’s graffiti, hip-hop or hardcore (see also; the seminal Philly group YDI, who, like many, stumbled when it came to making a good LP – the compilation tracks were great nonetheless). As much as I’m loathed to incur the topic of race, when it comes to the trinity of great contemporary African-American rock n’ rollers reeled out, time and time again (altogether now…) Fishbone, In Living Color and Bad Brains, Chuck deserves his shine too as a bonafide legend.

I only scraped the surface. Check here, here, here, here here and here for further Treece information.

Questo piccolo glossario vuole essere di aiuto a quanti si confrontano con il vasto scenario delle licenze di distribuzione, vengono riportate in modo sintetico le caratteristiche di alcune tra le più importanti e diffuse licenze. Scegliete secondo la vostra coscenza, ma ricordate che il modo migliore per proteggere un’ opera è diffonderla.

CopyRight/Diritto d’ autore
Il copyright (termine di lingua inglese che alla lettera significa “diritto di copia”) è una forma di diritto d’autore in uso nel mondo anglosassone, in tempi recenti sempre più prossimo a divenire sinonimo del diritto d’autore vigente in Italia.
Il diritto d’autore è quel diritto riconosciuto dall’ordinamento dello stato a chi abbia realizzato un’opera creativa; in Italia è disciplinato dalla legge n. 633/1941 recedente modificata dalla Legge 22 maggio 2004, n. 128. Di alcuni profili della protezione e dell’esercizio del diritto d’autore, in particolare della riscossione dei proventi derivanti dall’impiego delle opere, si occupa la S.I.A.E. (Società Italiana degli Autori ed Editori).
Oggetto del diritto d’autore è un bene immateriale, ben distinto dal possesso (o anche dalla proprietà) del mero supporto (cartaceo, fisico, meccanico, magnetico, digitale) sul quale l’opera è fruibile. Il supporto in quanto tale è infatti di proprietà di chi lo acquista (avendo pagato il prezzo per materiale e diritti di utilizzo), ma il diritto d’autore continua a sussistere. Questo significa che il proprietario del supporto non ha facoltà illimitata di utilizzo, bensì solo quelle che residuano dal diritto immateriale spettante all’autore secondo la legge. In altre parole, chi acquista un’opera puo’ usufruirne in quanto consumatore, ma l’autore o chiunque altro detenga il diritto di usufrutto dell’opera (eredi, case di produzione e distribuzione e quant’altro) conserva il diritto esclusivo di distribuirla, copiarla, modificarla per altri linguaggi artistici, tradurla ecc.

NoCopyRight
Il termine no-copyright indica un approccio libertario alla creazione e diffusione delle opere. Chi rivendica il no-copyright rifiuta le restrizioni all’accesso all’informazione e si pone in autonomia e opposizione alle leggi
sul diritto d’autore e alle sue derivazioni, che sono riscritture di quelle stesse leggi tese a mantenere in atto le restrizioni e i principi di base, come l’idea della paternità dell’opera.
Le distribuzioni no-copyright contengono spesso una dicitura come questa: Tutto ciò che distribuiamo è rigorosamente no-copyright siamo ben felici se verrà riprodotto, fotocopiato, masterizzato, diffuso il più possibile.

CopyLeft
L’espressione inglese copyleft, gioco di parole tra copyright e left, “sinistra” e “lasciato”, indica un tipo di diffusione per cui un’opera “dell’ingegno” puo’ essere liberamente riutilizzata e redistribuita a patto che ciò sia garantito anche per le copie e le modifiche dell’opera. Esempi di licenze copyleft per il software sono la Gnu GPL e, per le opere creative, in misura variabile, le licenze Creative Commons.

Creative Commons
Il progetto di origine statunitense Creative Commons ha sviluppato un set di omonime licenze libere adatte a testi, immagini, musica e altri tipi di opere diverse dal software. Per estensione, quindi, si definiscono Creative Commons tutte le opere come musica, film, immagini, testi e quant’altro che, pur rimanendo in una logica basata sul diritto d’autore, sono rese usufruibili da chiunque con gradi di liberta’ differenti attraverso una licenza Creative Commons.

Pubblic Domain
Dal punto di vista internazionale, il pubblico dominio è quell’insieme di opere dell’ingegno e altre conoscenze (opere d’arte, musica, scienze, invenzioni ecc.) su cui nessuna persona o organizzazione ha un interesse proprietario (tipicamente un monopolio concesso governativamente come il diritto d’autore o il brevetto).
Tali opere e invenzioni sono considerate parte dell’eredità culturale pubblica, e chiunque può utilizzarle o modificarle senza restrizioni (se non si considerano le leggi che riguardano sicurezza, esportazione ecc.). In assenza di qualche tipo di garanzia di diritto di monopolio, la cosidetta “proprietà intellettuale”, tutte le opere
appartengono al pubblico dominio.
Un autore o inventore può esplicitamente declinare qualsiasi interesse proprietario sull’opera, assegnandola al pubblico dominio. Poiché il diritto d’autore si applica automaticamente a tutte le opere, l’autore deve fare una dichiarazione esplicita. Un sito straordinario, contenente materiali di pubblico dominio di vario tipo, è l’Internet Archive.

Brandon Mendelson at Mashable has a new post on potential mashups involving public domain content. The uses are not necessarily educational, but may provide fuel for additional ideas. From the post:

And using public domain content as the basis for mashups is a growing trend, and one that is yielding a lot of great, original content.

Den 3/11 var denna debattartikel införd i SvD:s kulturdel under rubriken “Google viktig pådrivare“. Av utrymmesskäl ströks ett par passager, som jag återinsatt i nedanstående version (här markerade med grön färg).

Att ta ordet paradigmskifte i sin mun känns alltid lite storvulet. Ändå är det nog inget mindre som skett inom all kunskapshantering de senaste 15-20 åren, även om alla möjligheter ännu inte utnyttjas inom alla sektorer av samhället. För en forskare t.ex. har sannerligen sättet att arbeta förändrats drastiskt. Samarbete via nätverk och s.k. extrakranial kunskap tillgänglig på allt färre musklicks avstånd.

Även om mycket redan hänt, så är vi många som väntat på att digitalisering av såväl arkivs och museers samlingar som andra informationskällor skulle börja ta verklig fart, men statliga kvarnar mal långsamt. I ljuset av detta är det nog bra att Google Books satt en blåslampa i baken på den officiella världen, särskilt i Europa. Inom EU planeras nu en översyn av upphovsrätten.

Jag tror dock att frågan varken är lika enkel som Pelle Snickars tycks anse (17/10) eller lika farofylld som Kjell Bohlund föreställer sig (22/10). Det finns några problem:

1. Opt-out-modellen, att rättighetsinnehavare kommer med om de inte aktivt tackar nej, är nog det mest kontroversiella. Särskilt i de fall där man utan tillstånd visat några få textrader ur boken – inte mycket att bråka om egentligen, men formellt ligger det i en laglig gråzon.

Jag gissar dock att opt-out-metoden blir nödvändig även för officiella institutioner när de sent omsider börjar digitalisera i stor skala, i synnerhet när det gäller sådana verk, vilkas upphovsmän är svåra att spåra.

2. När det gäller böcker utan copyright, som tillhör public domain, vill Google att dessa bara ska användas för enskilt, icke-kommersiellt bruk. Frågan är hur Google skulle bedöma sin egen verksamhet – är den icke-kommersiell? Bl.a. planerar man ju att sälja print-on-demand-utgåvor av fria verk. Google skulle troligen inte vilja att någon använde deras inscannade verk på samma sätt som de nu gör själva, ofta under täckmanteln fair use och icke-kommersialism.

Detta liknar otyget när vissa bibliotek scannar in verk från medeltiden och sedan hävdar copyright till dessa i kraft av någon metod att visa dem på webben. Sådant bör inte var tillåtet. Public domain måste få förbli public domain. Och vem som helst ska få använda materialet, även en kommersiell aktör. När vi alla snart har annonser från Amazon – eller Google! – på våra hemsidor eller bloggar, vem är då kommersiell eller icke-kommersiell?

3. Härtill kommer problemet med Googles dominerande ställning inom allt flera sektorer. Stormen kring FRA kanske kommer att likna en vindpust i jämförelse med de integritetsproblem som lär uppkomma om Google blir alltför omnipotent. Vill vi t.ex. att Google ska veta exakt vad vi läser?

Det säkraste vore att många aktörer digitaliserade sin del och sedan samarbetade kring att göra materialet tillgängligt – och kanske även att de tävlade om att göra det på bästa sätt.