Posts Tagged ‘ copyright ’

Aaron’s Law: law and justice in a digital age (lecture by Lawrence Lessig)

March 6, 2013
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In his inaugural speech as the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School,  Lawrence Lessig,  a cyber-law expert and self-described mentee of Aaron Swarts, talks about Aaron’s life, his activism, and his ideas for a better world. He also discusses copyright and the access to information–not in the sense of access to the latest entertainment products, but rather access to academic material, government data, and other important information.

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The corporate titans take on the Internet (by Peter Frase)

March 16, 2012
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The fight over copyright is not a struggle between capital and labour, but one between different factions of capital. New York, NY – American politics is riven by an increasingly contentious debate over the status of intellectual property, especially copyright. On one side are those who argue that tougher enforcement of IP is desperately needed to protect the rights of creators, promote innovation, preserve jobs, and ensure economic growth. Opposing them are those who argue that the draconian enforcement of intellectual property rights will only curtail free speech and stifle economic activity, while entrenching the profits of a small class of…

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The ethics of internet piracy (by Peter Singer)

February 25, 2012
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Recently an article by Peter Singer was published by project-syndicate, discussing the ethics of internet piracy.  While the whole article is absolutely worth reading, here are a few paragraphs that seem to catch the essence: If I steal someone’s book the old-fashioned way, I have the book, and the original owner no longer does. I am better off, but she is worse off. When people use pirated books, the publisher and the author often are worse off – they lose earnings from selling the book. But, if my colleague had not sent me the book, I would have borrowed the…

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Video: Everything is a Remix

February 24, 2012
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The documentary Everything is a Remix, produced by Kirby Ferguson, explores the idea that no idea is original. Ferguson argues that essentially all forms of creativity just remix existing ideas. In his words: Remixing is a folk art but the techniques are the same ones used at any level of creation: copy, transform, and combine.  He defines “remix” as “social evolution.” It’s similar to standard evolutionary theory, but instead of genes, it’s memes that are being “copied, transformed and combined.” This cultural development occurs through ideas, behaviors and skills being constantly used and reused. Just like the evolution of beings and species,…

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