Copyright 1710-2010 “For the encouragement of learning”
The world’s first copyright law was passed by the English Parliament on 10 April 1710 as ‘An Act for the Encouragement of Learning’. Its 300th anniversary provides a unique opportunity to review copyright’s purposes and principles. If today we were starting from scratch, but with the same aim of encouraging learning‚ what kind of copyright would we want?
Ideas Bank
View allThe Future of Copyright
The Statute of Anne was 'An Act for the Encouragement of Learning'. What if, instead, it had been 'An Act for the Encouragement of Sharing'.
Bill ThompsonComments: 2For the Encouragement of Learning
In the case of Georgia’s creative sector I would like to address two issues that I believe are important to reach wider audiences and encourage learning.
Tamara TatishviliComments: 0The Seduction of Copyright
We must make fundamental changes to copyright law or risk its demise.
Lynne SpenderComments: 1Beyond Copyright
Most of today’s creativity takes place outside the sphere of traditional copyright.
Ronaldo LemosComments: 1Copyright and the Consent Principle
Citizens and consumers should have control over the use to which their personal data can be used by corporations and governments
Martin SmithComments: 021st Century Copyright Must Serve to Protect Cultural Rights
In my mind, copyright for the 21st century ought to recognise the difference between raw data and the finished, commercial product.
Hardesh SinghComments: 0'One size fits all' dresses virtually everyone badly
If we were inventing copyright today, surely we would want to acknowledge that 'one size fits all' dresses virtually everyone badly.
Jimmy WalesComments: 0Copyright is a Friction
I have been trying to obtain permissions to show a growing set of videos on the web since 2000. I did not think that it would take a decade of exploration to achieve very little.
Jon PettigrewComments: 0If There Were No Copyright, Would We Want It; And, If So, What Form Would It Take?
Quite simply: copyright guarantees creativity.
Gail RebuckComments: 0Rebooting Copyright: A Note on Terms
The ‘one size fits all’ concept has clearly created barriers to the legitimate and indeed desirable flow of information and knowledge.
Dr Frances PinterComments: 0
Gaynor Bell, who lost two children in violent deaths, said the project was created to try to turn children away from violence at a young age.
Despite the game's 18-rated status, she said many children would have played it, and similar games, at home with elder siblings, and that they risked being de-sensitised to the violence involved.
She added: "They are shown a picture of a man rolling over a car and you can clearly see it has a machine gun.
"It's basically telling them that it's not real life, but in these games they do look real."
She added: "Children have very short attention spans so they need something that keeps them interested, preferably busy with their hands and it has to be something that allows them to be proactive."
via news.bbc.co.uk
all the people I hung around with were at art school or were involved in fashion, or creative people interested in rebelling. It was complemented by the music but the actual scene didn't last very long. It did, however, send big ripples across the pond. Then people started getting into the charts and the New Romantic scene was made up of a lot of people who were originally punks. It was a time of experimentation, especially with the music. Then there were those who did punk by numbers. But it was still a great time.
what matters is how a child engages with this material. A passing curiosity may be easily satisfied and the interest abandoned; but sexual images have a special vividness and power, and may become addictive, as can many other internet activities, such as chatting or shopping or gaming. Personal accounts by people who have developed an obsession with pornography are disturbing: "It almost lodges itself into your mind, like a parasite sucking away the rest of your life," explains 16-year-old Malcolm, who participated in a 2007 study and reported spending between three to four hours each day visiting pornographic sites.
As well as the prospect of teenage boys watching violent porn, there is a concern about how it might distort their attitudes towards sex and women.
students were conscious that their messages were public and exercised mature self-editing in their online behaviour, with no incidences of inappropriate content being posted during the project. Although students were aware that their messages were being monitored by academic staff, in survey responses they stated that they did not regard this as an intrusion, and indeed frequently used Twitter in preference to alternative channels such as email to contact tutors to ask questions or arrange meetings. Approximately half of the students involved in the project have continued to use Twitter without the iPod Touch devices.
Where in our brain do we keep our ABCs? How does our brain provide us with the use of alphabetic characters without thought? I am handwriting this sentence in my writer’s notebook. The letters flow out of my pen as if they were a fluid flowing from my fingertips rather like sweat. Nothing for which I really have to use my brain.
Professor Fairbairn added: "No doubt all those named contributed to the research. However, I find it difficult to understand how 144 individuals, however close their working relationship, could be involved in writing it.
"I find it even more difficult to imagine how any assessment at all could be made of their contribution when it comes to awarding academic brownie points."
The problem is not new. In 1996, John Hudson, professor of economics at the University of Bath, produced a paper titled "Trends in multi-authored papers in economics".
He noted that while "the economist of the early postwar years was typically a solitary worker ... the economists of today are much more inclined to hunt in packs".
Even when I am away from the computer I am aware that I AM AWAY FROM MY COMPUTER and am scheming about how to GET BACK ON THE COMPUTER. I've tried various strategies to limit my time online: leaving my laptop at my studio when I go home, leaving it at home when I go to my studio, a Saturday moratorium on usage. But nothing has worked for long. More and more hours of my life evaporate in front of YouTube. Supposedly addiction isn't a moral failing, but it feels as if it is.
via slate.com
In essence, the network effect describes the positive externalities (value) of a product, service, or activity as more people use it. An organization taking advantage of the principle may refer to the practice as “crowdsourcing” (e.g. Wikipedia, Dell’s Ideastorm, iPhone Apps) taking advantage of the “wisdom of the crowds”. Individuals may also aggregate and mobilize for a specific cause, be it political, civic or commercial (e.g. Moveon.org, Ukrainian orange revolution). The emergence of the latter can be of spontaneous and real-time nature.
via hir.harvard.edu