Let’s set the ERT audiovisual archive free (manifesto - draft)
,----[ Quote ]
| Greek citizens, but also citizens of other countries, we jointly sign this
| text on the occasion of ERT’s choice to distribute its audiovisual archive
| non-freely to the public. Our aim and ambition is to publicize our
| propositions so that they become the starting point of an open dialog among
| the Greek society, the European and global public audience and to signal the
| revision of backward policies and the creation of common political wealth.
|
| Few days ago, the ERT administration presented the beginning of the
| availability, only via Internet streaming, of a part of its audiovisual
| archive. This move constitutes an important first step, which, however, in
| our opinion, is tarnished by the fact that the public availability of the
| archive is not made free, although the Greek and European citizens have paid
| their money to make the production and digitization of the archive feasible.
`----
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/lets-set-the-ert-audiovisual-archive-free-manifesto-draft/2008/01/06
BBC should pay attention to this! Also those who make irreplaceable artifacts a
property of Bill Gates (see below), with viewing being accessible only if you
buy Windows Vista.
Keeping It Real
,----[ Quote ]
| What is Magna Carta worth? Exactly $21,321,000. We know because that’s what
| it fetched in a fair public auction at Sotheby’s in New York just before
| Christmas. Twenty-one million is, by far, the most ever paid for a page of
| text, and therein lies a paradox: Information is now cheaper than ever and
| also more expensive.
`----
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/magazine/06wwln-lede-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Related:
British Library books go digital
,----[ Quote ]
| Digitised publications will be accessible in two ways -initially through
| Microsoft's Live Search Books and then via the Library's website.
`----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7018210.stm
Britain: E-Mail Time Capsule in Works
,----[ Quote ]
| Now the British Library is appealing to ordinary Britons for their
| e-mails, saying it wants to create a snapshot of British life in 2007.
|
| [...]
|
| The e-mails will be collated and indexed by Microsoft Corp., which
| has previously partnered with the library to digitize books from
| its archive, and they will be available to researchers before
| the year's end.
`----
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070503/britain_e_mail_archive.html?.v=1
Vista and British Library put da Vinci online
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft and the British Library have digitised two of Leonardo da
| Vincis' notebooks.
|
| [...]
|
| The British Library has created an updated version of its application
| called "Turning the Pages" which allows people to browse parts of
| its 150 million piece collection via a web browser. We heard how
| this works better using Vista.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/30/vinci_notebooks_vista/
Publish And Perish
,----[ Quote ]
| Alexander Rose, the executive director of the futurist Long Now
| Foundation, worries about the impermanence of digital information.
| "If you save that computer for 100 years, will the electrical plugs
| look the same?" he asks. "The Mac or the PC--will they be around?
| If they are, what about the software? " So far there's no business
| case for digital preservation--in fact, for software makers like
| Microsoft, planned obsolescence is the plan.
|
| "The reality is that it's in companies' interest that software should
| become obsolete and that you should have to buy every upgrade,"
| Rose says. We could be on the cusp of a turning point, though, in the
| way businesses and their customers think about digital preservation.
| "Things will start to change when people start losing all of their personal
| photos," Rose said.
`----
http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/books-information-preservation-tech-media_cx_ee_books06_1201acid.html?partner=yahootix
http://tinyurl.com/yyjqoh
British Library calls for digital copyright action
,----[ Quote ]
| In a manifesto released on Monday at the Labor Party Conference
| in Manchester, the United Kingdom's national library warned that the
| country's traditional copyright law needs to be extended to fully
| recognize digital content.
|
| "Unless there is a serious updating of copyright law to recognize
| the changing technological environment, the law becomes an ass,"
| Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, told ZDNet
| UK.
`----
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6119043.html
BBC Corrupted
,----[ Quote ]
| Today the BBC made it official -- they have been corrupted by Microsoft. With
| today's launch of the iPlayer, the BBC Trust has failed in its most basic of
| duties and handed over to Microsoft sole control of the on-line distribution
| of BBC programming. From today, you will need to own a Microsoft operating
| system to view BBC programming on the web. This is akin to saying you must
| own a Sony TV set to watch BBC TV. And you must accept the Digital
| Restrictions Management (DRM) that the iPlayer imposes. You simply cannot be
| allowed to be in control of your computer according to the BBC.
`----
http://defectivebydesign.org/blog/BBCcorrupted
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6265976.stm
Microsoft’s 4th of July Trans-Atlantic assault on document standards
,----[ Quote ]
| With OOXML and XPS, Microsoft has chosen to not work with existing standards,
| but to create new ones, as they have in their recent announcement on Web3S
| instead of working with the rest of the industry on the Atom Publishing
| Protocol. In the case of OOXML, this is a logical move on Microsoft’s part,
| since it is an evolution of Microsoft’s XML strategy started with the
| Microsoft Office 2003 version and ODF will be a technology diversion from
| that strategy. With Microsoft controlling 90% of the office productivity
| tools market and OOXML being the default file format for Microsoft Office
| 2007, OOXML is likely to be widely-used.
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Newton/?p=16
Microsoft criticized for Open XML petition
,----[ Quote ]
| The petition is an attempt to make it appear that Open XML
| has "pseudo-grassroots" support, argues Mark Taylor, the
| founder of the Open Source Consortium.
`----
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6173625.html
Microsoft calls on UK public to raise the Office standard
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft is calling on the Great British public to join its campaign
| to get the XML Office format adopted as an international standard.
|
| [...]
|
| It is not clear if the UK is an opponent. However, a representative
| of fellow member the Bureau of Indian Standards recently reportedly
| complained to the IndiaTime.com over Microsoft's decision to dump
| 6,000 pages of documentation on them.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/04/microsoft_office_standards_petition/
Public access to NIH research made law
,----[ Quote ]
| President Bush has signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act of
| 2007 (H.R. 2764), which includes a provision directing the National
| Institutes of Health (NIH) to provide the public with open online access to
| findings from its funded research. This is the first time the U.S. government
| has mandated public access to research funded by a major agency.
`----
http://www.sciencecodex.com/public_access_mandate_made_law
Behold! The New Anti-Open Access FUD
,----[ Quote ]
| As I've noted before, I'm something of a connoisseur of FUD, and I really
| like coming across new examples. Here's one, directed at the burgeoning open
| access movement, which wants to make publicly-paid for scientific papers
| freely available...
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2007/12/behold-new-anti-open-access-fud.html
Peach Open Movie
,----[ Quote ]
| As a follow-up to the successful project Orange's "Elephants Dream",
| the Blender Foundation will initiate another open movie project.
| Again a couple of the best 3D artists and developers in the Blender
| community will be invited to come together to work in Amsterdam on
| completing a short 3D animation movie.
`----
http://www.blender.org/blenderorg/blender-foundation/2007-plans
Can open source methodology make a movie?
,----[ Quote ]
| We all know that open source is being used to help make movies. Linux
| and open source software have been used in rendering farms for major
| pictures like Shrek, Lord of the Rings, and many others. Earlier
| this year the Blender project released Elephants Dream, the first
| movie made entirely with open source graphics software. But can
| the open source methodology be used to create a movie? The folks
| behind The Digital Tipping Point (DTP) are betting it can.
`----
http://trends.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/11/07/2014209&from=rss
OUP wants me to pay for my own Open Access article
,----[ Quote ]
| The journal wishes to charge me 48 USD to:
|
| * USE MY OWN ARTICLE
| * ON WHICH I HOLD COPYRIGHT
| * FOR NON-COMMERCIAL PURPOSES (TEACHING)
|
| The journal is therefore
|
| * SELLING MY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
| * WITHOUT MY PERMISSION
| * AGAINST THE TERMS OF THE LICENCE (NO COMMERCIAL USE)
|
| I am lost for words...
`----
http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/?p=529
A Quest to Get More Court Rulings Online, and Free
,----[ Quote ]
| The domination of two legal research services over the publication of federal
| and state court decisions is being challenged by an Internet gadfly who has
| embarked on an ambitious project to make more than 10 million pages of case
| law available free online.
`----
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/technology/20westlaw.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Libraries Defend Open Access
,----[ Quote ]
| In an open letter last month, Rockefeller University Press castigated the
| publishers' sock-puppet outfit, PRISM, for using distorting rhetoric in a
| coordinated PR attack on open access. N
`----
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/08/1739235&from=rss
News Corp undecided on making WSJ.com free
,----[ Quote ]
| "It would be a very expensive thing to do in the short term," Murdoch told
| analysts on a telephone conference call to discuss News Corp's quarterly
| earnings. "In the long term, it may be a wonderful thing to do, but we're
| looking at it very closely."
`----
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070808/media_nm/newscorp_results_journal_dc
The Land of "Nothing for free"
,----[ Quote ]
| I was down there to give a talk on "Open Source Business Models"
| for a conference. Also represented were entertainment industry
| lawyers, "Big Telecom" management, and a smattering of software
| people. Microsoft was there of course. You can't hold a church
| fete with "Open Source" on the banner these days without Microsoft
| turning up and requesting representation. At least we also had
| Bruce Perens on our side to help make up the balance. The venue
| eas an unbelievably expensive hotel. Even though I was on
| expenses I balked at asking the company to pay for a room
| there and found something cheaper (not by much) a few miles
| down the road.
`----
http://samba.org/samba/news/articles/low_point/column11.html
'The New York Times' drops online subscription service
,----[ Quote ]
| The New York Times has finally given up on the Web-subscription model,
| announcing Monday that the newspaper's online site will no longer charge for
| any content.
`----
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9780063-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Academia's Open Access movement mirrors FOSS community
,----[ Quote ]
| Free and open source software (FOSS) has roots in the ideals of academic
| freedom and the unimpeded exchange of information. In the last five years,
| the concepts have come full circle, with FOSS serving as a model for Open
| Access (OA), a movement within academia to promote unrestricted access to
| scholarly material for both researchers and the general public.
`----
http://www.linux.com/feature/118139
DJ Google, Sprint Pact Could Heat Up Wireless War
,----[ Quote ]
| Wallsten, however, argued it is unclear their network will be truly open. "It
| doesn't seem consistent with Google's claims for open access and net
| neutrality," he said. "Clearly Google is going to benefit from this, and it
| will be easier to use (Google) than Yahoo" or other rival services.
`----
http://biznes.onet.pl/5,1579741,wiadomosci.html
AT&T slams Google over open-access wireless proposal
,----[ Quote ]
| AT&T has asked Capitol Hill not to enable an open nationwide wireless
| spectrum, claiming that Google's lobbying of such a network is a bid by the
| search giant to obtain broadband airwaves at bargain-basement prices.
`----
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=B592E3C6-E5F3-4ECA-93C1-3A5A3392024A
Musicians' copyright pleas fall on deaf ears
,----[ Quote ]
| The music industry has reacted with outrage to the government's rejection of
| pleas to extend the period musicians get royalties from their tracks beyond
| the current 50 years.
`----
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2133762,00.html
Announcing the Open Library
,----[ Quote ]
| Early this year, when I left my job at Wired Digital, I thought I could look
| forward to months of lounging around San Francisco, reading books on the
| beach and drinking fine champagne and eating foie gras. Then I got a phone
| call. Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive was thinking of pursuing a
| project that I'd been trying to do literally for years.
|
| [...]
|
| So today I'm extraordinarily proud to announce the Open Library project. Our
| goal is to build the world's greatest library,
`----
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/openlibrary
Berkman Center and CALI Partner to Create New Legal Education Resource
,----[ Quote ]
| “We are looking forward to renewing a fruitful relationship with Harvard Law
| School through the Legal Education Commons project, which will provide
| innovative tools and access to open-licensed course materials to our more
| than 200 member law schools” said CALI Executive Director John Mayer.
`----
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/newsroom/pressreleases/berkman_center_and_cali_partner_to_create_new_legal_education_resource
Wikipedia Founder Joins EC Open Access Campaign
,----[ Quote ]
| Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said he signed a petition calling
| on the European Commission to give the public open access to
| taxpayer-funded scientific research because it was "simple and
| obvious" that the public should have access to research they
| had funded. "Public money should result in public benefit,"
| he added.
`----
http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/56443.html
Google Custom Search
,----[ Quote ]
| Guha was able to help me understand the significance of the recent
| announcement with the Hewlett Foundation of the Open Educational Resources
| search portal.
|
| [...]
|
| For example, a MIT implementation of the OE Search portal could choose to
| boost mit.edu sites, providing higher visibility for MIT's OpenCourseWare
| offerings.
`----
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/09/custom_search_d.html
Push for open access to research
,----[ Quote ]
| "Cancer patients seeking information on new treatments or parents
| searching for the latest on childhood development issues were often
| denied access to the research they indirectly fund through their
| taxes"
`----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6404429.stm
Elsevier duo say the future is open
,----[ Quote ]
| Two senior publishers have departed Elsevier and joined rival Biomed
| Central, placing their bets on an open access future for scientific
| research.
`----
http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2171597/elsevier-duo-say-future-open
|
|
