Free Culture topics in News from around the world. February.
Free Culture news around the world:
- United States: Restating the obvious with facts. The Coverity Scan: 2011 Open Source Integrity Report, which can be found here, highlights how Open Source code is of higher quality than Proprietary software. The average density of defects per one thousand lines of code for Open Source software is 0.64, where as for proprietary software is 1.0. Coverity analysed 37M line codes from 45 important open source projects.
Image via Wikipedia
- Europe: The European Union has doubts and concerns over Google change in privacy policy. So, since yesterday Google achieved what the EU wanted/wants with Indect – an online identity of users recording all actions done by a user across all Google services. The key of the vault is Gmail, so your personal and possibly business life, then YouTube, so what you watch, what you have watched what you have uploaded and liked. Then Google documents, so what you work on. Google search engine, so what you searched for what links you clicked on. This magic world of tailroed advertisement and mass not anoymous information gathering is a threat to privacy and different aspects that govern a persons life. The Guardian talks about it here.
The assurance or security of better search results, more effective advertisement and more accurate recommendations is not worth the consolidation of an user online activties and the replication of a person identity through an unavoidable and hydroid creature more effective and pervasive than our own shadows. Giant internet companies like Google Apple Facebook should have user elected representatives to protect and advocate the users rights, it is time for web democracy in the real position of powers(ie where code gets written) in today’s online world.
European Union (Photo credit: erjkprunczyk)
Not to mention that if you have an Android phone you need a Google account to operate it, so everything will be recorded and nothing forgotten. There-must-be-greater-accountability-and-transparency!
- South Korea: Korea Telecom, the main ISP in Korea is dealing with network neutrality. KT recently blocked Samsung’s SmartTV software from accessing its pipes saying that it should pay for the huge amount of bandwidth this service consumes. After a couple of days of talks the access to SmartTV was restored, but KT relaunched the idea that big data eaters like YouTube should pay for using their pipes. Ironically, these pipes have already been paid for by each customer accessing the service, so taxing websites(regardless of how gigantic they are) for the user accessing them is not only redundant but it would discriminate against smaller ones which are growing quickly and don’t have the bandwidth and resources to fulfill this request and it would also create a dangerous precedent.
Image via Wikipedia
The pipes which physically deliver the web are like the ones which carry water. If you buy a pool, you pay for the water to fill it up. It seems only absurd that the water company goes banging on the door of the company making the pool demanding compensation for all the water consumed to fill the tank.
- Germany: Library.nu providing thousands of eBooks – most thought to be copyright infringing – for free download was shut down by a court in Munich. Given and admitted that the copyright infringing issue must be addressed and sanitized, it is evident that access to culture has been restricted in the same way that eBook readers make it difficult to share digital copies of the book you have legally purchased. Proprierty is essential and consequently copyright is necessary, but used as a hammer crushing the free exchange of culture, whether in the form of books or movies makes the world every day a bit gloomer and more arid. Article from the Huffington Post here
- United States: Facebook’s timeline is a great idea. It makes it so much easier to search in a users content back to the first post someone made on Facebook. It creates a beautiful chronological story for companies, allowing them to show their history from the initial founding act to today, just take a look at Cocacola or the NYT page, great! Very informative and delivering an entertaining user experience, it might not be good for users itself. As a friend of mine said last night while discussing the topic, “if three years ago someone posted on my wall or tagged me somewhere that I might not necessarily like now it was more or less ok. Before finding the specific post it would take hours to go all the way back to that exact entry, with Timeline that same post can be found in a matter of clicks, so now I have to be worried about something that was published years ago.” Great for companies, not so much for users, but as long as there is the option not to activate Timeline, the situation is still manageable. But it must be the user’s choice, not a default action.
Related articles
- Smart TVs cause a net neutrality debate in S. Korea (gigaom.com)
- Actually, Open Source Code Is Better: Report (pcworld.com)
- Why Should You Start Using Free Software? (techie-buzz.com)
PDF 
Modern times
What Twitter did, geoblocking tweets in specific countries in order to respect the local law, is at first glance an intolerable right which an entity asserts itself. There is a wind of censorship blowing over the beautiful landscapes of the web.
Let’s be honest, not always would you want to share moments of your life with all the people that you know. Thats why we concern ourself with privacy and we try to protect it simply because an unlimited viewage or third party sharing erodes our intimacy.
I have always been contrary to the idea of geoblocking per se, but in a global field where real life connections progate online and its polite to accept having everything open can create problems, so filtering by country could be a useful tool. At the same time the Brazilian government politely asked Twitter to censor the accounts of people who shared locations of Autovelox and patrol or a fine of 200000 R$ per day. The domino effect seen with Megavideo, Fileserve, Videoweed and so on is reproducing in governments posing vetoes in what is present on the web. There are alternative ways on the internet, as always. Still there must be a democratizion of these tools – so everyone should be allowed to choose what policy would happen next, at least for their account and from all the people that are connected to it. If I want to geofilter among Facebook connections I should, if I want the twitter feed to be visible everywhere I can tick a box. Private should be opt in and culture opt out. Give access to knowledge and leave me my privacy. Once these services will have these tools maybe we can start educating – and we already should – more about their usage in schools, universities. Online identity and emotion sharing is fundamental to both a 15 year old in a classroom and a 40 year old professional. If the latter is aware the former must be made aware of what is happening with his digital self. We must nurture and promote the ability to choose to everyone who uses these tools.
http://michelemartin.typepad.com/thebambooprojectblog/images/2007/10/05/online_identity_2.jpg
Anti-ACTA protest in London
Today sees a wave of protest across Europe against ACTA, the secretly negotiated international trade agreement which threatens the internet. I’ve just been at the protest in London. Hundreds of activists, civil society groups and concerned citizens turned out to spread the message about this dangerous and undemocratic treaty. I joined the march at its first stop, outside the British Music House.
It was interesting to see such a variety of groups united under the cause of digital rights. Home-made banners and Guy Fawkes masks were, as requested on the facebook page, out in full force. Masked anonymous supporters in smart suits stood next to members of the UK Pirate Party, the Open Rights Group, FLOSS UK and many others. There was even a strong (some might say opportunist) contingent of the Socialist Worker’s Party, handing out their signature style protest banners and selling copies of the party paper.
UK Pirate Party leader Loz Kaye kicked things off with a rousing speech directed as much to the British Music House as to the audience. As a musician himself, Loz denounced the pro-ACTA arguments being put forward by legacy media in the name of content creators. The loudspeaker was then handed to a number of other speakers whose faces I couldn’t see but I think included Jim Killock from ORG, and someone from FLOSS UK and others.
The march then took off around the busy shopping streets of central London, with a stop outside the US embassy, nearby Buckingham Palace, towards Trafalgar Square (which had only just emptied itself of Amnesty International supporters), and to St Paul’s Cathedral (the site of Occupy London last year).
Protecting the net for future generations...
Why students protest ACTA?
Because of everything, the way it was signed (first by not telling anybody interested about it, enforced by big companies, never consulted with anybody representing either internet providers or users or smaller companies, anything, just ‘the big rich ones’), the fact it was a lie from the beginning, that we weren’t the last to sign, then that nobody cared if there are protests or not, because they just signed not caring it harms even basic human laws and it’s against EU law.
http://www.ceskapozice.cz/sites/default/files/imagecache/full_size_content_image/bansky-acta.jpg
Because generally watching for example american tv series, japanese comic books for free in original lang was legal in poland until it was bought by polish company/television and translated, now it won’t be legal, and young people are usually addicted to tv series and watching them 5 mins after they have tv premiere in usa (but it’s not a main and most important reason, just one of similar).
http://cpcml.ca/images2011/Asia/India/File/070100-IndiaNewDelhiNovartisPatentProtest-01.jpg
It’s not only about internet, it’s about medicines that are extremely expensive, especially for old and/or very sick people here, so they were always made such medicines that have same things inside and working in same way, but different name and brand and 10 times less expensive – now it’s illegal, same with all the parts and fillings of things that don’t need to be original, printer’s ink, car parts, anything, can be either original or none, so both companies that were always producing such things will have problems now, and people using it, because it would make everything not exist, because they punish websites for letting users put on them anything illegal, so controlling users or stopping existing, because it doesn’t protect ‘little’ producers, like graphic designers, photographers, programmers doing something own – so it’s not about anti-piracy or using not own things, it’s about letting big companies that have money, threathen people and blackmail them (“you seem to have downloaded something.mp3 that wasn’t yours, pay 1mio$ or you wll have serious problems, we have all your data from your isp”) – bypassing court, only assuming someone really did this thing.
http://cdn.dejanseo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/acta-300x224.jpg
By Paulina, a Polish Computer Science student from Warsaw. Part of a longer conversation on ACTA, the Internet and crowded places.
Related articles
- Acta goes too far, says MEP (guardian.co.uk)
- ACTA: What You Need To Know (news.dice.com)
- We Have Every Right To Be Furious About ACTA (thenewworldreporter.com)
- Thousands Take To the Streets To Protest ACTA (politics.slashdot.org)
Twitter blocking access to certain tweets in particular countries. Censuring speech positively. Protect the open internet
Protest ACTA SOPA PIPA Fourth choice! (4th monkey from www.blogosphere.com)
Internet and politics are now more interconnected than ever. Certain aspects of it jump up in the everyday life of millions of people. Twitteris without doubt one of those – but until a certain point. In Italy, people who consider themselves with a fair amount of digital technical skills, and to good reason, see apparently no use in getting a Twitter account. Despite smartphones and facebook and youtube and ipads, even though it is in the media it is not widely adopted in the population(no statistics provided just asking around, do you know what twitter is? Try to ask beyond the ‘social network’ answer).
Its important to discuss the reasons why Twitter decided to allow filtering some messages in specific countries(ie censor them), you don’t need to have HIV to know that it is vital to fight it. Twitter is being more open about it and according to its policy, filtering out contents in a specific country will be balanced by marking it as censored in the rest of the world and easily accessing the institution asking for it to be removed, with the reason for removal. From a tool for freedom, Twitter will become just a tool in that same country.
Multiple online services from Twitter to Filesonic have been shaken by the uncontested and unconstitutional seizure of Megavideo – despite the alleged wrong doing and lascivious life of its founders, there was a total lack of due process or selection of illegal content, everything will be removed, copyright infringing or not. If the web as a nation has no physical or elected ambassadors to defend its rights, we the people must stand up and speak in defence of our love for Wikipedia, our positive feelings nurtured by Youtube, the cosiness and security of a Skype conversation, the amplification and accessibility of our opinions on Twitter, the assurance of our Facebook inboxes kept private and the availability of all other online services, albeit not major ones but still essential in our every day life. Only by proving our presence in a common cause to protect the internet, educating friends and sensibilizing our elected representatives can we disentangle our liberties in the jungle of web diplomacy.
We must not let our guard down and denounce any activity of spreading the “I don’t hear, I don’t see, I don’t talk” attitude embracing service providers around the world.
http://alycia.brokenja.ws/readinglog
ACTA’s EU chief Kader Arif resigns in protest
You may have heard a lot about SOPA and PIPA, legislation proposed by the U.S. congress and senate respectively, to regulate the internet. Fortunately, amid widespread campaigns from the internet community, these proposals have been put on the shelf (for now).
Unfortunately, ACTA, an international agreement on intellectual property which would have similarly disastrous effects on the open internet (as well as on access to life-saving drugs, educational materials, knowledge and culture), is currently being pushed through the EU. Official negotiations started in 2008, but have been mired in secrecy (despite details about the negotiations being revealed in a 2008 Wikileaks dump). Read more »
Nie dla ACTA
Waking up in the morning with an outside temperature of -5 is cold. When you go outside you have to wear scarf gloves hat and coat. In a cozy elevator ascending to the second floor a girl I know asked me if I knew about the anti-ACTA protest happening that same afternoon. I said no, she said that some people were going, obviously I went as well.
No to ACTA
On Megavideo from around the world
This is a short collection of posters and banners that I found on my Facebook News ticker after Megavideo was brought down. In no way this gallery wants to promote infringing copyright or present the view of all the SFC movement, it is just a reflection on the global impact of the take down. Enjoy! Read more »
Megavideo and Megaupload taken down by US government, millions lose access to culture.
Tomas Milianis an actor of Italian B-movies of seventies and eighties. He is a police inspector in a turbulent Rome, where criminal activity, political terrorism and old Fiat cars are the background for his enquiries and investigations. Over the years these have become cult movies sometimes shown by linear TV channels in the summer, late at night. Despite the actual movie is a vernacular for low level sex jokes, improbable car chases and questionable outfits, it undeniably shows a part of Italian history and mentality. It is also an opportunity to see how the city looked back then. There are around 10/15 films in this series and only a small part, maybe 1/3 of them can be found on Amazon. The rest are somewhat hidden in cinema studios, or locked up in some old VHS format or stuck in late night summer broadcasting schedule. There is currently no opportunity to get a hold of them.
Image via Wikipedia
The solution came Read more »
An open internet as an economic and cultural driving force
Last week the longest Italian government fell under the inadequacies of the prime minister and the current economic crisis. Without commenting the actual decadence of the last media emperor in Italy, a new government has been formed to carry out the measures to bring Italy back on a secure track, avoiding it falling out of the Europe, insolvency which would cause similar problems as in Argentina a few years ago and give back confidence to markets. The newly appointed technical government, by banker and university director Mario Montiis seen as the only hope to revive a stagnating and static economy.
Image via Wikipedia
How this rebirth should be exactly carried out is still unknown, but Read more »
