Happy 15th, WWW! and other tales of interest
November 6, 2005 by EliFound this ft article somewhere.Scary thoughts follow.
Very pertinent to our cause, IMHO. If the content industry or anyone for that matter knew how big a hit the web would be, they would have crippled it. We should all thank our lucky stars and respective deities.
And of course, we’ve all heard of the MPAA suing the Grandpa for $600,000. Following in the RIAA’s footsteps, I guess.
In other news this morning, I need a coffee, regular, two sugars, stat!
Also, here are the minutes from the last meeting, copied verbatim from Inga’s e-mail, for those who missed it. Actually, screw copying verbatim. It would make the post too long. But its too much work! OK, compromise. Partially paraphrased:
-November 22nd is our tentative lecture date. Still lining up things with Siva and Karl Kilb. It might/probably will be co-sponsored by Tom and Computer Advocacy.
-This coming Tuesday at 6PM Computer Advocacy is having their own lecture about similar issues (open standards, copyright, etc.). Our meeting this week will be on THURSDAY @8PM, on 7th floor of Kimmel as usual. Stephanie from a Nashville branch of copyright reformers’ll be there.
-We are in the process of registering with FC National (to receive more “stuff”) and CC (”stuff” again being the motivation). Once we get their “stuff”, we will distribute it to the masses. Very good PR and good philanthropy in general.
-We are thinking about doing a movie-remix contest for the spring andwe’d lke to guage the level of interest in the film-community. Ask your friends who are into film whether they would be interested in remixing a feature length film into a short, the prize of te competition being a public screening at the Two Boots/Pioneeer theater, and maybe some sort of trophy…
Mention the legal liabilities of copying to your hard drive…but then mention the trophy again. If at least 10 people are sriously interested, it’s a go. (I’ve already got at least one and prob. more).
-Temporary trez: Laura Berger. Temporary sec - me.
Gnight guys,
Eli B.
a.k.a. Bil Duce/bilditup1
November 20th, 2005 at 12:34 am
Eli did you save this-can you forward?
Found this ft article somewhere.Scary thoughts follow.
Very pertinent to our cause, IMHO. If the content industry or anyone for that matter knew how big a hit the web would be, they would have crippled it. We should all thank our lucky stars and respective deities.
November 20th, 2005 at 12:59 am
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/random-bits/2005-November/001295.html
Article here
November 21st, 2005 at 1:36 pm
Dear Professor Boyle:
Your November 3, 2005 comments below are totally without standing in historical fact. The WWW was built on the internet text pages, the internet being built on
the ARPANET which was developed for the government of the USA for the use of its military but later expanded to allow people in academia etc. to use it. The
USA government was instrumental in trying to getting ATT, which is now out of business to run the ARPANET etc. for the use of the public in 1969 but ATT turned
the USA government down twice claiming that there was no commercial value. The USA government has also been active in pushing the use and development of the
WWW as its funding, research and the number of its own pages speak to.
That is a shame, because there are three things that we need to
understand about the web. First, it is more amazing than we think.
Second, the conjunction of technologies that made the web successful
was extremely unlikely. Third, we probably would not create it, or
any technology like it, today. In fact, we would be more likely to
cripple it, or declare it illegal.
There was nothing amazing in that we had both the intellect and the technology.
The conjunction of technologies insured that the web’s success would be likely.
We are seeing nothing that proves the point in this country that the WWW would be seen as illegal. We certainly are at a juncture where the exclusivity ideas of the
past have now clashed forever with the need for Free Culture.
Lewis B. Sckolnick
December 3rd, 2006 at 8:35 pm
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