Melanie Dulong de Rosnay, Juan Carlos De Martin (eds.): The Digital Public Domain: Foundations for an Open Culture (2012)

14 April 2012, dusan

Digital technology has made culture more accessible than ever before. Texts, audio, pictures and video can easily be produced, disseminated, used and remixed using devices that are increasingly user-friendly and affordable. However, along with this technological democratization comes a paradoxical flipside: the norms regulating culture’s use — copyright and related rights — have become increasingly restrictive.

This book brings together essays by academics, librarians, entrepreneurs, activists and policy makers, who were all part of the EU-funded Communia project. Together the authors argue that the Public Domain — that is, the informational works owned by all of us, be that literature, music, the output of scientific research, educational material or public sector information — is fundamental to a healthy society.

The essays range from more theoretical papers on the history of copyright and the Public Domain, to practical examples and case studies of recent projects that have engaged with the principles of Open Access and Creative Commons licensing. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in the current debate about copyright and the Internet. It opens up discussion and offers practical solutions to the difficult question of the regulation of culture at the digital age.

With a foreword by Charles R. Nelson
Publisher Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK, 2012
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license
ISBN 978–1-906924–46-1
220 pages

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Julie E. Cohen: Configuring the Networked Self: Law, Code, and the Play of Everyday Practice (2012)

19 March 2012, dusan

The legal and technical rules governing flows of information are out of balance, argues Julie E. Cohen in this original analysis of information law and policy. Flows of cultural and technical information are overly restricted, while flows of personal information often are not restricted at all. The author investigates the institutional forces shaping the emerging information society and the contradictions between those forces and the ways that people use information and information technologies in their everyday lives. She then proposes legal principles to ensure that people have ample room for cultural and material participation as well as greater control over the boundary conditions that govern flows of information to, from, and about them.

Publisher Yale University Press, 2012
ISBN 0300125437, 9780300125436
Printable version is under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike license
352 pages

the author discussing her book (video)

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Open Data Handbook (2012)

16 March 2012, dusan

This handbook discusses the legal, social and technical aspects of open data. It can be used by anyone but is especially designed for those seeking to open up data. It discusses the why, what and how of open data – why to go open, what open is, and the how to ‘open’ data.

Contributing authors: Daniel Dietrich, Jonathan Gray, Tim McNamara, Antti Poikola, Rufus Pollock, Julian Tait, Ton Zijlstra
An Open Knowledge Foundation project
Creative Commons Attribution (Unported) v3.0 License

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