Future of Copyright Anthology. A collection of texts from a crowd-funded contest (2012)

28 May 2012, dusan

“How should a good copyright system look like? Obviously, the one our civilization uses now doesn’t fit the reality of today. Outdated, over-extended and unenforceable it leads to ridiculous court cases against random people and clearly fails to meet the needs of the digital world. Without good alternatives, the only solution some can imagine is to take what doesn’t work and get more of it, hoping that this will do the trick. It won’t.

In order to form the future of copyright system we need to step up and craft a model that will fit the digital reality, shaped by technology of today and tomorrow. There are some initial proposals, most notably Barcelona Charter or Washington Declaration, but we believe there’s room for improvement and we want to give it a try.

It is our great pleasure to present the results of the first edition of the Future of Copyright contest held by the Modern Poland Foundation. Our jury – Prof. Michael Geist, Piotr Czerski and Jarosław Lipszyc – awarded the main prize to Aymeric Mansoux, author of ‘Morphology of copyright tale’. Moreover, the jury decided to grant an honorable mention to Togi, author of the work “Give’. Congratulations!

We would like to thank you for your crowdfunding support and a high standard of the submitted works. We were pleasantly surprised by the interest shown in the competition, and we have decided to hold its second edition next year. We hope that with your help it will be even more successful and the collected works will provide a strong voice in the debate on the future of copyright law and system.” (contest organisers)

Publisher Modern Poland Foundation, Warsaw, 25 May 2012
Creative Commons BY-SA license
49 pages
via Aymeric Mansoux

contest
publisher

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Reza Negarestani: Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials (2008)

1 October 2011, dusan

Cyclonopedia is theoretical-fiction novel by Iranian philosopher and writer Reza Negarestani. Hailed by novelists, philosophers and cinematographers, Negarestani’s work is the first horror and science fiction book coming from and written on the Middle East.

‘The Middle East is a sentient entity—it is alive!’ concludes renegade Iranian archaeologist Dr. Hamid Parsani, before disappearing under mysterious circumstances. The disordered notes he leaves behind testify to an increasingly deranged preoccupation with oil as the ‘lubricant’ of historical and political narratives.

A young American woman arrives in Istanbul to meet a pseudonymous online acquaintance who never arrives. Discovering a strange manuscript in her hotel room, she follows up its cryptic clues only to discover more plot-holes, and begins to wonder whether her friend was a fictional quantity all along.

Meanwhile, as the War on Terror escalates, the US is dragged into an asymmetrical engagement with occultures whose principles are ancient, obscure, and saturated in oil. It is as if war itself is feeding upon the warmachines, leveling cities into the desert, seducing the aggressors into the dark heart of oil …

At once a horror fiction, a work of speculative theology, an atlas of demonology, a political samizdat and a philosophic grimoire, CYCLONOPEDIA is work of theory-fiction on the Middle East, where horror is restlessly heaped upon horror. Reza Negarestani bridges the appalling vistas of contemporary world politics and the War on Terror with the archaeologies of the Middle East and the natural history of the Earth itself. CYCLONOPEDIA is a middle-eastern Odyssey, populated by archeologists, jihadis, oil smugglers, Delta Force officers, heresiarchs, corpses of ancient gods and other puppets. The journey to the Underworld begins with petroleum basins and the rotting Sun, continuing along the tentacled pipelines of oil, and at last unfolding in the desert, where monotheism meets the Earth’s tarry dreams of insurrection against the Sun.”

Publisher Re.Press, Melbourne, August 2008
Anomaly series
ISBN 0980544009, 9780980544008
268 pages

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Milica Z. Bookman, Aleksandra S. Bookman: Economics in Film and Fiction (2008)

5 March 2010, dusan

Economics is everywhere. It’s in business. It’s in government. It’s in our personal lives. Now, a ground-breaking textbook supplement brings this reality to the classroom: Economics in Film and Fiction.

The book uses both contemporary and classic film and literature to illustrate 33 fundamental concepts in introductory economics. Designed for use in introductory economics courses, the clearly organized text brings both sides of the lectern closer together through real life illustration of economic concepts in such favorites as Jaws, Legally Blonde, Casablanca, The Great Gatsby, Scarlet Letter, and The Da Vinci Code.

Each economic topic is described and terms are defined. A plot synopsis of a film or book sets the stage for each discussion. Using a detailed scene description, the authors then show how the scene illustrates the concept under study. Classroom discussion and assignments are facilitated through a series of questions that probe deeper.

Publisher R&L Education, 2008
ISBN 1578869625, 9781578869626
Length 207 pages

publisher
google books

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