Introduction
3
I. Photographing a printed book
7
I. Getting the image files ready for post-processing
11
III. Transformation of source images into .tiffs
13
IV. Optical character recognition
16
V. Creating a finalized e-book file
16
VI. Cataloging and sharing the e-book
16
Quick workflow reference for scanning and post-processing
18
References
22
INTRODUCTION:
BOOK SCANNING - FROM PAPER BOOK TO E-BOOK
Initial considerations when deciding on a scanning setup
Book scanning tends to be a fragile and demanding process. Many factors can go wrong or produce
results of varying quality from book to book or page to page, requiring experience or technical skill
to resolve issues that occur. Cameras can fail to trigger, components to communicate, files can get
corrupted in the transfer, storage card doesn't get purged, focus fails to lock, lighting conditions
change. There are trade-offs between the automation that is prone to instability and the robustness
that is prone to become time consuming.
Your initial choice of book scanning setup will have to take these trade-offs into consideration. If
your scanning community is confined to your hacklab, you won't be risking much if technological
sophistication and integration fails to function smoothly. But if you're aiming at a broad community
of users, with varying levels of technological skill and patience, you want to create as much timesaving automation as possible on the condition of keeping maximum stability. Furthermore, if the
time of individual members of your scanning community can contribute is limited, you might also
want to divide some of the tasks between users and their different skill levels.
This manual breaks down the process of digitization into a general description of steps in the
workflow leading from the printed book to a digital e-book, each of which can be in a concrete
situation addressed in various manners depending on the scanning equipment, software, hacking
skills and user skill level that are available to your book scanning project. Several of those steps can
be handled by a single piece of equipment or software, or you might need to use a number of them your mileage will vary. Therefore, the manual will try to indicate the design choices you have in the
process of planning your workflow and should help you make decisions on what design is best for
you situation.
Introducing book scanner designs
The book scanning starts with the capturing of digital image files on the scanning equipment. There
are three principle types of book scanner designs:
flatbed scanner
single camera overhead scanner
dual camera overhead scanner
Conventional flatbed scanners are widely available. However, given that they require the book to be
spread wide open and pressed down with the platen in order to break the resistance of the book
binding and expose sufficiently the inner margin of the text, it is the most destructive approach for
the book, imprecise and slow.
Therefore, book scanning projects across the globe have taken to custom designing improvised
setups or scanner rigs that are less destructive and better suited for fast turning and capturing of
pages. Designs abound. Most include:
•
•
•
one or two digital photo cameras of lesser or higher quality to capture the pages,
transparent V-shaped glass or Plexiglas platen to press the open book against a V-shape
cradle, and
a light source.
The go-to web resource to help you make an informed decision is the DIY book scanning
community at http://diybookscanner.org. A good place to start is their intro
(http://wiki.diybookscanner.org/ ) and scanner build list (http://wiki.diybookscanner.org/scannerbuild-list ).
The book scanners with a single camera are substantially cheaper, but come with an added difficulty
of de-warping the distorted page images due to the angle that pages are photographed at, which can
sometimes be difficult to correct in the post-processing. Hence, in this introductory chapter we'll
focus on two camera designs where the camera lens stands relatively parallel to the page. However,
with a bit of adaptation these instructions can be used to work with any other setup.
The Public Library scanner
In the focus of this manual is the scanner built for the Public Library project, designed by Voja
Antonić (see Illustration 1). The Public Library scanner was built with the immediate use by a wide
community of users in mind. Hence, the principle consideration in designing the Public Library
scanner was less sophistication and more robustness, facility of use and distributed process of
editing.
The board designs can be found here: http://www.memoryoftheworld.org/blog/2012/10/28/ourbeloved-bookscanner. The current iterations are using two Canon 1100 D cameras with the kit lens
Canon EF-S 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS. Cameras are auto-charging.
Illustration 1: Public Library Scanner
The scanner operates by automatically lowering the Plexiglas platen, illuminating the page and then
triggering camera shutters. The turning of pages and the adjustments of the V-shaped cradle holding
the book are manual.
The scanner is operated by a two-button controller (see Illustration 2). The upper, smaller button
breaks the capture process in two steps: the first click lowers the platen, increases the light level and
allows you to adjust the book or the cradle, the second click triggers the cameras and lifts the platen.
The lower button has
two modes. A quick
click will execute the
whole capture process in
one go. But if you hold
it pressed longer, it will
lower the platen,
allowing you to adjust
the book and the cradle,
and lift it without
triggering cameras when
you press again.
Illustration 2: A two-button controller
More on this manual: steps in the book scanning process
The book scanning process in general can be broken down in six steps, each of which will be dealt
in a separate chapter in this manual:
I. Photographing a printed book
I. Getting the image files ready for post-processing
III. Transformation of source images into .tiffs
IV. Optical character recognition
V. Creating a finalized e-book file
VI. Cataloging and sharing the e-book
A step by step manual for Public Library scanner
This manual is primarily meant to provide a detailed description and step-by-step instructions for an
actual book scanning setup -- based on the Voja Antonić's scanner design described above. This is a
two-camera overhead scanner, currently equipped with two Canon 1100 D cameras with EF-S 1855mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS kit lens. It can scan books of up to A4 page size.
The post-processing in this setup is based on a semi-automated transfer of files to a GNU/Linux
personal computer and on the use of free software for image editing, optical character recognition
and finalization of an e-book file. It was initially developed for the HAIP festival in Ljubljana in
2011 and perfected later at MaMa in Zagreb and Leuphana University in Lüneburg.
Public Library scanner is characterized by a somewhat less automated yet distributed scanning
process than highly automated and sophisticated scanner hacks developed at various hacklabs. A
brief overview of one such scanner, developed at the Hacker Space Bruxelles, is also included in
this manual.
The Public Library scanning process proceeds thus in following discrete steps:
1. creating digital images of pages of a book,
2. manual transfer of image files to the computer for post-processing,
3. automated renaming of files, ordering of even and odd pages, rotation of images and upload to a
cloud storage,
4. manual transformation of source images into .tiff files in ScanTailor
5. manual optical character recognition and creation of PDF files in gscan2pdf
The detailed description of the Public Library scanning process follows below.
The Bruxelles hacklab scanning process
For purposes of comparison, here we'll briefly reference the scanner built by the Bruxelles hacklab
(http://hackerspace.be/ScanBot). It is a dual camera design too. With some differences in hardware functionality
(Bruxelles scanner has automatic turning of pages, whereas Public Library scanner has manual turning of pages), the
fundamental difference between the two is in the post-processing - the level of automation in the transfer of images
from the cameras and their transformation into PDF or DjVu e-book format.
The Bruxelles scanning process is different in so far as the cameras are operated by a computer and the images are
automatically transferred, ordered and made ready for further post-processing. The scanner is home-brew, but the
process is for advanced DIY'ers. If you want to know more on the design of the scanner, contact Michael Korntheuer at
contact@hackerspace.be.
The scanning and post-processing is automated by a single Python script that does all the work
http://git.constantvzw.org/?
p=algolit.git;a=tree;f=scanbot_brussel;h=81facf5cb106a8e4c2a76c048694a3043b158d62;hb=HEAD
The scanner uses two Canon point and shoot cameras. Both cameras are connected to the PC with USB. They both run
PTP/CHDK (Canon Hack Development Kit). The scanning sequence is the following:
1. Script sends CHDK command line instructions to the cameras
2. Script sorts out the incoming files. This part is tricky. There is no reliable way to make a distinction between the left
and right camera, only between which camera was recognized by USB first. So the protocol is to always power up the
left camera first. See the instructions with the source code.
3. Collect images in a PDF file
4. Run script to OCR a .PDF file to plain .TXT file: http://git.constantvzw.org/?
p=algolit.git;a=blob;f=scanbot_brussel/ocr_pdf.sh;h=2c1f24f9afcce03520304215951c65f58c0b880c;hb=HEAD
I. PHOTOGRAPHING A PRINTED BOOK
Technologically the most demanding part of the scanning process is creating digital images of the
pages of a printed book. It's a process that is very different form scanner design to scanner design,
from camera to camera. Therefore, here we will focus strictly on the process with the Public Library
scanner.
Operating the Public Library scanner
0. Before you start:
Better and more consistent photographs lead to a more optimized and faster post-processing and a
higher quality of the resulting digital e-book. In order to guarantee the quality of images, before you
start it is necessary to set up the cameras properly and prepare the printed book for scanning.
a) Loosening the book
Depending on the type and quality of binding, some books tend to be too resistant to opening fully
to reveal the inner margin under the pressure of the scanner platen. It is thus necessary to “break in”
the book before starting in order to loosen the binding. The best way is to open it as wide as
possible in multiple places in the book. This can be done against the table edge if the book is more
rigid than usual. (Warning – “breaking in” might create irreversible creasing of the spine or lead to
some pages breaking loose.)
b) Switch on the scanner
You start the scanner by pressing the main switch or plugging the power cable into the the scanner.
This will also turn on the overhead LED lights.
c) Setting up the cameras
Place the cameras onto tripods. You need to move the lever on the tripod's head to allow the tripod
plate screwed to the bottom of the camera to slide into its place. Secure the lock by turning the lever
all the way back.
If the automatic chargers for the camera are provided, open the battery lid on the bottom of the
camera and plug the automatic charger. Close the lid.
Switch on the cameras using the lever on the top right side of the camera's body and place it into the
aperture priority (Av) mode on the mode dial above the lever (see Illustration 3). Use the main dial
just above the shutter button on the front side of the camera to set the aperture value to F8.0.
Illustration 3: Mode and main dial, focus mode switch, zoom
and focus ring
On the lens, turn the focus mode switch to manual (MF), turn the large zoom ring to set the value
exactly midway between 24 and 35 mm (see Illustration 3). Try to set both cameras the same.
To focus each camera, open a book on the cradle, lower the platen by holding the big button on the
controller, and turn on the live view on camera LCD by pressing the live view switch (see
Illustration 4). Now press the magnification button twice and use the focus ring on the front of the
lens to get a clear image view.
Illustration 4: Live view switch and magnification button
d) Connecting the cameras
Now connect the cameras to the remote shutter trigger cables that can be found lying on each side
of the scanner. They need to be plugged into a small round port hidden behind a protective rubber
cover on the left side of the cameras.
e) Placing the book into the cradle and double-checking the cameras
Open the book in the middle and place it on the cradle. Hold pressed the large button on the
controller to lower the Plexiglas platen without triggering the cameras. Move the cradle so that the
the platen fits into with the middle of the book.
Turn on the live view on the cameras' LED to see if the the pages fit into the image and if the
cameras are positioned parallel to the page.
f) Double-check storage cards and batteries
It is important that both storage cards on cameras are empty before starting the scanning in order
not to mess up the page sequence when merging photos from the left and the right camera in the
post-processing. To double-check, press play button on cameras and erase if there are some photos
left from the previous scan -- this you do by pressing the menu button, selecting the fifth menu from
the left and then select 'Erase Images' -> 'All images on card' -> 'OK'.
If no automatic chargers are provided, double-check on the information screen that batteries are
charged. They should be fully charged before starting with the scanning of a new book.
g) Turn off the light in the room
Lighting conditions during scanning should be as constant as possible, to reduce glare and achieve
maximum quality remove any source of light that might reflect off the Plexiglas platen. Preferably
turn off the light in the room or isolate the scanner with the black cloth provided.
1. Photographing a book
Now you are ready to start scanning. Place the book closed in the cradle and lower the platen by
holding the large button on the controller pressed (see Illustration 2). Adjust the position of the
cradle and lift the platen by pressing the large button again.
To scan you can now either use the small button on the controller to lower the platen, adjust and
then press it again to trigger the cameras and lift the platen. Or, you can just make a short press on
the large button to do it in one go.
ATTENTION: When the cameras are triggered, the shutter sound has to be heard coming
from both cameras. If one camera is not working, it's best to reconnect both cameras (see
Section 0), make sure the batteries are charged or adapters are connected, erase all images
and restart.
A mistake made in the photographing requires a lot of work in the post-processing, so it's
much quicker to repeat the photographing process.
If you make a mistake while flipping pages, or any other mistake, go back and scan from the page
you missed or incorrectly scanned. Note down the page where the error occurred and in the postprocessing the redundant images will be removed.
ADVICE: The scanner has a digital counter. By turning the dial forward and backward, you
can set it to tell you what page you should be scanning next. This should help you avoid
missing a page due to a distraction.
While scanning, move the cradle a bit to the left from time to time, making sure that the tip of Vshaped platen is aligned with the center of the book and the inner margin is exposed enough.
II. GETTING THE IMAGE FILES READY FOR POST-PROCESSING
Once the book pages have been photographed, they have to be transfered to the computer and
prepared for post-processing. With two-camera scanners, the capturing process will result in two
separate sets of images -- odd and even pages -- coming from the left and right cameras respectively
-- and you will need to rename and reorder them accordingly, rotate them into a vertical position
and collate them into a single sequence of files.
a) Transferring image files
For the transfer of files your principle process design choices are either to copy the files by
removing the memory cards from the cameras and copying them to the computer via a card reader
or to transfer them via a USB cable. The latter process can be automated by remote operating your
cameras from a computer, however this can be done only with a certain number of Canon cameras
(http://bit.ly/16xhJ6b) that can be hacked to run the open Canon Hack Development Kit firmware
(http://chdk.wikia.com).
After transferring the files, you want to erase all the image files on the camera memory card, so that
they would not end up messing up the scan of the next book.
b) Renaming image files
As the left and right camera are typically operated in sync, the photographing process results in two
separate sets of images, with even and odd pages respectively, that have completely different file
names and potentially same time stamps. So before you collate the page images in the order how
they appear in the book, you want to rename the files so that the first image comes from the right
camera, the second from the left camera, the third comes again from the right camera and so on.
You probably want to do a batch renaming, where your right camera files start with n and are offset
by an increment of 2 (e.g. page_0000.jpg, page_0002.jpg,...) and your left camera files start with
n+1 and are also offset by an increment of 2 (e.g. page_0001.jpg, page_0003.jpg,...).
Batch renaming can be completed either from your file manager, in command line or with a number
of GUI applications (e.g. GPrename, rename, cuteRenamer on GNU/Linux).
c) Rotating image files
Before you collate the renamed files, you might want to rotate them. This is a step that can be done
also later in the post-processing (see below), but if you are automating or scripting your steps this is
a practical place to do it. The images leaving your cameras will be positioned horizontally. In order
to position them vertically, the images from the camera on the right will have to be rotated by 90
degrees counter-clockwise, the images from the camera on the left will have to be rotated by 90
degrees clockwise.
Batch rotating can be completed in a number of photo-processing tools, in command line or
dedicated applications (e.g. Fstop, ImageMagick, Nautilust Image Converter on GNU/Linux).
d) Collating images into a single batch
Once you're done with the renaming and rotating of the files, you want to collate them into the same
folder for easier manipulation later.
Getting the image files ready for post-processing on the Public Library scanner
In the case of Public Library scanner, a custom C++ script was written by Mislav Stublić to
facilitate the transfer, renaming, rotating and collating of the images from the two cameras.
The script prompts the user to place into the card reader the memory card from the right camera
first, gives a preview of the first and last four images and provides an entry field to create a subfolder in a local cloud storage folder (path: /home/user/Copy).
It transfers, renames, rotates the files, deletes them from the card and prompts the user to replace the
card with the one from the left camera in order to the transfer the files from there and place them in
the same folder. The script was created for GNU/Linux system and it can be downloaded, together
with its source code, from: https://copy.com/nLSzflBnjoEB
If you have other cameras than Canon, you can edit the line 387 of the source file to change to the
naming convention of your cameras, and recompile by running the following command in your
terminal: "gcc scanflow.c -o scanflow -ludev `pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-2.0`"
In the case of Hacker Space Bruxelles scanner, this is handled by the same script that operates the cameras that can be
downloaded from: http://git.constantvzw.org/?
p=algolit.git;a=tree;f=scanbot_brussel;h=81facf5cb106a8e4c2a76c048694a3043b158d62;hb=HEAD
III. TRANSFORMATION OF SOURCE IMAGES INTO .TIFFS
Images transferred from the cameras are high definition full color images. You want your cameras
to shoot at the largest possible .jpg resolution in order for resulting files to have at least 300 dpi (A4
at 300 dpi requires a 9.5 megapixel image). In the post-processing the size of the image files needs
to be reduced down radically, so that several hundred images can be merged into an e-book file of a
tolerable size.
Hence, the first step in the post-processing is to crop the images from cameras only to the content of
the pages. The surroundings around the book that were captured in the photograph and the white
margins of the page will be cropped away, while the printed text will be transformed into black
letters on white background. The illustrations, however, will need to be preserved in their color or
grayscale form, and mixed with the black and white text. What were initially large .jpg files will
now become relatively small .tiff files that are ready for optical character recognition process
(OCR).
These tasks can be completed by a number of software applications. Our manual will focus on one
that can be used across all major operating systems -- ScanTailor. ScanTailor can be downloaded
from: http://scantailor.sourceforge.net/. A more detailed video tutorial of ScanTailor can be found
here: http://vimeo.com/12524529.
ScanTailor: from a photograph of a page to a graphic file ready for OCR
Once you have transferred all the photos from cameras to the computer, renamed and rotated them,
they are ready to be processed in the ScanTailor.
1) Importing photographs to ScanTailor
- start ScanTailor and open ‘new project’
- for ‘input directory’ chose the folder where you stored the transferred and renamed photo images
- you can leave ‘output directory’ as it is, it will place your resulting .tiffs in an 'out' folder inside
the folder where your .jpg images are
- select all files (if you followed the naming convention above, they will be named
‘page_xxxx.jpg’) in the folder where you stored the transferred photo images, and click 'OK'
- in the dialog box ‘Fix DPI’ click on All Pages, and for DPI choose preferably '600x600', click
'Apply', and then 'OK'
2) Editing pages
2.1 Rotating photos/pages
If you've rotated the photo images in the previous step using the scanflow script, skip this step.
- Rotate the first photo counter-clockwise, click Apply and for scope select ‘Every other page’
followed by 'OK'
- Rotate the following photo clockwise, applying the same procedure like in the previous step
2.2 Deleting redundant photographs/pages
- Remove redundant pages (photographs of the empty cradle at the beginning and the end of the
book scanning sequence; book cover pages if you don’t want them in the final scan; duplicate pages
etc.) by right-clicking on a thumbnail of that page in the preview column on the right side, selecting
‘Remove from project’ and confirming by clicking on ‘Remove’.
# If you by accident remove a wrong page, you can re-insert it by right-clicking on a page
before/after the missing page in the sequence, selecting 'insert after/before' (depending on which
page you selected) and choosing the file from the list. Before you finish adding, it is necessary to
again go through the procedure of fixing DPI and Rotating.
2.3 Adding missing pages
- If you notice that some pages are missing, you can recapture them with the camera and insert them
manually at this point using the procedure described above under 2.2.
3) Split pages and deskew
Steps ‘Split pages’ and ‘Deskew’ should work automatically. Run them by clicking the ‘Play’ button
under the 'Select content' function. This will do the three steps automatically: splitting of pages,
deskewing and selection of content. After this you can manually re-adjust splitting of pages and deskewing.
4) Selecting content
Step ‘Select content’ works automatically as well, but it is important to revise the resulting selection
manually page by page to make sure the entire content is selected on each page (including the
header and page number). Where necessary, use your pointer device to adjust the content selection.
If the inner margin is cut, go back to 'Split pages' view and manually adjust the selected split area. If
the page is skewed, go back to 'Deskew' and adjust the skew of the page. After this go back to
'Select content' and readjust the selection if necessary.
This is the step where you do visual control of each page. Make sure all pages are there and
selections are as equal in size as possible.
At the bottom of thumbnail column there is a sort option that can automatically arrange pages by
the height and width of the selected content, making the process of manual selection easier. The
extreme differences in height should be avoided, try to make selected areas as much as possible
equal, particularly in height, across all pages. The exception should be cover and back pages where
we advise to select the full page.
5) Adjusting margins
For best results select in the previous step content of the full cover and back page. Now go to the
'Margins' step and set under Margins section both Top, Bottom, Left and Right to 0.0 and do 'Apply
to...' → 'All pages'.
In Alignment section leave 'Match size with other pages' ticked, choose the central positioning of
the page and do 'Apply to...' → 'All pages'.
6) Outputting the .tiffs
Now go to the 'Output' step. Ignore the 'Output Resolution' section.
Next review two consecutive pages from the middle of the book to see if the scanned text is too
faint or too dark. If the text seems too faint or too dark, use slider Thinner – Thicker to adjust. Do
'Apply to' → 'All pages'.
Next go to the cover page and select under Mode 'Color / Grayscale' and tick on 'White Margins'.
Do the same for the back page.
If there are any pages with illustrations, you can choose the 'Mixed' mode for those pages and then
under the thumb 'Picture Zones' adjust the zones of the illustrations.
Now you are ready to output the files. Just press 'Play' button under 'Output'. Once the computer is
finished processing the images, just do 'File' → 'Save as' and save the project.
IV. OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION
Before the edited-down graphic files are finalized as an e-book, we want to transform the image of
the text into an actual text that can be searched, highlighted, copied and transformed. That
functionality is provided by Optical Character Recognition. This a technically difficult task dependent on language, script, typeface and quality of print - and there aren't that many OCR tools
that are good at it. There is, however, a relatively good free software solution - Tesseract
(http://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/) - that has solid performance, good language data and can
be trained for an even better performance, although it has its problems. Proprietary solutions (e.g.
Abby FineReader) sometimes provide superior results.
Tesseract supports as input format primarily .tiff files. It produces a plain text file that can be, with
the help of other tools, embedded as a separate layer under the original graphic image of the text in
a PDF file.
With the help of other tools, OCR can be performed also against other input files, such as graphiconly PDF files. This produces inferior results, depending again on the quality of graphic files and
the reproduction of text in them. One such tool is a bashscript to OCR a ODF file that can be found
here: https://github.com/andrecastro0o/ocr/blob/master/ocr.sh
As mentioned in the 'before scanning' section, the quality of the original book will influence the
quality of the scan and thus the quality of the OCR. For a comparison, have a look here:
http://www.paramoulipist.be/?p=1303
Once you have your .txt file, there is still some work to be done. Because OCR has difficulties to
interpret particular elements in the lay-out and fonts, the TXT file comes with a lot of errors.
Recurrent problems are:
- combinations of specific letters in some fonts (it can mistake 'm' for 'n' or 'I' for 'i' etc.);
- headers become part of body text;
- footnotes are placed inside the body text;
- page numbers are not recognized as such.
V. CREATING A FINALIZED E-BOOK FILE
After the optical character recognition has been completed, the resulting text can be merged with
the images of pages and output into an e-book format. While increasingly the proper e-book file
formats such as ePub have been gaining ground, PDFs still remain popular because many people
tend to read on their computers, and they retain the original layout of the book on paper including
the absolute pagination needed for referencing in citations. DjVu is also an option, as an alternative
to PDF, used because of its purported superiority, but it is far less popular.
The export to PDF can be done again with a number of tools. In our case we'll complete the optical
character recognition and PDF export in gscan2pdf. Again, the proprietary Abbyy FineReader will
produce a bit smaller PDFs.
If you prefer to use an e-book format that works better with e-book readers, obviously you will have
to remove some of the elements that appear in the book - headers, footers, footnotes and pagination.
This can be done earlier in the process of cropping down the original .jpg image files (see under III)
or later by transforming the PDF files. This can be done in Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com) by
converting the PDF into an ePub, where it can be further tweaked to better accommodate or remove
the headers, footers, footnotes and pagination.
Optical character recognition and PDF export in Public Library workflow
Optical character recognition with the Tesseract engine can be performed on GNU/Linux by a
number of command line and GUI tools. Much of those tools exist also for other operating systems.
For the users of the Public Library workflow, we recommend using gscan2pdf application both for
the optical character recognition and the PDF or DjVu export.
To do so, start gscan2pdf and open your .tiff files. To OCR them, go to 'Tools' and select 'OCR'. In
the dialog box select the Tesseract engine and your language. 'Start OCR'. Once the OCR is
finished, export the graphic files and the OCR text to PDF by selecting 'Save as'.
However, given that sometimes the proprietary solutions produce better results, these tasks can also
be done, for instance, on the Abbyy FineReader running on a Windows operating system running
inside the Virtual Box. The prerequisites are that you have both Windows and Abbyy FineReader
you can install in the Virtual Box. If using Virtual Box, once you've got both installed, you need to
designate a shared folder in your Virtual Box and place the .tiff files there. You can now open them
from the Abbyy FineReader running in the Virtual Box, OCR them and export them into a PDF.
To use Abbyy FineReader transfer the output files in your 'out' out folder to the shared folder of the
VirtualBox. Then start the VirtualBox, start Windows image and in Windows start Abbyy
FineReader. Open the files and let the Abbyy FineReader read the files. Once it's done, output the
result into PDF.
VI. CATALOGING AND SHARING THE E-BOOK
Your road from a book on paper to an e-book is complete. If you want to maintain your library you
can use Calibre, a free software tool for e-book library management. You can add the metadata to
your book using the existing catalogues or you can enter metadata manually.
Now you may want to distribute your book. If the work you've digitized is in the public domain
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain), you might consider contributing it to the Gutenberg
project
(http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Volunteers'_FAQ#V.1._How_do_I_get_started_as_a_Pr
oject_Gutenberg_volunteer.3F ), Wikibooks (https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Help:Contributing ) or
Arhive.org.
If the work is still under copyright, you might explore a number of different options for sharing.
QUICK WORKFLOW REFERENCE FOR SCANNING AND
POST-PROCESSING ON PUBLIC LIBRARY SCANNER
I. PHOTOGRAPHING A PRINTED BOOK
0. Before you start:
- loosen the book binding by opening it wide on several places
- switch on the scanner
- set up the cameras:
- place cameras on tripods and fit them tigthly
- plug in the automatic chargers into the battery slot and close the battery lid
- switch on the cameras
- switch the lens to Manual Focus mode
- switch the cameras to Av mode and set the aperture to 8.0
- turn the zoom ring to set the focal length exactly midway between 24mm and 35mm
- focus by turning on the live view, pressing magnification button twice and adjusting the
focus to get a clear view of the text
- connect the cameras to the scanner by plugging the remote trigger cable to a port behind a
protective rubber cover on the left side of the cameras
- place the book into the crade
- double-check storage cards and batteries
- press the play button on the back of the camera to double-check if there are images on the
camera - if there are, delete all the images from the camera menu
- if using batteries, double-check that batteries are fully charged
- switch off the light in the room that could reflect off the platen and cover the scanner with the
black cloth
1. Photographing
- now you can start scanning either by pressing the smaller button on the controller once to
lower the platen and adjust the book, and then press again to increase the light intensity, trigger the
cameras and lift the platen; or by pressing the large button completing the entire sequence in one
go;
- ATTENTION: Shutter sound should be coming from both cameras - if one camera is not
working, it's best to reconnect both cameras, make sure the batteries are charged or adapters
are connected, erase all images and restart.
- ADVICE: The scanner has a digital counter. By turning the dial forward and backward,
you can set it to tell you what page you should be scanning next. This should help you to
avoid missing a page due to a distraction.
II. Getting the image files ready for post-processing
- after finishing with scanning a book, transfer the files to the post-processing computer
and purge the memory cards
- if transferring the files manually:
- create two separate folders,
- transfer the files from the folders with image files on cards, using a batch
renaming software rename the files from the right camera following the convention
page_0001.jpg, page_0003.jpg, page_0005.jpg... -- and the files from the left camera
following the convention page_0002.jpg, page_0004.jpg, page_0006.jpg...
- collate image files into a single folder
- before ejecting each card, delete all the photo files on the card
- if using the scanflow script:
- start the script on the computer
- place the card from the right camera into the card reader
- enter the name of the destination folder following the convention
"Name_Surname_Title_of_the_Book" and transfer the files
- repeat with the other card
- script will automatically transfer the files, rename, rotate, collate them in proper
order and delete them from the card
III. Transformation of source images into .tiffs
ScanTailor: from a photograph of page to a graphic file ready for OCR
1) Importing photographs to ScanTailor
- start ScanTailor and open ‘new project’
- for ‘input directory’ chose the folder where you stored the transferred photo images
- you can leave ‘output directory’ as it is, it will place your resulting .tiffs in an 'out' folder
inside the folder where your .jpg images are
- select all files (if you followed the naming convention above, they will be named
‘page_xxxx.jpg’) in the folder where you stored the transferred photo images, and click
'OK'
- in the dialog box ‘Fix DPI’ click on All Pages, and for DPI choose preferably '600x600',
click 'Apply', and then 'OK'
2) Editing pages
2.1 Rotating photos/pages
If you've rotated the photo images in the previous step using the scanflow script, skip this step.
- rotate the first photo counter-clockwise, click Apply and for scope select ‘Every other
page’ followed by 'OK'
- rotate the following photo clockwise, applying the same procedure like in the previous
step
2.2 Deleting redundant photographs/pages
- remove redundant pages (photographs of the empty cradle at the beginning and the end;
book cover pages if you don’t want them in the final scan; duplicate pages etc.) by rightclicking on a thumbnail of that page in the preview column on the right, selecting ‘Remove
from project’ and confirming by clicking on ‘Remove’.
# If you by accident remove a wrong page, you can re-insert it by right-clicking on a page
before/after the missing page in the sequence, selecting 'insert after/before' and choosing the file
from the list. Before you finish adding, it is necessary to again go the procedure of fixing DPI and
rotating.
2.3 Adding missing pages
- If you notice that some pages are missing, you can recapture them with the camera and
insert them manually at this point using the procedure described above under 2.2.
3)
Split pages and deskew
- Functions ‘Split Pages’ and ‘Deskew’ should work automatically. Run them by
clicking the ‘Play’ button under the 'Select content' step. This will do the three steps
automatically: splitting of pages, deskewing and selection of content. After this you can
manually re-adjust splitting of pages and de-skewing.
4)
Selecting content and adjusting margins
- Step ‘Select content’ works automatically as well, but it is important to revise the
resulting selection manually page by page to make sure the entire content is selected on
each page (including the header and page number). Where necessary use your pointer device
to adjust the content selection.
- If the inner margin is cut, go back to 'Split pages' view and manually adjust the selected
split area. If the page is skewed, go back to 'Deskew' and adjust the skew of the page. After
this go back to 'Select content' and readjust the selection if necessary.
- This is the step where you do visual control of each page. Make sure all pages are there
and selections are as equal in size as possible.
- At the bottom of thumbnail column there is a sort option that can automatically arrange
pages by the height and width of the selected content, making the process of manual
selection easier. The extreme differences in height should be avoided, try to make
selected areas as much as possible equal, particularly in height, across all pages. The
exception should be cover and back pages where we advise to select the full page.
5) Adjusting margins
- Now go to the 'Margins' step and set under Margins section both Top, Bottom, Left and
Right to 0.0 and do 'Apply to...' → 'All pages'.
- In Alignment section leave 'Match size with other pages' ticked, choose the central
positioning of the page and do 'Apply to...' → 'All pages'.
6) Outputting the .tiffs
- Now go to the 'Output' step.
- Review two consecutive pages from the middle of the book to see if the scanned text is
too faint or too dark. If the text seems too faint or too dark, use slider Thinner – Thicker to
adjust. Do 'Apply to' → 'All pages'.
- Next go to the cover page and select under Mode 'Color / Grayscale' and tick on 'White
Margins'. Do the same for the back page.
- If there are any pages with illustrations, you can choose the 'Mixed' mode for those
pages and then under the thumb 'Picture Zones' adjust the zones of the illustrations.
- To output the files press 'Play' button under 'Output'. Save the project.
IV. Optical character recognition & V. Creating a finalized e-book file
If using all free software:
1) open gscan2pdf (if not already installed on your machine, install gscan2pdf from the
repositories, Tesseract and data for your language from https://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/)
- point gscan2pdf to open your .tiff files
- for Optical Character Recognition, select 'OCR' under the drop down menu 'Tools',
select the Tesseract engine and your language, start the process
- once OCR is finished and to output to a PDF, go under 'File' and select 'Save', edit the
metadata and select the format, save
If using non-free software:
2) open Abbyy FineReader in VirtualBox (note: only Abby FineReader 10 installs and works with some limitations - under GNU/Linux)
- transfer files in the 'out' folder to the folder shared with the VirtualBox
- point it to the readied .tiff files and it will complete the OCR
- save the file
REFERENCES
For more information on the book scanning process in general and making your own book scanner
please visit:
DIY Book Scanner: http://diybookscannnner.org
Hacker Space Bruxelles scanner: http://hackerspace.be/ScanBot
Public Library scanner: http://www.memoryoftheworld.org/blog/2012/10/28/our-belovedbookscanner/
Other scanner builds: http://wiki.diybookscanner.org/scanner-build-list
For more information on automation:
Konrad Voeckel's post-processing script (From Scan to PDF/A):
http://blog.konradvoelkel.de/2013/03/scan-to-pdfa/
Johannes Baiter's automation of scanning to PDF process: http://spreads.readthedocs.org
For more information on applications and tools:
Calibre e-book library management application: http://calibre-ebook.com/
ScanTailor: http://scantailor.sourceforge.net/
gscan2pdf: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gscan2pdf/
Canon Hack Development Kit firmware: http://chdk.wikia.com
Tesseract: http://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/
Python script of Hacker Space Bruxelles scanner: http://git.constantvzw.org/?
p=algolit.git;a=tree;f=scanbot_brussel;h=81facf5cb106a8e4c2a76c048694a3043b158d62;hb=HEA
D
Sekulic
Legal Hacking and Space
2015
# Legal hacking and space
## What can urban commons learn from the free software hackers?
There is now a need to readdress urban commons through the lens of the digital
commons, writes Dubravka Sekulic. The lessons to be drawn from the free
software community and its resistance to the enclosure of code will likely
prove particularly valuable where participation and regulation are concerned.
> Commons are a particular type of institutional arrangement for governing the
use and disposition of resources. Their salient characteristic, which defines
them in contradistinction to property, is that no single person has exclusive
control over the use and disposition of any particular resource. Instead,
resources governed by commons may be used or disposed of by anyone among some
(more or less defined) number of persons, under rules that may range from
"anything goes" to quite crisply articulated formal rules that are effectively
enforced.
> (Benkler 2003: 6)
The above definition of commons, from the seminal paper "The political economy
of commons" by Yochai Benkler, addresses any type of commons, whether analogue
or digital. In fact, the concept of commons entered the digital realm from
physical space in order to interpret the type of communities, relationships
and production that started to appear with the development of the free as
opposed to the proprietary. Peter Linebaugh charted in his excellent book
_Magna Carta Manifesto_ , how the creation and development of the concept of
commons were closely connected to constantly changing relationships of people
and communities to the physical space. Here, I argue that the concept was
enriched when it was implemented in the digital field. Readdressing urban
space through the lens of digital commons can enable another imagination and
knowledge to appear around urban commons.
[](http://www.derive.at/)The
notion of commons in (urban) space is often complicated by archaic models of
organization and management - "the pasture we knew how to share". There is a
tendency to give the impression that the solution is in reverting to the past
models. In the realm of digital though, there is no "pasture" from the Middle
Ages to fall back on. Digital commons had to start from scratch and define its
own protocols of production and reproduction (caring and sharing). Therefore,
the digital commons and free software community can be the one to turn to, not
only for inspiration and advice, but also as a partner when addressing
questions of urban commons. Or, as Marcell Mars would put it "if we could
start again with (regulating and defining) land, knowing what we know now
about digital networks, we could come up with something much better and
appropriate for today's world. That property wouldn't be private, maybe not
even property, but something else. Only then can we say we have learned
something from the digital" (2013).
## Enclosure as the trigger for action
The moment we turn to commons in relation to (urban) space is the moment in
which the pressure to privatize public space and to commodify every aspect of
urban life has become so strong that it can be argued that it mirrors a moment
in which Magna Carta Libertatum was introduced to protect the basic
reproduction of life for those whose sustenance was connected to the common
pastures and forests of England in the thirteenth century. At the end of the
twentieth century, urban space became the ultimate commodity, and increasing
privatization not only endangered the reproduction of everyday life in the
city; the rent extraction through privatized public space and housing
endangered bare life itself. Additionally, the cities' continuous
privatization of its amenities transformed almost every action in the city, no
matter how mundane - as for example, drinking a glass of water from a tap -,
into an action that creates profit for some private entity and extracts it
from the community. Thus every activity became labour, which a citizen-worker
is not only alienated from, but also unaware of. David Harvey's statement
about the city replacing the factory as a site of class war seems to be not
only an apt description of the condition of life in the city, but also a cry
for action.
When Richard Stallman turned to the foundational gesture of the creation of
free software, GNU/GPL (General Public Licence) was his reaction to the
artificially imposed logic of scarcity on the world of code - and the
increasing and systematic enclosure that took place in the late 1970s and
1980s as "a tidal wave of commercialization transformed software from a
technical object into a commodity, to be bought and sold on the open market
under the alleged protection of intellectual property law" (Coleman 2012:
138). Stallman, who worked as a researcher at MIT's Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory, detected how "[m]any programmers are unhappy about the
commercialization of system software. It may enable them to make more money,
but it requires them to feel in conflict with other programmers in general
rather than feel as comrades. The fundamental act of friendship among
programmers is the sharing of programs; marketing arrangements now typically
used essentially forbid programmers to treat others as friends. The purchaser
of software must choose between friendship and obeying the law. Naturally,
many decide that friendship is more important. But those who believe in law
often do not feel at ease with either choice. They become cynical and think
that programming is just a way of making money" (Stallman 2002: 32).
In the period between 1980 and 1984, "one man [Stallman] envisioned a crusade
to change the situation" (Moglen 1999). Stallman understood that in order to
subvert the system, he would have to intervene in the protocols that regulate
the conditions under which the code is produced, and not the code itself;
although he did contribute some of the best lines of code into the compiler
and text editor - the foundational infrastructure for any development. The
gesture that enabled the creation of a free software community that yielded
the complex field of digital commons was not a perfect line of code. The
creation of GNU General Public License (GPL) was a legal hack to counteract
the imposing of intellectual property law on code. At that time, the only
license available for programmers wanting to keep the code free was public
domain, which gave no protection against the code being appropriated and
closed. GPL enabled free codes to become self-perpetuating. Everything built
using a free code had to be made available under the same condition, in order
to secure the freedom for programmers to continue sharing and not breaking the
law. "By working on and using GNU rather than proprietary programs, we can be
hospitable to everyone and obey the law. In addition, GNU serves as an example
to inspire and as a banner to rally others to join in sharing. This can give
us a feeling of harmony, which is impossible if we use software, which is not
free. For about half the programmers I talk to, this is an important happiness
that money cannot replace" (Stallman 2002: 33).
Architects and planners as well as environmental designers have for too long
believed the opposite, that a good enough design can subvert the logic of
enclosure that dominates the production and reproduction of space; that a good
enough design can keep space open and public by the sheer strength of spatial
intervention. Stallman rightfully understands that no design is strong enough
to keep private ownership from claiming what it believes belongs to it.
Digital and urban commons, despite operating in completely different realms
and economies, are under attack from the same threat of "market processes"
that "crucially depend upon the individual monopoly of capitalists (of all
sorts) over ownership of the means of production, including finance and land.
All rent, recall, is a return to the monopoly power of private ownership of
some crucial asset, such as land or a patent. The monopoly power of private
property is therefore both the beginning-point and the end-point of all
capitalist activity" (Harvey 2012: 100). Stallman envisioned a bleak future
(2003: 26-28) but found a way to "relate the means to the ends". He understood
that the emancipatory task of a struggle "is not only what has to be done, but
also how it will be done and who will do it" (Stavrides & De Angelis: 7).
Thus, to produce the necessary requirements - both for a community to emerge,
but also for the basis of future protocols - tools and methodologies are
needed for the community to create both free software and itself.
## Renegotiating (undoing) property, hacking the law, creating community
Property, as an instrument of allocation of resources, is a right that is
negotiated within society and by society and not written in stone or given as
such. The digital, more than any other field, discloses property as being
inappropriate for contemporary relationships between production and
reproduction and, additionally, proves how it is possible to fundamentally
rethink it. The digital offers this possibility as it is non-material, non-
rival and non-exclusive (Meretz 2013), unlike anything in the physical world.
And Elinor Ostrom's lifelong empirical researches give ground to the belief
that eschewing property, being the sole instrument of allocation, can work as
a tool of management even for rival, excludable goods.
The value of information in digital form is not flat, but property is not the
way to protect that value, as the music industry realized during the course of
the last ten years. Once the copy is _out there_ , the cost of protecting its
exclusivity on the grounds of property becomes too high in relation to the
potential value to be extracted. For example, the value is extracted from
information through controlling the moment of its release and not through
subsequent exploitation. Stallman decided to tackle the imposition of the
concept of property on computer code (and by extension to the digital realm as
a whole) by articulating it in another field: just as property is the product
of constant negotiations within a society, so are legal regulations. After
some time, he was joined by "[m]any free software developers [who] do not
consider intellectual property instruments as the pivotal stimulus for a
marketplace of ideas and knowledge. Instead, they see them as a form of
restriction so fundamental (or poorly executed) that they need to be
counteracted through alternative legal agreements that treat knowledge,
inventions, and other creative expressions not as property but rather as
speech to be freely shared, circulated, and modified" (Coleman 2012: 26).
The digital sphere can give a valid example of how renegotiating regulation
can transform a resource from scarce to abundant. When the change from
analogue signal to packet switching begun to take effect, the distribution of
finite territory and the way the radio frequency spectrum was managed got
renegotiated and the amount of slots of space to be allocated grew by an order
of magnitude while the absolute size of the spectrum stayed the same. This
shift enabled Brecht's dream of a two-sided radio to become reality, thus
enabling what he had suggested: "change this apparatus over from distribution
to communication".1
According to Lawrence Lessig, what regulates behavior in cyberspace is an
interdependence of four constraints: market, law, architecture and norms
(Lessig 2012: 121-25). Analogously, space can be put in place of cyberspace,
as the regulation of space is the sum of these four constraints. These four
constraints are in a dynamic relationship in which the balance can be tilted
towards one, depending on how much each of these categories puts pressure on
the other three. Changes in any one reflect the regulation of the whole.
"Architecture" in Lessig's theory should be understood broadly as the "built
environment" that regulates behaviour in (cyber)space. In the last few decades
we have experienced the domination of the market reconfiguring the basis of
norms, law and architecture. In order to counteract this, the other three
constraints need to be re-negotiated. In digital space, this reconfiguration
happened by declaring the code - that is, the set of instructions written as
highly formalized text in a specific programming language to be executed
(usually) by the computer - to be considered as speech in front of the law,
and by hacking the law in order to disrupt the way that property relationships
are formed.
To put it simply, in order to create a change in dynamics between the
architecture, norms and the market, the law had to be addressed first. This is
not a novel procedure, "legal hacking is going on all the time, it is just
that politics is doing it under the veil of legality because they are the
parliament, they are Microsoft, which can hire a whole law firm to defend them
and find all the legal loopholes. Legal hacking is the norm actually" (Bailey
2013). When it comes to physical space, one of the most obvious examples of
the reconfiguration of regulations under the influence of the market is to
create legal provisions, norms and architecture to sustain the concept of
developing (and privatizing) public space through public-private partnerships.
The decision of the Italian parliament that the privatization of services
(specifically of water management) is legal and does not obstruct one's access
to water as a human right, is another example of a crude manipulation of the
law by the state in favour of the market. Unlike legal hacks by corporations
that aim to create a favourable legal climate for another round of
accumulation through dispossession, Stallman's hack tries to limit the impact
of the market and to create a space of freedom for the creation of a code and
of sharable knowledge, by questioning one of the central pillars of liberal
jurisprudence: (intellectual) property law.
Similarly, translated into physical space, one of the initiatives in Europe
that comes closest to creating a real existing urban commons, Teatro Valle
Occupato in Rome, is doing the same, "pushing the borders of legality of
private property" by legally hacking the institution of a foundation to "serve
a public, or common, purpose" and having "notarized [a] document registered
with the Italian state, that creates a precedent for other people to follow in
its way" (Bailey 2013). Sounds familiar to Stallman's hack as the fundamental
gesture by which community and the whole eco-system can be formed.
It is obvious that, in order to create and sustain that type of legal hack, it
is a necessity to have a certain level of awareness and knowledge of how
systems, both political and legal, work, i.e. to be politically literate.
"While in general", says Italian commons-activist and legal scholar Saki
Bailey, "we've become extremely lazy [when it comes to politics]. We've
started to become a kind of society of people who give up their responsibility
to participate by handing it over to some charismatic leaders, experts of [a]
different type" (2013). Free software hackers, in order to understand and take
part in a constant negotiation that takes place on a legal level between the
market that seeks to cloister the code and hackers who want to keep it free,
had to become literate in an arcane legal language. Gabriella Coleman notes in
_Coding Freedom_ that hacker forums sometimes tend to produce legal analysis
that is just as serious as one would expect to find in a law office. Like the
occupants of Teatro Valle, free software hackers understand the importance of
devoting time and energy to understand constraints and to find ways to
structurally divert them.
This type of knowledge is not shared and created in isolation, but in
socialization, in discussions in physical or cyber spaces (such as #irc chat
rooms, forums, mailing lists…), the same way free software hackers share their
knowledge about code. Through this process of socializing knowledge, "the
community is formed, developed, and reproduced through practices focused on
common space. To generalize this principle: the community is developed through
commoning, through acts and forms of organization oriented towards the
production of the common" (Stavrides 2012: 588). Thus forming a community is
another crucial element of the creation of digital commons, but even more
important are its development and resilience. The emerging community was not
given something to manage, it created something together, and together devised
rules of self-regulation and decision-making.
The prime example of this principle in the free software community is the
Debian Project, formed around the development of the Debian Linux
distribution. It is a volunteer organization consisting of around 3,000
developers that since its inception in 1993 has defined a set of basic
principles by which the project and its members conduct their affairs. This
includes the introduction of new people into the community, a process called
Debian Social Contract (DSC). A special part of the DSC defines the criteria
for "free software", thus regulating technical aspects of the project and also
technical relations with the rest of a free software community. The Debian
Constitution, another document created by the community so it can govern
itself, describes the organizational structure for formal decision-making
within the project.
Another example is Wikipedia, where the community that makes the online
encyclopedia also takes part in creating regulations, with some aspects
debated almost endlessly on forums. It is even possible to detect a loose
community of "Internet users" who took to the streets all over the world when
SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Preventing Real Online Threats to
Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act) threatened to
enclose the Internet, as we know it; the proposed legislation was successfully
contested.
Free software projects that represent the core of the digital commons are most
of the time born of the initiative of individuals, but their growth and life
cycle depend on the fact that they get picked up by a community or generate
community around them that is allowed to take part in their regulation and in
decisions about which shape and forms the project will take in the future.
This is an important lesson to be transferred to the physical space in which
many projects fail because they do not get picked up by the intended
community, as the community is not offered a chance to partake in its creation
and, more importantly, its regulation.
## Building common infrastructure and institutions
"The expansion of intellectual property law" as the main vehicle of the trend
to enclose the code that leads to the act of the creation of free software
and, thus, digital commons, "is part and parcel of a broader neoliberal trend
to privatize what was once under public or under the state's aegis, such as
health provision, water delivery, and military services" (Coleman 2012: 16).
The structural fight headed by the GNU/GPL against the enclosure of code
"defines the contractual relationship that serves to secure the freedom of
means of production and to constitute a community of those participating in
the production and reproduction of free resources. And it is this constitutive
character, as an answer to an every time singular situation of appropriation
by the capital, that is a genuine political emancipation striving for an equal
and free collective production" (Mars & Medak 2004). Thus digital commons "is
based on the _communication_ among _singularities_ and emerges through
collaborative social processes of production " (Negri & Hardt 2005: 204).
The most important lesson urban commons can take from its digital counterpart
is at the same time the most difficult one: how to make a structural hack in
the moment of the creation of an urban commons that will enable it to become
structurally self-perpetuating, thus creating fertile ground not only for a
singular spatialization of urban commons to appear, but to multiply and create
a whole new eco-system. Digital commons was the first field in which what
Negri and Hardt (2009: 3-21) called the "republic of property" was challenged.
Urban commons, in order to really emerge as a spatialization of a new type of
relationship, need to start undoing property as well in order to socially re-
appropriate the city. Or in the words of Stavros Stavrides "the most urgent
and promising task, which can oppose the dominant governance model, is the
reinvention of common space. The realm of the common emerges in a constant
confrontation with state-controlled 'authorized' public space. This is an
emergence full of contradictions, perhaps, quite difficult to predict, but
nevertheless necessary. Behind a multifarious demand for justice and dignity,
new roads to collective emancipation are tested and invented. And, as the
Zapatistas say, we can create these roads only while walking. But we have to
listen, to observe, and to feel the walking movement. Together" (Stavrides
2012: 594).
The big task for both digital and urban commons is "[b]uilding a core common
infrastructure [which] is a necessary precondition to allow us to transition
away from a society of passive consumers buying what a small number of
commercial producers are selling. It will allow us to develop into a society
in which all can speak to all, and in which anyone can become an active
participant in political, social and cultural discourse" (Benkler 2003: 9).
This core common infrastructure has to be porous enough to include people that
are not similar, to provide "a ground to build a public realm and give
opportunities for discussing and negotiating what is good for all, rather than
the idea of strengthening communities in their struggle to define their own
commons. Relating commons to groups of "similar" people bears the danger of
eventually creating closed communities. People may thus define themselves as
commoners by excluding others from their milieu, from their own privileged
commons." (Stavrides 2010). If learning carefully from digital commons, urban
commons need to be conceptualized on the basis of the public, with a self-
regulating community that is open for others to join. That socializes
knowledge and thus produces and reproduces the commons, creating a space for
political emancipation that is capable of judicial arguments for the
protection and extension of regulations that are counter-market oriented.
## References
Bailey, Saki (2013): Interview by Dubravka Sekulic and Alexander de Cuveland.
Benkler, Yochai (2003): "The political economy of commons". _Upgrade_ IV, no.
3, 6-9, [www.benkler.org/Upgrade-
Novatica%20Commons.pdf](http://www.benkler.org/Upgrade-
Novatica%20Commons.pdf).
Benkler, Yochai (2006): _The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production
Transforms Markets and Freedom_. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Brecht, Bertolt (2000): "The radio as a communications apparatus". In: _Brecht
on Film and Radio_ , edited by Marc Silberman. Methuen, 41-6.
Coleman, E. Gabriella (2012): _Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of
Hacking_. Princeton University Press / Kindle edition.
Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri (2005): _Multitude: War and Democracy in the
Age of Empire_. Penguin Books.
Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri (2011): _Commonwealth_. Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press.
Harvey, David (2012): The Art of Rent. In: _Rebel Cities: From the Right to
the City to the Urban Revolution_ , 1st ed. Verso, 94-118.
Hill, Benjamin Mako (2012): Freedom for Users, Not for Software. In: Bollier,
David & Helfrich, Silke (Ed.): _The Wealth of the Commons: a World Beyond
Market and State_. Levellers Press / E-book.
Lessig, Lawrence (2012): _Code: Version 2.0_. Basic Books.
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1
"[...] radio is one-sided when it should be two-. It is purely an apparatus
for distribution, for mere sharing out. So here is a positive suggestion:
change this apparatus over from distribution to communication". See "The radio
as a communications apparatus", Brecht 2000.
Published 4 November 2015
Original in English
First published by derive 61 (2015)