Tag Archives: Copyright

Responding To SOPA and PIPA: Intellectual Property, Public Domain, and Open Clip Art Library

Posted on by Pete Ippel
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What I find particularly interesting about the current debate on Intellectual Property is the fact that IP even exists.

If everyone gives their work away for the betterment of humanity, many people benefit. I have watched Open Clip Art Library (OCAL) grow for quite some time and it has a vibrant community based solely on sharing. Every piece of content is Public Domain. In the last week it’s received a massive influx of new users.

STOP SOPA / PIPA David B Lyons / davidblyons

STOP SOPA / PIPA David B Lyons / davidblyons SOPA and PIPA are real threats to the free and open Internet. Although recent media reports have suggested that the bills are losing support, they are not dead. On January 17th, SOPA's sponsor said the bill will be discussed and pushed forward in early February. PIPA could be debated in the U.S. Senate as soon as next week. There is a need to send a strong message that bills like SOPA and PIPA must not move forward: they will cause too much damage. Download, remix, and share the image from Open Clip Art Library http://openclipart.org/detail/167202/stop-sopa-by-davidblyons-167202


When the US government has a De Facto standard of copyright for all creative works in tangible form, there is an inherent hurdle to sharing.

Imagine a world where where that hurdle didn’t exist.

Learn more about SOPA, PIPA, and the Wikipedia Blackout.

Download, remix, and share the image from Open Clip Art Library http://openclipart.org/detail/167202/stop-sopa-by-davidblyons-167202

Free And Open Culture Mind Map

Posted on by Pete Ippel
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My passion: to empower some free-culture advocating, network-neutrality loving, FLOSS using, empathy having, critical thinking art students. Today we did a bit of brainstorming about what influences/passions can guide us as a group toward a collaborative project.

Keeping in mind the concepts of free and open culture, between now and the next session each individual will be color coding inter-student connections, rather than focusing internally.

Keep an eye on the Mindmeister mind map below to watch our project develop. You’ll probably have the best user experience if you click on the little box at the bottom of the interface controls to open the mind map in a new window.

Making History: Free And Open Culture

Posted on by Pete Ippel
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Basic black & white cartoon computer. Image contains computer monitor and base/case.

You can create art and beauty on a computer.

FREE AND OPEN CULTURE

Making and Meaning – Making History Project
San Francisco Art Institute, Fall, 2010
Workshop Leader: Pete Ippel

Summary: Free and Open Culture refers to a wide variety of advocates who value free access, open information, and the sharing of knowledge. As a rapidly developing movement, Free and Open Culture has its roots in computer programming and hacker ethic from the 1950s-1960s.

Illustrates the path of software creation from source code to machine code.

Illustrates the path of software creation from source code to machine code.


Developments include Creative Commons licensing, FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software), Network Neutrality, Open Government, and Copyleft.

Free Culture proponents are marked by acceptance of some general principles: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic#The_hacker_ethics)

  • Sharing
  • Openness
  • Decentralization
  • Free access to computers
  • World Improvement

Cultural Figures: Linus Torvalds (programmer, Linux), Richard Stallman (programmer, GNU), Lawrence Lessig (academic, Creative Commons), Jon Phillips (developer, Sharism, Fabricatorz), Femke Snelting (artist/designer, LGM), Simona Lodi (arts administrator, To Share Festival), Nina Paley (animator, Sita Sings The Blues), Negativeland (music), Ant Farm (art), Adbusters (magazine), The Yes Men (art)

Project:  Students will spend the first sessions studying the history and techniques of the Free and Open Culture advocates and artists. There will be tutorials on a variety of software, as well as an off campus outing to practice employing the Hands-On Imperative.

“…essential lessons can be learned about the systems—about the world—from taking things apart, seeing how they work, and using this knowledge to create new and more interesting things.”
- Steven Levy

Students will pursue the following questions:

In the remaining sessions, students will be challenged to create with only the materials they have on hand – please bring an open mind and your own PORTABLE creation tools of choice to each session (mobile phone, laptop, sketchbook, notebook, watercolor, pencils, video camera, still camera, etc.).

We will be developing a collaborative community-centric studio (less) art practice out in the environment. The group will create their own art pieces in any media with strong consideration of Free and Open Culture. The end result will be an on-line repository (Mediawiki) documenting the projects. It is expected that the participants in this class will license their work under Creative Commons, and investigate the following issues:

  • I create everywhere because I have the network in my pocket.
  • If it’s not on the Internet, it doesn’t exist.
  • Objects are not important, information is.
  • I don’t need to know it if I know how to find it.
  • Online, nothing disappears, and everything is gone.
  • I feed the network, it feeds me.