International team members from the UK and Brazil will join ccSA to present the findings to date of an exciting collaborative project, called OpenBusiness, which investigates the feasibility, practicality and financial sustainability of the open-content business models used by creators, entrepreneurs and artists. Join us on Wednesday, 8 February from 17h30-19h00.
Classroom 9, Donald Gordon Building, Wits P&DM, 2 St David’s Place, Parktown. Snacks will be provided.
OpenBusiness seminar & discussion, Wednesday 8 February
Launch of creative-commons licensed book: Wireless Networking in the Developing World
“Imagine trying to piece together a wireless network with no manuals, sporadic and slow access to the Internet, inadequate tools, a shortage of supplies, and in the most inclement weather. The authors of a recently published book, “Wireless Networking in the Developing World” don’t need to imagine. They have been doing so for years.”
So begins the press release which announces the launch of this dynamic publication that is destined to become the ‘bible’ for developing-nation wireless techies. The book provides valuable information, which, whilst available in an online environment, is almost impossible to access in developing nations due to poor connectivity. The book details critical information that is needed to build networks, including diagrams and calculations, and presents the information in a manner that allows techies to learn in an offline environment.
The book was compiled during a ‘book-sprint’ which consisted of a group of hand-picked wireless community networking specialists that gathered together for an intensive 3-month period to develop the material, pooling their experience, expertise and knowledge of the challenges facing techies in the developing world.
The book is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike, 2.5 and is available free for download.
Says Corinna ‘Elektra’ Aichele, one of the authors: “Our book will be released under a Creative Commons license, so everybody can copy and distribute it free of charge. That doesn’t mean it is a ‘cheap’ book. I think it is a great book.”
Local copyright activists warn of US-SACU bilaterals
Local copyright activists, including Denise Nicholson of the ‘Africa Copyright and Access to Information Alliance’, have warned of the negative implications that the U.S. trade negotiations with the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) could have on education, libraries, public health, internet service providers, and access to digital media. She urges researchers, the educational sector, libraries and library associations, literacy and consumer groups, as well as departments of education, science and technology, public health, etc. in SACU countries (i.e. in SA, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia) to address this matter urgently with their respective trade offices before these provisions are adopted. ‘Intellectual property provisions in the US free trade agreement (FTA) far exceed the requirements of the TRIPS Agreement which SACU countries have signed. These provisions (known as TRIPS Plus) also include extension of the copyright term for a further 20 years, which will have a huge impact on material in the public domain, availability and access to information and exchange of knowledge in SACU countries – all net importers of IP.’
According to ‘bilaterals.org‘, the talks were stalled in 2004, but are set to resume in July this year. Tralac intern, Gus Mandigora says, ‘Increased protection for US intellectual property may deal a heavy blow to the region’s fight against HIV/AIDS while increased investment protection may usurp the individual countries’ ability to regulate the nature, conduct and impact of US investment.’ Bianca Mathe gets some great responses to her question of whether SACU has a choice not to accept the provisions, asking: ‘Should SACU thus cut to the chase and accept the ‘agreement’ that the US is proposing?’
GPLv3 released
A draft of version 3.0 of the GPL has just been released. According to Tectonic, ‘The draft of GPLv3 tackles new issues including digital rights managment and software patents, relatively new threats to free software, that have grown as challenges to the movement. The new licence also looks to address the global nature of free software and make the licence more relevant and enforceable in different countries around the world.’ See more >>
Digital Rights Declaration announced
The Consumer Digital Rights Campaign recently announced a declaration with the following 6 ‘digital rights’:
Policy makers are being urged to endorse the 6 Consumers Digital Rights. The campaign demands:
A legal framework that will encourage new means of exposure and distribution of digital content, while guaranteeing remuneration to artists, creators and performers and providing consumers and the public
with new means of access, discovery and new uses;
A new balance between exclusive rights in the exploitation of digital content and public interest objectives in using and sharing such content, taking into account the new possibilities of content usage enabled by technical progress;
That industry desist from legal action against P2P downloaders to allow the market to find solutions for the on-line development of audio/visual distribution that takes due account of the public interest and the interest of artists, creators and performers;
Action to find solutions on how consumers can effectively exercise their private use rights and to guarantee that users of DRMs respect the legitimate interest of consumers in their personal autonomy and private sphere;
Mechanisms to ensure that TPMs or DRMs, which restrict uses legally exempted from copyright or not falling under copyright, do not benefit from legal protection;
A review of the EU legal framework on consumer protection and intellectual property in view of the 6 consumers rights demands expressed in this Declaration.
Starting 2006 with an inspired bang!
Kalangala, Island, Victoria Lake, Uganda, 6 January
Over an 8-day period, 140 people from around Africa and beyond, came together to live, learn and be inspired at the Africa Source II FOSS technology workshop, organised by the Tactical Tech team.
Presented in 3 main tracks, participants were invited to share their stories and learn from experts in the fields of ‘Information handling and citizen’s media’, ‘Migration for education and resource centres’ and ‘Migration for NGOs’. Afternoon sessions covered items such as Alternative Access and Localisation.
Heather Ford, project lead for Creative Commons SA, was the lead facilitator for the Info Handling track and assisted participants with outlining campaign and organisational communication strategies, whilst highlighting the importance for the NGO and educational sectors of formalising their open content policies with the use of open content licences. Valuable skills-share sessions were also included where participants and facilitators alike were shown hands-on skills with FOSS technology tools to streamline their campaigns. Amongst the tools demonstrated were content management systems such as Drupal, Audacity, an open-source audio editing and mixing software, sms and wikis.
Undoubtedly, the non-profit and non-governmental sectors in Africa are turning to FOSS to solve their technology problems. It was heartening to see that they are as committed to providing open content as they are to using open source software. Participants from Kenya and Uganda have been inspired to port Creative Commons licences to their national jurisdictions, and almost all of the 37 participants in the Info track announced that they would use cc licences to licence their networks’ information.
The spirit, courage and dedication of Africans working on various social, health and economic projects in Africa was inspiring, and this, coupled with the facilitators’ sense of humour, patience and passion made for an event that heralds 2006 as the year for FOSS and open content in Africa.
Weblog- To Shoot An Elephant, CC BY-SA Documentary, Wins Award at Festival dei Popli
- WikiEducator, Connexions, and MediaWiki join forces in OER Remix Project
- CC board chair Esther Wojcicki on teachers sharing … and supporting CC
- Mr. Mayo’s Class Integrates CC, Skypes with Lawrence Lessig
- Indaba Launch CC BY Loop Library, Contest With Filter Magazine
- Donate Today to Have Your Donation Doubled by WhippleHill!
- CC and the Google Book Settlement
- CC Japan Release iPhone App for Into Infinity
- Commoner Letter #4: Molly Kleinman of the University of Michigan
- Our 2010 Google Policy Fellowship
