cc Learn

One of the most compelling applications of open content is in the educational sphere. After all, it's crazy for teachers to keep on creating the same content again and again: the whole idea of knowledge is to build on what has been learned. So it's good to see the Creative Commons setting up a new arm aimed specifically at promoting the re-use of materials here. It's called ccLearn: at the moment, there's not much to see there apart from the Open Education Search project, but I'm sure that things will grow quickly - the logic is compelling.

Open Source Food

Programs are sets of instructions - rather like recipes. So if you can have open source code, why not open source food:

Open Source Food came to fruition because me and my father wanted to create a place for people like us. We’re not professional cooks, we just love food. We want to share, learn and improve ourselves with the help of like-minded food lovers. Open Source Food is a platform for that.

Truly right-on, not only does it adopt CC licences for the content, it warns:

Please be aware that in legal terms, recipes count as a method or technique and therefore cannot technically be copyrighted.

Mind you, that hasn't stopped some sad individuals from trying. (Via eHub.)

OpenDemocracy, Closed Minds?

I like OpenDemocracy. It has some interesting articles, very often on areas about which I know little. But I do have to wonder, sometimes, whether the minds there are quite as open to new ideas as they seem to be:

In the example of openDemocracy's articles being available on a profusion of other publications, the choice for a reader between this site or that site tends to the meaningless - indeed, it is often mediated by a search algorithm. What is the significance of reading about the Serbian election on ISN rather than openDemocracy? Is there a defining choice there? So here is the paradox for communities of the digital commons: to build a community is to offer an escape from the arbitrary; but to release material to the digital commons is to add to the conditions of the arbitrary.

Well, no, actually. Since:

Today almost all of openDemocracy's articles are licensed under Creative Commons (CC) "advertising" licenses. This is a modification of the ordinary, default, copyright position. Under the license we use, the author and the publication allow reproduction of the article as long as: the receiving publication is making non-commercial use of the material; that it is attributing the material to the original publication; and that it is not making any modifications of the material.

Assuming the licence is respected, this means that there is still a link back to this "community"; indeed, it will drive more people to that "community". Fortunately, OpenDemocracy has a voice of reason in its midst:

Becky Hogge, openDemocracy columnist and head of the Open Rights Group, put to me the orthodox position from the Commons (the diffuse movement that sees intellectual property as inappropriate to the digital age). This is just how things ought to work, she claimed: the information gets greater coverage, and, once created, that is all that counts.

Yup: go, Becky, go.

Open University Opens Up Some More

Some nice cc'd courses from the kind people at the Open University. (Via The Inquirer.)

Hardcore Coding

I've never really had the urge to hack on the Linux kernel (not least because I am the world's worst programmer - Fortran, anyone?) but if I did, I'd certainly be using Greg Kroah-Hartman's Linux Kernel in a Nutshell. To both his and O'Reilly's credit, you can download a copy (cc licence), but obviously buying one would be a good idea, too, for all the obvious reasons.

Against Anti-Anti-Copyright

There's an interesting piece in the Reg by the photojournalist Sion Touhig, entitled "How the anti-copyright lobby makes big business richer." It's well worth reading, even though I think its attacks on the "anti-copyright lobby" are misguided.

The main problem according to the article seems to be big business taking copyrighted material from the Web, or employing user-generated material without paying for it. Addressing both of these seems a better solution than simply hankering for a past that will never return now that the Web 2.0 genie is out of the bottle.

If photographers can't afford to sue - another problem that needs to be sorted - they can at least name and shame: a central Web site for the purpose would do very nicely. And as for the exploitation of user-generated content, the solution here is education. If people were more aware of the cc licences, and used them, then the situation would be more regulated, if not controlled.

At the end of the day, though, photo-journalists will need to adapt, and find new ways of generating money from their work - maybe quite radical ones - just as we writers have had to adapt over the last decade. Perhaps that's regrettable, but it's also the way things are.

Tuning in to the University Channel

Open courseware is an exciting application of openness in the educational context, that is about distributing courseware. The University Channel is an extension of this, in that it provides a selection of video and audio recordings of lectures that are freely available under a CC licence. (Via Creative Commons blog.)

BloodSpell - For Openness' Sake

Another film released under a Creative Commons licence - but this one with a twist. It's made using the Machinima framework - a kind of virtual world production. It's dead clunky now (think old videogames), but it's not hard to see where this is going: completely realistic virtual worlds that unfold according to scripts with actors capable of independent action, all filmed with free camerawork. Hollywood won't know what hits it.

All it needs now is a fully open-source platform. Unless one already exists - my ignorance of this fascinating world is such that it might well do, but I couldn't find one. (Via OpenBusiness.)

Open Filmmaking

After collaborative books, here comes collaborative filmmaking. A film in 28 parts, made by 28 different groups, the whole released under a CC licence. (Via eHub)

The Meme is Spreading: Film at Eleven

Another milestone in the march of the distributed meme: a film financed by a Net-based group of 50,000 angel micro-investors: the Swarm. This takes it even beyond Elephant's Dream. Like it, the new film will be released under a CC licence that allows remixing (via Boing Boing).

OpenStreetMap - Finding Our Way

I wrote a little about the Guardian's campaign to obtain open access to Government-generated data (which we pay for), but here's an interesting alternative: generate it yourself.

This weekend, a bunch of intrepid GPS users aims to map the whole of the Isle of Wight, and then to use this information to generate their own detailed maps, which will be in released under a Creative Commons licence.

The overarching project is called OpenStreetMap, and it seems the perfect way to get public mapping data. Rather waiting for the Government graciously to give us our data back, let's take to the streets and do it ourselves: of the people, by the people, for the people.

Now, if only I had a GPS device....

The Commons: When Digital Meets Analogue

Given the convergence of thinking about the digital and analogue commons that is taking place, the news that EarthTrends is releasing its online collection of information regarding environmental, social, and economic trends under a Creative Commons licence is welcome.

The European Digital Library: Glimmers of Hope

When I last wrote about the proposed European Digital Library, I was not optimistic about what users might be able to do with its content: "IP" considerations seemed to be raising their ugly head.

But maybe there's hope. A recent background paper contains the following two clueful passages:

The Creative Commons initiative, which started in the USA, is gaining ground in different European countries. It provides a set of user-friendly online licenses giving creators of content the opportunity to protect some of their rights, while giving away others.

and

London’s Wellcome Trust, one of Europe’s largest charities, is planning to launch a system that will archive all papers produced by its grantees in a digital library. Wellcome will require researchers to deposit a copy of the accepted manuscript within 6 months of publication.

Measuring the Commons

The commons is clearly important, but it's hard to get a handle on just how big it is these days. So the release of some figures from the Creative Commons project, detailing how many of which kind of licence has been adopted, makes fascinating reading.

It also has some useful links: to more licence statistics, and to "curators" of Creative Commons material, complete with figures showing the size of their respective holdings. Interesting to see that Flickr towers over everyone.

Open Access Books Are Like Buses...

...you wait for ages, and then three turn up at once.

Well, two at least: I wrote recently about Willinsky's The Access Principle, and now here, hard on its heels, comes Yochai Benkler's The Wealth of Networks.

If the name Benkler is unfamiliar, you might want to glance at the suggestively-titled Coase's Penguin (yes, that penguin), which is effectively a sketch of the present book. Both, then, are about how the network changes everything, and how all the opens and the various kinds of commons that are central concerns of this blog lie at the heart of one of the most profound economic, social and political transformations seen in recent years.

But don't take my word for it, listen to what Larry Lessig has to say, with typical generosity:

This is — by far — the most important and powerful book written in the fields that matter most to me in the last ten years.

Then buy/download the thing (CC licence, of course) and read it. I know I will. The fact that I haven't yet finished its 500+ pages is not just another reason not to listen to me: it's also a further hint of why eventually all books will be freely available as digital downloads online. Basically, reading on a screen and reading text placed on a physical object are two quite different experiences, and warrant two quite different business models.

Blender - Star of the First Open Source Film

Blender is one of the jewels in the open source crown. As its home page puts it:

Blender is the open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. Available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.

It's a great example of how sophisticated free software can be - if you haven't tried it, I urge you to do so. It's also an uplifing story of how going open source can really give wings to a project.

Now Blender is entering an exciting new phase. A few days ago, the premiere of Elephant's Dream, the first animated film made using Blender, took place.

What's remarkable is not just that this was made entirely with open source software, but also that the film and all the Blender files are being released under a Creative Commons licence - making it perhaps the first open source film.

Given that most commercial animation films are already produced on massive GNU/Linux server farms, it seems likely that some companies, at least, will be tempted to dive even deeper into free software and shift from expensive proprietary systems to Blender. Whether using all this zero-cost, luvvy-duvvy GPL'd software makes them any more sympathetic to people sharing their films for free remains to be seen....

The Commonality of the Commons

Everywhere I go these days, I seem to come across the commons. The Creative Commons is the best known, but the term refers to anything held in common for the benefit of all. A site I've just come across, called On the Commons, puts it well, stressing the concomitant need to conserve the commons for the benefit of future generations:

The commons is a new way to express a very old idea — that some forms of wealth belong to all of us, and that these community resources must be actively protected and managed for the good of all. The commons are the things that we inherit and create jointly, and that will (hopefully) last for generations to come. The commons consists of gifts of nature such as air, water, the oceans, wildlife and wilderness, and shared “assets” like the Internet, the airwaves used for broadcasting, and public lands. The commons also includes our shared social creations: libraries, parks, public spaces as well as scientific research, creative works and public knowledge that have accumulated over centuries.

It's also put together a free report that spells out in more detail the various kinds of commons that exist: the atmosphere, the airwaves, water, culture, science and even quiet.

What's fascinating for me is how well this maps onto the intertwined themes of this blog and my interests in general, from open content, open access and open spectrum to broader environmental issues. The recognition that there is a commonality between different kinds of commons seems to be another idea that is beginning to spread.

E-commerce 2.0

It is striking how everybody is talking about Web 2.0, and yet nobody seems to mention e-commerce 2.0. In part, this is probably because few have managed to work out how to apply Web 2.0 technologies to e-commerce sites that are not directly based on selling those technologies (as most Web 2.0 start-ups are).

For a good example of what an e-commerce 2.0 site looks like, you could do worse than try Chinesepod.com (via Juliette White), a site that helps you learn Mandarin Chinese over the Net.

The Web 2.0-ness is evident in the name - though I do wish people would come up with a different word for what is, after all, just an mp3 file. It has a viral business model - make the audio files of the lessons freely available under a Creative Commons licence so that they can be passed on, and charge for extra features like transcripts and exercises. The site even has a wiki (which has some useful links).

But in many ways the most telling feature is the fact that as well as a standalone blog, the entire opening page is organised like one, with the lessons arranged in reverse chronological order, complete with some very healthy levels of comments. Moreover, the Chinesepod people (Chinese podpeople?) are very sensibly drawing on the suggestions of their users to improve and extend their service. Now that's what I call e-commerce 2.0.

Open University Meets Open Courseware

Great news (via Open Access News and the Guardian): the Open University is turning a selection of its learning materials into open courseware. To appreciate the importance of this announcement, a little background may be in order.

As its fascinating history shows, the Open University was born out of Britain's optimistic "swinging London" culture of the late 1960s. The idea was to create a university open to all - one on a totally new scale of hundreds of thousands of students (currently there are 210,000 enrolled). It was evident quite early on that this meant using technology as much as possible (indeed, as the history explains, many of the ideas behind the Open University grew out of an earlier "University of the Air" idea, based around radio transmissions.)

One example of this is a close working relationship with the BBC, which broadcasts hundreds of Open University programmes each week. Naturally, these are open to all, and designed to be recorded for later use - an early kind of multimedia open access. The rise of the Web as a mass medium offered further opportunities to make materials available. By contrast, the holdings of the Open University Library require a username and password (although there are some useful resources available to all if you are prepared to dig around).

Against this background of a slight ambivalence to open access, the announcement that the Open University is embracing open content for at least some of its courseware is an extremely important move, especially in terms of setting a precedent within the UK.

In the US, there is already the trail-blazing MIT OpenCourseWare project. Currently, there are materials from around 1250 MIT courses, expected to rise to 1800 by 2007. Another well-known example of open courseware is the Connexions project, which has some 2900 modules. This was instituted by Rice University, but now seems to be spreading ever wider. In this it is helped by an extremely liberal Creative Commons licence, that allows anyone to use Connexions material to create new courseware. MIT uses a Creative Commons licence that is similar, except it forbids commercial use.

At the moment, there's not much to see at the Open University's Open Content Initiative site. There is an interesting link is to information from the project's main sponsor, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, about its pioneering support for open content. This has some useful links at the foot of the page to related projects and resources.

One thing the Open University announcement shows is that open courseware is starting to pick up steam - maybe a little behind the related area of open access, but coming through fast. As with all open endeavours, the more there are, the more evident the advantages of making materials freely available becomes, and the more others follow suit. This virtuous circle of openness begetting openness is perhaps one of the biggest advantages that it has over the closed, proprietary alternatives, which by their very nature take an adversarial rather than co-operative approach to those sharing their philosophy.

Tying the Kangaroo Down

If any proof were needed that some people still don't really get the Internet, this article is surely it. Apparently Australia's copyright collection agency wants schools to pay a "browsing fee" every time a teacher tells students to browse a Web site.

Right.

So, don't tell me: the idea is to ensure that students don't use the Web, and that they grow up less skilled in the key enabling technology of the early twenty-first century, that they learn less, etc. etc. etc.?

Of course, the fact that more and more content is freely available under Creative Commons licences, or is simply in the public domain, doesn't enter into the so-called "minds" of those at the copyright collection office. Nor does the fact that by making this call they not only demonstrate their extraordinary obtuseness, but also handily underline why copyright collection agencies are actually rather irrelevant these days. And that rather than waste schools' time and money paying "browsing fees", Australia might perhaps do better to close down said irrelevant, clueless copyright office, and save some money instead?