Another Problem with Copyright; How to Fix It

Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while will be well aware of some of the key problems with copyright in the Internet age. For example, the desire to stop people sharing unauthorised digital files online has led to more and more extreme legislation, culminating in the recent ACTA and TPP. In fact, it is impossible to stop people sharing such files unless you institute total surveillance to check on everything that is uploaded and downloaded. By an interesting coincidence, that is precisely where we are heading thanks to legislation like the Draft Communications Data Bill...

On Open Enterprise blog.

What The Curebit Saga Teaches Us About Copyright, Plagiarism And Reputation

The startup Curebit brought something of a firestorm down on its head recently. Here's how VentureBeat broke the story: 

On Techdirt.

He that Filches From Me My Good Name

Danny O'Brien has an interesting meditation on the difference between controlling who copies something, and controlling who claims to have created it. Cory Doctorow makes an illuminating observation on the same:

I'm reminded of the fact that the original Creative Commons license allowed creators to choose whether they wanted their works attributed to them or not, but after a year or two, it was discovered that nearly every CC user turned the attribution switch on while generating the license -- everyone wanted correct attribution, even when they were giving away free copies.

It's reputation that counts.

Digital Reputations

I've not read the book The Future of Reputation, but the fact that it's freely available and comes recommended by Danah Boyd is good enough for me:

This book examines the darker side of personal expression and communication online, looking at some of the social costs of what I'm always rambling on about as "persistence, searchability, replicability, and invisible audiences." Our reputation is one of our greatest assets. What happens when our own acts or the acts of others sully that? What role does the technology play in enabling or stopping that? How should the law modernize its approach to privacy and slander to address the networked world?

Reputations play a crucial role in the free software world - a good reason to give the book a whirl.

Jyte's the Ticket

Short of a time sink or two? Try Jyte. (Via eightbar.)

A Question of Trust

Back in the 1990s, I used to write about VRML quite a lot. VRML - Virtual Reality Modelling Language - seemed like the future, but turned out not to have one, at least not in that form. As you may have noticed, it more or less disappeared, though I now realise where it went.

I also often wondered where the VRML pioneers went. One of them is Mark Pesce, whom I've just discovered through this post called "Trust, But Verify". It's of note for two reasons.

First, it's well written, and worth reading for that alone. But secondly, because it touches on what is becoming a key issue in the Web 2.0 world, that of trust. Trust - and reputation systems - lie at the heart of openness. It's a subject of particular interest to me, and I'll be writing more about it here and elsewhere in due course.