Hague declaration for free and open standards

We call on all governments to:
1. Procure only information technology that implements free and open standards;
2. Deliver e-government services based exclusively on free and open standards;
3. Use only free and open digital standards in their own activities.

This is what The Digital Standards Organization (www.digistan.org) demands. The reasons why they are demanding this is

• Government information, services and resources are increasingly provided virtually rather than physically
• Freedom of speech and association are increasingly exercised on line rather than in person
• The Internet and the Web provide an unprecedented avenue to equality of education and opportunity for all peoples throughout the world

You can support them by signing their petition.

Source: Netzpolitik.org

Kapstadt Open Education Declaration

Mark Shuttleworth (founder of ubuntu gnu/linux) is telling us about what the Kapstadt Open Education Declaration means for him and the world.

We are on the cusp of a global revolution in teaching and learning. Educators worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open and free for all to use. These educators are creating a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge. They are also planting the seeds of a new pedagogy where educators and learners create, shape and evolve knowledge together, deepening their skills and understanding as they go.

Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks

Maybe you have seen as speech by Richard Stallman about Free Software. But he also speaks about Free Culture. Which is quite
interesting to hear his ideas and thoughts about this related but different in subtle points.

“Copyright was developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed to fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing press. But the copyright system does not fit well with computer networks, and only draconian punishments can enforce it.

The global corporations that profit from copyright are lobbying for draconian punishments, and to increase their copyright powers, while suppressing public access to technology. But if we seriously hope to serve the only legitimate purpose of copyright “to promote progress, for the benefit of the public” then we must make changes in the other direction.”

You can download the video from the project homepage (as bittorrent or browser download) or watch the film online on the internet archive.

This video is also licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Steal this film…again

Some of you may know the first part of Steal this film or you have even downloaded it. This projects aims to create documentaries about copy right, net culture. It asks people like Lawrence Lessig, Eben Moglen, thepiratebay and a lot of other people about their opinions on free culture, digital restriction management, …

On Dec the 31 the second part was released and is available on bittorrent.

Steal This Film is a film series documenting the movement against intellectual property and was a talking point in the British Documentary Festival.^[2] Part One, produced in Sweden and released in 2006, takes account of the prominent players in the Swedish piracy culture: The Pirate Bay, Piratbyrån, and the Pirate Party. This film includes a critical analysis of an alleged regulatory capture^[3] performed by the Hollywood film industry to leverage economic sanctions by the United States government on Sweden through the WTO. Alleged aims included the application of pressure to Swedish police into conducting a search and seizure against Swedish law for the purpose of disrupting The Pirate Bay’s BitTorrent tracker. (from wikipedia)