Paul's Web Space 2.1

Viral Spiral: Digital Commons at New America

Last Friday I checked out a talk by author David Bollier at the New America Foundation. Bollier is editor of OntheCommons.org, senior fellow at the USC Annenberg School of Communication's Norman Lear Center, and co-founder of Public Knowledge, my favorite free culture organization. He is promoting his new book, Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own. in which he lays out how the emergent "sharing economy" of the Internet creates content that increasingly competes with traditional media organizations.

He discussed creative commons (CC) licenses and how those have been successfully employed by author Cory Doctorow and the band Nine Inch Nails. Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom was the first book published under a CC license, and he attributes the success of his career to freely sharing his work in this way. Nine Inch Nails released their latest album "The Slip" for free on the Internet before it's physical release, and it remains free alongside web communities allowing fans to share remixes and videos . Later they proceeded to sell millions of dollars worth of CDs, DVDs and vinyl records, without the help of a traditional record label, thus keeping a much greater percentage of the proceeds in the process.

Bollier also discussed the concepts of Open Education Resources, such as MIT OpenCourseWare, and the Science Commons project - both of which endeavor to make formerly exclusive learning and knowledge resources more open and accessible. There was a little discussion of issues with conflicting forms of free/open/sharing licenses, but on the other hand, Science Commons takes advantage of a novel approach to trademark law to loosen the copyright of scientific articles and publications. His book is freely available online as well.

Next Sascha Meinrath of the New America Wireless Futures Program and Open Technology Initiative, presented his new paper, Rise of the Intranet Era , where he describes a developing trend in local/community based, decentralized ad-hoc networks, which enable community participation and journalism, accessible access to the larger Internet, and an array of other services.

Finally, moderator Michael Calabrese, Director of the Wireless Future Program, led a wide-ranging discussion, covering challenges involved in rationalizing various different open license structures, as well as threats and opportunities presented to traditional journalism by new community news initiatives. An interesting thread concerned how community participation influenced politics. Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America offered an interesting take, suggesting that the Obama campaign successfully utilized organized viral participation, in contrast with the barely-controlled anarchy of the Howard Dean campaign four years earlier — which had an impact but proved ultimately unsuccessful.

More details, video, audio, photos, and sharing options.

Labels: bollier, creativecommons, freeculture, internet, newamerica

   Link: http://www.newamerica.net/events/2009/viral_spiral

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