a-cubed.info

A colleague asked me a question about licensing. In this case of learning objects, but linking in to software and other works. In writing my specific answer to his query I found I needed to explain some of my pragmatic views on licensing, and realised that this part of my response was worth preserving and making available to others as well.

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The UK government has commissioned a review of children’s access to online material. Are we about to see an attempt by the UK government to introduce CDA, COPA or ChIPA-style laws over here, and without the protections of a constitutional guarantee to freedom of speech that led to those acts being substantially struck down by the US Supreme Court?

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Well, I’m in the final stages of putting the index together for Pandora’s Box. I’m quite pleased with the range of things we’ve put in the book, but particularly with some of the weird stuff we’ve managed to quite naturally include, such as:

• Monty Python
• Vernor Vinge
• Ardman, Stan D.
• The Bible
• Ben Hur
• Charles Dickens
• A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
• Peter Kyberd
• the prophet Muhammad
• nazi (Godwin’s law applies)
• Playboy
• Fred Saberhagen

I recently wrote an article (link) that appeared in the online journal Script-Ed. A professor (with chairs at both Southampton University in the UK and University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada) posted some highly positive comments to it on a number of mailing lists describing it as:

lucid, timely, rigorous and compelling synthesis…It will be seen and cited as a landmark in the research community’s delayed but inexorable transition to Open Access.

While there were others who disagreed with either some of what I wrote, or with this evaluation of it, it’s always nice for one’s work to be noticed by a wide audience, and being lauded by a professor (whose work I admire and reference, of course) is also very nice for the ego.

I’ve installed the reCaptcha comment filter on my blog. Sorry folks, but you’ll need to jump through the “type this word” hoop from now on. Too much spam, even with Akismet blocking.

Well, I just finished proofreading the galleys for Pandora’s Box. It’s currently listed on Amazon as published 7th December.
Now I’ve got to produce the index (sigh).

The Now Show included a wonderful piece this week about Net Authority, a group which attempts to claim the right to specify the acceptable use policy for the entire internet. With the age-old cry of censors “Think of the children!” they decry the inclusion of, amongst other things, “materials concerning bestiality, including interracial relationships.”
Among the websites they claim violate their acceptable use policy is that of the UK’s Labour Party .
I wonder if there’s another net censorship site which attempts to get racist material removed from the net. Maybe I can get these groups so interested in each other that they’ll stop bothering the rest of us.

Showing exactly how much they regard CD sales as a god given right to charge high prices to customers, representatives of the music industry have thrown their toys out of the pram at a deal by Prince to provide the Sunday Mail with copies of his new album “Planet Earth” for distribution as a “free” gift with the newspaper sometime soon.

“Free” CDs and DVDs with newspapers have become standard fare in the UK in recent years, but these are usually older material which has long been available, including compilation albums of well-worn “classics” as well as B&W movies which have typically been available for a few years on DVD.

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I’ve definitely been here too long. I got my first piece of “junk mail” today.

OK, so it should have been expected. When I first arrived I bought a digital camera from Yodobashi camera. At the time, I signed up for one of their “loyalty cards” which give a ten percent bonus from each purchase which can be used on future purchases. Since I’ve bought a moderate amount of stuff from them, this has been a decent deal. But, to sign up I had to give them an address. Their summer catalogue arrived today, my first piece of junk mail in Japan.

The Luddites broke up machinery that was transforming their (often dangerous and ill-paid) jobs into something that could be done by far fewer people, sometimes though not always in a safer way, and sometimes though not always turning tens or hundreds of low paid jobs into one better paid job.

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