Spring Edition - Mushroom online

NETLABELS 7
§§§ Copyrights & Copylefts §§§
Free distribution - legal and illegal
Copyrights are usually associated with monetary interests. The pun “copyleft”
implies a free distribution of intellectual property. However, even in this way of
distribution the actual copyright remains by the author.
Creative Commons
Creative Commons provides a straightforward copyright and
licensing system that enables creatives to share their work with
the public. The crucial point is that all licensing is free of charge.
An artist might give away for free his work. However, he keeps
the actual copyright and may set various non-monetary conditions,
like e.g. that his material may not be used for commercial
purposes. There is an easy-to-understand system of CC-symbols,
each determining one condition of usage.
www.creativecommons.org
Open Source
Think about recipes: Everyone can use them, but one person
might add a pinch of extra spice, the other might replace lentils
with peas. This is exactly the idea of Open Source. It became
really popular with the rise of computer software. Publishing
the source code of a programme enables everyone to improve
or modify it. The Linux operating system or the Mozilla products
are probably the most popular Open Source software today.
Open Source eventually even became a metaphor for the
freedom of communication that comes with the internet.
ACTA and SOPA
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Anti-Counterfeiting
Trade Agreement (ACTA) are basically reactions to the massive
illegal exchange of music and movies via the internet which
causes severe economic downturns for the according industries.
Even if many do like to believe that Hollywood is a mega-rich
world anyway, and doesn’t suffer from stealing their products,
the moral problem of stealing is not yet solved. The actual
problem with SOPA and ACTA is that they strive to introduce
measures that severely affect the freedom of information in the
internet and that set questionable models of responsibility. The
entire issue is too complex to be explained in these few lines,
so get informed in the internet and don’t just watch those fancy
3-minute videos, but read a little! www.stopacta.info
Creative Commons
Die Grundidee der
Creative Commons-Lizenzen
ist die gewinnfreie
Weitergabe von geistigem
Eigentum (z.B. Musik,
Fotos), ohne dabei die eigentlichen
Urheberrechte
aus der Hand zu geben.
Dafür stehen verschiedene
Lizenz-Komponenten, wie
z.B. „keine kommerzielle
Nutzung“, zur Verfügung.
Sie werden durch ein
einfaches System von
Symbolen repräsentiert.
ACTA und SOPA
Der Stop Online
Piracy Act (SOPA) und das
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement (ACTA) sind
im Grunde Reaktionen auf
den massiven Austausch
von Raubkopien über das
Internet. Das eigentliche
Problem an beiden
Konzepten ist, dass sie
die Informationsfreiheit
im Netz empfindlich
einschränken könnten
und teilweise fragwürdige
Modelle der Verantwortlichkeit
einführen.