machine-envy

The debate accompanying my article for openDemocracy died off in about a week. Along the way, I was accused of mixing up the basic ideas behind copyright and patent law. At the time I sighed a sigh at the naivety of my accusers. But tonight I came across this August 2004 post to a message […]

Last night at the October Gallery glasses could finally be raised to the launch of the UK Creative Commons licences. As Damien Tambini said, the legal work was done, but the work to gain exposure for the licences within the UK artistic community was just beginning. There is also a gap in funding the project, […]

The article originally intended for Index on Censorship has been beefed up and published on openDemocracy. The website runs a really great discussion forum, which dedicates a space for each article, and there’s already been some very interesting responses. I’m going to stay out of it for a while in the hope that people continue […]

(originally published on openDemocarcy)
The struggle over intellectual property is the concern of more than knowledge economy specialists, says Becky Hogge: it is a contest over freedom as well as technology.
Fights for freedom are not always played out centre-stage. Since 2003, a piece of European Union legislation with the misleadingly arcane title of the “EU Directive […]

I suppose it’s not a surprise that lot of the people who spend too much of their time worrying about copyright law are involved in it themselves - software programmers, for instance. But people who write about copyright law, Creative Commons, etc in newspapers, blogs or “fornightly digests” play quite close to the edges of […]

Over 200 people made it to the Remix Reading launch event last night. Although it’s a rare treat to see art, poetry, workshops, live music and… er… open source software demonstrations under one roof on a Tuesday night, it was a fairly normal party atmosphere, and not your usual show of copyright geekery. I took […]