Archive for Conference

CFP deadline for Free Culture 2009

August 3, 2009 at 10:10 am · Filed under Conference, Research ·Tagged , , ,

By now many of you must have heard about this year’s Free Culture research workshop, to be held at the Berkman Center in Harvard. It has been posted on the Berkman web and reposted on many other places. This post is mainly to alert everyone to the fact that the deadline for the open call for participation is coming up real soon now: August 9.

From the CFP:

The Free Culture 2009 research workshop builds on the enthusiasm generated by the First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture which took place during the 2008 iSummit in Sapporo, Japan. It presents a unique opportunity for scholars whose work contributes to the promotion, study or criticism of an emerging Free Culture, to engage with a multidisciplinary group of academic peers and practitioners, identify the most important research opportunities and challenges, and attempt to chart the future of Free Culture.

Our aim is to provide an opportunity for scholars and practitioners to discuss their findings, experiences, and vision for a Free Culture with peers whose backgrounds extend beyond individual disciplines, because we believe that the wider participation in the creative process (and consequently in the formation and dissemination of our modern culture) enabled by new Internet technologies, innovative legal solutions and new business models, are far-reaching and therefore deserve to be examined through the lens of multidisciplinary inquiry. More specifically, this year’s workshop will be focused on:

(a) participant interaction and joint reflection on key findings from cutting edge research in the field
(b) the development of a research agenda, with the identification of key topics for future research
(c) facilitating research collaborations and exchange of ideas between different academic institutions engaged in Free Culture research
(d) fostering useful academic outputs over the next 12+ months
(e) considering policy recommendations or a policy orientation that may emerge as a result of Free Culture research and scholarship

For the full text click here.

To get an idea of what last year’s workshop was like, you may visit the wiki for Free Culture 2008.

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Report from Free Culture 2008

September 23, 2008 at 12:31 pm · Filed under Community, Conference, News, Research ·Tagged , ,

It is finally done… after much delay and a couple of suggestions and corrections by iSummit participants, I managed to publish online a report from Free Culture 2008, the research workshop I helped organize during the iSummit in Sapporo, on the themes of sharing, online freedom and collaboration, commons-based peer production and Creative Commons licensing. Click here to go to the report on the commonsresearch wiki, which also contains the program of the workshop. The report is pretty comprehensive and leaves little else to say, but if you’re reading this let me just say that I feel lucky to be part of a community of people who are willing to dedicate what precious little time they have to helping set up this workshop. I think this has a lot of potential and we’re already starting to plan for Free Culture 2009!

If you’re reading this for the first time and have no idea what it is all about, the wiki contains a lot more information. The whole idea basically started from a few of us (mostly CC-affiliated academics) thinking that we need a forum to exchange our ideas and findings on research pertaining to aspects of the digital commons. Then one thing led to another, and in what I think would make an exemplary case study of online collective action, we managed to set up Free Culture 2008 and generated enough interest to get everyone talking about a follow-up conference in 2009 (which, like the 2008 event, will not be limited to just CC-related topics). I will post more on these plans as soon as they start to take shape.

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iSummit and Free Culture 2008

July 24, 2008 at 11:47 pm · Filed under Community, Conference, News, Research ·Tagged , ,

While Singapore is bracing itself for the local launch of Creative Commons (ok, perhaps I’m exaggerating a bit, but it is an important milestone), Sapporo is getting ready to welcome the largest international annual event of the Creative Commons and related communities: the iSummit. This year we are organizing for the first time a research workshop during the iSummit, the First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture (or Free Culture 2008 for short), whose detailed program can be found on the Commons Research Wiki I set up for this purpose. All submissions to the workshop were peer-reviewed and the extended abstracts (in some cases also full papers) are published on the wiki.

If you’ve already registered for the iSummit, then good for you, I think you’re in for a treat. If not, then hmm… tough luck, I think registration is closed now but there will be plenty to follow online, through the iSummit website (see link above), the icommons main community website, the research wiki (see above) and even on Second Life (for more info on how to follow the proceedings and get involved remotely  keep checking the main iSummit website. So, here goes, all the info you need in a short post, as I need to get my slides ready for Sapporo! That, and a million other things as usual, but I won’t complain here, this is meant to be a joyous post after all.

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CC Singapore launch is nigh!

July 24, 2008 at 11:28 pm · Filed under Community, Conference, News ·Tagged , ,

More great news this week. Creative Commons Singapore will finally launch localized versions of the CC licenses, and the official launch event will take place this Sunday, July 27, at the School of Art, Design and Media of NTU (map), at 1:30pm. Make no mistake, this is not just about the licenses and not just for lawyers. This is the first opportunity to promote a wider dialogue on the value of intellectual property and how digital distribution and Creative Commons are changing the game, giving more power and options to both established, ‘old-school’ creators of new media content as well as the millions of amateurs and pro-ams who post music, video, text and photos on the Social Web. So, do make the long trip to NTU and join us in our effort to get Singapore on the CC bandwagon. 

The event will take place under the auspices of ISEA 2008, a huge digital arts event and conference taking place in Singapore this year, and although the conference is for registered participants only, the CC launch (and the ensuing panel on copyright) will be open to the public. Just come to the ADM School at NTU and you will be guided from there, to find the exact venue. I do not know for sure which room the event will take place in and what the capacity will be, so if you want to get a seat it might be wise to come a bit early. 

More specifically, the launch of the Singapore CC licensing suite will take place at 1.30 to 1.45 pm, and will be graced by the presence of Creative Commons father (and for all who know him, an awesome speaker), Lawrence Lessig. The launch will be followed by a panel on Copyright and the Creative Commons, organized by CAPTEL and the CC Singapore team (which includes yours truly). The panel will end at 3:15 pm, at which point we will have to leave the premises probably as the rest of ISEA is, as I already mentioned, not open to the public (unless you have a ticket). Lessig will give a keynote later in the day for the ISEA conference, but to attend that you would need to have a ticket for the day for ISEA – you may be able to get one from their website if you want to get more Lessig (and I’m told the entire ISEA conference will be extremely interesting, so it’s probably worth it anyhow. 

See you there!!!

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iSummit & Commons Research

April 17, 2008 at 2:00 am · Filed under Conference, Research ·Tagged , , ,

And now for some really good news: the website for the new iSummit (i.e. the largest and most exciting annual event around the Creative Commons and related communities) is up and looking pretty sweet. Also, this year for the first time I am co-organizing a Research Workshop at the iSummit, together with Jonathan Zittrain and Tyng-Ruey Chuang. The deadline for submissions to the workshop is April 26 and in fact we only ask for extended abstracts and not full papers, so if you’re working on any of the themes of the workshop do send your work and help us build a multidisciplinary research agenda for issues that are relevant to the promotion and sustainability of a global digital commons.

CALL FOR PAPERS
First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture
Hosted at the fourth annual iSummit, 29 Jul -1 Aug, 2008, Sapporo, Japan
With submission deadline: 26 April, 2008

The First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture presents a unique opportunity for scholars with various backgrounds, whose work contributes to the promotion or study of an emerging Free Culture, to present their research work to a multidisciplinary audience of academic peers and practitioners. It will be held in conjunction with the fourth iSummit, one of the largest annual events for the Free Culture and related movements. Our aim is to provide a platform for scholars to communicate their findings to an audience that extends beyond individual disciplines because we believe that the wider participation in the creative process (and consequently in the formation and dissemination of our modern culture) enabled by new Internet technologies, innovative legal solutions and new business models, are far-reaching and therefore deserve to be examined through the lens of multidisciplinary inquiry.

The focus of the workshop will be on the presentation and critique of work in progress, and with the inclusion of both academic researchers and practitioners, so as to produce a holistic perspective on the future of a more participative, open and free information society. Workshop participants will have the chance to present their work at an event which attracts some of the world’s foremost thinkers on the future of the Internet, as well as practitioners, technologists, activists and artists who help shape that future.

Click here to read more on the isummit website.

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It’s been a while…

October 16, 2007 at 4:50 pm · Filed under Conference, Research, Travel ·Tagged , ,

Yes, it’s been a while since my last post, too much work and travel kept me from posting more frequently. I hope to improve on this, I’ll add this to my bottomless TO-DO list, whose ability to stay always full can only be matched by my PAPERS-TO-READ list. There’s so much happening these days in and around Creative Commons, digital media, fair use, virtual worlds, all these topics that get me excited, that it can be hard to stay on top of all this information.

First things first: State of Play V in Singapore was a great experience, one of the few occasions in this world I would guess (the other one I can think of being the iSummit) where one can meet so many lawyers who are fun to talk to and are actually working on interesting and cutting edge stuff instead of settling divorces and inheritance claims (which is what I always thought lawyers are for after all). I think the workshop organized by CAPTEL wherein I also gave my own little ’spiel’ on CC and Second Life went quite well, at least I learned a lot from it and had many good follow-up discussions.

Then came TPRC in Washington DC. First time at TPRC for me, though I’ve known of its existence for many years now, just didn’t have much to say about policy in the past. But now I do have one or two things to say about CC, copyright and the balancing of the rights of authors, copyright owners, and society at large. You can read my paper “Taking Stock of the Creative Commons Experiment” with Warren Chik, Ankit Guglani and Giri Tayi on the TPRC website (also blogged on the CC blog).

Very interesting were also the other presentations at our session (see link above), especially that of Mark Schultz on the Cost Disease of public live performance is very relevant for anyone interested in the future of music recording versus live performance. James Grimmelmann presented at another session on commons production and the role of moderation, a more theoretical piece which needs to be read more carefully to be appreciated. Overall it is now clear to me what the main value of TPRC is: getting to know in just a couple of days what the hottest topics are at the intersection of networks, media, law and policy. And for that alone it was worth it.

Washington subway

Washington subway station, not your shoddy NY subway :)

Other than that, Washington seems like a nice city, much more quiet than New York, with all the positive and negative qualities that come with being quiet. New York is a mad, howling gorilla of a city, it is great fun, but with a uniquely negative vibe, perhaps this is why it is attracting so much love and hate, domestic and imported.

Washington - view from Smithsonian

Washington – view from the Smithsonian

If you get a chance, visit the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, this is about the only bit of ‘tourism’ I did in the city, and it was worth it: hosting a good collection of modern American and some foreign sculpture, paintings, and installations.

Washington - view from Hirshhorn

Washington – view from the Hirshhorn museum

After Washington and NYC it was off to San Francisco and the Silly Valley…

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Yours truly

August 15, 2007 at 3:25 am · Filed under Conference, Personal ·Tagged , ,

I just found out recently that Dominik Chen took a picture of me presenting at the iSummit and posted it on Flickr. Thanks Dominik! It’s nice to have this memory from an awesome event neatly captured in bits and bytes. I’m shamelessly reposting here because I think it’s actually a pretty good picture, don’t you think so? :)

iSummit presentation

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Singapore’s drive for… IDM?

July 3, 2007 at 1:35 am · Filed under Conference ·Tagged , ,

Soon everyone in Singapore will know what IDM stands for… Interactive and Digital Media. Singapore’s multi-million-dollar IDM initiative aims to grow the industry in Singapore and turn the country into a digital media hub in the region, and perhaps… the world. An ambitious goal indeed, given that Singapore is not exactly known for its strengths in this sector. However, based on what I’ve seen and heard in my few months in Singapore there is the will and there is talent, so I’m hopeful that things will happen.

Singapore Media Fusion is a portal to all that is IDM in Singapore. Neat site, original design and concept. I could watch these bubbles for hours! Eventually of course the whole initiative will be judged on results, not on web design.

Recently the MDA (Singapore’s Media Development Authority) organized a premier business event titled New Media @ Arts House, which I helped prepare but sadly missed as I didn’t make it in time for my connecting flight in London, on my way back from the iSummit (thanks a lot BA)! Impressions from the event can be found on the iJAM blog. The Arts House looks very fancy (photo copied from the iJAM blog), though I’m wondering how one could follow the entire event without getting a stiff neck from having to look sideways all the time towards the panelists! Of course this seating would be ideal for discussion among participants, so I guess this was the intention.

NMAH

Based on what I hear my feeling is that the event didn’t entirely live up to the admittedly very high expectations of the organizers. But hey, it was a start. There will be much more to come and it’s exciting times for all of us who are passionate about this field.

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Dubrovnik

July 1, 2007 at 10:33 pm · Filed under Conference, Travel ·Tagged ,

I came back from Dubrovnik recently, my latest conference trip, attending the iCommons Summit. What an awesome event that was. A great, diverse and very friendly crowd of creative commons supporters, academics, entrepreneurs, bloggers, activists… you name it. And by the way, Dubrovnik is a sight to behold, I’d recommend it to anyone looking for an idyllic vacation on the meditteranean sea. For more information about the event visit iCommons.

Dubrovnik

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