joy garnett
Since the beginning
Works in United States of America

ARTBASE (1)
BIO
Joy Garnett is a painter based in New York. She appropriates news images from the Internet and re-invents them as paintings. Her subject is the apocalyptic-sublime landscape, as well as the digital image itself as cultural artifact in an increasingly technologized world. Her image research has resulted in online documentation projects, most notably The Bomb Project.

Notable past exhibitions include her recent solo shows at Winkleman Gallery, New York and at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC; group exhibitions organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, P.S.1/MoMA Contemporary Art Center, Artists Space, White Columns (New York), Kettle's Yard, Cambridge (UK), and De Witte Zaal, Ghent (Belgium). She shows with aeroplastics contemporary, Brussels, Belgium.

extended network >

homepage:
http://joygarnett.com

The Bomb Project
http://www.thebombproject.org

First Pulse Projects
http://firstpulseprojects.net

NEWSgrist - where spin is art
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/

Discussions (685) Opportunities (5) Events (8) Jobs (0)
DISCUSSION

more free culture


Free Culture book signing
Robert Kaye
O'Reilly Developer Weblogs
http://www.openp2p.com/pub/wlg/4702
Apr. 14, 2004 03:50 PM

Yesterday I spent the day at Stanford's Law School talking to the Creative
Commons and also attending Larry Lessig's book signing event for his
latest book Free Culture. (Amazon: Free Culture).

In his speech at the event, Larry had the usual array of slides in the
classic Lessig "strong words, white on black" style. He eloquently argued
the premise of his new book: "How big media uses technology and the law to
lock down culture and control creativity". In a sense it felt like Larry
was preaching to the choir -- everyone present for the event was either
associated with Larry, Stanford Law or the Creative Commons. And these
people are not exactly new to the issues that he raises in his book.

Regardless, Larry had quite a few interesting things to say about the
effects of releasing his book under a Creative Commons license. If I had
been more prepared, I would've taken some notes -- alas, I was not and
I'll try and paraphrase his chronicles of the book release:

* Immediately after the release tens of thousands of people download
the book.
* Shortly thereafter, the Internet community converts the book into 9
seperate formats ranging from text to various eBook formats.
* Then, a rag-tag crew of volunteers read chapters of the book out
loud to create the Free Culture audiobook.
* Lastly, Aaron Swartz created a Free Cultire Wiki for annotating and
editing Larry Lessig's new book, Free Culture.

While I can't remember the exact times when these events happened, I
believe they all happened within 72 hours of the release.

The beauty of all of this is that the premise in the book states that when
copyright holders lock down every conceivable right they own, they are
stifling innovation. And by Larry releasing his book under the Creative
Commons license, he makes the perfect example that freeing your content
(some rights reserved) does foster innovation.

Compare the buzz surrounding Larry's latest book with his previous two
books, which were not released under the Creative Commons license. The
buzz for this book is crazy compared to the previous two releases -- by
using the Creative Commons license Larry has indirectly created a whole
army of people who are helping him push this book.

Smart. Very smart.

Before I drove home, I dumped the audiobook to my iPod and listened to the
first couple of chapters on the way home. Free Culture -- the book and the
ability for me to listen to the audiobook without fear of ending up in
jail -- is quite cool. Let's work to protect it, shall we?

[ Robert Kaye is the Mayhem & Chaos Coordinator and creator of
MusicBrainz, the music metadata commons. ]

DISCUSSION

Copyright in the Digital Age


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58249-2004Apr7.html

Transcript
Copyright in the Digital Age

Lawrence Lessig
Professor, Stanford Law School
Wednesday, April 14, 2004; 1:00 PM

Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig was online to discuss his
book, "Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock
Down Culture and Control Creativity." In his book, Lessig argues that the
entertainment industry conspires with Congress to use copyright law to
destroy our traditional notion of freedom in culture.

washingtonpost.com reporter David McGuire moderated the discussion.

A transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over
Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests
and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

________________________________________________

David McGuire: Dr. Lessig, thanks for joining us. In your new book: "Free
Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture
and Control Creativity," you argue that the debate over piracy has
obscured a larger movement on the part of the media industry (movie, music
and software makers) to "remake the Internet, before it remakes them."
How, practically, is that movement unfolding? Where are those battles
being fought?

Lawrence Lessig: The content industry has done a good job convincing the
world that the internet will enable what they call "piracy." That has
obscured the fact that the internet will also enable an extraordinary
potential for creativity. And it has obscured the fact that the weapons
they use to eradicate "piracy" will also destroy the environment for this
"creativity." They spray DDT to kill a gnat. We say: "Silent Spring."

_______________________

Bellingham, Wash.: What are your thoughts on the debate on
anticircumvention regulations and how they may impact fair use? Do
antipiracy concerns outweigh the importance of allowing legitimate uses of
circumvention software (for example, by DVD owners making backup copies)?

Lawrence Lessig: The anticircumvention regulations of the DMCA have been
interpreted in a way that does plainly restrict any sensible understanding
of "fair use." They are therefore regulations that will be found, imho, to
violate the constitution. As the Court indicated in Eldred, fair use has a
constitutional basis. Congress is not free simply to remove it. Thus
whether Congress -- "persuaded" by the content industry -- believes that
antipiracy concerns outweigh the constitution or not, no law may outweigh
the constitution.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: You are on the board of the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, which has recently volunteered to defend alleged copyright
infringers that are being sued by copyright holders, the RIAA.

As a law professor and a copyright holder yourself (Free Culture book), do
you feel that the RIAA has a legitimate gripe in protecting what property
is legally belongs to them?

Would you support a foundation established to defend literary copyright
suits, if professors were to crack down on student text book copying - or
even worse, yours?

Lawrence Lessig: I believe that copyrights, properly defined and
reasonably balanced, ought to be defended by copyright owners, and
organizations (whether the RIAA or others) devoted to defending such
rights. I'm sure everyone at the EFF believes the same. But just as a
lawyer who defends someone charged with auto theft does not therefore
support auto theft, so too with the EFF: They are, rightly, defending the
rights of individuals that they believe, rightly, should not be prosecuted
in this way under this law.

As a law professor -- and more importantly, as a citizen of the United
States -- I absolutely support their actions. We here are supposed to
believe in the right to a defense. We are supposed to believe that laws
are not to be overreaching in their effect. We are supposed to oppose
abuse of the power of prosecution. And I fundamentally oppose those who
would question anyone who would defend rights that our constitution was
designed to guarantee.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: Good afternoon - Prof. Lessig, will you state once and
for all that the widespread theft (or whatever term you wish to apply) of
copyrighted works online is illegal? Can the conversation about copyrights
in the digital age at least recognize this? Don't you feel that it is a
dangerous society that believes that because the Internet lets you do
something, it is permissible to do so...whether morally or legally right
or wrong? I find that in all of your articulate presentations, you seem to
blame the people who create and invest in the creation of music, movies
etc. and place no blame on those who take those works without compensating
the artists/copyright holders.

Lawrence Lessig: Great question. First, I have "recognized" this. Here's a
great derivative work of my book -- permitted because I released my book
free under a Creative Commons license.
(http://trevor.typepad.com/blog/free_culture_lawrence_lessig_purple_numbers.html)
On that page, each paragraph of my book has been marked by its own url. As
you'll see at paragraphs 84, 110, 367, 372, 377, 382, 388, 389, to mark a
few. Or go to (http://free-culture.org) and download the book and look at
the section "Why Hollywood is Right" beginning at 124.

But my whole point is that if we as a people can think about only one
issue at a time, then we as a culture are doomed. For if we set our policy
focused on one end only -- ending piracy -- then we will end a tradition
of free culture as well.

Yet the content industry has done so well because they've convinced DC
that there is really just one issue out there -- piracy. And they
certainly are more successful than I in shaping this debate. So it may
well be that we as a people can think about only one issue at a time. And
again, if so, then we as a culture are doomed.

_______________________

Takoma Park, Md.: Is it fair to call pervasive free availability of any
copyrighted song anyone can think of a "gnat"? I appreciate your concerns
but it seems to me that you're downplaying the impact of file-sharing on
creative industries.

Lawrence Lessig: Is it fair? Well, what's the harm. In my book, I assumed
there was a substantial harm, and the question I asked is: how might we
minimize the harm while not destroying the internet or its potential. So I
would push for different policies even assuming the gnat is a lion.

But since my book was published, there has been substantial work -- by
independent researchers, not paid by the content industry or anyone else
-- to suggest that there is no substantial harm from p2p sharing. More
precisely, that when you add up all the effects (people exposed to new
content which they buy, etc.), the effect of sharing is statistically
indistinguishable from zero.

Whether you buy that analysis or not -- and, I think we should remain
skeptical about it until it has had a good chance for further peer review
-- I do think that relative to what we lose by waging this war, the
interests of one particular industry are small.

By this system of federal regulation, we are creating a regime of
creativity where the only safe way to create is to ask permission first.
You might think that's simple, but just try it someday. But I'm with those
who think that there's something fundamentally wrong about this regime,
whether it is simple or not. I as an academic don't need anyone's
permission before I write an article criticizing someone else. But the
same freedom is not accorded a filmmaker, or webmaster, under the rules as
they exist today.

_______________________

Madrid, Spain: Do you really think there will be a unbreakable technology
to protect CD, video or stop MP3 exchanges in the web? In others words, is
it possible to protect intelectual property with a piece of software? Do
you really think the technological measures will be effective?

Lawrence Lessig: By "do you really think" you make it sound as if I've
suggested such a "solution." I have not. Indeed, I think all solutions
that rely upon technology to control access suffer important and
unavoidable costs. More importantly, an arms race around technologies for
locking up and liberating content is a waste. We should push for a regime
that helps assure artists get paid without simultaneously breaking the
most valuable features of the internet.

_______________________

New Orleans, La.: Do you think that the Court's strict constructionist
reading of the Copyright Clause in Eldred blows open the door to the
continued and expanding success of special interests appropriating the
public domain?

Lawrence Lessig: Yes, it absolutely does. By ignoring the original meaning
of the constitution's text -- indeed, by ignoring even the text, for the
Court does not even try to explain what the words "to promote the Progress
of Science" means -- the Court has given Congress, and lobbyists, a
green-light to continue what they have done so well over the past 40 years
-- extend the term of existing copyrights. It is totally obvious that in
2018, there will be another bill to extend copyright terms. It is totally
obvious that all the money in the world will be spent by those who have
copyrights that are about to expire. And totally obvious that nothing
(yet) in the Court's jurisprudence that would stop such an extension.

Now of course, there's lots that can, and must be done, independent of the
Court. PublicKnowledge.org, for example, is doing a great deal of good to
get Congress to consider reasonable balances in the field of copyright.
They have, for example, taken up the challenge of getting congress to pass
the Public Domain Enhancement Act, which would require a copyright owner,
50 years after a work has been published, to register the work and pay $1.
If the owner pays the $1, he or she gets the benefit of whatever term
Congress has set. If he or she does not, the work passes into the public
domain. We know from historical data that more than 85% of copyrighted
work would pass into the public domain after just 50 years under such a
regime -- clearing away a mass of legal regulation governing the ability
of people to reuse culture. But even this reasonable proposal is being
resisted by, for example, the MPAA.

_______________________

Georgetown: Isn't the source of the problem in copyright law the extension
of the copyright to derivative works? This aspect of copyright should be
limited or eliminated after, say 50 years. That way Disney would be able
keep selling its classics while the others would be able to use the work
as the basis for new creations.

Have there been any such proposals in Congress?

Lawrence Lessig: This is a great suggestion. Yes, the one really radical
way in which copyright law today differs from the copyright law our
framers gave us is derivative rights: They didn't protect them, and we do.
And that extension does, in my view, muddy many issues. I understand and
support laws which control the ability of A to sell a verbatim copy of B's
copyrighted work without B's permission. But whatever wrong that is, it is
totally different from the "wrong" of building a work based on B's work.
Our law does not adequately distinguish between the two, and it should. A
shorter term might be one solution. I suggest others in my book. But it is
plainly an area where serious reform could do serious good.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: How is distributing copies of copyrighted works to a
stranger without the authorization of the artist, as in P2P, not a
violation of copyright? Do you not agree that an artist's ability to
copyright his work, if he chooses to, creates incentives for that artist
to innovate and create? Without intellectual property protections
incentives to innovate disappear.

Lawrence Lessig: So I answered something close to this question before, so
I won't repeat what I said there. But in summary:

(1) "How is distributing copies of copyrighted works to a stranger without
the authorization of the artist, as in P2P, not a violation of copyright?"

It may be under the law as it is just now. I've not contested that
generally.

(2) "Do you not agree that an artist's ability to copyright his work, if
he chooses to, creates incentives for that artist to innovate and create?"

OF COURSE I do! Absolutely it does. And most of my work these days is
devoted to making it easier for ARTISTS to choose how best to deploy the
rights the law gives them. (see, e.g., http://creativecommons.org).

(3) "Without intellectual property protections incentives to innovate
disappear."

In some contexts, absolutely correct. In other contexts, no. There's
plenty of incentive to innovate around Shakespeare's work, even though no
one has a copyright in Shakespeare. There's would be plenty of incentive
for law professors to blather on endlessly in law review articles, even
without copyright protection. In my view, rather than treating (3) as a
matter of ideology, we should treat (3) as a question of fact: IP is a
form of regulation; regulation makes sense where it does more good than
harm. So we should be asking where IP protection does more good than harm.

_______________________

David McGuire: Does the pending case of 321 Studios over its DVD X Copy
software -- which allows users to make copies of their DVDs -- seem to you
a likely vehicle to address some of these fair use concerns before the
Supreme Court?

Lawrence Lessig: I don't think the Supreme Court is ready for these
issues. I thought it was. I was wrong. I believe 321 should prevail in the
case, and I hope it does. But the hysteria around this "war" is too great
just now for this Court to consider the matter with the usual balance of
judgment it has displayed in (most) copyright cases.

_______________________

Alexandria, Va.: If a company has a valuable copyright and it wants to
continue making money off it, why should it not be able to renew that
copyright forever? I understand what copyright law says, but isn't it
naive or even greedy to suggest that everything we create should
ultimately be given away?

Lawrence Lessig: Well, first one might point out that the Constitution
says Congress can grant copyrights to "Authors" not companies. Second, one
might observe that the Constitution says Congress can secure "exclusive
rights" for "limited times." And third, one might ask when the term
granted corporations is already almost a century, who's being "greedy"
here?

Of course one might well say the framers were idiots about this, and we
should reject their wisdom and follow the wisdom of corporate lobbyists on
this. Maybe.

But I'd rather focus on the agreement we have: you write, "why should it
not be able to renew that copyright forever?" I'm all in favor of a
renewal requirement. Indeed, I've proposed a relatively long term (75
years) so long as the copyright owner "renews" the copyright every 5 year.
No doubt that might sound like a hassle -- and it is, given the way the
government typically does things. But imagine one-click renewal. Imagine a
system that was simple. In that world, I'd be totally ok with terms as
long as they are, so long as terms had to be renewed. We know from history
that the vast majority of copyrights -- 85% - 95% -- would not be renewed
even after 28 years. So my aim -- to minimize the senseless burden of
endless terms -- would be achieved with a renewal requirement.

_______________________

Scranton, Pa.: It seems like you think the entertainment industry's
endgame is to control all content from the cradle. At that point,
presumably, all content would be puerile trash. But the industry likes
this idea because we've seen that the average American consumer loves the
smell of garbage. Is this the depressing landscape that you see on the
horizon based on our present course? Or is this scenario extreme?

Lawrence Lessig: I hope it is extreme. But it is an aspect of what I fear.
I think ARTISTS and CREATORS are great. I think our framers intended them
to be benefited by copyright law. But I believe our Congress (and FCC) has
produced a world where PUBLISHERS (in the broadest sense of that term) are
the real beneficiaries of our copyright system. And as they become fat,
slogging giants, the stuff they produce (or allow to be produced) will be
increasingly awful.

_______________________

Anaheim, Calif.: Hello, Dr. Lessig. Is there any way to clearly define the
line between fair use and infringement? I am not a copyright expert nor am
I a lawyer. Is there a way to explain your answer in plain English?

Lawrence Lessig: No, there is not, and that 95% of the problem. Fair use
in America is the right to hire a lawyer -- which is fine for CBS, or NBC,
but useless for most creators. That's why I've proposed changes that
produce clear lines, rather than lines requiring the services of $300/hr
plus professionals. The great thing about the public domain, for example,
is that it is a lawyer-free zone. Anyone can use anything in the public
domain without asking permission first (except if you use Peter Pan, but
that's another story all together...).

_______________________

Arlington, Va.: Reps. Boucher and Doolittle have introduced a bill (H.R.
107) that seeks to provide the kind of balance to the DMCA that you
suggest is important. Are you familiar with and, if so, do you support
their legislation?

Lawrence Lessig: Yes, and yes. Boucher and Doolittle have been rare but
important voices of balance in this debate. Zoe Lofgren and Chris Cox too.
All who believe in sanity in this "war" should be doing whatever they can
to support these few, brave souls. Especially Congressman Boucher, who has
a well funded opponent in this race (funded by whom I wonder?)

_______________________

Flatland Crest, Mont.: You said earlier that if we can only examine one
issue at a time - in this case piracy - then we as a culture are doomed.
Doomed to what? Will artists fail to flourish because the entertainment
industry has a lockdown on copyright? I doubt that a 13-year-old who set
his or her pen to paper and suddenly produces a precocious, beautiful
novel even knows what "Fair Use" means.

Lawrence Lessig: I guess it depends on what you think "fail to flourish"
means. There were many who thought art flourished in the soviet union,
even though the artist couldn't publish or distribute his or her art. Of
course, we're not the soviet union, but the same point is true
nonetheless: I don't believe we have a FREE CULTURE if creativity is
criminal. I don't believe we respect the tradition of FREE SPEECH if the
act of remixing culture is an act that requires permission from publishers
first. I don't believe we will have a vibrant FREE MARKET if it is so
heavily regulated by lawyers. So even if in the dystopian future I
describe, a 13 year old is physically able to create an "precocious
beautiful novel," we don't live in a free culture unless she can create
that work without hiring a lawyer first.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: In a recent article published in Forbes by Stephen
Manes, he says that you are going to harm the creator and reward the
people doing illegal activity as well as put "the U.S. at odds with
international law." How do you respond?

Lawrence Lessig: I've responded at length on my blog:
http://lessig.org/blog. But I'll say that there was no review that more
disappointed me than Mr. Manes'. I've got great respect for Forbes the
man, and Forbes the magazine. And as, for example, Stu Baker in the Wall
Street Journal noted, my argument is not really an argument for the left.
Indeed, as he argued quite effectively, it is more powerfully an argument
for the right. (Copyright law, as he put it, is the "asbestos litigation"
of the 21st century). So I was very surprised both with the substance of
Mr. Manes's review (which was unthinking and ill-informed) and with its
tone (which was rude and abusive). Both seemed to me to be beneath the
quality of the publication. And as I said in my first response to Mr.
Manes, it just goes to show how much more work we in this movement have to
make to make our ideas understandable.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: Hi Prof. Lessig - with each book that you release on the
subject of IP rights and the 'net, I think you've become more readable for
the masses. I'm thrilled with this, because I think these issues are of
incredible importance for everyone. However, I think that there remains a
long way to go before the general public thinks of "fair use" as anything
other than an excuse used by those music-stealin' college kids. How can we
better present your (our) concerns to the public in a way that helps them
better understand the importance of these things to their lives?

Lawrence Lessig: Thanks for the kind words. It is extraordinarily easy as
a professor to believe your ideas are clear and obviously right. And the
hardest lesson of the last 5 years for me has been the recognition of how
many ideas I was sure are right are, it turns out, wrong, and how hard it
is to make the rest understandable. That's especially hard for me, and it
has taken many years to learn differently.

I agree that it will take a great deal of work to make these ideas even
more understandable. But I think the way to do it is by showing people the
law, not arguing about it. Show parents the extraordinary creativity the
technology of Apple enables. Show them what their kids can do with it --
the music they can make, the films they can produce, etc. And then show
them the billion ways in which the law would deem that creativity
criminal. When people begin to see that this is a war we're waging against
the next generation, they might begin to wake-up to its threat.

(Then again, it's not as if our policy today is really much concerned with
our kids at all. We don't tax ourselves so we can tax our kids (deficits);
we don't pay to clean up our environment so our kids will; we wage wars
that will excite a generation of hatred directed against -- again -- our
kids. Etc. So I guess it is not surprising that here again, we wage a war
whose primary target and victims will be our kids.)

_______________________

Edgartown, Mass.: Good afternoon. Is this the first time that you have
permitted your book to be made available for free on the Internet? How are
the sales of your latest book stacking up against your previous works?

Lawrence Lessig: It is the first time I've succeeded in convincing my
publisher, yes. I have tried before, but am blessed this time to have a
great and innovative publisher (Penguin Press) and an astonishing editor.
(It was my editor who did the real work convincing the publisher). And
sales are going much better than with any other book. But the part that
has been the most interesting and surprising to me is not the sales. It is
the derivative works. I released my book under a Creative Commons license,
which left others free to make derivative works. If you go here
http://free-culture.cc/remixes/ you can see a list of the amazing number
of "remixes" of the book that people across the net have made. There are
many different formats available now (we released a PDF only). There are
audio versions. There is a Wiki (which allows anyone to change or extend
the book). I never expected the energy that the net has demonstrated. And
as that energy will assure the ideas spread broadly, I am extraordinarily
grateful.

_______________________

San Francisco, Calif.: During the mid to late 1970's, the music industry
be came moribund by it marketing ploys of only promoting large sales music
groups who could fill arenas and stadiums. The response of musicians and
consumers to the lack of creativity in rock music were the punk movements
and new wave which developed on small independent labels. These were later
coopted into the larger music industry just as rap was in the '90s. Are
such consumer/artist uprisings still possible in our media controlled
environment?

Lawrence Lessig: They are possible, but would be more possible if the law
was not such a heavy handed regulator in this space. More important to me,
it would be possible if labels would be more tolerant of experiments by
authors. Creative Commons, for example, has launched a number of licenses
that enable authors to mark their content with freedoms -- freedoms that
will, many believe, lead to more sales of records. But these artists have
been met with strong resistance by the traditional labels. We should all
recognize something that no one admits: None of us know what will work
best in the future. So in the face of that ignorance, we must depend upon
a competitive market offering alternatives, and encouraging experiments.
And a room filled with lawyers is not a great way to inspire
experimentation.

_______________________

David McGuire: Professor Lessig was good enough to take an extra half hour
to answer more of the many insightful questions we received. Unfortunately
we're out of time. I'd like to thank the professor for taking the time to
join us today and our audience for contributing so many thoughtful
questions.

_______________________

2004 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive

DISCUSSION

MA Social Sculpture - message from Shelley Sacks (fwd)


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 13:30:01 +0100
From: Honey Lucas <hlucas@brookes.ac.uk>
To: Honey Lucas <hlucas@brookes.ac.uk>
Subject: MA Social Sculpture - message from Shelley Sacks

Hello

Shelley Sacks has asked me to contact you about the new MA in Social
Sculpture she will be running at Oxford Brookes University from
September 2004. Attached to this email is a pdf of the postcard she has
developed to advertise the course. If you would like to circulate the
postcard to anyone you think might be interested, that would be great.

In the meantime, please get back to me or Shelley directly if you have
any queries about the course. More details can also be found on the
website: http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/artandmusic/index.html

With best wishes
Honey Lucas
Postgraduate Administrator

--
_____________________________________________

Dr Honey Lucas
Postgraduate Administrator
School of Arts and Humanities
Oxford Brookes University

Richard Hamilton Building
Headington Campus
Headington Hill
Oxford OX3 0BP

Tel: 01865 484992
Fax: 01865 484952

DISCUSSION

Aljira Center fro Contemp. Art: Request for Applications


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 11:54:15 -0400 (EDT)

ps: this place also takes submissions: http://aljira.org/forartists/

////

From:"Creative Capital Foundation" <emaillist@creative-capital.org>
Subject:RFA Creative Capital Strategic Planning Seminars at Aljira
Date:Wed, 14 Apr 2004 17:05:36 -0400

REQUEST FOR APPLICATIONS

Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art, is pleased to invite you to
apply for a unique opportunity to invest in your artistic development.
Aljira (www.aljira.org) has entered into a partnership with Creative
Capital Foundation (www.creative-capital.org/whatwedo/pd).. We have
developed and will conduct a three-seminar program focusing on Strategic
Planning that will take place between May and November of 2004.

For the past five years, in keeping with Aljiras mission the Emerge
program has assisted artists with accomplishing their goals by offering
training in career issues. The Creative Capital Strategic Planning
Seminars are designed to deliver skill-building opportunities to diverse
communities of artists across the country. The goal of this program is to
help artists organize, plan and sustain their creative careers.

Emerge: http://aljira.org/emerge/

The Strategic Planning Seminars will introduce you to a step-by-step
process to help you identify, acquire and build skills needed to reach
goals for individual projects and/or career objectives. As you articulate
your project and career goals more clearly, you are better able to move
forward and use each successive project as a career-building catalyst.
Strategic planning also provides a framework to organize the concepts
of marketing/public relations and fundraising. The seminars will
emphasize two primary skills: the ability to communicate clearly and
effectively about your work and the ability to target appropriate
audiences and funders.

These workshops will be facilitated by professional consultants and
trained Creative Capital-funded artists, giving participants the benefit
of the consultants considerable experience in their fields and the
artists personal perspectives and experience with workshop content.

SEMINAR STRUCTURE
These seminars will take place on May 22, August 7 and November 13,
2004. They are designed over a period of time to allow participants to
practice the skills that they have learned between each seminar, build
toward greater competency, and promote reflective practice.

All applicants must commit to participating fully in all three of the seminars

The format will include lecture style presentations, interactive
group activities, and individual and two-person exercises.

Participants will be encouraged to address leaders with questions
particular to their experiences and will be given the opportunity to
discuss these questions with leaders individually and in small working
groups.

Participants will be given a workbook of handouts with practical, how-to
information.

Participants will be asked to evaluate their experiences at the end
of each seminar to assist Aljira and Creative Capital in understanding
the efficacy of the program and continue to develop and refine it.

SELECTION PROCESS
The program can accommodate only 24 artists and therefore selection
will be competitive. Applications will be reviewed by a three-member peer
panel. All applications are reviewed based on the following criteria:

Artistic merit
Strong communication and interpersonal skills
Stage of career and degree of readiness for engaging in strategic planning
Potential for these seminars to have a long-term impact on your career

HOW TO APPLY
The application consists of four items:
1) Your Contact Information: Include your name, street address, city,
state, zip code, phone, fax, email.
2) Narrative: You may use up to two 8 1/2 x 11 single-sided pages.
Clearly label the top of each page with your name.
a) Describe your work as an artist. Include information about its
form and content and how you engage audiences.
b) What do you want your career to look like five year from now?
c) How do you think these seminars will help further your career?
3) Resume
4) Work Samples: Six slides and an accompanying slide identification
sheet, or a videotape cued to the portion of the work you wish the panel
to view.

DEADLINE
Your application must be in our office by April 30, 2004. We cannot
accept late applications, fax or
e-mail submissions. Applicants will be notified of selection by May 10,
2004.

SEND APPLICATIONS TO
Aljira
Strategic Planning Seminars
591 Broad Street
Newark, NJ 07102-4403

QUESTIONS
Please email Beth A. Vogel, Director of Program Development at
bvogel@aljira.org.

+
-

DISCUSSION

Righting copywrongs


Righting copywrongs
Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig has turned the intellectual ownership
debate on its ear
By DAVID AKIN
Globe and Mail Update Monday, Apr. 12, 2004
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040412.wxlessig12/BNStory/Technology/

While Canada's content creators pored over a controversial Federal Court
of Canada ruling that seemed to set ideas about ownership of intellectual
property on its head, Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School professor,
author, and influential voice for copyright reform in the United States,
was out proving that free downloads and fewer restrictions can be a
creator's best friend.

On March 31, the Federal Court ruled that sharing digital music files over
the Internet did not infringe on copyright rules. Some filmmakers, TV
broadcasters, authors, software publishers and other content creators
wondered if their work was still copyright-protected under Canadian law.

The ruling sparked a debate on Canada's editorial pages and Internet chat
rooms about the rights of creators to control their work.

Lessig convinced his publisher, Penguin Books, to allow his new book, Free
Culture, to come into the world this spring under a Creative Commons
licence, a relatively new kind of copyright which, among other things,
allows anyone to make and distribute a non-commercial audio performance of
his book without even asking his permission.

And sure enough, days after the book's release, one of his fans put out
the call: Are there any volunteers who would read and record a chapter of
Free Culture and then post an MP3 copy of that recording on their website?

Overnight, the first chapter was read and posted on-line. Within days, the
whole book was there, each chapter read by different volunteers. Lessig
himself said he planned to read a chapter and added to what the community
of his readers had now claimed partly as their own.

"Quite frankly, I hadn't ever expected it," Lessig said in a telephone
interview from his office at Stanford.

Lessig expected some derivatives of the work to appear. In addition to
waiving the non-commercial audio rights, he's let an electronic version of
the book be posted on the Internet where readers can download it for free,
mark it up, annotate it and pass it on -- again, so long as its for a
non-commercial purpose and the source is attributed.

The free download is available for a limited time from
http://www.amazon.com, a company that, counter intuitively, would rather
sell you the book than host a free download of it.

"Here's Amazon trying do one thing: sell books. So why are they giving
away a book that they're trying to sell? I think they understand, too,
that this is a good way to get people into buying the book," Lessig said.

At one point late last week, Free Culture held the 36th position on
Amazon.com's rank of best-selling books. That 36th position would not have
reflected any free copies of the electronic version that had been
downloaded.

Other sites where Free Culture book can be downloaded are at
http://www.free-culture.org and http://www.lessig.org.

Lessig helped create and establish the Creative Commons license because he
believes U.S. copyright law is too restrictive and that the ability to
riff off of or modify creative works is crucial for the intellectual
health of any society.

Free Culture's subtitle is How Big Media Uses Technology and The Law to
Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. Big media in this case stands in
for everything from the Walt Disney Co., and its legal pursuit of anyone
who would use Mickey Mouse without its authorization to the world's record
companies who are trying to sue on-line file-sharers.

By distributing Free Culture under a Creative Commons licence, Lessig
would be leading by example.

"There was a certain moment there where I required the strength of my
convictions," Lessig said. He could have made more money, for example, by
selling the audio rights and waiting for some mellifluous-toned actor to
read his work.

He can still do that -- he has reserved the rights to any commercial audio
performance of his work -- but he's thrilled that the amateurs have jumped
in first.

"The more I think about it the more I think it's exactly right the way
it's happened. It builds a community around the work. People read the
work.

"People can get access to the work more easily and that's all to the
benefit of spreading ideas and selling more books," Lessig said.

That first call for volunteers to create an audio version of Lessig's book
was made by the Rev. A.K.M. Adam, a theologian at the Seabury-Western
Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill.

Adam is better known to his friends and correspondents as Akma, the
operator of the website http://www.disseminary.org, and one of the
Internet's most influential and popular philosophers and bloggers.

"The book itself is an expression of faith in the commons as the premise
for shared cultural activity in the sphere of publication and
communication, the exchange of ideas," Akma said in a telephone interview.

"So when Lessig offered the book for download as his sign of commitment to
that premise, it was exciting to see his readers respond by this gesture,
which makes the book that much more available and indicates their
commitment and participation in the production of the book," he said.

The experiment has also been a matter of faith for Lessig's publisher,
Penguin Books (USA) Inc. of New York.

"This is a risk for us and it's a risk for Larry," said Scott Moyers,
senior editor at Penguin and the editor on Lessig's last two books.

But Moyers said it seemed to be a risk worth taking. First, Lessig's books
(Free Culture is his third) make money and, at the very least, there would
be assured sales of the book to university students. Both of Lessig's
prior works had become required reading for some post-secondary courses
here and in the U.S.

"He's a very strong seller. He's a guy any publisher is very happy to have
on their list," Moyers said. But more important was the idea that Lessig
would be doing precisely what his book was prescribing. "I would love to
do this again because that would mean that this has been a success,"
Moyers said.

The experiment also underlines that, just as the success of the film
version of The Lord of the Rings can turn the book the film is based on
into a bestseller again, derivatives or copies of some kinds of content
can drive an audience back to the source, in this case, the printed bound
object that is the book.

"This is one of the counter-intuitive lessons that the U.S. needs
desperately to learn from a legal institutional point-of-view and that
capitalist business enterprises need to learn for their own advancement
and that is that freely available works on-line are not antithetical to
highly produced, packaged, refined versions of the work through
conventional venues," Akma said.

"This is a development, a mutation in the market that an alert
entrepreneur can work to his or her advantage."

[David Akin is a CTV correspondent and contributing writer to The Globe
and Mail]