Subject: Lessig on Free Culture

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 01:57:12 +0300

I just found today an interesting talk given by Lawrence Lessig on July
24th (a little over a month ago) titled "free culture". It is a very
interesting talk about how the current copyright and patent schemes
(copyrights last life+70 years) curtail creativity and ruin the notion of
common "culture", and gives interesting examples, like how Disney took
Brothers Grimm stories (because copyright expired, so they were considered
part of our "culture") and yet his own creations cannot be touched by the
next generations long after he's gone. He also talks about how copyright
law has changed dramatically in letter and in spirit since the 18th century
till today.

In http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/ you can find the lecture in
various formats. If you can spare 31 minutes for hearing an interesting
lecture, downloading the mp3 (7MB) and listening to it is recommended.
(I didn't try the flash presentation on that site).

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |         Friday, Sep 6 2002, 29 Elul 5762
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |The 3 stages of sex: Tri-weekly, try
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |weekly, try weakly.

---

From: Omer Zak <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 10:59:39 +0300 (EET DST)

Another problem:

On Fri, 6 Sep 2002, Nadav Har'El wrote:

> various formats.If you can spare 31 minutes for hearing an interesting

The MP3 version is not accessible to the hearing impaired.
I didn't check what is being offered in the other formats.

BTW, one of the motives of Sklyarov (the Russian programmer who ran afoul
of DMCA in USA) was to make the contents of E-books accessible to the
blind (as mandated by the law in Russia).
                                             --- Omer
WARNING TO SPAMMERS:  at http://www.zak.co.il/spamwarning.html

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From: Arik Baratz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Sep 2002 10:12:45 +0200

Hello Omer

What makes an mp3 accessible to the hearing impaired? Cleanness of the 
recording? Text channel? Speech compression?

-- Arik

Omer Zak wrote:
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From: Omer Zak <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 11:21:20 +0300 (EET DST)

> recording? Text channel? Speech compression?

If it was used to record a lecture (rather than music), then provision of
a written transcript of the lecture would make the lecture accessible.
I'd not begrudge the well-hearing people due to their ability to enjoy the
musical qualities of Lessig's sound.

As said in my original E-mail message, I didn't check if there is an
adequate text transcription of the lecture.

                 Happy and Accessible New Year,
                                             --- Omer
WARNING TO SPAMMERS:  at http://www.zak.co.il/spamwarning.html

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From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 12:27:21 +0300

> musical qualities of Lessig's sound.

You know I'm all for giving hearing-impaired equal opportunities, and so
forth, but let's get real here... A guy stood and gave a lecture in front
of the O'Reilly Open Source Conference for half an hour. He didn't send
his lecture as text, he *talked* it out to the room. Another guy happened to
record the audio of that lecture. This is how the mp3 came to be. Creating
a transcript is obviously an entirely different (harder) feat - but someone
also did that, just take a look at the page I pointed to!

The reason why I suggested the mp3, and not reading the transcript, is that
I thought that listening to Lessig's enthusiasm and the way he speaks was
a nice experience. Obviously people who cannot hear, or who are not
confident enough in their English to listen to someone speak quickly, should
prefer other formats: the site includes also a transcript, a Flash
presentation, and I don't remember what else. For people who can hear and
are confident in their English (most of this list, let's face it) I recommend
listening to the mp3.

> adequate text transcription of the lecture.

Well, there is... People, please always check before you complain about
someone being anti-deaf, male-chauvinist, racist, or anything of that
sort... Because such accusations especially insult and hurt people who
do care about these things.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |         Friday, Sep 6 2002, 29 Elul 5762
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |Does replacing myself with a shell-script
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |make me impressive or insignificant?

---

From: Oleg Goldshmidt <[email-masked]>
Date: 06 Sep 2002 11:53:25 +0300

> I didn't check what is being offered in the other formats.

There is a link to a transcript. 

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2002/08/15/lessig.html

I have not had a chance to listen to the talk or to read the
transcript yet.

-- 
Oleg Goldshmidt | [email-masked] 
=================================================================
"... Of theoretical physics and programming, programming embodied 
the greater intellectual challenge." [E.W.Dijkstra, 1930 - 2002.]