These are strange times indeed. While they continue to command so much attention in the mainstream media, the 'battles' between old and new modes of distribution, between the pirate and the institution of copyright, seem to many of us already lost and won. We know who the victors are. Why then say any more?

Because waves of repression continue to come: lawsuits are still levied against innocent people; arrests are still made on flimsy pretexts, in order to terrify and confuse; harsh laws are still enacted against filesharing, taking their place in the gradual erosion of our privacy and the bolstering of the surveillance state. All of this is intended to destroy or delay inexorable changes in what it means to create and exchange our creations.

"...The Renaissance ideal can be expressed as a creative synthesis between cultural disciplines, standing in stark contrast to our traditional focus on scientific specialization. This panel presents a number of experts who approach the synthesis of art and science as the modus operandi for their work, using it as a tool for creativity, research, and practice. Understanding these approaches allows us to identify the roles of synthesis in successful innovation and improve the implementation of interdisciplinary synthesis in research and practice..."

"...Here’s a list of 5 things you can do to get ahead of the game and make sure you don’t get trampled by the herd while looking at your watch. Although these ideas are written from a visual arts perspective, I’m sure that readers from other creative backgrounds can also apply them to their field. And please be warned, this is not an article about free-culture. It is about adapting to some of the changes that free-culture ideas are creating. If you want to learn more about this phenomenon, there are links after the article..."

"The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. -- William Hazlitt -- In the Free Software Movement, we stand for freedom for the users of software. We formulated our views by looking at what freedoms are necessary for a good way of life, and permit useful programs to foster a community of goodwill, cooperation, and collaboration..."

via carnielshop http://carnielshop.blogspot.com/2008/01/free-software-philosophy.html

Lots of people have virtually forgotten about HDCP and PCP because they can't currently see any situations where they'd be affected by it. Well, I'm one of the early affected.

"...What needs to happen is that people need to see beyond these bureaucracies and determine the rights that they wish to have and see others have. If - and only if - the majority of people view their human rights as encompassing their ability to create and imagine - will there be a change. They can wear the colors of the FSF, they can contribute to the Wikipedia, or they could have their own 15 megabytes of fame somewhere. There is no name for this other than deciding the future. You can throw money at any organization and expect them to do things for you - but that is the same mentality which created the present system..."

It seems Apple is not the entity fighting for a DRM-less world we thought they were and Nokia isn’t such a great patron for open source software either. For those who haven’t heard the news, lobbying by both companies have caused the W3C to strike a provision in a HTML5 draft which would make OGG Vorbis and Theora a standard media format on the web.