Hallo, breaking up the monster thread here are some texts from Mute magazine regarding copyright and piracy and open source and why it's not as easy b/w as some may think: Copy That Floppy! The Pirate Bay, a tracker website based in Sweden, has become the most popular BitTorrent site in the world and now receives more daily hits than CNN. The Pirat Byran (Pirate Association) is its sister organisation, and promotes information piracy and its culture through discussions, media advocacy and legal advice. Mute talked to Palle Torsson of Pirat Byran about filesharing culture in Sweden and the 'grey commons http://www.metamute.org/en/node/5599 Change of the Century: Free Software and the Positive Possibility The much touted 'freedoms' of FLOSS are coming under increasing scrutiny as they are applied to contexts beyond their original formation. Is 'freedom as in speech' enough or are there other freedoms upon which the construction of the commons depends' Martin Hardie has worked extensively on an archeology of how the GNU/Linux operating system was developed, exposing the myths that are at its foundation. Here, he asks how the licensing of FLOSS operates within the constitution of Empire and locates in the new forms of 'producing in common' the means to reverse the proliferation of alternative law and instead affirm a true alternative to law. http://www.metamute.org/en/node/7053 Charters of Liberty in Black Face and White Face: Race, Slavery and the Commons The Magna Carta is renowned as the 'Charter of Liberty' which inspired modern constitutional safeguards against the power of the State. But its smaller companion, the Charter of the Forest, enshrining the customary rights of the commoners to land and resources, has been overlooked. Cutting between the political struggles of the early 1970s and the 1720s, Peter Linebaugh shows how the struggle against enclosures in the woods of England is inextricably linked with the struggle against slavery in the Atlantic http://www.metamute.org/en/node/5602 No further comments, have fun, -- Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__
