View source for SFC NYC

A page for notes from the Students for Free Culture Conference 2011 @ NYU

Day 1:
Topics:
*Remix Culture
*OCW
*Diaspora
*Open Fashion
*Future of Broadband

Day 2:
*Unconference
*FreedomBox Discussion
-what's a freedom box?
-UX argument
-centralized/federated/decentralized


Day 1: Conference

9:30 Keynote: Pablo Ortellado
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coordinates Gpopai, a research center investigating the economic and social
impacts of the current Brazilian copyright regime. 

The current problem in Brazil is that students do not have access to books
which are too expensive to buy
The cost of books for a student equates family income. Students, therefore, 
 decide to copy
the books. Brazilian regime has a very strict copyright law which allows
students to copy only one
page. Copy shops face repression from the police because students copy books
there. Furthermore, more than a third of books required for courses are out of
print (which is a second issue the students face). The production of books are
subsidized in three ways:

1) No taxes imposed on the production.
+ others

96% of investment is public, the rest is private
the private investment are those who hold the copyright

Necessity for reform copyright law.


OpenCourseWare panel
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University of Michigan: open.umich.edu/wiki
- resources to introduce Open CourseWare programs to colleges and universities
- open source software platform already developed by University of Michigan
which can be used by others at other institutions

Remix idea in open access- watson taking millions of pages of text and
synthesizing it. No single researcher is able to process the information in 
his/her field but computers can do that.

Open CourseWare supplements, but does not replace education.

CC BY NC license can be a barrier to the distribution of open courseware.

Educators are motivated to publish their work under a CC license by having
more people accessing their work which increases the awareness of their work->
more citations-> better reputation.


Public Knowledge
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organization that defends people's digital rights
Net Neutrality - all traffic is created equal
free flow of information is very important


Diaspora presentation (2:30 - 3:30)
by Daniel Grippi and Raphael Sofaer
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plug computers are available, software is needed to run on these plug computers
working in Pivotal Labs in San Francisco
another issue of websites that only allow users to use them if they sign up
for an invite with through facebook- the site is not accessible to those who do
not have a facebook account
important: users need to be able to move their social graph from one site to
another (move their account information)- one does not have to join one website
because one's friends are there
federated social networking can provide interoperability, which is the key 
feature to solve the issue above- different users' data can be stored on
 different servers , but can still talk to each other as if they they were on
 the same server
to get started: pick a bug and try to fix it

Susan Crawford (5:00 - 5:30)
a professor at Cardozo Law School in New York City
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very few actors controlling our pipes 
companies split their influence in  the country in the past 
wireless will not be a substitute for wired access (interference, limited
spectrum)
cable is being more successful because only it can provide high speed
(only cable can provide it)
we will be charged for bitrates in the future -> high prices for high-speed
Internet access
access to the Internet is an essential public good
not much supervision of these companies
financial charges are shifting from the content providers to the consumers
Australia has the best model where a high percentage of people are reached by
fiber 


*Illustrated Law Journal
-read article 'law in the digital age.' 
-Illustrated law will allow for a new way in which jurists might conceptualise their activity. 
-four principles of coproduction
= the wealth of society is its people
= work is what works for the common good
= The impulse to give back is universal
= Humans require social goods
-comic book 'bound by law'
-criteria
=conceptualization
=boundaries
=conflicts
=efficacy
=dissemination of knowledge
=social justice subject matter
-tools
=GLP Drawboard
=inspiration from threadless
-nicholas.clark2@udc.edu
-identica @nrlucre