The Free Speech Critique of Copyright Mistake Did you hear that Florida just outlawed sex? This was pointed out by Southern Fried Scientist, after reading of a Florida bill that prohibits “knowing sexual conduct or sexual contact with an animal.” Humans are, after all, animals, so by definition, Florida has just made normal sexual relations a crime. Obviously, that’s not what happened. As Rick Hasen at Election Law Blog points out, “A court facing a question of interpreting the statute would almost certainly read the statute’s use of the term ‘animals’ as ‘non-human animals,’ both to avoid absurdity and to conform with (1) the intent of the drafters; (2) the purpose of the statute; and (3) a commonly used (if scientifically inaccurate) understanding of the term ‘animal’ to exclude humans.” But it does provide a good example of language in the law. Underneath the veneer of the plain meaning of language in law is a mass of complex and sometimes inscrutable precepts. Law professor Frederick Schauer describes this better than I do:
Deepnet Explorer - Web + P2P + News Browser CASH Music Libre.fm — Découvrez de la nouvelle musique Vuze Bittorrent Client - The Most Powerful Bittorrent Software on Earth Creative Commons Many fantastic CC record labels already release and curate free music, making my job of creating an end-of-year list easy. I also browsed various CC music communities to end up with the following, somewhat eclectic, mix. If you're a west coast transplant like myself, this might be perfect for the east-to-west cross country flight home for the holidaze. It's definitely not exhaustive, so enjoy, but be sure to check out all the other great artists and tracks on FMA. By the way, the world of free and open music is made possible by Creative Commons licenses, which are developed, supported, and stewarded by Creative Commons — an actual nonprofit organization! Happy holidays!
Audio CC Malaysia, where are we now? A mixtape, open data and more CC Malaysia Mixtape 2015 by Muid Latif under CC BY NC ND A guest post by CC Malaysia Lead, Muid Latif. In the recent years, Malaysia has been more active in adopting open culture. For example, last December I had the chance to approach several local musicians and producers who are familiar with Creative Commons licenses on SoundCloud to find out if they were keen to have their music under a CC license. Our community also wants to play a greater role in open data. In this context, I have recently had the chance to contact the founder of the Big Data Malaysia network, Tirath Ramdas, about his view on open data here in Malaysia and concerns about citizen engagement. In the near future, we would love to see Malaysia join the Open Government Partnership (OGP), following the Big Data Analytics Framework goal to have the framework ready by the end of this year and in line with the Digital Malaysia 354 Roadmap (DM354 Roadmap).
opsound: free love, free music The Quiet Revolution in Open Learning - Commentary By Kevin Carey In the late days of March 2010, Congressional negotiators dealt President Obama's community-college reform agenda what seemed like a fatal blow. A year later, it appears that, remarkably, the administration has fashioned the ashes of that defeat into one of the most innovative federal higher-education programs ever conceived. Hardly anyone has noticed. Obama originally called for $12-billion in new spending on community-college infrastructure and degree completion. Two days later, negotiators found $2-billion. Then, the Education and Labor Departments decided to do something highly uncharacteristic of large federal bureaucracies: They began to talk. The concept is simple: Community colleges that compete for federal money to serve students online will be obliged to make those materials—videos, text, assessments, curricula, diagnostic tools, and more—available to everyone in the world, free, under a Creative Commons license. That still leaves the problem of credit.
Creative Commons Music - Josh Woodward