Chris Lydon’s “Blog with a Radio Show” Open Source outdoes itself with a great discussion of creativity and copyright here. I found Siva’s contributions very interesting, as always: there are few if any people more capable than him when it comes to vividly and succinctly explaining why copyright policy matters. The Negativland frontman makes an appearance, and everyone has a good time discussing the nature of the “artistic soul” (to borrow a term from Roberta Kwall’s fascinating recent piece supplementing/challenging economic approaches to copyright policy).

I also recommend this broadcast from Harvard’s Berkman Center on new technology for outwitting censors in countries that block internet access systematically. The speaker, Ron Deibert, proposes that corporations who want to avoid industrial espionage from governments like China’s may be the best funders of networks that can also be used to carry dissident samizdat. I’m usually skeptical of assurances that “democracy-will-come-in-the-wake-of-markets,” but this proposal could make that old bromide a lot more realistic.

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