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Entries Tagged as 'Commons'

Whoa, Just So Many Online Ed Resources

April 30th, 2012 · No Comments

Like John Cusack in Better Off Dead when all songs seem to be about what is on your mind (see below), education seems to pop up everywhere I look right now. Well, why fight it? This link is to a host of online resources (HT: Esther Wojcicki). I listen to lectures while exercising. So far [...]

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Tags: Academia · Commons · Just for Fun

Another Tip That Education Is Changing: Open Stax Textbooks

April 30th, 2012 · 1 Comment

Costs of education need to come down. Open course materials are growing. Maybe education will indeed undergo a transformation in the next ten years. There are many things that will need to change for true education reform to take place. But better resources matter. Enter Rice University. Its OpenStax College initiative tries to address the [...]

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Tags: Academia · Commons

Hi, Keep It Open, But Behind a Paywall

April 20th, 2012 · No Comments

Andrew Morin and six others have argued for open access to source code behind scientific publishing so that the work can be tested and live up to the promise of the scientific method. At least, I think that is the claim. Ah irony, the piece is in Science and behind, oh yes, a pay wall! [...]

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Tags: Commons · Ideas

Infrastructure: The Social Value of Shared Resources

April 2nd, 2012 · 1 Comment

I am excited to announce that Oxford University Press has published my book, Infrastructure: The Social Value of Shared Resources. I owe a huge debt to my Madisonian colleagues for their support along the way. I will post more about the book in the next few weeks, but here are some links and a short [...]

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Tags: Commons · Copyright Law · Ideas · Intellectual Property Law · Law & Technology · Online Norms and Culture · Patent Law · Trademark Law

High Art! Or Because It Is Grim in the Bay Area and This One Made Me Smile

March 14th, 2012 · No Comments

Yes it is deep thoughts time. The grey lurks between the western hills and the narrowing finger of the south San Francisco Bay. Luckily my friend Norm sent this video to me.
Darth Vader? Good. Bag Pipes? Good. Darth and bagpipes put together with a guy in a kilt and on a unicycle? I leave that [...]

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Tags: Commons · Copyright Law · Just for Fun

Some thoughts on Julie Cohen’s new book Configuring the Networked Self: Law, Code, and the Play of Everyday Practice

March 10th, 2012 · No Comments

Cross-posted at Concurring Opinions for a symposium on Julie Cohen’s important new book, Configuring the Networked Self: Law, Code, and the Play of Everyday Practice (Yale University Press 2012).
Julie Cohen’s book is fantastic. Unfortunately, I am late to join the symposium, but it has been a pleasure playing catch up with [...]

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Tags: Commons · Copyright Law · Intellectual Property Law · Law & Technology · Online Norms and Culture

Infrastructure and SOPA

February 14th, 2012 · No Comments

Blog: A new book by Madisonian Brett Frischmann is on the cusp of release. “Infrastructure: The Social Value of Shared Resources” now has its own page at Amazon.com.
Its timing couldn’t be better. Passions over the proposed SOPA (and Protect IP/PIPA, and OPEN, and related) legislation have barely cooled, but debates will certainly continue over Internet [...]

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Tags: Commons · Law & Technology · Online Norms and Culture

RIAA on the SOPA/PIPA protest and Masnick’s reactions

February 8th, 2012 · No Comments

RIAA:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/opinion/what-wikipedia-wont-tell-you.html
Mike Masnick’s line-by-line reply:  http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120208/01453517694/riaa-totally-out-touch-lashes-out-google-wikipedia-everyone-who-protested-sopapipa.shtml
 
Hat tip to Lauren Gelman.

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Tags: Commons · Copyright Law · Intellectual Property Law · Online Norms and Culture

Thoughts on Ammori’s Free Speech Architecture and the Golan decision

February 5th, 2012 · No Comments

There is an interesting blog symposium at Concurring Opinions about Marvin Ammori’s Free Speech Architecture article.  I am participating in the symposium this week, and here is my first post:
Thank you to Marvin for an excellent article to read and discuss, and thank you Concurring Opinions for providing a public forum for our discussion.
In the article, [...]

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Tags: Commons · Copyright Law · Ideas · Intellectual Property Law · Law & Technology

Commonses

December 14th, 2011 · No Comments

Recent readings and reports turn up some provocative examples of what Brett Frischmann, Kathy Strandburg, and I call cultural commons — institutions that enable the structured sharing of knowledge and information rights and resources. The examples illustrate many of the promises and perils of institutions colored by degrees of openness and closure.
From the New York [...]

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Tags: Commons

A Commons Comedy Fueled by Data

November 29th, 2011 · 1 Comment

Imagine you are a fisherman and haul in a catch with fish that are protected and that would get you in trouble. Quick! Hide it! Deny it! etc., right? Nope. The Times reports that a partnership among fishermen and the Nature Conservancy meant that this fisherman reported the catch so the overall area could thrive. [...]

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Tags: Commons · Law & Technology

A Case of Independent Origination?

October 11th, 2011 · No Comments

From the Shanghai Daily News:
A HONG Kong design student’s tribute to Steve Jobs that generated a buzz online following the death of the co-founder of Apple last week is not original, the teenager said yesterday.
Jonathan Mak, 19, said he was not the first to come up with the design that fits Jobs’ silhouette into the [...]

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Tags: Commons · Copyright Law

Commons Comment

October 3rd, 2011 · No Comments

At Prawfsblawg, Derek Bambauer has some provocative thoughts about cultural commons that follow up on the “Convening Cultural Commons” workshop that I co-hosted a week ago at NYU, with Brett Frischmann and Kathy Strandburg.
Derek writes:
[T]here was one looming issue that the conferees couldn’t resolve: what, exactly, is a commons?
The short answer is: no one knows. Ostrom’s [...]

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Tags: Commons

Innovation and the Legal Profession

September 19th, 2011 · No Comments

The future of the legal profession is a topic usually reserved for social scientists and legal scholars who focus on the profession itself.  Last Spring, I wrote here that the future of the legal profession is an innovation problem, on a par with the problems that beset the steel industry in the 1960s and 1970s [...]

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Tags: Commons · Law School

Culture and Commons: Elinor Ostrom Coming to NYU Law

September 3rd, 2011 · No Comments

The “Constructing Commons in the Cultural Environment” paper and project that I have been working on for some time now with Brett Frischmann (Cardozo) and Kathy Strandburg (NYU) takes a leap forward later this month.  Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom, whose work was our starting point, will be giving a free, public keynote lecture at NYU’s [...]

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Tags: Commons

Idea for In-Class Discussion of Protectable Cultural Expression

August 6th, 2011 · No Comments

I recently returned from our Summer Away program in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  While at the Taos Pueblo, I purchased a pot crafted by an Acoma artist at a small shop.  As I handed the money to the owner, she commented, “This artist has a patent on this design.  No one else can make pots [...]

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Tags: Commons · Ideas · Intellectual Property Law · Potential Exam Fodder

Information Wants to be Free…

July 19th, 2011 · 1 Comment

But how you free it is another thing… Man accused of hacking millions of papers at MIT (H/T Orin Kerr)

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Tags: Academia · Commons · Copyright Law · Law & Technology

Free Science

May 23rd, 2011 · No Comments

Free as a verb, not as an adjective.  David Dobbs has an engaging article about publishing and modern science up at Neuron Culture.
It begins:
On Father’s Day three years ago, biologist Jonathan Eisen decided he’d like to republish all his father’s papers. His father, Howard Eisen, a biologist and a researcher at the National Institutes of [...]

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Tags: Academia · Commons · Copyright Law

“A Song A Day Keeps the Hipsters Away”

May 22nd, 2011 · No Comments

That’s the name of this college kid crafted music blog. Enjoy!

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Tags: Commons · Links We Like

Johnson on Tasini sues HuffPo

April 13th, 2011 · No Comments

Eric Johnson has some excerpts and nice commentary about Jonathan Tasini’s lawsuit against the Huffington Post.
For those who haven’t seen it, the argument is that those who have voluntarily submitted published content are now entitled to unjust enrichment damages. This case looks like a loser, and even if it’s not, it should be.

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Tags: Commons · Copyright Law · Online Norms and Culture