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OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
February 5, 2007

Copyright Policy
If you are involved in copyright and licensing in Canada, you don't want to miss this collection of studies, recently made public by Canadian Heritage. As Michael Geist notes, the list was recently released by the Copyright Policy Branch (and I echo his kudos to the Branch for doing this). There's a lot to absorb, but among the studies you'll want to be sure to look at Economic Impact of WIPO Ratification on Private Copying Regime ("the new outflow is from Canadian consumers to foreign copyright holders, and the new inflow is from foreign consumers to Canadian copyright holders") and also The Economic Impact of Canadian Copyright Industries - Sectoral Analysis" - take some time and look at the graphs documenting the trade deficit (outflow to foreign copyright holders) and ponder what the impact of exaggerating that deficit - through more stringent legislation and ratification of WIPO - would be. Various Authors, Canadian Heritage February 5, 2007 [Link] [Comment]

The End of Captain Copyright
Access Copyright is killing Captain Copyright, a misleading propaganda campaign on file sharing aimed at Canadian children. For teachers who ordered "literally hundreds" of Captain Copyright packs, Michael Geist recommends Copyright, copyleft and everything in between, a multimedia curriculum on copyright alternatives in South Africa. Michael Geist, Website February 5, 2007 [Link] [Comment]

Web 2.0 - SOA and AJAX - the Next Killer App?
I was pleased today to discover that Bill St. Arnaud has a blog - I remember a decade ago reading (and gaining a lot from) his regular email newsletter. Anyhow, in this post he links to two articles to make the comment: "There is no Web 2.0 without SOA (Service Oriented Architecture)... SOA doesn't need Web 2.0 [but] Web 2.0 does need SOA... SOA lacks a face; that's where AJAX comes in - it puts a face on SOA." If course, this is to depict Web 2.0 as nothing more than the fancy AJAX interfaces - but as readers of this newsletter know, it is much more than that, everything from RSS to social networks. Bill St. Arnaud, Weblog February 5, 2007 [Link] [Comment]

How to Make a Great Topic Boring
"So my girl who has had her own laptop for a year and a half and can put together kick-butt presentations in no time at all, who has her own Flickr account and Blogger blog gets to [handwrite] an essay on the history of computers." Via WOW2 Newsletter. Karoli Hayes, odd time signatures February 5, 2007 [Link] [Comment]

Movie Piracy Claims More Fiction Than Fact
According to a "steady stream" of news articles, Canada is one of the hotbeds of movie piracy. The problem with this 'news' is that it is based mostly on fiction. The percentage of movies camcorded is overstated. The financial impact of camcorded copies is exaggerated. Suggestions that the law doesn't deal with camcording are simply wrong. "Unless politicians separate fact from fiction, this show appears headed for a frightening finale." Michael Geist, Website February 5, 2007 [Link] [Comment]

Open Educational Resources - Anonymity Vs. Specificity
This paper is awkwardly written, almost to the point of impenetrability. But between the odd understandings of words (eg., 'network' as "based on trust between a limited number of persons knowing each other") it makes the point that, because the production of OERs is distributed and autonomous, it is difficult for the network of OERs to reach critical mass. "The main resistance to the flow of OER is rather to be found in their dispersedness and the need for adaptation to a new local context." Bernd Remmele, EURODL February 5, 2007 [Link] [Comment]

Web 2.0 ... The Machine Is Us/Ing Us
This video is interesting on a number of levels. The way the text is presented will catch your attention almost immediately. But the message, culled from a long lost Wired article, is what will get you thinking: "When we post and tag images.... we are teaching the machine. Each time we forge a link... we are teaching it an idea." Michael Wesch, YouTube February 5, 2007 [Link] [Comment]

 

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