Comments on: Why I won’t support Creative Commons or Wikipedia this year

By: barabarasmitpµ

barabarasmitpµ — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:11:24 +0000

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By: Heather Ford

Heather Ford — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:56:42 +0000

Thanks for your message, Lodewijk. I appreciate everything you’re doing to establish chapters. I guess that wasn’t really my point. It’s more of a bigger picture question of how these issues are framed and funded. And word on the street is that a South African chapter is imminent

By: Marasoiu Marian Puiu

Marasoiu Marian Puiu — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:29:08 +0000

Heloo!
I reed all your comments and in part all is agreed with idea that this program OPE-EDUCATION it is a program who offer many posibiltys for all peoples indififrent of religion or aprtenence politic to study and recived the best education in the best school degreed or universitys with prestige from all world.This program is adress from all contry poor or very poor from America of Nord or America South,ASIA,Europe,Australia,New Zeeland .Aor organization Freedomilenium recived a message from support from many universitys and the recent university who want to implication in this program is Nottingham university with a prestige in all enviroment educational in the world.We thank for theyer support and we ensure from all aor support.
Sincerly,
Team Freedomilenium Organization
co-Worker OPEN-EDUCATION

By: Solana

Solana — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:03:32 +0000

Haha touché, yes it’s sometimes not enough to say “everyone” is welcome to join an open platform, you have to indicate through your leadership that “everyone” is welcome to co-own and help set priorities for the movement. So much of the money and audience required to run a large organization is still based in the USA (individual donors and philanthropy) so it’s no mystery how the global imbalance is perpetuated. Will there be an African or Latin American Pope before there is an African CC board member? My bets are on CC!

Happy new year all!

By: Heather Ford

Heather Ford — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:39:12 +0000

@donatella Thanks for your extensive reply! But I think you’re missing the point of what Alaa is saying. CC is a system that relies on copyright in order to work. And if people who don’t ‘really care about copyright and licensing’ but rather about ‘collaboration’ (as you say) are using the license, then they’re leaping at the opportunity to join a larger community but would probably be better placed to not use a copyright license or contract at all. As Alaa says, education about copyright is necessary when we talk to people about CC. And that kind of ‘education’ may not always be the best way of attacking a system that hasn’t worked for the West (and definitely doesn’t work for most developing countries).

It’s unfair to manipulate this as ‘seeing the glass half empty’. We all have a right to do and say what we think is right. And I know that many would agree that now is the time for us to be a bit more critical and look and what this particular strategy and this particular solution (designed by a very specific group of people) means in the long term for new regions.

You can’t deny that the CC board is entirely American (other than Joi) and that it is a solution designed primarily by lawyers. This has important consequences for the development of the license: good or bad.

@Andrew Turvey Thanks for your post, Andrew. I think we all appreciate your support. I would say that starting a chapter isn’t an automatic answer to the problem, and that we may need to think more creatively about how to stimulate active engagement among a diverse range of Africans in Wikipedia.

@Marasoiu Marian Puiu Go for it!

@Solana Thanks, Solana. It’s true that we’re all dedicated to information sharing, as colonists were to sharing the Christian faith in the 18th century I think there’s *always* time for critique. Critique will make this movement more attuned to the needs of the world. And we all know that even organisations with worthy goals need to speak to these issues – and if they cannot, then we have the right to choose another path.

By: Solana

Solana — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:43:31 +0000

I work for Global Voices so I’m obviously biased I’m proud we earned you support. I think your critiques about leadership of CC and Wikipedia are fair, but in the end we’re all dedicated to information sharing and information creation worldwide in the most positive sense. Most stories on Global Voices contain links to Wikipedia, and everything we publish is shared via Creative Commons. We’re a small organization in comparison, and owe a lot to our bigger friends. Thanks for pushing us all to be better and more global.

By: Marasoiu Marian Puiu

Marasoiu Marian Puiu — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:42:59 +0000

Heloo!
I reed aproche all comentary about implication of Wikimedia in creative commons and I think that not this is the esential problem.The esential problem is : HAw and who can start of a program education from all states in the world not only AFrica because exist poverty and in ather country like country Americanas SUD were exist very much peoples who don’t know to writte but in special to reed.We must to unification all associations,fundations all institution ,agencys who spent money from ather projects inutiliy and for this we must to do a charta wen every country poverty or not poverty to bring a contribution materials if is necesary to elaboration a law international special from EDUCATION and all is necessary for suport the program multinatnational lingguistics from each country who is involve in this project.In this program must to entry all nation and all country 214 or more to not be acuse that we leave a country in aout of this program.Organization Freedomilenium with headquarters in Romania expect your opinion and sugestion to improve this document and after to make be public.

Team Freedomilenium Organization

By: Andrew Turvey

Andrew Turvey — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:01:57 +0000

I think it would be fantastic to have a Wikimedia chapter in South Africa and would be a great way of trying to address the global imbalances you mention. I’m the secretary of Wikimedia UK and would love to do whatever we can to help this happen if people in South Africa want it.

Andrew

By: donatella

donatella — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:08:39 +0000

Well, Alaa, great point but what you say is not totally true. Having been responsible for the ME operations of CC in the past year and half, I can say that together with big “institutions” adopting CC and leading the “media hype” -like, obviously, Al Jazeera- there are hundreds of artists, techies, and creative people that have been adopting CC in the Arab world. Take Syria for example. Last CC conference in Damascus registred a presence of around 500 students at the faculty of fine arts and many prominent Syrian artists, as Mustapha Ali, adopted CC for releasing the majority of their works. Not because they really care about copyright and licensing but because it seemed to them “a social contract for collaboration, a good vehicle for preserving heritage without freezing it” as you beautifully wrote. In Lebanon we have seen in the past few months many artists adopting CC, including new talents like comic artists Maya Zankoul..and, as far as I’m concerned, the few training that we did -like the one with the Royal Film Commission in Jordan- were oriented on creativity thru online media…just few words about IP and copyright as you can see from the online curriculum http://blog.rfconlinemedia.net/!The operations in the ME can’t be IP centered also because I’m not a lawyer myself neither Joi Ito -the Ceo of CC who’s currently based in Dubai- is. Heather is right, the majority of CC staff is American -although I’m not sure it’s male and white..lots of women and of different origins- but Joi is Japanese and lives in Dubai. I’m Italian and I live in Damascus. Michelle, who’s in Berlin, is American but lives in Europe speaks fluent German and is learning Arabic. I try only to speak Arabic when doing CC things and activities in the ME. CC is trying indeed to be more international but the path is long, requires energies, people and time. I think in the Arab world we are trying to start something different. CC strategy over there is not IP centered and not lawyers lead. It’s truly community and education oriented, even if you might have seen a “leadership” of big organisations like Al Jazeera in the process of adopting CC and community building. That’s because big media take more media space than individuals even in the web blogs etc. And, btw, it was a great news that Al Jazeera had the courage to be the first “CC released” broadcaster. This doesn’t mean that we don’t have individuals working around CC. In Damascus every week we are having CC informal meetings and talks, and the community is organising activities and public talks not IP oriented. Next one should be the screening of “To Shoot an elephant” http://toshootanelephant.com/ a film about Gaza released under CC BY SA. Another example of an individual working on/with CC. My wish for next year is to have more “community centered” activities as Alaa suggests (and more regions, like Africa, as Heather points out). And I hope more people like you would come and debate those issues, and try to improve..But, instead of seeing the glass as half empty, I prefer to see it as half full..just as a beginning, not as a “mission accomplished”…wish you happy new year..dona

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