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SA Free Culture
To increase awareness and education around the value of common culture for innovation, economic development and education for all in South Africa.
Category: Media/events
Project end date: 15/5/2007 (512 days ago)
Creation date:
Development stage: active
city: Johannesburg, Cape Town
country: South Africa
Other countries:
Main Language: English
Number of people involved: 2
For years the Internet has been out of reach to South Africans. But things are changing and they?re changing fast. With broadband prices decreasing, policy-makers catching up and young innovators grabbing the opportunities that the Internet offers, we may just have another revolution on our hands.
The Internet?s power is unique. It?s unique because, unlike broadcasting technology that required huge start-up capital, today?s means of production and distribution (a computer connected to the Net) have dropped to a level where almost anyone can now be in the business of culture-building.
With 90% of the Internet driven by individuals, as opposed to the 90% that?s driven by broadcasters in traditional media, and with a new generation growing up in a world where they demand to rip, mix and burn their own culture, rather than getting their culture ?ready-made?, we?re entering an exciting new phase that could see small economies like South Africa reaping major rewards.
The key to understanding this opportunity revolves on the power struggle for intellectual property rights. If the technology allows us to publish books for use in education at marginal cost, if we can co-create free libraries of information for the common good and if we can remix, mash and share music at lower and lower costs, and most importantly, if people around the world continue to create without thinking about direct monetary compensation, why aren?t we doing more of it?
Before Creative Commons, there was no way for you to give up any of your copyrights in a way that simply allowed others to do legally what they were already doing illegally: copying and sharing. Before Wikipedia, no one believed that you could build an encyclopaedia as good as Encyclopaedia Britannica by the sheer force of volunteer contributions.
Today it?s a different world. Thanks to Creative Commons, you can now legally copy articles for use in education, use pictures in presentations and even sell your own creativity using the contributions of others ? without a lawyer and without paying a single cent. Thanks to Wikipedia, we can imagine a culture in South Africa where we are self-sufficient, where we take that level playing field and become real social entrepreneurs and where we take only that which we need and leave the rest for the common good.
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A key change at iCommons
If you're not part of the iCommons mailing list, take a look at the letter that Heather Ford, Executive Director of iCommons, sent to the list yesterday:
Dear friends,
At the 2 August iCommons Board Meeting, the board decided to make some difficult but necessary changes at iCommons. It has become clear over the past months that our vision for iCommons is different from the... more
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