Lecture Four - Free Culture, Free Society

Today we examined ‘Free Culture and Free Society’.

We touched on copyright and how it is a tricky concept when the Internet is involved because the Internet is basically one giant copying machine. The problems of copyright again highlight how technology is moving faster than the law. We were then introduced to Creative Commons. This is a site that allows for relaxed copyright, for people who wish to choose the particular license that they wish to share there creative property with. These are as follows:

You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.

You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.


You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it — but for noncommercial purposes only.


You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.

We also touched on Open Software which is software that is free or can be purchased for a very low price, unlike the software giants like Microsoft and Macintosh. Unlike Windows, this software allows access to its source code so it can be modified by anybody. Adam informed us of the very disturbing fact that MS & Apple are putting programs in their OS’s that are collecting our information, which they then sell on to third parties. Due to the illegality of reverse engineering there software in order to reveal this disturbing fact to the world. MS and Apple GET AWAY WITH THIS. I think these software monoliths should be more accountable to the people.

Very Disturbing...