hydrarchist writes:

"It's been a bad week on the repression front for the p2p community. Last weekend Isamu Kaneko was arrested (10 million yen — more than $100,000 — has already been raised by his supporters to assist in his defense). Shortly afterwards, the RIAA began proceedings against another 493 defendants in the United States. Lastly a private law firm has announced suits against 20 p2p users in Korea, mostly for downloading movies."

Isamu Kaneko, Winny, P2P Repression

Isamu Kaneko, author of Winny, the Japanese P2P software with
encrypted networking capability, similar to Freenet, has been
officially arrested on copyright-related charges. The charge of
violating copyright laws carries up to three years in prison or a fine
of up to 3 million yen ($27,000).

hydrarchist writes... here's an oddish interview with Siva Vaidhyanathan about his new book. Elsewhere he is the author of the first general cultural history of the origins and development of coopyright law, "Copyrights and Copywrongs".

The Anarchist in the Library (Basic Books, 2004)

Q: This is a very provocative title. Who is the anarchist and where is the
library?

SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN:
The anarchist is a specter. It’s a symbol of an imagined threat. There
are powerful forces trying to close up our information worlds so they can
control its flows and charge admission. To accomplish their goals, they
raise fears about “anarchists in libraries,” uncontrollable,
dangerous forces threatening us from within. The library is a metaphor for
our information ecosystems. I argue we should be as careful with our
information ecosystems as we should be with our real ecosystems. Small
changes can have huge effects.

System-77 Civil Counter-Reconnaissance

S-77CCR

S-77CCR is a tactical urban counter-surveillance systems for ground controlled UAV's (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and airborne drones to monitor public space.

The violence of classical theatres of battle is overshadowed by the rise of low intensity conflicts in highly developed societies of capitalist democracies. The increasing privatization of security in this all-pervading omni directional new style of confrontation asks for solutions towards transparency and a balance of power.

To allow for equilibrium of skills in surveillance and a broad education of the public in control technologies, access to a technology for the people seems necessary.

"Changing Copyright"

Negativland

In an attempt to suggest a culturally sane solution to the continuing legal confrontations between owners of copyrighted cultural material and others who collage such material into new creations, we advocate a broadening of the copyright concept of Fair Use. We want the Fair Use statutes within copyright law to allow for a much broader variety of free, creative reuses of existing work whenever they are used in the creation of new work.

"The New Surveillance"

Sonia K. Katyal

Abstract
A few years ago, it was fanciful to imagine a world where intellectual
property owners — such as record companies, software owners, and
publishers — were capable of invading the most sacred areas of the home
in order to track, deter, and control uses of their products. Yet,
today, strategies of copyright enforcement have rapidly multiplied, each
strategy more invasive than the last. This new surveillance exposes the
paradoxical nature of the Internet: It offers both the consumer and
creator a seemingly endless capacity for human expression — a virtual
marketplace of ideas — alongside an insurmountable array of capacities
for panoptic surveillance. As a result, the Internet both enables and
silences speech, often simultaneously.

"Organized Networks"

Ned Rossiter, Centre for Media Research, University of Ulster

[Presented at The Life of Mobile Data: Technology, Mobility and Data Subjectivity conference, April 15-16, 2004, University of Surrey, England

Abstract

This paper is interested in how networks using ICTs as their primary
mode of organisation can be considered as new institutional forms.
The paper suggests that organised networks are emergent
socio-technical forms that arise from the limits of both tactical
media and more traditional institutional structures and architectonic
forms. Organised networks are peculiar for the ways in which they
address problems situated within the media form itself. The
organised network is thus one whose socio-technical relations are
immanent to, rather than supplements of, communications media. The
paper argues that the problematics of scale and sustainability are
the two key challenges faced by various forms of networks. The
organised network is distinct for the ways in which it has managed to
address such problematics in order to imbue informational relations
with a strategic potential.

hydrarchist writes:

What is X-Evian?


X-evian is a self-booting, self-installing distribution copy of Debian Gnu-Linux

X-evian is a Live-CD, a complete operating system which installs automatically from the CD-Rom in RAM memory by means of a process of automatic hardware detection. This makes it possible to "parasite" a PC without leaving any trace?without touching the hard disk and without interfering with the operating system or the files already installed on the PC. X-evian also includes a utility for installing the contents of the CD automatically onto the hard disk (without having to erase Windows).

Debian GNU/Linux is much more than an operating system: it is an entire system of program distribution, installation and management built around the Linux kernel (the core of the operating system). Debian GNU/Linux consists of about 10,000 different programs, nearly all of which are free software, bundled and classified for integrated operation. X-evian is a selection and compilation which has been carefully chosen and configured for activist users, for liberated cultural, technological and social production. But Debian is much more than "a complete operating system and an infinite number of programs". Debian is the largest independent free software community on the Net and one of the most firmly established and stable techno-political projects in cyberspace. X-evian is an easy preconfigured way of introducing the user to the best of the resources of this Debian.

hydrarchist writes:

"The State of Copyright Activism"

Siva Vaidhyanathan

One of the great hopes I had while I researched and wrote Copyrights and Copywrongs (New York: New York University Press, 2001), a cultural history of American copyright, during the late 1990s was that copyright debates might puncture the bubble of public consciousness and become important global policy questions. My wish has come true.

Since 1998 questions about whether the United States has constructed an equitable or effective copyright system frequently appear on the pages of daily newspapers. Activist movements for both stronger and looser copyright systems have grown in volume and furor. And the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in early 2003 that the foundations of American copyright, as expressed in the Constitution, are barely relevant in an age in which both media companies and clever consumers enjoy unprecedented power over the use of works.

hydrarchist writes:

"Wealth by Copyleft: Creativity in the Digital Age"

3rd Oekonux Conference, Vienna, May 20-23, 2004

Invitation

Project Oekonux [http://www.oekonux.org/] does research on the
economical, political and social forms of Free Software. Similar to
the development of Free Software, different people with different
reasons and different approaches get together in this project to build
something new. One question, a lot of people are interested in, is,
whether and if so, how, the principles of the development of Free
Software can serve as a basis for a new society.

The 3rd Oekonux conference [http://www.oekonux-conference.org/]
"Wealth by copyleft -- Creativity in the digital age" takes up the
diversity of the project. Among other things it aims at learning
something about how the example of Free Software is perceived and
realized in other fields. Together with our co-organizers Bureau for
Philosophy in Vienna we are proud to welcome more than 30 invited
contributors which will share their experience, studies and insights
with us on topics like:

"First Internet Commons Congress Gives Voice to Internet Freedom Advocates"

Grant Gross, IDG News Service, March 31, 2004

The politically minded group of people meeting last week near Washington,
D.C., weren't wearing enough navy suits and power ties to be confused with
the U.S. Congress, but there was a much deeper concern for the Internet than
most congressmen can muster.