Simon Goldin writes:

Flack Attack on Autonomy

We invite you to contribute to Flack Attack, a new magazine coming out of The Port (http://www.theport.tv/), a community-driven space inside the online 3D world Second Life (http://secondlife.com/). The production process of Flack Attack will be continually featured on artport (http://artport.whitney.org/), the Whitney Museum's portal to Internet Art, as a gate page during the month of December 2005. Using The Port as a point of departure we are pursuing a series of investigations into the potential of networked public spheres and the organization of participatory production.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Favela Rising

If you don't know, I wanted to let you know that Favela Rising has been shortlisted for an Academy Award. To fully disclose, I am working with the directors to let people know about this film.

If you are not aware of the story, Jeff Zimbalist and Matt Mochary put together a documentary on the AfroReggae movement spreading throughout the favelas in Rio de Janeiro. The film focuses on Anderson SA, who had an social and political awakening when his brother is killed by a hand grenade tossed into a bar by a corrupt cop. SA then started the AfroReggae music movement as an alternative to joining the favela druglord gangs for the youth of his community.

Artistic Revolution writes:

"Unique 8 Hour Draw-a-thon!!"

Artistic Revolution Gallery, New York City, Dec. 15, 2005

Michael Alan and Artistic Revolution Gallery invite you to our second energetic, alternative eight-hour figure drawing marathon session. This one-of-a-kind art event will feature 12 models wearing costumes, taking theatrical, improvisational and dynamic poses and DJs sets featuring alternative, dramatic, classical and punk music to spark a creative vibe and set the stage for a truly unique and dynamic drawing experience.

Nude, partially nude and costumed models will take short, long, interactive and moving poses through out the evening in a variety of alternative drawing scenarios including: African gesture, punk rock poses, costume chaos, dark opera, Last Supper group pose and twisted twister. Participants will also get a chance to collaborate with each other during our reflective drawing session.

The draw-a-thon will take place on December 15th at Fix in Williamsburg at Bedford & N11th. Doors will open at 7pm. Participants are encouraged to arrive early and will be admitted on a first come first served basis. Supplies will not be provided. However, a limited amount of basic materials will be available for purchase.

Date: Thursday December 15, 2005

Time: 7pm – 4am

Place: Fix Cafe on Bedford & N11th in Williamsburg Brooklyn

Travel: L train to Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn or B61 to N11th

Admission: $14

Anarcho-Poetical - ­An Evening of Mad Manifestoes

Peter Lamborn Wilson’s Annual Chaos Day Lecture

The December Anarchist Forum

On Tuesday, December 13, at 7:30pm, the Libertarian Book Club's Anarchist Forum will present Peter Lamborn Wilson who will recite much of his anarchist poetry, which he refers to as "Mad Manifestoes." Peter will connect the poems to what is currently twisting about in the world, answer questions and respond to audience comments.

The event will take place at the Brecht Forum, 451 West Street, Manhattan (between Bank and Bethune streets). Take an A, C, E, or L train to the 14th Street and 8 th Avenue subway stop or take a 1, 2, or 3 train to the 14 th Street and 7 th Avenue stop.

Everybody is welcome and invited to come and to have their say. There is no set fee for the presentation, but a contribution to aid the LBC is suggested. If you have questions, contact the LBC /Anarchist Forum, 212-979-8353 or e-mail: roberterler @ erols.com

Notes on copyright and copyleft

by Wu Ming, translated by Jason Di Rosso

1.The two horns of the false dilemma

We’ll start at the end: copyleft is founded on a need to link two primary needs; we might say two irrefutable conditions of civil co-habitation. If we stop struggling to satisfy these needs, we stop hoping the world will get better.

There's no doubt that culture and knowledge must circulate as freely as possible and access to ideas must be straightforward, equitable and free from discrimination on the grounds of class, censorship or nationality etc. Intellectual works are not just products of the intellect, they must in turn produce intellect, disseminate ideas and concepts, fertilize minds, in order that new thoughts and fantasies may sprout forth. This is the first cornerstone.

The second is that work must be remunerated; this includes the efforts of artists and narrators. Whoever can make art or narration their profession has the right to make a living out of it in a way that doesn't infringe on their own dignity. Obviously, we're talking about the best case scenario here.

It's a conservative attitude to think that these two needs are like two horns of an irreconcilable dilemma. "There's barely enough to go around" say the defenders of copyright as we've known it. Freedom to copy for them means only 'piracy', 'theft', 'plagiarism' - and you can forget about the author's remuneration. The more the work circulates for free, the fewer copies you sell, the more money the author loses. A bizarre syllogism if you examine it closely.
The most logical progression should be: the work circulates for free, its appreciation translates into word of mouth, the author's reputation and profile benefit as a result, and therefore their influence in the cultural industry (and not just there) grows. It's a beneficial cycle.
A well respected author is increasingly called on to make presentations (expenses reimbursed) and to attend conferences (paid); they are interviewed by the media (unpaid but it furthers the cause); academic postings are offered (paid); consultancies (paid), creative writing courses (paid); the author has the possibility to dictate more advantageous conditions to their publisher. How can all this harm book sales?
Let's talk about the musician/composer. The music circulates for free, people like it, it grabs their attention; whoever wrote or performed it has their profile raised, and if they know how to exploit it they're called upon to perform more frequently and in more places (paid), they have the opportunity to meet more people and therefore more supporters, if they 'develop a name' they are offered film soundtracks (paid), gigs as DJs (paid), sound design jobs for events, parties, art shows, fashion shows - they can even find themselves directing (paid) a festival, or an annual exhibition and so on. If we look at pop artists, we can add the income from merchandising like t-shirts sold on-line or at concerts etc.
And so the 'dilemma' is resolved: the needs of the consumers have been respected (they've had access to a work), as have those of the authors/composers (with financial and career benefits) and the cultural industry (editors, promoters, institutions etc.)

British Novelist John Fowles, 1926–2005

John Fowles, the novelist who died on Saturday aged 79, combined a rare narrative instinct with a scholar's interest in literary form; as a result he enjoyed the unusual distinction of both professorial attention and enormous sales.

A solitary man who shunned both the London literati and the society of his neighbours at Lyme Regis, Fowles was concerned, above all, with the existential freedom of the individual, with his scope for choice and the energy with which he wrestled with the mysteries of existence.

He provided few solutions in his work, preferring to allow the answer to a question to be itself another question. For he believed that "Mankind needs the existence of mysteries. Not their solution." His own work, sometimes labyrinthine in its complexity, rarely deviated in style or content from this maxim.

Lagren writes

European Free Arts Demonstration
Strasbourg, Nov. 12, 2005

European Demonstration of Sound Systems

Meet at 14:00 (13:00 GMT) in Place de la Republique in the center of Strasbourg

We demand the right to exist,

We demand the end of systematic and unjustified repression against us,

We demand the condemnation of countries such as the Tcheck republic for brutally repressing our organised events for no justifiable reason,

We demand the right to be treated as socio-cultural performers; because our events are unrestricted, self -managed and with no financial interest, they fall outside the norm of commercial cultural events,

We demand access to Art and Culture as a fundamental right and its expression to be state-approved,

WE DEMAND NOT LAWS BUT RIGHTS!

Against arbitrary repressions of named "Teknival" and "Free Parties".

These events just are an artistic and cultural manifestation of free expression with no commercial purpose, open to all in order to share, develop and enrich their culture.

To ensure that what happened in the Tcheck republic does not happen again!

We will not tolerate that, in a newly emerging constitutional Europe, member nations ignore and destroy our spaces for creative freedom through violent police action or security laws.

We will not give up against these discriminatory actions.

We will not give in to intolerance.

We will not be silenced.

We will carry on and inform the public.

In order to achieve this, WE NEED ALL OF YOU...

Chairman Mao Hyped as a Hero for the Tourist Masses

David Eimer, UK Independent

The Chairman's image is dangling from the mirror of the taxi that takes me
to Mao's childhood home in Shaoshan in southern China. "He's my good luck
charm," grins the driver. However surprising this may seem, it certainly
appears to be working.

Since China's State Council designated this year as the year of Red Tourism,
an initiative designed to re-kindle faith in the present-day Communist Party
(CCP), a booming Shaoshan has become an unlikely must-see on the tourist
trail.

Revered Chinese Author Ba Jin Dies at 100

By ELAINE KURTENBACH

Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) -- Ba Jin, one of China's most revered communist-era writers who attacked the evils of the pre-revolutionary era in novels, short stories and essays, died Monday of cancer in Shanghai, the official Xinhua News Agency said. He was 100.

Best known for his 1931 novel "Family," the story of a disintegrating feudal household, Ba Jin also translated the Russian writers Ivan Turgenev and Pyotr Kropotkin.

Ba Jin worked well into his later years writing essays and compiling anthologies of his work.

He was part of the young intelligentsia in the early 20th century that looked to Western philosophies - Marxism, anarchism, and liberalism - for solutions to China's backwardness and social inequality.

Punkerslut writes:

"The Rights of Squatters"
Punkerslut

"The finder of something which the owner was probably sorry to lose, cannot take it up with the intention of withholding it from the owner when he comes to inquire. But when the owner does not appear, the finder has a right to retain it for himself." — Samuel Von Pufendorf, The Rights and Duties of Man and Citizen, Book 1, Chapter 13

I had always believed, before I was adoringly aquainted with the philosophy of Humanitarianism, Rationalism, and Justice, that squatting ought to be a right, and not a privilege. To see so many vacant houses, standing side by side like disease, and to hear of so many unemployed and so many houseless as though they were the worst lot of humanity — to see the present state of conditions as they exist, I had always believed that squatting is a right. On the one hand, there is an army of unemployed, houseless, starving, cold, freezing, without even the least sympathetic touch of humanity, not reaching out because of their pride, and they exist in the multitudes. And nobody can be blamed other than megacorporations, whose assets exist in the trillions.

Trillions of dollars, I say! As a close friend of mine tells me, in New York City, they can invest to have enormous television sets sitting on the sidewalk, yet every apartment is infested with vermin and cockroaches. We have delapidated buildings, beggars on the street, homeless children without even enough clothing to pass the decency laws. All this misery, this poverty, and this crime! Oh, and of crime! What shall I say of it!

When men are grown up in an environment where everyone around gathers their paycheck in the form of a possessed wallet or a confiscated purse, where their fathers are robbers and members of thieves guilds. Should we expect the children to grow up any differently? Should you take a child from the ghetto, and honestly ask him that he will grow up to be the CEO of a megacorporation, only that the megacorpration will be one that exploits and does nothing but destroy the environment and violate the rights of indigenous peoples!?