Digital Rights Network

On January 23-24, 2006, Intelligent Television hosted the Economics of Open Content symposium at MIT to bring together representatives from media industries, cultural and educational institutions, and legal and business minds to discuss how to make open content happen better and faster.

They've now released the whole set of the presentations under a CC attribution license including Terry Fisher on 'The Economics of the Music Industry' and Eric von Hippel on 'New Models of Creative Production in the Digital Age'.

= Forum on Open Content =

* www: http://www.openknowledgefoundation.org/okforums/content/
* registration (optional): email okforums-info [at] okfn.org
* previous forums: http://www.openknowledgefoundation.org/okforums/

== Where and When ==

* When: Wednesday 22nd February 2006, 7-9pm
* Where: Stanhope Centre, Marble Arch, London.
* Directions: http://www.stanhopecentre.org/about/directions.shtml
* Map: http://tinyurl.com/dlrpt
* Who can attend: public. Registration is optional but useful so please notify us if you can via: okforums-info [at] okfn.org
* Who is speaking:

Deadline for Submissions: Extended to 28th of February (was: Thursday 19 January 2006)

CULTURE MEDIA AND SPORT COMMITTEE
16 November 2005 No. 11

New inquiry: New media and the creative industries
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee is announcing today a new inquiry into the challenges and opportunities for the creative industries arising from the development of new media platforms. For the purposes of the inquiry, the term "creative industries" includes music, visual broadcasts, sound broadcasts, film, graphic art, design, advertising, fashion and games software.

The pan-European Creative Economy conference took place last week in London under the auspices of the UK's presidency of the EU. It was certainly tough to get a place there (I applied and was 'put on the waiting list') but fortunately some non-rights-holder groups did get a look in -- though it appears they were still heavily outnumbered. As a consequence we are fortunate enough to have two thorough summaries which have been posted up in the original Creative Economy thread here: http://drn.okfn.org/node/37. (Ms Gibson's summary contains some very interesting information on the database directive).

From these reports it appears that, sadly, the government continues to listen to only one side of the debate in these matters. This is bad not only for consumers but for creation and innovation in the UK (and EU) economy (creativity and innovation to flourish depend, not on protectionism, but on diversity and competition). Nevertheless it is a promising sign that people such as Ms Childs, Ms Gibson (and I believe Creative Commons) were able to attend -- even a couple of years ago it is doubtful whether such a conference would have contained anyone except the rights-holders.

Link:
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http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/consultations/enforce05/

Deadline:
*********

2005-10-07

Who:
****

The consultations are open so anyone can respond.

Annex E lists those orgs formally sent a consultation document.

How To Respond
**************

Please send responses by Friday 7 October 2005 to:

Jeff Watson
Intellectual Property & Innovation Directorate
The Patent Office
Concept House
Cardiff Road
Newport

LinuxWorld Conference & Expo will take place over two days, 5th and 6th October at the Olympia Exhibition Centre in London, UK.

Thanks to generous sponsorship space is available once again, FREE of charge, in the .Org Village for Linux projects, groups and campaigns.

Sadly space is limited at the Expo. However unlike other LinuxWorld Expo's we do not allocate space on a first come first served basis or based on the percieved size of you .Org.

Submissions are welcome up until the 1st August. At that time we will announce which entrants have been accepted. Whilst some priority will be made to UK based .Orgs the size of your Org will not be either a benefit or hindrance. Some space will be reserved specifially for small or new Orgs.

All-Party Internet Group (which is Chaired by Derek Wyatt) is holding a meeting on copyright and Digital Rights Management on 29 November 2004 at the National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, from 2pm until 6pm.The agenda is not quite yet finalised, but keep an eye on http://www.apig.org.uk/ where it will be published.