Flight and Accommodation

Flight there was on China Airlines Which was the cheapest flight available. I wonder if it has anything to their recent safety record. The economy seats though were very spacious, with full access to inflight entertainment. Watched Superbad, which suprisingly wasn't censored. So parents watch what your kids are watching. Not impressed with the movie at all, so got work done instead.

Getting to the accommodation wasn't difficult. The organisers did a great job with their instructions. The only problem I had was communicating stop number 8 for the bus. Found out it was Pa, close enough to Korean 빨 pal. A smart taxi dude was already there figuring out people are likely to need taxis at one of the stops.

The accommodation is brilliant. Affordable and practical. Just 5 minutes walk from the venue, and a nice workspace with free broadband.

Usually so called "business hotels" are outdated. These days business travellers need a place to put their laptop and free broadband to get their work done. At around RM100 per night, this accommodation beats 5 star hotels easily. Being able to read emails and get other work done makes these conferences so much less stressful and productive.

I woke up to a rather Canberra winter like scene. I expected Taiwan to be cool, not cold and dreary. So I had to wear my jacket most of the time, which lead to one or two comments of are you a lawyer? At least they didn't ask if I was a software patent lawyer or something.

Keynote

http://meeting.creativecommons.org.tw/program:solutions-to-the-copyright-crisis

Keynote speaker was William Fisher from Harvard Law School, and his keynote outlined clearly the issues that is facing current copyright regime.

Some interesting notes was that out of the Internet users 2.2 billion users are from Asia which is now the leading region in terms of users. Which set up an interesting point for conversation, is that shouldn't we define what the environment for commons and sharing of digital content be and not big media?

He did use some figures such as declinding record sales. This is a common theme that I find disturbing in anything related to IPR, is the use of such figures. The Economist has a good article on this "Software Piracy or BS". Too often, declining media sales somehow is too easily correlated with increase in sharing of digital media or Internet users. That is way to simplistic, decline can be in any number of forms from economic factors, people using their time alternatively etc.

He spelled it out clearly what has recently been discussed on the disadvantages of possible solutions to the "problem".

OpenMoko

http://meeting.creativecommons.org.tw/program:the-making-of-a-totally-open-phone

• Neo1973 phone

Mentioned that Ring Tones sad or funny, is a USD 6billion industry.

They're committed to a totally open platform, some points made:

• Limitations on reverse engineering, decompilation and disassembly

Requirements:

• fully and publicly disclose datasheets
• fully disclose datasheets to OpenMoko and allow us to use the documentation to write a driver
• fully release an existing driver under the GPL

A point that seems to parallel FOSS world, about releasing software as open source:

SMedia chairman - "I don't want to open our documentaiton, because of the worry about quality of our designs"

Major issue highlighted was not that businesses don't want to, but businesses don't know how

March 2008 - GTA02 Planned for very large rollout of their second phone and reference platform.

Oh yeah.. they're hiring!

Asus EeePC

http://meeting.creativecommons.org.tw/program:asus-eee-pc-ecosystem-enabling-for-open-source-open-content

• Based on FOSS, contributes back
• 350K sold already

Form the presentation, it seems they that they get it, when it comes to not just building on FOSS, but also delivering somethign that consumers want.

Contact person for EeePC - ellis_wang@asus.co.tw

eyeVio - Sony

Cool guy. This is from a different group of Sony. It's rather strange to hear the words "We are not evil" from Sony. It shows that there are people in Sony who understand some of the perceptions people have.

eyeVio is a photo/media sharing site which uses CC licensing for user uploaded content. It's an open platform, but mostly it's to encourage users of Sony hardware to share their content online with others.

http://eyevio.jp/

Moshang

http://meeting.creativecommons.org.tw/program:jamming-with-machines

South African musician based in Taiwan, showe how samplings and various inputs and tools are used to create his music.

Creative Commons

http://meeting.creativecommons.org.tw/program:making-creative-commons-common-in-asia

Shared some intersting slides, including just how many large Internet companies are using it.

Questions: "What kind of campaign issues they had in order to implmenet their projects"

Sony: not many people are aware, CC: Businesses are coming to CC, looking for simple legal solution

Question: "Sustainability for CC"

CC: "Creative commons are non-exclusive, more development of businessmodels, including CC+"

Sony: "Freedom is not free, sometimes users misuse them. Costs lots of money to maintain services, including monitoring people who CC license work by others."

OpenMoko: "who spreads ideas fastest wins, leverage the free content to sell more hardware"

Question: "Licensing overriding common law"

CC - "Licenses are ported to jurisdictions"

Question: "Open Formats"

Sony: "to use common formats like mp3 and flash. Need to be open to use by other devices, but works to make sure it works best between their devices."

OpenMoko: "Tried to open out mechanical drawings, but had to use ProEngineering format. Compatability issues in formats. Sometimes even manufacturers break formats. Somtimes accuracy is more important."

Asus: "Compatbility with users. Policy is to use utility to convert it".

Artist: "Artists, will go with the largest possible audience."

Question: "What advantage of adopting CC for technology companies?"

Sony: "Branding - to show that Sony is not all about DRM, and that it is open to the Internet world and new models."

CC: "To see CC as a protocol layer, to communicate between other users, to use the same licenses"

Cultural Perspectives Asia

• Shun Ling

http://meeting.creativecommons.org.tw/program:to-surpass-or-to-conform-what-do-we-want-public-licenses-for

FLOSS is heading towards a public regime.

• Jessica Coates

http://meeting.creativecommons.org.tw/program:playing-well-with-others

An interesting talk about an issue which affected IOSN, which is GNUFDL (Wikipedia) and Creative Commons licensing.

Playing well with others - increasing compatibility between commons licences

• Intentional incompatibility
• Unintentional incompatbility

Possible solutions

• Don't use copyleft clauses

• Dual licensing

  • Can only be done by the copyright owner
  • Only allows compatiblity with chosen licenses
  • Can be confusing and complex

• Make licences compatible

  • Explicit licent text permitting cross-licensing
  • Federation of licences

• Alina Ng - CC Malaysia

http://meeting.creativecommons.org.tw/program:authorship-in-the-commons

• What is difference between factual and creative work?

Effect of copyright on authorship in the commons, and if need to, propose a change as to how the law treats compilations and arrangements of creative components in the commons.

She brought up some interesing thoughts regarding balance of rights and duration of protection with regards to copyright. Sounds familiar? It's similar to Software Patents. Look forward to her research outputs on possible solutions.

• Chunyan Wang - Renmin University of China Law School

http://meeting.creativecommons.org.tw/program:managing-copyright-in-a-digital-world

• 46 million bloggers in China www.cnnic.cn
• collective management system

Questions: "In Taiwan, multiple collecting agencies, could be cause multiple taxes."

Chunyan Wang: "Early stages in China is to guarantee the interests of the creators"

Question: Shorten copyright protection:

Alina Ng: "If rights length is shorten, then authors get full rights. If length of protection is longer, there should be less rights/restrictions".

Chunyang Wang - "Solution to reduce rights, by choosing CC and more permissive licenses. Being able to share is advantageous."

Jessica: "Shortening period of copyrights, but by registration it could make it more available."

Question/Point Terry:

• Remove clogs on activities that you're trying push
• Goal in cultivating new businesses -> change way people behave and value (share more, create more, appreciate cultural traditions)

Shun Ling - Creative Commons uses a lot of language as FOSS, is making it a wider goal the idea?

Jessica - "In Asia, does CC apply in developing countries?"

Alina - "Laws affect culture"

Chunyang - "Planning to use CC, as a way to teach copyright"

"administrators should listen from the society of creators"

Speaker - National Taiwan University

http://meeting.creativecommons.org.tw/program:cultural-implications-of-creative-commons-in-a-chinese-context

Interesting paper. Somebody approached speaker (academic) about wanting to put it online, but didn't have pictures. A lot of people still not aware of CC.

Propose commons as a creative platform for public order for sharing intellectual material. This is needed because people do not have the idea of individual rights.

Lawrence Liang

http://meeting.creativecommons.org.tw/program:how-does-an-asian-commons-mean

• Cannot use Asia or term of Asia, unless you use it to compare with West? Is it common?
• If Asia Commons is different, then what are the differences?

I blame Lawrence for introducing the word sharism. Urgh. It was used multiple times by others.

Ding Tzann Lii

http://meeting.creativecommons.org.tw/program:from-pubic-to-social

The concept of IPR is quite recent (1980's? due to WTO). Previously human knowledge is beneficial to be shared, suddenly in last past few decades changed.

That in Asia, we are finding barriers (beside language) to getting knowledge from the "West". From scientific viewpoint, strong motiviations for sharing. When knowledge is privatised, it may hinder development.

"Knowledge is power, but by privitasing knowledge, you remove power from the commons"

Some interesting points from audience:

"1800's there was IPR debate between UK and US. Eg. printing has to be in the US, Berne Convention only signed by US in 1950's." - Norbert Klein

"IPR Pirates in the making of industry in US - Yankees = Pirate in Dutch" - Lawrence Liang

In other words the US was a major pirater and only recently changed positions. So we should not be in such a rush to adopt what the US (Big Media) want implemented.

Keynote speaker second day:

Free Culture

Social Brain Foundation (socialbrain.org)

Second Panel

• Sophy

Taiwan using CC Atrribution NC-SA for Taiwan National Archives, using Dublin Core and OAI

Issues:

• Concepts of CC not understood content by end-users
• is metadata protected?
• can they change licenses?
• what they can they do take if misused

Solutions: implement, complementary procedures at the same time

A pity that the National Museum tour was later in the afternoon. Would have loved to ask, why National Museums don't allow photos. Aren't the national treasures of a country the property of all of it's citizens?

• CC Philippines

Free and Open Legal Content

http://www.lawphil.net

• CC Vietnam

VEF (already have contact) www.vocw.edu.vn

Cool, another Plone site.

• CC Korea

Artists/performance art

• CC.jp
• mf247.jp - music site full CC integration
• Good Design Award g-marg.org