Life Inc: The Movie
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOBWhVe68os&hl=en&fs=1]
Gift Economy of a mystic
A recent article about Paulo Coelho (a Brazilian writer whose works are filled with mysticism) describes how his bookshelves collapsed one day and he realized he was hoarding things he didn’t need. So, now his shelves are empty and he regularly leaves his books on park benches and other places when he is done.
In another way to play with “free as in libre” and profit, Coelho has had a third of his upcoming novel posted on his blog, only removing the text when the book was released in print.
Creative Commons in Austin
In trying to think of the first post, it seemed strange to mention a workshop introducing creative commons because surely everyone knows what that is. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. One common experience that emerged from those attending the workshop was that so many people who should know about creative commons don’t.
Even while so many people kvetch about the horrors of patents and copyrights, creative commons grows by being incorporated into Yahoo, Flickr, Google and many others. Many blogs we visit every day have the creative commons logo and license attached. Yet the average person doesn’t know about this solution to sustaining cultural creativity while still protecting artist rights.