For the most part, university websites are not the most flattering in the world, nor are academic conference websites. But this one Copyright’s Counterparts is quite nice (and the theme also interesting). Makes me wonder, actually, about how copyrightable the design of a website is. Does anyone know? update: Not sure why my links don’t work on planet I will have to figure that out after I get back from Canada.Update again: OUCH, ok there are issues with the website thanks to le flash raised in the comments. But I still think it looks good and I am sure that aesthetic could be transfered using non-flash technology!

Over the years there have been a pretty steady number of foundations that represent the world of Free Software and Open Source. Now there are new foundations that are distinct and with different goals but related such as autonomo.us and now Open Web Foundation. John Eckman has penned some first thoughts on the pros and cons of the OWF in specific, which are worth thinking about.

Apparently there is enough of a pirate problem in PR that the BSA even has a special PR-only Website.

While free speech rights are valued and recognized in most liberal democracies, the degree and scope of these rights are by no means uniform. The United States, which has the most expansive free speech protections in the world, actually stands apart as this New York Times article on the subject makes clear.

The article covers familiar ground (at least for those who follow free speech debates) but it does so well and discusses an interesting case now unfolding in Canada, concerning a pretty inflammatory magazine article denouncing Islam. The magazine is currently under trial for violating provincial hate laws.

So I am giving a talk this Friday at the University and here is the English introduction to my talk/paper and below is the Portuguese one. It starts at 9 am in Porto Alegre, Brazil and is being streamed.

*O Departamento de Pós-Graduação da Antropologia e a Associação Software
Livre.org convidam:
*_*
Palestra com a antropóloga Gabriella Coleman*_
professora da New York University (NYU)

*Quando:* Sexta-feira, dia 13 de junho, às 9h
*Onde:* Auditório do ILEA, Campus do Vale – UFRGS
*Entrada:* Gratuita
*Transmissão web: *tv.softwarelivre.org

*
_Revoluções Silenciosas:_*
*O Irônico Surgimento do Software Livre e de Código Aberto
**e a Construção de uma Consciência Legal Hacker*

A palestra oferece uma análise antropológica e histórica do
surgimento da comunidade de software livre e de código aberto,
procurando mostrar como, ao longo de duas décadas, hackers e
entusiastas do software livre garantiram para si um domínio de
autonomia legal para a produção de software. Em uma época
marcada por profundas transformações no regime de Propriedade
Intelectual, a comunidade de software e de código aberto se
organiza cultivando uma acentuada consciência das transformações
no âmbito legal. O objetivo da palestra é o de demonstrar como e
quando se cruzaram as trajetórias parcialmente independentes das
transformações nas leis de propriedade intelectual com a
consolidação do “movimento” de software livre, para se tornarem
histórias inseparáveis voltadas à disputa pelo futuro das
tecnologias – especialmente o computador pessoal e a Internet.
Com este foco, será discutida uma nova prática social de
produção de tecnologia que fornece uma nova visão de mundo
insurgente e que desafia as justificativas neoliberais que
animam a expansão das leis de propriedade intelectual. Nesta
discussão, ao invés de oferecer histórico abrangente, serão
apresentados exemplos selecionados da história do movimento de
software livre e da globalização das leis de propriedade
intelectual, com vistas à caracterização da prática de produção,
distribuição e utilização de Software Livre e de Código aberto
nos Estados Unidos.

Four years ago, the last time I was in Brazil, I came as an anthropologist-in-training to attend and give a talk at Debconf4 held in Porto Alegre. I have returned to this city in the south, again in the winter, but this time I have come back as an anthropologist who is giving a talk at the department of anthropology at the UFRGS, based on my research conducted many years ago. This time, thanks to my (really friendly and energetic) hosts, I am seeing far more of the actual city, its beautiful and aaaamaazing sunsets, its outlying neighborhoods, and even its subcultures.

This has been my first foreign trip where I am interacting primarily with anthropologists and this has been really interesting for me. On the one hand, because of the language difference, there is a lot that is strange and hard for me to follow and I am acutely aware of the general and particular economic gulf between north and south and its impact on students (books are expensive, traveling for conferences is very difficult, and even applying to graduate schools in the north can be impossible because it costs so much to apply to each school!) On the other hand, the methods and subjects of study, the style of analysis, and the teaching are all very familiar, making me feel like I am part of a discipline that (thankfully) transcends national borders. Many of the projects I learned about–the tensions between free software advocacy and development, the role of memory among fan’s of a “corny” country/Gaucho singer from this area and the “surgical management” of intersex (hermaphrodite) newborns were some of the most interesting projects I have come across and gobbled as much information about them as I could.

I was also struck, yet again, by the deep myopias of anthropology, north and south. My own project, which focuses mostly on white, American and European hackers, often does not strike as culturally authentic enough because, well, the people I study are white, American and European (and I am slowly coming to see that if you study the so-called white and male or the North American/European elements of technology and the Internet and the law, you are probably white and male yourself and anything having to do with ethnicity/gender is usually the province of female academics, which I find really problematic).

If I had carried out my first project in Brazil, where there is a foreign language, where there is a long tradition of studying various groups, then my project would have been stamped by that mysterious aura of authenticity/approval. On the other hand, two of the students here (those that worked on free software and the country singer) complained that their papers have yet to be accepted by the Brazilian Anthropological Association for being too strange, non-traditional, and it seems in their case, the problem is that they are studying urban Brazilian, popular culture (which for me would have just been “just” the thing to study). We are located far apart but find ourselves in similar positions by virtue of studying something geographically close to where we live, which is confused and misperceived as being culturally close to our world. But if there is something I wish to hammer into my students and other anthropologists is that there is tremendous plurality and multiplicity within our own societies. We can travel far, in the cultural sense, just by staying home and opening our eyes a little wider.

Another nice experience is that I am learning a tremendous amount about free software politics and development from the graduate student, Luis Felipe, who is really responsible for getting me down here. He found me on IRC many moons ago and finally we have been able to compare notes and have long conversations about free software, the differences in how we can gather data due to gender, and a topic close to me, which is the tension between the political and apolitical in free software.

Our relationship is at once based on friendship and also one of mentoring. And it reminds me of others who have also mentored me and how crucial this mentoring was to the development of my own work. One of my most important mentors, Chris Kelty, just published his book on Free Software (and I will soon write an entry about the book but the WHOLE THING IS ONLINE) and so it felt quite nice that we were discussing what I think his one of his most amazing chapters on the creation of the copyleft in our class on Friday. Not only was the topic about the genesis of the first free software license appropriate for a class on IP, but in many ways, because of his mentoring, I have gotten to where I am and so it felt also appropriate to honor and recognize that genealogy in my own work.

Check out this new website the Museum of Intellectual Property, which provides some nice case studies and visuals for the study/critique of IP law. It also bears a slightly different IP notice, the Konomark, which is not a license, but as its web page explains, a signal.

One of the most interesting debates concerning new technologies is whether human enhancement technologies have any resemblance to the older practice of eugenics. One of my favorite articles on this subject is by The Case against Perfection, which simply stunned my students (and they are pretty hard to stun).

Recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a couple of articles on the topic, and I wrote a response to one of them, (which as you will see, irked me some) here. While I agree with the author that medical genetics is not eugenics, it is still worth our while thinking through today’s genetic and reproductive technologies through the eyes of historical instance of eugenics.

For those interested in the politics of science, or to be more specific, how science is flagrantly twisted to keep important facts and findings about our public health from public view, this book Doubt is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health by David Micahels looks like a must read. For those wanting a little here is a review of the book.. In short, the author shows how occlusion comes from the need to secure and protect profits, and is achieved with what he calls the “alchemy” of twisting numbers and facts:

“It’s quite easy to take a positive result [showing harmful effects] and turn it falsely negative. This epidemiological alchemy is used widely.”

The problem runs deep as this other article from Slate magazine also indicates. But there are some good sources to get and evaluate your science and health news and health news review seems like one important place to go.

Surveillance, massive patent litigation, and toxic trails are just a few of the atrocities that are part and parcel of the global giant Monsanto. They do not just produce a lot of the worlds GE crops but some MAJOR FUD with real muscle as this disturbing in-depth article demonstrates . Whether it is their shadowy, relentless fight against American farmers to “protect” their patents or their fight to scare dairy farmers from labeling their milk BST free, they deploy an astonishing range of legal and extra-legal tactics to make sure they stay on top.

Below is a smattering of some of their creepiest tactics, which kinda make the RIAA look angelic in comparison.

“To gather leads, the company maintains an 800 number and encourages farmers to inform on other farmers they think may be engaging in “seed piracy. Once Pilot Grove had been targeted, Monsanto sent private investigators into the area. Over a period of months, Monsanto’s investigators surreptitiously followed the co-op’s employees and customers and videotaped them in fields and going about other activities. At least 17 such surveillance videos were made, according to court records”

“Studies by health authorities consistently found elevated levels of PCBs in houses, yards, streams, fields, fish, and other wildlife—and in people. In 2003, Monsanto and Solutia entered into a consent decree with the E.P.A. to clean up Anniston. Scores of houses and small businesses were to be razed, tons of contaminated soil dug up and carted off, and streambeds scooped of toxic residue. The cleanup is under way, and it will take years, but some doubt it will ever be completed—the job is massive. To settle residents’ claims, Monsanto has also paid $550 million to 21,000 Anniston residents exposed to PCBs, but many of them continue to live with PCBs in their bodies. Once PCB is absorbed into human tissue, there it forever remains.”

The company contends that advertising by Kleinpeter and other dairies touting their “no rBGH” milk reflects adversely on Monsanto’s product. In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission in February 2007, Monsanto said that, notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence that there is no difference in the milk from cows treated with its product, “milk processors persist in claiming on their labels and in advertisements that the use of rBST is somehow harmful, either to cows or to the people who consume milk from rBST-supplemented cows.”

Monsanto called on the commission to investigate what it called the “deceptive advertising and labeling practices” of milk processors such as Kleinpeter, accusing them of misleading consumers “by falsely claiming that there are health and safety risks associated with milk from rBST-supplemented cows.