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Digital Culture

Our new house!

house in sewanee
Our new house in Sewanee! Got a chance to see it this weekend…great interior, 3 bedrooms, great windows in the living room, and hardwood floors all the way through. Looking more forward to the move now that we’ve seen the house!

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Digital Culture

In honor of Betsy and My home state:

Six things you didn’t know about Kentucky.

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Personal

And we’re off….

…to the wilds of TN. Pictures soon to follow!

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Digital Culture

More great Creative Commons news…

The BBC is going to be using Creative Commons licenses for their upcoming Creative Archive (an archive designed to give the British people free access to some BBC audio and video productions). Brilliant, and kudos to Lessig for getting named to the board.

Categories
Digital Culture

Creative Commons 2.0!

Creative Commons just announced the 2.0 version of their licenses, that clear up issues and make certain things (like attribution) standard.

Check them out.

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Personal

Just a quick update…

Betsy and I are heading to TN yet again this weekend, to (hopefully) visit our new house. New address and such forthcoming as soon as everything is official. Blogging at a lull until next week, probably…maybe some updates from TN (with pictures of the new place!).

Lots of driving, but the prospect of driving when you have all the music you own being broadcast wirelessly to your radio…ah, technology. I love ya like I love monkeys. I’ve decided, after careful consideration, that I like my iPod only slightly less than I like breathing and speaking. Thanks again to all who made it possible. 🙂

Categories
Digital Culture Legal Issues

Excellent new resource for law and libraries

The new LibraryLaw Blog is amazing…full of great info, and cutting edge library/law connections. I hope that more of a discussion community forms as the blog ages. I know I’ll be there!

Categories
Legal Issues Media

Example of the ridiculousness of copyright clearance

Story originally from Lessig Blog and the BBC.

At the Cannes Film Festival, a film named Tarnation is wowing the critics and crowds…impressing Gus Van Sant and John Cameron Mitchell to sign on as producers and attempt to get the film a distributor. It’s the story told via a series of filmed narratives of the director and subject since he was 11, as he deals with his mother’s mental illness.

The copyright problem here is this: the director/star/subject (Jonathan Caouette) estimates that the film cost a total of $218 to make. That’s the cost of the videotapes, and the one prop he purchased solely for the film (a pair of angels wings).

Cost to clear the rights to the images/music that he used in editting the film together?

$400,000

Categories
Media Personal

Yet another senseless “Who are you?” quiz…

This time, from one of the funniest movies evar, Office Space. The result scares me a little. 🙂


Lawrence

What Office Space character are you?

Categories
Digital Culture Legal Issues Master's Paper

Copyright and Willy Wonka…

Just watching one of my favorite movies of all time, Willy Wonka and Chocolate Factory. I’ve looked over the ‘net for a list of the literary references that Wonka uses during the film, and not found any complete lists. I’m a bit curious as to whether they only used public domain quotes, or whether they had to jump through the hoops that a modern producer would need to in order to clear the copyright on so many quotes. Many of them (Shakespeare is used a few times) are clearly public domain, but others are not so clear (O’Shaugnessy and others). Anyone know of such a resource? I’ll put on my reference librarian hat and find one if no one knows of one.

Just another great example where borrowing works from others made the movie more interesting, and raised it above the norm. Hopefully the remake won’t have to drop the sort of playful quotations for fear of lawsuits.