Talk:Free Culture (book)

Title change
It's interesting that when it was released in paperback, its subtitle was changed to "The Nature and Future of Creativity"; I wonder what caused the title to become less inflammatory... Julyo 00:28, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Creativity and innovation existed long before copyright and patent laws. Creativity and innovation does not require copyright and patent laws. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.150.25.154 (talk) 14:38, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't the book cover's copyright tag be changed? It says it's creative-commons licensed. I'd do it, but will wait for confirmation. If no objections appear in a few days, I'll be bold and change it.--Planetary 05:05, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Never mind. It's one of the unsuitable licenses. Leaving it as it is.--Planetary 00:30, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikisourcing the thing
Are we allowed to put this book up on Wikisource? I'm assuming, yes, we definitely are. But I'm going to ask anyway, aren't I. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.100.11.130 (talk) 23:18, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The book was released under a Creative Commons license, which suggests that you could do this legally. However, it is freely downloadable from other web sites, so I do not see a need. DavidMCEddy (talk) 04:35, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Untitled
The links at the bottom of the page are broken. The address www.free-culture.cc no longer exists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.79.121.195 (talk) 10:08, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program assignment
This article was the subject of an educational assignment at CUNY Graduate Center supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program&#32;during the 2012 Q1 term. Further details are available on the course page.

Above message substituted from on 15:19, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

CUNY ITP Core 2 Planning

 * Hey Group 1. I am trying different ways of reaching you so that we can get our ball rolling. Is this a place where we can map our quest? Chisholmredproject (talk) 00:57, 16 February 2012 (UTC) 15:50, 11 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi Janice - Yes, let's start the discussion here. Chrissy9876 (talk) 19:30, 11 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi rest of Group 1. I'm game. One question though--should we start our own subheading on the page for this? Anyone know how to do this. I was surprised how much is already there. I guess one of the first orders of business is to compare this "start" to a "full" article to see what's missing and sketch out our plan.--216.66.104.3 --Meilingaddress (talk) 22:51, 11 February 2012 (UTC) 22:49, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I just started a subheading for you. This is the place to be having this convo. Well done. Be sure to sign up here on the course page Onward!--Theredproject (talk) 23:55, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Meiling. Sorry but I am not following you: Where have you started a heading for us?? Please specify where it is that you have tis heading, and that we should be usuingt o discuss? Also, I signed my name, last week, but noticed that no one else has signed their name to Michael's listing of the participants of Group 1...?  comment added by Chisholmredproject (talk • contribs) 13:22, 13 February 2012 (UTC) Chisholmredproject (talk)
 * Janice: the last comment was from Michael. He created the new subheading that we are now in--you might notice, it now says our class name. Before that we were writing under someone else's topic (above this--but he moved it here). I just signed up. You could write on our co-team's talk pages to remind them sign up if you like.--Meilingaddress (talk) 15:37, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Good to see you are all in one place, so now you can begin deliberations. May I suggest that the first thing you do is reread the material the class wrote on your subject (Free Culture) last semester. I would recommend that someone post the links to those blog posts here. It would then be helpful to outline what was written in these posts *very roughly*. Two to four sentences per post. There will likely be more than 1 post. Other next steps: identify section headings, if they are not already in the article. And then identify what content should go in which sections. You may also need to ask if there are any sections in the book that were not read in the assigned reading, and/or written about in these blog posts, that is essential for the article.--Theredproject (talk) 19:10, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, it looks like there is someone else named DavidMCEddy who made a spate of contribs to this page in the last day, so one of you might reach out to him to coordinate your efforts.--Theredproject (talk) 19:25, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi All, I reached out to DavidMCEddy and told said what we were doing for our project. Since I wasn't in the first class and have only looked at Free Culture on my own maybe one of you could post the material from last semester here so that I, and maybe others, could take a look. Chrissy9876 (talk) 20:37, 13 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm DavidMCEddy. As you have noted, I've started adding brief summaries of each chapter -- which you are all free to revise, expand, contract, etc., per the rules of Wikipedia.  I hope this doesn't somehow interfere with your class project, but I think the content of this book is vital to the current debate over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement;  I believe its opponents are concerned that its primary function will be to give people with money and power a legal pretext for prior censorship.  This is an important book, and I'm glad you are working to improve this article.  DavidMCEddy (talk) 21:52, 13 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi DavidMCEddy and classmates. I am going to try a link to a single long blog post here to see if it works. I thought the blog was not public but I guess we will find out. http://core1fall2011.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2011/11/30/%E2%80%9Cfree-culture%E2%80%9D-by-lawrence-lessig-chapter-5-%E2%80%9Cpiracy%E2%80%9D/. --Meilingaddress (talk) 02:15, 14 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Meiling. It works! Or at least it does for me (which may be because I was a part of that course??) Chrissy and David would be better testers. At any rate, how about if we follow Michael's outline? I am happy to take a stab at 2-4 sentences per post, the next step in Michael's outline. Maybe the rest of us can each take on one of the other outlined tasks? Michael- Would a positive response by the group to your recommended outline with names affixed to each role suffice to fulfill the first party of the assignment? Can each of us please note our agreement or dissent plus recommended path by midnight so that we can respond to the first requirement for this assignment? Signing off for now. Chisholmredproject (talk) 00:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC) 23:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * It doesn't work, actually, it's a private blog. I've requested access, and even if I get it we won't be able to grant access to users who aren't affiliated with our school.  We can work around that I'm sure, but one of you will have to share the content of the posts.  I guess the only other tasks are sections.  Since I'm not sure what is in the posts (not sure how they are organized - chapters?) it might be useful for me to have more information before I commit to a task.  Chrissy9876 (talk) 00:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi Chrissy. The posts are actually defined by the chapters of the book: Students were assigned (or self-assigned; I do not now remember) various chapters of the book to read and write motivations. As promised, I will do my best to summarize the motivations that were previously posted. Here goes... Chisholmredproject (talk) 00:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC) 00:23, 16 February 2012
 * Thanks Janice, It seems like DavidMCEddy has already got the section headings up by chapter. Maybe we can all contribute to what's there already. Chrissy9876 (talk) 00:32, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Yep! You have my vote on that one! I started to pull down the previous blogs (see below). If we think that we can forgo that exercise and add to what David already has contributed (thanks David!), then let's take alook and figure out who is on what?? We'll need to map and let Michael know our scheme. Do folks want to go ahead and select chapters, then? Chisholmredproject (talk) 00:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi All, Apologies for being MIA on the talk page. I promise to be more active from now on! I'm up for selecting individual chapters to work on. How should we divide it? Laura (talk) 18:48, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi DavidMCEddy, as you know this article has been assigned to us as a class project. We are supposed to write this article and structure it, and we will be evaluated on it. We think it's fantastic that you want to work on this article too, and we invite you to work with us on it by participating in the discussion around editing and posting the material. This is what we will be doing on the talk page, and we would like you to be a part of it so that we're all on the same page. That being said, and our understanding is that Wikipedia discourages block quotes and instead summarizes via cited paraphrases. In addition, we are concerned that the article length is getting too long. Please let us know how you are planning on proceeding--we feel the next step is to edit down the quotes and paraphrase them, and also come up with overall theme headings. Please let us know your thoughts. Laura (talk) 17:25, 17 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I think it's wise to pick one edition of the book to use for page references. I've been using the 2004 Penguin edition.  However, I now think that was a poor choice:  It should be to one of the on-line editions.  For that I propose the following:  {http://www.jus.uio.no/sisu/free_culture.lawrence_lessig/portrait.letter.pdf PDF, U.S. letter size, portrait/vertical document (recommended for printing)}  I tried to edit the references to mention this, but my edit was rejected because of a concurrent edit of the same thing.  I'll try again.  If I get that to work, then I plan to change all my previous reference to cite pages in this edition.


 * I agree that the page is getting long, but I don't see a good way to split it. There probably needs to be a shorter summary of the key points.  I may try to do something with that.  After that is done, then we can perhaps consider shrinking the sections so they support the key points and send the reader to the book for more details.


 * Make sense? DavidMCEddy (talk) 02:04, 19 February 2012 (UTC)


 * After thinking more on this, I think some of the material probably should be moved to other sites. Just brainstorming:  I'd want to ensure that Lessig's Free Culture is appropriate cited in Wikipedia articles on  RIAA (it's currently not) and  ASCAP regarding their attempt to sue the Girl Scouts, demanding they pay royalties for singing copyrighted songs around campfires, etc.  Also someone needs to study the "WikiProject Books" guideline for this type of work mentioned there, then help the rest of us know what we should do to improve this article.  DavidMCEddy (talk) 06:17, 20 February 2012 (UTC)


 * When moving material to other Wikipedia articles, I suggest you check "Watch this page" on the line above "Save page" and "Show preview". That way, you should be notified if a page you've edited gets changed by someone else.  That will alert you to check to make sure what you wrote there is still there.  If you reference, e.g., the ASCAP and RIAA articles from this article for something (especially something you put there), you want to make sure the reference still makes sense.  DavidMCEddy (talk) 11:36, 20 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi. I just took a look at the wiki books project page and here is the link to the structure they recommend this structure Chrissy9876 (talk) 15:13, 20 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the link. Someone may also want to review WikiProject Books/Assessment:  This article is currently rated "Start", meaning it's incomplete.  I assume you'd really like to achieve "FA" (Feature Article) status.  You can ask your Prof, but I would expect that you should target "B" status, which says that, "The article is mostly complete and without major issues, but requires some further work to reach good article standards."  In particular, I assume you want more than "C", which means that it "is still missing important content or contains a lot of irrelevant material."  If something I or someone else wrote needs to be removed or reworded to achieve that, the Wikipedia rule is to "be bold but not reckless."  If something is removed or moved to another page, e.g., another Wikipedia article, it is often good practice to discuss it on a Talk page like this, then wait for at least a day before actually doing it.


 * The WikiProject_Books/Non-fiction_article page Chrissy cited suggest creating a "==Release details== section at the end of the article." The "Multiple Formats, searchable version" under "External links" could be put there.  Doing that might help a little with the  Assessment, which I assume would further help convince your prof that you've taken this seriously.


 * Also, I suggest you look for other Wikipedia articles on non-fiction books that have FA assessment. Looking at the outline, format, etc., of a few of those might help you.  DavidMCEddy (talk) 18:31, 20 February 2012 (UTC)


 * What do you think about starting a separate article on "Abuse of Power" and including several examples from this book in that article? A first step would probably be to rename the current "Abuse of Power" article to "Abuse of Power (book)" or "Abuse of Power (novel)";  a first substep towards that might be to suggest that change on the Talk page associated with that book.  A next step would then be to create a disambiguation page for "Abuse of Power", that would reference that book, Chomsky's Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy, and the "Abuse of Power" article that would be created after the disambiguation page.  DavidMCEddy (talk) 18:31, 20 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi David, as we previously mentioned, we have been assigned the Free Culture page as an assignment. We plan to use the book's themes, such as you have already identified; we will cover the Introduction, Piracy, Property, and the Conclusion. Are you interested in taking on the two remaining themes of Puzzles and Balances? Chisholmredproject (talk) 20:26, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes. Over the past 3 days, I've summarized "Puzzles" and ch. 13 in "Balances".  I plan to continue reading and summarizing the rest of the book.  I'm doing this, because I believe this book makes an extremely important contribution to the current debate on the  ACTA, and I want to make it more available to people who might want more information about this -- and hopefully inject more research into this debate.  I hope this enhances rather than detracts from your class project.  DavidMCEddy (talk) 21:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Summaries of Core 1 Fall '11 Motivations on Free Culture..
 * Preface and Intro: Laura suggests that Lessig juxtaposes a "permission culture" to a "freee culture" which Lessig likens to "free speech" (as opposed to "free beer"--we can talk about this off-line, if you like). Laura sites a couple of Lessig's examples of how innovation and the freedom to create can be stifled by law and order, even if law and order are generally accepted as basic and necessary. Laura points to Lessig's example of the Wright brothers' creation of flying machines as trumping government regulation about property rights that reach into the heavens, and the development of the FM radio band due to an innovator's accidental rivalry with RCA as an example of government being used to stilfe future innovations through the need for “permission” to creat new models. Laura points out that ultimately Lessig aims for "a balance between anarchy and control." Chisholmredproject (talk) 00:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Reference Material: ITP1 Blog Posts

 * Summaries - continued. (By the way, if the links don't work, we need to find a way for Chrissy to see the full text. Is there a wikipedia-kosher way to do that somewhere?)I just noticed we were not assigned all the chapters. So as a super short summary, I will list the chapters by motivations and date.

If we are volunteering for things, I am happy to do the conclusions and critiques. Hope this post helps. --Meilingaddress (talk) 04:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Intro _ Laura Nov. 30
 * Chpt 1 -"Creators" Ria Nov 30
 * Chpt 4 "Pirates" - Jacob Nov 29
 * Chpt 5 - "Piracy" - Wioleta Nov 30
 * Chpt 10 - "Property" Kiran Nov 30
 * Conclusion/Afterward - Maria Nov. 30
 * Critiques - Guest speaker Nov. 25


 * Thanks for posting this, Meiling. If we are going to select chapters, I can take the Intro and Chapter 1 for now. --Laura (talk) 18:54, 16 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Are we still going in this direction? Left you guys a message, and hope that we get together to map our strategy very soon. Signing on for Chaps 4+5. Chisholmredproject (talk) 04:02, 20 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Hey I'll take chapter 10 because that is what's left on the list, and I have access to the blog now fyi. Chrissy9876 (talk) 15:13, 20 February 2012 (UTC)


 * OK, so sounds like we have divided the chaps. Also, were we going to meet in the sandbox?? Chisholmredproject (talk) 00:00, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Here is a sandbox
Here is a /sandbox for you all to use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theredproject (talk • contribs) 21:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Free Culture & Wikipedia's copyright policy
Someone expressed a concern that "This article or section may have been copied and pasted from a source, possibly in violation of Wikipedia's copyright policy." The book was released "under the Creative Commons Attribution/Non-commercial license (by-nc 1.0)". Part of the point of Lessig's Free Culture book is that modern copyright law and industry practice make many things that would have been "fair use" under previous copyright law could now be sued as a potential "derivative work" of something that is copyrighted. However, since this book was released under the Creative Commons license, we can do almost anything we want with it. If this does NOT adequately address the concern about a possible "violation of Wikipedia's copyright policy", I'd like to know more specifics about this concern. DavidMCEddy (talk) 04:55, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Free Culture is released under a CC BY-NC license, which is not a free license, and is not compatible with Wikipedia's CC BY-SA license. I completely agree with you in support of Lessig's argument that things should be much more permissive, but the fact of the matter is that they aren't (from a legal perspective). And in particular, Wikipedia abides by a pretty strict ruleset around this. The other related problem that goes along with this is that a string of big blockquotes quotes does not trigger fair use through transformative use, or though ratio of new to used source. Also, (and most importantly) it doesn't make for the clearest or most useful Wikipedia article. The key for a Wikipedia or encyclopedia article is to summarize the body of knowledge on the topic of the article. That is the next step here, clearly: summarize -- which is transformative. --Theredproject (talk) 21:43, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree that the blockquotes don't currently serve the article well, given the length. However, it would seem that the CC BY-NC 1.0 license allows the blockquotes.  Relatedly, I just added the XKCD comic called "Content Protection" which was licensed under CC BY-NC 2.5.  It's used like the blockquotes are (verbatim, which seems permissible), but we can't change the content.  In the context of "quoting" that would seem fine.  Is there another concern here?  (I.e. is much of the rest of the text derived from the original content?) Benjaminoakes (talk) 11:06, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually per Wikipedia's own policy on the use of non-free content and quotation, this article still has excessive and unpermitted (by Wikipedia) use of non-free quoted material. The book's license is not completely "free" because it does not permit copying for commercial use and for Wikipedia purposes it has to be treated on the same basis as all other fully copyrighted material. i.e. only on a "fair use" basis. The relevant guidelines are at:
 * Non-free content
 * Wikipedia:FAQ/Copyright
 * There is absolutely no fair-use justification for quoting large chunks (as this article still does) as a simple substitute for properly and briefly summarising it.
 * On a related point in terms of the article's quality, there's virually nothing on how others have viewed, used, or written about the book and the arguments it makes. What has been its impact? It's not as if sources are thin on the ground for this. See here and here.
 * Those working on the article might also want to acquaint yourselves with Wikipedia's Manual of Style. The quotes should never be in italics, and internal linking within the quote should be avoided. WikiProject Books also has useful guidelines for writing good articles on non-fiction works at WikiProject Books/Non-fiction article. Some examples of what you should be aiming for are:
 * Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa
 * Guns, Germs, and Steel
 * Voceditenore (talk) 13:47, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Voceditenore describes the situation as to our polices well so I won't repeat that. I have now re-wrote many of the quotes in my own words.  My apologies if I got anything wrong - I haven't read the book - but this has now been a problem long enough that leaving the material in the article was not an option - the alternative would have been to blank large parts of the article.  I have had to blank one section, and outright remove a couple of quotes, as there was no context provided for the quotes and so I was uncertain to the point being made.  I deliberately did my edits in many smaller edits so that I could use the edit log to describe why I did many of my actions so please also look there if you want more of my reasoning.
 * I would like to point out that I've only done enough to avoid excessive use of unfree material and that I still think the article has many other problems - not least of which it seems excessively long for an encyclopaedia article on a single book. Dpmuk (talk) 04:51, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I strongly agree with the author of the Peer review who suggested dropping the entire "Outline" section as largely unnecessary and repetitive. It's also a very unencyclopedic way to approach the subject and is strongly discouraged for articles on books. It is particularly unnecessary in this case since the entire book is available for free on the internet and linked from the article. The space can be much better used for well-referenced and comprehensive sections on its critical reception, impact, and publishing history. Voceditenore (talk) 11:51, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

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name change and reversion
On 2019-10-02T17:07:38‎, User:Finnusertop change the title of this article from "Free Culture (book)" to "Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity". On 2019-10-23T00:15:36‎ User:Þjarkur reverted this change. Both cited WP:SUBTITLE to justify their actions. That link begins, 'Like all articles, books (and other media, such as films and video games) that have a subtitle should use the work's commonly used name (following WP:COMMONNAME). For books with verbose subtitles, this often means using a concise form in preference to a full "official" name'.

I agree with User:Þjarkur in this case. I hope no one else tries to revert to the 17-word version of the title over the 2-word version. There is now a redirect of the longer version of the title for those who prefer to type all 99 characters;-) DavidMCEddy (talk) 04:20, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Summary, Themes, and Outline redundant
These three sections contain rehashes of each other and the text (as well as numerous quotes, inconsistent style, a plethora of typos, US-centered language, and so on). I propose combining them into one less exhaustive section, perhaps starting with a list of themes and concepts it discusses and then a brief summary of the book itself. RookWeaver (talk) 18:56, 13 October 2023 (UTC)