Rip, Remix, Sample, Reuse the BBC...do you have 68 years to spare?

Paula LeDieu, the former Joint Director of BBC Creative Archive, spoke on the first day of the Commons-sense conference in South Africa about the BBC initiative to provide access to public service audio and video archives to the British public to rip, mix, re-use, and share the BBC (not for commercial purposes). The project, modelled after the Creative Commons, was launched in 2004. The Creative Commons model, which was the theme of the conference, proposes a flexible and customisable rights management. So instead of the strict "all rights reserved," individuals and organizations can opt for "some rights reserved," or "no rights reserved."

LeDieu told conference participants that to access all their archived materials, one needs to spend 68 years of non-stop video watching!

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VIDEOS FROM THE COMMONS-SENSE CONFERENCE

Here is a video gallery from the Commons-Sense conference. The videos were taken by students and staff of the New Media Lab.

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WATCH MY INTERVIEW WITH NEW MEDIA LAB SOUTH AFRICA

I arrived last night after a long, and tiring flight from Egoli/Jozi (Johannersburg) where I was attending the Commons-Sense conference. I was interviewed by Rhodes university's New Media Lab. Watch the video here.

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A STORY ABOUT KENYAN BLOGOSPHERE ON OPEN SOURCE RADIO

I just opened the email from Kenya Unlimited about a show on Kenyan bloggers on Open Source Radio next week.

I am still at the commons-sense conference. This morning there was a very moving panel on Blogging the Commons. I am overwhelmed. Dont click...as I promised I will post detailed information about all these panels, the conversations, and discussions. Lots of ideas and information to chew.

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LIVE BLOGGING FROM THE COMMONS-SENSE CONFERENCE

A team of 15 students and two staff members from the New Media Lab at the School of Journalism and Media Studies (Rhodes university) are live-blogging from the conference. Amazing! Follow the conference here.

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Hello from Commons-sense conference

I am in attending the Commons-Sense conference in Egoli (the Zulu name for Johannersburg), South Africa. The conference started yesterday and ends tommorow. I bloged about it some weeks ago while in the US. I will post more detailed information about the conversations taking place around here about Intellectual Property (IP) in Africa in the information age. We had some very interesting speakers yesterday. One of them was the father of "free culture" and the founder of the Creative Commons, Lawrence Lessig. The woman behind Creative Commons South Africa, Heather Ford spoke about the South African creative commons initiative. Yesterday was the official launching of Creative Commons (South Afica). I will blog in depth about the conference when I get back to the US. A lot of interesting stories and projects. This conference is organized by Wits university, Creative Commons (South Africa), and the Link center.

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LAUNCHING CREATIVE COMMONS SOUTH AFRICA

Do not forget about this event!

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CREATIVE COMMONS AND SOUTHERN AFRICAN ORGANISATIONS

The Southern African NGO Network (SANGONeT), in collaboration with the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), is hosting a Thetha forum on Tuesday, 24 May 2005, to discuss whether Southern African organisations should use Creative Commons to licence the information that they produce. More...

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BLOGS IN ETHNIC LANGUAGES (AFRICA)

My friend Mokhtar, who teaches Arabic at the School for International Training, has started blogging in Tamazeight. Mokhtar is a storyteller. He has been telling stories orally and in print media. Now he goes digital. There is also a Shona blog and Chagga (which happens to be my language) blog from Texas.

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MULTILINGUALISM IN CYBERSPACE

UNESCO's conference on multilingualism in cyberspace.

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KENYA ICT POLICY

Take a look at the 2004 Kenya ICT Policy.

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BISHARAT: A LANGUAGE AND TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVE

Bisharat focuses on research, advocacy, and networking relating to use of African languages in software and web content

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CONFERENCE ON MULTILINGUALISM IN CYBERSPACE

The conference on “Multilingualism for Cultural Diversity and Participation of All in Cyberspace” is taking place in Bamako, Mali, on 6 and 7 May 2005. Follow it here. Read the agenda.

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