User:Artemis gryllaki/Special Issue 9

Workshop plan - final draft | Artemis, Paloma, Simon

INTRODUCTION (5min)
Meet each other: have a quick round of saying something about ourselves and what do we know about pirate/shadow libraries. Short description of the steps of the workshop and let people know we'll be recording. Overview of what happens in this workshop in one sentence: 1st part: Reading/Annotating, heatmap 2nd part: Discussion, Rehearsal of Performative reading and recording of performance.

Topic: pirate libraries - topic of special Issue 9
Text: "In solidarity with Library Genesis & Sci-Hub" letter Aim: 2-3 sentences of what is the aim of this workshop. Why this collective reading-conversations matter? - We see "annotations" as a way to express our understandings/questions/comments/disagreements/ tensions/positions about what we read. So we can discuss about it and form a collective understanding of the text. Our aims are to: - open up a conversation about pirate libraries, through a deeper collective understanding of a specific text that refers to this topic (enrichment comes through collectively reading and annotating the text) - develop ways in which texts can become conversations through annotating together - make public what we have learned about pirate libraries and annotation, and to reflect on the public's response(s)

STEP 1: Reading/Annotating (15min) Materials: "In Support of Library Genesis & Sci-Hub" English language letter (on A3 spread), A3 tracing paper, ballpoint pens (annotation pack) Participants: Individual Archiving step: collect tracing paper, carbon paper - We provide the solidarity letter in an A3 pack - Read the text individually - Annotate the text on your english. (It will be traced through carbon paper to the tracing paper underneath.)

STEP 2: Heatmap and discussion through the annotations (20min)
Materials: Same as Step 1 Participants: Whole group Archiving step: Photographs of annotated texts, discussion - Create a "heatmap" of the text by placing tracing papers with annotations on top of each other, showing which areas are interesting/remarkable to others. - We can focus in the most "annotated", thus "active", "interesting", "relevant" parts of the text. At the end of the heatmap stage we introduce the discussion by identifying common areas of annotation, and also listing things that need further definition. Why did you annotate this part? What is the "global north"? etc. - Comment generally on the text, what was interesting? Did you make sense? Are there specific parts you want to discuss? - Conclusions? Comments? Discuss the most commented. - Discuss this experience and anything we want to discuss about pirate libraries, this text, our experiences. - Collectively determine strategies to "amplify" specific parts of the texts that either a) we all agree on b) we don't understand c) disagree on d) we want to develop further e) think are worth repeating/recording

STEP 3: Performative reading (20min)
Participants: All together (if more than 10, divide into two groups???) Materials: Annotated "In Support of Library Genesis & Sci-Hub" letter, audio recording device (ZOOM rented from WdKA shop/smartphone), (maybe speakers?) Archiving step: Voice recording - Introduce by saying: "We are going to read aloud the text in turns, while also performing our annotations. Try to perform your comment to make your position/understanding of the text clear. If you have an annotation, please do or say something (e.g. interrupt, raise your hand, make a noise, use an accent, use intonation to convey emotion etc)." The text becomes a "play", a performance, a discussion between us - The purpose is to activate a text, by transforming it into a conversation through spoken annotation - This reading will be recorded (ask) - Decide on an "interesting" way of performing and record that. It could be more than one language in this audio piece.

OUTPUT: At Leeszaal: - Play the collective recording from speakers placed in shelves at Leeszaal (Bluetooth) Later: - Printed version with the overlaping of individual comments - heatmap - pocket version??? - Printed URL on annotated tracing paper to direct readers to the online versions of the texts? - Bookmark or some object (it can be the pocket version) to introduce it in some books in Leeszaal, understanding that as a way to spread the letter (like sowing seeds)

1st personal workshop plan

User:Artemis_gryllaki/Potential Workshop

= Notes =

Intellectual ownership

Information, knowledge and culture are pivotal for human freedom and development. The way they are produced and exchanged in society radically affects the way we view the world as such or as it could be (Benkler, 2006). Intellectual products and those who own or have -- - exclusive or not - rights over them are thus regarded as crucial. The concept of intellectual ownership as established over the 18th century to become the foundation for shaping pertinent European law focused on the creator as the one who contributes in disseminating knowledge and subsequently in societal progress. This account of intellectual rights is connected to French Revolution and Enlightenment and justifies their humanitarian-idealist existence. Nevertheless, intellectual ownership law has always developed to protect the expression of an intellectual work in physical world as proved by the fact that laws focus on material means of reproduction of the works and rather than on knowledge itself. Keywords “execution” and “reproduction” appear with the important technological breakthroughs and evolve rapidly. This movement shows that despite the constant alteration of the ways of protecting intellectual ownership trying to adjust to technological innovations, the concept per se remains as is. Some, however, critiques, both prior and current, recognize intellectual ownership as an enclosure of knowledge and its means of production and reproduction.

Typography, as we know, was the invention of a novel form of copy equipment which led to the initial need for protecting intellectual rights. The first known European settlement in relation to intellectual works in Renaisscance Italy was nothing more than attributing monopoly rights to typographers while at the same time facilitating the control of what books were printed – a form of censorship. From this point on, the future of intellectual rights law has always been closely connected to freedom of expression and technological improvements in the means of transmission. In successive eras we observe transformations in the way of controlling and exploiting intellectual ownership most likely to be related to the interests of those who own the means of reproduction and transmission of the works, rather than to social benefit offered by smooth transmission of ideas. Knowledge as a common has long been forgotten. Nevertheless, in the event of a technological boom, when laws have not yet adjusted to new ways of reproduction and transmission of works, and new technological tools are not yet – even briefly – controlled by capital, we observe a more social approach to intellectual ownership and its transmission. Thanks to internet the liberation of reproductive means is bigger than ever while supporters of intellectual ownership do not seem able to argue for it against the various forms of questioning its value.

Era of information, digital world

Electronic computers alongside their hardware and software have aggresively entered our lives as exponentially evolving tools and seem to increasingly gain importance in working and social relationships. Small computer systems destined for professional use replaced the first large computer systems. Today, PCs are everywhere since they become increasingly affordable to average consumers and using new technological tools does not require any particular knowledge and skillset. The fact that hardware and software are means used for work but also during spare time by a large part of – especially western – population means that information technology creators and, mostly, those who manage it, largely influence our everyday time.

Digital revolution was a major breakthrough in knowledge production and transmission. Intellectual creation possibilities multiply and accelerate thanks to the use of PCs while new fields of knowledge and disciplines emerge in relation to them (program design, databases, webpages etc). Electronic networks development and the creation of a World Wide Web providing the base for instant access to a huge volume of digital documents proved crucial in the wide dissemination of information. The power held for years by traditional media – them being the major regulators of information dissemination started – started to shift towards internet users themselves – that is, citizens (Reynolds, 2006). Intellectual work products get digitalized having thus the capacity for reproduction and creation of quality copies, becoming this way instantly accesible. Electronic networks constantly evolve and technical upgrade of lines and speeds by providers allow us to exchange unprecedented volumes of information surpassing time and space limitations.

Todate, humans approached information as knowledge, transactions, commodities etc. This way, our efforts focused on opening land, air and sea passages, security and speed of transport means being the aim for a whole era. Nowadays, we observe that the core volume of data is transferred via informatics systems. There are many examples, one being research in health, national and international transport control, state apparatus functioning, national defence and money transactions among firms. In these new conditions, the question of who are going to become dominant administrators of the valuable new digital era raw material – namely, information – enjoying proportional benefits is crucial.

i) Shaping new social systems

However, alongside the fluid and unpredictable evolution of information technology and the huge competition among those gaining from it, alongside constant enclosures of new means, we observe the shaping of new social systems formed by their users. Contemporary information systems are not just machines but they are used by people and groups (communities) practically redifining ways of exchanging knowledge. The possibility given to average internet users to exchange opinions and information via a more participatory and less controlled communication channel favors the creation of fresh social media forms. Internet technology content sharing platforms promote the development of a set of (communication, social, political, economic etc) relations among isolated individuals or social groupings.

Social media being tools of transmitting and sharing information and data among users – ie, blogs, videocasts, wikis etc – and digital social networks favoring the development of internet bonds and communication among individuals or social groups sharing common ideas, interests or other traits (Καψή Α., 2006). Last, ever-increasing use of social networking means are an undisputable reality, the issue being not whether one would choose to use them but if and how they will be able to utilize them (Qualman, 2009).

ii) Information resources management

The question is whether distributers of all this knowledge and information flowing online are going to achieve control, optimal management and dynamic processing of its huge volume so that it orientates towards meeting social needs. The issue of accessing and circulating information is nothing new but goes hand in hand with our established perception of knowledge and intellectual creation per se: once we admit their being borne out of social wealth, then, the easier and smoother access to them is, the better they are promoted and boosted. “Intellectual property” is problematic in the first place and despite the core argument of its supporters being that it promotes creation by limiting access to it, it achieves the opposite. This is where we come across a contradiction: individual creation of our day highly originates in this wide information, knowledge and cultural objects transmission as well as in easy global access to them; but creators – as well as mediators – want to benefit from works they themselves created using one way or another nonmaterial goods offered by information society.

iii) Gradually overcoming copyrights

In the present situation intellectual ownership concept is maybe stricken more seriously than ever. Its supporters are unable to delay rampant transmission of all the more intellectual works achieved via their digitalization. Preceding legal intellectual property rules developed to control - totally different to the existing - forms and methods of expressing information. They are thus hindering maximizing benefits of future technologies. One such benefit emanates from the fact that images, texts, videos, or music subject to intellectual rights taking digital form are redistributed and recycled among internet users. This way, 2nd generation internet technologies alongside their philosophy – according to which users are not just passive information “consumers” but they are pushed to create and exchange content (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010) – are utilized. Distributed material is thus enriched (variation, combination, processing, montage, annotation) and is presented on various blogs, social media and other online sites. This is a way of widening the concept of the creator and the content since anyone can now become more or less of an artist or a writer. A different level of relations emerges between creator and beneficiary as well as regarding the entirety of intellectual work which may be shared with little or no cost just by using a terminal anywhere on the planet.

iv) New legal frameworks

The necessity for updating legal status on intellectual ownership is clear. New laws set forward at national and supranational level are not however based on understanding fresh data and redifining this phenomenon but attempted to repress it by means of the good old methods. Critique on these laws came from various directions and regarded infringement of human rights, privacy, state authoritarianism, internet entrepreneurship restrictions etc.

Justice can no more decide alone the future of intellectual rights – especially regarding each individual country: it is a field of negotiations for many interest groups, foundations, ministries, firms, organizations, shareholders, artists, scientists. Firms are progressively becoming more relevant since in the new context some economic sectors emerge as highly profitable. The major reaction against new legal framework comes from companies enjoying the perks of bypassing intellectual rights such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc. New giant tech companies are not interested in protecting intellectual ownership for their activities do not rely on it: their power is built upon the model of a plethora of – illegal or not – information travelling in cyberspace and their profitability stems from their expansion which provides them with ads and funders. They thus attempt to become dominant administrators of information circulating online so as to drain proportional profits.

v) Cyberpiracy

At the same time IT companies compete each other, the phenomenon of “illegal” information trafficking – that is, without consent on behalf of the owner: the so-called piracy which emerged from the technical convenience of “breaking-in” digitalized intellectual property and now, being massive, tends to become uncontrollable. A majority of public opinion views the practice of intellectual rights infringement as legal. Pirates constantly invent new ways of breaking intellectual ownership monopoly by limiting, through their action, legal intellectual-artist creation trade profits. They both help people progressively familiarize with digital reproduction and act as an anonymous “mediator” in free distribution of intellectual works. It is noteworthy that cyberpirates act in the field of circulation and distribution of intellectual works but not in the process of their production.

In these new conditions and while new means create new possibilities for users, intellectual ownership, as it is established, seems to block them. The old paradigm was first challenged on behalf of the sector mostly striken by enclosures – informatics - as a result of realizing new conditions. These challenges initially came up through individual initiatives but were soon phrased in different contexts gaining social features, putting forward a different way of creating and using software and intellectual goods in general, ending up in rejecting established intellectual ownership concept. The perceptions leading to this new paradigm spread rapidly among developers and other PC users, creating an online community, ultimately evolving into a movement extending beyond informatics.­

Notes II

On knowledge enclosures

The ownership of knowledge – intellectual ownership – is traditionally accompanied by large power for those owning it. Knowledge, in the history of the western world, was never free and accessible for all. From the monasteries of renaissance to modern large companies patents, or even universities libraries, always someone had and have exclusive right to this knowledge and the benefits it implies. However, at the same time, it was never possible for knowledge to be totally subtracted from the society which produced it and become completely commodified, a fact that is proved by the multitude of intellectual creation commons. These correlations, between knowledge monopolies and intellectual commons gain massive importance, especially in the modern era and ultimately prove critical for any human activity sector. But, in order to understand what happens with knowledge ownership, we have to examine its history and the laws framing it.