CurrentMom

Property and Copyright and Speculative Futures

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Technology Tuesday

Several links on modern copyright law and intellectual property - this is well-traveled material in most of the tech circles I run in, but may be novel to some CurrentMom readers.

• A TED talk by Larry Lessig on laws that choke creativity. Related, Lessig again: Against Perpetual Copyright.

  The framers understood that the state-created property monopoly of copyright was justifiable only to the extent that it would "promote the progress of Science and the Useful Arts." It created therefore a fixed, and originally very short, period of time in which one might sell copies of one's works with state protection. Without this protection, in the nature of intellectual things, piracy was naturally rampant. After authors have been given a decent interval to exploit their property, the monopoly to the work is ended, and the work may be reabsorbed into the culture at large, be remixed into new works, for the public benefit for the rest of time: hence the name "Public Domain" which refers to the domain of this public good. But why are intellectual and physical property different? How are the differences between laws related to the differences between domains? Would it really be so bad for society if they were treated the same way? This article explores the answers.

• Richard Stallman's 1997 piece, "The Right to Read" is speculative fiction that explores the implications of potential stringent technical protections against reading material you haven't licensed properly.

  Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory. There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal.

• And just this week, Paul Ford posted a worthy successor to Stallman's piece, titled "Nanolaw with Daughter"

My daughter was first sued in the womb. [....]

Thought-provoking - what would happen if the patent troll mentality trickled down?

"Hiroshima in the Morning"

Sharing Saturday

It could not be more ironic, and perhaps fitting, that the book I am reading this week is titled "Hiroshima in the Morning." It is about a writer's journey to Japan to research the hibakusha, the survivors of Hiroshima, for a novel she is planning. Back in early 2001, Japanese-American author Rahna Reiko Rizzuto applied for and received a fellowship to research and study in Japan for six months and prepare to write her book. 

The only problem was that her husband and two young sons would be left behind in New York. Although initially her husband supported her in her venture, things changed dramatically along the way. I haven't finished reading the book, but I know the ending, as does anyone who watched the clip several weeks ago on the Today Show. Rizzuto realizes, while on her research junket, that not only is her marriage not going to survive this separation, she no longer really wants to be a mother to her children. At least not an everyday, 24-7, live-in, there-if-you-need-her kind of mother. Ultimately, the trip allows her to redefine motherhood for herself and her family.

So a nuclear blast of a smaller kind dropped into that family's heart. And it all happened in the dueling shadows of a post-apocalyptic, 9/11 New York and the unnerving and terrifying legacy left by the atomic blast in Hiroshima more than 50 years earlier.

I am trying to weave the threads of this story together in this terrible week, the week in which we are watching contemporary Japan contend with disaster perhaps as destructive and dreadful, in the long run, as the WW II bombs.

A "Book" Report for the New Millenium

Sharing Saturday

I am almost too embarrassed to even admit to this one, but I'm going to, because I believe I have just experienced the future.

My youngest son has just completed his Black History Month biography project. Each of my kids has had to do this project in fourth grade. They are to choose a famous African American, read a biography (presumably a children's version), write a one-page book report, and then create a hand puppet with which to help tell the story of the famous person in an oral report. A combination of reading, writing, oral presentation skills and art, all rolled into one project tied into a now-mandated educational month of activities.

I don’t really have any complaints about the project, except that the puppet is supposed to be created out of "home-made and assembled craft materials" which, for a non-crafty mom, is a little bit of a nightmare. But let's put that aside for the moment.

I want to focus on the biography portion of the project. We all know from our own card catalogue experiences in our youth that there are plenty of children's books about famous African Americans in history – Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carver, possibly even Thurgood Marshall. But what if your child wants to do a report on a famous LIVING African American, one who is in the entertainment business, one who one's parents gullibly and mistakenly listed as a potentially interesting person to research?

What if your child wants to do his report on Quincy Jones? 

Go See Mike Daisey's New Show

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Technology Thursday

Many of us love our gadgets. However, as with many first-world consumption patterns, they don't come free of guilt. There are ongoing questions and challenges regarding the environmental impact of manufacturing computers and electronic gadgetry. And there are also concerns about the sheer amount of energy required to power these wonderful Intarwebz and all the geegaws connected to them. There's a reason big companies like to place datacenters near rivers (hint: hydroelectric power).

So, while we can all feel a smidge of anxiety knowing that every Google search we do and every email we send kinda' sorta' maybe sends a little puff of carbon dioxide into an atmosphere, that, in the immortal words of engineer Montgomery Scott CANNA TAKE MUCH MORE OF THIS, CAP'n, another guilt-inducer is labor. Specifically, the labor practices used in the places that manufacture our pretty, pretty iPads.

Mike Daisey is an amazing monologuist, story teller, and solo performer. Last year I saw his show "The Last Cargo Cult" at Woolly Mammoth Theatre in D.C. and it was amazing. I have been remiss all these years in not seeing his earlier work. I also read the book he wrote about working at Amazon in the 90s called 21 Dog Years: A Cube Dweller's Tale. His most recent effort is a show called "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs." Here's a snippet of a review:

In this freewheeling theatrical essay, he doesn't just hold Apple CEO Steve Jobs' feet to the fire. He doesn't just question the morality of capitalism. He forces theatergoers to take a hard look at the glowing screens in their pockets and ask where they came from and at what cost.

Only a true believer, a man who fieldstrips his MacBook Pro down to its 43 components parts to unwind, could be this shocked and heartbroken to find that the gadgets he adores, those glossy pieces of electronic sculpture known as the iPad and the iPhone, might have been produced under brutal working conditions in China. Eager to investigate for himself, Daisey traveled to Shenzhen, a city of 14 million people crammed together under a "poisoned silver sky," at a time when workers were hurling themselves off the roof at Foxconn, one of Apple's key manufacturers.

Another, explaining why Apple Fanboys should see the show: (I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt this time and let's all assume Apple Fangirls should, too)

Memo to AOL: Arianna Huffington and I Are Peas in a Pod

Truth Tuesday

With the news that AOL and Arianna Huffington are teaming up to take over the Internet -- combining the Huffington Post with AOL's roster of Web stars including Politics Daily, Engadget and TechCrunch -- I couldn't help but feel a bit overlooked. One of my inspirations for starting CurrentMom was the Huffington Post, and I'd like to take the opportunity to point out to the AOL acquisitions team the many ways in which Arianna Huffington and I are alike.

We use our friends

A few years ago, when friends of mine started blogging for the Huffington Post -- for free -- I was shocked. These are experienced, talented journalists with insightful, powerful things to say, and they were giving it away. So that got me to thinking … if Arianna Huffington could elicit high-quality content without paying for it, why couldn't I? Thus, CurrentMom was born, just over two years ago.

Like Arianna, I launched with a core group of friends I persuaded to write funny, informative, thought-provoking blog posts to drive traffic to my Web site. The only difference is that her friends were drawn from Hollywood, national politics, big business and journalism. Mine come from the preschool parents' group, volunteer journalism organizations, my school days and my secret life as an a cappella singer.

I'm immensely grateful to my friends -- and the new bloggers we've added since then -- and very proud of the result: CurrentMom is immensely readable, never predictable and I regularly find myself in tears over an intimate emotion or universal truth that one of my bloggers shared. Granted, AOL just agreed to pay Arianna Huffington $315 million for the enterprise she built on free labor, and CurrentMom's advertising revenue hasn't even covered my expenses, but things can change!