Digital Culture Coordinator, Jose Murilo, delegate from the Ministry of Culture of Brazil to the Free Culture Forum in Barcelona, introduces the strategy being implemented in Brazil for creating the new law on intellectual property.

Digital culture is a new, emergent term. It has been used in different forms by different sectors, and incorporates different perspectives about the impact of digital technology and networking in society. The Ministry of Culture see, as it’s role, the convening of a collective reflection on these broader perspectives, encouraging the participation of all stakeholders in an innovative process of collaborative construction of public policies for the digital sector.

The cheapening of the personal computer and cellular phone, combined with the rapid development of applications using free software and free services on the network, has promoted a radical democratization of access to new means of production and access to knowledge. The digitization of culture, combined with the global race to connect everything to everyone all the time, turns open networks at this moment in history into something too big, which now requires specific consideration.

A recent debate in the blogosphere about an article in Wired Magazine – “The New Socialism,” by Kevin Kelly – raised the issue of lack of appropriate terms to communicate the ongoing phenomena within the networks. Re-framing the term ’socialism’ to refer to the innovative arrangements for sharing and collaboration typical of a collective connected by the Internet has generated controversy and has been challenged strongly by Lawrence Lessig, the American lawyer known for his activism in the debate over the revision of copyright laws.

Lessig argues that we are facing something entirely new, and that it is not appropriate to reuse terms loaded with former meanings to describe the current situation. His concern seems to be related to the typical American notion that establishes an inverse relationship between individual autonomy and state power — a notion that is also the essence of th classic contest between right and left. However, as Kelly argues, the so called ‘digital socialism’ (’stateless socialism’?!) seems to host both classical libertarians who hate government in general, and the global political movements that are critical of excessive market logic.

Finally, there is a real lack of conceptual characterization for the phenomena encountered in digital culture. Yochai Benkler, reflecting creatively about the possibility of a political theory of the network, sees the emergence of social networks and peer production as an alternative to both the proprietary systems fundamental to the logic of the state and to the market. An innovative new cultural ‘operating system’ would be able to foster both creativity, productivity and freedom, while also satisfying the demands of both individuals and collectives. Benkler speaks of a ‘participatory culture’.

With the arrival of ubiquitous, instant and inexpensive collaboration tools, it is possible to promote opportunities for debate and a collective model where public decentralized coordination can create innovative solutions to the issues presented by the 21st century. The implementation of this technology in the digital network environment, coupled with Benkler’s ‘participatory culture’ concept, creates the possibility of bridging policies that once seemed mutually exclusive, inviting open discussion by opposing interest groups that have specialized in fighting in the trenches.

The Forum for Brazilian Digital Culture

In order to better understand the various parts that make up the mosaic of digital culture, to facilitate the public participation of those concerned with monitoring, and to assist the construction of public policies and regulatory frameworks that will format the sector, the Ministry of Culture is launching the Forum for Brazilian Digital Culture.

The process begins with the launch of the social network ‘culturadigital.br’, and the invitation of  experts and networks of cultural activists to register and profile their digital identities and references (their blog, twitter, delicious, youtube, etc…) into the Forum. The environment was built to aggregate people and their socialstreams linked by the tag #culturadigitalbr, thus organizing and documenting their participation in the debate. Live presentational and virtual online events during the second half of 2009 will propel the discussion into the proposed five guiding themes: memory, communication, art, infrastructure and economy.

We have made several interviews with specialists, agency ministers, people from academia and artists, which turned into a book: culturadigital.br. The goal was to collect and provide initial inputs to warm up the debate, which will be consolidated at an international seminar to be held in November. Notably, the process of ‘Brazilian Digital Culture Forum’ will happen in parallel with major debates on regulatory frameworks and public policies that directly affect the landscape of digital culture.

The new draft copyright law which will be presented by the Ministry of Culture for public consultation and the cyber-crime law (Law azeredo) — to be voted on in the House — deals with structural issues for the governance of the digital environment. The national conferences of Culture and Communication coincidentally will also be going on, which makes the second semester of 2009 a special time for proposing, contemplating and debating visions of the future we want for the country.

The coordination of the ‘Brazilian Digital Culture Forum’ now is making available the ‘culturadigital.br’ network environment for all who wish to organize and document free conferences and/or other specific events related to these processes. We believe that the time is right to be motivated toward new ways to develop consensus and build proposals. MINC seeks to introduce into the prospect of digital culture the innovative elements that facilitate and promote greater engagement and more effective participation of interested citizens.

The most creative people are never all together in a single company or government or organization, or country. To open the processes of constructing public policies in the network, and facilitating the collaboration of stakeholders, is almost obvious as an initiative appropriate and necessary at the dawn of this century. Promoting innovation in processes and creating tools for distributed governance can refine democracy and transform society.

This article is foreword to the book ‘CulturaDigital.BR’,
an edition that is part of the process of the
Brazilian Digital Culture Forum
#culturadigitalbr

The proposition of the Brazilian Digital Culture Forum: open and participatory

The Brazilian Digital Culture Forum has a social network for collaborative production of public policy for contemporary Brazil. This is a web platform that supports a broad spectrum of cultural programs based on the ideas and initiative generated by citizens, which includes face-to-face events and is expected to wrap up in November.

The Brazilian Digital Culture Forum was launched by the Minister of Culture in partnership with the National Network of Education and Research. The object of the Forum is, through these events, to encourage debate about digital culture with activists, business representatives, government institutions and non-governmental organizations. It’s in this context that the social network can work to both accelerate discussion and unify ideas.

Social network functions like others, but with focus on digital culture and public policy

The web platform aims to bring together citizens who are thinking about how technology can contribute to better our society, as well as anyone wanting to ponder digital culture. The main idea of the Cultura Digital network is that it is open. In addition to bringing these people together, digital culture provides interaction and stimulates the co-creation of events and projects.

The activities of each user generate alerts in the system, along the lines of “Ann and Joan are now friends” and each profile generates an RSS feed (all new content and actions generated by a user in the network can be followed outside of the network, such as through an RSS reader). The Cultura Digital network also has an indexing function (collected and displayed automatically), which tags content produced by its users in other social networks with the tag #culturadigitalbr.

There are five initial themes for discussion, but citizens can suggest others

The user of the Cultura Digital social network is responsible for his or her own profile and for the content he or she divulges: photos, videos, links, posts on his or her blog. Through the profiles, users can find friends and establish affinity networks. There are various groups in which a user can participate, which function like communities. The main themes suggested are Art and Digital Techology, Digital Communication, Digital Economy, Infrastructure for Digital Culture, and Digital Memory.

Highlighting several positive points in this initiative

The simple fact that the federal government initiated this project is highly commendable. It opens discussion within communities, using the web as a base to stimulate discussion and create a kind of digital democracy (not just in the world of computing, but in Brazil in general). Other technical and managerial aspects also add value to this project:

• The social network is built in BuddyPress, an open source plugin for WordPress MU;
• Every new user gets a blog, where he or she can generate content and others can comment;
• It maintains the governments stand on investing in free software that can benefit the whole community, not just investing in products, but in the software itself;
• The Ministry of Culture is using WordPress;
• The implementation is impeccable: excellent interface, excellent system, coordinated by the director of the Brazilian Digital Culture Lab, Rodrigo Savazoni, and by the head of digital culture at the Ministry of Culture, José Murilo.

Follow the Brazilian Minister of Culture on Twitter.

Brazil and Italy will meet in a football game next Tuesday. The friendly match is far from having the importance of other disputes in the past, world cup decisions included, but the mood built around the game has set the national blogospheres on fire — see Global Voices.

After weeks of cross-Atlantic brouhaha, some bloggers are starting to wonder how and why the case has gone so far. Is the Brazilian Government’s decision to grant political refugee status to Italian felon Cesare Battisti really worth of such attention?

What elements could be at play to bring forth those remarkable outcomes, such as the minute of silence from the Ministers of European Parliament in a session last week in honor of Battisti’s alleged victims from 30 years ago, or the farewell of an Italian-born media icon in Brazil over the heated national debate on the case, and also Italy’s recall of their Ambassador in Brasilia?  The Italian government went as far as threatening to call off the friendly game scheduled to be held on February 10 in London, leading Brazilians to sense a blow out of proportion. Berlusconi is the one to blame.

Gratuitous altercation the one created by the “Battisti case” and the attitude of the buffoon government headed by Silvio Berlusconi. At least I took the time to study the subject before I ventured to write a few lines about it. Most analysts are open about the passion on their analysis and transformed the event into a partisan dispute, or worse, a football match.
Brasil vs Itália – Disolving in the Air

Italy, today, is going through the government of histrionic Berlusconi. He owns the huge Italian TV network,  owns newspapers, owns football teams. That is, he is the owner of Italy. And he is clearly fascist, xenophobic, racist.
Berlusconi Hystery and the Brazilian Sovereignity – Blog de Luís Antônio Castagna Maia

The reaction now is very different from last year, when the French government refused to extradite Marina Petrella, a former Red Brigades terrorist who was informed of the decision at her hospital bed by Carla Bruni herself. This time with Brazil, Ms. Sarkozy had to come out to dimiss any connection with Cesare Batistti, which ended up bringing more spice to the story.

Many blogs mention that the main source of the Italian enrage this time was the terms used by the justice minister Tarso Genro to announce the asylum grant, declaring that Battisti was a victim of political persecution and that his life might be at risk if he were returned to his homeland.

More than the decision itself, what provoked the violent reaction of the Italian government were the terms used by the Minister of Justice, Tarso Genro, to deny the Italian request, accepting Battisti’s allegations that he would be risking his life, or suffering political persecution if he were to be returned to Italy.
Battisti and Rother: the art of shooting your feet – Balaio do Kotscho

Although we can insist that the Brazilian decision was sovereign, it is known that Tarso did not consult the Foreign Ministry before making his decision. And he threw in the face of Italy and Berlusconi’s government some though arguments, not diplomatic and totally unnecessary. France obviously holds the same supicions that afflicts the strident Minister of Justice, but preferred to refer to the Petrella’s health conditions, instead of creating a case for nothing. Thus, forcing Italy to retreat. It seems reasonable that the same sovereign decision that Tarso upholds elevates the tension in relations with Italy, which saw a Brazilian Minister of Justice for the first time questioning the justice system of other country. A case of second class contempt. A good example of how a fair decision can be undermined by those who do not know how to respect the sovereignty of others.
Tarso has failed (indeed) on Batistti – Savarese’s Blog

Football is not the only strong link between Brazilians and Italians. There are many other cultural interfaces, and also the fact that Brazil is home for the biggest Italian community outside Italy. In the present case, it seems that this proximity has ignited a complex chain reaction over unresolved issues from both countries’ past: the “years of lead“.

In Brazil, where armed groups fought against the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 until 1985, an amnesty law resulted that neither security officials accused of torture nor those involved in violence against the state faced prosecution. Italy is proud of having maintained its political institutions during its ‘anni di piombo‘ (1970-80), but many aspects of the period seems to be shrouded in mystery.

A key figure in this debate here in Brazil turned to be Mino Carta, the Italian-born journalist, publisher and writer that helped create 3 of the 4 main magazines currently published in the country. Known as an independent and authoritative voice, and also a close friend to President Lula, he has used his blog to vigorously attack minister Genro for his stance and declarations on the Battisti episode. Last week, in a last post where he declares having lost faith in journalism, and in Brazil, Mr. Carta closed his blog and announced his silence at Carta Capital, the magazine.

It is Jean-Paul Lagarride on the call, from Darfur.
Question: “Hey, Does Tarso Genro wants to declare war to Italy?”  “Perhaps,” I admit. Here is the following dialogue.
He – Besides being a lawyer, he is a professor of history and political science. A master.
I – You think?
He – Yes, just gave Italy a lesson of democracy. How has Brazil came out from their years of lead? With the law of amnesty. Italy has so far not made their own law of amnesty.
I – Must be because Italy has not had a general Golbery [mastermind of the Brazilian redemocratization process].
He – Yeah. And how the old Golba did to Italy.
I – Maybe our dear Tarso has not noticed that there are lead and lead?
Lagarride e Tarso Genro – Blog do Mino

Minister Tarso Genro said in Belem [at the Social Forum] that against Battisti’s extradition hold line diverse supporters, from amnesty advocates to torturers of the dictatorship, “with the exception of Mino Carta.” I appreciate the reference, however, I’ve got to make note of the fact that the minister falls in startling contradiction. Was not he who on a burst that verges on the volterian satire, suggested  that Italy should implement an amnesty law like the one signed in Brazil by the dictator in charge? Perhaps the Minister does not know that while in Brazil existed a Terror of State, in Italy happened a serious and failed terrorist attempt to destabilize a democratic state of law established since the end of fascism.
Farewell – Blog do Mino

Cesare Battisti is inprisoned in Brasilia waiting for the final decision of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court (STF). An important piece of the process is a letter from Francesco Cossiga, the hardline interior minister of the 1970s, confirming that Battisti’s crimes were indeed political in nature. In a recent interview on IstoÉ magazine, which was broadly reblogged by those following the case, Battisti urges his home country to review what really happened back then.

“I think Minister Genro’s gesture was one of courage and humanity. It is a very important not only for me, Cesare Battisti, but for humanity. Italy needs to reread their own history. We are giving the Italian nation the opportunity to read their story calmly, humanely … At that time, torture was part of daily life in Italy. Italy has to recognize that. But it can not. Because Italy is Europe. And Italy could not accept that in 1970 they went through a civil war. ”
Cesare Battisti – “Por que tudo isso comigo?” – Blog do Se

Navigating through the Brazilian blogs covering the episode, it is easy to find opinions that mirrors what the main media vehicles are publishing. Results of a recent pool at Globo.com shows 80% of disagreement with the Brazilian government decision to grant refugee to Mr. Battisti. Still, there are some interesting takes on the contradictions evoked by the different political solutions carried out by Brazil and Italy to resolve their political wounds of the past, and how to deal with the contradictions posed by today and tomorrow.

The mainstream media refers to the ‘terrorist Battisti’ as if he had acted yesterday, but we are speaking of things happened between 30 and 40 years ago. The Minister Tarso Genro is right to say that the press showed a different behavior when he proposed a debate on punishment of the torturers. At that moment they said it was a thing from the past … He is accused of having taken a political decision, but he followed what the STF had already decided on such cases. One of the minister’s  critics was governor Serra [from Sao Paulo state, the opposition main candidate for the 2010 presidential elections], who displayed his shock about granting refugee to Battisti, but in the last election supported Fernando Gabeira, who kidnaped an American ambassador, but is not considered a terrorist.
Italian fascists and Brazilian media lie about Battisti – Bahia de Fato

Finally, a basic question, unavoidable: what is the motivation of the Italian government? Why so much effort into putting their hands on a harmless character, after so long? The answer, or part thereof, is the domestic situation in Italy, marked by the crisis and a wave of protests in which stands out a strong student activism. Berlusconi and his allies react to the rise of a non-domesticated left swinging the scarecrow of the “years of lead”. The hysteria around the Battisti case, which is being manipulated to create an anachronistic association between “radicals” of yesterday and today, makes sense. In contrast, gives support to a speech in which the fascist mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, has just declared that “the Italian student movement is (might be) run by 300 criminals from La Sapienza university.”
The media against Battisti – Entreatos

Let’s hope for a good match today, where the genuine respect that people in Brazil and Italy nurture for both countrie’s citizens, culture and, specially, artful football, outshines minor politically motivated imbroglios.

Here goes text and slides of my presentation on the A2K Dynamic Coalition panel “Access to Knowledge and Freedom of Expression Policies for the Development of a Global Information Economy”, at the 3rd Edition of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), in Hyderabad, India.

Gilberto Gil

Brazilian Digital Culture
A case of public exercise of culture as a tool for progressive change in the global networked society

Digital Culture is a term that have emerged from the passage of Mr. Gilberto Gil as the head of the Brazilian Ministry of Culture. He used to puzzle the media by calling himself a “Hacker Minister”, in the sense of studying the government mechanisms in order to customize it according to the dynamics of the present time.

Cultural Hotspots

His reflections on the radical use of new possibilities brought by the Internet were soon translated into action through the Cultural Hotspots program. The idea of the program was to empower established cultural groups or initiatives with the ability to digitize their content through open source audio and video editing software, and also foster the exchange of this content among the network of hotspots. The program would also encourages the use of alternative licenses like Creative Commons and Copyleft, allowing the remix and the open collaboration on the content with the other hotspots and the whole of society.

Openness on Cultural Production

The success of the Cultural Hotspots program in facilitating the understanding of the new cultural dynamics offered by the global network was an important input to the ministry’s policies and actions from then on. It became clear that one important and powerful feature of the networked environment was the possibility of open collaboration. In this model, ideas are put out much earlier and less completely formed, so others are able to access and participate further developments in their own ways.

In a sense, we are talking about the same ‘release early, release often’ principle that all of the derivatives of the open source movement. But the real hack proposed by Gil was to introduce these concepts into public polices and programs, after translated into cultural perspectives.

Open Source Public Policies

Another important element is the development of a ‘culture of use’ of the Internet by the government. Here we are talking about exploring the full use of the interactive possibilities to foster collaborative participation of citizens in the development of public policies. This vision impacts in a radical way the patterns of communication between governments and citizens, which can now be turned into a real time conversation.

This perspective is demonstrated in the implementation of the Brazilian Ministry of Culture’s institutional website, which is developed as a blog aggregator. The idea is to use blogs in order to facilitate the understanding of public officials on how to engage in a free flow of conversation with their audiences, and to explore the web 2.0 features that encourages participative collaboration. Here again the principle of ‘release early, release often’ comes to action, but now in terms of the development of public policies.

IGF Blog - Brazilian delegates report about their participation on the 3rd IGF edition in Hyderabad

Rouanet Bill Reform Blog - Debating the Amendements on the National Law for Cultural Incentives

Blog of the National Forum on Copyright - Holding the debate for the evolution of Intellectual Property legal frameworks.

IGF-Rio Remote Participation Effort

It is important also to mention the Brazilian Ministry of Culture’s effort to provide remote participation tools and interactive events to the 2007’s IGF edition in Rio de Janeiro. It was offered technical support for the IGF Secretariat in order to establish interactive channels for the discussions, and in an attempt to bring new audiences to the debate on Internet governance, an alternative IGF venue was set up in the center of the city, at a popular place know as ‘Circo Voador’ (Flying Circus).

The idea was to bring together artists, politicians, and all people interested in getting to know more about Internet governance from a cultural perspective, and allow them the opportunity to participate in the process. Although it has not worked as planned then, we are happy to see that a similar model is working well here in Hyderabad, and it makes us specially proud that Brazilians are again heading the initiative to turn the IGF into a more inclusive debate on the governance of global network resources.

In a speech made some days before leaving the ministry, Gilberto Gil affirmed that Digital Culture initiatives present a built-in revolutionary device, and are able to play a fundamental role in shaking away the inertia of the traditional politics that has much of society from public life.

He talked about a bottom-up unrest happening everywhere, which he sees as a very positive sign of the emergence of a non-governmental political movement that he believes to be a direct and evolved result of cultural and counter-cultural forces which have been increasing their ability to influence public policies. He talked about ‘Peer-acy’.

(Being a musician and former minister, Gil is indeed also a poet. He likes to play with the words, it’s sounds and meanings. Although the term ‘peer-racy’ may recall us of piracy, it is very possible that this formulation indicates that Gil was thinking about ‘hacking democracy’)

But the important thing to emphasize here is that the exercise of exploring the use of advanced network possibilities teaches governments about the value of free and open acess to knowledge. As any other ‘user’, the state machine must create a ‘culture of use’ on the Internet. This must be the better way to engage governments in the promotion of the A2K agenda, and make them really understand the precious value of keeping the Internet free, open and neutral.

Thank you!

A2K@IGF Hyderabad - Eddan, Bassem, Gitanjli, Stuart, Lea, Jose and Geidy

2K@IGF Dynamic Coalition Session

• Ms. Geidy Lung, Senior Legal Adviser in the Copyright Law Division
  World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Director
  Presentation Topic: WIPO Development Agenda progress update

• Ms. Gitanjli DUGGAL
  Google India, Attorney
  Presentation Topic: Role of limitations and exceptions to exclusive rights in information economy

• Mr. Bassem AWAD
  African Copyright and Access to Knowledge (ACA2K) Project
  Chief Judge, Egyptian Ministry of Justice
  Presentation Topic: A2K Initiatives in Africa (lessons learned)

• Mr. Eddan KATZ
  Electronic Frontier Foundation, International Affairs Director
  Presentation Topic: Threat to IPR Multilateralism Norm-Setting from the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)

• Mr. Jose MURILO
  Brazilian Ministry of Culture, Advisor
  Presentation Topic: The Brazilian Digital Culture Experience & Democratizing Knowledge

• Mr. Stuart HAMILTON
  International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), Senior Policy Advisor
  Presentation Topic: Needs of libraries in an electronic information society

As expected from Cory, the new book (Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future) digital versions are available, without charge, at the same time that the print versions are published. He is innovating on reward models, so if you want to donate something you can do so by buying a copy for a librarian or teacher — and teachers and librarians can request a copy for their institution.

The book was designed by typography legend John D Berry, and presents a fine introduction from our good friend John Perry Barlow (photo), which I found provocative enough for me to publish it here.

John Perry Barlow
San Francisco — Seattle — Vancouver — San Francisco
Tuesday, April 1, 2008

“Content,” huh? Ha! Where’s the container?

Perhaps these words appear to you on the pages of a book, a physical object that might be said to have “contained” the thoughts of my friend and co-conspirator Cory Doctorow as they were transported in boxes and trucks all the way from his marvelous mind into yours. If that is so, I will concede that you might be encountering “content.” (Actually, if that’s the case, I’m delighted on Cory’s behalf, since that means that you have also paid him for these thoughts. We still know how to pay creators directly for the works they embed in stuff.)

But the chances are excellent that you’re reading these liquid words as bit-states of light on a computer screen, having taken advantage of his willingness to let you have them in that form for free. In such an instance, what “contains” them? Your hard disk? His? The Internet and all the servers and routers in whose caches the ghosts of their passage might still remain? Your mind? Cory’s?

To me, it doesn’t matter. Even if you’re reading this from a book, I’m still not convinced that what you have in your hands is its container, or that, even if we agreed on that point, that a little ink in the shape of, say, the visual pattern you’re trained to interpret as meaning “a little ink” in whatever font the publisher chooses, is not, as Magritte would remind us, the same thing as a little ink, even though it is.

Meaning is the issue. If you couldn’t read English, this whole book would obviously contain nothing as far as you were concerned. Given that Cory is really cool and interesting, you might be motivated to learn English so that you could read this book, but even then it wouldn’t be a container so much as a conduit.

The real “container” would be a process of thought that began when I compressed my notion of what is meant by the word “ink” — which, when it comes to the substances that can be used to make marks on paper, is rather more variable than you might think — and would kind of end when you decompressed it in your own mind as whatever you think it is.

I know this is getting a bit discursive, but I do have a point. Let me just make it so we can move on.

I believe, as I’ve stated before, that information is simultaneously a relationship, an action, and an area of shared mind. What it isn’t is a noun.

Information is not a thing. It isn’t an object. It isn’t something that, when you sell it or have it stolen, ceases to remain in your possession. It doesn’t have a market value that can be objectively determined. It is not, for example, much like a 2004 Ducati ˆ motorcycle, for which I’m presently in the market, and which seems — despite variabilities based on, I must admit, informationally based conditions like mileage and whether it’s been dropped — to have a value that is pretty consistent among the specimens I can find for sale on the Web.

Such economic clarity could not be established for anything “in” this book, which you either obtained for free or for whatever price the publisher eventually puts on it. If it’s a book you’re reading from, then presumably Cory will get paid some percentage of whatever you, or the person who gave it to you, paid for it.

But I won’t. I’m not getting paid to write this forward, neither in royalties nor upfront. I am, however, getting some intangible value, as one generally does whenever he does a favor for a friend. For me, the value being retrieved from going to the trouble of writing these words is not so different from the value you retrieve from reading them. We are both mining a deeply intangible “good,” which lies in interacting with The Mind of Cory Doctorow. I mention this because it demonstrates the immeasurable role of relationship as the driving force in an information economy.

But neither am I creating content at the moment nor are you “consuming” it (since, unlike a hamburger, these words will remain after you’re done with them, and, also unlike a hamburger you won’t subsequently, well… never mind.) Unlike real content, like the stuff in a shipping container, these words have neither grams nor liters by which one might measure their value. Unlike gasoline, ten bucks worth of this stuff will get some people a lot further than others, depending on their interest and my eloquence, neither of which can be quantified.

It’s this simple: the new meaning of the word “content” is plain wrong. In fact, it is intentionally wrong. It’s a usage that only arose when the institutions that had fattened on their ability to bottle and distribute the genius of human expression began to realize that their containers were melting away, along with their reason to be in business. They started calling it content at exactly the time it ceased to be. Previously they had sold books and records and films, all nouns to be sure. They didn’t know what to call the mysterious ghosts of thought that were attached to them.

Thus, when not applied to something you can put in a bucket (of whatever size), “content” actually represents a plot to make you think that meaning is a thing. It isn’t. The only reason they want you to think that it is, is because they know how to own things, how to give them a value based on weight or quantity, and, more to the point, how to make them artificially scarce in order to increase their value.

That, and the fact that after a good twenty-five years of advance warning, they still haven’t done much about the Economy of Ideas besides trying to stop it from happening.

As I get older, I become less and less interested in saying “I told you so.” But in this case, I find it hard to resist. Back during the Internet equivalent of the Pleistocene, I wrote a piece for an ancestor of Wired magazine called Wired magazine that was titled, variously, “The Economy of Ideas” or “Wine without Bottles.” In this essay, I argued that it would be deucedly difficult to continue to apply the Adam Smithian economic principles regarding the relationship between scarcity and value to any products that could be reproduced and distributed infinitely at zero cost.

I proposed, moreover, that, to the extent that anything might be scarce in such an economy, it would be attention, and that invisibility would be a bad strategy for increasing attention. That, in other words, familiarity might convey more value to information than scarcity would.

I did my best to tell the folks in what is now called “The Content Industry” — the institutions that once arose for the useful purpose of conveying creative expression from one mind to many — that this would be a good time to change their economic model. I proposed that copyright had worked largely because it had been difficult, as a practical matter, to make a book or a record or motion picture film spool.

It was my theory that as soon as all human expression could be reduced into ones and zeros, people would begin to realize what this “stuff” really was and come up with an economic paradigm for rewarding its sources that didn’t seem as futile as claiming to own the wind. Organizations would adapt. The law would change. The notion of “intellectual property,” itself only about thirty-five years old, would be chucked immediately onto the magnificent ash-heap of Civilization’s idiotic experiments.

Of course, as we now know, I was wrong. Really wrong.

As is my almost pathological inclination, I extended them too much credit. I imputed to institutions the same capacities for adaptability and recognition of the obvious that I assume for humans. But institutions, having the legal system a fundamental part of their genetic code, are not so readily ductile.

This is particularly true in America, where some combination of certainty and control is the actual “deity” before whose altar we worship, and where we have a regular practice of spawning large and inhuman collective organisms that are a kind of meta-parasite. These critters — let’s call them publicly held corporations — may be made out of humans, but they are not human. Given human folly, that characteristic might be semi-OK if they were actually as cold-bloodedly expedient as I once fancied them — yielding only to the will of the markets and the raw self-interest of their shareholders. But no. They are also symbiotically subject to the “religious beliefs” of those humans who feed in their upper elevations.

Unfortunately, the guys (and they mostly are guys) who’ve been running The Content Industry since it started to die share something like a doctrinal fundamentalism that has led them to such beliefs as the conviction that there’s no difference between listening to a song and shop-lifting a toaster.

Moreover, they dwell in such a sublime state of denial that they think they are stewarding the creative process as it arises in the creative humans they exploit savagely — knowing, as they do, that a creative human would rather be heard than paid — and that they, a bunch of sated old scoundrels nearing retirement, would be able to find technological means for wrapping “containers” around “their” “content” that the adolescent electronic Hezbollah they’ve inspired by suing their own customers will neither be smart nor motivated enough to shred whatever pathetic digital bottles their lackeys design.

And so it has been for the last thirteen years. The companies that claim the ability to regulate humanity’s Right to Know have been tireless in their endeavors to prevent the inevitable. They won most of the legislative battles in the U.S. and abroad, having purchased all the government that money could buy. They even won most of the contests in court. They created digital rights management software schemes that behaved rather like computer viruses.

Indeed, they did about everything they could short of seriously examining the actual economics of the situation — it has never been proven to me that illegal downloads are more like shoplifted goods than viral marketing — or trying to come up with a business model that the market might embrace.

Had it been left to the stewardship of the usual suspects, there would scarcely be a word or a note online that you didn’t have to pay to experience. There would be increasingly little free speech or any consequence, since free speech is not something anyone can own.

Fortunately there were countervailing forces of all sorts, beginning with the wise folks who designed the Internet in the first place. Then there was something called the Electronic Frontier Foundation which I co-founded, along with Mitch Kapor and John Gilmore, back in 1990. Dedicated to the free exchange of useful information in cyberspace, it seemed at times that I had been right in suggesting then that practically every institution of the Industrial Period would try to crush, or at least own, the Internet. That’s a lot of lawyers to have stacked against your cause.

But we had Cory Doctorow.

Had nature not provided us with a Cory Doctorow when we needed one, it would have been necessary for us to invent a time machine and go into the future to fetch another like him. That would be about the only place I can imagine finding such a creature. Cory, as you will learn from his various rants “contained” herein, was perfectly suited to the task of subduing the dinosaurs of content.

He’s a little like the guerilla plumber Tuttle in the movie Brazil. Armed with a utility belt of improbable gizmos, a wildly overclocked mind, a keyboard he uses like a verbal machine gun, and, best of all, a dark sense of humor, he’d go forth against massive industrial forces and return grinning, if a little beat up.

Indeed, many of the essays collected under this dubious title are not only memoirs of his various campaigns but are themselves the very weapons he used in them. Fortunately, he has spared you some of the more sophisticated utilities he employed. He is not battering you with the nerdy technolingo he commands when stacked up against various minutiacrats, but I assure you that he can speak geek with people who, unlike Cory, think they’re being pretty social when they’re staring at the other person’s shoes.

This was a necessary ability. One of the problems that EFF has to contend with is that even though most of our yet-unborn constituency would agree heartily with our central mission — giving everybody everywhere the right to both address and hear everybody everywhere else — the decisions that will determine the eventual viability of that right are being made now and generally in gatherings invisible to the general public, using terminology, whether technical or legal, that would be the verbal equivalent of chloroform to anyone not conversant with such arcana.

I’ve often repeated my belief that the first responsibility of a human being is to be a better ancestor. Thus, it seems fitting that the appearance of this book, which details much of Cory’s time with the EFF, coincides with the appearance of his first-born child, about whom he is a shameless sentimental gusher. I would like to think that by the time this newest prodigy, Poesy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow — you see what I mean about paternal enthusiasm — has reached Cory’s age of truly advanced adolescence, the world will have recognized that there are better ways to regulate the economy of mind than pretending that its products are something like pig iron. But even if it hasn’t, I am certain that the global human discourse will be less encumbered than it would have been had not Cory Doctorow blessed our current little chunk of space/time with his fierce endeavors.

And whatever it is that might be “contained” in the following.

A quick search on ‘brazil’ + ‘censorship’ in Global Voices returns a bunch of scary titles posted just in the last 6 months: Dismissal of Brazilian Blogger: Censorship or Just Business? (March 23rd), Bloggers united against Wordpress ban (April 12th), First blog falls victim to electoral law (June 1st), Blogging Against Web-Censorship (June 19th), Bloggers question the 13 new cyber-crimes (July 17th), Electoral censorship at work (July 22nd).

This time, the weird news sprouts from the state of Minas Gerais, where governor Aécio Neves is carefully preparing himself to run as presidential candidate in 2010, when Lula leaves office. In the midst of country-wide municipal elections, the opposing online journal ‘Novo Jornal’ was taken down by state level prosecutors — the Public Ministry — on (refuted) charges of anonymity.

Truth is that the Brazilian Constitution sets up an unusually twisted situation, especially for online speech: free expression of thought is assured in the same paragraph where anonymity is formally forbidden. Still, the seizure of ‘Novo Jornal’ is calling the attention of the blogosphere for the inventive strategy of using state level prosecutors and cybercrime allegations to immediately take down an informative website without the proper legal process. Blogs are also pointing out the fact that the mainstream media has been silent about the case — in what has started to appear as a pattern when it comes to negative coverage on Aécio Neves.

The matrix-like display (picture above) forced upon ‘NovoJornal’s web page sets the tone.

The State Prosecutor’s consideration is stated on O Tempo’s website: “Once the criminal investigation procedure started, it was found that there is no identification of who is in charge of the site — which labels itself as a Journal — resulting in a frontal violation of the Federal Constitution, which guarantees the free expression of thought but forbids anonymity, and also the Press Law, which applies to the Internet”… Apart from [issues of] political partisanship, journalistic viewpoint or anonymity, the one thing I perceive is that the arms of censorship are reaching out, and history tells us that they are usually utilized by the ones in power, and rarely for good reasons. More than debating the merits of the case, it is important to stay alert and be on guard. Thinking about it… wouldn’t that be the role of the State Prosecutors, and from the other side, of the media?
There are people who think censorship is something from the past – NaRua.org

At the moment it was taken down, the ‘Novo Jornal’ website was displaying on it’s home page an article heavily criticizing the Federal Supreme Court president, Gilmar Mendes. The article can still be read in Google’s cache. “Novo Jornal” also decried that Aécio Neves payed US$ 269 million of Globo TV Network’s debts on the purchase of Light [Electric Company].
Brought down news website denouncing Aécio Neves – O Biscoito Fino e a Massa

Contrary to the State Prosecutor’s arguments, “Novo Jornal” was strictly under the law, with it’s Director in Charge registered at the Regional Labor Office, holding the MTE nº 000311/MG, what puts him in charge of all the non-signed articles published at “Novo Jornal”… That’s how it is proved that there never was no anonymity as stated by the State Prosecutors. NovoJornal’s Director in Charge and it’s address are also listed at Registro.br, the official registry for all Internet sites in Brazil.
NovoJornal remains censored by Aecio Neves – Em cima da notícia

Aren’t there more important issues for the Public Ministry of Minas to investigate than to censor the Internet, following governor’s orders, disguised as an action against Cybercrime?
In the land of a presidential candidate, you censor the opposition as cybercrime – Rastreadores de Impurezas

As bloggers were quick to notice, there are some other things being done in Brazil (see also: “Bloggers question the 13 new cyber-crimes“, “The cost of the cybercrime bill“, “Cybercrime bill is now translated“) disguised as actions against Cybercrime.

In NovaE digital magazine there is a long article from blogger José de Souza Castro, the first to find out that “NovoJornal” was brought down by a legal action, where he starts to delve deeper in the details, which leads him to link this particular process to the siege that is being engineered in Brazil against Internet liberties [the Cybercrime Bill]:

“The government of Minas Gerais seemed to be in a haste to settle this issue with ‘Novo Jornal’. According to ‘O Tempo’, “the Cybercrime Combat State Prosecutors was created in Belo horizonte on July 16th this year. In face of the rampant number of crimes practiced by network users, the State Public Ministry has decided for its deployment. The Cybercrime Prosecutor acts as a support to justice prosecutors working on the criminal sector, and streamlines attendance to victims.” The newspaper adds, quoting someone identified as Vanessa Fusco: “The strategy is to act pro-actively in confronting this type of crime, which keeps growing mainly with the arrival of broadband to the interior”. And it oncludes: “A project authored by Senator Eduardo Azeredo (PSDB) seeks (or sought) to define and list the criminal acts performed on the Internet” (Novae’s text)”

Internet censorship in Minas Gerais – Em busca da palavra justa

The ‘NovoJornal’s case is also showing that, despite what the constitution provides on the matter of free speech, ‘anonymity’ may play an important role as a ‘checks and balance’ element in a democratic public space. The video below shows NovoJornal’s Director in Charge, Marco Aurélio Carone, answering why the articles on the site have no attribution and are not signed. The interview was published on YouTube some weeks before ‘NovoJornal’ was censored.

If you’ve managed to follow along this far, you will surely want to watch the video below, made by the Brazilian Daniel Florêncio for Current.TV, and presented as “an investigation into the seemingly increasingly curtailed press in Brazil”. But first, a blogger account to add context:

Florêncio’s report was ‘born’ from the documentary “Liberdade, essa palavra“ (Freedom, this word), produced in 2006 by then journalism student Marcelo Baêta… Both Baêta’s documentary and Daniel’s report had repercussions in the national and international media (Folha de Sao Paulo and Le Monde published articles on the case), that generated sharp responses from Aécio’s partisans, who used the same tool, the YouTube, for defense… After seeing all the case’s related videos (see more here), I was puzzled by something: did the journalists really ‘take their asses off the line’ in the case?
Minas Gerais, the censorship and the state of affairs – NaRua.org

You may want also to watch the video response to the curren.tv’s piece.

The viral spread of Internet participation across the Brazilian population is producing quite a shaking in the established realms of media, politics and courts. But it is exactly this kind of upheaval that generates the discourse necessary to the discovery of balanced protocols for managing the contradictions revealed by the age of information. Stay tuned — this is an ongoing process.

There is a backup of [NovoJornal] site on http://rapidshare.com/files/138763257/novojornal.tar.bz2.html
Comment from Winston in Brought down news website denouncing Aécio Neves – O Biscoito Fino e a Massa

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“I, Gilberto Gil, Brazilian citizen, world citizen and Minister of Culture of Brazil, develop my work in music, in the ministry and in all the dimensions of my existence under the inspiration of hacker ethics; I am concerned about the issues that my world and my time pose to me, such as the issue of the digital divide, of free software and also the issue of regulation and development of audiovisual content production and distribution, by any media, for any purpose”.

At that moment, there was a highly charged debate over the proposal of Gil’s team for creating a National Cinema and Audiovisual Agency (ANCINAV) to ‘deal with audiovisual as an integrated and convergent economy, following the evolution of new technological platforms‘. The powerful media and TV networks were quick to react, violently.

‘Xenophobic, authoritarian, Stalinist, Chavez-like and soviet-style’ were items included in the name calling Gil had to bear. At the time, Juca Ferreira — the sociologist designated by Gil to be his successor as head of the ministry — managed to clarify the context that called for a regulatory agency in Brazil:

“In the audiovisual sector, the economic environment is being rearranged and the ownership concentration is growing. Big telecom companies are acquiring smaller companies from the movies, media, journalism and entertainment sectors, generating mega corporations eager to conquer new markets. These companies are able to maintain powerfull relations with their own rich governments, while also promoting interest-based relations with its poor countries hosts. They perform political strategies to take down what they call barriers, and fight against ownership concentration regulations in their home countries. It makes sense… It is important to mention those strategies are performed by highly competent and proactive State bureaucracies making use of all kinds of resources.”
Juca Ferreira in ‘Brazilians debate regulation and media convergence’ – Global Voices Online

Googling for English content on ANCINAV leads you to a protected article which allows enough reading for us to understand the drift and recognize the style of attack. “The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) threatened Brazil with commercial retaliation if the government continued its plans to create ANCINAV…”

Amidst heavy artillery, and although having already compromised in the creation of the agency, Lula felt the pressure and backed off, asking Gil to continue studying other alternatives.

All this occurred during Gilberto Gil’s first months as a minister, and he learned a lot from the ANCINAV episode. The goals stayed the same, but the strategy was to be reframed.

Lessig with Gil @ Porto Alegre’s WSF05:
Is this what democracy looks like?

Perhaps calling himself a hacker while being attacked as a ’stalinist’ by local mainstream media right on the occasion of his very first major venture as minister was the grand overture of the Tropicalia movement vibe from his podium in government.

The tropicalist visionary perspective is a legacy of the late 60’s when Gil and his group were discovering a new global audience and experimenting with all kinds of cultural fusions. Here for the first time was the recognition that the same pulses of modernity were resonating from the cosmopolitan electric guitars from abroad and from regional groups from the hinterlands of the Brazilian Northeast. The urge to communicate and mix across cultures was the key to what came to be known as tropicalism.

Gil’s focus on the hacker ethics of openness for the digital culture today, forty years later, was instrumental for a similar mixing of cultures, peers, rhythms, codes and complexities. In his own way, he managed to creatively introduce new conceptual layers and nuances to his political discourse, thus breaking open new ground for the political debate over mass culture, the market, technology, the tensions between the contemporary and the traditional, intellectual property regulation, and more.

At that moment, the seeds of what would become some of the main projects of Gil’s tenure were tossed into the air. There was the pioneering push to port Creative Commons licenses to Brazil, which were displayed as Gil’s first moves toward the process of revising Brazilian copyrights laws. The fruits of such a debate were surely reflected in Brazil’s recent stiff (and successful) positions at WIPO — the World Intellectual Property Association, and in the realization of a National Forum to debate revisions on the copyright law which is now underway.

Another significant move came from Gil’s engagement in bringing back to life the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity. While opponents were keen to label the convention as a “deeply flawed” treaty, overly protectionist, and a threat to freedom of expression, Gil worked on the possibility that the initiative could result in a counterbalance to the World Trade Organization (WTO) rulings when deciding conflicts between trade and culture. In June 2007 the Brazilian Ministry of Culture sponsored an International Seminar to debate practical implementations and tools to activate the powers of the convention in each country.

The launch of the first ‘Pontos de Cultura’ (Cultural Hotspots) as a concrete program and as a showcase for Gil’s vision for digital culture was broadly recognized as a great idea in terms of cutural policy. It all starts with the selection of a project, an existent cultural process developed by groups such as indigenous tribes, quilombolas, cultural groups in favelas, academic centers at universities, or the like. The “architecture” of a hotspot is both structurally simple and broadly innovative. It is established with a broadband connection, infrastructure made of recycled equipment and, most important, technical workshops on open source audio and video editing software, enabling the cultural groups to digitize their creativity and publish it under alternative licenses. The project mixes (1) free software, (2) advanced concepts on copyrights and (3) an awareness that the appropriation of technology by the people is the emergent social movement which supports the generative dynamics of the digital era. According to Gil:

“We need to relocate what is now centralized in the hands of few. The majors of the cultural industry haven’t left anything for the peripheries. That’s why today the role of the Brazilian state in formulating public policies is to empower the micro manifestations so that they become able to occupy the public spaces while being protagonists of the promotion and protection of diversity”
[pt] Brasil lead American countries on policies for artistic expressions – o Abismal

The one complaint made by Gilberto Gil on the day he presented his departure to president Lula was related to the low budget for his ministry. While Gil’s critics from different positions generally talk about good ideas being poorly implemented, on the website of the media giant Globo network — where they use to represent Gil the minister as a cartoon mumbling esoteric nonsense — 53% of readers voted ‘terrible’ in judging his term. His achievements were in the face of much hostility.

But, the final assessment that is yet to be made about Gilberto Gil’s term at the helm of the Brazilian Ministry of Culture is whether his achievements are enough to lead us to believe that culture can be trusted as a locus for activism and progressive change in the global networked society.

Like managing to jam with widely different musical partners, anywhere, under all conditions, Gil seems to embody the ‘use of culture’ as a communication tool that both enables and invites broad participation. The invitation for cultural exercise is to be found mixed into the tropicalist vibe of his speeches on digital culture:

To act upon digital culture is the concretization of this philosophy, which open spaces to redefine the form and the content of cultural policies, and transforms the Ministry of Culture… Digital culture is a new concept. It comes from the idea that the digital technology revolution is cultural in its essence. What is at stake here is that the use of digital technology change behaviors. The plain use of the Internet and of free software creates fantastic possibilities to democratize access to information and to knowledge, to maximize the potential of cultural goods and services, to amplify the values that form our common scripts, and therefore, our culture, and also to potentialize the cultural production, generating new forms of art.

In a recent speech, Minister Gilberto Gil affirmed that Digital Culture initiatives present a built-in revolutionary device, and are able to play a fundamental role in shaking away the inertia of the traditional politics that has excluded much of society from public life. He talked about a bottom-up unrest happening everywhere, which he sees as a very positive sign of the emergence of a non-governmental political movement that he believes to be a direct and evolved result of recent cultural and counter-cultural forces which have been increasing their ability to influence public policies. He talked about ‘Peer-acy‘.

For those of us who worked with him, the loss is big. For him, I think it will be great to feel free again to dedicate himself to music. And one thing is for sure: Gilberto Gil’s tropicalist term has transformed the Brazilian Ministry of Culture.

The tones and rhythms of his leadership will live on.

Here is an interesting interview with Gilberto Gil @ YouTube

Here I am in Budapest, interesting city, with beautiful people all around speaking a peculiar language. The whole environment exhales history, but the streets are full of young and interesting people who seem well tuned to the beat of the moment. I could sense many similarities with Brazilians.

The Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2008, which gathers managers, editors, authors, Lingua sites coordinators, collaborators and other fellow communities that somehow are linked to the Global Voices Online project, is happening here.

As I arrived here, I thought it might be important to mention some aspects of my relationship with GVO — something I’ve never described before. With many simultaneous projects on my plate, it is difficult to properly document the interconnections of what I’ve been developing and implementing, especially when it comes to the “cross-layering” where aspects of one project contribute to other ones.

My collaboration with the GVO community has been invaluable to me, and some aspects are quite present in many other things I’ve been doing. The use of Wordpress at the Brazilian Ministry of Culture wesite, for example, resulted from what I saw happening within the Global Voices community. It’s a wonder that so many collaborators from all parts of the world, remotely contacted and trained at a distance, are able to master the collective use of a common open source publishing platform. I realized that this must be a damn good software solution.

I recognized that such a tool would facilitate the fostering of collaborative environments for content production inside the Ministry of Culture, even in cases where the users held highly diverse levels of computer knowledge. The result of this adaptation of GV’s concept of using Wordpress for the management of an institutional portal has grown and prospered into a full set of plug-ins that we are sharing at Xemelê. We will soon be launching the first Wordpress theme complete with all the Xemelê plug-ins preinstalled, which will consistently help all who feel like implementing the same solution.

Another important lesson I learned as a Global Voices editor was how to make good use of remote networking. I understood that it is possible to transform a wide variety of people from different cultures and languages who have never met into co-workers which is something that you have to see happening in order to believe that it’s possible! Based on this experience, I have conceived and helped implement some projects at the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, among them the Rede Web Mercosur website, which links participants in several South American countries.

There is a special kind of magic behind each of the accomplished online communities, and GVO is no different. Indeed, the GV Summit is great exactly because of what it inspires: it shows (and illustrates) how to enliven the spark that unites bloggers worldwide around these strong words: “The world is talking. Are you listening?“. In fact, global collaboration requires more than inspiration. Such a dynamic global structure operating 24 x 7 demands a lot of work — 90% of which is perspiration, I should say.

It’s been great to meet again dear colleagues like David Sasaki, our fantastic co-manager Georgia Popplewell, and precious teachers like Ethan Zuckerman and Rebecca MacKinnon.  Today was the first day, centered on advocacy for free speech online and coordinated by a great pal: Sami Ben Gharbia.

It was especially interesting to learn about how Internet censorship can be countered with different approaches, using many tools like technical, political and legal aspects, but what emerged as a revelation was the more intimate power of cultural and social censorship. Like when one participant complained that “it is one thing to resist an authoritarian government, another is to confront your own father”, in a case where the local culture is built on censorship. I thoroughly suggest the reading of the ‘live blogging‘ pages for a fascinating discussion of the issue. (photo by Luiz Carlos Dias, click for more)