Sunday, February 26, 2006

A response to tonight's Carte Blanche story entitled "stealing music"

The music "industry" - should songs or poetry be looked at merely as a product?

The artists in the story were very concerned about the fact that others are stealing their money by pirating their songs - and rightly so. Since as a rule copyright applies to all creative work - and noone has the right to copy it without the artists' permission.

But the question remains - is it right for the artists to look at their profession as a job - is it right to call their songs "products" - a once-off thing sold to the audience.

In today's consumer society once-off products are sold - once consumed - they end up in the bin - noone reuses them - but rather - buy new products and consume them. The products once in the bin - are considered "waste". When it comes to music - can one ever look at a song as "waste" - never to be reused again?

If one looks at folk culture - stories and songs go from person to person freely - noone really knows who was the original author - the stories, poems, songs were part of culture and were not part of a "consumer culture". If one looks at jazz music - it is based on the constant "reusing" of melodies and rhytms - just like - anything else in our society since nothing exists in a vacuum.

This way of thinking results in artists and audiences separated - no little concern for each other - so not surprising that artists talk about people that listen to their music as pirates and the audience - so far removed from the artists - are not concerned any more about the well-being of the artists. Should all those people that listen to the music be called pirates - or is there another way to make sure that the music gets to its audience without calling them pirates?

While it is highly unfair to take and resell music without the artists' permission - are the artists sure that they themselves have created a culture where there are legal mechanisms in place to share and reuse their own music ( which they also compiled based on previous influences from other artists ).

Another important point is that an artists' responsibility is not merely providing and selling a product but also highlighting issues in their societies and making their audiences aware of problems.

These are some of the questions open source communities / open content initiatives all around the world try to address and make sure that authors like artists, musicians, poets, writers are acknowledged - and in the same time the audience has legal tools to reuse materials and provide very valuable feedback about all published materials. The audience then also has the option to become artists/creators themselves - just like in folk culture where absolutely everyone has the right to sing a song and change it they way he/she likes to sing it.

Creative Commons (www.creativecommons.org) offers authors various open licenses that they can use should they wish to make sure that their creative work is later reused, modified or even resold.

The question is : if pirating of a certain material (like software or music or any other product ) becomes the norm - shouldn't the "industry" or the authors rethink the basic rules of music/software production or should they carry on the same way.

Teach - a great Creative Commons movie

Ever thought of being a teacher?

Here at the OpenCafe all students are encouraged to teach their new computer skills to new students - as part of their training - as a volunteer - or as a trainee.

Once you know something - you can teach it. But do you? Ever thought of teaching your skills to others? I think we are all students and teachers in the same time and once we stop thinking of ourselves that way - we lose out on some great experiences.

Teach is a great film about four Americans who decided to teach in some of America's toughest schools. The film takes you through the first year of their teaching careers - all the problems and rewarding experiences ....

You can download this film (free download) from http://www.teachnow.org/downloads.html or come and get a copy at the OpenCafe.

Go_open is now available for download from the Internet Archive



I just read on Charl's blog that Go_open is now available for download from the Internet Archive.

Or click here for other Creative Commons licensed movies hosted at the archive.

Friday, February 24, 2006

Overwhelming interest in our basic computer skills course


We started 2006 with getting right into training - by the end of February - we completed the course with nearly everyone in our first group of 9 students - and many more have already signed up.

Our basic computer skills training source is based on using our Mandrake Linux setup - and the use of OpenOffice, Ktouch, Kate, Mozilla and GIMP and Konqueror. It is a 12 lesson course - by the end of which the students are able to create basic business related tasks like creating documents like invoices, letterheads, CVs, and also are able to perform basic image editing tasks like creating a business logo and business card with GIMP.

The training material is almost complete and will be published soon under an open license on the OpenCafe site. Once uploaded - everyone else can use it as well - when creating their training materials - one of our students is already planning to use them to teach other educators like him in one of the local primary schools.

On Fridays we start training with watching a new episod of Go_open - which gives all the tasks the students perform a special meaning - the TV program is a fun way of introducing students to the world of computers.

Our basic skills course is our first step into the OpenCafe experience - once students complete this task - we introduce them to all the other projects we have - they can sign up for volunteer tasks, or they can start the trainee program or our art program, they can stay and assist with teaching the new students and even sign up for free basic music skills classes.

Some of the older students who have chosen to continue the training - have been very successful in their new programs, they have learnt various complex tasks :
  • Phindi ( community project support project )
Since she is the member of the local Australian Football League - she decided to learn all skills necessary to maintain their WebGUI based website - ( click here the site she is working on )
  • Jane ( OpenCafe Trainee program )
Jane is at home with most tasks around running the cafe and handling clients and students
  • and Netanya (ArtMarketOnline ) -
She has designed and redesigned her website look and content many times already - she also has compiled and published her first book of poetry and is busy exploring options to sell her art work online and setting up her own art business.
She has also picked up basic music skills in the process and is busy giving her new skills on to Cymba - another artist in the ArtMarketOnline program.

So come and do the basic computer skills course and you will have the opportunity to pick up a lot of additional skills once you have passed your first exam!

On using "everything open"

The OpenCafe couldn't function without using and creating open source software or open content materials. Both are vital for us to run the cafe, and teach.

The cafe runs on Mandrake Linux, and uses software like GIMP, Mozilla, OpenOffice, Kopete, Ktouch, gFTP, Audacity (and many others), on the daily basis.

We also use open content material like the Wikipedia, Internet Archive, the LearnLinux manuals, Go_open, the Learning Commons, ccMixter, just to mention a few.

Using these materials encourage us to get used to the idea of sharing - sharing info, skills, training materials, project ideas, etc. and also it encourages us to make sure that we share the above with an international audience of friends, teachers, programmers, artists and everyone else.

Once we have started using open source software we were wondering how one could apply open principles to everything else - so we were very excited to discover the Creative Commons site and after more than a year of running various open projects - the benefits are unbelievable - all of us have learnt more skills than ever before in our lives - we have met the most amazing - open minded and wise people - and had parties that we will never forget.

Heather of Creative Commons SA has also written about the importance of using open source software and open content materials - visit her Hblog to read more.

ArtMarketOnline on Tectonic

Richard Frank from Tectonic as recently contact us to find out more about ArtMarketonline .

Click here to read the story.

Our ArtMarketOnline project continues this year - right now we are busy with Kevin, Cymba and Netanya.

Cymba starts the year with doing the basic computer skills course at the cafe - he comes twice a week to do the training - Kevin comes once a week to use the computers and the NET and is busy with updating his site - Netanya is also busy with regular updates on her site.

We have also started teaching basic guitar skills to some of our OpenCafe students in the multimedia room.