Creative Commons festival in Spain
From 15 to 17 July there will be a (freely accessible) festival on copyleft and creative commons in Barcelona, with talks by Lawrence Lessig, Wikipedia, Cory Doctorow and John Perry Barlow and plenty of workshops, screenings and presentations in the CCCB (Barcelona Contemporary Culture Centre). The festival is devoted to the exploration of non-restrictive alternatives to the current intellectual property regime, new models of copyleft licenses, remix culture, and all the possibilities opened by free culture creation and distribution tools. The organisers, Oscar Abril Ascaso and the Elastico collective, write: “The effects of copyright and the reach of intellectual property laws on the development of culture have become one of the hottest issues in the last few years. Everybody wants to protects culture, but from whom? From the artists? From the consumers? Is culture a luxury item? Can culture be owned? These contradictions are pitting governments and public institutions against each other, companies against their own costumers, rights management societies against their own artists.”
Among the national guests, the digital editor José Antonio Millán will explain why the linguistic heritage should be free. The novelist Hernan Casciari will reflect on his experience as a writer in the blogosphere. Pablo Soto, musician, producer and creator of two of the most popular p2p networks, will talk about file-sharing as a promotion tool for musical artists. Bram de Jong, a legend in the field of audio programming, will present his database of free sounds hosted by the Pompeu Fabra university in Barcelona. Amador Fernández-Savater, publisher of Acuarela libros, will explain how to sell books that can be freely photocopied. Jota, singer and guitarrist of “Los Planetas”, and Bea, guitarrist of “Nosoträxh”, will reveal where musical artists really get their money from. Finally, Jesús Barahona, member of Hispalinux and founder of Barrapunto, will talk about the importance of free software.
The festival offers a special space for downloading free music and texts related to free music and intellectual property, where “everything can be downloaded, burnt, reused, printed, remixed and freely distributed without breaking the law.” Another great idea from the organisers is to provide free legal counselling. “Nine lawyers and experts on Intellectual Property will donate an hour of their time to counsel attendants and to clarify any doubt they may entertain about author rights, licenses and copyright.”
Festival information
http://www.elastico.net/copyfight/