In constructing these principles, the Center for Social Media has done an enormous public service: they've created a plain-language document that is aimed at helping people who aren't legal experts to navigate the muddy waters of fair use, to make use of the rights they have under the law and make better videos without getting into legal trouble.

Video is increasingly becoming a central part of our everyday landscape of communication, and it is becoming more visible as people share it on digital platforms. People make and share videos to tell stories about their personal lives, remixing home videos with popular music and images. Video remix has become a core component of political discourse, as the video “George Bush Don’t Like Black People” and the “Yes We Can” parodies demonstrated. Both amateur and professional editors are creating new forms of viral popular culture, as the “Dramatic Chipmunk” meme and the “Brokeback to the Future” mashup illustrate. The circulation of these videos is an emerging part of the business landscape, as the sale of YouTube to Google demonstrated.

More and more, video creation and sharing depend on the ability to use and circulate existing copyrighted work. Until now, that fact has been almost irrelevant in business and law, because broad distribution of nonprofessional video was relatively rare. Often people circulated their work within a small group of family and friends. But digital platforms make work far more public than it has ever been, and cultural habits and business models are developing. As practices spread and financial stakes are raised, the legal status of inserting copyrighted work into new work will become important for everyone.

It is important for video makers, online service providers, and content providers to understand the legal rights of makers of new culture, as policies and practices evolve. Only then will efforts to fight copyright “piracy” in the online environment be able to make necessary space for lawful, value-added uses.

For various reasons, this week degraded into cute baby animal week here at Boing Boing. There was something floating around about an internet catfight; then duckies, then puppies, then everyone learned how to just get along. The final word, above: techno kittens.

Bonus: a cat eating corn on the cob, another licking a green sour apple lollipop, and one more who taught himself how to eat with a fork.

However, the Home Secretary adds that local restrictions might be enforced. 'Decisions may be made locally to restrict or monitor photography in reasonable circumstances. That is an operational decision for the officers involved based on the individual circumstances of each situation.

'It is for the local Chief Constable, in the case of your letter the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Force, to decide how his or her Officers and employees should best balance the rights to freedom of the press, freedom of expression and the need for public protection.' Link (Thanks, Michael!)

He could be hard to take, both in person and in his public interactions with the SF world. He played the game of literary politics hard, and sometimes lost badly. He frequently seemed to have no patience for his allies, much less his enemies. Of his other career, as noted poet Tom Disch, I can’t say much, except that to my mind the poetry was often good. In his later years he wrote a blog; after he began to post frequently on the depravity of Muslims and immigrants, I became unable to keep reading it.

The Disch I prefer to remember was no nicer than that, but much smarter: a brittle and brilliant ironist with a bright wit and no optimism whatsoever.
Link

(Researcher Lev) Sadovnik says the technology could have non-military applications. Birds seem to be highly sensitive to microwave audio, he says, so it might be used to scare away unwanted flocks.

Sadovnik has also experimented with transmitting microwave audio to people with outer ear problems that impair their normal hearing.

Where: University Book Store, 4326 University Way NE in Seattle
When: Tuesday, July 8, 7PM

The Appropos group exhibition is based on the work of artists whose use of imagery integrates existing popular culture products/icons. One of the purposes of the exhibition is to emphasize the crucial relevance of appropriation to contemporary visual artists and their studio practice. As revisions to Copyright Act legislation, known as the Act to Amend the Copyright Act, are currently underway by the Canadian government, there are valid concerns that the elements of contemporary artistic practice such as appropriation and "quoting" could potentially be outlawed by draconian legislation.
Link (via Geist)

Due to the swift and generous response of the SF community, Clarion West has now received nearly enough money to replace the four student laptops stolen July 4 from rooms at the workshop residence. Clarion West staff, volunteers, and students all express their thanks for your very timely help. They especially want to thank BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow, Jay Lake, and many more for their generosity and for alerting others to the need for money and laptops. Donations began coming in from around the world just hours after the theft.

"If we collect funds that are much in excess of the cost of replacing the stolen computers, we will return them proportionally to the donors," said workshop administrator Leslie Howle. "The use of PayPal makes this relatively easy to do." She added, "We are all overwhelmed, and the students are immensely grateful. They were devastated by this theft, and it's been amazing to see the community rally to support them." Link

"Will Boyde, a long time fan and support staff volunteer in the Pacific Northwest who I've worked with, has purchased airline tickets for them to get back home since the car was totaled. Will isn't rich though, and any donations to help defray the return trips cost would be greatly appreciated. Any excess funds will be donated to Roberta's family. Donations can be paypal'd to : wboyde @ eskimo.com ." Link (Thanks, John!)

Bonnie Burton interviews actor, author, gamer, and geek-er Wil Wheaton in this month's edition of GEEK. Snip:

Geek: (...) I need to know how far you’ve gotten in Grand Theft Auto IV.

Wil Wheaton: I haven’t been playing GTA IV that long since the game came out—maybe five hours so far. My progress meter is at like eight percent or something like that. I’ve gotten to a point where the story took a rather shocking and unexpected twist. The character that you control in the game is a very conflicted guy with a pretty complicated and dark history. The guy is more real and has more depth to him than any of the other characters I’ve controlled in GTA. Until last night, I may have played one or two story missions to advance the game, but I really just spend the rest of my time driving around and crashing into cars. I drive cars until they catch on fire. I like to go driving through the parks and hit the pedestrians. I’ve noticed a couple of things like if you’re going really fast and you hit a wall or a tree something like that you’ll fly through the front windshield of the car. So I drove really fast down the wrong side of the street on the expressway and hit a car head-on, and the driver shot through the windshield and landed on the hood of my car. That level of detail is just remarkable. But it suddenly felt weird just driving around the city mowing down pedestrians.

Has it started to warp your sense of reality when you’re stuck in traffic yet?

I hate driving. I absolutely despise it. I particularly hate driving in Los Angeles. I’ll be out somewhere with my wife and point out things, and tell her if this was Grand Theft Auto we wouldn’t have to sit here like this. We could just drive over that median.

Clarion West, the famed Seattle science fiction workshop, has suffered a terrible theft: four student laptops were stolen yesterday. Clarion West (like Clarion in San Diego) is a grueling, six-week intensive boot-camp for science fiction writers. Students often quit their jobs and save for years to attend and it goes without saying that they can hardly absorb the cost of a new laptop in the middle of the workshop.

I'm flying to Seattle tomorrow to teach the third week of the workshop and I'm keenly aware of the chaos this will have wrought on the students. The workshop's organizers are soliciting donations -- either hardware or cash -- to get the students up and running. The workshop is incorporated as a 501(c)3 charity, so any donations are tax deductible.

I am donating all of my teaching fee to the fund. I hope that some of you will be moved to chip in whatever you can afford, to help fund the instruction of the next generation of great science fiction writers.

Here's the note that organizer Leslie Howle has sent around:

Four laptops were stolen July 4 from student rooms at the CW residence, and people in the SF community are responding swiftly and generously to help replace the stolen student computers.

If you'd like to donate to help the students replace the stolen laptops, please visit our Donate page and use the PayPal button, noting in the "Purpose" field that the donation is for "Computers."

This is the first time in our more than 25 years of workshops that something like this has happened, and we're doing all we can to get computers for students so they won't lose any writing time. The theft occurred while students were in class, and was discovered immediately afterwards. I called the Seattle Police Department to file a report, and we've taken steps to increase residence security.

News of the students' loss has spread quickly, and I deeply appreciate that friends, alumni, and writers in the community at large are offering donations to help students replace their computers. We'd especially like to thank Jay Lake for his generosity and for alerting others who might donate money or laptops.

This community is amazing and wonderful. Thanks for helping this year's CW writers, and for all your support. It means a lot to me, Neile, and all the rest of the CW volunteers and students. You guys are the best.

Snip from an article in today's New York Times about a slew of designers and firms developing new models of airships. These passenger-carrying aircraft float on the wind, rather than being propelled solely by fuel (more precise explanation here). And, ah, hopefully they don't blow up in the sky or whatever.

As the cost of fuel soars and the pressure mounts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, several schemes for a new generation of airship are being considered by governments and private companies. “It’s a romantic project,” said Mr. Massaud, 45, sitting amid furniture designs in his Paris studio, “but then look at Jules Verne.”

It has been more than 70 years since the giant Hindenburg zeppelin exploded in a spectacular fireball over Lakehurst, N.J., killing 36 crew members and passengers, abruptly ending an earlier age of airships. But because of new materials and sophisticated means of propulsion, a diverse cast of entrepreneurs is taking another look at the behemoths of the air.

Mr. Massaud, a designer of hotels in California and a stadium in Mexico, has not ironed out the technical details, nor has he found financiers or corporate backers for his project — to create a 690-foot zeppelin shaped like a whale, with a luxury hotel attached, that he has named Manned Cloud.

“A dirigible is something magical,” said Jérôme Giacomoni, who was 25 when he founded Aerophile with a friend. “But most of the ideas are crazy.”

Update: most LOLlable comment in this thread, #4 posted by Chris the Tiki guy...

[I]f they're exploring whale shapes, why not other aquatic creatures, like the seacow? That way people can point and say "Oh, the huge manatee!" (...) [I]f Helium is in short supply, I doubt we'll be launching very many lighter-than-air craft any time soon, unless we can figure out how to make hydrogen just as buoyant but less explode-y.

Image: found floating (snort) around on the internet, provenance unknown Something Awful Dot Com's Photoshop Phriday.

This video is not new, but a friend just pointed it to me. It is noteworthy because it shows a dude shooting himself in the chest and not dying. Also, because it includes mock-pizza-boxes crafted for a robbery enactment on television. The mock pizzas appear to be made of palm thatch. How do they do that?

Richard Davis, former U.S. Marine and onetime pizza delivery guy in Detroit, survived a gun shootout (he killed three armed robbers when they attacked him during a delivery). He went on to develop new forms of concealable body armor using kevlar. Those products are now widely used by military and law enforcement personnel, and private sector folks who have reason to believe they will be shot. This video tells a bit of his life story.

Richard Davis: video
[ YouTube, via, thanks, Susannah Breslin ]

Worse still, the bill is set to be voted upon on July 7 -- that's this Monday.

The Open Rights Group has instructions for contacting your MEP. If you live in the EU and you care about your future as a citizen of the information society, call right away and make sure your MEP knows that this matters to you.

“One week before a key vote in the reform of European law on electronic communications (”Telecom Package”), La Quadrature du Net (Squaring the Net) denounces a series of amendments aimed at closing the open architecture of the Internet for more control and surveillance of users..

…this set of amendments creates the unprecedented mechanism known as graduated response in European law; judicial authority and law courts are vacated in favour of private actors and “technical measures” of surveillance and filtering. According to rules set forth by administrative authorities and rights holders, intermediaries will be forced to cooperate in monitoring and filtering their subscribers, or they will be exposed to administrative sanctions”

See also: Three false copyright accusations and we'll cut off your Internet access

Kikkerland's online shop carries the whole line, albeit at about 10 percent higher prices than other webstores that carry one or two. My advice is to check out the items here, find the ones you want and google for a cheaper one at another store. Link

Today is the two hundredth anniversary of the final extinction of my One True Love, as close as I can date it. I am drunk on battery acid and wearing my best party frock, sitting on a balcony beneath a pleasure palace afloat in the stratosphere of Venus. My feet dangle over a slippery-slick rain gutter as I peek over the edge: Thirty kilometers below my heels, the metal-snowed foothills of Maxwell Montes glow red-hot. I am thinking about jumping. At least I’ll make a pretty corpse, I tell myselves. Until I melt.

And then –

Snip from an essay published by Kevin Kelly today over on his Technium blog:

All extropic  systems -- economy, nature and technology -- are governed by self-accelerating feedback cycles. Like compounding interest, or virtuous circles, they are powered by increasing returns. Success breeds success. There is a long tail of incremental build up and then as they keep doubling every cycle, they explode out of invisibility into significance. Extropic systems can also collapse in the same self-accelerating way, one subtraction triggering many other subtractions, so in a vicious cycle the whole system implodes. Our view of the future is warped and blinded by these exponential curves.

But while progress runs on exponential curves, our individual lives proceed in a linear fashion. We live day by day by day. While we might think time flies as we age, it really trickles out steadily. Today will always be more valuable than some day in the future, in large part because we have no guarantee we'll get that extra day. Ditto for civilizations. In linear time, the future is a loss. But because human minds and societies can improve things over time, and compound that improvement in virtuous circles, the future in this dimension is a gain. Therefore long-term thinking entails the confluence of the linear and the exponential. The linear march of our time intersects the cascading rise and fall of numerous self-amplifying exponential forces. Generations, too, proceed in a linear sequence. They advance steadily one after another while pushed by the compounding cycles of exponential change.

Balancing that point where the linear crosses the exponential is what long-term thinking should be about.

To rob the Negro of his reputation of thinking through a problem in his own fashion is about the same as trying to pretend that he doesn't have a natural instinct for rhythm and for singing and dancing.

New legislation has been proposed in Iran that could make blogging a crime punishable by death. Cyrus Farivar has a story on today's edition of the PRI radio show The World: Iran considers harsh penalty for some bloggers (3:30).

Over at Global Voices, Hamid Tehrani writes:

On Wednesday, Iranian members of parliament voted to discuss a draft bill that seeks to “toughen punishment for disturbing mental security in society.” The text of the bill would add, “establishing websites and weblogs promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy,” to the list of crimes punishable by death.

In recent years, some Iranian bloggers have been sent to jail and many have had their sites filtered. If the Iranian parliament approves this draft bill, bloggers fear they could be legally executed as criminals. No one has defined what it means to “disturb mental security in society”.

Such discussion concerning blogs has not been unique to Iran. It shows that many authorities do not only wish to filter blogs, but also to eliminate bloggers!

Image: "Women In Black," by Matthew Winterburn, who has some really neat photos of Iran in his Flickr stream.

The headstone marking the final resting place of deceased Joy Division singer Ian Curtis is suddenly missing.

Whoever stole it is a total douche, and deserves a special place in hell where screaming emo demons torture them with burns from a thousand clove cigarettes, poke them with a million blunt eyeliner applicators, and blind their eyes with painfully asymmetrical hair extensions for all eternity.

The grave marker, wherever it is now, reads: "Ian Curtis 18 - 5 - 80" and the words "Love Will Tear Us Apart".

Here is a story in the Times UK, and above is a music video by Jonathan Beamish for the earliest recorded version of "Love Will Tear us Apart," produced as a John Peel Session for the BBC in 1979 (jesus! 30 years ago, wow).

Happy Fourth of July, everyone. Blow some shit up!

Captain America Fuck Yeah
[YouTube; the song in this unauthorized and infringalicious fan video was lifted from the great Matt Stone and Trey Parker epic, Team America: World Police, referenced in these BB posts of yore: 1, 2.]

What look are you trying to achieve with your tattoos?
They’re about the human body as a decomposing corpse – the art of a rotting cadaver. It’s also a tribute to horror movies, which I love.

What influenced your tattoos? When I was a kid I was a big fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I wanted to be a ninja turtle and live in the sewers. But as I got older I fell in love with zombies and wanted to become one. Oh, and I love George A Romero’s Living Dead movies.

Anyway, the closest thing I could get to becoming a zombie was to get tattooed like one.

Among the footage that has now been discovered, according to the unanimous opinion of the three experts that ZEITmagazin asked to appraise the pictures, there are several scenes which are essential in order to understand the film: The role played by the actor Fritz Rasp in the film for instance, can finally be understood. Other scenes, such as for instance the saving of the children from the worker’s underworld, are considerably more dramatic...

The rediscovered material is in need of restoration after 80 years; the pictures are scratched, but clearly recognizable. Martin Koerber, the restorer of the hitherto longest known version of “Metropolis”, who also examined the footage, said to ZEITmagazin: “No matter how bad the condition of the material may be, the original intention of the film, including all of its minor characters and subplots, is now once again tangible for the normal viewer. The rhythm of the film has been restored.”