Artsfex

I was just reading a press release on Freemuse from October this year about a new organisation called artsfex.org - they write:

Today 14 international arts and human rights organisations and networks – representing more than 1,200 national organisations globally – launched Artsfex, the first international civil society network actively concerned with the right of artists to freedom of expression as well as with issues relating to human rights and freedoms generally. Artsfex aims to promote, protect and defend artistic freedom of expression, as well as freedom of assembly, thought, and opinion in and across all art disciplines, globally.. Recent censorship incidents, the suppression of creative voices, and threats against the lives of artists have made it clear that we have arrived at the moment when creative workers and free speech activists need to work together against repression and for an open cultural space both locally, regionally and globally.”

The organisations involved are:

• Arterial Network
• ECA – European Council of Artists
• ECSA – European Composer and Songwriter Alliance
• FERA – FEDERATION OF European Film directors
• FIA – The International Federation of Actors
• freeDimensional
• Freemuse – The World Forum on Music & Censorship   
• ICAF – International Committee for Artists’ Freedom
• IETM – International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts
• IFCCD – International Federation of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity
• Index on Censorship  
• PEN International    
• NCAC – National Coalition Against Censorship, USA

They passed the following resolution at the Copenhagen Summit on Artistic Freedom of Expression:

There is an urgent necessity to launch an international initiative to protect and promote freedom of artistic and creative expression (in the visual arts, music, dance, film, writers, theatre etc.) with the goal of increasing awareness about violations of freedom of expression in the arts among artists and the arts sector, in the media, among political bodies, human rights and free speech organizations, as well as among the general public.

This initiative will:

• serve as an  information exchange
• monitor and analyse censorship in the arts worldwide with the goal of identifying trends and creating an understanding of the various mechanisms of censorship and persecution of artists for their creative work
• publicly expose the persecution and censorship of artists
• advocate in support of artistic and creative freedom worldwide
• hold governments accountable to their obligations under the relevant international conventions and national laws
• direct artists in distress to existing information, funding and other resources for emergency and ongoing support  and facilitate their relationship with  relevant funders and defenders of human rights

A vision paper has also been drafted which details the organisation's vision, aims and activities and is available on its website.
 
Further Information 
Arstfex: http://artsfex.org/

DIY MySpam

Got the link of this YouTube clip from a Digital Music News article its a song by an artist called Jayme Gutierrez who sings about D I Y in the music industry and how to gain a fan base. It is a fantastic song with an equally fantastic animated clip - take a look!

International Association of Popular Music Au/NZ

Just a quick note to let you know I am presenting a paper at the International Association of Popular Music Conference (Australia New Zealand) in Hobart soon. The conference is being held in Hobart Tasmania from 5 December 2012 to 7 December 2012. I am presenting a paper on the flow of political music on the Internet and will be comparing the regulatory states (commerce, law, architecture, and social norms) that were in place for the release of two songs -The GetUp Mob version of From Little Things Big Things Grow and the song George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People by The Legendary K.O. I am presenting on Thursday 6 December 2012. If you happen to be in the area perhaps have a look at the conference program and details on the IASPM A/NZ website. I have presented at this associations conference 3 times before and I am really looking forward to it. I plan to blog a little bit about it while I am there. Some of the papers look really interesting.

Why Doesn't MTV Play Music Videos Anymore?

A funny look at why MTV doesn't play music videos anymore... MTV was cool in its day but the internet is waaaayyyyy  cooler!

Australian Government Abandons Web Filter

Fantastic news this week! The Australian Government has finally stated it is officially abandoning its plan for mandatory ISP filtering. The policy, that was flawed from the start, and absolutely out of line especially for a so called left-wing political party, bites the dust at last.

The Government hasnt acknowledged the policy was flawed or that there were technical limitations that would have made it ineffective... but they have confirmed that they no longer intend to introduce the proposed legislation.

What they have done instead is to require ISPs to block child abuse websites based on the Interpol list of the worst sites on the internet. Sites are reviewed by the authorities in two countries before they are added to the list. It appears that around 1,400 sites are currently required to be blocked and that some Austalian ISPs were already voluntarily doing this.

What was to potentially be a broad and secretive mandatory filter has quite rightly been reduced to a targeted black list. This is great news for freedom of speech and a huge relief for many.

Further Reading
ABC News, Government abandons plans for internet filter (9 November 2012) < http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-09/government-abandons-plans-for-internet-filter/4362354 >  at 10 November 2012

The IT Law Wiki

Perhaps some of you have heard of this already and I am late to the game? Early today I came across a fabulous wiki called The IT Law wiki. It is available here and has 20,391 pages on Information Technology Law. In the welcome section, they write:

This wiki is an encyclopedia of the legal issues, cases, statutes, events, policies, people, organizations and publications that make up the global fields of information law, information technology law (often referred to as "computer law," "cyberlaw" or "Internet law") and telecommunications law. The wiki focuses on the laws, regulations and policy issues that impact the information, IT and telecommunications industries and those government entities, industries, organizations and people that control or use information, IT and telecommunications. It also contains an authoritative set of definitions for those legal, technical, economic, political and policy terms used in the wiki. 

I've had a quick look around it and so far it appears thorough and accurate (but I dont vouch for that - check it out for yourself!) It appears to be a little US centric with a very limited reference to Fair Dealing given the global nature of the laws and issues we are dealing with, is still likely to be a very useful tool. It is also licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License (3.0).

Bob Dylan - Death Of Emmett Till

The folk tradition of borrowing from others....

Nosey Nicola's November Nightmare

In case you havent heard Australia is having something of a data retention debate at the moment with the Australian Government, and in particular, Attorney General Nicola Roxon, looking to change the law to require ISPs to retain all user metadata for a period of 2 years. The explanatory YouTube clip from Nicola Roxon (embedding has been disabled) is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8_VHR_mtCQ

Electronic Frontiers Australia have commented on the proposal on their website here and here and in short, criticise the discussion paper that was released by the Government for not containing the information required to inform the public about the details of the proposal, and suggest that metadata retention creates serious privacy concerns for the general public. Jon Lawrence was interviewed by Triple J's Hack program earlier this week (Tuesday 30th October 2012) - you can listen to it here.

So. A campaign has been started in response to this. GenerationAlpha are asking people to CC Nicola Roxon on all of their emails so that she gets a fair idea of what kind of stuff the general public are actually doing on the internet. The bombardment of emails is to be a form of protest against the proposed changes to the law. The campaign is called Nosey Nicola's November Nightmare. Check out the YouTube clip:



I will make an effort to CC her on some of my emails this month - I hope you do too!