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Re: [nexa] da repubblica
by a.dicorinto＠uniroma1.it Dec. 16, 2009

Dec. 16, 2009

Salve a tutti-- Grazie Mariella per la segnalazione. Noi ci stiamo attivando. Mi auguro che tutti possiamo democraticamente e pacificamente contrastare il disegno illiberale che il Governo vuole applicare alle comunicazioni in rete. Abbiamo fatto un comunicato, eccovelo. Free Hardware Foundation Comunicato Stampa 16 Dicembre 2009 For Immediate Release “Giù le mani dal web. Vanno perseguiti i reati non limitata la libertà di parola, di critica e di satira.” Il ministro dell'Interno Roberto Maroni ha annunciato l'ennesimo giro di vite sull'informazione via Internet. Noi non siamo d'accordo. Non si può osannare la rete quando viene usata dagli studenti iraniani e poi pretendere di zittirla quando viene usata per criticare il governo italiano. Facciamo notare che alcuni comportamenti in rete, seppure non sempre condivisibili, rimandano all'esercizio del diritto di critica, di satira e alla libertà di espressione. Quanto accaduto in alcuni social network nei giorni scorsi in relazione alla riprovevole aggressione subita dal presidente del Consiglio, seppure di cattivo gusto, si configura più come un comportamento ludico e sarcastico che come istigazione alla violenza. La violenza, quella vera, è quando chi ne ha i mezzi pretende di limitare le libertà altrui. Siamo preoccupati per i rumors che vorrebbero un D'Alia bis e corsie preferenziali per perseguire comportamenti presunti delittuosi in rete, siamo preoccupati per i rumors che vorrebbero attuare il sequestro preventivo di siti i cui contenuti potrebbero eventualmente violare le leggi. Ricordiamo che le leggi esistenti già consentono di punire le violazioni della legge. E che le modalità esistenti di applicazione di essa sono più che adeguate. Le idee, anche quelle che non ci piacciono, si combattono con le idee, non con l'uso spropositato della forza, né con le intimidazioni. Nessuno pensi di limitare la libertà che Internet promuove e rappresenta. Ci opporremo. I diritti vanno contemperati e i cittadini tutti vanno rispettati, in accordo alla nostra Costituzione. Free Hardware Foundation La finalità primaria della Free Hardware Foundation è la promozione, il sostegno e la diffusione di quegli strumenti materiali o immateriali che garantiscano, l'accessibilità, l'evoluzione, la condivisione e la diffusione della conoscenza, della cultura e del sapere, liberamente e in maniera paritaria per tutti gli esseri umani. Per contatti e informazioni info(a)fhf.it - http://fhf.it

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Creatività, Cooperazione, Condivisione
by a.dicorinto＠uniroma1.it Dec. 16, 2009

Dec. 16, 2009

Ciao-- eccovi il link all'evento Creatività Cooperazione e Condivisione a cui vi avevo invitato: http://bit.ly/8FEwiP Siccome la modalità è in stile Barcamp siete sempre benvenuti a proporre nuovi interventi. http://www.frontieredigitali.net/index.php/Creativita_Cooperazione_Condivis… a presto

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da repubblica
by Mariella Berra Dec. 16, 2009

Dec. 16, 2009

Le reazioni politiche. Nella discussione in aula la posizione di Maroni è stata contestata da Casini. "Guai a promuovere provvedimenti illiberali", ha affermato il leader dell'Udc: "Le leggi esistenti già consentono di punire le violazioni. Negli Usa Obama riceve intimidazioni continue su Internet, ma a nessuno viene in mente di censurare la Rete". "Le norme attuali e l'azione della Polizia postale sono sufficienti per colpire i comportamenti criminali in rete. Non vorrei che in nome di questo obiettivo, il governo pensasse invece a norme che limitino la libertà di internet", afferma Paolo Gentiloni, presidente del forum Comunicazioni del Pd. "Giù le mani dal web. Vanno perseguiti i reati non limitata la libertà", aggiunge Dario Franceschini in un messaggio su Twitter. Secondo l'europarlamentare dell'Idv Luigi De Magistris, "per fermare la violenza che corre su Internet, non c'è bisogno di nuove leggi, basterebbe applicare con rigore quelle già esistenti". Sulla stessa lunghezza d'onda Ffwebmagazine, il periodico online della Fondazione Farefuturo che invita il governo a non cedere "alla 'sindrome cinese', la tentazione della censura preventiva".

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First Monday: "Political protest Italian–style: The blogosphere and mainstream media in the promotion and coverage of Beppe Grillo’s V–day"
by J.C. DE MARTIN Dec. 15, 2009

Dec. 15, 2009

*Political protest Italian–style: The blogosphere and mainstream media in the promotion and coverage of Beppe Grillo’s V–day* by Alberto Pepe and Corinna di Gennaro. /First Monday/, Volume 14, Number 12 - 7 December 2009 http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2… ABSTRACT We analyze the organization, promotion and public perception of “V–day”, a political rally that took place on 8 September 2007, to protest against corruption in the Italian Parliament. Launched by blogger Beppe Grillo, and promoted via a word–of–mouth mobilization on the Italian blogosphere, V–day brought close to one million Italians in the streets on a single day, but was mostly ignored by mainstream media. This article is divided into two parts. In the first part, we analyze the volume and content of online articles published by both bloggers and mainstream news sources from 14 June (the day V–day was announced) until 15 September 2007 (one week after it took place). We find that the success of V–day can be attributed to the coverage of bloggers and small–scale local news outlets only, suggesting a strong grassroots component in the organization of the rally. We also find a dissonant thematic relationship between content published by blogs and mainstream media: while the majority of blogs analyzed promote V–day, major mainstream media sources critique the methods of information production and dissemination employed by Grillo. Based on this finding, in the second part of the study, we explore the role of Grillo in the organization of the rally from a network analysis perspective. We study the interlinking structure of the V–day blogosphere network, to determine its structure, its levels of heterogeneity, and resilience. Our analysis contradicts the hypothesis that Grillo served as a top–down, broadcast–like source of information. Rather, we find that information about V–day was transferred across heterogeneous nodes in a moderately robust and resilient core network of blogs. We speculate that the organization of V–day represents the very first case, in Italian history, of a political demonstration developed and promoted primarily via the use of social media on the Web.

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Michele Ainis: "Internet no alla censura basta un clic" (La Stampa)
by J.C. DE MARTIN Dec. 15, 2009

Dec. 15, 2009

Segnalo l'articolo di Michele Ainis, costituzionalista di fama, in prima pagina de La Stampa di oggi: http://www.lastampa.it/_web/cmstp/tmplRubriche/editoriali/gEditoriali.asp?I… juan carlos

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Fwd: Fw: Invito Convegno "Informatica e Diritto. Dalla conoscenza dei documenti storici alla comprensibilità dei documenti normativi"
by J.C. DE MARTIN Dec. 14, 2009

Dec. 14, 2009

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Fw: Invito Convegno "Informatica e Diritto. Dalla conoscenza dei documenti storici alla comprensibilità dei documenti normativi" Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:18:42 +0100 From: Mariella Berra <mariella.berra(a)unito.it> To: J.C. De Martin <demartin(a)polito.it>, <meo(a)f.polito.it>, <nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it> ----- Original Message ----- *From:* Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali <mailto:dss@unito.it> *To:* Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali <mailto:dss@unito.it> *Sent:* Monday, December 14, 2009 6:14 PM *Subject:* Invito Convegno "Informatica e Diritto. Dalla conoscenza dei documenti storici alla comprensibilità dei documenti normativi" Si informa che *mercoledì 20 gennaio 2010* a partire dalle ore 9.30 si terrà presso Palazzo Lascaris - Sala Viglione, Via Alfieri 15 (Torino), l'incontro "*/Informatica e Diritto. Dalla conoscenza dei documenti storici alla comprensibilità dei documenti normativi/*". In allegato l'invito.

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U.S. Industry Fights to Keep Blind People in the Dark
by Luca Valente Dec. 13, 2009

Dec. 13, 2009

U.S. Industry Fights to Keep Blind People in the Dark * By David Kravets Email Author * December 11, 2009 | * Categories: Copyrights and Patents, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, intellectual property * A broad swath of American enterprise ranging from major software makers to motion picture and music companies are joining forces to oppose a new international treaty that would make books more accessible to the blind. On Monday, dozens of nations will meet in Geneva to consider adopting the WIPO Treaty for Sharing Accessible Formats of Copyrighted Works for Persons Who are Blind or Have other Reading Disabilities. The proposal (.pdf) before a subcommittee of the roughly 180 World Intellectual Property Organization members would sanction the cross- border sharing of DRM-protected digitized books that tens of thousands of blind and visually disabled people read with devices and tools like the Pac Mate, Book Port and Victor Reader. "This treaty would be the first one that is not done for the copyright owner, but for the user of the works - for the blind to make a copyrighted work accessible," says Manon Ress, a policy analyst at Knowledge Ecology International, a Washington, D.C.-based human rights lobby that helped spearhead the proposal. But that prospect doesn't sit well with American business. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest lobby representing three million businesses, argues that the plan being proposed by Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay, "raises a number of serious concerns," (.pdf) chief among them the specter that the treaty would spawn a rash of internet book piracy. The treaty also creates a bad precedent by loosening copyright restrictions, instead of tightening them as every previous copyright treaty has done, said Brad Huther, a chamber director. Huther concluded in a Dec. 2 letter to the U.S. Copyright office that the international community "should not engage in pursuing a copyright- exemption based paradigm." Echoing that concern, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry of America told the Copyright Office last month that such a treaty would "begin to dismantle the existing global treaty structure of copyright law, through the adoption of an international instrument at odds with existing, longstanding and well- settled norms." The proposal before the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights could free up thousands of book titles to millions of blind people in WIPO-member nations - without payment to the publisher. Many WIPO nations, most in the industrialized world including England, the United States and Canada, have copyright exemptions that usually allow non-profit companies to market copyrighted works without permission. They scan and digitize books into the so-called universal Daisy format, which includes features like narration and digitized Braille. The Daisy Corp. Consortium, a Swiss-based international agency, controls formatting worldwide and has some 100 companies under its direction across the globe. The largest catalog rests in the United States, in which three non-profits, including the Library of Congress, host some half million digital titles produced by federal grants and donations. As it now stands, none of the nations may allow persons outside their borders to access these works, which are usually doled out for little or no charge. The treaty seeks to free up the cross-border sharing of the books for the blind. "People who oppose copyright exemptions oppose exemptions on principle that there should be no exemptions of copyright law," says George Kerscher, Daisy's general secretary. "They should have sole right and discretion to do what they want with their intellectual property. To a great extent, the opposition to the treaty is based on that principle." To receive any reading materials, the blind and disabled must prove their condition, he said. In the United States, Knowledge Ecology International estimates about 5 percent of published books have been transformed to the Daisy format. Google is the only major U.S. corporation to side with the blind in the international tussle. In filings with the Copyright Office, the company called for American copyright holders to see past their doctrinal opposition to weakening copyright protections. "We are concerned that some of the comments are simply stating opposition to a larger agenda of limitations and exceptions," (.pdf) Google's chief copyright officer, William Paltry, wrote this month. "We believe this is an unproductive approach to solving what is a discrete, long-standing problem that affects a group that needs and deserves the protections of the international community." Not surprisingly, U.S. book publishers are the harshest critics of the proposal. The Association of American Publishers, which represents about 300 publishers large and small, argue the treaty is not necessary. The publishers suggest the blind and disabled should pay for their materials -- the only way the market for such products could flourish. "Under the proposed draft treaty, where it appears that privileged copies could be made even where accessible versions were commercially available, copyright owners would have understandable doubts about the wisdom of investing in the production of accessible versions for the market," the association's vice president, Allan Adler, wrote the Copyright Office on December 4. "Under these circumstances, publishers not unreasonably hesitate and wonder whether they can expect such a market to flourish when potential customers would still have the option of relying upon a statutory exception to get an accessible version of a work without having to pay for it," (.pdf) Adler added. Dan Burke, a 52-year-old blind man from Montana and a self-described "book worm," does not agree with the publishers. Burke, a victim of a retinal disease that blinded him decades ago, often acquires books and poems at Bookshare, an online non-profit offering about 60,000 titles in exchange for $50 in annual dues and other volunteer work. Burke says none of the rank-and-file commercially available e-readers, including the Kindle, are adequately equipped for the blind. "You have to be able to see to use these, to turn the machine on and navigate menus," says Burke. Amazon, however, said this week that it would soon produce a blind- accessible Kindle, one with an audible menu and large font for the visually impaired. But Amazon, the Kindle's maker, gives book authors the option of disabling the read-aloud function, notes Burke, a board member for the National Federation of the Blind, which supports the treaty. The Authors Guild, an advocacy group for writers, argued earlier this year that reading a book aloud counts as an unauthorized public performance. "Information is what we want. Information is the power to become economically viable members of society," Burke said. "This is a world in which if you don't have money you usually don't have access." Dan Burke, a Montana blind man, reads via a Pac Mate with a refreshable Braille display Photo: Courtesy of Dan Burke *************************************************************************** Manon Ress manon.ress(a)keionline.org Knowledge Ecology International 1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA Tel.: +1.202.332.2670, Fax: +1.202.332.2673

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CH: Parliament members say vendor lock-in desktop is causing chaos
by Paolo Brini Dec. 10, 2009

Dec. 10, 2009

Members of the Swiss parliament (Nationalrat) say that the government's dependence on a single IT vendor for its desktop operating systems is causing a chaos and is leading to increasing IT costs. The government three years ago decided to pay for proprietary licences in order to standardise on the then current version of Microsoft's operating system. This standardisation was estimated to save some 15 million CHF (about 9.9 million euro). However some departments now prefer to move to the company's newest edition, according to Swiss newspaper reports. [...] "The federal administration will be using four versions of Windows: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7", said Edith Graf-Litscher, National councillor for the Socialist Party in a statement published on Monday. She says the forced upgrades of the operating system will lead to increasing costs. "If the administration goes on like this, it will never see the synergy that comes with using a single system." She says that using open source would offer a more sustainable alternative. Here upgrade cycles are inherently more responsive to the needs of the users, she says. "Open source users have a freedom that prevents them to be forced to upgrade." http://www.osor.eu/news/ch-parliament-members-say-vendor-lock-desktop-is-ca…

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Analysis of art. 1.3a
by Paolo Brini Dec. 10, 2009

Dec. 10, 2009

This is the promised translation into english of analysis of art. 1.3 which replaces amendment 138 in the framework Directive of the Telecoms Package. http://bit.ly/8yZM08 Ciao, Paolo

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Joi Ito alla Camera dei Deputati a Roma il 17 dicembre
by J.C. DE MARTIN Dec. 10, 2009

Dec. 10, 2009

Buongiorno a tutti, sono lieto di annunciarvi che Joi Ito, CEO di Creative Commons, terra' un intervento presso la Camera dei Deputati a Roma il 17 dicembre prossimo nell'ambito degli incontri "Capitale Digitale" ( http://capitaledigitale.webcasting.it/) L'incontro iniziera' alle 18.30 e dovrebbe essere introdotto dal Presidente della Camera Fini. Altre informazioni disponibili sulla locandina: http://demartin.polito.it/sites/demartin.polito.it/files/capitaledigitale_c… cari saluti, juan carlos

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