Sunday, 30 December 2007
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
The Future of Copyright Law
One of the most interesting article I've read for a long time was Japan, Ink: Inside the Manga Industries. Looking at the title you might think it's an article about mangas, but actually it might be glimpse into the future of copyright law. In Japan fan-produced mangas (called Dojinshi) are extremely popular. Usually characters from a "regular industry manga" are taken and a new story involving them is written and then sold.
You might now expect that the copyright holder of this characters will sue the hell out of them, but they don't. Basically there consists a kind of mutual agreement calld anmoku no ryokai. The dojinshi creators publish only a limited number of editions, so the industry isn't at risk of losing to much and hence lets them publish. There's also a large number of benefits the manga industry gets: a free customer care program, a pool of new talents and cheap market research program (just look what characters are popular in the dojinshis and you'll now what goes on in the manga scene).
Another point is, that the current copyright law is designed for a read-only culture, but as it seems now, we are shifting to a read-and-write culture (think Web 2.0) and there are some issues concerning copyright which have to be solved. So the final question is, whether the Japanese model might be the future of copyright law?
You might now expect that the copyright holder of this characters will sue the hell out of them, but they don't. Basically there consists a kind of mutual agreement calld anmoku no ryokai. The dojinshi creators publish only a limited number of editions, so the industry isn't at risk of losing to much and hence lets them publish. There's also a large number of benefits the manga industry gets: a free customer care program, a pool of new talents and cheap market research program (just look what characters are popular in the dojinshis and you'll now what goes on in the manga scene).
Another point is, that the current copyright law is designed for a read-only culture, but as it seems now, we are shifting to a read-and-write culture (think Web 2.0) and there are some issues concerning copyright which have to be solved. So the final question is, whether the Japanese model might be the future of copyright law?
LOFS 2: The empire strikes back
As some of you may have seen in my last (and also first) post, I got feedback from our professors. They're a bit sceptic about the first topic "To Mock a Mockingbird" and most probably they are right. It will be difficult (if not impossible) to relate the topic of combinatorial logic to the other topics in computer science which are usually treated on secondary school level. Furthermore there's a general problem with those logical riddles: some like them, some hate them. And for the latter it will be rather hard to be motivated to solve them.
As for "Brainfuck": Although this is a case of rather unfortunate naming, the didactic possibilities that lurk within overwhelm this point. "Brainfuck" gives deep insight into the function of computers, programming languages and Turing machines (and this all at once, if you want to!). The leading question(s) will be "What can / can't be done with Brainfuck?" (and I think for some of you there may be a surprising answer).
As you may have guessed meanwhile, I'll settle for "Brainfuck". Now let's go and ask Lukas whether he wants to join me in this project or if I should do it all by myself.
As for "Brainfuck": Although this is a case of rather unfortunate naming, the didactic possibilities that lurk within overwhelm this point. "Brainfuck" gives deep insight into the function of computers, programming languages and Turing machines (and this all at once, if you want to!). The leading question(s) will be "What can / can't be done with Brainfuck?" (and I think for some of you there may be a surprising answer).
As you may have guessed meanwhile, I'll settle for "Brainfuck". Now let's go and ask Lukas whether he wants to join me in this project or if I should do it all by myself.
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