Open Culture

Open Source:
Open Source is an approach that offers practical public accessibility to the code or methodology of a project. Though originally this term applied to software specifically, open source has expanded in definition to include scientific and artistic approaches as well as a general cultural perspective.

Examples of Open Source software
Firefox

Blender- Elephant’s Dream, First Open Source 3-d movie

Elephants Dream from Blender Foundation on Vimeo.

Open Frameworks: Open source Programing Library for C++ developed for artists by artists
EyeWriter

The Eyewriter from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

Arduino

Illegal Art:
Art that violates existing copyright or proprietary media laws in some form. Although this art is still often circulated, its distribution is hindered or sometimes completely shut down through the legal efforts of the holders of the original copyrights.

illegal-art.org A colllection of artworks that violated copyright and whose creators were prosecuted as a result.

Bryan Boyce: State of the Union
Combines unauthorized CNN footage of George W. Bush with clips from The Teletubbies, also used without permission.

Brad Neely’s Wizard People

Mashups
Rip- A Remix Manifesto

Danger Mouse: The Grey Album
A mashup of the Beatles White Album and Jay Z’s Black Album

Jaydiohead

The Temptations Mix from Eclectic Method on Vimeo.

DJ Spooky aka Paul Miller – Composer, multimedia artist and writer deeply engaged in the support of digital remix culture.

Creative Commons

Nina Paley: Sita Sings the Blues

Download the entire film at archive.org

From her site:
“I hereby give Sita Sings the Blues to you. Like all culture, it belongs to you already, but I am making it explicit with a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. Please distribute, copy, share, archive, and show Sita Sings the Blues. From the shared culture it came, and back into the shared culture it goes.You don’t need my permission to copy, share, publish, archive, show, sell, broadcast, or remix Sita Sings the Blues. Conventional wisdom urges me to demand payment for every use of the film, but then how would people without money get to see it? How widely would the film be disseminated if it were limited by permission and fees? Control offers a false sense of security. The only real security I have is trusting you, trusting culture, and trusting freedom.”

Nina talks about her business model for Sita Sings the Blues:

Radiohead’s Pay What You Want model & the results

Further Reading:
For the Love of Culture: Google, Copyright and our Future – Lawrence Lessig
Is copyright getting in the way of us preserving our history?
Why Hasn’t Girl Talk been Sued Yet?
Why is music the main battleground in the copyright wars?