We had the monthly London Copyfighter’s Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop on Sunday, and despite the rain we had a good turn out. There are a few photos on Flickr, but it was a dismal day and my camera doesn’t much like the rain.

I think we actually had some of the most persistent heckling that I’ve seen so far at Speaker’s Corner. There is, of course, always a risk of heckling, but there was one guy who was particularly peeved at our presence and who was very loud and annoying, and another guy with a plastic bag on his head who obviously felt that hats were too passé. In a surprising heckle, I was hassled about the dates for the various Roman invasions of Britain whilst attempting to draw a parallel between the Brits building stuff from Roman ruins and building software from existing code. As a metaphor, I think it has potential but not in the face of historically anally retentive types, obviously. I shall, of course, never now forget that the Romans didn’t build anything in AD55, even though I never actually claimed that they did.

It’s a bizarre kind of masochistic fun, speaking at Speaker’s Corner. Maybe after a few dozen more of these, I might even get used to it.

See you there next month, even if you only come to watch us get heckled. (Or to heckle.)

As you can see, we now have a new ORG theme. We hope you like it.

Thanks to Matt Oakes for the theme design, Denise Wilton, Chris Morrison, et al for the new ORG logo. The WordPress theme was built by me, Mike Little, any errors or mistakes are therefore mine. Let me know if you spot any problems: o r g at zed1 dot com.

The next London Copyfighters’ Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop will be held on Sunday 21 May. We will meet upstairs at the Mason’s Arms, 51 Upper Berkeley Street, Marble Arch at 12noon for brunch. The Mason’s Arms is on the corner of Berkeley Street and Seymour Place.

Once we are suitably lubricated (at around 2pm) we will, en mass, go to Speaker’s Corner and orate on the subject of copyright, DRM, the weather — whatever. Speaking isn’t mandatory, but it IS highly encouraged. There should definitely be an element of hilarity in this.

Photos from past events are on Flickr.

Please let me know if you are coming by signing up on the ORG wiki page so that I can get an idea for how much food to order.

Nearest underground station is Marble Arch. Turn right at the top of the escalators, then right as you leave the station, then right down Great Cumberland Place, then left down Upper Berkeley Street. The Mason’s Arms is on the corner of Seymour Place and Upper Berkeley Street.

Any problems, please call Suw on 020 7096 1079 (which redirects to my mobile).

Hope to see you there!

The paper that myself and Michael Holloway, (who helps with admin and research for ORG) wrote for the Journal of Media and Culture is now out. Called Copyright in a Collaborative Age, it takes a look at the impact of new technologies on copyright, a system that was never designed to deal with things like blogs and wikis. Here’s the intro:

The Internet has connected people and cultures in a way that, just ten years ago, was unimaginable. Because of the net, materials once scarce are now ubiquitous. Indeed, never before in human history have so many people had so much access to such a wide variety of cultural material, yet far from heralding a new cultural nirvana, we are facing a creative lock-down.

Over the last hundred years, copyright term has been extended time and again by a creative industry eager to hold on to the exclusive rights to its most lucrative materials. Previously, these rights guaranteed a steady income because the industry controlled supply and, in many cases, manufactured demand. But now culture has moved from being physical artefacts that can be sold or performances that can be experienced to being collections of 1s and 0s that can be easily copied and exchanged.

People are revelling in the opportunity to acquire and experience music, movies, TV, books, photos, essays and other materials that they would otherwise have missed out on; and they picking up the creative ball and running with it, making their own version, remixes, mash-ups and derivative works. More importantly than that, people are producing and sharing their own cultural resources, publishing their own original photos, movies, music, writing. You name it, somewhere someone is making it, just for the love of it.

Whilst the creative industries are using copyright law in every way they can to prosecute, shut down, and scare people away from even legitimate uses of cultural materials, the law itself is becoming increasingly inadequate. It can no longer deal with society’s demands and expectations, nor can it cope with modern forms of collaboration facilitated by technologies that the law makers could never have anticipated.