What I learnt Today....

Today I led a course in HUMlab on Copyright Creativity and the Commons. It went well, although I think I spoke too much and should have given more time to the participants. Despite this I did manage to learn quite a few things from those (5) that took the course. First there is the Nine Inch Nails release of the new album on the 17th April. This is interesting as it seems to be developing as an Alternate Reality Game (called YZ AGR). My informant in the short course today spoke of portable hard drives being left in bathrooms of venues where NIN play and clues being sent out on T-shirts and secret websites. The whole Year Zero album is already downloadable in low quality format and is streamed on the Internet (HERE). The buzz that all this seems to be building in sure to assist Trent in earning some money and doing it in an interesting way.
There other cultural scrap that was tossed my way today was Tales from the Afternow:

Tales From the Afternow is a Cyberpunk Internet radio serial drama started by Sean Kennedy in July 2002. The show is portrayed as a series of audio diary entries made from a future Dystopia, in which copyright legislation has been applied to all areas of life, adversely affecting the civil rights of the protagonist. The show is notable for creating the concept of the Internet deified as Server, a theme often referred to by Kennedy. (wikipedia)

This sounds interesting ("copyright legislation has been applied to all areas of life"...oh my god!!!)and I will be downloading some episodes of this ASAP. This is why I enjoy teaching as it is a great way to learn. I also got some good feedback on the situation for libraries and teachers in Sweden regarding copyright restrictions (not easy but it is about the same ridiculous situation as everywhere else in the post industrialised world). On my way out today from university I picked up from the library The Aesthetics of Net Literature, edited by Peter Gendolla and Jörgen Schafer. I have just read the preface and some of the biographies and it looks very good. Finally I managed to get a page down on the thesis chapter with only 4 days left before deadline. I am now doing a section on how interactivity is represented in the preface offering help in a digital text. It feels like I am in the home stretch as to this first draft but I know there will be considerable rewriting. A day of much learning..........back to the thesis chapter now.