Taking issue with the argument that, after decentralisation, control is embodied within the protocols of networks, Harry Halpin gives a historical account of the all-too-human actors vying for power over the net. Not technical standards but immaterial aristocrats rule cyberspace and their seats of power are vulnerable to revolutionary attack

                               Free Software
                         Toni Prug, toni@irational.org
                                August 13, 2007
Contents                                                              1 Introduction                                                          2
2 Hackers and the Protestant ethics                        2
2.1 Talk is cheap, show me the code (sola code) .    5
2.2 Against memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .   7
3 Free Software, politics and ideology . .. . . . . . . .  8
3.1 PeerToPeer and Free Drugs democracy . . . .    11
4 Revolutionary justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5 Hacking the regime of equal rights . . . . . . . . . .  17
6 Free Software and academia . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
7Conclusions                                                       20

Challenges to traditional copyright resulting from peer-to-peer applications, free software, filesharing and appropriation art have caused a wide ranging debate on the future of copyright. Dmytri Kleiner brings existing critiques of material property from the left to bear upon the realm of copyleft artistic production and asks how, within the existing copyright regime, can artists earn a living?

As the scarcity essential to the cultural commodity is undermined by digital abundance and social networking, social relations and the unique ‘live’ performance are all that's left to sell. Mass market music increasingly resembles relational art with its dream of waking the ‘zombies’ of consumer culture, but are the citizens of Web 2.0 society born again or undead? Paul Helliwell shuffles through the mall

The hype surrounding Web 2.0’s ability to democratise content production obscures its centralisation of ownership and the means of sharing. Dmytri Kleiner & Brian Wyrick expose Web 2.0 as a venture capitalist’s paradise where investors pocket the value produced by unpaid users,  ride on the technical innovations of the free software movement and kill off the decentralising potential of peer-to-peer production

From an early interest in recycling ‘obsolete’ computers, James Wallbank’s mission to demystify the black box of technology has grown into a desire to ‘open source’ creativity in general and media in specific. Here he talks to Charlotte Frost about Access Space, a community media space he co-founded and runs in Sheffield, and their travelling Grow Your Own Media Lab project

pure:dyne 2.3.6 release At last the gnu/linux os of choice for media artists gets a full public release! 

:: PURE:DYNE - EXTENDED PLAY                                  *

Since the Web 2.0 tornadoes have all but touched down in London, OpenMute along with a number of partners thought it was a good time to set up a social event which looked at new technical developments and projects as well as contemplating the Network Effect more generally.