The word originality has never had a peaceful existence. In its early history it coincided with the issue of plagiarism where an author attempts to claim the works of another as his own. The Roman poet Martial (ca 41 – 104) accused one Fidentinus of repeating works he had not created in the Plagiarism cycle: [...]

Intellectual property tends to be taught by and to lawyers which is a shame since they tend to focus on addressing the questions of how the law works. This handyman approach is necessary since most of the students are going to go out an apply the law – the idea is that they do not [...]

The first camera I remember was my grandfather’s Ikoflex 1A 854/16 This is a very cool camera which I never really mastered. I now have this as a memory of my grandfather but after reading Ivor Matanle’s article on the history and use of the Ikoflex TLRs Classics to Use (Amateur Photographer, 29 October 2005) [...]

This has been a busy week for books on Open Access. On Wednesday I blogged about the book Understanding Open Access in the Academic Environment: A Guide for Authors by Kylie Pappalardo. Today Open Access News wrote about two more new Open Access books: E. Canessa and M. Zennaro at the Science Dissemination Unit of [...]

IFIP-TC9 HCC8 8th International Conference on Human Choice and Computers on Social Dimensions of ICT Policy University of Pretoria 25-26 September 2008 Thursday 25 September 9:00 – 9:30 Opening session Welcome speeches by conference organizers at the University of Pretoria 9:30 – 10:30 Plenary session: keynote speech Communication, Information and ICT Policy: Towards enabling research [...]

The French have gone and done it! Times Online reports: Anyone who persists in illicit downloading of music or films will be barred from broadband access under a controversial new law that makes France a pioneer in combating internet piracy. “There is no reason that the internet should be a lawless zone,” President Sarkozy told [...]

It’s black, phalic and sits nicely in my hand. It evokes feelings of joy and guilt at the same time. In what must be seen as a moment of total indulgence I bought a new lens for my camera. Yes I succumbed to the temptation I have carried with me for the past months and [...]

Most of us (should) know that the net is not a particularly nice place. It is a neutral tool that allows all users to go out there and be themselves. Unfortunately the technology also offers people pseudo-anonymity or the illusion of real anonymity. I say unfortunately because this really brings the weirdos out of the [...]

So I was looking at Slideshare which is basically a site where lots of people upload and download powerpoints. Besides avoiding other work the reason for me being there was to see whether this would be a good tool to use. Or maybe it’s enough already with the whole 2.0 thingy. Anyway while looking at [...]

The policy of considering a manuscript for publication only if its substance has not been submitted or reported elsewhere. This policy was promulgated in 1969 by Franz J. Ingelfinger, then the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. The aim of the Ingelfinger rule was to protect the Journal from publishing material that had [...]

The book Structures of Participation in Digital Culture is now available for download for free. Here is a part of the blurb: Structures of Participation in Digital Culture, …explores digital technologies that are engines of cultural innovation, from the virtualization of group networks and social identities to the digital convergence of textural and audio-visual media. [...]