Sergio Amadeu da Silveira - Cidadania e Redes Digitais

eng
c i t i z e n s h i p a n d d i g i t a l n e t w o r k s
control of intellectual property through a series of “witch-hunt” actions. The view
of these traditional market representatives is that technology represents the power
of control, and not the possibility of transformation of individuals in digital citizens
by their insertion into a knowledge web (ROSSINI, 2009a).
The philosophy of the OER and OA proposes seeing knowledge as a public asset
of humanity, but one that does not emerge organically from the ICT. It represents a
clear choice of individuals and institutions. In this sense, “openness is an attitude” 4
— and it is the same attitude that marked the original thinkers 5 and developers of
the Internet and of the World Wide Web 6 , and also permeates the ideals of freeware.
Furthermore, the OER and OA, when well executed, make the content available
as a fertile base for connected learning, for they authorize the use, the remix,
the link, the translation and adaptation of that knowledge. We call this “fertile
base” digital commons. This view is supported by the notion that considers the very
knowledge as a collective social product that forms commons that must be accessible
to all. The digital commons is the result of the use of open and volunteer tools, such
as the licenses of Creative Commons 7 and freeware, upon the creation, publication
and distribution of educational and scientific content. In other words, it is the result
of this openness attitude.
One key element that enabled the openness movements was the reduction of
the reproduction and distribution costs of new contents to almost zero, after its
4. http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2010/05/11/elliot-maxwell-on-the-implications-of-openness.
5. http://w2.eff.org/Censorship/Internet_censorship_bills/barlow_0296.declaration.
6. David Isenberg, former engineer of AT&T, captures that perfectly: “The Internet derives its disruptive
quality from a very special property: IT IS PUBLIC. The core of the Internet is a body of simple,
public agreements, called RFCs, which specify the structure of the Internet Protocol packet. These
public agreements don’t need to be ratified or officially approved — they just need to be widely adopted
and used (...) The Internet’s component technologies — routing, storage, transmission etc. — can be
improved in private. But the Internet Protocol itself is hurt by private changes, because its very strength
is its public-ness.” http://isen.com/blog/2009/04/broadband-without-internet-ain-worth.html.
7. Creative Commons provides copyright licenses that create a more flexible management model of
such rights and, at the same time, ensure protection and freedom to the artist. Instead of stating that
all rights are reserved, the author has the power of specifically choosing which uses they intend to allow
or forbid. It is possible, for instance, to authorize the sharing of the work, but prohibiting any use for
business purpose. Adhesion is voluntary, and each author shall decide if they use the licenses in their
work. See more at www.creativecommons.org and watch explanatory videos at http://www.creativecommons.org.br/videos/Get-Creative-nova-versao.swf.
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