Every now and then, somebody is prosecuted for sharing culture in violation of the copyright monopoly. Here's what you should know if you're worried...
Digital Commons: Our Shared Right to Knowledge and Culture
As the volume of cultural and scientific works produced and available on the internet continues to expand, the question of freedom to consult and use this immense ‘digital commons’ is becoming a critical one, particularly as cutting off access could entail serious consequences for education, cultural exchange, and even the health of European citizens.
Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record (2026)
DOWNLOAD THE FREE EBOOK: PDFEPUBPURCHASE A PRINT COPY: Buy the book from Better World Books or any online bookstore.Order a copy through your local bookstore!LISTEN TO THE PODCAST (Release dates: July 1 - August 5, 2026): Vanishing Culture Episode #1: What We Stand to Lose with Luca MessarraVanishing Culture Episode #2: The Stories Hidden in Cookbooks with Katie LivingstonVanishing Culture Episode #3: Saving Queer Memory with Brooke PalmieriVanishing Culture Episdoe #4: Keeping African Folktales Alive with Helen Nde & Laura GibbsVanishing Culture Episode #5: A Language Worth Saving with Peter ScholingVanishing Culture Episode #6: What We've Learned with Vida Vojić & Alice BridgwoodABOUT VANISHING CULTURE: In today’s digital landscape, corporate interests, shifting distribution models, and malicious cyber attacks are threatening public access to our shared cultural history. The rise of streaming platforms and temporary licensing agreements means that sound recordings, books, films, and other cultural artifacts that used to be owned in physical form, are now at risk—in digital form—of disappearing from public view without ever being archived. Web sites like MTV News, Gawker, and others are removed from the live web by their corporate owners, leaving only web archives like those in the Wayback Machine as the last remaining public record of their reporting and cultural impact. Cyber attacks, like those against the Internet Archive, British Library, Seattle Public Library, Toronto Public Library and Calgary Public Library, are a new form of digital barrier, impeding access to information at community scale. When digital materials are vulnerable to sudden removal—whether by design or by attack—our collective memory is compromised, and the public's ability to access its own history is at risk. Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record aims to raise awareness of these growing issues, featuring essays from: Digital librarian Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive; Humanities scholar Luca Messarra; Book historian and social media star Allie Alvis; Game designer Jordan Mechner; Journalist Philip Bump; Writer and editor Maria Bustillos; Film archivist Rick Prelinger; Digital humanities scholar Nichole Misako Nomura; Writer and book artist Eve Scarborough; And many more… The report details recent instances of cultural loss, highlights the underlying causes, and emphasizes the critical role that public-serving libraries and archives must play in preserving these materials for future generations. By empowering libraries and archives legally, culturally, and financially, we can safeguard the public’s ability to maintain access to our cultural history and our digital future.
Opinion | How an Online Mob Created a Playbook for a Culture War (Published 2019)
The powerful lesson of a 5-year-old harassment campaign: How to wage a post-truth information war.
DRM Is Toxic To Culture
In pursuit of market control now, deployers of DRM are robbing us of our culture in perpetuity by enclosing the future commons. It’s possible that you think that unauthorised use of copyright…
Nightshade: Protecting Copyright
the Enshittification of Cozy Games
From Non-consensual Pornography to Image-based Sexual Abuse: Charting the Course of a Problem with Many Names
Every day, people’s most intimate moments are recorded, uploaded and circulated online without their consent. This gross invasion of privacy – commonly known as ‘revenge pornography’ – has become p...
From Non-consensual Pornography to Image-based Sexual Abuse: Charting the Course of a Problem with Many Names
Every day, people’s most intimate moments are recorded, uploaded and circulated online without their consent. This gross invasion of privacy – commonly known as ‘revenge pornography’ – has become p...
Help Fix Copyright: Send a Rebellious Selfie to European Parliament (Really!) | The Mozilla Blog
The EU’s proposed copyright reform keeps in place retrograde laws that make many normal online creative acts illegal. The same restrictive laws will stif
The Unexpected New Threat to Video Creators - Anil Dash
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
‘It’s frightening’: How far right is infiltrating everyday culture
Extremist messaging now woven into music and YouTube videos, with one expert saying: ‘You can be radicalised sitting on your couch’
The forced global adoption of puritanistic American cultural norms vis sexuality and nudity via app store/payment processor rules is one of the least-discussed free speech issues of the last decade and this lack of attention is going to hurt online expression so much in the years to come.
Bee 🐝
I think also we cannot ignore the potential social and cultural ramifications of normalizing the demonification of anything adult or sexual The whole system is stacked against any sort of movement in the other direction and it's not something the porn industry can handle alone at this point
