Creators of the world unite, you have nothing to loose but your chains!

BoingBoing got to it first. (This is not surprising. They basically either are, or know in as in face-to-face-know, many EFF, and Creative Commons, and probably Downhill Battle heavies)

BlogTorrent is hella cool. If you have a PHP enabled webserver, which isn't too hard to find, or make happen (especially if you Got Root, apt-get install php4) just download and install, and bam. Distributed filesharing HOOOOO!

I haven't had a chance to really browse the code-base to see how reasonable it is. Lets face it, large swathes of PHP code out there is an an abomination, and I have written a few doozies myself. But maybe I'll get a chance to take a peek, and report back.

The cool thing about BlogTorrent is that it also proves a GUI front end for windows users. They have plans to make a mac version go. And someone out there will make a Linux version I'm sure.

Enough already, what does it do?

Just click on upload, and uploading a file to the tracker is as easy as that. Clickity Click Barba Trick! Downloading is even easier. There is of course, .torrents available, but there is also an easy download for the torrent-challenged-unwashed-proletariat-masses.

It isn't the fastest script in the world, but it is workable. The biggest problem is that installing it isn't as easy as one might think. I tried just installing it and going, but ran into problems when trying to execute the windows installer portion of the thing. This could be caused by a separate bandwidth issue I was running into earlier.

This is just so freaking hella-cool. This is open source at its finest. A bunch of scripts in one open source language (Bit Torrent / Python, right?) installed via an open source installer (NSIS), that connects to an open source webserver (apache, but really, it doesn't have to be), with another open source language helping the serving (php). Standing on the shoulders of a giant, on the shoulders of a giant, on the shoulders ... (An infinite regress of acrobatic behemoths!)

It would be cool to have semi-open sharing communities, that is, groups of artists et. all having their work available on a BlogTorrent. The collaborative power is really quite something. And of course, who says it all has to be on the level...

I have an example site up for all-ya-all. Here it is. Don't horribly abuse it.

(On a different note: I can't spell "seperate", but I can spell "proletariat")

It appears that Lindows is doing Bad Things. Using creative commons art beyond the scode of the licence without asking for permission is like stealing from church. If you want a larf, read what the Slashbots say about it at a Score of 5. Seriously, how hard is copyright law to understand people, if the work had no previous licence, then it means that the work is covered by standard copyright law, which gives no one permission to do no nothing.

In other news, slashbots were just as annoying and lame about other stuff.

Propaganda isn't inherently bad. Every time you sit down and watch a TV show, weather over the airwaves, or on the interweb, you are exposing yourself to propaganda. (sometimes its pretty thinly veiled, like Southpark. Don't get me wrong, it is a funny show, but it is a funny show with an agenda).

So it is nice to see some propaganda that doesn't suck. Here are two flash movies that explain what the creative commons license is, its history, its uses, how to use it, and where it is going. And they are damn well done. Check them out.

I started reading Lessigs new book Free Culture, which in of itself is a free book. Go download it right now, there is a torrent, it takes like 2 seconds man.

Of course, there is a Slashdot book review, it doesn't suck, and of course, Cory Doctorow (who apparently gave Lessig the idea to release the book under CC) Mentioned it on BoingBoing

...

This book, and even it's review, gives me fire in the belly. The next song I release __WILL__ be under an extremely open creative license. IT will end up being an archive of a midi-file, (containing the note events, for instance), and a bunch of .wav files. I'll probably also release an A3K + RM1x archive as well, so that if you have that gear, you can remix the song yourself.

Which would make the state of LivePA techno just that much more interesting. Imagine if you could download and remix someones track, with your machinery? It'd be fucking cool.

I am only just finishing off the preface, and already I am sold.

So there is the Sampling License which looks interesting and cool. There is also of course, the license I like the most, the Attribution-ShareAlike (1.0). Find You're Favorite!