Chicago based choreographer Julia Rhoads has a new show inspired by The Pirate’s Dilemma. The show, Punk Yankees, focuses on how sampling and fair use questions apply to the world of dance. As Rhoads tells it:

“I had the good fortune of receiving a choreographic fellowship from the Maggie Alessee National Center for Choreography (MANCC) to support the research and initial development of Punk Yankees, which is the title of our anniversary concert. While at MANCC, I began working with the ensemble to address my research questions: What defines “fair use” in dance? Is it permissible to “borrow” choreographic devices if the movement is reinvented? If the dancers can’t execute the movement in the way it was originally intended, is there something interesting about that failure? If someone “stylistically” references a choreographer, should it be acknowledged as a derivative work, or is it what naturally occurs through dance education and lineage? Ultimately what we created was a work-in-progress that experimented with meta-theatrical devices and formal conventions to elucidate these provocative questions with transparency and humor.

“The title Punk Yankees came from some research I was doing online about piracy and art. Matt Mason, author of the book The Pirate’s Dilemma, talks about the fact that piracy and appropriation (in the sense of intellectual property) has historically been linked to the creation of new markets, which he calls a form of “punk” capitalism. He also traces the word “Yankee” to an old Dutch slang word “Janke,” meaning pirate. Ironically, Matt Mason was recently a keynote speaker at Dance/USA’s Annual Conference in Houston, TX (June 3-6), in the session “Fair Use and Piracy: How They Each Support a Sustainable Dance Field.”

Thanks for the reminder Cory!

Hold tight for the demo at the end. The guy tears the car park a new one!

RepRap from Adrian Bowyer on Vimeo.

Some chilling thoughts from Lessig on one way the copyright wars might end. Pirates, and to a greater extent, ad-hoc networks of all kinds, are a necessary part of the free market system - they (try to) keep governments and corporations honest. If something like Lessig describes ever happens, the idea of the pirate as freedom-fighter will be widely embraced. An i-9/11 would be devastating for the short term future of not just the internet, but liberty and democracy. On the other hand, this is the battlefield where citizens should want to have this fight, because this is the battlefield where we can win.

Lebowski are publishing the book in Holland next month, and to promote sales of physical copies, they are giving away the electronic version. Great to be working with (yet another) publisher who didn’t just want to publish the book, but actually put the ideas from it into practice. You can get your copy of ‘PIRATERIJ’ here.

I’ll be in Amsterdam for the launch in the third week of August - do drop me a line if you’re in the neighborhood!

A few weeks ago I was invited to speak at the first meeting of the Miller Global Fresh Collective, a group of creatives from the worlds of music, design, art, and fashion who met to discuss the future of collaboration and other issues affecting music. I led the first session of the day, entitled “After the Revolution, is Free the Future?”, which you can see above. The thing that’s always missing from discussions about the future of music, is musicians, so it was great to hear from so many from so many corners of the world. Brooklyn Vegan has more details.

Umair Haque @ Daytona Sessions vol. 2 - Constructive Capitalism from Daytona Sessions on Vimeo.

Some artists get annoyed when “sell more t-shirts” is presented as a solution to beating pirates, which I can understand because it implies recorded music is worth nothing. But Mos Def has hit upon a way to do it which still gives the music value; the album is the t-shirt.

Def is putting out his latest album The Ecstatic as a shirt. The music tee has the album’s cover art on the front, tracklist on the back and a code for a downloadable version of the album on a tag. The medium (not to mention the S, L, XL and XXL) is the message.

I love this idea. This is a really authentic product that will mean something to fans and values everything the artist does. I’d like to see other things being used as media for digital content. A world where the format you release your work on is as bigger creative choice as the cover art is way more interesting than one where the only choices are CD/download.

More on this over at Paste.

and more worried about the fact that you can make film of this quality for $500. See more of The Purchase Bros work here.