Photo by Rebecca McKinnon
Its hard to follow-up when others have done it much better than I could 
Reports are pouring in from ACIA: the International Workshop on Asia and Commons in the Information Age, held on January 19-20 in Taipei, Taiwan. The resounding conclusion: it was a phenomenal success!
The workshop, organized by CC Taiwan and hosted at Academica Sinica, focused on bringing together members of the “Asia Commons” to meet and discuss regional strategies and initiatives. The program opened with a keynote by Terry Fischer on “Solutions to the copyright crisis,” in which he sought to combine legal reforms and business models with digital technologies that compensate creators while enabling cultural and economic benefits. Both Ts’ui-jung Liu, VP of Academia Sinica, and Der Tsai Lee, director of the Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica, were at the opening ceremonies and delivered greetings to the workshop participants.
CC Vice President Mike Linksvayer chaired a session featuring plans for “The Making a Totally Open Phone”, Sony’s integration of CC licensing for their eyeVio video sharing service, techniques in musical collaboration with “Jamming with Machines”, and “Making Creative Commons Common in Asia” by CC’s Jon Phillips (slides).
Later in the day, CC Australia Project Manager Jessica Coates presented open licensing compatibility in “Playing Well With Others” at a panel with Chunyan Wang from CC China Mainland and Alina Ng from CC Malaysia. The CC Team from Australia and the Creative Commons Clinic also announced the release of the Asia and the Commons case studies booklet, a fantastic collection of reports on individuals and organizations engaged in the commons in the Asia-Pacific region.
Their work was followed by Lawrence Liang and his debate about concepts, “How Does An Asian Commons Mean.” The ACIA workshop drew to an close with Chu-Cheng Huang’s final remarks on the changing phases of property in “From res nullius to res communis,” a session chaired by the event’s organizer, Tyng-Ruey Chuang from CC Taiwan.
The social program picked up as the sun set with the CC Asia Mega Mix Concert featuring acts by Monbaza; Pig Head Skin; MoShang (video), Kuo Chou Ching, Chang Jui-chuan, and André van Rensburg, Bust This, Sudev Bangah, and Lisa Diy.
There are plenty of pictures here and here. Formal proceedings from ACIA are available for download, and of course the case studies and discussion summary are well worth a read.
Asia and the Commons Case Studies 2008, presented at the ACIA workshop. The project, initiated by CCau and the Creative Commons Clinic, represents an effort to uncover exemplary individuals and organizations engaged in the commons in the Asia-Pacific region.
Photo by Rebecca McKinnon
And, Rebecca McKinnon posted some great insights into Asia and Isaac Mao’s concept of “Sharism” and the place of CC in Asia:
Many people attending the meeting in Taipei wondered whether Creative Commons in Asia is likely to be more successful as a social movement than as a set of copyright licenses (as Peter Yu has pointed out in the past). There was also a feeling that in order to be truly relevant to the globe, the CC movement’s central message needs to undergo a shift that would incorporate more non-Western approaches to the idea of “commons,” content creation, and sharing.
And, then she offered through Isaac Mao’s concept, a conceptual framework for moving this forward:
During Sunday’s discussion, Isaac Mao raised his idea of "sharism" as a framework for promoting the goals of Creative Commons that is more likely to gain widespread acceptance in Asia, in contrast to Lessig-esque terrms like "free culture." The problem, as Liang pointed out, is that the words "free" and "freedom" have been irreparably polluted by American geopolitics and tainted by perceived agendas of regime change, making anything labeled with those words a hard sell in the developing world. Riffing off the expression "free as in beer," he remarked: "free as in America is unhelpful." There was a widespread sense among people in the room that an emphasis on "public good" and "sharing" will enable the movement to have a much deeper impact, ultimately.
Hopefully by having myself in Guangzhou, China over the next 6 months and Catharina Maracke (CCi Director) in Tokyo more regularly over the next 6 months to a year will hopefully place some emphasis on asia beyond the already super-active CC affiliates in the region.
