Aštuntajame XX a. dešimtmetyje išplitus skaitmeninėms technologijoms ir didžiajai daliai žmogaus gyvenimo persikėlus į skaitmeninę erdvę, autorių teisių įstatymai ėmė nebeatitikti susiklosčiusios situacijos ir nepagrįstai riboti informacijos sklaidą bei prieinamumą internete. Siekiant padėti autoriams ir kūrinių naudotojams išspręsti šias problemas bei skaitmeninėje erdvėje sukurti protingą ir lanksčią autorių teisių apsaugos sistemą, 2001 m. buvo įkurta Creative Commons organizacija, 2002 m. pasiūliusi visuomenei autorių teisių suteikimo sutartis – Creative Commons licencijas. Šios skaitmeninės formos sutartys įgalina autorių ar jo teisių turėtoją suteikti teisę kitiems asmenims neribotą laiką, bet kurioje pasaulio valstybėje, nemokamai naudotis sutartyje aiškiai nurodytomis autorių turtinėmis teisėmis į skaitmeninės formos literatūros, mokslo ar meno kūrinį. Tačiau naudojantis bendruoju CC licencijų variantu, parengtu remiantis JAV autorių teisės nuostatomis, ir nesuderintu su teisės aktais, kyla klausimas, ar tokios licencijos užtikrina pakankamą autorių teisių apsaugą Lietuvoje. Siekiant atsakyti į šį klausimą ir išanalizuoti CC licencijų santykį su klasikiniais autorių teisių įstatymais, pirmoje šio darbo dalyje atskleidžiama CC licencijos sąvoka, tikslai bei pagrindinės sąlygos. Antroje darbo dalyje didžiausias dėmesys skiriamas galimų problemų identifikavimui, taikant CC licencijas Lietuvoje. Taip pat apžvelgiamas bendrųjų (tipinių) CC licencijų naudojimas ir... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / In eight decade of twentieth century the appearance and development of digital technologies moved a great part of human life into cyberspace. However copyright laws were in conflict with factual situation and started to interfere with the dispersion and accessibility of information in internet. In 2001, aiming to help authors and users to deal with those problems and to develop reasonable and flexible copyright protection, Creative Commons organization was created. In 2002 this organization introduced to the public agreements, known as CC licenses, granting author’s economic rights to the user. These digital agreements enables author or holder of his rights, to grant other party perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free right to use authors economic rights to literature, science or art works. Though using unported version of CC licenses, which was prepared according to USA copyright law, may raise the question of secure copyright of unported licenses in Lithuania. Search for the answer to the above question and analysis of the relation between CC licenses and classical copyright law is provided. In the first part of this paper objectives, main features and concept of CC licenses are indicated. In the second part considerable attention is given to indicate possible problems while using CC licenses in Lithuania. The usage and internationalization of CC licenses are also developed in the second part of the paper. Finally, conclusion is made that unported CC licenses, even not... [to full text]

Hospitality exchange (HospEx) networks – online platforms facilitating the connection between a traveler and a local resident – embody many of the cyber-utopian promises intrinsic to the Web as it started out 25 years ago. Such sites have often been conceptualized as a new and daring trend in a booming ‘sharing industry’ and have been researched for topics such as trust, reputation, and online identities. Yet, a more critical look uncovers that crucial issues of ownership, power, digital labour, and organizational structures have often been left out. To fill this gap, this thesis investigates upon the antagonistic struggle between the commons and processes of commodification in the light of critical theory and political economy. The research shows that examples with characteristics of both concepts are manifested in the niche social networking space of HospEx platforms. The biggest of those platforms, Couchsurfing.org, changed its organizational orientation from a non-profit, commons-based project towards a for-profit company in 2011 – an instance of commodification. An analysis of both quantitative and qualitative community data shows that the transformation consequently concerns a member on multiple levels. The structural change of ownership results in a loss of transparency and privacy, an alteration of the platform’s integrity, a sacrifice of the ‘uniqueness’ of the community, and a differing relationship between the user and the platform. To shed light on an antagonistic force and suggest an alternative, community-based governance approach, the work further explores the specifics of a platform guided by the logic of the commons. Interviews with volunteers of the non-commercial, non-profit HospEx platform BeWelcome.org helped to deepen an understanding of how a digital commons can be sustained and what challenges they face. The thesis concludes that the developments observed on Couchsurfing are not an exception but rather characteristic and part of a broader trend manifested in all areas of digital media, and indeed modern society in general: commodification processes frequently jeopardize the commons and incorporate them into the logic of capital.

Bibliography: leaves 598-620.

Bibliography: leaves 598-620 / 620 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of History, 1989

This dissertation is available for free download through the University of Arizona library and the author's web site.Since Argentina's economic collapse of 2001, workers who occupied abandoned and bankrupt businesses and put them back into operation as cooperatives have attracted increasing attention on the part of academic researchers and other disaffected workers. This dissertation reviews the political economic contexts in which these "recovered businesses" were established, reviews the dynamics of social movements involved, and considers the Argentine recovered business phenomenon from three analytical perspectives: 1) Marxist poltical economy; 2) Neo-institutional analysis (drawing on the work of Ostrom); and 3) Sociospatial subjectivity (with particular reference to Butler, Lefebvre, and Bourdieu). The author, through these analyses, proposes a theory of the "industrial commons" and considers the potential for expansion and contraction of recovered business movements as their protagonists struggle to resist reterritorialization by forces associated with the state and the capitalist marketplace. Observations made by the author are supplemented by numerous quotations drawn from interviews conducted with Argentine recovered business workers in 2008.Key conclusions include the recognition that social and spatial changes have accompanied the expropriation of private workplaces and their conversion to cooperatives, that these changes may create contexts for the reproduction of cooperative values, and that the new political economic subjects produced through these processes may help to secure the long term viability and growth of not only recovered businesses, but a newly emerging "self-managed workers" movement, as well.

<p>Communal land tenure reform in Zambia is the overarching subject of study in this thesis. It is an important issue across southern Africa, raising questions of governance, livelihood security and conservation. WIldlife is a 'fugitive' and 'mobile' resource that traverses the spatially fixed tenure of communal lands, national parks and public forest reserves. The management of wildlife therefore requires that spatially defined proprietorial rights accommodate wildlife's temporal forage use. Land may bebounded in tenure, but if bounded by fences its utility as wildlife habitat is undermined. If land is unfenced, but its landholder cannot use wildlife then it is more a liability than an asset. Africa's terrestrial wildlife has enormous biodiversity value but its mobility requires management collaboration throughout its range, and the resolution of conflicting ecological and economic management scales. The paper does not aim to describe and explain the internal communal system of tenure over land and natural resources but rather how the communal system interacts with the state and the private sector.</p>

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Laurence A. Clement, Jr. / Advancements in technology, architecture, landscape, planning and design, and education are being pursued in the 21st century. Unfortunately, the campuses of higher education institutions, which promote such advancements, do not reflect the vision of innovation and creativity. Rather, the exterior environments on college campuses portray a 19th century gardenesque landscape aesthetic, which emphasizes a “park-like” appearance and discounts ecological functions. The Kansas State University campus evidences a gardenesque aesthetic that arguably is not performing socially or ecologically to its fullest potential. This Master’s Project and Report uses an open space on K-State’s campus, Coffman Commons, to challenge its aesthetic performance. Campus landscape aesthetic performance can be improved by designing a community amenity that celebrates ecological processes, especially regarding stormwater, and involves the campus community in the design process. A conceptual framework, rooted in the Vitruvian Triad, directs the project’s methodology. Methods of photojournalism and design are conducted. Photojournalism is used to collect aesthetic responses of Coffman Commons from K-State students, faculty, and staff. Their photographic and textual responses inform the design process. The photography method allows each participant to confer importance to aspects of the landscape that moved them. Through photographic coding and content analysis, commonalities are discovered in the landscape with which each person identifies. The participants’ written descriptions further inform an understanding of expectations and hopes for Coffman Commons. Influenced by the photographic research and guided by set goals and objectives, the design method allows the innovation of a contextually specific and personable design solution for Coffman Commons. The design exhibits two community amenities which invite social activity to Coffman Commons. The amenities incorporate visible water systems (rain gardens and dry swales) - increasing the ecological performance of the Commons, and provide research opportunities for piezoelectric technology. The design also features inscriptions which honor Dr. Coffman and K-State Distinguished Faculty. This Master’s Project and Report transforms a gardensque campus landscape into a high-performance landscape that responsibly manages stormwater and enriches user experience.

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This interdisciplinary research bridging geography and fine art (‘geo-aesthetics’) follows contemporary artwork journeys from the studio into the public domain to discover how notions of value shift as the artwork travels. It seeks transfigurative nodes and their catalysts to explore how art matters: firstly how it becomes matter in the studio, and then how it comes to matter beyond the studio door. Two case studies at key moments of revaluation, a buy-out and a buy-in, both reveal responses to uncertainty that stress different kinds of collectivity. The first case study follows artistic practice and process in four studios in a Johannesburg atelier to investigate intrinsic value and finds ‘artistic thinking’. The second case study follows the assemblage of a private art collection managed from Cape Town, initially as an art fund, to investigate extrinsic valuation and finds ‘structural thinking’. These different modalities in the production and consumption circuitry of the artworld have unexpected correlations including shared artists and three linking concepts, namely, uncertainty, mobility, and the web. These in turn inform three observations: nested capacity, derivative value, and art as a public good. Two key findings emerge: contemporary art is itself a vector of value that performs meaning as it moves; and public interest is a central characteristic from which other valuations flow. The research uses repeat interviews, site visits and visual methods, which are triangulated with artwork trajectories to surface linkages between space and imagination. It offers a performative theory of value that speaks to an expanded new materialism. Applying an ecological framework allows a final transfiguration for an artworld ecosystem that (re)values contemporary art as part of an undercommons.