Flumotion and the Open Video Alliance provide live streaming of a speech on copyright, fair use, politics and online video—using 100% open technology
25 February 2010 – Barcelona - Flumotion and the Open Video Alliance will be streaming a live event, Thursday, February 25th featuring Lawrence Lessig, the foundational voice of the free culture movement. The 45-minute speech will be delivered live from Harvard Law School via Flumotion’s Streaming Platform, and will explore the relationship between copyright, fair use, politics and online video. The speech takes place at 6:00 PM local time (23:00 GMT) and will be available on demand via the Flumotion Streaming Blog.
Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School, is a founding member of Creative Commons and serves on the board of directors of the Software Freedom Law Center.
The live event will address the role copyright plays in the governance of the online video medium. The video web contains hundreds of millions of original new videos and mashups, but the ownership of this space is disputed. A doctrine like fair use allows unauthorized use of copyrighted works for commentary, criticism, news reporting, remix, research, teaching and scholarship with video. Lessig will explore when unauthorized use of copyrighted material is not only fair, but essential for the functioning of free societies.
In addition to the web broadcast, the Open Video Alliance has arranged nearly 40 screening events around the world, where academics and professionals will watch live and continue the discussion after the event.
“Our society is undergoing a shift from ‘read–only’ to ‘read/write’, with consequences for culture, business, and politics,” says Lessig. “As more and more people are creating video, it’s becoming an everyday language—video tools are now essential tools of speech.”
Lessig’s talk is the first event of its kind to be broadcast using only open technology and open standards. The event will be broadcast with the 100% free and open Theora codec into an HTML5 <video> element. The Open Video Alliance selected Flumotion as its streaming partner because it is the only advanced streaming platform that fully supports the open source Theora codec. The best way to tune in is using the latest version of Firefox.
“This event brings three ‘open use’ philosophies together—using open source technology to stream in an open format while promoting the idea of open media,” explains Thomas Vander Stichele, CTO of Flumotion. “The combination of these ‘open philosophies’ results in more transparency and innovation, creating new opportunities for education, communications and culture.”
Flumotion started as a Free Software project, combining an innovative open source software package on top of GStreamer, the de facto multimedia framework on Linux. Thanks to its flexible and distributed design and its choice of Python as the high-level language for development, it is now the world’s easiest and most powerful streaming software and platform for open formats.
Virtual events like Lessig’s talk, and January’s Filmmakers Summit at Slamdance, are great opportunities for conversation and debate on the web. Flumotion and the Open Video Alliance recognise this opportunity and encourage participants to interact in real-time. Lessig’s lecture will be followed by an interactive Q&A session. By using the hashtag ‘#wireside’ viewers will be able to participate and ask questions via their Twitter profiles.
About Flumotion
Flumotion is an award winning streaming software company that was founded in 2006 by a group of open source developers and multimedia experts. They developed an open source multi-format video streaming software, closing the gap of competing industry standards and making streaming more accessible. Flumotion Streaming Software allows broadcasters and companies to stream content live and on demand in all the leading formats from a single server.
Flumotion also offers a Streaming Platform and WebTV, which reduce workflow and costs by covering the entire streaming value chain. This end-to-end yet modular solution includes signal acquisition, encoding, multi-format transcoding, streaming of contents and state-of-the art interface design. The media back office allows for advanced content management and optimal monetisation through rich media advertising.
Flumotion was awarded ‘Best Streaming Innovation’ by industry leading Streaming Media Magazine. Companies such as Cuatro, Antena 3 and Nestlé trust Flumotion with the delivery of their high value content. Flumotion’s scalable and cost effective technology enables telcos and hosting companies worldwide to create their own end-to-end video and audio streaming platforms. Partners include NTT Europe Online, Telefonica and British Telecom. More information can be found at www.flumotion.com and in the streaming blog of Flumotion.
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Neil Bates
Marketing Communication Assistant
Flumotion Services S.A.
World Trade Center – Ed. Norte – 2nd floor
Moll de Barcelona – 08039 – Barcelona – Spain
+34 93 508 6350
http://www.flumotion.com
