ContentMining: My Video to Shuttleworth about our proposed next year | petermr's blog

"I have had two very generous years of funding from the Shuttleworth Foundation to develop TheContentMine. Funding is in yearly chunks and each Fellow must reapply if s/he wants another year (up to 3). The mission is simple: change the world. As with fresh applicants we write a 2-page account of where the world is at, what and how we want to change things. TL;DR I have reapplied and submitted a 7 minute video (https://vimeo.com/146552838 ). These two years have been a roller-coaster – seriously changed my life. I can honestly say that the Fellowship is one of the most wonderful organizations I know. We meet twice a year with about 20 fellows/almuni/team committed to making sure the world is more just, more harmonious, and that humanity and the planet have a better chance of prospering. There's no set domain of interest for applying, but Fellows have a clear sense of something new that could be done or something that badly needs mending. Almost everyone uses technology, but as a means, not as an end. And almost everyone is in some way building or enhancing a community. I can truly say that my fellow Fellows have achieved amazing things. Since we naturally live our lives openly you'll find our digital footprints all over the Internet. I'm not going to describe all the projects – you can read the web site and you may know several Fellows anyway ... 2015 has seen the eruption of a fullscale conflict in EU over the right to mine. In 2014 Julia Reda MEP was asked to create a proposal for reform of copyright in Europe's Digital Single Market. (The current system is basically unworkable – laws are different in every country and arcanely bizarre [1]). Julia's proposal was very balanced – it did not ask for copyright to be destroyed – and preserved rights for “rights-holders” as well as for re-users.  ContentMining (aka Text and Data Mining, TDM) has emerged as a totemic issue. There was massive publishers pushback against Julia proposal, epitomised in the requirement for licences [2]. There were over 500 amendments, many being simply visceral attacks on any reform. And there has been huge lobbying, with millions of Euros. Julia could get a free dinner several times over every night!  There is no dialogue and no prospect of reconciliation. There is simply a battle. (I am very sad to have to write this sentence)  So ContentMine is now an important resource for Freedom ..."