Re-Imagining Accessibility
![Shepard Fairey’s “Barack Obama/Hope” image went viral during the 2008 election. Then controversy about the image’s source transformed it into the poster child for fair use in the public debate over copyright and free culture. Now FULAB takes “Hope” as its icon [Image source: Wikipedia]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/shepard_fairey_hope_2008.jpg "shepard_fairey_hope_2008")
Re-imagining accessibility through the transformations of culture -- particularly the transformative promise of accessible technology for people with disabilities -- is the work of the Fair Use Lab. What does Shepard Fairey’s Hope poster have to do with accessibility? Read more: Shape-Shifters in the Fair Use Lab [MiT6 2009]
Remix: Danger Mouse
![Promotional artwork for "The Grey Album" by Justin Hampton. This was not used for the actual cover, but appeared on the Danger Mouse website in 2004. [Source: Wikipedia]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/danger_mouse_grey_album_cover_200.jpg "danger_mouse_grey_album_cover_200")
Will DJ Danger Mouse become the Che Guevara of digital sampling? Consider the case for fair use made by The Grey Album.Blind Photographers
In the moment when Paul Strand photographed her surreptitiously on the street in New York, the social engineers who created a system for licensing beggars never imagined that a blind woman had culture or could make culture. She herself may not have imagined it. Paul Strand probably didn’t give her much credit for making culture, either. Read more: Curiosity & The Blind Photographer [MiT5 2007] See more on blind photographers.Disability As Praxis
I am a parent, homeowner, knowledge worker, and person with disabilities. Oppression is not my true word, but praxis is. In Paulo Freire’s transformative work, I find an affirmation deeper than ideology or political activism -- an affirmation of the dynamic role of disability in culture. I believe the daily praxis of making adaptations and negotiating accommodations represents a significant form of cultural production. Read Disability As Praxis.ADA 20th Anniversary
![President George H.W. Bush signs into law the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26, 1990 as Justin Dart looks on. [Source: ucp.org]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ada_signing_072690_ucp_2.jpg "ada_signing_072690_ucp_2")
On its 20th anniversary, pundits will debate what the Americans with Disabilities Act has accomplished. I still believe what I said in a TV interview after the ADA signing ceremony in 1990. “The ADA will not end disability discrimination overnight. But in a nation governed by the rule of law, getting it in writing is the place to start.” So what is the ADA's legacy? A Generation of Problem-Solvers.
a blind flaneur
Monthly Archives: June 2009
‘Digital Foundations’ Media Design Textbook Available As Free Download Under CC License
It’s a 520 MB zip file. I haven’t tried to download it to see if the PDF is accessible to screenreaders, but I assume so. Reading it thus could be an interesting challenge to the outer boundaries of conceptualization about … Continue reading
Posted in Accessible Texts, Creative Commons
Tagged Adobe, books, Creative Commons, web design
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A PR Toolkit for the ADA Anniversary
The DBTAC-Southeast ADA Center announced the availability of a PR toolkit to celebrate the upcoming anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26. What struck me was the disclaimer, which is longer than the announcement itself. It’s a … Continue reading
Remix This Book: An Accessible Anthology
Bravo to remix my lit and Sydney University Press for publishing this literary anthology in a free ebook in an accessible PDF format (1.45 MB) under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia licence that encourages remixing!. Learn more about … Continue reading
Weaker Copyright Protection Benefits Cultural Production, According to Economic Study
From Michael Geist at the Law University of Ottawa: Economists Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf have just released a new Harvard Business School working paper called File Sharing and Copyright that raises some important points about file sharing, copyright, and … Continue reading
Accessible Texts: The Cathedral and the Bazaar
Here’s the kernel of Eric Steven Raymond’s metaphor about web development in walled gardens and open source communities. This comes from an early version of the book, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, which Raymond published online in an accessible html … Continue reading