Universal Audiovisual Library updates

The Universal Audiovisual Library (AVU – Audiovideoteca Universale or simply the “Library”) aims to realize the widest European Digital Archive of audio and video contents, with a specific emphasis towards Italian and English material available in public domain or subject to copyright but released either publicly or to the Library under free and copyleft licenses: contents which can be freely seen, shared and reused, even in their integral form, at least for non-profit use.

Proprietary contents with heavy potential for reuse and remix, within the scope of the "right to report" will be considered exceptions, together with "degraded" versions of proprietary contents granted under free and copyleft licenses, which are at least a good ADSL "web" quality.

A web portal with strong functions for collaboration, sharing and  socialization, and public spaces will produce a dynamic community of audio&video micro production centered on search, editing and remixing, composed by small and medium producers, youths, students, researchers, journalists, and private citizens.

The main Library's activities will center upon the acquisition, safekeeping, conversion, indexing, diffusion and promotion of contents with most cultural, social, and political value, to promote its dissemination and reuse through new digital channels. It will give public and free access to such contents in read, acquisition, contribution and reuse modes, through the following channels:

• Internal Gigalan (100 times faster than DSL) in the Audiovisual Telematic Park, with 400sq.m of consultation and media editing spaces available, and in all companies located therein;
• Web portal with content streaming and download features, through a high usability web interface;
• Legal peer-2-peer networks managed by partners or third-parties;
• Distribution partnerships with: ISP's, private and public sphere web portals, IPTV providers, digital video libraries (swapping), Set-Top Boxes providers.

The final aim is to create a wide and energetic community - both local and web-based - of students, young amateurs, small and medium remix producers, around the Library as a resource for inspiration, research, and reuse of contents as a flywheel for the productive creativity.

The Telematics Freedom Foundation is seeking new partners to kick-off some of its projects in the fields of Innovation Technology, Social Networking, Media and Audiovisual.

Those interested can find the profile of Telematics Freedom on CORDIS platform (the Community Research and Development Information Service for Science, Research and Development on the Seventh Framework Programme).

In particular, the projects for which we seek funds and partnerships are:

• Freedom Box: Aims to promote wide dissemination and standardization of TV Media Centers connected to the web that are easy to use and economic for anyone; and by anyone verifiable and customizable. The ultimate goal is to bring to market easy-to-use and economically affordable devices that promote long-term maximization of important constitutional liberties in 2 stages: (1) Freedom of choice of audiovisual content on TV at home; (2) Freedom to communicate via Internet with levels of authentication, privacy and security that are adequate to constitutional rights. The operating system and any programs installed on the box will be distributed using free/open source licenses, preferably GNU Affero GPLv3 or GPL v3.
• Universal Audiovisual Library: A Digital Library Database that collects hundreds of thousands of GB of audio and video content in its original language, released under open and public licenses. Created and managed by Telematics Freedom Foundation and several free-content partners.
• Rule2Gether: Software for consensus-building, debate and preference expression following the Direct Democracy approach and methodologies. Particularly useful for Electoral Lists and/or Political Parties. Rule2Gether is software developed specifically to allow simple democratic discussions and easy decision-making procedures in any kind of organization.
• User-Verifiable Telematics: A research project for the realization of software, hardware and processes that enable ordinary non-technical citizens to affordable access any internet-based telematic communication with pretty high levels of privacy and security that are fully user-verifiable. A model for the democratic control of services and practical means to verify software and hardware for all servers that run these services.
• Draft2Gether: A new model for creating documents, annotating and proposing amendments in a democratic and cooperative way. Draft2Gether puts any group of people (10's to 100's) in a position to discuss and approve changes in documents democratically, through e-voting and annotation mechanisms. Draft2Gether is perfect for writing documents within standardization commitees, petitions, legal documents or any other type of document that needs to be approved by a large group of people through a careful discussion and a democratic voting of each change.
• Do2Gether: Do2Gether is a Political Social Networking and Groups Management tool. The ultimate goal is to be a Free Alternative to YahooGroups/GoogleGroups™ (or a mix of GoogleGroups™+Facebook™). Do2Gether is a project to create a basic software platform for political networking. A web application focused on the needs of political or democratically-run organizations, which cannot (and must not) use a big player's web services such as YahooGroups or Google Groups for groups management or Facebook, Orkut and MySpace for social interaction and professional networking for obvious privacy issues or because of statutory rules.