History: "The South"

In many traditional Southern countries awe and mystery surround the created object into which the creator projects spirit and soul. Also in contrast with the Western individual-based concept of intellectual property rights it is custom to recognize 'collective', 'communal' or 'folkloric' copyright. Folkloric copyright acknowledges rights to all kinds of knowledge, ideas and innovations produced in 'intellectual commons'. Such rights are not limited to the lifetime of an individual but rather exist in perpetuity with a specific group or an entire people.

Islamic Tradition

Already early Islamic jurists recognized a creator's right or copyright and offered protection against piracy. Traditional Islamic law treats infringement as a breach of ethics, not as a criminal act of theft. Punishment is carried out in the form of defamation of the infringer and the casting of shame on his tribe. Only in recent years many Islamic countries have adopted formal copyright statutes.

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1960s - 1970s: Expert Systems Gain Attendance

The concept of expert systems dates back to the 1960s but first gained prominence in the 1970s. Conclusive for this development were the insights of the Stanford University professor Edward Feigenbaum, who in 1977 demonstrated that the problem-solving capacity of a computer program rather is a result of the knowledge it posses, than of the applied programming techniques and formalisms.

Expert systems were designed to mimic the knowledge and reasoning capabilities of a human specialist in a given domain by using (top down) artificial intelligence techniques. Made possible by the large storage capacity of the computers at the time, expert systems had the potential to interpret statistics and formulate rules. An initial use of expert systems was to diagnose and treat human physical disorders, but as its applications in the market place were extensive over the course of the following years they were also employed in fields such as stock market forecast, taxation, chemistry, and geology.

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A non-history of disinformation

If we look at history books we see the history of the winners, of men, of the rich and powerful ones. We read about a small part of the world's history - and very often we do not even realize this selective attitude. Those books disinform, telling us that they inform about what had happened in former times. Information turns into disinformation. Even being aware of this, we tend to live with it rather than change the system of selection.
Which means, we are accustomed to disinformation, as it is nothing new.
There is nothing like an exact history of disinformation, but the topic seems to have existed forever. With the help of disinformation, power and might can be prolonged, destroyed or gained. This is the secret of disinformation and its popularity.

Rumors were the first way of spreading news. Rumors tend to be interesting and they make people interesting: first of all the person who spreads the rumor and second the person who hears about it. Both of them think that they know something that others do not know yet - and this information advantage makes them special, at least for some moments, until the next rumor is spread or that one destroyed by some truth.

The "history" of disinformation is closely connected with the history of propaganda, though those two words do not mean the same thing. They are connected to each other and tend to influence each other in various ways.

What we tend to forget: everybody is disinforming sometimes, everybody is using propaganda. And persuasion is a common companion. The latter is less problematic though, as it uses less violence.

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Industrial design

Industrial design refers to the ornamental aspect of a useful article which may constitute of two or three-dimensional elements. To be qualified for intellectual property protection the design must be novel or original. Protection can be obtained through registration in a government office and usually is given for 10 to 15 years.

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Leni Riefenstahl

Leni Riefenstahl (* 1902) began her career as a dancer and actress. Parallel she learnt how to work with a camera, turning out to be one of the most talented directors and cutters of her time - and one of the only female ones. Adolf Hitler appointed her the top film executive of the Nazi Party. Her two most famous works were done in that period, Triumph of the Will (1935) and the two films about the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936. Later, when she tried to get rid of her image as a NAZI-movie maker, she worked as a photographer in Africa, making pictures of indigenous people and under-water landscape.

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Network Information Center (NIC)

Network information centers are organizations responsible for registering and maintaining the domain names on the World Wide Web. Until competition in domain name registration was introduced, they were the only ones responsible. Most countries have their own network information center.

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Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

b. July 1, 1646, Leipzig
d. November 14, 1716, Hannover, Hanover

German philosopher, mathematician, and political adviser, important both as a metaphysician and as a logician and distinguished also for his independent invention of the differential and integral calculus. 1661, he entered the University of Leipzig as a law student; there he came into contact with the thought of men who had revolutionized science and philosophy--men such as Galileo, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and René Descartes. In 1666 he wrote De Arte Combinatoria ("On the Art of Combination"), in which he formulated a model that is the theoretical ancestor of some modern computers.

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Bill Clinton

William J. Clinton (* 1946) studied law at Yale University, then taught at the University of Arkansas. He was elected Arkansas attorney general in 1976 and served as a governor until 1992. That year he became U.S.-President, the first democratic President after a row of Republicans. His sexual affairs not only cost him nearly his career but he also had to distract from his private affairs: he thought of fighting another war against Saddam Hussein in February 1999. Short afterwards he had a more interesting enemy, Slobodan Milosevic - and the NATO was most willing to fight with him.

For more information see: http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/glimpse/presidents/html/bc42.html

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