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On 7 July 1948, the assembly of the recently founded Major Division of Colombian Football, Dimayor, created by the representatives of the clubs that had acquired the status of professionals (that is, the ones where the footballers received a salary to carry out their activity), determined that since August, they would hold an annual football championship of first division in Colombia, with the participation of teams coming from the most important cities in the country.

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Crossposted on iCommons

Promotion for the movie Perro come perro (Carlos Caicedo, Flickr / CC-BY-NC-SA licence)

Despite interesting movies and efforts in Colombia no film industry in the true sense of the word has really evolved. During the 80s a public institution, Focine, provided support for some productions but it was not viable financially and had to declare bankruptcy during the 90s. In 2003 the "film law" (Ley 814 de 2003). offered important incentives, in the form of tax deductions, to companies and individuals who fund film productions, in an effort to boost the industry.

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In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court of Colombia, the highest criminal judicial tribunal and Cassation Court (deals with the Cassation procedures also known in other juridical traditions as right of appeal on points of law), determined that in order to establish a criminal violation of copyright, it is necessary to find if the criminal conduct is for profit-making, if it causes effective injury and if the intention is to cause harm on the right holder.

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This article has been cross-posted from iCommons

This is the story of the tropical reinvention of "Captain Copyright", a cartoon superhero who was suppose to devoted his life to teaching children the virtues of copyright. The brainchild of a Canadian government campaign that appeared in the end of 2006, "Captain Copyright" was usually portrayed flying on the scene in which someone published research without proper credit. In the website dedicated to Captain Copyright, the campaign offered educational resources to be integrated into the classroom’s of Canadian school children.

The classroom exercises that Captain Copyright taught young children generally reinforced the limits that copyright imposes on the conduct of people and failed to address other aspects of copyright, such as exceptions in favour of everyone in society, the public domain, the ability to share, and so on. At that time, commentators like Professor Geist pointed out: "there is no reference to user rights, which are particularly relevant in the education context." He concluded: "Our children need to develop love for learning, a passion for creativity, and appreciation of art and science. The exercises that are offered do not provide any of that. Instead they reduce Canadian copyright to levels not seen before. They are so shameful that they should not be included in any classroom in the country." The campaign had to be ended, months later in 2007.

Recently, the Colombian National Planning Department (DNP) will submit for approval to the National Council for Social and Economic Politics (CONPES) a document on intellectual property that takes upon Captain Copyright’s idea of protection and enforcement of copyright. As it happened in the case of Captain Copyright’s materials, this document emphasis the possibilities of developing Colombian competitiveness and development only on the limits side of the equation, without watching all the other issues that influence the maintenance of a balanced system of creativity.

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It is a cruel truth. It should not be this way, but it is like this. Along the history, and in crucial situations, politics interference in sports, besides of being inevitable, has brought more negative than positive elements for an activity that, by definition, is peaceful and looks for the harmony among human beings, in addition to provide a good physical shape, fame and recognition for those who practise it and entertainment for those to follow it as spectators.

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In his editorial column at El Tiempo, the leading Colombian newspaper, Guillermo Santos described the dream home in terms of technology, mentioning a number of technical features that should have a home properly connected with today`s technology.

In order to describe the need and potential of having a hard drive shared by the family members he said that "at home one handled many files, including MP3 music downloaded from the Internet," and he adds: "it is an act that violates the intellectual property rights, and it is illegal".

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A pine plantation in Carimagua (Meta Department, Colombia), 2005

I attended the relevant presentation of the book: “Agrofuels filling tanks, emptying territories” (Agrocombustibles: Llenando tanques, Vaciando territorios) embodied in the campaign of the same name spearheaded by Censat - Agua Viva and the Process of Black Communities (PCN). This book (which I strongly recommend to read if you want to approach from several perspectives to this particular subject), discusses the striking environmental impact and the conflicts generated by the invasion of "agro-business", which are leading mega-projects of mono-crops farming for the production of fuels in Colombia.

The bold proposal embodied in the article written by Hildebrando and Irene Vélez about the construction of a Movement of Victims of Climate Change has called my attention. They dared to propose and basically launch the concept “agrofuels” to replace the fallacious word "biofuels", cited as the spearhead of an alleged salvation strategy toward climate change and the reduction of Greenhouse gases (GHGs) when it’s well known that the word “biofuels” make reference to the perpetuation of unsustainable practises that have shaped the global environmental crisis of nowadays.

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28 October 1972 is a date that breaks apart into the history of the Colombian sport. That memorable night, Antonio Cervantes, Kid Pambelé, defeated Alfonso Peppermint Frazer in an overwhelming way in Panama City and got for the very first time for Colombia a world title of boxing.

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The neighbourhood is nervous. The 4 February demonstration spoils their plans. With what face will they continue their efforts to sell the world the altruist spirit of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), if the same people which they claim to represent rejects them publicly, pointing them as what they are, a group that violates the Geneva Conventions sistematically and whose degradation transformed a social revolution into a latrine with the most basic instincts?

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This image was taken in La Magdalena court (now “calle 39th” in Bogotá), before a football game between Polo Club and colonel Lemly’s Military School. On the picture we can see, among others, Ulpiano Valenzuela, Alejandro Santamaría, Carlos Obregón, Carlos Dávila, Ignacio Barberi, Julio Sáenz, Pepe Obregón (Team captain), Juan Uribe de Brigard, and Carlos Sanz.

For a long time, the thesis that the cities of the Colombian Atlantic Coast were the pioneers in the country in practising the modern football, -as established by the English colleges and public schools in the end of 19th century-, was regarded as the strongest one, provided that the historians were based on documents of that time, such as photographs, press articles regarding to the facts and testimonies given by people that were at the events, all kept for the posterity in several books on the history of Colombian football.

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