Konomark and the extension of Aloha Jurisprudence

While Alitorros is up in Montreal enjoying Law and Society, I've been sweating out the move to Chapel Hill.  Now I'm in a pet friendly hotel in Chapel Hill, getting caught up on my blog reading....

Via Eric Johnson over at prawfsblawg, I've just learned about "konomark"--a pineapple inside a circle. 

It's a symbol that "that lets visitors to your website know that you are generally willing to share your copyrighted content, such as photos, educational materials, music, etc., with folks like yourself, for free. The konomark is an invitation to e-mail you and ask you for permission."

This is Eric's idea--he blogged about it last April over at prawfs, but I missed it back then.  I think this is great--and a great symbol of friendliness.  As the konomark website says,  "The Hawaiian word 'kono' means to invite, prompt, or ask in. The 'mark' part is pretty self-explanatory – the idea is to mark content that's shareable."  Makes me happy to see that a Hawaiian symbol is used to invite sharing of property--and makes me think that this is a further piece of aloha jurisprudence! (More on aloha jurisprudence here.)  I'm going to start konomarking my papers.  And maybe we'll have a similar sign for access to real property sometime soon--perhaps a palm tree in a circle?!

Alfred Brophy