Students for Free Culture
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Students for Free Culture, formerly known as FreeCulture.org, is an international student organization working to promote
Students for Free Culture is sometimes referred to as "FreeCulture", "the Free Culture Movement", and other variations on the "free culture" theme, but none of those are its official name. It is officially Students for Free Culture, as set for in the new bylaws that were ratified by its chapters on October 1, 2007, which changed its name from FreeCulture.org to Students for Free Culture.[2]
Goals
Students for Free Culture has stated its goals in a "manifesto":
The mission of the Free Culture movement is to build a bottom-up, participatory structure to society and culture, rather than a top-down, closed, proprietary structure. Through the democratizing power of digital technology and the Internet, we can place the tools of creation and distribution, communication and collaboration, teaching and learning into the hands of the common person -- and with a truly active, connected, informed citizenry, injustice and oppression will slowly but surely vanish from the earth.[3]
It has yet to publish a more "official" mission statement, but some of its goals are[citation needed]:
- decentralization of creativity—getting ordinary people and communities involved with art, science, journalism and other creative industries, especially through new technologies
- reforming copyright, patent, and trademark law in the public interest, ensuring that new creators are not stifled by old creators
- making important information available to the public
Purpose
According to its website,[4] Students for Free Culture has four main functions within the free culture movement:
- Creating and providing resources for its chapters and for the general public
- Outreach to youth and students
- Networking with other people, companies and organizations in the free culture movement
- Issue advocacy on behalf of its members
History
Initial stirrings at Swarthmore College
Students for Free Culture had its origins in the Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons (SCDC), a student group at
OPG v. Diebold case
Within a couple of months of founding the SCDC, Smith and Pavlosky became embroiled in the controversy surrounding Diebold Election Systems (now Premier Election Solutions), a voting machine manufacturer accused of making bug-ridden and insecure electronic voting machines. The SCDC had been concerned about electronic voting machines using proprietary software rather than open source software, and kept an eye on the situation. Their alarm grew when a copy of Diebold's internal e-mail archives leaked onto the Internet, revealing questionable practices at Diebold and possible flaws with Diebold's machines, and they were spurred into action when Diebold began sending legal threats to voting activists who posted the e-mails on their websites. Diebold was claiming that the e-mails were their copyrighted material, and that anyone who posted these e-mails online was infringing upon their intellectual property. The SCDC posted the e-mail archive on its website and prepared for the inevitable legal threats.
Diebold sent
The network of contacts that Smith and Pavlosky built during the lawsuit, including dozens of students around the country who had also hosted the Diebold memos on their websites, gave them momentum they needed to found an international student movement based on the same free culture principles as the SCDC. They purchased the domain name Freeculture.org and began building a website, while contacting student activists at other schools who could help them start the organization.
FreeCulture.org launching at Swarthmore
On April 23, 2004, Smith and Pavlosky announced the official launch of FreeCulture.org,
Internet campaigns
FreeCulture.org began by launching a number of internet campaigns, in an attempt to raise its profile and bring itself to the attention of college students. These have covered issues ranging from defending artistic freedom (Barbie in a Blender) to fighting the
Increased emphasis on local chapters
Today[]
The NYU chapter made headlines when it began protesting outside of record stores against DRM on CDs during the
In 2008, the
Other activities at local chapters include:
- art shows featuring Creative Commons-licensed art,[15][16]
- flash mobs,[17]
- film-
- iPod liberating parties, where the organizers help people replace the proprietary DRM-encumbered operating system on their iPods with a free software system like Rockbox,[20]
- Antenna Alliance,[21] a project that provides free recording space to bands, releases their music online under Creative Commons licenses, and distributes the music to college radio stations,[22]
- a campaign to promote open access on university campuses.[23]
Structure
Students for Free Culture began as a loose confederation of student groups on different campuses, but it has been moving towards becoming an official tax-exempt non-profit.
With the passage of official bylaws, Students for Free Culture now has a clear governance structure which makes it accountable to its chapters. The supreme decision-making body is the Board of Directors, which is elected once a year by the chapters, using a Schulze method for voting. It is meant to make long-term, high-level decisions, and should not meddle excessively in lower-level decisions. Practical everyday decisions will be made by the Core team, composed of any students who are members of chapters and meet the attendance requirements. Really low-level decisions and minutiae will be handled by a coordinator, who ideally will be a paid employee of the organization, and other volunteers and assistants. A new board of directors was elected in February 2008,[24] and a new Core Team was assembled shortly thereafter. There is no coordinator yet.[when?]
References
- ^ FreeCulture.org Archived September 5, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, Students for Free Culture chapters
- ^ FreeCulture.org Archived October 12, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, Students for Free Culture's new bylaws
- ^ FreeCulture.org Archived September 18, 2008, at the Library of Congress Web Archives, Free Culture manifesto
- ^ FreeCulture.org Archived November 28, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, About Students for Free Culture
- ^ SwarthMore.edu, "New group to fight RIAA, Microsoft" from the Swarthmore Phoenix,
- ^ Lessig, Lawrence. "FreeCulture.org crosses 13 - Lessig". Retrieved June 25, 2016.
- ^ "File Sharing Pits Copyright Against Free Speech". The New York Times. November 3, 2003. Retrieved June 25, 2016.
- ^ FreeCulture.org Archived March 12, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, Students for Free Culture blog: Official Launch
- ^ Nelson Pavlosky (January 1, 2004). "Lessig speaks at Swarthmore". Retrieved June 25, 2016 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ LegalAffairs.org, Legal Affairs article on the launch
- ^ Wired.com, Wired News - "Students Fight Copyright Hoarders"
- ^ "USATODAY.com - Firestorm rages over lockdown on digital music". USA Today. Retrieved June 25, 2016.
- ^ "Copy Cats", PhiladelphiaWeekly.com
- ^ Guo, Jeff. "YouTomb Takes Stock of YouTube Takedowns". Retrieved September 9, 2008.
- ^ FreeCultureNYU.org, NYU's CC art show
- ^ SharingIsDaring.org, "Sharing is Daring" CC art show at Harvard
- ^ FreeCulture.org Archived September 3, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, Santa Cruz "face to face peer to peer" flashmob
- ^ FreeCultureNYU.org, NYU's Film Remix 2006
- ^ BoingBoing.net Archived May 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, USC FC NOTLD speed remix contest
- ^ Business.NewsForge.com, Newsforge - Liberating iPods in Cambridge
- ^ "銀座カラー横浜エスト店|お得なキャンペーンで脱毛リリース!". Retrieved June 25, 2016.
- ^ ThePhoenix.com, Boston Phoenix, Antenna Alliance Offers Free Studio Time
- ^ FreeCulture.org, FreeCulture Taking Action on Open Access
- ^ FreeCulture.org Archived February 27, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Spring 2008 Board Election results