-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 ...Without reading the last 15 posts in this thread, I'm going to guess the basically repeat the same points, back and forth. Having limited time, I'm just going to jump in.
FC.o has taken positions. Look at our Web sites: in many of our projects, we advocate for a particular position. For instance, with Cereal Solidarity, we advocated the elimination of business method patents. In the National Day of Action for Open Access, we supported the passage of the Federal Research Public Access Act in the U.S. We made an attempt to form a sort of "platform" once: positions on all the issues that affect us. I'll take the blame for this. It failed, and it was a mistake to try it. FC.oINATT: FreeCulture.org is not a think tank. The heart of FC.o is that is a *student organization*. Our primary purpose should neither be to formulate the precise legal and ethical philosophy for a free culture, nor political success in legislatures (and executive decisions, and the courts). Our primary purpose should be to engage students on these issues. We all think these issues are important, right? Then we need to engage more of the public in the debate -- focusing on our peers, our fellow students. Like the lotto, you have to be in it to win it, and if the public is not part of the debate, their interests will never be adequately represented. So, we think globally but act locally: on our own campuses. For our purposes, rigid definitions are not necessary -- and strict dogma may even be counterproductive. Our goal should not be to spend the rest of our lives attached to our computer screens, hashing out a complete treatise on all that is good and proper, and criticizing anyone who strays from the party line. The goal should be to get off your computer and get in the streets. For all the discussion about definitions, if you walked into a public square at your school and approached a stranger, could you get them to care about Free Culture? Do you have a working definition, a pitch, a call to action in three sentences that explains what we're doing, why it's important, and why we want them to get involved? If not, we fail. I'm not saying there's no role for these conversations in the movement. The definition of a movement is many different people attacking the same set of problems from different perspectives. Voluntary licensing systems, academic research, think tanks, direct lobbying, movement building, awareness raising -- these all have a role. But I feel very strongly that the proper role of FreeCulture.org is not to be dogmatic, but to engage students in the issues, to raise awareness, and to provide a forum for debate. There is nothing wrong with this internal discussion, but we should not aim to arrive at some final conclusion and then start making everybody else march in line. As an organization, we are organizers or evangelists, not philosophers or theologians. Gavin P.S. In the final paragraph, rather than "march in line," I was going to say "goosestep," but I was afraid that would invoke Godwin's law. Nelson Pavlosky wrote: > Crosbie Fitch wrote: >> You mean FC had a real position once before? What happened to it? >> >> Surely, FC has a position that advocates cultural freedom? > > I think that FC.o has been a "big tent" organization, accepting both > people who believe in limited copyright and people who think that > copyright is generally a bad idea. I think it's probably a good idea to > keep it that way, rather than excluding one of those demographics. > > I'm not sure that FC.o itself has ever had a specific position on > exactly how much copyright there should be in an ideal creative system, > or what ideal copyright laws would look like. There are just too many > options, too many possibilities... choosing just one ideal system for > creative regulation / incentives would be absurdly difficult, and is as > much an empirical question of "what would benefit society most at this > time" as a question of principles. That's not to say that having a > specific position, a "model copyright code" wouldn't be valuable, but it > may be beyond the resources / expertise of a student organization. > (Perhaps Prof. Lessig would have ideas about who would want to take on > such a project?) > > Personally, I think that limited copyright is more practical than no > copyright or bizarre copyleft-only regimes, but I'm interested in > exploring systems that provide freedom and creativity without requiring > copyright. We should feel free to think outside the box and investigate > other possibilities, even if they may seem impractical at first. > > Peace, > ~Nelson Pavlosky~ > Co-founder, FreeCulture.org > http://nelson.freeculture.org > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFF5MJqtLXQdLhFpekRAg8jAJ9DXX0nsybF34N34WVjA/+eQtV8zwCeMGYD +uJgnTEZZZgE47UlfeMqAAU= =5lXP -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
