Crosbie,
Thanks for your quick response. I'll begin speaking with other
FC-minded artists in my social circles. I encourage you all to do the
same, and please post to this listserv regarding any intent to
participate.
I'll take this chance to open the issue of "factionalization" to the
list. I personally do not think this threatens the goals of the FC
movement in general. As I've already said, I think diversity in a
beneficial thing, in that we can increase the total number of people
working toward achieving social change by appealing to their slightly
more individualized interests.
I would absolutely not leave SFFC, as I think it still a very valuable
organization. I do, however, also believe that more groups are needed,
given SFFC's recent narrowing of its mission.
Thoughts?
Conor
Crosbie Fitch wrote:
I think MJ Ray has summed things
up very well indeed.
I don't doubt that students may
well provide the greatest resource for FC.org in terms of mobilisation
and organisation (the '.org' bit), I'm just slightly concerned that the
nature of the constituents is creeping into the mission (the 'FC' bit).
Maybe that's just the way it goes. If you don't turn up, you don't get
included - in the organisation or its mission.
Nevertheless, a strongly student
aligned movement is likely to only obtain student aligned concessions -
at best. I can easily imagine university campuses obtaining an
educational exemption from copyright infringement as long as all
unauthorised copies/derivatives are digitally signed (or have other
DRM) and are not distributed outside the university networks.
As for me having an idea to set
up a new non-student oriented movement, I don't think I had that idea.
I was merely thinking that FC.org, despite its student constituency,
might reconsider whether it really needed to reinforce this aspect in
its mission title. There is a danger that rather than explain
the constituency it instead distorts the motivation and the mission,
i.e. it is not students promoting free culture for all, but students
demanding free culture for themselves - as in "Students for Free Beer".
In practical terms I have far
more interests than time. I am dedicating my time toward the promotion
and development of non-copyright based revenue mechanisms in order to
try and demonstrate that a voluntary exchange of art for money in
a free market is a better thing than the compulsory suspension of
liberty (copyright) or confiscation of money (taxation). These are the
domain names I've used in this area: www.digitalartauction.com, www.digitalproductions.co.uk, www.quidmusic.com, www.contingencymarket.com
So, my post wasn't out of
indignation that FC.org isn't including l'il ol' me, but to express
concern that FC.org may be in danger of being unnecessarily exclusive -
which may not be in FC.org's best interests. Who knows?
Interesting to know some background on this. Nonetheless, I think there
is a void to be filled; as I said early, diversity can help us, no? I
understand there's the issue of achieving and maintaining molarity of
interested persons, a point Christina made earlier, but I don't think
we're running that risk here. In fact, I think we can reach out to many
more people by setting up shop with a label different from FC.org/SFFC,
which would operate in addition to it.
Since it was Crosbie's idea, I'm going to wait awhile, offering him the
initiative. I googled for "artists for free culture" and got zero hits.
That's bad! I'd like to buy the domain name www.artistsforfreeculture.org
and get things moving.
But for the time being, I say we defer to Crosbie's initiative. What
say you, good sir?
Conor
MJ Ray wrote:
"Fred Benenson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Crosbie: why not consider an organization such as iCommons which has much
broader goals and membership?
I can't speak for Crosbie, but I think Crosbie is on this list mainly
for the same reason I am, because freeculture-UK was closed down in
its favour. As I understand it, iCommons has anti-commercialism
written into its foundations (thereby closing it off from artists who
need to make money from their free culture creations), uses hum-votes
to makes decisions and doesn't record its meetings.
If there must be another "open and free culture" group, then we'll get
there eventually, but there's a natural desire to avoid duplication of
overheads. It's disappointing to see so many missed opportunities and
this vital task left to telling the Crosbies of this world to go DIY,
instead of incorporating their support into your efforts.
Hope that explains,
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