Tim Cowlishaw wrote:
Again, agreed. However I would like to suggest that SFFC
attempts to widen it's membership to educational institutions outside
the US. I can't do this in the UK as I am not currently studying (not
yet, at least) - but I think more could be done to promote student
free culture activism globally. I am very happy to work with SFFC to
acheive this in the UK (if you feel it would be worthwhile), despite
not being eligible to be a member of any student organisation.
Yes, this needs to happen. I'm currently studying in Munich, Germany,
and before leaving the States, I'd posted to this list about any
chapters I could be involved with while here. Elizabeth was kind enough
to hop on the issue for me, passing on my info to a certain "m.eik,"
but nothing ever came of it, even after I followed up. I haven't paid
much attention to the FC.org/SFFC bylaws, but I'm going to have to read
up on them. I didn't understand that students at foreign universities
were unilaterally excluded from membership. Is this true?
I think an artists free culture movement / organisation would be
very valuable - as so many of the debates about FC are framed in legal
/ technical terms, it'd be great to have a space where the same issues
could be discussed from a cultural / critical perspective, and I think
this would do a great deal to increase support for FC in the arts world
(where a lot of the same issues are discussed, albeit in different
terms). In general, i think the FC movement has a problem in
communicating with artists (due to the language difference described
above), and a dedicated artists' free culture organisation could do a
lot to address this. This was also the main rationale for the free art
manifesto i'm working on. Very keen to help get this going - would it
be appropriate to discuss this on this SFFC list, or elsewhere?
Many thanks,
Tim
Thanks for your support, and I'm very pleased to hear that you've
already covered much ground in regard to realizing this artist-friendly
FC community. For the time being, I suggest we remain on this listserv,
in order to garner more support. Once again, I welcome you all to
spread the word and/or participate yourselves in this development.
Of course, you are welcome to e-mail me off-list absolutely whenever,
Tim, if you think the that would be better.
Conor
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?
From: Conor
Schaefer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, 3 October 2007 9:03am
To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this
organization in particular
Subject: Re: [FC-discuss] FreeCulture.org is now
Students
for Free Culture
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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