Feross.org

I just called Congress.

Well, more specifically, I just called my congressional representative, Tom McClintock, and explained why Net Neutrality is important. This was my first time calling a member of Congress to voice my opinion on something directly. It was surprisingly easy to do. I might even say it was fun.

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Getting Immortal Technique's autograph for my brother.

Immortal Technique

Second famous rapper I’ve met this week: Immortal Technique — most famous for his political activism and political rap music. This guys’s a real rapper (unlike Chamillionaire, who is a commercial hip-hop artist sellout).

Immortal Technique is legit — he’s turned down half-million dollar offers to sign to major music labels like Sony and Def Jam because he doesn’t want to lose control over the content of his music. He’s often been criticized for the content of his music (listen to some and you’ll see why), but there’s more than a grain of truth to what he raps about.

I don’t have time right now to write a long blog post (I have 2 CS assignments due soon, 1 test on Monday, and 20 CS assignments to grade), so I’ll leave it at that. But, I encourage you to take a look at Technique if you haven’t heard of him before — he’s quite interesting.

There is a surprising amount of wisdom to be gleaned from bumper stickers (you know, those rectangular stickers people like to plaster all over their cars ). Most bumper stickers are meant to support this or the other politician, so they’re not that memorable.

But occasionally, I stumble on a particularly humorous or profound bumper sticker. So, a while ago I decided to start writing down the cool bumper sticker slogans I stumble upon.

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The Free Software Foundation’s latest free software campaign is hilarious and awesome!

In case you’re unfamiliar with the FSF, they’re a nonprofit corporation founded by free software activist and GNU hacker Richard Stallman. Their goal is to promote free and open source software. Their tactics often include comical publicity stunts to bash proprietary software.

This is the email I received this morning from the Free Software Supporter mailing list:

Hi everyone,

This Wednesday, August 26 at 11am, the Free Software Foundation will be launching its Windows7sins.org public awareness campaign, drawing attention to the threats posed by the adoption of Microsoft’s proprietary operating system. We have a launch event here in Boston on the Boston Commons from noon until 3pm, and we need everyone in the area to come along and help out and join in the ceremony as we conduct a ceremonial trashing of proprietary software.

**We’ll be launching our Windows 7 campaign with pomp and fanfare, with a giant 12 foot trashcan being filled with boxes of proprietary software.**

The event promises to be lots of fun, and with thousands of people passing through the Boston Commons every day we hope you will help us connect with the public by handing out information and explaining the benefits of free software. There will be camera crews and photographers capturing the event and we will be getting these images up online as soon as possible on the day.

Let us know you’re coming and bring along your friends and work colleagues – mail campaigns@fsf.org if you have time to help us set up, or just turn up at the Boston Commons near the entrance to the Public Gardens from noon.

If you’re not in the Boston area, there will be plenty for you to do to help us launch the campaign and get the message out. Stay tuned for upcoming instructions…

Thanks for your support!

–
Peter T. Brown
Executive Director
Free Software Foundation
www.fsf.org www.gnu.org

I think I’d go to the event — if not to dump my proprietary software, then to witness an event unlike any other I’ve heard of. Too bad I’m not in the Boston area.

Last week, I posted about how Google lost search market share, but overall US searches increased by 5%.

Now I have some more interesting news to report about those same statistics. When I first looked at the data, one of the figures struck me as a bit odd when I first saw it, but I didn’t post about it …until now.

The search engine with the largest growth in US search market share last month was Comcast. Say what?

Yup, you read that correctly. In fact, Comcast’s month-over-month search market share increased by 41%. Granted, they never had much of the search market to begin with, but still — 41% seemed like way too much for Comcast to ethically gain in a single month.

After some investigation, I discovered that Comcast has been up to something fishy.

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Flash animation about war and how it’s happened so many times before.

(See this flash animation and more @ FreeTheFlash.com)

For what can war but endless war still breed?

– JOHN MILTON, On the Lord General Fairfax

Note: This is the last post in a series of posts about freedom of speech on the Internet.

You should read:
Part 1 – Remix Culture
Part 2 – Broken Promises
Part 3 – Network (Classic 1976 Film)
Part 4 – Concentration of Media Ownership
Part 5 – George Orwell Rolls in His Grave
Part 6 – The Internet Revolution and Citizen Media
Part 7 – Remix Culture (…again)
Part 8 – Threats to Freedom of Speech on the Net
Part 9 – Yes We Can Regulate Culture with Copyright Law
Part 10 – Lawrence Lessig = Awesome

And now on to Part 11, the final post….

If I’ve driven any point home in my last ten posts, its been that freedom of speech is a basic, essential characteristic of western society. The Internet – what was largely an unanticipated consequence of military funded research – has turned out to be the most important democratizing force in the history of the world.

The Internet’s success has largely been due to its free and open nature. Its importance to the functions of western democracy, as well as its power to bring information and democracy to the rest of the world should not be underestimated. The flourishing of a “remix culture” has made possible new forms of social expression and Internet conversations that give power and influence to the young people of the world.

The Internet has been such a powerful force in the world for freedom of thought, freedom of information, and freedom of expression. We should not let anyone — especially powerful companies and governments — mess with our Internet.

It’s our job to increase the protection for free speech on the Internet and do our best to reform out-of-date and unjust government policies. We are the only ones who can protect our rights from those who seek to oppress us.

And with that, I will end my final post on this topic. Whew! Glad that’s over! Hopefully I haven’t bored anyone too much over the past few weeks. If I did my job then hopefully you learned something new and feel motivated and excited about freedom of speech on the net and want to support new and better copyright laws, net neutrality, and other related initiatives!

If you’d like further reading, then check out SaveTheInternet.com and SaveTheNews.org.

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Number of Creative Commons licensed works (IN MILLIONS), plotted over time

Lessig’s efforts to reform copyright involve two main points:

1.) The law should give up its obsession with “copy.”

In the digital world, “copying” is not a meaningful act, so the law should focus its attention on something more meaningful. There are dozens of proposals for alternative copyright models, which I do not have space to cover here. The essential point is that change is needed in the law. As Lessig puts it:

We need to deregulate a significant space of culture and focus the regulation where it can do some good.

In its current form, copyright law amounts to the regulation of culture, which was clearly not its original intent.

2.) The law should distinguish between amateur and professional copying.

The law should recognize the importance of remix culture to youth culture by distinguishing between amateur and professional copying. Copyright law should encourage both amateur and professional creativity by producing incentives for the professional and promoting freedom for the amateur.

For most of the twentieth century, John Philip Sousa’s worst fears about creative production were true: the “infernal machines” – cassette players, CD players, radio, TV – robbed human culture of its creativity and of its voice. He describes:

Never before in the history of human culture had its [creative works] production become as concentrated, never before had it become as professionalized, never before had the creativity of the ordinary person become as effectively displaced . . .

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“In 1906, John Philip Sousa traveled to the U.S. capital to speak about the technology which he referred to as the ‘talking machines’ [the record player]. John Philip Sousa was not a fan of the talking machines. This is what he had to say: ‘These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy . . . in front of every house in the summer evenings you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or the old songs. Today you hear the infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal chord left. The vocal chords will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape.’” [emphasis in the original]

– Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Professor of Law

Besides the threat of Internet censorship, Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig also recognizes copyright law as another threat to free expression on the Internet.

He has been an outspoken advocate for copyright law reform, proposing reduced legal restrictions on copyrights and trademarks in the digital realm. Lessig has dedicated most of his career to copyright reform; he sees it as the single most important issue that will define the success of the Internet in the future.

The current copyright situation for digital media. Neither professionals nor amateurs are allowed to copy or remix existing copyrighted works. (Photo courtesy Lessig).

The ideal copyright scenario, after Lessig’s suggested reforms have been implemented. He proposes that amateurs be allowed to remix and modify copyrighted works without limit (free use). Only professional copying is off-limits. The “grey areas” are left up to the copyright owner to decide (Photo courtesy Lessig).

He produces many blog posts, podcasts, and speeches arguing in great detail his reasons for proposing reduced copyright restrictions. Lessig argues that one of the most important triumphs of the Internet is its “remix culture” – a phrase that he coined to describe the widespread acceptance and encouragement of derivative works (works that include copyright protected elements of other works).

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Threats to Free Speech on the Net: Censorship and Copyright Law

Despite the universally recognized benefits of the Internet revolution by academics and millions of Internet users everywhere, some special interests seek to undermine the core feature that has made the Internet so successful: its freedom.

There are two main threats to freedom of speech on the Internet today.

The first threat to free speech on the Internet is website filtering and censorship by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Many Americans are unaware that Internet censorship is currently practiced in the United States. It’s true: the Associated Press recently caught Comcast secretly using Web filtering technologies similar to those used in China to censor the Internet.

The Creative Commons Logo. Awesome!

The second threat to free speech on the Internet is oppressive copyright law enforcement by media conglomerates like Viacom and Warner Brothers. The old-fashioned, literal interpretation of copyright law in a digital age is threatening to stifle the creativity of our generation by criminalizing our creative social behavior. Some awesome Stanford University professors have played a crucial role in the fight to defend free speech on the Internet. Lawrence Lessig, professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society has led the fight to preserve freedom on the Internet. Professor Lessig’s work to establish Creative Commons, a groundbreaking non-profit organization “devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally” has been one of his greatest successes.

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