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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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.

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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Remix Culture: The Early Years

One of the most exciting – albeit unintended – developments to arise from the Internet revolution is the development of cyberculture: social networks, online games, chat, USENET, bulletin board systems, e-commerce, peer to peer networks, and virtual worlds. With these new technologies, people are creating new forms of social expression, mash-ups, and cultural conversations. These social expressions and Internet conversations were made possible by the convergence of technologies like YouTube, cheap video cameras, and the free video editing software that comes included with most computers.

Anyone with access to a $300 computer and camera can now take sounds and images from the culture around them and remix them to express ideas in an extremely powerful way. The techniques of video production, once only available to movie studios and TV networks, has been democratized and unleashed for use by the masses.

The Internet enables people from around the world to engage in this new form of collaborative creativity and be part of the conversation no matter where they live in the world.

Update: You should read:
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
Part 11 – Final Thoughts

The awesome, organic interlinking structure of the Blogosphere.

“Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Internet Revolution: Diversification Via Citizen Media

The rise of Internet technology at the beginning of the twenty-first century permanently changed the media landscape for the better. Widespread availability of Internet access, free online publishing platforms like WordPress (which runs this blog) and Blogger, and a fermenting desire for a journalism revolution combined to quickly revolutionize the modern media landscape.

The development of the modern Internet “blogosphere”—the collection of blogs and their interconnections—form a social network in which individuals can share their views with a global audience quickly, easily, and at little to no cost. No editor or central authority can screen blog content for its political message or appropriateness. In short, anything and everything goes.

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Note: This is Part 4 in a series of posts about freedom of speech on the Internet. You should read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 first.

The voice of the common man cannot be heard when the control of the press is concentrated among such a small number of players.

“Political freedom is a society’s safety valve, allowing the passionately critical a nonviolent way to express their dissatisfaction with the status quo.”

– David Cole, “Quotes on Democracy”

While the “diverse spectrum” of corporate news outlets has created the illusion of a free and fair press, the increasing trend of media consolidation over the last two centuries is even beginning to threaten this illusion. Corporate media consolidation – the majority of media outlets being owned by a small number of conglomerates and corporations – is an increasing problem that threatens free and fair political discourse in the United States.

Americans are increasingly realizing the negative implications that concentration of media ownership is having on free and fair political discourse. Former CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite, who has lobbied the FCC against adopting relaxed media ownership guidelines, was quoted in BusinessWeek as saying, “The gathering of more and more outlets under one owner clearly can be an impediment to a free and independent press.”

This gathering of outlets under one owner has only increased over the past 25 years. I read that “In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. . . . In 2004, only 5 huge corporations – Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch’s News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) – now control most of the media industry in the U.S.”

If political freedom is a society’s safety valve, what happens when the means to express this political freedom are controlled by interests that wish to maintain the status quo? In this system, how can “passionately critical Americans” express their dissatisfaction?

Short answer: they cannot; they have no voice, no free speech.

Update: You should read:
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
Part 11 – Final Thoughts