Hey folks, I’d just like to note that I’m giving a talk about the Diebold case and FreeCulture.org at the University of Pennsylvania on Monday night. I’ve updated the graphics for my presentation a bit with Karen’s help (thanks, Karen!), so it will be even prettier than it has been in the past ^_^ The event will take place at 8:00 pm on Nov 20, 2006 at the King’s Court English House, in the 1938 Lounge. If you need directions, it’s at 3465 Sansom Street in Philadelphia. If you are not a UPenn student and you would like to attend, please RSVP through the Facebook event or by leaving a comment here, so that I can put your name on a list of people who are allowed in. Otherwise you may be ejected by UPenn’s robot guardians, or perhaps devoured by a large three-headed dog.

You should especially come to this talk because UPenn’s free culture club is kind of short on members and could use some support, which is odd given that most of the freshmen at UPenn supposedly read the book Free Culture over the summer as their freshman reading project. Penn Free Culture founder Steve McLaughlin also wrote an excellent article at the beginning of the semester for the student newspaper, “Free Our Culture: How to Be an Engaged Media Consumer, and Why You Should Care“. Unfortunately that site is loading very slowly right now, apparently because they’re using Haloscan for some reason and Haloscan.com is slow… so I’ll reproduce the piece in full here: Read the rest of this entry »

FreeCulture.org has joined the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, which supports open public access to taxpayer-funded research. We join other student groups such as Universities Allied for Essential Medicines and the American Medical Student Association as members, along with a long list of universities, libraries, patients, and public interest groups.

Our reasons for joining are two-fold:

1. As the leading group of student advocates for the public interest in intellectual property and information & communications technology, we recognize access to research as a defining issue for our generation. Public access will lead to faster cures and treatments for disease, improve scholarship and research, and promote development. Whether it’s brilliant photos of space, GIS data, or scholarly journal articles, the people have a right to what they pay for. Access to publicly-funded research, and open access generally, is simply the right thing to do.
2. As students, we work with academic research all the time. After all, who isn’t required to write a research paper at some time or another? Whether it’s a term paper or a doctoral dissertation, scholarship always builds on the past. That requires access to the work of those who’ve come before us.

FreeCulture.org is proud to support the alliance’s work on behalf of the Federal Research Public Access Act and other efforts. Here at the University of Florida, we worked with the Student Senate to pass a resolution supporting FRPAA and open access — and succeeded. We hope to work with ATA to provide more information and resources to engage students on the issue in the future.

It’s that time of year again. From now until December 31, Creative Commons is holding their second annual fundraiser. Besides the usual donating cash, buying swag, or spreading the word, this year there are two new ways to support CC:

First, Creative Commons and viral video site Revver have teamed up to spread the CC message and fundraise at the same time. Creative Commons has uploaded several of their best videos to Revver, including new video “Wanna Work Together?”. Normally Revver splits ad revenue from uploaded videos 50/50 with the creator; until the end of the year, however, 100% of the money goes to Creative Commons! So watch some videos, click some ads, and send them around. It’s an easy way to help fundraise.

Second, Creative Commons is hosting a CC Swag Photo Contest! Just take a funky picture of Creative Commons merchandise (t-shirts, stickers, whatever), license it CC-BY, and upload it to Flickr. (Full rules and whatnot are on the contest site.) Each week from now until December 18, Creative Commons will choose a winner and feature their photo on the Creative Commons website. At the end of the contest, two overall winners will each get 100 copies of a CC informational postcard featuring their photo and a personalized voicemail announcement recorded by the Creative Commons board member of his or her choice!

This week’s winner was FreeCulture.org board member Gavin Baker with his CC frisbee. Think you can do better? Get photographin’!

Last week, our pals at the EFF released the Bloggers’ FAQ on the Freedom of Information Act. The document is the latest addition to the EFF’s series of legal guides for bloggers. From the announcement:

“Online journalism makes a unique contribution to America’s vibrant culture of free speech,” said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. “Using the Freedom of Information Act is a powerful way to shed light on government activities and foster critical public debate about the discoveries.”

FreeCulture.org supports citizen journalism as part of a free and vibrant media landscape. We believe that all people have the right to open government.

Last March, we organized Blogshine Sunday to highlight bloggers’ experiences gaining access to government information. Efforts like the EFF’s guide will place bloggers and independent journalists on even better footing to hold governments accountable.