Free Culture.org is joining the call for a chain-wide boycott of Regal Cinemas over their draconian punishment of a 19 year-old girl caught taping 20 seconds of the Transformers film. We demand that Regal Cinemas drop all charges against Jhannet Sejas, and that the entertainment group issue a full apology to the teen.

From a recent Washington Post article on Jhannet’s arrest:

“I was terrified,” said Sejas, her voice breaking. “I was crying. I’ve never been in trouble before.” She said the assistant manager of the theater saw her holding up the Canon Power Shot and reported it to the general manager, who called police.

Sejas said she had no intention of selling the 20-second film clip. She just wanted to show it to her 13-year-old brother, who had said he wanted to see the movie. She was shocked when the officers showed up.

Sejas faces up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500 when she goes to trial this month in the July 17 incident. Arlington police spokesman John Lisle said it was the decision of Regal Cinemas Ballston Common 12 to prosecute the case, a first for Arlington police.

While the question of whether or not Jhannet’s Transformers clip counts as fair use (it is our opinion that it does, as it is private, non-commercial use of an unsubstantial portion of the original), there is another question we should be asking, and that is whether or not we should be patronizing a corporation that insists on pressing charges against someone who is clearly not the intended target of anti-piracy laws. Regal Cinemas should be ashamed of itself and its silly zero-tolerance policy.

Click here to Digg the story and help publicize our Boycott!

Click here for a page where you can find Regal Cinemas in your area.

We wish Jhannet the best of luck in defending herself against Regal Cinemas and hope that the chain will soon realize how inappropriate its actions were.

FreeCulture.org has always been about getting action on the ground and creating chapters that make an impact in their local communities. But the network that has tied these chapters together, and even inspired them to start, has always been the Internet.

Recently we had the pleasure of unveiling a new website, and as Web Team Leader I want to go one step further: What could freeculture.org’s technology do to make your life of promoting Free Culture easier?  How can we retain volunteers, put them to use, get the right information to them, and respond to the public’s desire to know more about us?

Unfortunately, neither I nor the other volunteers who have contributed technical help have infinite time, so there’s no way we’ll get to every task on the wishlist.  But the only way we can know what you need is if you come by.  So this is an announcement:

Meeting:

• Where: #freeculture (go to our “Contact” page for more info on using IRC, including a web-based chat client)
• When: 5 PM Eastern Time (convert to your time zone) on Sunday 12 August, 2007
• More info: Meeting planning page on our wiki

The meeting’s goal is to help the web team understand what tools would help people already involved with FreeCulture.org activities to grow or improve those activities. That’s anyone from chapter members to bloggers to IRC lurkers. If you want to get involved, then come too and we’ll see if you can help us understand how to keep you involved.

– Asheesh.

July 20th, 2007, the US House of Representatives approved a measure directing the National Institute of Health (NIH) to require free, online access to agency-funded research within 12 months of publishing in a peer-reviewed journal. Open Access advocates praised the provision, passed with broad, bipartisan support as part of the FY2008 Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Bill. “This action paves the way for all scientists and citizens to access, use, and benefit from the results of publicly funded biomedical research,” said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, and a leader of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access. 26 Nobel Laureates called for mandatory public access to NIH research in a recent letter to congress, citing the Human Genome Project and benefits of public access to research. Less than 5% of eligible, individual research has become publicly accessible under the current, voluntary NIH Public Access Policy.

We are a member of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, and this is something we’ve been working towards for a long time! You may recall our national day of action for open access, when we tabled and held other events on campuses across the country in support of a similar bill. It’s very gratifying to see this pass the House, and we can only hope that with your help we can make sure this gets through the Senate when that comes to a vote as well.