Hello SFC,

The campaigning period for SFC Board Elections 2009 will close at Midnight PDT on April 5.

This is a reminder to candidates to add to and finalize their bios and statements on the Nominations page.  Remember, your statement can include any information that highlights your candidacy and any other offering to the SFC constituency. Look at these prompts if you are just getting started.

Anyone in the SFC community can still add to the open list of questions, thoughts or concerns to candidates for SFC Board09.  This is a great opportunity to bring up specific issues that interest you – just make sure you take advantage while there is still time for the candidates to respond!

Voting begins on April 6, 2009 – more details to follow.

For additional information on the 2009 SFC Board Election: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Board09/Election

Tim Hwang has a way of clearly articulating the path forward for Free Culture. Tim, formerly of Harvard Free Culture and now a Berkman Center researcher, recently gave a talk up at the University of Alberta that in many ways is a follow-up to his blog post prior to Free Culture 2008 that probed the future of Students for Free Culture.

In it, Tim posits that the copyfight – the effort started by Stallman, expanded by Lessig & traditionally undertaken by Students for Free Culture – is largely over. There are certainly important issues still at play in that cause, but as Tim explains in the speech here and slides below, the cause of digital freedom has evolved to include much more.

Three important changes in the digital ecosystem have given rise to new issues. In Tim’s thoughtful reckoning, cloud computing, increased bandwidth and broad web services have drastically changed the battle from one of well-structure copyright to one that involves previously unconsidered challenges including:

• Privacy, interoperability and portability
• Filtration
• Access to knowledge

As he notes, the Open University Campaign has positioned SFC to deal with many of these new battles for online freedom, but as we continue to move forward, it will be important to bear in mind the lessons Tim outlines. So take a listen and chime in with your comments!

It’s been about six months since the Free Culture 2008 Conference—time flies! Berkeley is happy to report that the conference was a great success. We got some good press, made some great connections, and generated a little money for the national organization. We were also treated to a barn-burner of a talk by Larry Lessig and finally got everyone together in one room. We’re so grateful to everyone who made the trip and can’t wait for the next event; we hope you had as much fun in the Bay Area as we do on a regular basis. Get hyphy.

What follows is an extremely tardy wrap-up post—call it a post-mortem. Many folks wondered where to find resources, so read on to see what’s available online.

Videos of the conference are now available in three ways. First, check out Free Culture @ Berkeley’s Blip channel (http://freecultureberkeley.blip.tv). Like any good video site, Blip will let you embed the videos on your blog and also download them for archival. They’re available in OGG at archive.org—search “free culture.” Alternately, you can check out FreeCulture.tv on Miro. The videos are licensed CC-BY, so go nuts—spread them all over the world, chop and screw them, burn them on DVDs and sell them. Just make sure SFFC gets a shout out. If you’d like source files, drop us a line at berkeley@freeculture.org.

Also, Alaskan FC-warrior Jacob Caggiano has some great interviews from the conference up on his Vimeo page.

Some great summary posts were written by Tim Hwang, Kevin Donovan, and others (if you’re ever in Mexico and need a Spanish translation of Lessig’s speech, look no further).

Lastly, you should also check out the fc2008 Flickr pool (just watch out: we share #hashtags with FurryCon 2008). I’m particularly fond of the lewd dancing at the afterparty—thanks again to Lone Wolf, ripley, Kid Kameleon, and Refusenik for spinning on the one’s and two’s.

By now everyone who needs reimbursement for travel should have received a check. If you haven’t, contact berkeley@freeculture.org and we’ll check the status. We apologize again for the delay in processing; the travel grants made possible by our generous sponsors Google and Mozilla required that we work with UC Berkeley’s business services, resulting in a longer-than-average reimbursement period. It’s definitely something that SFFC will be working to improve on for future events.

Speaking of future events—it’s about the right time to start plotting the next one. What should we focus on? Who should be there? What are our goals? Speak your mind in the comments!

(photocred: thanks, mecredis!)

Hello SFC!

Nominations for the 2009 SFC Board Election have officially opened!  Please see the following details about who is eligible to be nominated, how to nominate, and what to do if you are a nominee:

Who is eligible?

In order to be a candidate for the SFC Board, nominees must either be a current member of a SFC chapter or currently serving on the Board, per our Bylaws.

How to nominate someone:

Let the person you are nominating know that you are doing so.  Then, visit the Nominations page to make your nomination official by filling out the nominee’s information using the template provided.

To accept a nomination:

Once your sponsor has added your information to the wiki, you can accept the nomination by updating your bio and statement.  In order for your nomination to be considered accepted, you must write at least “Nomination Accepted” before the close of nominations at Midnight PDT on March 20, 2009.

On campaigning etc.

Nominees will have until April 5th to add to and finalize their bios and statements on the Nominations page.  The statement is an open forum for information relevant to your candidacy and an opportunity to address questions, thoughts or concerns from the SFC community to board nominees.

Nominations close at Midnight PDT on March 20, 2009.

For additional information on the 2009 SFC Board Election, including the updated schedule: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Board09/Election

One day conference dedicated to the commons! This event brings together both the commons movement in the copyright realm and the commons movement in the environmental realm to discuss the history and future of the commons and a legal systems that can protect or harms the commons.

This seminar stitches together many different threads of the commons: the historical perspective in a contemporary context, creative and artistic commons, software and “intellectual property” including patenting of life forms, personal and political commons, natural resources, media and telecommunications commons. The seminar beckons to lawyers, professors and judges whose legal training is framed by property rights and human rights, computer geeks and “techies,” humanists, political activists, food activists, and creative communities of various stripes.

Speakers include:
Eben Moglen- Founding Director, Software Freedom Law Center, Columbia School of Law
Margaret Chon – Professor for the Pursuit of Justice Seattle University School of Law and active member of the A2K movement
Cindy Cohn – Legal Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Laura Nader – Professor University of California Berkeley
Brian Rowe – Students for Free Culture Activist and Founder Freedom for IP
Beth Elpern Burrows – The Edmonds Institute
Nives Dolšak – Associate Professor University of Washington
Mark Leier – Professor Simon Fraser University
Robert Siegal – Center for Social Justice
Peter Linebaugh – Professor University of Toledo
Louis E. Wolcher - University of Washington School of Law
Steven A. Reisler – Steven A. Reisler PLLC and NLG Activist

Location:
Seattle University School of Law
1191 E. Columbia
Sullivan Hall, Corner of 12th at E. Columbia
Seattle, WA 98122-1090

Date: Friday March 13th

The cost to Students is free!
Read more at the Law of the Commons Web Site

Register at Seattle Univeristy CLE site