Hello there, Lovers of Free Culture!

April 16th, 2008 by Chris Lay

I’m new to the fold, representing FreeCulture.org up in the, as Gavin and Nelson quickly discovered, still chilly city of Madison, Wisconsin. Nelson just cleared me for Blog take-off and gave me a few questions to kick things off with, so here I go!

~That’s me on the far left in the picture below~

Q: How did you get into free culture in the first place? What made you want to start a chapter?

I got interested in free culture issues long before i knew that an organization like this even existed. In 2004 I was taking a class at App State in North Carolina (my undergrad Alma Mater) called Art & Ideas that examined some of the philosophical questions pertaining to the art world. It was around this time that Dangermouse’s Grey Album came out, and i ended up framing my final paper for the class around the fair use issues that the work brought up. From there, i discovered the long-dormant illegal-art.org, John Oswald, Negativland, Fensler Films (the fine gentleman who brought us the GI JOE PSAs) and so many other mash-up artists that were creating new and challenging derivative works from the copyrighted flotsam and jetsam of pop culture. From there, i got interested in sampling laws which ended with me falling in love with hip-hop culture. I eventually wrote my undergrad thesis on the roots of that very culture, making sure to comment in the ways that DJs are recontextualizing old works for new ears.

Since then I’ve been interested in Intellectual Property issues, and of course the RIAA treating college students like hardened criminals has been something I’m very passionate about. Then, a few months ago, my friend Angela approached me asking if I’d be interested in starting up a local chapter here, since we didn’t have one, and obviously should. I leaped at the opportunity, and here we are!

Q: How did the Culture of Sharing event go? Did you get anything interesting out of it? How is starting a chapter working out for you?

The chapter so far is going great! We’re still in the process of applying for Club/Organization status, but we’re already looking forward to showing Good Copy Bad Copy and maybe one more documentary before the semester is over.

The Culture of Sharing Forum was a great success in my eyes and those of everyone i talked to. It was the first public presence for us on campus and it really showed how much support we have from the faculty, which is a great thing to experience. I was only able to participate in the DRM breakout session, but there was a very interesting dialog between the participants and the facilitators. It sounded like the other break out sessions were very well received as well. We even got written up in The Daily Cardinal the very next day!

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Students’ Open Response To H.R. 4137 and H.R. 3746

December 14th, 2007 by Kevin Driscoll

Last month, the U.S. chapters called our representatives to let them know about a flaw in H.R. 4137 and H.R.3746, two important education bills. We let people know that in its current form, the proposed legislation to renew the Higher Education Act of 1965 includes provisions that could unnecessarily burden networked computing in academic institutions. Despite our best efforts, however, the bills made it out of committee with the troubling language intact.

To emphasize our concern, we have drafted a Students for Free Culture Open Response to H.R. 4137 and H.R. 3746 that outlines the weaknesses embedded in the bills as written. Please take a moment to read the letter and share your thoughts in the comments section of this blog post. Please share it with your fellow students. We’d love to add more chapters to the list of supporters!

In addition, the XHTML/CSS version of the open response was designed very minimally so that you can easily adapt it to the needs on your campus. Perhaps you might re-use some of the text for an article in the newspaper? Perhaps it might provide the foundation for a letter to your administration?

There is still time to ensure that Higher Education Act is renewed without language that could hinder the use of technology on college campuses in the U.S.

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