I read a Slashdot article a few moments ago that links to an NYTimes blog post by David Pogue discussing in stark terms a gap in how college students see copyright law when compared to the author. The discussion on the post is marvelous; one commenter brings up John Tehranian’s recent paper, “Infringement Nation: Copyright Reform and the Law/Norm Gap” (PDF). This paper assesses the daily legal liability of everyday actions of a hypothetical law professor:

All told, he has committed at least eighty-three acts of infringement and faces liability in the amount of $12.45 million (to say nothing of potential criminal charges). There is nothing particularly extraordinary about John’s activities.

The sharp commenter continues:

The point is that copyright law is way behind what is the norm in actual day-to-day life, and part of it is that “fair use” is not part of the law, it’s part of case law, which is far behind practice.

Pogue at the New York Times illustrates what we have long hoped: Many students already believe in some of the things Students for Free Culture does. We want a culture “where all members are free to participate in its transmission and evolution, without artificial limits on who can participate or in what way.” I personally think that the best way to pull people into the future of a culture based on sharing is not to simply take without asking, as in the “download a DVD without permission” example, but to both (1) make people understand the value of sharing their work, and (2) supporting those that do, like the growing numbers of people sharing their creative work under permissive licenses; many of our chapters agree.

We have dozens of active chapters today. Somehow the work we have done has often seemed distant or academic, perhaps deservedly so. But sometimes we’ve made our points in brutally obvious ways, from classic projects like Barbie in a Blender or Cereal Solidarity to newer projects like the Day of Action for Open Access to scholarly literature. Unified by a vision of sharing and openness, our students fight for their own rights to share their own work, argue that their universities and colleges could share more with the world, and explain why more access to knowledge and culture would be good public policy.

On more personal notes:

To all who have participated in chapters of Students for Free Culture, or worked with us on events, or helped organize other chapters (like me, our humble web team leader): Thanks. It’s refreshing to see our active members range from the pre-historic Nelson, whose first Free Culture chapter was founded before the name “Free Culture” described us, all the way to people like Tim who started his chapter this calendar year. I’m personally proud that we’re continuing the tradition of drawing from a broad group of students: filmmakers, technologists, law students, and artists, just to name a few labels.

To Downhill Battle: I miss your inspiring work and your amazing name.

To Jesus: Happy Birthday today (observed).

The movement toward a more free culture has united the strangest assortment of characters. Hip-hop DJs mingle with free software hackers, ivy league lawyers make smalltalk with teenage media activists, kindergarten teachers talk shop with dotcom millionaires. To overground this diversity, I am seeking a statement of your personal vision for a free culture future.

In other words, what does winning look like?

Imagine your life after five successful years working on your free culture projects. How is your day-to-day existence different? What does a city look like? How have the lives of your parents and friends changed? What does it feel like to live in a more free culture? Does it smell different? Sound different?

To contribute to this project, please visit the Developing Vision page on the Free Culture wiki. There you will find space to add your vision.

The submission deadline is on July 11.

In light of their National Day of Action on April 18, FreeCulture.org has signed Universities Allied for Essential Medicines‘ Philadelphia Consensus Statement.

The statement calls on universities to adopt policies that will increase the impact of biomedical research, specifically to improve access to essential medicines in developing countries. These policies emphasize an approach to managing patents resulting from university research that serves the public interest and recognizes the benefit of the public domain.

The statement has been endorsed by intellectual property experts such as Lawrence Lessig, James Boyle, Pamela Samuelson, and Yochai Benkler, in addition to luminaries in science and medicine, public health, and civil society.

The Philadelphia Consensus Statement represents a sincere effort to advance intellectual property policy in the public interest, and FreeCulture.org is proud to support UAEM’s efforts on this important subject.

UPDATED: The meeting room is L6 at 6 pm on Saturday.

I’m organizing an informal “free culture” caucus at the National Conference on Media Reform this weekend in Memphis, Tenn. Since the conference is large and broad in scope, we want to create an opportunity for people with a particular interest in Internet policy and intellectual property to meet and socialize.

The tentative time of this meeting will be during dinner on Saturday night, 6-8 pm. I’ll ask the conference organizers for a room where everyone can meet at 6 pm, and we’ll move on to a restaurant from there. Details will be posted at the information desk throughout the conference, as well as updated on this post. If you would like me to email or call you when the details are finalized, email me at grbaker@ufl.edu (with your phone number, if applicable).

If you’ll be in Memphis, I hope you’ll join us!

Like all advocates, we in the free culture movement sometimes struggle with how to talk about our issue so that the broader public can understand it. We also want them to care.

We assume that most folks are busy and don’t know much about free culture, and sometimes we also carry the unspoken assumption that If Only They Knew the facts, they’d change. Change their beliefs, habits, purchases, political decisions, whatever.

That’s why I was intrigued by a recent post from Tim Burke, musing about ways that people try to drum up interest in a cause:

[This is] a generally typical rhetorical strategy for trying to appeal to people for political or social discussions and meetings on a college campus or elsewhere, across a broad political spectrum. “Think that there’s no genocide in the world? Come learn the truth!”, or “Want to know the truth about liberal propaganda? Come hear our speaker!”.

There’s a kind of perverse logic embedded within the appeal, though. The audience allegedly addressed by the poster or notice is never actually the audience who responds to the information, or rarely so.

In other words, the people who show up to hear “The truth about Free Culture and corporate abuse of copyright!” are likely to already be sympathetic to our perspective.

Does that matter? Yes and no. If we want to build a group of people who care passionately about this issue, to work to change laws and dream up messages that will alter public policy, then the strategy Burke mentions is not a bad way to catch their attention.

Every movement needs some gutsy, hardworking activists. But we also need softer support. When a reactionary idea goes mainstream, it’s because most people think: “Duh! That’s obvious.” These days, it’s obvious that women should have the right to vote. In 1910, it wasn’t.

Back to Burke:

There’s nothing wrong with…trying to get roughly like-minded people together for a common effort. I don’t like it when I see such efforts clouded by appeals for dialogue, conversation, exploration, however. …I think those appeals are meant with great, in fact painful sincerity, which is a saving grace. But even so, it’s a terrible habit to get into…because it represents everyone with whom one disagrees as unenlightened, uninformed, as heathens yet-to-be converted to the true faith, not as people with worked-out convictions or even just some kind of substantive habitus which happens to diverge significantly from the premises of the group that’s trying to get together.

If we want to get our whole society to the “Duh! That’s obvious” response to Free Culture, we have to acknowedge not only that it might not be obvious to many people, but that they may have legitimate reasons for disagreeing.

It’s easy to speak out against bad laws and bad policies, and we should keep doing that, and advocating for better ones. But we should also admit that Free Culture in its purest form may never be obvious to mainstream Americans. And in figuring what elements will translate to the mainstream, we should talk with (not to) people who thoughtfully question our philosophy.

(Where are those thoughtful questioners? Crooked Timber’s Henry Farrell recently asked the same question.)

How do you get more than 1,000 students, faculty, and university visitors to become Free Culture advocates? Easy! Organize a mass serenade.

Free Culture’s Franklin & Marshall College chapter did just that, coordinating a massive (and officially sanctioned) sing-along rendition of “Happy Birthday” as part of the college’s recent 300th birthday celebration of founder Benjamin Franklin. This public performance actually broke the law — a perfect example of why we need copyright reform.

Read all about it on the F&M chapter blog. And then, for more exciting examples of Free Culture activism, check out what all our chapters are up to through the aggregated Chapter Blog on our website. Enjoy!

Nelson and I first met Kai at the “Free Culture Phase 2″ event organized at American University in May 2005, where he was one of the organizers working with AU’s Prof. Kathryn Montgomery in the School of Communications. Kai has also been a writer for Die Gegenwart, a German online magazine; more recently he’s started his own blog, Freihoch3. On Friday he published “The EFF is our mother”, an interview with me on free culture and the free culture movement, as well as FC.o and the international dimensions of free culture activism. Check it out—interview is in English, introduction in German.

It’s Thanksgiving, and we at FreeCulture.org are taking a minute to give thanks to organizations who advocate for free culture in all its guises. Below are just a few of the many organizations we appreciate.

Please show your appreciation by making a donation to a free culture organization you care about. Remember, even modest gifts of $5 or $10 are valuable, because they help show the IRS and others that these nonprofits truly have public support.

FC.o thanks:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, for being a strong, reliable presence on legal issues, and providing a variety of resources for free culture advocates.

Creative Commons, for showing the world what an alternative model of copyright can look like.

Public Knowledge, for their constant monitoring of pending legislation, and thoughtful efforts to educate policymakers.

Free Software Foundation, for their groundbreaking work to lay the foundation for the free culture movement.

Downhill Battle, for their innovative activism and especially their assistance in launching FreeCulture.org.

A Small Orange, for generously donating Web hosting to FC.o.

IPac, for translating the principles of the free culture movement into campaign reality. (Please note: IPac is a political action committee and not tax-exempt.)

We could go on and on — there are many other non-profits and NGOs doing important work for free culture and for cultural participation broadly. In addition, there are many businesses that support free culture financially and in their business practices. And there are many — probably thousands of — people responsible for the F/OSS software we use to run our organization. They are simply too many to name, but all of them deserve our gratitude.

Please feel free to thank your own favorite organizaton(s) in the comments.