Listening For the Right Reasons

Wired News ran an article yesterday about Free Culture...no not the book but the group.  As can be read in their manifesto, the mission of Free Culture is "to build a bottom-up, participatory structure to society and culture, rather than a top-down, closed, proprietary structure."  Nelson Pavlosky, co-founder of Free Culture Swarthmore is hosting a free culture fest this week to promote his group, educate college students, and get people involved. 

Free Culture follows in the footsteps of groups like Creative Commons and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  But Free Culture is aimed more at young people."The (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and Creative Commons are doing really good work, but people our age don't seem to know about it," he said. "If we could show (students) how this is relevant to their lives, they would be really excited and involved in the movement."   The group basically wants young people, college age students, to take notice of copyright issues and get involved.  This free culture fest involves various activities like Project Undead Art, which challenges students to remix the public domain work Night of the Living Dead, and various speakers. 

I genuinely think that groups like this are a great idea.  Anything that gets young people aware of issues that affect their daily lives can't be a bad thing.  I am just a little worried that the majority of students will be missing the big picture.  Pavlosky recognizes some of the misconceptions that people may have about this group.  "The danger we face is being labeled rich white kids who want free music," he said. And he is correct.  Someone threw up a rather negative post on the group's blog recently. It said this...

"Culture is everywhere… Not only is it free, but we can’t possibly avoid it. Some movie or song might be an aspect of culture, but it doesn’t equal culture. I’d recommend renaming your movement 'Free Stuff for Rich White Kids.'"

This is a harsh comment, but one that is probably a valid concern for many people.  The main reason is that with our current copynorms, many of us have become leeches.  Young people hear the word "free" and they come running without knowing what they are getting as long as they don't have to pay for it.  It is hard to imagine too many young people becoming involved with a movement like this who actually understand the copyright reforms that they are fighting for or how the current system actually affects their lives.  As expressed in the above comment, many people think of our generation as a bunch of bums who can afford to pay for music and movies but choose not to because we don't get caught.  Desirina at Free Culture did write a nice response to the previously mentioned post.  It read...

"That’s an interesting comment Chuck, but you clearly haven’t done much research on what FreeCulture.org stands for. We appreciate the work of artists at Magnatune and Creative Commons, artists who are dedicated to making their work available in order to build a rich digital commons. But part of the reason we appreciate their work is because we understand that we are all artists. We are dedicated to fostering the efforts of artists-in-training, so that we can produce work for this digital commons as well as enjoy what is already in it. “Free” doesn’t necessarily mean “Free Stuff". Culture may be everywhere, only when we all participate in creating it, will it actually be Free: “Free” as in “Open to All". "

I hope this helped straighten out that angry blogger.  He is missing the point.  But he is missing it in a way that I am sure many others are as well.  Because of all of the recent p2p publicity and people's misconception that sharing digital files is "stealing" in the classical sense of the word there are a lot of people that believe that our generation is filled with a bunch of thieves.  I guess on that same note, many members of our generation believe themselves to be thieves and just do not care because they have not been caught and as of yet the benefits outweigh the costs substantially.  So the only thing that concerns me about a movement like this is that many young people will not understand what they are actually taking part in.  Will people understand what Free Culture is actually fighting for, or will many college students see this group as the people who are trying to make it so that we never have to pay for music again?  Maybe I am not giving our generation enough credit.  After all, a lot of us did get out and vote because Puff Daddy told us to. 

On a final note, I do think what Free Culture is doing is great.  The more people know about these issues the better.  I just hope that college students around the country are actually listening to what they have to say...and listening for the right reasons. 

Comments

[Aaron Hand]

Free is not leeching. Sure, tell a bunch of law students that there will be free pizza, and predict whether you will have an audience.

The music industry is as much to blame as every other money making industry out there. We are conditioned by the marketing around us. Tell people they get something for free and they will pay attention. It draws people in. It makes them pay attention. A lot of companies look at the cost of giving something away for free, and then evaluate how much more they will make as a result. The fact so many companies give product away is evidence that the marketing strategy, as a whole, works.

Chipotle is a good example. Give away a bunch of free burritos to your target audience, as their San Diego stores did yesterday. You get a line of 75-100 people filling your parking lot. People driving by notice (hopefully they didn't focus on all of the Ugg boots and skirts, but that's another story). And now you have 1000 members of your target audience that know where your 6 San Diego stores are located. They had no idea before. And now they do. And there will be more sales, in the long run, as a result.

I think that the music industry discounts the POSITIVE effect this has on them.

[Eric Bailey]

Hey, guys,

The movement isn't limited to colleges. In fact, I'm pretty close to having a chapter at my high school. I encourage anyone who reads this to try to make a chapter (if there isn't already one) where they live or go to school. People have been talking about making groups in their communities and such too. The movement is definitely gaining steam and is branching out more and more.

Nice post by the way,

Eric

[John Lotfi]

Some highlights from the Free Culture Manifesto:

We believe that culture is a two-way affair, about participation, not merely consumption. We will not sit at the end of a one-way media tube and buy things until we look like the people on Friends. With the Internet and other advances, the technology exists for a new paradigm of creation, one where anyone can be an artist, and anyone can succeed, based not on their industry connections, but on their merit.

The freedom to build upon the past is necessary for creativity and innovation to thrive. We will use and promote our cultural heritage in the public domain.

We will fight to make everyone understand the value of our common wealth, evangelizing for Linux and the open-source model.

We won't allow the RIAA and the MPAA to cling to obsolete modes of distribution through bad legislation and market dominance.

The future is in our hands; we must build a technological and cultural movement to defend the digital commons.

And the Free Culture Movement is not just limited to music and art; the Biotech Flyer speaks of corporations patenting agricultural techniques that farmers have developed in their own families over generations - depriving these farmers of using their own methods to farm. If that makes somene think "wtf, that's not cool," then they can print up a couple flyers and plaster them on their school to educate others and get more people to join the Free Culture Movement! (Did that last sentence really deserve an exclamation mark? Perhaps not - it's just that I'm easily excited.)

I think the Free Culture movement can be summarized best with this quote:

Historically, copyright law has been crafted by lobbyists for powerful copyright owners who represent the software, music and movie industries...consumers have not had a place at the bargaining table, and that will continue until they demand a seat.

And these Free Culture groups are demanding a seat. I say they also make a Free Culture March on the Free Culture Senate and demand Hatch's Free Culture Head on a Free Culture Platter, but I guess it's baby steps first. Free Culture Baby Steps first.

[Tommy O'Reardon]

Aaron,
Probably not a shocker but I tend to disagree with your leeching/free analysis. I think you make a valid point that "free" doesnt necessarily denote a losing prospect for the company giving away the "free" stuff. BUT there is a huge difference b/w Chipotle that CHOOSES to give away food for a day to attract customers, and consumers taking as "free" something which the company does not intend to give away (copyrighted songs). It would be like if USD students started taking burritos (ignore rivalrousness) from Chipotle with the practical certainty that they would not be returning paying customers and then tried to rationalize it by saying, "dont be mad in the long run you will thank us." The positive effect on profitability for copyright owners is zero.