It seems, from the example of the RIAA, that copyright enforcement can be the last vestiges of a dying business model. Gripping to government created monopoly has postponed the demise of record labels that is becoming evident from the recent developments concerning Nine Inch Nails and Madonna.

Two recent developments show that the internet’s effects on the music industry is being mirrored in the textbook business. At the beginning of this school year, the Harvard Coop bookstore was reportedly kicking out students who were writing down book prices for online comparison shopping. The management claimed copyright over the prices, but public outcry, led by Harvard’s own, seems to have mitigated the issue. After all, one can’t copyright facts.

More recently, the Follett Higher Education Group has sued Ugenie. Follett, purveyor of textbooks to many college students (including me), claims that Ugenie has violated both the Terms of Service and the DMCA by “scrapping” prices from the efollett.com site and providing comparison price shopping services. Wired’s Threat Level blog details the charges here. And a useful analysis of the intellectual property claim is here.

While the merits of the case are up for debate, I think it is clear that the consumer (students) are set to lose if Follett prevails. Both the Coop and Follett are attempting to use government created monopoly to limit competition and as anyone who has taken Econ 101 can tell you, a lack of competition means higher prices - in this case, for the textbooks which are already so expensive.

Yesterday, Google introduced its automatic copyright filter for YouTube. The service will compare user-submitted content against copyright owner-submitted content. Content submitted by users which matches that of the copyright owners will be flagged for either: blocking, promoting or revenue sharing.

As I have said before, a binary solution to a non-binary problem is dangerous. The issue of copyright is not black or white - principles like fair use make copyright a subjective matter of which a computer is not the best judge.

According to Gigi Sohn at Public Knowledge, a few seconds of matching will not be sufficient to block the submitted video, but because fair use can be much longer than a few seconds (think about the documentary Outfoxed), this places a previously absent burden upon YouTube users.

Before these binary solutions, copyright owners needed to challenge reuses they thought were not fair use. Now, citizens need to justify their fair use.

As you may already know, Students for Free Culture was in the New York Times on Wednesday (File-Sharing Students Fight Copyright Constraints), which made us very happy except for some inaccuracies that crept into the article. Here is the letter to the editor that my fellow Board member Elizabeth Stark sent to the NY Times in response, and which happily was published:

Free in Speech, Not Cost

In “File-Sharing Students Fight Copyright Constraints” (Education page, Oct. 10), Students for Free Culture is portrayed as an organization that promotes the illegal consumption of music and movies free of cost. In fact, we deeply believe that authors and creators should be compensated for their work, and we are eager to promote ways to do so in an environment where the world can build upon their creations.

For example, an author may release a book under a free copyright license, spurring on sales, or a band may allow fans to share and remix their songs, selling out concerts as a result.

We stand for a culture where everyone has the right to participate and where works are made available for all to legitimately access, share and remix. This is a culture that is “free as in speech” — not necessarily one that is free of charge.

Elizabeth Stark
Cambridge, Mass., Oct. 10, 2007

The writer is a founder of the Free Culture Group at Harvard.

(Elizabeth has released the letter under a Creative Commons Attribution license.)

There are some other incorrect facts and misleading implications in the article (which we may address in future posts), but we’re just glad to have mainstream media recognize the importance of the free culture movement as a whole and Students for Free Culture in particular, even if they don’t seem to fully understand what “free culture” means.

One result of the new bylaws that our chapters just ratified is that our name is changing officially from “FreeCulture.org” to “Students for Free Culture”. While we finish the name change, there will be a period where our branding is inconsistent and confusing… we apologize in advance!

One problem that we’ve run into repeatedly in the past is that people have been confused about the exact nature of our organization upon hearing our name. For example, at our last US national conference, many people showed up who were not aware that we were a student organization, and many of them didn’t figure this out until the end of the conference. This name change reaffirms our focus on student activism on campuses across the country and around the world.

There has been some talk about starting an alumni organization for people who have graduated and are no longer involved with a chapter, as well as talk about starting a separate organization that is open to anyone regardless of whether they are a student or involved with a university community or not. If either of those things happen, you can rest assured that you will read about it here. Until then, we will put our efforts into educating and organizing the next generation of movers and shakers, and do that one thing to the best of our abilities.

I’m pleased to announce that the new FreeCulture.org bylaws have been approved by our beloved chapters. The bylaws require no quorum and simply that 3/4 of the votes given by registered chapters be in support of their approval. (Earlier today I misunderstood those bylaws and thought that 3/4 of the chapters must actually vote. I’d like to apologize again for that. That’s probably the first substantive misinterpretation of the bylaws, and I wonder if it will be the last.)

The votes are: 13 for, 1 against, and 4 votes I couldn’t count in the real total. This brings to a close a hard process that I dropped out of because it was so hard, and it should set the stage for more clarity in the role and activity of FreeCulture.org. Here are the votes I received in no particular order:

Chapters voting for the bylaws were: UNC Chapel Hill, Swarthmore College, Brown Free Culture, the American University in Cairo, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, NYU, Virginia Tech, University of Southern California, Chadwick Free Culture, Seattle University Law Free Culture, Florida State University, Northeastern Free Culture, Free Culture 5C.

Chapters voting against the bylaws were: Harvard College.

Groups not yet registered with us but sending in votes (all were for ratification) claimed to represent: Northwestern University, Monterrey, University of Chicago.

Chapters voting late (all were for ratification): Columbia University.

It’s been a pleasure receiving your votes, even as I am now embarrassed that I urged some of you to vote under the misunderstanding that a quorum of 3/4 of the chapters was necessary.

(One thing I’ve learned from this, which I secretly already knew, is that the chapter registration system is confusing. Sorry about that, too.)

UPDATE: Nelson sez: If you’re wondering why passing the bylaws was good/important, you might want to check out Gavin Baker’s comments on the bylaws.

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.

NBC recently filed comments for the FCC recommending that ISPs be required to screen all the traffic passing over their network for copyright infringement. The social and economic costs of such a system would be enormous, and that’s on top of the concerns of technical feasibility!

Last week, FreeCulture.org signed a response statement along with Consumer Federation of America, EDUCAUSE, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Free Press, Knowledge Ecology International, Media Access Project, New America Foundation, Public Knowledge, and U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

NBC Universal (“NBC”) has asked the Commission to require that broadband providers “use readily available means to prevent the use of their broadband networks to transfer pirated content.” While we agree that there are appropriate ways to discourage copyright infringement on the Internet, NBC’s call to require that broadband providers use “bandwidth management tools” to effect this end is misguided. Any attempt to use this technology to control what may be done on the Internet will have serious unintended consequences. Particularly, these technologies limit First Amendment freedoms, stifle innovation, threaten personal privacy, and do little to address the underlying problem. Additionally, NBC’s proposal invites the FCC to exceed its jurisdiction.

You can read the full comments on Public Knowledge’s site or as a PDF.

Also check out NBC’s original comments (PDF link) for a good laugh, and Public Knowledge’s coverage and commentary.

Are you interested in volunteering for FreeCulture.org and helping to bring free culture to campuses across the United States and around the world? Now is the time to join us and lend a hand!

Tonight, Sunday July 22nd, at 8pm EDT (calculate your time zone), we will be holding an online meeting to discuss the various ways that people can volunteer with FreeCulture.org and advance the cause of free culture among students everywhere. It will take place in our IRC channel at #freeculture in irc.freenode.net (more info on IRC), an internet chat room that anyone can join. You can see the agenda for the meeting on our wiki ahead of time, and after the meeting is over minutes should eventually appear there as well.

Whether you can make this meeting or not, if you are interested in volunteering please join the Volunteers mailing list, and we will send you information about future meetings and other relevant information.

There are plenty of opportunities for people who are not members of a chapter, so anybody who is interested in helping us out should feel free to attend this meeting and join the Volunteers mailing list.