Monthly Archives: July 2005

Elizabeth may get a chance to sneak in one last post from Defcon — if she doesn’t get hacked — but I’ll go ahead and wind things down. Thanks to Larry for having us, and thanks to you readers for coming to hear a bit about us. Your feedback is well appreciated. Keep in touch: subscribe to our announcements mailing list and swing by our blog from time to time. Feel free to join the discussion as well. Snag one of our T-shirts, and give a listen to Creative Common’s birthday gift to us. We’re young and busy: we need… Continue reading →

If you’ll excuse the blatant self-promotion, we’d like to let you know that you can support FreeCulture.org by buying one of our new, snazzy t-shirts for only $20 shipped in the US and Canada, or $27 internationally. Continue reading →

I love public libraries. As a kid, I spent most of my lazy Saturday afternoons inside one of the various branches of our library system, delighted at the idea that, wherever I looked, there would be stories, magazines, or books on virtually any subject to capture my attention. The feel of the library was no less captivating. An ethos of learning and relaxation definitely hung in the air, bringing together people of all ages — from pre-schoolers to senior citizens — into the midst of a Renaissance-like mesh of scientific thinking and artistic expression. At any given moment at a… Continue reading →

You could say that I grew up with free culture, or that free culture grew up along with me. Free culture as a coherent movement is young, although you could say that its roots go back to the beginning of print culture, since before we had bloggers we had independent pamphleteers like Thomas Paine. It could go back to the beginning of culture itself, since before we had DJs we had the remixing and appropriation inherent in oral cultures of the past and present. Still, only recently have people been connecting the dots, with the help of the democratizing power… Continue reading →

One of my friends at school got a shiny, brand-new Nikon D70 as a graduation gift and was, obviously, excited about the creative possibilities that it would provide. She already enjoyed browsing my photos on Flickr, so it was no surprise to me that she soon had an account of her own and started posting a few shots from her new camera.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the question she asked me a few days later. Continue reading →

One of the criticisms of the free culture movement in general has been that there are far too many academics and geeks talking about the potential perils of overreaching control over information, and not nearly enough artists. If the artists really believed that this is a threat to culture, the skeptics say, they would act out. While I do definitely agree that our organization and the movement as a whole need to engage those who are creating art, music, and other creative works, there are a lot of young people out there who are doing exactly the type of work… Continue reading →

Howdy there: I’m Gavin Baker, a rising sophomore at the University of Florida and co-founder of the Free Culture group there. I hope this week will give Larry’s readers a chance to learn more about us, and prompt some valuable discussion. I’m writing from an Internet café in Montréal, Québec, where I’m travelling and taking French at l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Besides the observations that naturally arise from contact with a foreign country and culture, I’ve also had the chance to meet some of Canada’s leaders in the free culture movement, about which I’ve written previously on the Free… Continue reading →

A few months ago, we were considering organizing candlelight vigils on the night before the Grokster oral arguments at the Supreme Court, “vigils for innovation.” We decided against it, however, because many of our members felt that it would be too melodramatic. Usually candlelight vigils are held when people die, or on the eve of a war when many people are expected to die, and it’s unlikely that anyone will die as a direct result of the Grokster decision, although technological innovation may suffer. This leads to an interesting question: when we speak of taking the free culture movement off… Continue reading →

Hey, I’m Sid Srivastava, a rising senior at Columbia University, currently in the process of setting up a FreeCulture.org chapter at my school. I look forward to good discussion about the free culture movement in campus settings and other educational environments. One of the challenges of spreading free culture, at least among college students, is convincing them they can still participate in the movement even if they aren’t artists, hackers, or copyright nerds. I’ve talked to a number of students who seem interested in the ideals of free culture but, for whatever reason, aren’t compelled enough to get involved directly…. Continue reading →

Hey folks, this is Nelson Pavlosky, co-founder and official figurehead/scapegoat of FreeCulture.org. I’d like to thank Larry for inviting myself and my colleagues to post on his blog; it’s an honor to share a stage with amazing people like Cass Sunstein and Jimbo Wales! Everyone at FreeCulture.org (FC.o) wanted to be a guest blogger for Larry, of course. While we managed to select five of our best bloggers to represent the organization, this is still the largest number of people who have blogged for Lessig at once. Therefore, we’ve decided to stick to several common themes, in order to provide… Continue reading →