Photo used in Music 2.0 book

Posted on 29 February 2008
Filed under Creative Commons, DRM, Florida, Gainesville, Music, Personal, Students for Free Culture
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This photo I took, of Florida Free Culture’s protest on Defective By Design’s “Day Against DRM” in October 2006, has been used in the book Music 2.0 by Gerd Leonhard. (It’s a photo of the 34th Street Wall in Gainesville, Fla.) He used the photo under the terms of its Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. I received a courtesy copy from the author in the mail today. The book is available for purchase or free download from its Web site.

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One less hat to wear

Posted on 11 February 2008
Filed under Personal, Students for Free Culture
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Today was the final meeting of Students for Free Culture’s old proto-board, on which I’ve served since 2005 (give or take — as Facebook would say, it’s complicated — or, it was). Best wishes to the new board. I look forward to great things.

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My $0.02 on the future of Students for Free Culture

Posted on 26 December 2007
Filed under Personal, Students for Free Culture
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As I announced some months ago, my term on the board of Students for Free Culture will expire with the upcoming election (scheduled for Jan. 14 - Feb. 3), and I’m not running for re-election. Instead, I’ll be (as I called myself in September) “an alumnus who’s willing to lend a hand if asked”. As I wrote then:

The extent of my future involvement will be: I am willing to continue serving the organization in an advisory role. I am interested in establishing an alumni network of others who have graduated. I may be willing to volunteer on specific projects.

In light of the pending elections, I want to invoke my prerogative to offer some unsolicited advice. I’m not running for re-election, and I’m not endorsing candidates, but here’s my take on what voters should consider when it’s time to cast their ballots. (For what it’s worth, I haven’t reviewed the candidates’ platforms, nor the debates [1 and 2], so this is not a comment on anything the candidates themselves have said.) I hope this will also be useful to the new board members when the election is over.

Let me state first that all of the candidates are leaders. Everyone involved with SFC has far more in common than in difference, and everyone involved should remember that — never let the differences stand in the way of our common objectives. Our goals are too important to become paralyzed squabbling about our methods: the future of our culture, and our liberties, hangs in the balance. With that said, there are real differences in opinion about the best means to our ends. Here’s what I think is most important (after the jump.)
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Upcoming presentations in Tallahassee, Fla.

Posted on 15 October 2007
Filed under Open access, Personal, Students for Free Culture
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I’m giving a few presentations and appearances during a visit to Tallahassee:

I have a poster at Campus & Community Sustainability conference, 14-16 October. I’ll be by the poster during the poster session on Monday, 4:30 - 6 pm, in the ballroom of Oglesby Student Union. The presentation is Sustaining Scholarship: The Case for Open Access Academic Literature.
I’ll be hanging out with FSU Free Culture at The Warehouse (706 W. Gaines St.) on Monday, 9 - 10 pm.
I’m giving a talk to the Intellectual Property Law Society on open access. The presentation is Tuesday at 12:30 - 1:15 pm in room 241 of BK Roberts Hall.

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Comments on the FreeCulture.org draft bylaws

Posted on 29 September 2007
Filed under Students for Free Culture
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FreeCulture.org, the student free culture organization, released the second release candidate (RC2) of its bylaws last week. I am a board member of FC.o and was very involved in preparing RC2; I consider it my last effort as a member of the organization. The following is a guide to the draft bylaws, with my comments. This represents solely my opinion and not that of the board or anyone else.

I urge chapters to vote for ratification and approve the draft.

The draft is not perfect, but it is good enough. It is far better to approve the draft we have and fix bugs later, than to continue paralyzed by a lack of clear organization structure.

In addition, the structure in the draft should be more effective than the current structure, including by re-establishing the Core Team and empowering it, and by creating the possibility for organization staff. Volunteer power alone can only get you so far, and even one staffer can greatly enhance the capacity of volunteers.

The draft is very fair to chapters and includes strong protections and rights. The draft indemnifies anyone affiliated with the organization from any liabilities incurred by the organization — it would be tragic for volunteers to get sued and have to defend themselves in court for work they did for the organization.

In addition, having bylaws is a requirement for charitable tax-exempt status, which would improve our ability to fundraise and therefore enhance the capacities of the organization.

Discussion after the jump.

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