The term is obviously coined by analogy to “environmental justice”, an incredibly powerful idea that succeeds at articulating the costs of environmental degradation. Most simply, environmental justice is the concept that damage to the environment disproportionately affects the most vulnerable human populations. It’s an obvious idea once you think about it: if you’re poor, a child, elderly, disabled, or otherwise disadvantaged, you have fewer resources to cope with (or move away from) environmental perils in your environment. In some sense, it’s an argument against inequality per se (and rightly so), but it also accounts for the fact that some inequality will always exists and helps clarify the burdens that are inequitably distributed.

Culture justice is my attempt to do the same for topics that the free culture movement is concerned with. (The term “information justice” already has some traction, but I prefer a frame that includes access to and participation in culture, not just access to information.) This approach is particularly valuable to the free culture movement (with its roots in elite law schools) and SFC (with its roots at elite colleges).

In his presentation today, Eric Frank of Flat World Knowledge made the argument for open textbooks by pointing out that most of the growth in higher education has come from students with low-SES backgrounds, many of them first-generation college students, attending schools where they pay less than $5,000 in tuition per year. No one clapped. Unfortunately, most of the students in this room are not those students.

SFC’s base has been in the Northeast and West Coast. Although women have had important leadership roles, it’s always been dominated by men. Some panels today couldn’t find a single woman among the five participants. There is a significant place for higher-SES ethnic minorities, such as East Asians and South Asians, there’s a paucity of participation from lower-SES ethnic minorities, such as blacks and Hispanics. Most are training for high-status careers in IT. My point isn’t to smear SFC, but to point out some of its privileges. (I should point out, many of its leaders are acutely aware of them.)

To be fair, white male software engineers and tech enthusiasts have legitimate issues with public policy and dominant institutions. That’s my background in the free culture movement. But its claims will have greater resonance if they’re drawn more broadly. This has been a perpetual aim for SFC.

Culture justice takes this further by attempting to articulate a general framework for the role of social privilege in cultural policy.

One example is re-use of copyrighted material. Less privileged users will have less knowledge of their rights under the law, less ability to negotiate licensing, and in some cases even less protection under the law (see e.g. discussions of gender in fan fiction).

Similarly, Net neutrality is ultimately an argument about privilege and justice.

This is far from an exhaustive list, but it’s enough to make me think that culture justice (under whatever name) could be an important and valuable frame for the free culture movement. Freedom is an important frame, but so is justice. In some cases they may work at cross purposes, but they can also reinforce each other in important ways.

What do you think?

The initial idea was brilliant in its simplicity: get bloggers around the world to write about a female role model in technology. The pledge attracted 1,700 signatures, and more than 500 published posts have been recorded so far.

I’ve had the pleasure to meet and work with a number of outstanding women in technology and information policy, including the young women of Students for Free Culture (such as Elizabeth Stark and Karen Rustad); Laurie Taylor, now acting director of the University of Florida’s Digital Library Center; the remarkable women of SPARC, Heather Joseph and Jennifer McLennan; many others throughout the world of libraries and open access, including Prue Adler, Julia Blixrud, and Karla Hahn of ARL, Donna Okubo of PLoS, Heather Morrison, and others; Heather Ford, formerly of iCommons; and many others. Wendy Seltzer’s Chilling Effects Clearinghouse inspired me as a tool against Internet censorship and repression. Jessica Litman’s Digital Copyright was a constant companion when I studied the DMCA as an undergrad. I even read danah boyd’s and Dorothea Salo’s blogs.

But when I thought of someone to profile, one women stood out in my mind: Gigi Sohn. I think it’d be realistic to call Gigi one of the most important women in American tech policy. Gigi and Public Knowledge have been instrumental in many of the most important legal and political battles of the era, from the successful suit to overturn the broadcast flag to orphan works, Net neutrality, and more. Her hard-nosed approach gets results even as it wins admirers.

So, cheers to Gigi, and to the past, present, and future women of tech. Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

I wasn’t able to be as involved with OA Day as I would have liked, due to a variety of personal matters, but I still think of it as (in some part) my baby. I was one of the leaders of 2007’s National Day of Action for Open Access and one of the leaders in refining that event into OA Day. We’ve come a long way in the year and a half separating those milestones, and the remarkable growth of OA Day reflects that progress.

The Day of Action was conceived as being student-led and student-oriented; by contrast, OA Day was by all, for all. OA Day was also international, rather than solely U.S.-focused, in scope. OA Day had more support from SPARC and PLoS, whose great efforts and prestige in the community vastly raised the profile of the event and contributed significantly to its growth. Notably, libraries were much more active in organizing activities to promote OA, which I see in part as a reflection of the increased resources available for (and acceptance of) library outreach, especially to students.

I’ve spent much of yesterday and today poring through the many blog posts marking OA Day. They were written by researchers, students, librarians, publishers, technologists, and advocates. They range from cursory to extensive; from scientific in tone to personal and emotionally moving; and they espouse the broad litany of arguments in favor of OA. In a word, the response has been simply inspirational. Thank you. To everyone who hosted an event for OA Day, or attended one, or wrote a blog post about it, or shared the word with a colleague or friend, and to the institutions that timed the announcement of a new initiative or product to coincide with OA Day: thank you.

A hearty kudos go to my colleagues at SPARC and PLoS whose sweat equity and financial commitment made this possible. (Thanks, then, also go to their funders and supporters. For the many blog posts which have remarked on the need for greater advocacy, few have discussed how to make this possible; as with all things, it takes resources. Considering the mighty juggernaut that is the OA movement, if people saw the shoestrings earmarked for advocacy, it’d make heads spin.) Special recognition also goes to the speakers and moderators on the Webcasts, as well as the filmmakers and interviewees of the Voices of Open Access series.

I offer this personal pledge: as long as I’m able to continue working within the OA movement, I promise to rededicate myself to leveraging and building upon the momentum of OA Day — to spread the word wider; to deepen commitments; to motivate us anew to speak up, to act up, and to live out our principles; to ensure the urgent message of OA echoes in the halls of power and in the hearts of scholars, today’s and tomorrow’s — and, if we are very lucky, to make Open Access Day 2009 even bigger and better than the first one.

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.

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.)

In order of priority:

0. Incorporate. Since we have bylaws now, this is just a matter of filing the paperwork. This is a prerequisite for opening a bank account (a prerequisite for #1) and for achieving 501(c)(3) status (#2). (As part of this, the board will need to verify the legal bona fides of the bylaws and ensure that everything is kosher.)

1. Get funding and hire a Coordinator. By now, we have plenty of evidence about our capabilities as an all-volunteer organization, and the evidence is conclusive:

• Some chapters thrive, and are very active;
• Most chapters languish and never get off the ground;
• Even successful chapters are all-too-vulnerable to perish from member turnover;
• Too few chapters are ever started, and we only reach a tiny fraction of colleges in America (let alone worldwide);
• We have extremely limited impact beyond our chapter campuses (e.g. on public opinion, market behavior, or legislation);
• Most chapters spend too much time reinventing the wheel, or lacking direction, stunting the impact they can have on their campus.

Improved manpower could ameliorate all of the above for SFC. More manpower requires staff, and staff requires funding. An immediate task of the board will be to start fundraising. This will require creativity, tenacity, and a significant time commitment from each member of the board. We’ll be starting from scratch, so everyone will need to chip in; the board will need to lead by example. (A word of encouragement: The money is there. We’ll just have to be tireless and crafty to find it.)

Hiring a Coordinator must also be a priority (subject to funding, obviously). Depending on the circumstances, the board might wait to hire until there’s sufficient funding to hire a permanent full-time staffer, or might hire interim and/or part-time as soon as possible. The most important thing is that it happen soon.

A staffer will massively expand capacity and create a measure of stability. (N.B. There is extensive precedent for student organizations to hire staff members, e.g. Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, American Medical Student Association, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, STAND, U.S. Student Association, and many others.) Beyond paying for staff, funding can also allow SFC to make extremely useful expenditures such as organizing a (inter)national conference and providing travel stipends for students.

2. Pursue 501(c)(3) status. Being a 501(c)(3) organization means being tax-exempt for federal (and, often, state) purposes, and that donations are tax-deductible. This makes each dollar go farther, and makes it easier to fundraise altogether. (Many foundations won’t fund organizations that aren’t 501(c)(3).) It’s an arduous process to achieve 501(c)(3) status, and will impose considerable paperwork requirements and other restrictions, but it’s worth it. It’ll be up to the board to get the ball rolling.

3. Increase communication between chapters. Internal communication and cross-chapter communication is unsustainably low, a trend that has to be reversed to stir up the activity we all want. The board has to lead the way.

4. Increase volunteerism and participation in governance. To amplify our voice on- and off-campus, we need to get to work. Compared to previous years, the last semester was a period of relative inactivity. That bodes poorly for overcoming the problems I listed in #1 above. The board needs to find ways to reverse this trend.

Hand in hand with working is decision-making. To function effectively, SFC needs more member participation in its governance processes. The board should take responsibility for getting members more involved.

5. Develop strategies to assist the growth and sustainable development of chapters. Most importantly, identify why so many chapters fail (i.e. cease to exist or be active) and find ways to help. Also important is to help existing chapters grow (and not fail), to help new chapters become established (and grow, and not fail), and to get more chapters started.

6. Develop strategies to increase our profile and influence off-campus. There’s a direct correlation between stories about SFC in the press with emails from students interested in joining. We need to (re)claim our role as the preeminent student voice in free culture issues, increasing our visibility and outreach to potential supporters.

As important as #5 and #6 are, recall that my list is in order of priority, starting with #0. These are the most important tasks for the new board, IMHO. Good luck, future board members (whoever you may be) — I look forward to great things!

• 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.

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.

A summary of changes from the status quo:

• The name of the organization will change to “Students for Free Culture” (from “FreeCulture.org”).
• Establishes a statement of purposes and goals for the organization.
• Formalizes the process for chapters to join the organization. The only substantive change to the requirements for membership are:
  • a requirement that each chapter vote in elections for the board of directors
  • an explicit responsibility “not [to] damage or imperil the Organization’s ability to accomplish its mission”
• Establishes a process for removing chapters from the organization (aside from chapters that fail to re-register), or to temporarily suspend chapters.
• Establishes that the board of directors will be elected annually, and procedures for the election, including:
  • Nominations (any member of a chapter and members of the board may make nominations)
  • Eligibility (any member of a chapter and members of the board are eligible to serve on the board)
  • Voting method (preferential voting – specifically, Schultze method; chapters’ votes are weighted equally)
• Establishes that vacancies on the board will be filled with interim elections
• Establishes that the board will have a chair and vice-chair, procedures for selecting the chair and vice-chair, duties and responsibilities of the chair and vice-chair, procedures for removing the chair or vice-chair
• Establishes procedures of the board, including quorum, meetings, minutes, proxy voting, absentee voting, decisions (by majority vote), and that the board will meet at least once a semester
• Establishes duties and responsibilities of the board
• Establishes a removal process and a recall process for board members, and procedures for a board member to resign
• Establishes a Core Team, eligibility for membership, member duties and responsibilities and procedures for removal, a chair and vice-chair and related procedures, and procedures for making decisions (including the Core Team will meet weekly or bi-weekly)
• Establishes that the organization will have a Coordinator, duties and responsibilities, and related procedures — in other words, establishes that the organization may have staff (i.e. salaried)
• Indemnifies anyone affiliated with the organization from liability incurred by the organization
• Establishes a procedure for amending the bylaws (twice annually)
• Establishes a procedure for ratifying the bylaws
• Establishes a procedure for dissolving the organization, and a default distribution of the organization’s assets in the event of dissolution

How were the draft bylaws prepared?
A non-comprehensive summary:

• 2007-01-28: Nelson Pavlosky, FreeCulture.org co-founder and board member, posted a draft on the wiki (with a few edits through early February).
• 2007-05-15: Nelson posts his “crafty plan” for FreeCulture.org on the blog.
• 2007-05-25: Prior to the FreeCulture.org conference, a meeting is held to discuss organizational governance and activities. All board members except Gavin are present, in addition to a number of other students (mostly from Harvard and other Boston schools).
• 2007-07-17: Following discussing on the board mailing list, the board meets to discuss the draft bylaws and a procedure to propose a draft for ratification.
• 2007-07-21: On the blog, Nelson posts the procedure and timeline for ratifying the bylaws. Comments are solicited on the wiki talk page.
• 2007-07-29: First open meeting to discuss the draft bylaws. Decisions are made by consensus of those present.
• 2007-09-09: Nine meetings later, the participants present reach consensus on a draft.
• 2007-09-15: Discussing on the mailing list, the board adds a provision for an additional amendment process following only the initial ratification.
• 2007-09-19: The draft bylaws are released for ratification.

If chapters approve the bylaws, then what?
Then we populate the structures in the bylaws:

• First, an election for a new board of directors. According to Nelson’s “crafty plan”, nominations will be open for a week, followed by a week for voting. (This procedure does not seem to be specified in the bylaws.)
• Someone (presumably the board) will organize meetings for the new Core Team. Members will be added as they join.
• The board will name a Coordinator. (In the absence of a Coordinator, all authority rests with the board.)

Issues not explicitly required in the bylaws, but which the board will doubtless pursue:

• Revising the bylaws.
  • At minimum, the bylaws need to be reviewed by a lawyer.
  • Many of the details in the bylaws are probably better suited for another document of policy, and should be removed from the bylaws. This would serve both to make the bylaws more concise and to improve the flexibility in amending details.
  • There may also be issues which the current bylaws do not currently address, but should.
• Drafting other policies to make governance processes clearer
• Fundraising the cover the organization’s expenses and build its capacity
• When funding is sufficient, hiring a permanent Coordinator to staff the organization and further expand its capacity

Who serves on the current board of directors?
The current board members are listed on the About page:

• Fred Benenson (New York University)
• Nelson Pavlosky (George Mason University School of Law / Swarthmore College alumnus)
• Karen Rustad (Scripps College)
• Elizabeth Stark (Harvard Law School)
• Gavin Baker (University of Florida alumnus)

(I’m listed as “Open Access director,” but this was just a title we invented for the press for the National Day of Action.)

At this time, I do not know which (if any) of the current board members intend to run for re-election (except myself; see below).

What about you?
Well, I’ve graduated (although I intend to return for a later degree at some point). As such, I am no longer a member of my chapter. Under the draft bylaws, I am therefore not a member of Students for Free Culture. At any rate, I don’t think of myself as one; I feel more like an alumnus who’s willing to lend a hand if asked. Therefore, and because I think it is important for students themselves to run the organization, I will not stand for re-election to the board.

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.

Of course, I wish the organization the best.