Free Culture Swarthmore

Last weekend I took a trip to Haverford with some friends to see the World/Inferno Friendship Society, described by allmusic.com as “a rotating cabaret of punk/ska/gospel featuring horns, piano, punk rock guitar, a number of percussionists, and a mayhem-inducing live presence.” Emphasis on the mayhem-inducing… I have never seen a crowd go quite that beserk at a show before! Not only were there people crowdsurfing, there were people hanging from the pipes on the ceiling, including the lead singer at one point. The music was excellent, the band had incredible energy and stage presence, and they rocked hard enough to more than justify the ecstatic audience.

At some point Free Culture member Alex Benn showed up with the Creative Commons media kit which I had forgotten to bring, so that I could catch the band after the show to deliver it. I purchased the band’s latest CD “Just The Best Party” from their booth before approaching them, figuring that I should make a fair trade, taking some of their stuff before giving them mine. I then strode up onto the stage where the musicians were breaking down their equipment, congratulating them on the show and asking about their next CD. Then I led into the key question: “So how do you guys feel about filesharing?” They looked at each other and said “Steal it… steal everything!” I knew then that they could be receptive to Creative Common’s message of flexible copyright, and handed them the media kit, telling them that they should give the fans clear permission to share if they’re OK with people trading their music.

I don’t know if they’ll actually read the flyer, listen to the CD, or watch the DVD, but they seemed very friendly and interested. I suppose the key question is what happened to the kit after I walked away… did it disappear into someone’s bag, never to emerge again? Or did someone take it home and examine it? (Maybe we need some goodies that would motivate them to open the package… perhaps Creative Commons chocolate!) Either way, the concert was a great experience, but I do hope that I helped W/IFS take some baby steps towards freedom that night.

Two excellent articles on the MPAA threats to clubs that show movies on campus came out this week, with the Daily Gazette reporting Campus movie screenings in limbo and the Phoenix declaring Movie showings may be illegal. Unfortunately, I missed the meeting with the deans, but Free Culture Swarthmore will continue to be involved in this process.

It seems to me that one key legal question is what matters to the public performance classification: the number of people that you invite, or the number of people who actually attend? For many of our movie groups, the entire campus of 1400 people is invited, but only 5-10 people show up each week. It may prove difficult for them to justify a budget for licensing fees if they don’t have high attendance.

If what matters is how many people you invite, it seems to me that our movie groups may have to do three things that they do not want to do, in order to avoid the “public performance” classification and licensing fees:

(1) Stop accepting college funds to buy/rent their movies, because if they do they have to make the event open to everyone on campus.
(2) Stop advertising to the campus, which will reduce the number of people who show up even further.
(3) Move from the nice classrooms and lecture halls on campus to TVs in dorm lounges, because you have to reserve space in order to use classrooms, and reserving space makes your reservation appear online and counts as advertising.

However, I’m not sure that the “number of people you invite” standard makes sense…. you may invite many more people to your private party than the number you expect to actually intend. You may even post a general invitation on your blog, as I did for my last house party. Are you then forced to get a public performance license when only 10 people show up to your house party, as expected? The key difference there, of course, is that your private party is supposed to be composed of your friends. However, it may be more like friends of friends, or social acquaintances, or people who were randomly passing through… I’m not completely convinced there is a qualitative difference. Oh well, I’ll try to research it some more.

This Saturday night, January 28, we will be having our 3rd annual LAN party! It will take place in Science Center 199, starting at 7pm and running until they kick us out. Through some error our reservation says we only have until 10pm, but we intend to run much later, so feel free to swing by anytime that night

A LAN party is traditionally a computer gaming party, featuring a “Local Area Network” so that people can play network games against each other, and we will indeed have both wi-fi and ethernet hubs. However, we will also have console gaming for people who don’t bring computers, including DDR, Halo, old school Nintendo, and whatever else people can bring to plug into our TVs, so don’t be shy!  Bring your laptop, bring your PS2, or just bring yourself and your friends, we’re not picky.

This year we would like to introduce computer gamers to some addictive open source games, since they are perfectly legal to share and therefore ideal for LAN parties. Our recommended games are also available on all platforms, including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, so that nobody feels left out.  More details to come.  (Pictures will be posted during and after the party.)

If you walk into McCabe library’s popular reading room, where all of the newspapers, magazines and comic books are stashed, where the coffeebar is sometimes located, there you can find a free culture library display! We have a bookshelf with a small but growing collection of free culture reading matter, a Creative Commons comic hanging on the wall, a very large Free Culture Swarthmore banner, and a couple of display cases with pertinent exhibits. Check it out:

Some of the text used in the library display can be found on our library display wiki page.

The MPAA has threatened all student groups and individuals at Swarthmore who show films in such a way that it meets their definition of a “public performance.” I talked a bit about this issue in one of my old Phoenix columns: How the law makes us all criminals.

Some preliminary comments, which may turn into an angry op-ed at some point:

* Do these showings hurt anyone? Really now, isn’t it equally plausible that showing these movies increases demand and makes people more likely to buy personal copies, or to promote the movies to their friends?

* Do the statutory damages in the law make any sense? The MPAA’s nastygram says “Even inadvertent [copyright] infringers are subject to substantial civil damages, ranging from $500 to $20,000 for each illegal showing.” The numbers I’m familiar with are “from as “low” as $750, for a single infringement, to as much as $150,000 per infringement, all depending on the judge’s discretion.” Either way, is that a reasonable punishment for an act which may not hurt anyone, and may even benefit the copyright holder? Free promotion using legally purchased videos can’t be that bad.

* We have to ask permission every time we show a movie? How much red tape do we have to suffer through? This reminds me of the copyright clearance house for educational course packets, which drive prices up to as much as $500 per course packet at other colleges. Fortunately professors here tend to use e-reserves and Blackboard, although the publishing industry is trying to stop that practice as well.

* How many of our rights will be taken away so that they can be repackaged and sold back to us? I think that when the movie industry tries to illegalize fast-forwarding, they’ve lost all credibility. It’s a neat trick that the content industry has been using: rewrite the laws so that uses we take for granted become illegal, and then try to charge people extra for doing what they’ve always done. I say it’s time they got a bit of their own medicine.

Possible responses:
- show movies not covered by the MPAA / Swank (i.e. indie movies)… has anyone seen Star Wars Revelations yet? It’s better than anything Lucas has done recently
- show movies in people’s dorm rooms
- make our own movies instead (who needs a Hollywood budget? Students at Swarthmore are creative)