Lessig's Challenge: Are You Up To It?

Eloquence writes "At the 2002 Open Source Conference, law professor and cyberactivist Larry Lessig, last prominently featured here because of the Eldred case, asked some poignant questions: 'How many people have given to [the] EFF more money than they have given to their local telecom to give them shitty DSL service? How many people have given more money to [the] EFF than they give each year to support the monopoly--to support the other side?' Luke Francl has interpreted these questions as a challenge, and decided to chronicle both his donations to good causes and his less voluntary payments to 'the media oligarchy' on this page: Lessig's Challenge. This is a good idea if others imitate it: If these pages become interlinked with each other, not only can they motivate us and let us track our progress, they may also help us to keep each other up to date about 'good causes' -- there's more than the EFF, after all. With Harry Potter in theatres and Lord of the Rings before us, should 'nerds' also be thinking about supporting those who fight for our rights to, say, play DVDs on an open-source OS?"

Comments

Re:money

[Hellkitten]

OSS will lose its appeal the the mass if they end up having to pay for opensource software as well

There is the difference between having to pay and choosing to pay

Also of course if you are a programmer you could give something back to the community by helping develop OSS. If you're not you could help with ideas, bug reports, etc. And if you're a lazy unskilled idealist you could donate

Not just nerds should fight, but all people

[StandardCell]

The problem here is how to bring that message to folks. An uncontrolled medium such as the Internet is very easy to at least publish and, to a lesser extent, promote. The sad part is the very media that would reach the masses are controlled by the other side - namely, television and radio. It's the lowest common denominator, yet how do you penetrate it when it is on the opposite side of the fence?

This needs to start with us, every day. With our secretaries, our neighbors, our grandmothers, everyone in every way. Word of mouth is powerful. But it can't just stop there, and I fear that it won't be enough in the end. With digital tv and DVD Audio just around the corner, and more severe copyright controls, you can bet that this problem will be even worse, and this message will sadly be further quelled. Nevertheless, it all starts with us...

post-rationalization?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you *really* believe that these companies are doing wrong you shouldn't be spending your money on them in the first place. Believe it or not, you'll be able to live without seeing hobbits on the big screen or having 1.5Mbps into your bedroom. Giving money to the opposition after the fact may make you feel better, but doesn't change the fact that you've already compromised your morals!

Re:post-rationalization?

[mosch]

the world is not so black and white, my friend.

for many people a fast internet connection allows them to work from home, thus extending the life of their car and decreasing their oil consumption. So then you must decide whether it is more hurtful to support their telecom/cable company, or to support the auto and oil industries.

the world is full of tradeoffs, to pretend otherwise is foolish and naive.

What about actual work?

[word munger]

I saw a webcast of Lessig's presentation, and I found it fascinating and inspirational. However, I question whether donating to EFF is the only way to measure "what you have done." What about doing actual work: contributing to the public domain or to the growing corpus of publicly licensed works? Shouldn't that "count"?

What's better--working for an hour to remove works from the tyranny of copyright, or working in a "regular job" for an hour and donating the proceeds to EFF?

Re:What about actual work?

[Eloquence]

I agree, there are definitely different ways to contribute. In the end, it's about finding the right balance. If you contribute some content to the public domain, but still consume most of the blockbuster movies produced by Hollywood, you may end up helping the oligarchy more than hurting it. The question is not "What's better" but "What's the sum of my actions".

It's also about capability: Some people can only contribute money, others can only contribute code, others can do both. That's why it's so stupid to tell people who complain about open source to fix the problems they report -- some people can't code, but they may help by donating or by reporting problems. Everyone who doesn't have to spend most of their time struggling for survival (which is, unfortunately, true for a large part of the world population) can contribute to open source and open content.

Not sure...

[pubjames]

I'm not sure if I can totally approve of this type of activism, because it mirrors exactly what is wrong with the USA today. It shouldn't be just about "how much money". If you really care about something, get off your butt and do something about it. Get vocal - organise grassroots movements, write letters, explain the problems you see to your friends, family and community. But don't just expect to buy influence with money - that's what is currently ruining the democratic fabric of the USA.

Internationality

[gorf]

I'd happily make donations to the EFF if I knew that they'd act for issues I'm faced with too (I live in England).

The last time I checked, I couldn't find any information about whether they would do this (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Of course, the rest of the world (Europe especially) do seem intent on matching American laws, so making American law sane would indirectly affect me, but that seems a very roundabout way to make my money effective.

Sorry to dissent

[Spackler]

As soon as the EFF has the monopoly on freedom, they can send me a bill in the same amount as my cable bill (with modem). Until then, it's small donations. Sorry guys, but I'm just not going to send a "Microsoft Tax" to someone else who is trying to guilt me into it.

Campaign Finance Reform

[Bob9113]

'How many people have given to [the] EFF more money than they have given to their local telecom to give them shitty DSL service?'

We shouldn't have to pay as much for a just legal environment as we pay for goods and services. If the current legal environment is pay-to-play instead of a representative democracy (I believe it is), then shouldn't your lobbying contributions be going towards campaign finance reform?

The proposal that we must give as much to the EFF as we pay for goods and services seems like suggesting that it would be good financial policy to max out your credit cards and then put all of your disposable income into savings bonds instead of paying down the debt.

If the only course of action is to continue to play the game of having to buy laws; if fixing the process that makes the laws is not feasible, then it seems to me that it's already too late. It's time to forget reform and switch to either revolution or abandonment.

Re:Do we get our money's worth with the EFF?

[Beautyon]

they failed to stop the DMCA

Maybe its because they didnt have enough lobbying cash? You cant expect them to work miracles whilst being underfunded.

it was RedHat's lobbying that reduced the effect of UCITA

RedHat has money to do this good work. Perhaps people should buy a 7.3 box to say "thanks".

Either way, its a fascinating idea; match dollar for dollar the money you spen on the monopoly, on people trying to protect us from it.

An example of great thinking...

Re:Exploding Dog?

[wunderhorn1]

I believe the idea is that it's not enough to simply boycott the Entertainment Cartel, because most of us couldn't go without movies/music forever. We need to support friendly independent entertainment sources so that there will be alternatives to the media conglomerates.

Also, assuming you spend a fixed amount of money per month on entertainment, each dollar given to independent sources of entertainment is a dollar not given to the media conglomerates.

In this way we work to take down the media cartel and put up a friendlier system in its place.

Re:Exploding Dog?

[pridkett]

You might be interested to read Lessig's take on this. Basically I guess if Lessig posted it, he's okay with this statement:

...donate money to your favorite open source project or website. Give money to the EFF or ACLU (or both!). Buy a t-shirt from an online comic strip or musician.

So yes, exploding dog does count.

Re:Do we get our money's worth with the EFF?

[poot_rootbeer]

You have some sensible ideas about how to make the EFF a better organization. Have you considered donating some of your time to help them utilize the Internet more effectively?

Pitch for equal giving to FSF and EFF

[bkuhn]

I hope that you will choose to give to FSF and EFF equally. The very evening that Lessig made his challenge at the conference, he also spoke at an FSF fund-raiser, so I know that he supports the mission of both organizations.

I strongly believe that the battles that are coming will require that FSF (where I work) and EFF both be as strong as possible. I pay $107.40 annually for my home Internet service (a cheap 56K dialup). I am today renewing my annual donation to EFF, increasing my usual amount from $65 to $107.40. I just yesterday pledged $120 to FSF for 2003. (Eben Moglen, BTW, recently gave substantially more than that). I hope that you will choose to support both organizations at the same level as your ISP charges (or split the amount of your annual ISP charges equally between FSF and EFF).

Sincerely,
Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director, Free Software Foundation

Donate despite objecting? Nope.

[quistas]

I used to give the EFF money, and now I don't, for precisely the reason you cite -- I disagree with them whole-heartedly on a couple issues they're totally, utterly wrong about (particularly, their constant, wrong-headed attacks on spam-lists as being anti-free-speech, as if my decision to use the SBL somehow gags an activist, or is not a personal decision like chosing which newspaper to buy).

I won't give money to support an organization that makes such awful decisions and is unwilling to listen to reasonable arguments.

If you're like me, pick your fights more specifically -- donate to individual legal funds, find smaller, more issue-oriented causes.

-- q

Re:Other side?

[clontzman]

To play DVDs on Linux, you need to break the law, in America and soon elsewhere as well.

That's not true. To play DVDs on Linux FOR FREE, you need to break the law. There'd be nothing illegal against someone creating a closed-source DVD player that actually went through the trouble of licensing the DVD decoder, like every other software entity has to do.

If it was important enough to enough people who would drop $20 on it, you'd see a commercial Linux DVD player overnight.

Re:Other side?

[clontzman]

I totally understand your point; it's just that you're saying two different things.

To say that it's illegal to play DVDs on Linux is untrue -- you just have to go through the same process every other company does and pay the DVD decoder license.

To your second point, yes, the product couldn't be freely distributed, but that a different issue! If it's important to you, why wouldn't you pay a company a couple bucks to develop it (and the DVD decoder license)? I don't see how it's that different from any of the good closed-source Linux packages that people see fit to pay for (admittedly there are few, but if this is something you really want, why not just pay for it?).

This is not a case of Linux being picked on; it's a case of Linux having to play by the rules of the rest of the world. If Linux users were willing to pay for it, they'd get it.