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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?"
Uhm, this is sorta weird.
He bought a print of a small artist and counted that? He donated to a radio station and counted that? I buy lots of things from small companies. But small companies don't lobby. They don't actively undo the damage that giving to your local telecom does. That's why Lessig mentioned the EFF.
I mean, I'm a hypocrite by posting this I guess, since I have never given to the EFF, but if I just get to count purchasing things from small companies/artists, I'll clobber my telecom bill every month, guaranteed.
...is that while the EFF does good works, and I am a member in good standard having given nearly $500 in the past year, the problem is one of motivation.
While regular folks and even a lot of techies realize that not paying their DSL/cable modem/satellite Internet bills is going to get their service cut off, the same cannot be said for the EFF. Yes, I totally agree that there may very well come a day where we cannot do anything due to companies strong-arming governments to pass legislation to reduce what we can do with the Internet, but unless and until the majority of folks get this message and understand its severity and urgency, Lessig's challenge will be unsuccessful.
I would also like to point out that many people take issue at some of the causes that the EFF fights. Please don't let one or two court challenges that the EFF helps with deter you from becoming a member if you already haven't. The fact is that the majority of the EFF's aid is of critical importance to my and your free speech rights and they need every cent of help we can offer.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
Lets be honest - just how much success have they had? They've managed to get the word out about open source, but they failed to stop the DMCA, and none of their legal fights against it have been particularly succesful.
And lets be honest - it was RedHat's lobbying that reduced the effect of UCITA. The only thing that stopped the CBDTPA and that P2P protection bill was the noise made by people on discussion forums writing in protest.
if the EFF registered as a charity in the UK then the Government would topup any contributions I made.
Is the EFF a charity?
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I could say my DSL service is shitty. But to be honest in over two years there has been one "outage" and 2 slow-downs, none of which lasted for more than 30 minutes.
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
I suspect you're trolling, but I'm going to bite anyway.
This has nothing to do with pricing, competition, or even the quality of your service. Donating money to the EFF isn't going to lead to the fall of capitalism and the beginnings of a socialist empire.
Rather, by not donating to the EFF and helping to fight some of their free-speech causes, you might find that all of your beloved competing Internet providers won't provide you with certain sites or materials that the government deems offensive that day. Imagine having six or seven Internet providers to choose from, their prices kept low by competition, only to not be able to surf a large majority of the Web that has been silenced by government regulators.
So I guess you'd be happy to choose Acme DSL and pay only $12/mo but only get to surf AOLTimeWarnerViacomCBSNYT's media sites and those sites that haven't been censored by the government. Worth it?
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
You shouldn't ask "how many gave more to the EFF than to the opposition". Most people didn't give anything to the opposition. Usually, those who do not favor freedom *take* what they want.
To ask how many people give to the EFF, you are asking, how many people give to the EFF from their disposable income. A person's disposable income is usually a lot smaller than the nominal income, from which the oligarchy "takes" the lion's share.
Now, there is some grey here. I would contend that some amount of music is a necessity for basic human life, especially living in the techno world that we live in. However, you do have some choice about where you get your music. As long as you have some choice, you should probably be selecting non-RIAA sources. But people also require some continuity; and if your business plays Debbie Gibson all day long (showing my age there...), then you're going to want to have some Debbie Gibson stuff at home, which is why the RIAA pays radio stations to play their music.
But when you think about it like that, you realize that America's freedom isn't all that great. In fact, in a lot of ways America is not free at all. It is an oligarchy, and its citizens are considered posessions.
Just something to think about. I don't advocate revolution. I advocate walking away. As Ken Hamblin, the Black Avenger says in the title to his book, "Find a Better Country!" It's not that hard to do.
No, because this way of taking it into action is absurd. If your point is to fight against the monopolies, then the answer is to give zero $ to monopolies and a penny for EFF. If you understand it like this, then the Lessig challenge makes sense...
This should be extended beyond the "geek-movement" and donations to "good causes". Think about how much money that is being spent BY YOU to support HUGE corporations. Unless they gain our support, these conglomerations CAN'T become so powerful as we spend time and energy bitching about every day.
It all begins with YOU. Start making a list of where your money is going. Can you find alternative, more eco-friendly, healthy and holistic products in your local community? Instead of buying shitty products in malls, you can buy a little more expensive, but *QUALITY* products somewhere else, and your money is supporting the "little folks" instead of "The Man".
I know this sounds like an exercise in futility. "You can't change the world", etc, etc. However, YOU can change, and feel better for it too. Especially if you eat healthier food and enjoy better products overall (that you have put a little more mind to finding the right ones).
Unless we support our local community and the stores that have the best products, they're simply not going to survive in the long haul. Don't be a mindless consumer, become alert and aware as a human being!! Feel all that power come back to you again. Maybe you can't change the world, but you CAN change your life.. No matter what negativity others try to spoon-feed you, that is *THEIR* negativity. Don't take it as your own.
This can extend to just about everything, where you work, what you watch, services you pay for, donations, where you get your information, knowledge, etc, etc. Don't give energy to all the channels that spouts propaganda from the men in power. Our whole society is streamlined propaganda from kindergarten to the deathbed, unless YOU seek the truth yourself.
If somebody has a strangehold on us, it's because we've let them.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. There are some organisations over here such as eurorights and there is someone claiming to be the eff-europe but there doesn't seem to be the same momentum as in the USA. Hopefully things will pick up here before the laws get passed, rather than after.
Stick Men
If you want to help break the entertainment industry monopoly, just keeping your money out of their hands isn't enough - for every well-informed person who boycotts them, there are ten morons who are waiting with baited breath for the next XXX movie. We need to use our dollar votes against them.
That doesn't mean abstaining, and it doesn't mean giving away your money - it means supporting small, independent film studios and small, independent recording studios; it means that when you save thousands of dollars moving from MS software to free software, you donate some of your money back into the open source movement. Note that you're going to be getting higher quality entertainment and software anyway.
You can't just support organizations against these big evil corporations - you have to put your money into the alternatives.
A large scale attack by whom? I thought the 9/11 was done by Al Qaeda not Iraq.
Furthermore, by your logic we should lock up everyone capable of murder -- or "should we just wait until someone gets murdered".
Do not forget about the ACLU which also does a great deal to ensure your liberties cyber or not. ACLU Cyber-liberties page.
I suspect if you were to allow "real" charities that do such useless things as provide food, cloting, or shelter to those Less Fortunate, you'd find a LOT of people giving more to such Charities than we give to Micro$oft, Verizon, or AOHell.
Most folks, admitedly not all, would reduce their contribution to other charities were they to donate to EFF.
Potential Best of Both Worlds: donate time to a charity helping them set up and manage (yes, long term) an accounting system that does not require sending a lot of money to Bill Gates.
'Just a thought, a mere wrinkle.
Mark
This sounds like a fund raising guilt trip to me. If you contribute money to EFF, then good, but don't be appalled when I fail to contribute $39.95 every month.
I give money (and time) to charitable groups when I'm able to, and feel like it. I'm not required to give anything. If everyone gave money to every person/group that had a "worth while cause", then we'd all be flat broke. This is typical liberal bullshit.
Before you start flaming me for "not caring", let me say this: I *do* contribute to various groups. I contribute money, I contribute my time, I contribute my own belongings, and last but not least, I contribute my opinions and ideas.
Lessig does have a point, but there "evil groups" out there than just the telecom and entertainment industry. By owning and operating a car, you contribute to pollution, middle eastern oil barons (that's how osama bin laden got his money to train people to kill us, which is funny, since that's how GW made his money too), and at least a dozen other industries of ill repute. By living in a home with electricity, you once again contribute to pollution by way of traditional "dirty" power generating plants and nuclear generating plants which outputs nuclear waste material that remains hazardous for thousands of years. By buying that computer you contributed to substandard labor practices in china. By moving out of the city to be closer to nature you contribute to suburban sprawl further reducing natural habitats for endangered animals. For meat eaters, you contribute to wasteful practices in raising the animals, not to mention the slaughter. But even vegans aren't safe here: Hundreds of small animals are killed by farming equipment when processing crops. Let's not forget the substandard of living once again imposed on those poor chinese people when you eat your rice or cheap 10/$1 packages of ramen noodles. Think buying American helps? Your still contributing to some large corporation with interests only in greedy profit. But oh... let's boycot that greedy corporation you say? Great, now you've contributed to hundreds, perhaps thousands of people losing their jobs.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Many people who read slashdot are very interested in "open" software and would like to see it prosper. While the EFF does not exist to promote open software, the issues it tackles almost always also benefit open software. How many of you would be insufferably proud if you could submit a tiny patch to the Linux kernel? Or a new feature to one of your favorite projects? (I'd be)
Many of us would be, but either we don't program, don't have the time, or don't have the legal ability. So, stop sitting on the fence and do something. It doesn't have to be a ton. $500 USD is a lot to most people. $15 isn't. If you can give 500, do it... If you can give 15, then do that, and I can assure you that you have done more for something you beleive in than 90% of the other geeks you know. And that's something to be proud of.
Writing a check is sometimes more valuable than writing code.
An email I just sent to Luke:
Hey Luke...I decided to take up Lessig's challenge as well. I am kicking it off by cancelling my AOL account, and I will donate the amount of money I would have spent on that account for one year to the EFF. That comes out to 19.95 x 12 = $293.40.
I'll give AOL a call, let them know why I'm cancelling the account and where the money will be going, and then post my notes on that call in my journal!
The web page for my slashdot journal is "A HREF="http://slashdot.org/~Locke!Erasmus/journal/" >here . Please do not list my email address, just the link to my slashdot journal.
Thanks!
I should have picked out the nickname Demosthenes!Tecumseh.
I disgaree.
"NASA" is an acronym. EFF is not.
Pronounced like this:
"NASA", not "the N.A.S.A"
"the EFF", not "Efffff"
-Dave
our rights to, say, play DVDs on an open-source OS?
This argument makes me ill. Arguably you have rights to play DVDs that you bought before the whole DVD brouhaha on an open-source OS. But now that it's clear what the license holders are demanding, I find it crazy to demand that you have a "right" to play, say, next-year's DVDs on a given OS.
To me, it's like smoking. ARGUABLY, tobacco companies should be liable for smoking-related deaths that happened due to smoking in an era when the health-risks of tobacco were not widely disseminated, and when people could plausibly have misinformed about them. But now that EVERYONE knows (and has known, for the last 2 decades or so) that cigarettes can cause a host of problems, I shed no tears for people who do fall ill due to their smoking now, and I don't think the tobacco companies should be liable for THESE deaths.
Similarly, I shed no tears for people who "demand" their "rights" to play the latest DVD on platform X. If you don't like the conditions that are being attached to a product - say the latest Star Wars DVD, or the latest Metallica CD - don't buy it, don't go to the theater, don't listen to their songs on the radio, and don't hype it on your website. That is the surest, best, and most honest way to get the MPAA, RIAA, etc. to listen to your demands.
Another anology: I might not like the terms of some GPL'ed product, thinking it "really" should be under a BSD license. Does that give me the RIGHT to use it under a BSD license ?
I made it a point to use DirecTV's DSL service ( it's still regular DSL ) instead of Bellsouth's DSL service so can in some way support the underdog.
The competitors to the telcos do lobby and the more customers they have the better. Please think about switching from the 'baby bells' to one of the upstarts eg. DirecTV or Speakeasy.
Some competitors offer great deals as well. For instance, bellsouth would charge me $120/month for a static IP, while a static IP is free with my DirecTV DSL service, and they don't mind me running any servers.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
I don't think so. The mass of open source advocates I know are advocates not because of the dollar cost but because of the merits of open source itself. The source is open, and is modifiable and redistributable. This means that a developer with a good idea can apply it to an existing tool without reinventing the entire tool, assuming you preserve the license on your new product. This allows many great minds to contribute to a project rather than a closed group.
I do contribute money to a few of my favorite projects because I want to do my small part to ensure their future development.
Think free as in speech, not free as in beer - I'm sure you've heard that one before.
I get my DSL not from a monopoly, nor a company that sells content, and certainly not one that tries to restrict what services I can run. Covad might be a couple more bucks a month, but if more people would sign up with such businesses, we'd have fewer worries about AOL/TimeWarner/BabyBells.
Don't forget your local radio stations that are community supported (if you have any) For me in MN i support KFAI. Go to Pacifica for a list of Pacifica community support radio stations in your area - there may be one near you and you don't even know it. You can and should support these stations, hell you can even listen to them online! Vote with your money, that's how some corporations do it right?
ZERO ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ONE! Just brushing up for my next big invention: Ethernet over Voice (EoV)
Professor, I understand that you urge people to donate to the EFF an amount equal to what they spend on products from the MPAA, RIAA, and other cartels pushing for abusive laws and DRM schemes to further their Mafia-like control over information and culture. But the EFF has demonstrated that it will spend donations, not only for that purpose, but also on unconscionable lobbying against well-respected legislative and community tools to control spammers -- the hands-down worst abusers in the internet culture. I have read your book "The Future of Ideas" and was impressed by what you had to say. But I cannot for the life of me imagine how the ubiquitous spamming of unwilling net users could be regarded as a positive component of the "digital commons" you described.
So this is my challenge to you, Dr. Lessing:
Respond to this post with a persuasive defense of the EFF's pro-spam lobbying, which convinces me that my freedom as an internet user is enhanced by forcing me to continue being bombarded with emails for porn, fraud, and garbage products. If you persuade me, I will immediately donate $500 (the estimated amount I spent this year on cartel-controlled media) to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
If you're a "lazy unskilled idealist" you probably have no money.
Unless Daddy left it to you. Where do you think most "foundation money" comes from? What got RMS so much attention? Foundation money.
And while I'm at it, why should I donate money to the EFF when I don't support every cause they believe in? What's their administrative overhead anyway?
If there were a defense fund for a particular case that I thought was important, and I had the money, I'd consider donating to that particular defense fund. I have no desire to join a broad "movement" that takes in far too many ideas with which I disagree.
In other words, Larry can take his challenge and stick it. What next? The Larry Lessig 700 Club?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?