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

Exploding Dog?

[dietz]

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.

Re:Exploding Dog?

[the_pooh_experience]

"because most of us couldn't go without movies/music forever"

Well from time to time, I become an idealist. I think that the "couldn't" above really should be "choose not to". There are several notable (but false) exceptions:

1. "I have kids that I can't keep from watching teletubbies/power rangers/etc as well as buy them associated toys" I can imagine that childrens' influence (whining) can be quite prolific, if they whined "Come ON pops... I WANT to take crack", I can't imagine you would succumb very easily.
2. "I have to as part of my job because I am in the entertainment industry" I guess this is somewhat legitimate, though it seems to me that your choice of careers is indeed a "choice" and if you are characterizing this career with "Cartel" maybe you have chosen the wrong career.
3. "Every time I drive to work, I see billboards pitching the latest and greatest stuff to me. I can't avoid seeing these" But you can avoid buying them.
4. "Every time I turn on the TV, I see ads pitching the latest and greatest stuff to me. I can't avoid seeing these" But you can avoid buying them. And I guess it should be somewhat obvious, but you can avoid watching TV
5. "But what about the MS-tax?" While somewhat difficult to avoid, it is possible through Dell and Walmart to name some major ones.

While I agree with wunderhorn1's assessment of the intent of the lessig challenge, Giving matching funds given to the "bad guys" and giving them to the "good guys" is a good start, it results in the "good guys" with a net income much smaller than the "bad guys" (based on the number of software-conscious people)

The problem with this, though...

[InterruptDescriptorT]

...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.

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

[91degrees]

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.

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

[Eloquence]

I don't know if the EFF is the answer either. Generally speaking, the ACLU seems to be more effective, but they cover a larger scope and not everyone agrees with their politics. I hated the EFF's "Tinsel Town Club" cartoon -- it may sound like a good idea to produce a cartoon to convey complex ideas, but it was a Flash video, not even a particularly good one, which makes it unsuitable for anything but web use. They probably spent big bucks on hiring designers to do these cartoons -- bucks that came from the people who donated to them. I would have preferred it if they had asked their membership before doing this.

I also think the EFF should have built a more weblog/community style website long ago. Their current site still looks very 1997-ish to me, without much potential for interaction. People aren't really given many incentives to visit eff.org regularly, which makes it less effective to issue calls for action. That's what they should spend money on. Projects like Indymedia, love them or hate them, need good software to run on, and this software would be developed faster with some help, while benefitting EFF's own site at the same time. And then they could also have spent money to fund interesting peer-to-peer-projects that are related to free speech.

Generally speaking, too few people at the EFF have a real clue about how to use the Internet to coordinate grassroots activity, and they are definitely not spending their money as effectively as they could. They're acting more like a traditional lobbying organization, with their impact more or less proportional to the amount of money behind them. The RIAA and MPAA, of course, will always be able to outspend them, so better strategies are needed.

I don't know any alternatives, though. I always thought Slashdot would be in the best position to organize effective grassroots protests (a real Slashdot effect, not just a server-related one), but the editors seem more concerned about movies and anime -- no offense intended.

Registered Charity?

[oliverthered]

if the EFF registered as a charity in the UK then the Government would topup any contributions I made.
Is the EFF a charity?

You missed the point entirely.

[InterruptDescriptorT]

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?

Trick guestion

[jki]

You can join me in taking up Lessig's Challenge. Email me and I'll link to your challenge page from this one. If we get enough intrest, we can even start a weblog. Will you take Lessig's Challenge

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...

Agreed

[turgid]

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.

Free Software Only Noble Cause?

[snookerdoodle]

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

For the many fence-sitters...

[Halo-]

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.

I'm In, who else?

[Locke!Erasmus]

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!

Re:Grammar Internal Affairs

[bigdavex]

Do you also write "the NASA?" This same rule can be applied to correct references to "the UML."

I disgaree.

"NASA" is an acronym. EFF is not.

Pronounced like this:
"NASA", not "the N.A.S.A"
"the EFF", not "Efffff"

Rights

[tmark]

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 ?

Support a competitor to telco's DSL

[Kunta Kinte]

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.

Not everyone gets DSL from a monopoly

[Kludge]

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.

Re:Lessig's Challenge: To My Doubters

[RazzleDazzle]

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?

Re: Counter-Challenge to Prof. Lessig

[raresilk]

I am so 100% with you, quistas, on the spam thing. Supporting spammers allows the forces of evil to paint EFF as knee-jerk opposed to any form of internet regulation, rather than standing for a sensible, even-handed and realistic vision of the digital commons. Which is what I thought Prof. Lessig was advocating. So I have a counter-challenge for him:

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.

Re:money

[istartedi]

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?