participatory culture foundation is hiring
on
Pay vs. Happiness
·
· Score: 1
Are there any companies like that and (more importantly) are they hiring?
web developer wanted:
http://participatoryculture.org/jobs/
not-for-profit, supports independent media, free and open source software, good technology.
i think a key result of the book could be to identify all the ways that developers can make the process easier for users. when you find something particularly egregious in the installation process, you could make a note of it in an appendix. that would help evolve linux to a position where you don't need to read a book to use it...
The challenge when bills like this are proposed it to come to where the proponents are, rather than setting up a civil liberties versus safety showdown. To oppose this, we need to frame the argument in ways that relate to the safety concerns that are driving the bill-- otherwise, people will always pick safety over some seemingly paranoid and vague worry about big brother. The case needs to be made that this restricts freedom, which is the goal of the terrorists, and that it will not increase safety, which probably could be easily demonstrated by analyzing previous attacks and whether or not this type of checkpoint would be able to head them off.
- - - - - - The Regular - slashdot for politics (news for wonks)
There's also been a huge amount of participation built up around this Sinclair Broadcasting scandal. People have been deluging advertisers with calls, mostly driven by interest on blogs. It seems to be working. (via The Regular)
Hey everyone, this is nick from downhill battle. Sorry about the confusion on this stuff, we've been rushing to get Save Betamax rolling and haven't been completely clear in explaining the strategy for the calls. First, the lists do contain a mix of reps and senators, and we're correcting the emails to specify this. Second, we thought we'd already fixed that formatting bug, but now we frixed it again and it should be fine, sorry about that.
The thinking behind calling a mix of reps and senators and calling people that aren't in your state is based on what we've been hearing from experts in D.C. We've been told that the mostly likely way that the INDUCE Act will get passed is through some kind of quick, backroom move that doesn't bring the bill on its own to the floor of either chamber for a real debate. It would probably get attached to something else and snuck through. So... there's only a few people in Congress that have the power to do stuff like that and our list is intended to target these people. We don't know the inner workings of all this ourselves, but that's been the strategy suggested to us and the names recommended. When someone who's participating is in the same state as a Rep or Senator on our list, we list them as one of the 3 people to call because calls from constituents are definitely worth more.
I think we'll send out a clarification email about this to everyone who's signed up and make the initial email more clear as well. We are also going to suggest some talking points in our reminder that will go out the day before the action. Thanks for participating!
Hey this is Nick from Downhill Battle again. First, I think those are pretty clearly meant to be humourous captions, so I think it's a little silly to even get into it, but let me respond. I don't see how the second to last caption is even an issue-- it's a joke about filesharing and we strongly believe that the value of being able to listen to any music in the world should be defended and a licensing system can make it work for musicians.
As for the last caption, the real reason that we returned the camera was because it was crappy. We needed a camera, we got it, started using it, and it wasn't worth keeping. I don't see how this is an ethical issue-- Walmart just puts it back on the shelf and that return policy is there in the first place because it makes them money.
Hey, this is Nick from Downhill Battle. Yeah, I agree that those ads are pretty bad, and we actually blocked a couple that were even more egregious. We're just trying to make a little bit of money back to pay for hosting and whatnot. Hopefully, we can get our fundraising together better and not do ads on any of our stuff.
I was summarizing, but I agree that there's an important difference between the individual and the institution. In this case, I think that the institutions have enourmour weight in the society for good or bad. And I think that individuals such as students, porfessors, and alumni have disproportionate influence over the direction that the institution takes-- much more than they have as private citizens. A small group of dedicated students could get a linux lab on campus, could change the filesharing policy, and could lead discussions of copyright. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and schools really like to keep their students (future donors) happy.
If you're on a college campus and want to work to make copyright law more sane, join FreeCulture.org.
Colleges and universities have a huge amount of power to influence this debate and reasonable copyright law is perfectly inline with the mission of a public education and research institution. So go get linux in the campus computer labs and work up from there!
It's a celebration of victory in a similar free speech / fair use case that finished recently. Mattel had sued a photographer for taking photographs of Barbie in a blender and other appliances. The ACLU took on his case and he not only won, but Mattel had to pay his $1.8 million in legal fees.
Fight back, why don't you
on
P2P Bits
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Downhill Battle is the group that's best leading the fight to stop the RIAA and the major record labels. Check out the summer concert flyering campaign.
I agree that it's a great idea to download music that's been made freely available. But we shouldn't feel guilty about downloading major label music either. This is an industry that buys of radio stations, sue families into bankruptcy, and exploits musicians every day. If anything, people should feel guilty when they pay for anything from the major labels, because they're keeping a corrupt system alive, when it's way passed time to move to a decentralized model and a level playing field in the music business.
And, no, not paying doesn't mean we shouldn't download and shouldn't listen to this music. There's lots of major label artists that I like a lot, and I'm not going to boycott they're music, I'm just going to support them by going to concerts and buying merch instead. That's how to change the system.
itunesperipod.com looks at the most interesting number on the iTunes anniversary: the number of iTunes sold over the number of ipods sold. Let's just say that iTunes might not be the savior of the major record labels after all.
BannedMusic.org made a BitTorrent wrapper that installs the application and then automatically launches the download, they call it an "easy downloader" and have instructions and a script for sites that want to make their own. Makes it a *lot* easier for sites to give out big files to non-techy audiences.
If trusted computing depends on authentication via hardware, won't this function become less and less useful as computing becomes distributed across more devices and individuals are less tethered to specific machines? Or would we all carry a little TC device that plugs in to various 'toolbox' hardware?
Any thougts?
You know, we do have free speech in this country (most of the time). There's no reason to shy away from saying that this software is designed to avoid getting spied on by the RIAA. It's perfectly legal to code it and to use it.
Downhill Battle is calling for the record companies to return the money they've gotten from the suits so far. How would you feel if you just coughed up $5,000 to the RIAA and now you find out they weren't even supposed to get your name?
You can still help people that were sued in the last round by making a contribution directly to them using the Peer-to-Peer Legal Defense Fund at downhillbattle.org . Defendents from this round of suits are going to be added soon also.
It should also be noted that before filing this round of 80 suits, the RIAA sent letters to 200 people demanding settlements or else. While they portray this as a compromise, it actually just lets the RIAA avoid media scrutiny of those 200 people, keeping the next Brianna Lahara out of the spotlight. These extra-judicial fines are now happening in secret.
At what point is a system so bad that Apple or anyone else should refuse to participate in it? I would argue that the major label music industry is that bad right now. The real problem is that Apple is potraying the store as some great development for musicians and fans, which it clearly isn't. It's old fashioned technology, centralized and expensive, and it's propping up an old fashioned, manipulative industry. Of course, as you point out, all Apple cares about is "recognition, money, and selling iPods" and the music store is clearly a good business decision for them. That doesn't make it a responsible decision.
Mostly, it's frustrating to hear Apple joining in on the moralizing about filesharing (though in a more subtle manner) while working with a sleaze-bag industry.
Slashdot Mirror
PCF, which makes Democracy Player, is hiring developers:
http://www.getdemocracy.com/jobs/
Telecommuting is ok.
Are there any companies like that and (more importantly) are they hiring? web developer wanted: http://participatoryculture.org/jobs/ not-for-profit, supports independent media, free and open source software, good technology.
i think a key result of the book could be to identify all the ways that developers can make the process easier for users. when you find something particularly egregious in the installation process, you could make a note of it in an appendix. that would help evolve linux to a position where you don't need to read a book to use it...
The challenge when bills like this are proposed it to come to where the proponents are, rather than setting up a civil liberties versus safety showdown. To oppose this, we need to frame the argument in ways that relate to the safety concerns that are driving the bill-- otherwise, people will always pick safety over some seemingly paranoid and vague worry about big brother. The case needs to be made that this restricts freedom, which is the goal of the terrorists, and that it will not increase safety, which probably could be easily demonstrated by analyzing previous attacks and whether or not this type of checkpoint would be able to head them off.
- - - - - -
The Regular - slashdot for politics (news for wonks)
There's also been a huge amount of participation built up around this Sinclair Broadcasting scandal. People have been deluging advertisers with calls, mostly driven by interest on blogs. It seems to be working. (via The Regular)
Ideas like Cringely's will be impossible if the INDUCE Act passes.
Save Betamax is a national Congress call-in day this tuesday to oppose the INDUCE Act. It might be our last chance to stop this bill.
Hey everyone, this is nick from downhill battle. Sorry about the confusion on this stuff, we've been rushing to get Save Betamax rolling and haven't been completely clear in explaining the strategy for the calls. First, the lists do contain a mix of reps and senators, and we're correcting the emails to specify this. Second, we thought we'd already fixed that formatting bug, but now we frixed it again and it should be fine, sorry about that.
The thinking behind calling a mix of reps and senators and calling people that aren't in your state is based on what we've been hearing from experts in D.C. We've been told that the mostly likely way that the INDUCE Act will get passed is through some kind of quick, backroom move that doesn't bring the bill on its own to the floor of either chamber for a real debate. It would probably get attached to something else and snuck through. So... there's only a few people in Congress that have the power to do stuff like that and our list is intended to target these people. We don't know the inner workings of all this ourselves, but that's been the strategy suggested to us and the names recommended. When someone who's participating is in the same state as a Rep or Senator on our list, we list them as one of the 3 people to call because calls from constituents are definitely worth more.
I think we'll send out a clarification email about this to everyone who's signed up and make the initial email more clear as well. We are also going to suggest some talking points in our reminder that will go out the day before the action. Thanks for participating!
nicholas
Yeah, that might not have been the best thing to put up there, strategically speaking.
Come on, this is ridiculous. If you disagree with what we're saying, then that's fine, but don't imply positions that we've never taken.
Hey this is Nick from Downhill Battle again. First, I think those are pretty clearly meant to be humourous captions, so I think it's a little silly to even get into it, but let me respond. I don't see how the second to last caption is even an issue-- it's a joke about filesharing and we strongly believe that the value of being able to listen to any music in the world should be defended and a licensing system can make it work for musicians. As for the last caption, the real reason that we returned the camera was because it was crappy. We needed a camera, we got it, started using it, and it wasn't worth keeping. I don't see how this is an ethical issue-- Walmart just puts it back on the shelf and that return policy is there in the first place because it makes them money.
Hey, this is Nick from Downhill Battle. Yeah, I agree that those ads are pretty bad, and we actually blocked a couple that were even more egregious. We're just trying to make a little bit of money back to pay for hosting and whatnot. Hopefully, we can get our fundraising together better and not do ads on any of our stuff.
I was summarizing, but I agree that there's an important difference between the individual and the institution. In this case, I think that the institutions have enourmour weight in the society for good or bad. And I think that individuals such as students, porfessors, and alumni have disproportionate influence over the direction that the institution takes-- much more than they have as private citizens. A small group of dedicated students could get a linux lab on campus, could change the filesharing policy, and could lead discussions of copyright. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and schools really like to keep their students (future donors) happy.
If you're on a college campus and want to work to make copyright law more sane, join FreeCulture.org.
Colleges and universities have a huge amount of power to influence this debate and reasonable copyright law is perfectly inline with the mission of a public education and research institution. So go get linux in the campus computer labs and work up from there!
From FreeCulture.org, the student movement for free software, free speech, and free culture, comes: National Barbie in a Blender Day.
It's a celebration of victory in a similar free speech / fair use case that finished recently. Mattel had sued a photographer for taking photographs of Barbie in a blender and other appliances. The ACLU took on his case and he not only won, but Mattel had to pay his $1.8 million in legal fees.
The Barbie in a Blender gallery is pretty great.
Downhill Battle is the group that's best leading the fight to stop the RIAA and the major record labels. Check out the summer concert flyering campaign.
I agree that it's a great idea to download music that's been made freely available. But we shouldn't feel guilty about downloading major label music either. This is an industry that buys of radio stations, sue families into bankruptcy, and exploits musicians every day. If anything, people should feel guilty when they pay for anything from the major labels, because they're keeping a corrupt system alive, when it's way passed time to move to a decentralized model and a level playing field in the music business.
And, no, not paying doesn't mean we shouldn't download and shouldn't listen to this music. There's lots of major label artists that I like a lot, and I'm not going to boycott they're music, I'm just going to support them by going to concerts and buying merch instead. That's how to change the system.
itunesperipod.com looks at the most interesting number on the iTunes anniversary: the number of iTunes sold over the number of ipods sold. Let's just say that iTunes might not be the savior of the major record labels after all.
BannedMusic.org made a BitTorrent wrapper that installs the application and then automatically launches the download, they call it an "easy downloader" and have instructions and a script for sites that want to make their own. Makes it a *lot* easier for sites to give out big files to non-techy audiences.
If trusted computing depends on authentication via hardware, won't this function become less and less useful as computing becomes distributed across more devices and individuals are less tethered to specific machines? Or would we all carry a little TC device that plugs in to various 'toolbox' hardware? Any thougts?
You know, we do have free speech in this country (most of the time). There's no reason to shy away from saying that this software is designed to avoid getting spied on by the RIAA. It's perfectly legal to code it and to use it.
Downhill Battle is calling for the record companies to return the money they've gotten from the suits so far. How would you feel if you just coughed up $5,000 to the RIAA and now you find out they weren't even supposed to get your name?
whatacrappypresent.com
more suits = more reasons not to support the system by paying for cds.
in store stickering of major label cds:
"WARNING: this record label pays radio stations to keep independent music off the air"
You can still help people that were sued in the last round by making a contribution directly to them using the Peer-to-Peer Legal Defense Fund at downhillbattle.org . Defendents from this round of suits are going to be added soon also.
It should also be noted that before filing this round of 80 suits, the RIAA sent letters to 200 people demanding settlements or else. While they portray this as a compromise, it actually just lets the RIAA avoid media scrutiny of those 200 people, keeping the next Brianna Lahara out of the spotlight. These extra-judicial fines are now happening in secret.
At what point is a system so bad that Apple or anyone else should refuse to participate in it? I would argue that the major label music industry is that bad right now. The real problem is that Apple is potraying the store as some great development for musicians and fans, which it clearly isn't. It's old fashioned technology, centralized and expensive, and it's propping up an old fashioned, manipulative industry. Of course, as you point out, all Apple cares about is "recognition, money, and selling iPods" and the music store is clearly a good business decision for them. That doesn't make it a responsible decision.
Mostly, it's frustrating to hear Apple joining in on the moralizing about filesharing (though in a more subtle manner) while working with a sleaze-bag industry.