townie ramblings

Yesterday a local reporter interested in hearing concerns Vermonters have about Senator Leahy’s COICA S. 3804 bill asked me what question I would ask the Senator if given the opportunity. The following is an excerpt from my response email….

I guess the primary concern for [me] is that the COICA bill doesn’t appear to give any consideration to fair use and in essence would give ISP’s the green light to create a blacklist of censored domains (entire websites) rather than specific URL’s or subdomains where the infringing content lives. For instance, If I personally decided to upload snippets of my favorite copyrighted music videos simply as a means of sharing a part of our culture that I am interested in rather than for financial gain, YouTube, or likely the website of a smaller competitor from outside the U.S., could be [blocked] in its entirety rather than the pages these videos live on.

It’s funny, I’m way less concerned with the threat to free speech in terms of objectionable content but rather the threat to our right to fair use. I guess if I had to ask one question it would be….

The Internet’s open architecture as we know it is a platform for creativity and innovation unlike anything the world has seen and is a tremendous resource for people around the world to share information and culture and has provided boundless new opportunities to exercise our right to fair use by criticizing or commenting on the information being shared. What are the mechanisms in the COICA bill for determining copyrighted content and identifying infringing domains and are there any protections included for the individuals, educational institutions, media outlets and nonprofit groups around the world currently exercising their right to fair use?

I’m also [disturbed] by what seems to be an emphasis on “foreign” sites = “bad” sites, but that is a whole other can of worms….

There are a myriad of other issues ranging from what this bill could do to the basic functionality of the DNS system which I have to admit is a bit above my pay grade, to what seems to be a large scale circumvention of due process. If you care to, please read a few of them for yourself…

Links to articles including thought provoking perspectives from the growing opposition to COICA S.3804:

UPDATE: The Case Against COICA – Electronic Frontier Foundation

Senate Panel Approves Domain Name Seizure Bill – CNet

Letter from Net Coalition Opposing COICA – Publicknowledge.org

Nothing to See Here – Susan Crawford Blog

Wyden Threatens to Block Online IP Bill – National Journal

Online Seizure and Counterfeit Bill: Burning the House to Roast the Pig – Huffington Post

Pirate Slaying Censorship Bill Gets Unanimous Support – Ars Technica

Web Censorship Bill Sails Through Senate Committee – Wired.com Epicenter

Understanding COICA, America’s horrific proposed net-censorship bill – Cory Doctorow

COICA Fact Sheet – DemandProgess.org

The Secret Plot to Censor the Internet – And How You Can Stop It – Huffington post

Senate Needs to Rein in Copyright Bill – Center for Democracy & Technology

MPAA Boss Defends Censorships with Blatantly False Claims – techdirt.com

Next week is the big 2010 Alliance for Community Media conference and people from access centers all over the country will be converging on Pittsburgh to network with one another and discuss community media, PEG TV and all the possibilities the future affords. Attendees will be able to choose from six different tracks this year including:

- Citizen Journalism & Social Media
- Community Media Center Management, HR & Board Development
- Fundraising & Collaborations
- Engineering, Broadband, Network management & Related Issues
- Media & Telecom Policy
- Community Engagement, Training & Marketing/Outreach

Our good friend Colin Rhinesmith from CCTV in Cambridge Massachusetts has been charged with leading the Citizen Journalism and Social Media track and I was lucky enough to have been asked to present on the “Using Social Media to Serve the PEG Community and NonProfit Organizations” panel on July 9th. I will be joining Colin, Lee Webster the iYouth Director at channelAustin and Jason Daniels the Executive Director at ECAT in North Easton, MA to discuss the way our centers utilize social networking to inform our communities and strengthen our alliances with NonProfit Organizations.

We were each asked to develop a short presentation on how our own social media strategies have proven to be successful. I have chosen to focus on how VCAM has used social networking in an attempt to build an online identity that is faithful to the values and spirit in our mission. The following are some of the bullet points that I have started putting together for the panel discussion:

Social networking is sharing culture:
- Social media, unlike the “dreaded” newsletter, we don’t have to think of everything to share with our audience.
- We frequently share news items (blog posts, tweets, photos, video – any content shared via social networking) from sources that aren’t directly related to our organization but are related to the spirit and values of our mission. Net neutrality, rural broadband, copyright and creative commons, media access, fair use, free speech etc.
- It is all part of illustrating a larger context.
- The power of the retweet or “share” functions: sharing information = speed skating relay (i.e. teamwork, partnerships)
- By sharing information that others in our social media network have created, we are helping push information further and to more people than the originator of the content could do alone.
- Not only are we indicating to our own network of followers that we value the information we are retweeting, we’re also telling the creator of the content that we appreciate what they have to offer and are willing to help their cause.
- Why do nonprofits come to VCAM? A fundamental principle of ours: We’re here to help others get important information out to their community. Social media is an extension of that commitment.

Strategy around content created by our staff:
- We try to distribute all of our own news throughout our network, link to blog posts and newsletter (constant contact) via Twitter and Facebook, Tweet “round-ups” on the blog etc.
- Redundancy is OK in fact has proven quite useful for us.
- If we shoot a short PSA we’re going to put it on our channel, upload it to blip.tv & YouTube > embed the video in our blog > link to the blog post via Twitter > and share a link to the blogpost on our FB wall.
- Cast a wide net.

Direct benefits of developing our network:
- It has enabled us to offer more effective social media workshops to our nonprofit partners.
- More and more people are listing our social media network as how they heard about our organization and/or know about our workshops.
- Through discussions with many of our members we are noticing a growing familiarity with the larger context of community media (i.e. legislation and policy, challenges associated with evolving technology in relation to our funding structure, why advocacy is essential etc.) and many people have credited our Facebook page and Twitter feed for keeping up to date with important issues facing PEG.

Tips?:
- These are things that have worked for VCAM and every center is different
- That said, my only real tip for those folks just starting to develop their social media network and online identity: There are thousands of social media experts out there – feel free to ignore them all. (Just have fun with it)

Note: I hope to update this blog post as the list develops……

Full disclosure: I am a strong supporter of restoring net neutrality principles to the Internet and preserving citizen access to modern communication networks in general. To many folks, there are hundreds of reasons why Net Neutrality is an essential principle to uphold. It has become clear, particularly in the last decade, that an open Internet is an ideal framework to nurture innovation, preserve free speech and encourage civic engagement. I think the ACLU did a great job of summing it up when they described the Internet as a “vibrant marketplace of ideas” that “cannot function with corporate censors”.

So you can imagine my surprise when I received an email from Free Press’ savetheinternet.com telling me that my U.S. representative, Congressman Peter Welch, was on the fence regarding his stance on the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 (HR 3458). How could this be? It made no sense to me how a Democrat from Vermont could even consider putting big business’ interests ahead of the citizen’s of our state to this degree. So last Monday, when I saw an open invitation via tweet from @vprnet (Vermont Public Radio) to submit questions for Congressman Welch to be asked in the upcoming episode of Vermont Edition, I saw it as a great opportunity. I figured 9 out of 10 questions submitted were going to be related to health care, so why not take the opportunity to change it up a bit and sneak in a question about the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009.

Here was the exact question I emailed to the folks at VPR’s Vermont Edition:

Your spokesperson Paul Heintz is quoted by Seven Days newspaper as saying “Congressman Welch strongly supports net neutrality and believes the Internet should remain open and available to all consumers. At the same time, he wants to ensure the expansion of broadband access to rural areas throughout Vermont,” Could you please expand on why you see these two priorities as being interrelated,  and why, according to Free Press’ savetheinternet.com,  you are currently “undecided” on the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 (HR 3458)?

Please listen to Rep. Welch’s response here:
RepWelchNetNeutrality

My interpretation: What Congressman Welch is referring to when he says we need to find ways to “increase the investment” that is “going to allow for the build out of the infrastructure” is that we need to find ways to keep the big telcos happy so they will be inclined to complete the build out of our broadband network to rural areas in the state. The simple truth is large telecommunications corporations oppose Network Neutrality because it limits their ability to play the role of gatekeeper of the network. What some folks might not already know is the battle for Net Neutrality at its core is not about hardware or the actual physical network. It’s about content, and who controls it. More specifically, what Internet users are enabled to produce and consume and for what cost. There are many people who speculate that big telcos are working to impose a tiered pay structure for Internet usage that resembles today’s cable television model.

On this note, it has been suggested that Congressman Welch has received a notable amount of contributions from telecommunications-related PAC’s in the past two years (close to $30,000). That said, I’d like to give Rep. Welch the benefit of the doubt and believe that he remains undecided on net neutrality legislation because he is trying to find a way to marry together the investment for the build out of the network while maintaining the openness of the Internet to all ideas and comers. In all honesty, I admire Rep. Welch’s commitment to public access to the network and bringing rural broadband to the state. This is imperative if we want to whittle away at the digital divide and ensure that we maintain the resources necessary to enable an informed and engaged citizenry.

That said, I think we need to make a stronger effort to ensure that the resources we hope to deliver to all corners of our state remain intact and as rich in accessible and affordable information as ever. I am also fearful that the Congressman’s passive stance on net neutrality puts at risk the most important mechanism for public discourse of the modern era. I’d also like to remind him that both ValleyNet and Burlington Telecom are Vermont owned fiber companies that could undoubtedly benefit from a portion of the stimulus money set aside by federal agencies for building broadband networks. Taking this into consideration might ease his sense of dependency on the big telcos who nearly always fail to put the best interest of the people first.

It’s no secret, Microsoft and News Corp are in early discussions about forming an exclusive alliance that would include the removal from Google’s search indexes of all online content provided by the growing number of News Corp publications. This would in effect make news items coming from 25 Australian outlets, half a dozen from the UK, the Wall Street Journal, New York Post and Dow Jones available exclusively on Microsoft’s Bing. If nothing else, the partnership is guaranteed to cause a stir if not a huge shakeup as far as the consumption of online news is concerned. What is also highly likely to stem from this, is an even more volatile relationship than the one we know now, between smaller news providers/independent content creators and Murdoch’s media empire.

One of the key issues at hand for content providers everywhere is not the global media giant and his relentless drive to charge fees to the readers and viewers of News Corp content. It is the ever-present threat he has chosen to hang over the heads of other online news providers. When asked whether or not his mission to charge for News Corp’s online content can be successful when other large international news sources, specifically the BBC, continue to offer online news for free, Murdoch is quoted as saying…

But we’re better…. And anyway, if you look at them, most of their stuff is stolen from the newspapers now, and we’ll be suing them for copyright. They’ll have to spend a lot more money on a lot more reporters to cover the world when they can’t steal from newspapers.

First things first, does anyone actually see the BBC as a pack of thieves? or Murdoch as a victim of theft? After reading how easily he threatens to drag the online news industry into the court system, a few questions come to mind… How far down the line with their lawsuits will News Corp choose to go? Will they stop at large international corporations or come after smaller folks… folks that you and I know personally? What will happen to our beloved second hand news sources in the blogoshpere? Will Murdoch’s forcefulness evolve into a relationship with consumers of online news like the ones we are seeing between the RIAA and consumers of music? MPAA and consumers of home movies? YouTube and independent media makers?

Picture this: Waking up with a hot pot of Speeder’s coffee, sitting down to read the online news, opening up the admin panel on your blog to speak your piece, and seeing a take down notice in place of yesterday’s post…Faulty footnote perhaps?