Archive:2005-03-30

Meetings

Agenda
No agenda was prepared before this conference call.

Minutes
Attendance:

Mike Wolk - Colby

Nicholas Bergson-Shilcock - Franklin & Marshall

Nelson Pavlosky - Swarthmore

Alex Benn - Swarthmore

Franklin & Marshall event

 * discussion of moglen's speech (?)
 * statistics brought up - triggered discussion
 * 1/2 of people who share music illegally use P2P
 * food was good to attract people
 * was rainy - probably discouraged some people
 * big paper banner
 * press release
 * got into afternoon paper (apparently)
 * should get into paper 1-2 weeks in advance - attract community
 * swarthmore has created a list of stuff to do when propping - trying to keep swat wiki out of google, so it's not linked here
 * good idea: table ten (?) - adverts placed on tables in dining centers
 * reserve space early
 * nick will blog about it soon

aside: flag for Free Culture

 * we need a professional graphic designer to redo our look
 * lego logo & gray is good though

Eben Moglen - recently discussed at Swarthmore

 * diff between Moglen's and Lessig's positions
 * Lessig: if we don't do anything we will lose our rights
 * Moglen: it will happen eventually - fatalistic - build it and they will come
 * Lessig is more mainstream - better suited to an uneducated audience
 * context at Swarthmore discussion: free culture isn't honestly a grassroots movement - we're not helping people organize what they already believe in - we need to inform them
 * needs to be some central push outwards
 * although we have been getting new groups, it's because of what we've been doing
 * Gavin has been responsible for lots of attention
 * we should ping the new campuses

Mike - Colby update

 * film festival getting underway
 * will be showing student films
 * compare to "Frosh Life" at Duke - students submit films about being freshmen
 * festival will be held on the 27th
 * should add new blog to aggregator once it's up
 * colby.edu/freeculture
 * will soon have redirect from colby.freeculture.org
 * officially live today
 * should be added to map once someone has some free time
 * posters are up
 * octopus is "mascot" - visible on Contact page on site - from creative commons-licensed image from Flickr
 * idea was to make competition seem less formal
 * Mike has some people lined up to help
 * needs to sit down with someone and get them on recruiting

FreeCulture.org's birthday is coming up - Apr 23rd

 * Swarthmore is having a LAN party
 * could be tied in with the Colby film festival

Nelson went to Grokster arguments

 * was really cool
 * took pictures - was in Wired News - picture 4
 * lacks time to blog about it

We may be getting a new chapter at Princeton

Conference calls: are these worthwhile?

 * people have been spending time working on local stuff
 * If we don't get large turnout, should we call them off? Are we doing something wrong? Are they not useful?
 * May be less than perfect, and almost no one might be able to come
 * However, it's a good way to keep people in touch, up-to-date
 * To have people actually talking is something that doesn't always work well in other formats
 * Alternative is chats through AIM or IRC
 * there is a power to the voice
 * dead air makes people feel need to say something
 * makes the national organization seem more "real"
 * so we shall continue

How should we increase attendance at conference calls?

 * have agenda online ahead of time
 * has been done by Gavin in the past
 * no one has picked up slack since he took sabbatical from doing that
 * not much going on on national level since Gavin took sabbatical
 * people should consider bringing someone with them to conference call
 * people need to stop going to other countries
 * we should create a standard structure for these conference calls
 * we have minutes, which is good
 * what else could we add to create more structure?
 * efficiency = good
 * need more focused discussion perhaps
 * chaos of wiki is bad - disorganized
 * internal blog for core people might be good
 * better than digest emails
 * need webmaster willing to do this for us

next call is Sun at 3 PM