While the RIAA may have scored a victory (along with a PR nightmare) when it won its case against Jammie Thomas, one organization is fighting back for content freedom.

Students for Free Culture is an organization with chapters at more than 35 universities that “promotes the public interest in intellectual property and information & communications technology policy.”

The group formed in April 2004 after two students from Swarthmore College won a copyright case against Diebold (OPG v. Diebold). According to this recent NYT article, chapters have held music downloading parties and demonstrations in front of record stores.

Its manifesto is very Web 2.0-ish and reflects the future in a digital age. In fact, I agree with several of the group’s statements, including:

- “We refuse to accept a future of digital feudalism where we do not actually own the products we buy, but we are merely granted limited uses of them as long as we pay the rent.” (See my previous entry about the iPhone.)

- “We believe that culture should be a two-way affair, about participation, not merely consumption. We will not be content to sit passively at the end of a one-way media tube.”

- “The freedom to build upon the past is necessary for creativity and innovation to thrive.”

However, I am torn as to whether this is a group of college students genuinely interested in promoting

creativity, intellectualism and innovation, or whether they just want to download free music.

From the manifesto: “We will make, share, adapt, and promote open content. We will listen to free music, look at free art, watch free film, and read free books. All the while, we will contribute, discuss, annotate, critique, improve, improvise, remix, mutate, and add yet more ingredients into the free culture soup.”

I get it. Of course we want and need the freedom to have dialogue. We have the right to discuss, critique and remix. In copyright law, that’s considered fair use. I also agree that copyright law needs to evolve as technology changes everything.

However, I don’t think these students understand the real world implications of what a copyright-free environment would really be like. Do they think that every artist who puts their heart and soul into a book, painting, movie or song would continue to grace the world with their talents if they did not get paid for their work?

A letter to the editor from the founder of the Free Culture chapter at Harvard was published in the NYT yesterday, defending the group’s position. In the letter, Elizabeth Stark says, “…we deeply believe that authors and creators should be compensated for their work … For example, an author may release a book under a free copyright license, spurring on sales, or a band may allow fans to share and remix their songs, selling out concerts as a result.”

While mega-bands like Radiohead and Oasis will soon discover the success rate of Stark’s suggestion, I highly doubt that aspiring unknown bands and new authors will make it big time if their content is all available online. I think it’s great that artists are beginning to realize that they can go directly to consumers, eliminating the need for the middleman, aka, the record companies. But if the content is free, where will the little guys get the resources to continue making music, books, art, etc., just so the rest of us can contribute, discuss, annotate, critique, improve, improvise, remix and mutate?

One thing I do know for sure is that the rules of the game are rapidly changing, and copyright law needs to evolve in order to keep up. As for the motives behind this group, I’m not so sure.

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