Proposed on Monday 13th, 2012 to the Los Angeles General Assembly.
Status of Proposal: An affinity group will be meeting tomorrow Tuesday February 14th, 2012 at 6:00 p.m. at the west steps of City Hall in Downtown LA to work further towards our goals.
What: Promote and encourage learning by giving credit to artists and authors in a way that does not prohibit the free distribution of works with computers and the Internet. Boycott any works that do not allow free distribution as any money spent toward this cause is a threat to the free and open Internet that is essential to participate in direct democracy.
Why: Copyright law should not be the grounds to censorship online that is harmful to the public benefit, and to initiate an Occupy LA direct action based upon the consented upon proposal and endorsement of Operation Black March on February 8th, 2012.
How: Initiate a boycott on copyrighted works that do not allow people to distribute them on computers and the Internet on March 1st from around 10:00 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the streets of Hollywood Blvd, meeting at Hollywood and Highland. We will also promote the world of works that allow for the free distribution by the people such as works that are in the Public Domain and new works that are licensed under the terms of free culture approved licenses such as those from Creative Commons that in majority ask for attribution. We will setup websites, fliers and signs to communicate with people with places to find these works online. We will refrain from using the social media websites Facebook, Twitter, etcetera since these websites are a poor example of how to deal with copyright because they don’t publish their own work and keep it held in private indefinetly that does not benefit the public. Instead we will entirely use free software to promote our message. Our signs can have domain names to these websites. We’ve already made one available at http://stophollywood.org, and we can work on many more in addition to working on improvements. We will meet at these steps at City Hall on Tuesdays at 7:30 until the March 1st action to coordinate our actions.
Notes
Clarification
Q: How is this supporting artists, as stated from the title?
A: The action is to promote works that allow for the free distribution with computers and to avoid and boycott those that do not.
Concerns
C: It doesn’t bring attention to the international treaty such as ACTA.
R: Bills such as SOPA, PIPA and treaties such as ACTA will keep returning until the real issue around copyright is resolved. We need to concern ourselves with the root of the conflict.
C:Concern about using the word “censorship”, and the it is being improperly used since works are still available after a website has been shutdown for violating copyright laws.
R: Censorship is what is happening because when a website is shutdown, there are many other works that are affected that are being censored, the website itself being the primary work. Some videos include copyrighted music, with original visual material. When these works are removed because of a “takedown” notice from the copyright owner, the visual material is often inseparable without changing the meaning of the work.
C:Artists should be compensated for their work.
R:This proposal is to support artists that allow for free distribution of their work and is encouraging compensating them for their work including paying them for their services, but not limited to monetary benefits.
Support
- We need to bite the bullet because it’s going to be happening anyways. We need to look at the larger picture.
- We are free autonomous individuals, Occupy LA isn’t a governing body, people ultimately decide if we choose to boycott social media.
- Artists should be getting “something” in return, and currently there are those who are not, we need to give them more support.
- It’s supporting those that freely share, and not supporting those who do not.
- People are being banned from some of the social networking websites.
- Twitter, and Facebook in themselves have censorship mechanisms, and countries are already blocking accounts, and should not be confused as free speech or public space.
Against / Blocks
B:If works are going to be promoted by Occupy LA, they should carry a message about the movement.
R:Sounds like a great idea.
B:Social Media is important and that Occupy LA wouldn’t be happening without Facebook and Twitter.
R:While this proposal asks for us to not use these services for this action, it is about going to Hollywood as an action, many people will likely help spread our message using networks such as Facebook, Twitter and many others so there is no way to prevent these networks from being used. Occupy received attention by camping in public space, that is primarily how the message was spread to the world through a diversity of media channels. I found out about Occupy LA because I walked by City Hall.
B:Does not fully understand what was being proposed, and doesn’t understand how Facebook is taking advantage of people.
R:They sell friendship to advertisers, and they do not release their own work to encourage learning and is not benefiting the public.
B:Should form an affinity group to work on this.
R:Sounds like a good idea.
*These notes do not represent the Los Angeles General Assembly in whole, or Occupy LA, I’ve elaborated some points, and am missing other points that I do not remember fully. These are my notes as the one making the proposal. Consider this post Public Domain.