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New from the peeps at Downhill Battle—

The Participatory Culture Foundation is a new, funded non-profit organization with a mission to enable and support independent, non-corporate creativity and political engagement.

Their first project is “Internet TV”, consisting of both a software player and publishing tools (using RSS, XML, and Bittorrent)—all open-source and cross-platform—scheduled for a June release.

Tomorrow the RIAA plans on filing 400+ lawsuits against college students for “illegally” sharing files over Internet2. From the histrionic press release—

A total of 405 lawsuits will be filed tomorrow against students at Boston University, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, Drexel University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michigan State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Princeton University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of California ? Berkeley, University of California ? San Diego, University of Massachusetts ? Amherst, University of Pittsburgh and University of Southern California.

Statistics (of dubious veracity) are given:

Combined, the students being sued have illegally distributed more than 1.5 million total files, including more than 930,000 songs.

In a House committee hearing yesterday, Rep. Lamar Smith [R-TX] and Rep. Howard Berman [D-CA], proposed Congressional action to mandate music file compatibility. If Berman’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he was responsible for introducing the infamous “Hollywood Hacking Bill” that would have given the RI/MPAA carte blanche to hack/disable/destroy any computer they suspected of “sharing illegal files” (more here.) Apple declined to participate in the hearing.

The Future of Music Coalition is holding a one day policy conference April 12th in DC. More info here. The program will touch on Digital Audio Broadcasting and the Future of Radio, Low Power FM, Health Insurance and Musicians, and Copyright in the Courts and Congress.

CORRECTION: The annual FOM Policy Summit is September 11-13.

Ourmedia launches. From the press release:

A who?s who of bloggers, scholars and citizens media advocates today announced the launch of a new showcase for digital content.

Ourmedia.org, a free global repository for grassroots media, allows anyone to upload, store and share digital works. The site will accept home movies, music videos, original music, audio interviews, photos, art, documentaries, grassroots political ads, animations, books, student films, software ? any work in digital form.

The site is open to amateurs, hobbyists and professionals alike. There is no charge for the service.

The launch of the site was announced jointly by its two founders, Marc Canter at PC Forum in Scottsdale, Ariz., and J.D. Lasica at the Internet Archive in San Francisco.

While the occasional bug has been cropping up with the site, it’s now live. Check it out.

“over 750 full-length, high-quality mp3 files” of all the participants in the SXSW showcases. Torrent available here. (2.6GB) More info.

(via Boing Boing)

Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) have introduced the Local Community Radio Act of 2005, another attempt to bolster the Low-Power FM/Community Radio Movement. The Bill, according to Cantwell,

would allow additional low power FM radio stations to begin broadcasting, eliminate costly and redundant studies on possible interference from low power FM radio stations to other FM stations, and ensure the availability of radio spectrum for low power FM radio stations.

NPR also has a piece, despite their previous lobbying against community radio. More at Reason. You can contact your representatives here to voice support for the bill.

Some interesting developments in Downhill Battle’s Eyes On The Prize action. Boing Boing notes this entry on the Downhill Battle Blog—

The teacher who was planning a February 8th screening of Eyes on the Prize in Vienna, VA for students and community members has been forced to cancel after a threat of lawsuit from the “licensee level”. We absolutely cannot believe this – we had never anticipated that anyone would try to stop students and community members from watching a film about the Civil Rights Movement. Apparently, the law firm that contacted them says that the school district does not have the proper licenses. This is really unbelievable– if there is any fair use, free speech right at all, it applies to screenings of a historical documentary in a school (wikipedia on fair use). This is a public screening in an educational, non-commercial, one-time use setting. Messing with a school district in Virginia is a whole different ballgame, don’t you think?

Another side of the argument, laid out here by the nephew of Henry Hampton, the filmmaker, notes some damaging side effects to DB’s actions regarding the film.

Also of note is this study, Untold Stories: Creative Consequences of the Rights Clearance Culture for Documentary Filmmakers By Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi, which,

explores the implications of the current terms of rights acquisition on the creative process of documentary filmmaking in today’s marketplace, and from them makes recommendations to lower costs and promote creativity. It focuses on the lived experience of independent documentary filmmakers who work primarily within a broadcast environment (sometimes with a theatrical ?window?), in coping with the creative challenges created by acquiring and granting rights.

Given the recently publicized copyright/clearance struggles of the civil rights documentary Eyes On The Prize, the peeps at Downhill Battle are staging a direct action, to take place February 8th. DB has torrent links to download the documentary, in order for people to organize ad-hoc screenings across the country.

The iTunes update released today (for compatibility with the iPod Shuffle) not only patches a security vulnerability, but may render files which have had their DRM removed via Hymn unusable. There’s an ongoing discussion at MacSlash.