The head of the Federal Communications Commission has submitted a plan to relax the 1974 media ownership rules, including repealing a rule that forbids a company to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city. Proponents of the deregulation claim that the rules are outdated, opponents claim that repealing the rules would put too much control of information in the hands of too few companies. The FCC head tried to relax the same rules three years ago, only to have his actions challenged and overturned by an appeals court because of failure to adequately justify the need for a change. For the past three years, the FCC has been holding public hearings and performing studies to prepare for another attempt at changing the rules.

Several members of Florida Free Culture attended and spoke at the FCC hearing in Tampa, so we’ll continue to watch the FCC’s actions and see how well they pay attention when the public speaks out.

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We want your art!
Open Art 2008 is the second installment of Florida Free Culture’s showcase of works by local artists and others; with a little bit of luck in the Reitz Union Gallery. Open Art aims to introduce artists and audience to Creative Commons licenses, which help artists share their work. All works exhibited will be available for download and, where permitted by the artist, remix/reuse or commercial use. This “open art” will help to remove barriers to culture and creativity and help artists find a wider audience.

How does it work?
Submissions are due by Monday October 29th at 11.59pm! Submit your work online or send us an email to arrange a pickup if your artwork is not in a digital form. Submissions can be anything from paintings to collages but most have been photographs. You can submit as many pieces as you wish.

Learn more about Creative Commons.

For more about last years event, see this page.

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It’s time again for Free Your PC! We’ll be offering FREE McAfee antivirus protection, productivity and creativity software, games, and much more. If you’ve ever been interested in learning more about the Free Software movement or just need your PC cleaned up, bring your Mac or Windows laptop by and let us do the work for you!

When: Tuesday & Wednesday, Oct 9&10, 10am - 2pm
Where: Reitz Union Colonnade

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This Wednesday it’s time again to meet for Copynight! Join us for this fun social gathering about copyright, art, technology and much more. Not just for students only!

What: “CopyNight Gainesville”
When: Wednesday, September 25, 2007 at 7.30 pm
Where: Tim and Terry’s (1417 NW 1st Ave.)

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Florida Media Project invites you to take part in the first Florida Conference on Media Reform on Saturday, October 6, 2007 at New College of Florida, Sarasota.

There will be presentations, panels & discussion on such topics as:

* Media convergence and ownership
* Radio issues — low-power FM, Internet, etc.
* Community/public access TV issues
* Net neutrality
* Media literacy, research and analysis with a view to the 2008 election
campaign
* FCC changes to ownership rules

The event is free and open to the public. Sessions are from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in classrooms located in the Jane Bancroft Cook Library. Tours of Sarasota’s low-power FM radio station, WSLR, are available, along with opportunity for a little hands-on broadcast training. See the website for optional Friday night and Sunday morning activities, directions to NCF, parking information and a list of motels near the campus. Come to listen, learn and make your voice heard!

For more information visit the website or call 216-849-7563.

Presented in cooperation with Florida PIRG
Local co-sponsor WSLR-LPFM

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Florida Free Culture and GatorLUG are planning on participating in Software Freedom Day again this year. We’ll be having a planning lunch this upcoming Thursday. Join us if you want to discuss our events for Software Freedom Day!

What: Software Freedom Day planning lunch
Where: Hillel, 2020 West University Ave (directions)
When: Thursday, August 2nd, from 12:00pm til about 1:00pm

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“UF students will groove to their own beats,” by Katy Snell, July 25, 2007.

In the beginning, there was Napster. Later, there came the great flood of free music file-sharing programs including KaZaA, LimeWire and Morpheus. These programs spawned Grooveshark, a new kind of file-sharing system developed by University of Florida students.

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