Film Screening: 'Us Now' and 'Free the Network'

All supporters of free culture (students and non-students alike) are invited to attend the founding gathering of Students for Free Culture Otago. This will be held in the Otago Room at the OUSA Clubs and Societies building, on Tuesday 18 September, 2012, from 6pm. Please pass this invitation along to anyone who may be interested.

We will screen 'Us Now' (60mins, CC-NC-SA), a 2009 documentary about "crowdsourcing" in its many forms, and the implications it has for democratic participation in every aspect of our society.
http://vodo.net/usnow/

As a pre-feature treat, we will also show 'Free the Network' (CC-NC-SA), a 30min short about the experiences of the Free Network Foundation founders at Occupy Wall St.
http://archive.org/details/FreeTheNetwork

Following the screenings, there will be a short meeting for anyone keen to help establish a branch of Students for Free Culture as an OUSA affiliated club.

Program for the Evening:

6pm doors open, come in for a chat, and sign up for the club
7pm Screening of 'Free the Network'
7:30pm Screening 'Us Now'
8:30pm Inaugural meeting of Students for Free Culture Otago
9:30pm wind up and go home.

What Students for Free Culture Otago could do next is totally up to those who decide to become members. One suggestion is hosting a regular Copynight.

Another possibility is screening 'Patent Absurdity' (30mins, CC-BY-ND), a short doco funded by the Free Software Foundation, as well as the TED Talk by Drew Curtis about his experience with a "patent troll" (a person or company who makes money by suing people for patent violation, rather than by actually making anything useful based on the patent). This could be followed by a discussion of some of the problems created by allowing people to patent software ideas.

This is an important issue right now in Aotearoa. The Patents Amendment Bill, which was originally intended to exclude software from the patent system, is currently before parliament, but a minor change has been made that could allow software patents to sneak in through back door. For more information, and a petition from software developers asking the government to keep the lid shut on software patents:
http://no.softwarepatents.org.nz/

Again, it's totally up to people you like you to support the club, and help run whatever free culture related activities scratch your itch. The first step is getting the club set up. See you Tuesday at Clubs'n'Socs!.

Nau mai, haere mai!

(poster below by DocterMo, hosted by DeviantArt.com)