Below is a guest post by a friend and colleague at Free Software Magazine – Terry Hancock.

Like me, Terry is interested in the subjects of free (as in freedom) software and free culture. With regards the latter (and unlike me) he has got off his backside and started to do something. This post describes Terry’s project to produce a science fiction “TV” series and release it under Creative Commons licences. This is both ambitious and encouraging. As you know I have focussed [my own attempts](http://www.crimperman.org/tag/freedom/] at free culture onto the church and the way “worship” resources are locked down and restricted by archaic copyright and “intellectual property” laws. One obstacle I have come across is that if resource producers do not release the material under free licences then any attempt to bring freedom back into our media and other cultural elements will fail. Terry has encountered this and “Lunatics” is an admirable response.

Right now the issue – as ever – is financial. This project is – by nature – on a much smaller budget than mainstream productions but – like the Blender open movie projects before it – it still requires some cash to get started. Also like the Blender open movies, backers get rewarded for their donation.

You may not like science fiction, you may not like the concept of Lunatics but you may know people who do. If you like the idea of free culture and are fed up with the ever-increasing tide of restrictive actions by media companies – try supporting one of the good guys.

Update

The target funding has now been reached. This is exciting news as it means there is support for such a great venture. You can still find out about the project and catch up with the latest news at the project website lunatics.tv.

Guest post – Terry Hancock

Lunatics - somebody's got to be crazy enough to go first!

Support this project

Lunatics is a story about the first permanent settlement on the Moon. Politics are inevitable, physics is implacable, and the colonists are indomitable fanatics. After all, normal people don’t really colonize new worlds, do they?

“Lunatics” itself is largely based on character comedy, but we take the science and technology very seriously. Much of the technology in planned Lunatics scripts is not only real and relatively new, but also largely ignored in prior science fiction. Perhaps the greatest realism, though, is in the way the characters are presented.

The series and all the original source material will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, and it will be created using (mainly) the free software Blender 3D application on GNU/Linux workstations. It is a free-culture production from end-to-end. We are taking advantage of the massive body of existing free-culture work (music, sound effect, graphics, and so on) to help make all of this possible. And once we get our series up and running (we plan to do 18 episodes a year, of about 30 minutes length each) we will be one of the biggest free culture film projects going!

What makes this possible is a fan-financed business model which has been pioneered by only a handful of free-culture projects. But it’s enough to show that it can be done.

This project will require a lot of innovation on everything from merchandising business models to real-time animation techniques.

Right now, we are trying to raise $2400 through a Kickstarter project to support pre-production work — especially paying artist Daniel Fu a commission for creating character design drawings which will be used to create the 3D characters for the series.

Backers at any level will get early access, and for those who pay just $15 or more, we have a variety of “rewards” — ranging from character art posters to the complete “Character Art Book and Writer’s Guide”.

We also have corporate sponsorship levels if you know someone who’d be interested — for $400, you can get your company logo printed prominently on our pre-production materials, and featured on the website. Needless to say, a couple of such sponsorships would go a long way towards meeting our goal (these are limited to just 4 slots to make sure we have room for your logo).

Like all projects, we have to start small and work our way up. I don’t have a fan-base of thousands to draw on yet, because Lunatics doesn’t exist… yet. But with your help, we can get there!

Thanks!

Those who know me will know I care about freedom – a lot. I use it in my work and I have written about it here. I am particularly concerned about freedom within the Church. For too long now there has been a growing trend of possessiveness within the Church. Driven by some kind of mimicry of the way some businesses act, Christians have been placing higher and higher importance on protecting “their” works. The collective name for these works is the mythical Intellectual Property. Mythical because try as I might I can find nobody giving a legal definition of what it is or what its limits are. So we have draconian copy protection and threatening remarks placed upon Christian music and resources – resources which as I have said before surely should be permitted to be used to equip and encourage the rest of the family? In an earlier post I said:

It seems frankly daft that those who are using God given gifts to create wonderful ways to give him glory would seriously want to sue a fellow Christian for making an additional photocopy

Albert Einstein said “There are only two things that are infinite: the universe and human stupidity and I am not that sure about the former”. It seems Einstein was right and my remark that it would be daft for Christians to sue each other over such things did not mean it wouldn’t happen. I have recently heard about two incidents where a Christian group is suing (or threatening to sue) another one because they feel their “Intellectual Property” is being infringed.

Absence of grace

How about practising what you preach?

The first one is the SteelRoots debacle. A UK Christian youth ministry has been threatened with legal action by a large US Christian media company – “The Inspirational Network Inc” (INI). Their crime? They use the same name for their ministry as one of the media company’s “ministries”. Looking close shows that other than Christian and Youth there is very little similarity between the two. The chances of somebody mistaking the UK ministry (which is a combined effort from local churches and Christian groups) for a US-based (e.g. not a UK company) TV station is pretty remote. And yet the big company has seen fit to bully the smaller ground-level ministry because they have the same name. INI claim that their broadcasts are sent to “98% of all UK households”. I call cowdung. Most estimates say there are around 22million households in the uk. At the best estimate there are around 10 million Sky customers. Take off some for pubs, clubs etc. add some for cable customers and you’ll end up with around the same number so that would be about 50% of UK households.

But facts and figures aside, this is a ridiculous situation! As ChurchSofa has said: what if no two churches were allowed to have the same name. SteelRoots UK has not sought to “trade” off the name, reputation or any other part of it’s US namesake and yet the threats have been sent. This action is entirely lacking in grace, love and adds nothing to the already tarnished name of Christianity. I bet nobody will be saying “See how these Christians love each other” upon reading this! In a final twist the SteelRoots·com website has a set of devotionals, one of the ones for today has this memorable quote:

“What if everyone around you watched your life to see if you were really a Christian? Would you pass the test? What if our actions can mean the difference in someone’s decision for Christ?…” (emphasis mine)

What indeed.

Absence of grace 2

The second incident has grabbed fewer headlines but is no less ridiculous or infuriating. A UK church published a poem it thought might encourage their members in the church newsletter. A copy of the newsletter was put on their website. It turns out the poem – which I believe was out of copyright in the UK – was under copyright in the US. Yep, you guessed it: the church received an e-mail from the US lawyers representing the “owner” of the poem. Their demands were simple – “You used our client’s poem, please pay us £7000″. SEVEN GRAND?! What happened to giving them a ring? What happened to asking them to put some kind of attribution? But again as I have said before what was the purpose of the poem? Was it to show off how clever the poet was, or was it to show how good God is. Maybe it was meant to encourage other Christians? Again this is a prime example of Christians behaving like the rest of the world – and worse than that – like the worst aspects of the rest of the world! If you use something from this site ( and you are welcome to in a non-commercial way ) and I want you to stop, then isn’t it better for me to call you, send a friendly “would you mind not doing that?” e-mail than a threat of “pay up or else”? And if you question why I restrict commercial use of my work, it’s simply because I offer this stuff for free and I don’t want anyone else being charged for it. The Creative Commons licence I use means that should someone want to use it in a commercial venture they need only ask (but I might still say no). Non-commercial uses nned not ask and can just go ahead. So go ahead use my cartoons and artwork and my poems (such that they are) in your church bulletins and projection systems. As long as you are not charging people for the work or to get in, I’m fine with it.

Do not write in anger

You may have guessed that I am angry about this. I was angry when I heard about last night but following my own advice I decided not to write about it then. I slept on it so I could write with a clear head. The trouble is these incidents and ones like them are ungracious, bullying and just plain wrong. As someone once said if the law supports this behaviour then the law is an ass! So although I have a clearer head I am still angry. If I wait until I am no longer angry I won’t be writing this piece.

I’ve been saying this for many years and now I am glad I am not alone: ENOUGH! What the heck are we doing to each other here? Christians caring more about some misplaced sense of “loss of earnings” and infringement of “intellectual property rights” than they do about loving each other and letting God have the glory. Why can’t Christians share any more? I’m pretty sure that Sundays Schools and youthwork programmes around the world are still teaching that sharing is good. As a father and a youthworker I know I try to pass that lessons onto those who are part of my responsibility and I am guessing I am not alone. So why are we teaching that if our actions don’t show it?

I don’t like to rant about others behaviour without offering suggestions for alternatives but I won’t waste space repeating myself here. Go read about the m108 project,  my proposal for a way for Christians to free themselves of these proprietary mammon-oriented principles.

As a closing remark. I once heard a sermon where the preacher asked how many people owned a TV, more than 10 CDs, more than two pairs of jeans, a car, a fridge etc. After the show of hands he turned and said “So you all own all this stuff? That’s odd because in my Bible it says ‘The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it’”. That’s the point here. This stuff, the poems, the names we use, the music, the artwork is not as precious as we think. Is “our” work so much better than God’s? He gave it to us to share, enjoy and look after. We slap copyright on it and threaten each other if we dare use the same name or share something that blessed us. To sort of borrow a phrase from the Daily Mail (of all places): this is Christianity gone mad and it has to stop! The only way it will is if we stop it.

Document Freedom day - because freedom counts

A week or so back I announced the m108 project aimed at getting some freedom into Church resources. The Church needs to stop the trend of restricting what we permit God’s family to do with the stuff he has inspired us to make so we can worship, learn about and fellowship with Him.

Those who know me will know I care about freedom, be it free software or free culture. Today (31 March 2010) is Document Freedom day. Across the globe people who care about freedom will be marching, speaking and even eating cake with the aim of promoting free(dom) documents. In a nutshell, document freedom is about formats and standards. It’s no good giving freedom in use of a work if the file format prohibits that very freedom by forcing people to buy a particular piece of software.

This fits directly in with m108 if you ask me. Given that we are seeking to bring back sharing within the body of Christ (and I don’t mean “sharing” as a euphemism for evangelism here) it makes sense to me that the file format is important. Suppose I share with you a song I have written. I give you access to the lyrics, the recording and the music. Now suppose the lyrics are in (say) Microsoft Word format. Aren’t I forcing you to get a copy of Word to use it? Even if you use one of the great alternative programs that can read Word documents (like OpenOffice.org) ; what happens iif/when Microsoft change the format? Unless I convert it as we go, my lyrics may be left behind, orphaned in a world of upgrades. Similarly with the recording. MP3 is the ubiquitous format for such files – to the point where it’s fast becoming a label for any digital audio file regardless of the format (bit like biro or hoover). But MP3 is covered by patents and is owned by a corporation. Right now they are quite relaxed on how they let people use “their” format, insisting only on payment if you make a program that creates or plays MP3s. But what happens if they decide to increase their fee? What happens if they start to get a bit more greedy, then a bit more. We’ll be stuck, we’ll be held to ransom. There are open formats for media files, such as OGG, FLAC etc. and providing media in those will ensure longevity of the freedom we want to share.

I’m not going to insist that those contributing to m108 (or whatever it finally gets called) use only open document formats and standards – that’s why I’m posting this here and not on m108. For a start I’m not aware of an open format for music scores but then I know little of such things anyway. I do think it’s vital that open formats be encouraged within the project. If only to ensure the freedom and sharing we are trying to engender doesn’t get held to ransom by the corporate greed we are trying to avoid within the Church.

When the Church invented printing it didn’t hold onto its invention but shared it and the technology used within it. It changed the world forever. The Church may not be inventing this technology or the open standards within it but we should be equally ready to use it to change the world.

Way back in 2005 (was it really that long ago) I posted a piece on my blog entitled “Christianity that doesn’t spread from the fridge“.

In that I explained how the use of copyright can stifle the spread of worship and faith among churches. I also focused on the ridiculous situation that means the vehicles of worship and relationship that God has inspired his people to create are locked down and used as revenue generators rather than faith-builders. If you read this blog long enough you’ll soon discover I am a fan of freedom and for creative works (including the text and artwork on this site) I encourage the use of Creative Commons licences. My spreading from the fridge piece ended with a rallying cry:

So here’s a wake up call to the Christian publishers, Bible houses, Song composers and authors of today: Think about why you do that work? If it’s for God’s glory and the furtherance of God’s kingdom then are you not restricting the very purpose of that work by restricting the fair usage of it by others? Christianity is about risks – take one with the work you do for him and see if God likes it.

I’m happy to say that I’ve found somebody who has. I’m not for a second claiming that they did because of anything I wrote – I doubt they’ve even heard of me – but when I found the music it blessed me. Yes I know that can be a cheesy phrase, all too often bandied around but in this instance it’s the most accurate description I can use.

Take Me In | live worship | freely download | freely use

Murray Bunton of Australia has produced and made available a live album of great original songs and made them available under a Creative Commons licence. I’m never any good at music reviews so I’m not going to try and explain where these songs fit in the spectrum of Christian music. What I will say is that the songs on this album are of a high quality – in terms of the writing, performance and production.

Murray has also made the recordings, the lyrics  and the guitar chord sheets freely available under the same licence as my artwork: the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share-Alike licence. This means you can use them, copy them, pass them around as much as you like without charge or penalty. You just can’t sell them or use them in a comercial venture. Seems entirely fair to me and I applaud and thank Murray for this step. Others will be greatly encouraged by the music and further still by the decision to allow the works to be freely used in their intended purpose.

If you produce or know of other Christian worship songs under a Creative Commons licence, feel free to post a link as a comment here.