First International Forum on Free Culture and Knowledge Accessibility
Barcelona, October 29 to November 1 2009
Join online at
http://www.fcforum.net
The International Forum on free culture and knowledge will take place from October 29 to November 1st 2009 in Barcelona. This event is a unique opportunity to bring together under the same roof the main organizations and active voices in the world of free culture and free knowledge; a meeting point to sit down and work together setting common agendas and strategies, and also to reflect, from a critical point of view, on the different views, dangers and contradictions of free culture. At the same time, the forum is an opportunity to give more visibility to alternative conceptions of knowledge, culture and creativity, different from the ones that the entertainment industry and universities insist on imposing.
Why Barcelona
In January 2010, Spain will take up the Presidency of the European Union. The Spanish Government has already announced that one of its flagships will be the reinforcement of the control over the Internet and the criminalization of the sharing culture in the digital environment. The consequences of those decisions will be noticed in the rest of the world. Furthermore, within this context
Barcelona is closing agreements about access to culture that will serve as models to other institutions in Catalonia and Spain. In October 29 this year Barcelona will hold the Second Edition of the Oxcars Festival, an international event to honor the defense of culture and to show the existence of other creation channels, at least as good as the traditional ones. The last edition was a success with more than 2000 participants. It brought the attention both of an interested public and of media. You can find more information about last year's edition at
http://exgae.net/exgae-multiply-and-share-forth/theoxcars
There are many active organizations, movements and persons related to free culture from different perspectives in Spain, offering a very rich sharing space and a source of new proposals from where an international process can bel aunched. In this regard, several worldwide voices, like during the last World Social Forum (Belem do Para, Brazil, 2009) recognize the necessity of creating international spaces for networking, coordination and building of a global framework for free culture and knowledge, analyze similarities and develop common agendas. The Free Culture Forum of Barcelona aims to create such a space.
What
The main objectives of the Forum are, on the one hand, building networks to optimize the efforts of the different groups and setting common demands against the proposals from industry and governments in their eagerness to control culture and information; and on the other hand reinforcing the self-organization of tools and infrastructures to support free culture.
How
The Forum will take place in 3 days that combine different methodologies:
October 29: Celebration of the Oxcars Free Culture Awards Festival.
October 30: Presentation of key experiences from around the globe and discussion on the key issues.
October 31: Working groups around the key issues of the Forum
November 1st: Bring together the results from the working groups. Define a common agenda and approve a manifesto for each topic.
Key issues
The working program is on:
* Education and Acces to Knowledge
* Organizational Logic and Political Implications of Free Culture
* Free Software and Open Standards: Knowledge Sharing Hacker Philosophy and Action Technical Ware
* Economies, New P2p Models and Sustainable Distribution
* Legal Perspectives and User Access
HOW TO JOIN THE FREE CULTURE FORUM ONLINE????
DURING THE FCFORUM:
The Fcforum will take place from Oct 29th to Nov 1 2009 (Barcelona time zone). You can check out the program at
http://fcforum.net/programa From the http//www.fcforum.net you have access to the several ways to join online and in live the Fcforum listed below.
Live streaming:
The oXcars Awards Festival (Oct 29 from 21pm) at
http://oxcars09.exgae.net/live/
The Fcforum (Oct 30 to Nov 1) will be live streamed at
http://fcforum.net/live
The main conclusions and ideas will be transmitted though distributed microblogging services, too. The messages will be transmitted in English, Catalan and Spanish.
Identi.ca':
http://identi.ca/fcforum/
The Fcforum encourages you to use Identi.ca becouse is free, otherwise at Twitter go to
http://twitter.com/fcforum_net
In both cases, add '!fcf' to your messages so they will be received by the fcforum group.
You can also join the Facebook event at
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=179317651046&ref=mf
The collaborative wiki to support the Fcforum working groups is
http://wiki.fcforum.net
AFTER THE FCFORUM:
The recordings will be availeble from the
http://www.fcforum.net
Furthermore, and importantly, the Fcforum has as a goal to end up with Manifestos on free culture and a common action agenda. After the fcforum at
http://www.fcforum.net you will be able to check the fcforum results and join and manifest your support if you wish.
For other questions and doubts the contact e-mail is: info(at)fcforum.net
