One very quick comment, then I have stuff to do.  I'll be back later to see where this thread goes and what, if anything, I can add to the discussion.  I've gone to take a quick scan of the pertinent court documents at Volock Conspiracy, the Court Restraining Order, and the Defense Evidence. 

I've also gone to the Freecycle Website, and spent some time at the Start Your Own Group Page.

There's lots of information there, and I urge people to really look at it. 

• The group's total budget is 150,000.00
• There is no charge to start a group of one's own if there is no group in one's area
• If there is a group in one's area one needs to get permission to start an overlapping group
• Nobody can "own" more than one group

Before I see this as a free speech issue, I want to know a bit more about such things as

• Why the defendant left the group after being in the group for less than a year?
• What ways could the group be injured by persons forming competing groups using the name but not ascribing to the statement of mission and principles?

As Josh always says, "Does anyone know about this"?

And finally, suppose someone here mounted a campaign to do a similar thing to TPM Cafe, or to Talking Points Memo.  Suppose the group was a Freeper group?  Would we want to defend the these from copyright infringement?

Mike

Might I first suggest that you post a link to the court's order that you reference. I've been unable to locate it after a bit of searching.

Without having read the decision, my reaction is to disagree with you. The Consitution and laws of the US are supposed to protect us equally. That means that the interests of TFN are equally recognized under the law.

There is a difference between freedom of speech and taking action to harm someone else's interests. Posting your opinion that a recycling movement is better served by not using trademark protection is freedom of speech. Actively organizing a movement to deny someone of property rights is not freedom of speech. It is itself an attempt to deny rights granted by the law.

I don't see a freedom of speech issue here. Please post the decision if there's something I'm missing.

Thanks for this post.

It's great that the political movers and motivators are beginning to see the enormous dangers of the grossly out of balance intellectual property laws. I mention balance because IP laws are supposed to balance an individual's incentive to "create" with the public's benefit derived from those creations. When does the individual's benefit become an oppression on and repression of public advancement? Beyond that you're not simply looking for some lame angle to interest the "iPod" crowd. This isn't just about being able to listen to music without a corporate flunky standing in front of you with a stop sign and an outstretched palm.

You've pointed out in the past that enhancing monopolistic IP abuses has become the prime aspect of international trade agreements. It's the "ownership" of ideas in the hands of the few. A near perpetual ownership in many cases - contrary to the U.S. Constitution's admonition against "perpetual" copyright. A new land grab or "property" grab.

The news you've cited reminds me of the copyright rulings granting the Church of Scientology injunctions against the distribution of internal Church documents. In those cases copyright law was also used to prevent free speech and the dissemination of information about some group that they did not feel was in their interests. Rather than protecting some income based on "creativity," IP was used to prevent unflattering speech - a complete corruption of the intent of the constitution both in terms of free speech and the original copyright motivation.

As Justice Breyer points out we wouldn't need courts if there weren't grey areas like this.

In the case of a trademark like "Mattell" I would be sympathetic to the trademark holder, but the Freecycle case touches on a deeper issue--how broad is the class of words and phrases that can be copyrighted or trademarked?

"Freecycle" began as a generic word, and I would side with those that feel it should remain so. Consider trademarking a phrase like "Free Speech."

A word that until recently was a part of everyone's vocabulary is fair game for gaming the system.

I'm with the many skeptics here, such as Mike Tom, and Bev. It's surely gray enough of an area that I'd have to spend more time than I have or probably will (at least until the case proceeds further) to offer a personal view.

But it seems to me there is a principle here, only not the one Nathan has in mind. Any kind of protection accorded the owner of a form of speech, including both trademark and copyright, can be a kind of free speech protection or its opposite. Simply shouting first amendment is wrong, and it could be the shouter who's taking away the bill of rights. I was dead sure that NN was the offender when he posted on "cleaning up" movies, and that to me puts the burden on him to show he's not here.

Seems to me he's in favor of free speech only when it's his speech. I should say that Congress has been far too generous with property rights of all kinds, not just ones related to speech, but certainly when it extended the lifetime of copyright egregiously. I also use "google" myself as a verb. However, that doesn't mean those worrying about their trademark, rightly or wrongly, amount to the death of the first amendment. Bev's comparison to Trotskyites is not off-base, and I don't recall Bolshevism as being terribly protective of freedoms.

Nathan's got to open his policy directives up to concern for others more. I've worried that in his defense of universal health care, "universal" amounts to the universe of certain classes of full time workers. Maybe now I know why the labor movement never had the power it does in Europe. Here it's just another part of the American concern for "mine." If he wants any sympathy from someone like me, who unfortunately is not unionized, he had better reach out in turn. 

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

Kind of bizarre response, since it mixes a whole bunch of assumptions about power (wanting to edit other peoples films involves violating their first amendment rights) that are odd and assumptions about me that are dead wrong,

You say I'm "in favor of free speech only when it's [my] speech," without citing any evidence.  I'm pretty much a first amendment absolutist-- defending anything from corporate advertising to rightwing fundamentalistic Christians to dissident freecyclers. 

And as for health care, I'd bet I've spent more time campaigning for universal health care than most critics-- I was involved back in 1994 in the California single payer health care initiative, helping set up their campaign web site among other work in the campaign.

But you miss the point.  This case isn't about whether other groups may set up groups using the term "freecycle"; it's about whether a person can advocate for the trademark not being granted in the first place.   The distinction is pretty key and the difference between your average IP case and a fundamental first amendment decision.

Tom Says:

"Freecycle" began as a generic word, and I would side with those that feel it should remain so. Consider trademarking a phrase like "Free Speech."

Did it begin that way? I really don't know one way or the other. Maybe it takes a long time for words to reach Rhode Island. The first time I came across it was in this interesting thread. But then my community does not have a Freecycle Group.

Maybe it is a deliberate coinage combining two fairly ordinary words, but not conveying the meaning of either of them alone.  Its definition is not a combination of the definitions of free and cycle.  It is a play on the word recycle. It would be interesting to trace back the etymology of the word.

It probably would be possible, as well. The Freecycle organization began in 2003. We have two ways to figure out whether the word is generic or not.

• we can ask the persons who met in Arizona to form the organization...how did they decide on a name for it?  They might be able to identify the specific person who came up with the idea. 
• we can use the powers of research engines to see whether or not the word (a word, not phrase like Free Speech) appeared in any document prior to the founding of the group.

I think that a lot of this controversy originates in a misunderstanding of how words become generic in the first instance, coupled with overconfidence in the ability to stop a word from becoming generic even if one wants to stop it from doing so.

Most words move into the common tongue because individuals find them useful, not because of a campaign to cause that to happen. The English "Hoover" their carpets, regardless of which brand vacuum cleaner they use. I currently "xerox" papers on a Sharp machine...I don't "sharp" them. I ask someone to pass me a "Kleenex" and they hand me whatever facial tissue they have, and if I ask someone to bring me a box of Kleenex from the store they don't take me literally. I tell people I'm going down to the machine to get a coke. I come back from the machine with my Pepsi-Cola (which happens to be the only brand in the machine), and nobody thinks I've changed my mind on the way there.

On the other side of the equation, I don't much like the word blog. It sounds ugly and rhymes with a lot of other word representing ugly things: slog, flog, clog, bog, smog. I use blog and its cousin, blogger, because if I didn't either everyone else wouldn't understand what I was saying, or I'd have to write a longer phrase which would seem forced or unnatural.

A person is a "blogger" whether or not he/she uses Google's "blogger" site. In fact I tell my students to "google" their queries on several search engines.  I do this because I heard them using google as a verb first.  It seemed simpler to me to use the vocabulary they had already developed to conduct internet research than to force them into a more formal vocabulary.  The language has been evolving right under my nose. (I am resisting with all my strength using the word blogosphere...I don't think I'm going to succeed. On the other hand, I still have an open mind about netizen and netroots). My point is that many generic product names like Kleenex, Hoover, and Xerox, Coke (and) Cola all became words which entered the common vocabulary without campaigns to have them do so.

If a commercial rival were to try to capitalize on this by naming a product with one of these names, they probably wouldn't get away with it.  But all the lawyers at Xerox Corporation can't stop people from xeroxing their documents, regardless of the machine upon which they xerox them.  If the general public decides that Freecycle will become a common word, it will use it in a common way regardless of the wishes of the holder of the trademark. If the public doesn't take to the word and agree on a generic meaning for the word, no campaign is going to be successful.

Mike

Bev- But the "action" that is enjoined is speech.   So are we in Orwell land, where if we call speech "action" thate is no violation of the first amendment if that speech is prohibited by the government? 

One of the things the defendant was enjoined from doing is advocating that people write the Trademark Office and oppose granting a trademark to Freecycle.  So it is PRECISELY the right to petition that has been enjoined in this case. 

In fact, as the Appeals Brief linked to above notes:

Contacting the PTO [trademark office] about a pending trademark application is not only lawful but is protected by the First Amendment right to petition "all departments of the Government." citing BE&K Const. Co. v. NLRB, 536 U.S. 516, 525 (2002)

What's amazing is that people aren't flying off the table in outrage that WRITING LETTERS TO A GOVERNMENT AGENCY is being treated as a criminal act subject to threat of imprisonment for contempt.  

It's very true that Holmes was not being literal-- which was the problem.

In the case where the phrase was created in 1919, Schenck v. US, Holmes upheld jailing people for calling for resistance to the draft during WWI.  This was considered a shameful decision and was overturned in Brandenburg v. Oho, which said that speech could not be banned if actual harm or violence-- "imminent lawless action" -- was likely to result from speech. 

This is the harm of IP laws-- the idea that people need to be protected from speech, instead of succeeding because their speech is better than competing speech.    It not only corrodes the area of intellectual property but as your arguments show, back up and actually undermine principles of broader free speech law that are long settled.

And to repeat-- this case is not about companies competing in any way with Freecycle to establish alternative groups that would use the freecycle term, but about whether someone can ask the government to not grant the trademark in the first place, the most basic right to petition the government possible.

OPINION:
freecycle is an obvious combination of free + recycle.

other uses are "it's like a free cycle of giving" which Deron Beal said in interviews & on the website so definitions of free + cycle are relevant

FACTS:
freecycle was in use before 2003 to mean to give something away for free

it was used in 1998 (provable) has been claimed to be used as early as 1987 (heresay)

it was used from 2000 to 2004 to mean the same thing by an unconnected company and nonprofit http://web.archive.org/web/20000419170558/www.hemp-inc.com/freecycle.htm

FACTS but alleged:
the lawsuit parties:
allegedly Deron Beal while at Rise,Inc. a 501(c)3 arizona nonprofit,made the (prexisting) phrase in 2003

he made a mailing list locally and openly encouraged others to copy what he was doing and use the name

others did

a website was linking point

Deron Beal founded TFN,Inc. an arizona nonprofit but failed to get 501(c)3 status 2-3 years later
has allegedly received denial letters

early on rise, inc. allegedly transferred ownership of freecycle trademark rights to tfn,inc.

tim oey (restrained party) was independent group owner was told to not make disparaging remarks after complicated suit see http://www.greenribbon.us for court documents

FACT:
Rise, Inc., Deron Beal, TFN, Inc., linking website & all independent freecycles used freecycle in generic ways hundreds to thousands of times both before & after applying for trademark (provable)

web search for freecycler, freecyclers, freecycling, freecyclin' or check archive.org copies of freecycle.org (provable)

99% of news coverage use freecycle in generic fashion

For More Information

Grist's story on growing pains at FreeCycle 

Grist's Followup Story

Tim Oey's Statement

The Law Firm providing Pro Bono Services to Tim Oey

The Website of Greencycle, attacking FreeCycle's founder as "Darth" Beal

and The History of the Freecycle Network. (As told by itself).

The term Freecycle has been appropriated by a website, Freecycle.com, which looks at first glance to be commercial.  I haven't looked it over thoroughly.  I'm not adept enough to figure out whether this domain was registered before or after the Freecycle network was.  Someone more net savvy than I am can do that, if they wish.

At Freecycle.com there is a link to something called Freecycle.org, but that takes one to a registration page, not to Freecycle.net.  There is no mention or link to Freecycle.net.

I'm going to fade from the discussion for awhile.  Make of this what you will.  I haven't tried to find who is funding Freecycle's defense here.  Nor have I found the origins of the original word freecycle.  I googled Freecycle on Clusty.  Someone can plow through the results.  (If you've read one of my other posts here, you'll see I've made an illustration of a point I've made elsewhere, hopefully not without humor).

Mike

freecycle.com and freecycle.net were both registered in 2000 (by 2 dif. ppl) predating freecycle.org

freecycle as a word & name is also in use by a bicycle team a music software & a oil - machine company many many years before but as different meaning (like apple records & apple computers) but thats not important due to different meaning

tfn,inc.'s suit is funded by probono attorneys & waste management $250,000 'donation' to tfn,inc.

You know, I knew that your response would be to call me a fascist or a nazi or some other rightwing epithet. It's hurtful, but I expected it, so I'm not surprised.

I believe very deeply in the ideals of this country - that we're a people of laws, that no one is above the law and that the law applies equally to every person. I also believe that we have the obligation as citizens to abide by the laws, that we ourselves enacted, that we respect the courts decisions because we are a lawful, civilized people and that we trust in our own system to sort our differences without resorting to violence and chaos.

I don't know where this idea came from, that all we are is a collection of rights, without duties, responsibilities and civilized behavior, and that we never have to compromise or co-operate with each other. I don't think that my belief that we need to be about more than our rights makes me a fascist. I think it makes me a human being who knows that sometimes we need to make sacrifices and act in a responsible manner so that we can live together in relative harmony. We have agreed that the courts arbitrate our disputes, and we have agreed that we can appeal to the courts when we don't agree with their decision.

Now this court made a ruling that gave the plaintiff TEMPORARY relief, after the plaintiff presented his petition and the court found that the petitioner proved by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendent's actions were harmful to the plaintiff. There is NO ruling that the defendent can't write letters, that the defendent can't bitterly complain about the decision or that the defendent can't appeal the decision. The court did NOT rule that writing letters was a crime. It ruled that the defendent must refrain from an action temporarily or be in contempt of court. The court didn't "criminalize letter writing". I wasn't enjoined from writing letters, you weren't enjoined from writing letters, and neither of us has been enjoined from discussing this case or the repercussions of this case.

In my opinion, the TEMPORARY restraining order is not the death of free speech, nor is my "acceptance" of the decision mean that I'm a nazi. What it means is that while I acknowledge the rights of citizens to petition the government I also acknowledge that by that petitioning we have an inherent agreement that we abide by the decision until that decision is overturned unless we find that decision morally repugnant and harmful to the greater good of our society.

Unlike conservatives, I don't believe that it is every man for himself - I believe that we're a society and sometimes some of us are called on to make temporary sacrifices in order to sort out our differences in a civilized, law abiding manner.

'You say I'm "in favor of free speech only when it's [my] speech," without citing any evidence.' Your thread with Bev is a mighty good start, but here's some suggestions. Plaintiffs seeking day in court: bad speech. Creative artists thinking that their words and ideas matter and belong to them: bad speech. Rants about death of first amendment: good speech. Using other people's words for your commercial purposes: good speech. 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

BTW, take a look at the first letter in the book section today, by a defender of electronic publishing. Updike may call such freedom of access the death of the book, but, the writer (a prominent editor) responds, he can always choose not to participate. I'd go further, in fact, and insist that the Author's Guild suit against Google for what amounts toa plan for  the world's most sophisticated libary card catalogue is wrong, and an author should not have the right to opt out of that one. But I won't go as far as Nathan, who believes it's his decision what should be published. That would be the death of the first amendment. 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

John -  At some point, I actually don't think you are trying to make a coherent argument on the First Amendment.  Since you just are throwing out ad hominen attacks that have little to do with law or actual position I hold, I'll leave the argument here.

"Court injunctions were the weapon of choice of employers in smashing unions and imprisoning labor leaders for much of American history."

I think we are talking about apples and oranges in terms of temporary injunctions against Unions, and temporary injunctions to maintain the status quo to determine whether a word can be given copyright protection. By the way, I thought the Pinkertons were the historic weapon of choice for anti-union employers.

"A key part of the Constitution is the right to trial by jury, which has been largely eroded in many areas of the law."

The absolute right to trial by jury exists exclusively in the criminal context.

"So yes, suppression of free speech even by the dictates of the law is a form of fascism, since if the government can suppress any speech it doesn't like, elections become largely irrelevant since the public will not have the information to hold the government accountable."

A court issued injunction that is sought by a private party is not the same thing as a governmental suppression of "any speech it doesn't like."

Any any union organizer-- historically, they could have defeated the Pinkertons.  They couldn't defeat the court injunctions backed by the police and army enforcing them.

As to trial by jury for civil issues, the much forgotten 7th Amendment says:

"In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."

And a court injunction is government action, since it enforces government laws, even if the action is initiated by a private party.

Ok, so Nathan thinks I can't think this through? Maybe I'm assuming too much from the previous topic, about copyright, where he never came up with an argument in reply himself. Maybe I'm trusting too much to the vacuity of his replies to Mike and Bev. But here goes.

It's this simple: if you think of copyright and trademark laws as existing to further first amendment values, including open debate and creative expression, you can understand their limits. You can fight hard the GOP handouts to money and power, the obstacles in the way of generics, the copyright extensions that never end. You can understand why fair use exists, to further critical points of view, publicity, and artistic freedom, and why Scientology doesn't have a case. You can understand why our libel laws are more restrictive than Englands. If you think of them as getting in the way of speech, you're doomed to that stifles freedom.

Here's why they exist. First comes, yes, plain old money. You want remuneration from your work, so that you can bring it to the marketplace of ideas, and you hope that perhaps others can profit, too, so that they will do so as well. You could be shopping your first book around, hoping they'll overlook the four-letter words because it's art and because at least no one will compete with a censored version. You could be daring to quit your job, living on nothing, in hope it'll pay off. Maybe these concerns mean diddly to Nathan, who has his paid soapbox, but that's part of my assumption he can't look past the end of his nose.

Second comes the ideas and art themselves. You want to know that your work won't be censored and mutilated. These mean nothing to him, so I can only assume it's because he's said he backs the multilaters. So why should I trust him?

He can't see himself in the shoes of others, so let me put him there forcefully. Suppose he's like most of us, lucky to get a university press to budget sales of a thousand, lucky to find a book in a library or even in print a year down the line. And suppose someone with real power, a Fox or Coulter type, just happens to take his words above and alter them, so that he's objecting to those who'd defy Bush, America, or Christianity. Who cares? After all, his original can still compete on its own, right? Right???

Sound hateful? Sound farfetched? As I say, things get subtle, and I have no position on this trademark debate, only on Nathan's hateful attitude. I don't see even a pro forma attempt on NN's part ot articulate the difference, other than that the publications that Nathan likes should get to the market. This is the death of the first amendment, if anything is. He does not deserve his place on a halfway liberal Web site. I have nothing further to say.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

Bev,
There's at least an attempt to provide criminal defense attorneys for defendants of limited means. Where the matter is for the civil courts, the imbalance is strained. I believe part of the problem is that the bar thinks of itself too much as adversarial and not enough as officers of the court. It bitterly amuses me how relatively easy it is, admittedly with specialized knowledge, to force peer or supervisory review of a physician's potential ethical violation, compared to a situation where a lawyer may be acting contrary to the local rules of professional conduct.

While I frequently touch on intellectual property issues, be they for things I publish or for engineering design, I've been lucky enough to avoid litigation. A business partner, however, has been hammered by a firm to which he once subcontracted, that firm using a specific contract's nondisclosure/noncompete agreements to try to prevent him from ever doing work in any aspect of communications network security. Their pockets were sufficiently deep that he had no real way to defend himself, other than to submit. Happily, that firm eventually went bankrupt, but we can't always be so lucky.

How do you suggest the "ordinary man" defend intellectual property rights against well-capitalized firms? Where copyright is involved, for example, should part of every copyright fee go into a "public defender" fund?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

And a court has now ordered the defendant to stop making such statements to other activists-- essentially using court power to silence even advocacy of defying trademarks.

This is a joke, right? Using court power to disparage trademarks--which is what defendants were doing--is hardly new. And it is entirely within the scope of court power to do so.

If the defendants wanted to use the trademark to denigrate what the trademark owner was doing--as an identifier for the trademark owner--that's one thing. But to try to make the trademark generic by basically trying to trespass on it is quite another.

Sorry, Mr. Newman, you're wrong on this one.

That's a whole different issue, Howard, and I agree with you. What I don't agree with is Newman's hysterical, rabble rousing headline that free speech is dead, because of some temporary injunction in an obscure civil case. In my opinion, this shows a lack of judgement and discretion - not everything is the end of the free world as we know it, and not everything is of equal importance - this is a minor ruling that will have no effect whatsoever on our right to free speech. This is the same tactic used by this administration - scare the holy living hell out of people and use that fear to promote a political agenda.

From one who has watched the entire process, I have several observations.

TFN was granted a Trademark on the words and logo when the application was selected by the USPTO. At the moment the application is up for final approval as a Registered Trademark.

Mr. Beal coined the word by combining "Free" and "Recycle". It does not matter how it was used before as long as competing applications have been withdrawn (as they have been.) It does not matter that the word was used by different industries and non-competing usages (oil refining and bicycles).

Mr. Oey got in trouble, not for challenging the trademark (which he has a legal right to do) but for encouraging using the Trademarked "Freecycle" in ways that were improper forcing TFN (the Freecycle Network) to do extra work in defending the Trademark.

TFN is required by USPTO to aggressively defend "Freecycle" and to eliminate non-approved usage, like freecycler and freecycling. Mr. Oey encouraged widespread use of these words and is using that as evidence that the Trademark should not be registered. This is what he was silenced for.

Not only that but he was using a forum set up by TFN for future planning. He was originally a moderator but once the original objective was met he hijacked the list and removed any TFN management. He then used this to push the campaign to turn Freecycle into a generic word. Totally contrary to the plan of TFN.

I watched the entire process as a member of that list. I know of no non-profit corporation that would allow such actions. So it was no surprise to me that this would erupt in lawsuits. This is not a free speech issue.

It is about a person who decided to challenge the parent corporation when he didn't like the decisions made by it. And then use corporate resouces to rally people against the non profit corporation.

Mr Oey is and can continue his Trademark opposition in legal ways with no restrictions.

He is restrained from encouraging people to do illegal actions and from causing TFN extra work in defending the Trademark.

I'm one of those Mods who was a 'back office' worker at Freecycle for 1 1/2 years. I ran their databse for them, and approved new groups.


It became apparent Mr. Beal suffers from Founders Syndrome, and began to make rules, such as his alter ego Yahoo ID of ersatzfriend MUST be a co owner of all groups using Freecycle name.


I, along with many other long term Mods left Freecycle network, my groups left in the exodus of August 2005. Over 25,000 minimum members were taken off the network by the owners, such as myself. Our groups thrive today, and are not bound by Mr. Beal's direction.


Realize there are many groups out there who use this name and have either been removed from the network; and not for being a 'bad' Moderator, but because they decided Mr. Beal was becoming a tyrant.


Long story, you can read most of it on Greenribbon.US and you're welcome to come join the group called FCNext, previously called Freecycle Next, until Mr. Beal lost owner status there, when he was removed.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fcnext/

All files are here, and public view.

This group is active and a discussion group regards to this issue, these lawsuits, and many people's wish that this word Freecycle, not be allowed to be trademarked. Freecycle at Mr.Beal's direction has effected the deletion of over 1,000 groups at my count. These are all Yahoo groups and Yahoo has agreed to do this, as Mr. Beal and his staff tell Yahoo that they
DO have a TM rather than a pending one.

Archives are open on this discussion group, which received a Cease and Desist and had to change the name to avoid the deletion syndrome.

There also is a 501 application that is long pending, as Mr. Beal wishes to make all the donations and the WM funding to be non taxable.

Mr.Oey has been was with Freecycle since nearly the beginning, cannot quote the date his group was began, but he was instrumental in the building of Freecycle as it is today.

Those of us who left, or were forced out,
many of us, I cannot speak for all; wish to see Freecycle stay generic as it is. We were given the name when we opened our groups, no strings.
Most changed their name to avoid deletion of their groups.

Also, the trademark application does not include trademark of the 'word' freecycle, just the logo. Yet, Mr. Beal says otherwise.

My groups are now listed on the Freesharing.org
directory, not a competing place, simply a free place we can list. Though when one of us leaves Freecycle, groups are automatically created to replace us in our communities. My groups are some of the most active in the US, Freecycle or not.

http://freesharing.org/

Regards,
Charlotte Hess

Melbourne, Fl group

Melbourne and Cocoa Freecycling groups
4,000 members total give or take.

Ms. Hess says

I, along with many other long term Mods left Freecycle network, my groups left in the exodus of August 2005.

This tells me I need to know more about the rules for Yahoo groups themselves. I take it that Mods "own" the groups, though groups are not property in the traditional sense--one cannot buy or sell a group. Is this more or less correct? Well, I suppose one can "sell" a group by a two step process, first, finding an interested party and for a consideration creating a co-owner and then stepping down one's self. But the general principle is that the person who starts the group controls the group. Is this about it?

What then does it mean to leave a network? I gather it means that the moderator (mod) removes links to the hub of the network. Is this about right? The group remains intact, and individual members can stay with the group or not stay with the group depending on how they feel about it.

While Mods may poll their members regarding whether or not to remain in the network, they are under no obligation to do so. So when Ms. Hess says

Over 25,000 minimum members were taken off the network by the owners, such as myself,

she is speaking literally.  Is this correct? This would seem to mean that any Mod who wished to leave and keep control of his/her group could do so, provided he/she changed the name of the group and did not engage in the activities about which Mr. Beal complained, including use of the freecycle name and logo. Is it a fair conclusion that most group owners/moderators did not decide to leave, but decided to stick with the Freecycle Network?

The History of the groups would seem to bear this out. Ms. Hess's group, called MelbourneFl-rCycle, began in May 2004 with 325 postings that month and has been in continuous existence since that date. Postings now average about 2000 per month, give or take, with variations which are most likely seasonal. The Freecycle group in Melbourne commenced in August, 2005, with 18 messages that month. The most recently completed month, June, 2006, shows messages have grown to 465.

If I were to write a historical narrative of this event it would read something like this:

Sometime in August 2005, Ms Hess and a number of other local moderators left the Freecycle network over disagreements related to a number of issues, including the degree to which policy in the network should be centralized and intellectual property should be protected. A local Moderator formed a new freecycle group in Melbourne at that time, and as of today, both are promoting recycling through gifts of surplus things to group members who need them.

My suspicion is that there is considerable overlap between the two group memberships, though I have no way of checking. I gather Mods have authority to accept or reject applications to membership. Am I right in this?

I do not belong to any freecycle group, and have no stake in this, except to understand as fully as I can what is going on here. I've just given away my first thing...through Craig's list, and tomorrow afternoon four volunteer tulip trees from my garden will be on their way to a new home.

Mike

Hello,
My name is Eric Burke and I am the webmaster of FreeSharing.org and GreenRibbon.us.
Thanks Mike for digging thru both of the directories for that comparative information. Even tho it makes FS look inferior it does show due dillegence.

The original goal of FreeSharing.org when it was set up in February 2005 was to act as a central directory for free recycling groups that for whatever reason are not affiliated with FreeCycle.org.
At the time FreeSharing (FS) was set up, Freecycle (TFN) was the only major directory of free recycling groups, and acted as a typical monopoly would when unchecked by other available options. Now moderators have more directory options to be listed in, in the event that they become displeased with TFN and decide to leave.

There are several cities where FS groups are larger than TFN groups, most notibly is Cleaveland Ohio where the TFN group has 1860 members while the FreeRecycling group (which was the original TFN group) has 7200.
The TFN replacement group that was setup after the original group left also defected from TFN and is listed in the FS directory as Cleaveland FreeActivate with over 900 members.
There is also the original Cleaveland FreeShare with it's 41 members that is still a happy and functional group.

One of the primary problems with TFN, that has been fixed with the FS system is TFN's one group per city rule. This rule has a tendency to create tyrants that can not be removed once installed by TFN, which causes certain areas to suffer. At FS, as the above example shows, many groups can be listed for the same city allowing members to shop around for the group that fits their needs best, or in the event that they are unhappy with their current group, they are free to create their own group and recieve equal billing in the directory.

The management styles of TFN and FS are also dramatically different.
At TFN you have NGAs (New Group Approvers) for every state, GOAs (group outreach) for each state which dictate policy to the group owners, and of course Deron Beal who has the final say on all policies. There are very strict rules dictated to the groups on how to be 'Trademark Complient' and failing to follow those ever changing guidelines can get you a nasty letter from your local GOA and eventually de-listed from the TFN directory. Most of the TFN mods want to help their neighbors, not jump thru TM hoops, and many get frustrated and leave. Some take their group with them and some hand it over to TFN's interim mod team.
At FS there is just me for the web stuff and a public forum for support.
When a new group request comes in, I verify that it is a free recycling group, add it to the directory, and send the group owner a note welcoming them to the directory and wishing them the best of luck. I do not mediate conflicts between groups nor get involved in the management decisions of any group owners. The checks and balances come from the ability for any group of unhappy members to break away and create their own group.
Also, FreeSharing.org is 'CopyLeft', public domain, and does not seek any protection for any intelectual property(IP) posted on the site.

Time will tell if an Open Source unmanaged somewhat chaotic system will prevail over a tightly controled centrally managed one.
Seeing how I have annual expences of less than $100/yr and TFN has consumed over $150,000 in the past 18 months, I have to believe that FS has the more solid buisness model.

Feel free to contact me off list if you have any further questions, this blog entry is getting a bit tough to follow without using the 'find command'.

Best Regards,
Eric Burke
http://FreeSharing.org

Hi Mike,
No offence was taken, I was just trying to show that FS is about more than just who has the biggest member count.
I do not believe that anyone in the TM opposition is seeking to make the TFN logo generic. Most agree that the logo is a viable trademark.
The issue comes with the word Freecycle and it's derivitaves. Yahoo groups have been closed down for using just the word Freecycle, freecycling, or freecyclers. Even a Phreecycle group was send a Cease and Desist letter for being "confusingly similar" freecycle.
Also, before TFN went all TM nutty, the word and logo were freely given to any group without any obligation. Groups were able to modify the logo as they saw fit to suit their local community, and the now forbidden word "Freecycling" was used even by Deron Beal himself in his sig line.
At some point in late 2004 the TM maddness started and group owners were told to strip all usage of the word Freecycling or Freecycler from their groups, they were also told to put a TM after each occurance of the word, which caused a major fuss on the ModSquad and was later changed to just putting a TM after the first occurance. The TFN mods have, in my opinion, had to spend way too much time working on keeping their group TM complient that could have been spent on far more important issues.

One other correction while I'm here. Someone mentioned that Tim Oey was only a TFN member for less than a year before leaving the network. I believe that Tim was a member prior to early 2004 when I started my local TFN group and he left around August 2005.
I'm sure Tim would love to clarify this further himself personally, however the current 'Gag Order' prevents him from doing so.

Best Regards,
Eric Burke
http://FreeSharing.org