La EX
URL = http://la-ex.net/english [1]
Description
1.
"La EX (previously EXGAE) was created as a result of the justified hostility towards some cultural industries lobbies, with the aim of equipping civil society with creative and legal skills to increase their visibility and defend themselves. La EX is a platform with non-profit aims. That is: a lot of aims, but no profit at all.
The information brought together on this site is a means to share tools, information and documents that EXGAE members, as ordinary citizens (based on the professional and personal activities of each member, and the problems they have encountered), have had to create. EXGAE members want to share these resources with everybody else who find themselves in similar situations, so that they can defend themselves from the abuses of the parts of the cultural industries that are trying to prevent the transition to the digital age by all means possible.
La EX dialogues and works with everybody, and firmly believes that existing cultural models from the previous age must be able to coexist with the new models, without trying to set up unfair obstacles for these emerging ones.
EXGAE focuses on informing and assisting individuals (in Spain, all consumers pay the digital levy that supposedly compensates these organisations for loss of royalties due to new technologies), and, in particular, to provide legal advice to small businesses, artists, authors and producers alike.
Through practice, La EX encourages the normalisation of new ways of creating and understanding culture. Alongside the great majority of society, it is committed to defending the right to use alternative forms of circulation of culture.
The horizon we are aiming for is to bring about a change in habits and regulations, in favour of a fairer and more beneficial use of digital resources."
2. Simona Levi:
- X.net aims to provide citizens with creative and legal skills that they can use to put an end to the monopoly and non-constitutional activities of the cultural industries groups and their private goals.
X.net fights alongside the great majority of society for the growth of new forms of circulation of culture. It focuses on informing and assisting individuals, and, in particular, on providing legal advice to small businesses, artists, authors and producers.
There are 24 organisations and individuals behind this initiative, which began with the endorsement of around 8,000 citizens.
X.net analyses political and social developments and drafts proposals for intervention on legislation, organises cultural events that aim to “normalise” free culture production and diffusion practices and make them known to the general public, amplifies the potential of national and international networks by fostering and harmonising the abilities of each node, and creates viral campaigns.
One of X.net’s public activities is the annual oXcars event, the world’s biggest free culture show ;-). The oXcars is a showcase for artists and creators who have pioneered the changes in knowledge and cultural production thanks to the potential of new technologies, and seeks to defend society’s right to use them. The oXcars are also a way to make the free culture movement mainstream, a bridge between free culture works and artists and the general public.
The oXcars inform, make free culture visible and magnify it, and thus empower citizens.