Rather than looking for new ways to pay for doing things the same way we always have, there is an opportunity to explore approaches that can substantially cut the costs of operating a community media station while significantly expanding your reach and impact. This is the new paradigm, and it requires putting the "community" in "community media" on a whole new level.

New Paradigms in Fundraising Financial Sustainability

Everyone's favorite example of the promise of this approach is Wikipedia. Wikipedia's mission and goals are quite similar to those for community media organizations: focused on enabling the community to share information and making that information as widely accessible as possible. Five or six years ago, the Wikimedia Foundation (which operates Wikipedia) had three full-time staff and a budget well under $1 million per year. Wikimedia didn't ask, "How can we raise enough money to recreate Encyclopedia Britannica or Microsoft Encarta?" The new paradigm for Wikipedia was finding a way to do it with less by engaging its community.

That approach made Wikipedia incredibly popular, with a level of community participation it never would've reached if it had aimed to replicate the model of those who came before. Today, the organization brings in more than $10 million in donations each year in small, individual gifts. Wikipedia isn't the only organization to do this. In fact, this people-powered approach is becoming the rule, not the exception for the world's emerging media leaders. The majority of the top 10 websites in the U.S. started with a smaller budget than your average Public Access TV station, and the new paradigm for each of them that resulted in their success was enabling their community to do the work.

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Blogger, Craigslist, even eBay started out with a budget and staff no bigger than an average Public Access TV station. Each of them are now ranked among the top 10 sites in the U.S., and while they may have a lot of funds now, the popularity came before the funds, not the other way around.

The opportunity exists now for community media to follow this same approach, and the result could be bigger than any of us imagine. Whether or not your station is facing budget cuts, the opportunity exists today for you to enable your community to create, curate, ingest and schedule their own programs, to truly manage their community media station. Your viewers can vote and decide what they want to see, and all your content can be made available online with little staff time or costs. With support from the Knight Foundation, the Open Media Foundation helped build a suite of software solutions that can put community members squarely in the driver's seat, ingesting and scheduling their own programs, reserving equipment, sharing and voting on the best content from your station and other stations across the country.

A New Way of Putting the Public in "Public Access"

In its current state, the OMP software still requires a skilled Drupal developer to implement and customize. A year after the completion of our beta test, we've learned that it was unrealistic of us to expect the staff of a Public Access TV station to manage the Open Media Project software. It was like asking the editors at Encyclopedia Britannica to manage the server room at Wikipedia.

In its current form, the Open Media approach requires a distinct staffing makeup, and despite our experience in Denver, that shift doesn't always represent a huge cost savings. The cost savings associated with automated content ingest and scheduling is often entirely offset by the increased cost of devoting a web developer to maintaining and upgrading the software. But the results are significant. Denver Open Media has more members now than any previous Public Access TV station in Denver, and according to Alexa.com, the denveropenmedia.org website ranks among the top 10 nonprofit websites in Colorado, up there with the top cultural institutions in Denver. This is what happens when the community feels true ownership over their community media station: They become more engaged.

Still, we recognize that the vision of the Open Media Project software will never be realized for community media until we can offer a version of the tools that are fully supported and simple to use, requiring no staffing changes or major retraining. With the addition of two key staff members today, the Open Media Foundation is embarking on a third phase of the project to help bring the vision of a collaborative Public Access TV network forward. Adam Mordecai, co-founder of one of the top Drupal development firms, Advomatic, joins OMF as our new Director of Special Projects, accompanied by Joe Meersman, a Drupal developer who has been developing nonprofit websites in Drupal for the past year through OMF's Internship Program. Adam and Joe join a strong team of developers at the Open Media Foundation, dedicated to putting the power of media and technology in the hands of the people.

OMP: Phase 3

The changing face of media represents significant opportunities for us as noncommercial, community-driven media organizations. I've previously outlined four competitive advantages we have as noncommercial media entities, in contrast to our commercial counterparts: advantages that open up the opportunity for Public Access to become a global, user-driven network that could exceed the impact of PBS or many commercial networks, much in the same way Wikipedia's impact has exceeded any similar effort that came before. And like Wikipedia, our opportunity can only be realized through a radical shift in the way we work with our community.

The Open Media Project software was designed specifically to help Public Access TV stations take advantage of these opportunities, and while the initial phases did not work out exactly as we had hoped, we learned a lot from the process. Over a dozen stations (and other entities) have implemented aspects of the software, though at least half of them are using the open-source nature of the tools to revise the code to fit their old ways of doing things -- essentially stripping away the aspects of the software that position us to capitalize on the strategic advantages tied to cooperating with other stations, mobilizing the community, and designing your station to be more constituent-led.

The next phase of the Open Media Project will revise the approach, offering a more pre-packaged option for participating stations. Modeling after the example provided by NPR's core publisher effort, the next phase of the Open Media Project will enable stations to benefit from our inherent strategic advantages on a level that hasn't been possible before. Those who want to explore this new paradigm and hand more of the community media reins over to their community will be part of a shift in noncommercial, user-generated media that I'm confident will do no less than change the way the world sees Public Access.

About the Internet Archive:
The Internet Archive is a 501(C)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. Its purposes include offering permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located in San Francisco, the Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages, and provides specialized services for adaptive reading and information access for the blind and other persons with disabilities.

About the Open Media Foundation:
The Open Media Foundation (OMF) is an innovative media and technology nonprofit organization dedicated to putting the power of the media in the hands of the people, enabling everyone to engage in their community and bring about the change they wish to see in the world. OMF provides affordable, high-end media and technology services, as well as training and tools to enable everyone to represent their own voice in the media conversation.

The Open Media Project grant is for a four-part effort that began with a re-building of the software we developed to automate an unprecedented approach to user-generated and community-powered TV in Denver. The second phase saw our team implement this re-built Drupal software and business model in six additional public access stations across the country. Third, we took the lessons learned from the beta-test implementations and released an installation profile that incorporates the contributions and lessons learned in the seven beta-test sites.

The fourth and final phase has our team focused on content-sharing among these stations, enabling us to cooperate as a true network by sharing the top-voted content from each station, and building a collection of truly engaging content unlike anything else you can find on TV. As we tackle this fourth phase, we are also facing the challenge of sustaining this project (and our team) without ongoing support from the Knight Foundation.

Earned Income

From the beginning, we anticipated that the long-term sustainability of the Open Media Project would be based primarily on earned income. We hoped the success of the Open Media Project would generate a strong demand from public access TV stations and other organizations looking for support in implementing a similar model. This approach enabled Denver Open Media to thrive even without the general operating support most public access TV stations enjoy from their local government or cable operators.

Our first such client arose in San Francisco after the city drastically cut operating support for public access and then selected the Bay Area Video Coalition to launch their new public access TV stations, SF Commons. We have found a great partner in BAVC. They are now poised to set a new standard for participatory, community media, and are committed to be a part of an open source movement that has each of us benefiting from the investments of the others. The earned income from this project (and others to follow) will hopefully help our team sustain its success and continue to build upon the expertise we've gained over the past five years.

Cooperation and Partnerships

No successful open source project can be carried by a single organization. The Drupal modules we've developed have been downloaded by over 100 organizations, ranging from public access TV to community colleges. Several of these partners have contributed back to the software in ways that are benefiting the entire community. But this hasn't come about easily.

Over the past decade, many public access TV stations have developed open source software, but few projects are built in a way that enables the software to be truly useful in other environments. Our initial foray into Open Media Project tools included myopic code and assumptions that made the software more difficult to leverage in other stations than if they built their own software from scratch.

Developing the code in a manner that makes it useful in diverse environments involves a sacrifice that few organizations have been willing or able to make. It requires investing resources in development that we hope will pay off in the future when partners use and contribute back to the code.

Early partners made the same mistake as us, investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into code that is practically useless in any setting other than their own. The Knight News Challenge award enabled us to take the time to better collaborate with the Drupal community, host code sprints, attend conferences, and, ultimately, back-track and re-design a more extensible code base.

With our grant period soon coming to an end, we have a number of partners poised to take the reigns and collectively help ensure the continued growth of the project. Davis Media Access in California has devoted significant time to improving the code and is a clear success story. Their work has, among other things, extended the OMP code to integrate with a new broadcast server.

Our growing relationship with Tightrope Media Systems, and their recent commitment

to open source software, can largely be credited to the efforts of Darrick Servis and Davis Media Access. Other successes and failures of the beta test process are equally valuable. Ongoing cooperation with Boston Neighborhood Network, Channel Austin and others will continue to yield benefits to the project.

We're most excited about our newest partner: the Bay Area Video Coalition. They bring a commitment to open source collaboration that we've not yet seen in previous partners. Everything about their SF Commons effort gives us confidence that they will set a new example for the next generation of networked, user-driven public access TV. Though their operating support is meager, they have strong, visionary leadership in Ken Ikeda and Jen Gilomen. They also stand to benefit from their close proximity to organizations like Archive.org, Creative Commons, and the Wikimedia Foundation, all of whom inspired our software and business model from the beginning.

Even if the Open Media Foundation were to shut our doors, I'm confident that organizations like BAVC would keep the project alive and growing... of course, we're working on making sure that isn't the case.

Expanding the Open Media Project

While earned income has the potential to maintain the level of activity we've enjoyed here for the past two years, our true vision of building an entirely new kind of participatory media network is going to require a significant ramp-up of the project. The Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program funding available through the stimulus plan represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do just that.

We partnered with Free Speech TV, the Alliance for Community Media, and 20 other public access TV stations across the country to apply for $2.2 million to expand the Open Media Project. The proposal addresses the many lessons learned from our Knight-funded beta test, and proposes a more self-contained and supported solution that can transform a wide range of public access TV stations into gateways for broadband adoption for disconnected communities.

Statistics show the primary factor preventing individuals from using broadband is not a lack of infrastructure, but the perception that the Internet is not relevant to their life. Our partner stations will encourage and support these communities by conveying the relevance of broadband access from the perspective of those communities. Together with Free Speech TV, we will collect the best of this content and provide national exposure to perspectives on broadband's relevance that simply haven't been seen before.

In case our first round application doesn't receive funding, we've invested heavily in planning an application in response to the second BTOP opportunity for funding. I encourage other Knight News Challenge grant recipients (and rejectees) to read the Notice of Funds Availability and investigate if their Knight News Challenge project would be a candidate for BTOP funding.

Regardless of future grants and funding, we are optimistic about the future of the project. We've had our share of pitfalls, but that's to be expected when you're pioneering new territory. The Knight News Challenge experience has opened doors and helped our organization grow in a way that will forever alter our work. If we can sustain the project beyond our KNC award, we'll be part of an entirely new kind of non-commercial media system, serving interests and engaging communities that are left out of today's commercial media conversation.

Every change begins with a new conversation.

In recent years, the organization spawned Denver Open Media, the Open Media Project, and a number of web-based initiatives through the Civic Pixel web & design department launched in 2008. The new name and website were officially announced November 19 at a fundraising breakfast hosted by Ashara Ekundayo and featuring presentations from Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, and Leslie Matthews, president of the OMF board of directors.

"Its not just a name-change," stated Leslie Matthews at the event, "the organization has grown significantly over the years, launching Denver Open Media in 2006, and merging with Civic Pixel to offer high end web & design services in 2008. While these efforts have been aligned with our strategic vision, the multiple brands and independent websites made it difficult to understand the cohesive design of the organization."

The new OpenMediaFoundation.org website aims to convey the concerted strategy behind the various business activities of the organization, from high-end media and technology services, to training and education, and ultimately, access to the media and technology tools.

"The end goal is a community where every organization and individual, not only the privileged and wealthy, have the ability to engage in mass communications and reflect their own perspective in the larger social conversations that happen through media and technology," said Brian Hiatt, director of IT for the Open Media Foundation. Today, over 200 local nonprofit organizations have a website or video produced by the Open Media Foundation. "We train hundreds of individuals each year, and we operate three public access television channels in Denver" adds Hiatt. In addition, the Open Media Foundation manages the Colorado Channel, a statewide version of C-Span, for the Colorado State Legislature. This year, the Colorado Channel and OMF add daily Senate coverage to the mix, after two years of broadcasting the State House of Representatives.

"Everything we do is aimed at putting the power of media in the hands of our community" Hiatt said.

Nationwide Impact

In 2008, together with Civic Pixel, the OMF team re-built the software that transformed Denver's public access TV station into a constituent-led, Net 2.0 media hub, and made it available to anyone through Drupal.org. Dubbed the Open Media Project, this year the OMF has helped to install the software and unique community media model in seven beta test stations. New partners continue to join every month, including Free Speech TV and the Bay Area Video Coalition, all looking to contribute to the open-source software that could help unite noncommercial media institutions as a new kind of user-driven media network.

Early next year, the OMF plans to release the Open Media Project software as a new kind of free software package, a Packaged Drupal Installation Profile being designed with support from the Drupal Association and fellow Knight News Challenge winner, Quiddities. At the same time, the Open Media Foundation will receive word on the $2.2million stimulus grant requested through the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, aimed at extending the Open Media Project with 20 new community media partners. The final stage of the Knight News Challenge grant concludes in 2010, with a focus on content sharing among the Open Media Project beta test stations.

Denver Open Media Turns three

In Denver, one of the three public access cable TV channels is automatically scheduled based on votes from the website and SMS/Text, featuring the best of over 5,000 shows submitted in just the past 3 years. In 2010, the same software that makes this possible will also enable Denver Open Media and its partner stations to share top-rated content from across the nation, allowing each station to feature the best of their combined content. The Open Media Foundation will celebrate these and other accomplishments this Friday, Dec 4th at the 3-year anniversary of Denver Open Media. The festivities will be shared live on Denver Open Media, Comcast Channel 56, online at denveropenmedia.org, and on the radio via KGNU 88.5FM-Denver and 1390AM-Boulder. The event will feature musical performances from Sole and Itchy-O and interviews with a number of Open Media Foundation partners and members.

To build an effective alternative, we must begin by identifying the needs that are neglected by commercial media. Then we can capitalize on the competitive advantages that non-commercial media institutions have over our corporate media counterparts.

Today, the media serve three primary needs:

1. The media facilitate consumerism: The media informs consumers about products and services available to them. Designed specifically to deliver audiences to advertisers, most media organizations do a superb job of connecting corporations with consumers.
2. The media provide entertainment: The average U.S. resident spends more time watching TV than all other leisure activities combined. Whether advertising-based or subscriber-based, corporate media is very effective at entertaining, at least for mainstream audiences.
3. The media represent social communication: The media represent the collective conversations of a community. It's how diverse perspectives are shared and it serves as our primary connection to life outside of our immediate surroundings. It is the forum where we debate and plan collective action.

Except to the extent that it fulfills the first two goals, corporate media falls short of fulfilling this third goal, especially in low-income communities that are of little interest to advertisers. This is where opportunities exist for non-commercial community media.

The advantages of non-commercial media organizations

If non-commercial media organizations hope to play a more significant role in the next evolution of the media landscape, we have to identify and capitalize on the strategic advantages of our unique structure:

1. Constituent-led: Whereas commercial media have to balance the needs of the audience with the needs of advertisers and shareholders, we have an ability to focus entirely on the needs of the communities we serve.
2. Unbridled distribution: Commercial media must cling to their intellectual property and pursue distribution models that support digital rights management (DRM). We are able to spread our perspectives as widely as possible and engage in the distribution methods that our communities want, without regards to IP.
3. Mobilizing the underserved: Because they're driven by advertisers (or paid-subscription models), commercial media are not interested in engaging communities that represent little or no buying power. We have the capacity and motivation to engage these large, underserved audiences that are neglected by commercial media.
4. Cooperation: Whereas commercial media institutions compete with one another, we have the ability and incentive to collaborate with other non-commercial production and distribution entities to share content and lower costs.

Capitalizing on our advantages

Instead of capitalizing on these strategic advantages, most non-commercial media entities have developed a model that mimics commercial media. They embrace business practices that put them at a significant disadvantage. PBS is a perfect example. According to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS's mission is to "ensure universal access to non-commercial programs and services that inform, enlighten, and enrich the public," especially content that "addresses the needs of unserved and underserved audiences [and] reflects America's cultural diversity." This mission is very similar to those of the public access TV stations where I work, but the approach most PBS stations take to accomplish that mission is not one we should emulate.

1. Constituent-led. Few PBS stations are truly community-driven. They cater to advertisers through underwriting, and do a worse job of it than commercial media. We have an opportunity to serve the audience above advertisers. Our communities can engage in programming and scheduling through collective voting and user-generated content.

We can focus on programming that serves audiences further down the Long Tail, diverse interests often neglected by commercial media, as opposed to creating the same content that corporate media produces to target affluent audiences. While PBS produces more home-improvement, financial planning, and travel shows to appeal to mainstream audiences, we have an opportunity to focus on content that truly addresses the needs of the underserved and reflects America's cultural diversity.

2. Distribution. If universal access to information is our goal, it's simply antithetical to release content with the same rights restrictions that commercial media entities follow. How can PBS stand for universal access while telling teachers that use of their content in an elementary school is "punishable by civil and criminal penalties"? Very few non-commercial media organizations make any significant revenue from IP anyway, and its time for us to be embracing Creative Commons instead of traditional copyright.

Universal access, especially for the underserved, means releasing the DRM/IP shackles and making content free to distribute for any non-commercial purpose. Any non-commercial media institution that is not embracing Creative Commons is missing a significant opportunity to have their content spread widely through channels our corporate media counterparts resist.

3. Mobilizing the Underserved. Underserved communities cannot be reached by replicating the content or approach of commercial media, or they wouldn't be underserved. With diverse interests and values, it's generally not cost effective to produce content targeting small, disengaged communities. But public access TV stations across the country have shown that, given the opportunity, these communities can represent their own perspective in the media by producing their own content.

PBS has been confusingly slow in embracing or innovating around use of user-generated content. They remain focused on a production model in which they are greatly outmatched by commercial media institutions; instead of being the leaders in engaging the underserved, they compete for the very same audiences targeted by corporate media.

Like most of the emerging business models of the Internet age, the opportunity exists in serving audiences further down the the Long Tail. We should be at the forefront of empowering our communities to contribute niche content for hyper-local and fringe audiences, and embrace subject matter and audiences that are distinct from those targeted by commercial media. This requires a shift away from content creation and towards content organization: encouraging and improving upon user-generated content while developing better searchability, categorization, and community ratings and recommendations that enable viewers to find the content they want to see.

4. Cooperation. PBS does not collaborate effectively within PBS, much less other non-commercial content producers and distributors. There is an opportunity for PBS stations, public access stations, and other non-commercial media to behave as a unified network, distinct from the commercial networks in our commitment to our local communities.

Imagine each local PBS or public access station serving as a conduit to accessing the very best in user-generated or pro/am content nationwide. We can go beyond sharing content, and share open-source software designed to put our communities in charge. Alone, even the largest community media organization lacks the budget to provide online services and features that rival most corporate media institutions. However, by cooperating in the development of open source tools like the Open Media Project, we collectively have the resources to surpass the online experience of any commercial media institution. That, combined with our interest in truly engaging and empowering new audiences, could result in a participatory community of viewers unlike anything we've seen before.

These four opportunities are the focus of the software we are developing for the Open Media Project. The software has been beta-tested in seven cities across the U.S., and we've recently applied for a $2.2 million BTOP grant to support further development and implementations in an attempt to realize the full potential that exists for a cooperative non-commercial media sector. Other organizations across the country are beginning to work with local development firms to implement the software on their own, and we hope that this project can play a role in reaching our collective goal of democratizing the media landscape.

In those days, there was a clear push to ensure that the most powerful medium in social communication would not be entirely dominated by commercial interests. It was common to assume media organizations had a responsibility to serve the public interest. That assumption was institutionalized with government regulations and franchise agreements with steep public service requirements. In the years since, however, there has been a shift to reducing those "burdens" on corporate media, and a move towards bringing a more free market-driven approach into our media system.

Corporate Media exists for profit

Somehow today, the assumption remains that corporate media institutions have some responsibility to serve more than their shareholders, and that assumption does more damage than it does good . Like any corporation, media corporations are designed to make money. Simply put, they sell eyeballs to advertisers, and their institutions are not designed to provide a public service. They are designed to maximize profits and none of us should fault them for doing that job as best they can. If we truly want a media system that provides for the public good, we need to recognize corporate media for what it is and start looking at alternatives.

If we want to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to be engaged in the dominant social conversation that reflects and shapes our collective values and awareness, the market will not provide for that. Unfortunately, while a pure market approach does not work, it's also true that traditional government support has failed as well. Across the PBS and Public Access TV sphere, the funding structure includes no incentives to innovate or excel. As opportunities in new media arose over the past decade, publicly-funded institutions had no incentive to pursue those opportunities and most have fallen behind.

In California, the recent Digital Infrastructure & Video Competition Act (DIVCA) has reduced the public interest "burden" on corporate media, and the fallout is the closure of over a dozen public access TV stations; most recently AccesSF. Their situation is similar to the one we faced in Denver, when the city removed operational support, and our station, Denver Community Television, was shut down by the City Council. In both cases, the cable providers contribute funds for capital equipment needs, but the organization must develop a model to sustain operations on their own.

Alternative models

As was the case in Denver, survival under DIVCA will require a new financial model for California stations. The upheaval they are facing can serve as the perfect opportunity for a funding evolution for public-interest media. The suggestion that all Public Media institutions operate as nonprofits is a good start, but these institutions can no longer depend 100% on government funds, franchise, or PEG fees for their operations. Like other media institutions, we have to explore some of the emerging financial models that can sustain media organizations today.

* Grants & Donations: There are several examples of news outlets funded primarily through private grants and individual donations. For example, ProPublica's 28 journalists produce stories and give them away for publication to other media outlets, including newspapers and web sites, funded primarily through a $10million annual donation from a private couple.

* Earned-Income Nonprofit Model: Several 501©(3) organizations generate the majority of their budget from earned-income. For example, over half of Denver Open Media's budget comes from earned-income web development and video production services provided to government and nonprofit clients from their CivicPixel (web) and Deproduction (video) departments.

* Subscription-Based: Some nonprofit websites and publications use a traditional subscription model. From websites to magazines, nonprofit media organizations like Adbusters derive a large percentage of their budget through subscriptions.

* Audience supported: Like public radio, this model depends on a membership model where the audience is asked to opt-in to financially support the content. Free Speech TV saw its budget increase nearly 25% when it developed a strong pledge-drive program in the late 90's.

* Crowd Funding: Similar to audience-supported media, some media sites ask for donations from readers for the content they want to see up-front. Spot.us is one of the best examples, where journalists pitch stories and members donate to fund the specific content they want to see.

* Volunteer: While most nonprofit media organizations use volunteers to some extent, few realize the true potential that exists in "powering the edges" and exploring a truly distributed workforce. Wikipedia is an obvious example, and nearly all of the Independent media centers across the global Indymedia.org network operate with a pure volunteer model. Furthermore, there are numerous examples of Pro-Am media organizations using professional staffers to filter, edit, and fact-check user-generated content provided by their community.

In public access TV, some of these more self-sufficient funding models have been criticized for letting cable providers or municipal and state governments off the hook for their duty in supporting free speech. But, this need not be an either/or proposition anymore. Developing a diverse funding model can be a strong tool in lobbying for increased government support, and can help ensure that those organizations which do receive public dollars have an incentive to innovate and progress.

The U.S. government spends less than $450 million annually subsidizing public media. Other democracies outspend the United States by huge margins per capita: Canada 16 times more; Germany 20 times more; Japan 43 times more; Britain 60 times more; Finland and Denmark 75 times more. Even as we work to become more self-sufficient, we need to be raising awareness that a truly democratic media system requires more public support. When new communities are engaged in the collective conversation that happens in the media, that is the first step in engaging and participating on a whole new level in society.

Next week, we're presenting the model at SCAN NATOA, hoping our user-automated model can be part of the solution for the endangered status of public access in LA. The following week, its up to Davis Media Access, where we'll assist them in the implementation of the Open Media tools.

In June, we'll do the same at ACTV Amherst and the Boston Neighborhood Network, with a weekend trip to NYC to present at the Open Video Conference, which is looking more and more impressive every day. While in NYC, I hope to meet with WNET to talk about the potential re-birth of the Open Media Network, a visionary effort that was stopped short by a debilitating illness to its founder, Mike Homer.

Then, we cap off the first year of the Open Media Project at the National Alliance for Community Media Conference in Portland, where we also will be implementing the Open Media tools at Portland Community Media.

Year Two shifts focus to developing a simple-to-use packaged Drupal install profile, cooperating on further documentation and evaluation, and exploring several solutions to facilitating content-sharing between stations.

Austin is the first of the large Access Stations that we've worked with in this Knight News Challenge project, and it presented a whole new slate of challenges in comparison with the comparatively simpler implementation at Urbana Public TV. The entire process was documented, and the new ChannelAustin dev site was launched this week. Text documentation is being developed and posted online, with video to follow.

ChannelAustin is poised to be a strong partner in the development of the Open Media System, which is designed to empower community members to have more control over their community media organizations. With a new Statewide Franchise system to phase-in across Texas by 2011, operational funding for Public Access TV stations is not guaranteed. In Denver, the Open Media tools have proven to enable the community members to do the majority of work that is traditionally reserved for staff. In Denver, where there are no operating funds provided for Public Access TV, community members register and pay for classes and memberships, reserve equipment, submit TV shows remotely and in the station, create accounts, profiles, and projects, produce and edit videos in the field and in our studios, and even generate the programming schedule for our 3 TV channels, without requiring staff involvement.

Besides increasing community ownership and support, the vision of the Open Media Project is to establish a new user-driven network of community media organizations, sharing best-practices, cooperating in systems development, and sharing the best noncommercial media across the globe, with all content published using Creative Commons. At SXSW we were able to catch up with CC founder, Lawrence Lessig, who had this to say about the Open Media "experiment".

But although the attention on the subject has waned in the media, Prince and UMG have kept up their plight, and the latest fallout is the death of one of the oldest and most popular fan sites around, housequake.com One of the few to take notice was Ben Margolin, founder of Prince.org. On more than one level, his blog entry from last week provides a poignant understanding of why the copyright claims of Prince and UMG are baseless.

Margolin writes that fan sites like housequake and prince.org have "nothing directly to do with Prince, but everything to do with the extremely diverse community that has grown out of past and present (and if he's lucky, future) Prince fans."

Like the music Prince and UMG put into the ethos, all information (whether music, photos, or words) takes on a life of its own. As humans, our connection to and understanding of reality is shared through information. Human development requires building on information from others, and that information is always flavored by the individual sharing it and the medium through which its shared. Almost none of it is new. Its just "flavored" by us, re-arranged, and re-released into the ethos so that others may build upon it. Once that re-release happens, the information takes-on a life of its own, designed to be perceived by others and, possibly, contribute to the progress of human understanding.

Meanings are re-arranged in our heads and perceived through the filter of the rest of our life experiences. Lyrics are misunderstood, unintended epiphanies are reached, and so on. Whether its a troubled teenager deciding the lyrics are encouraging suicide, or a housewife inspired towards a new career-path, the information (or song) released is no longer an isolated work.

In this sense, even the very process of being exposed to a work, re-arranges and alters that original work. The information is perceived and processed by the viewer/listener/consumer in a way that is profoundly different from that of the creator. The original intention of the creator of any work is thus separate from the work itself, a fact that applies to Prince's music as well as Margolin's website.

Margolin states, "I am still close friends with many people I met through a shared interest in Prince. I wouldn't say I'm still a friend, or fan, or fam, or whatever the hell the currently-authorized term is, of Prince. And that's okay." Ben Margolin is utterly devoted to Prince.org, but he's NOT EVEN A FAN of Prince anymore. He's a fan of a community that grew out of a shared interest in Prince, and Prince has no more right to shut that down than he has a right to call for a world-wide ban on the use of the color purple.

Prince re-arranged musical notes and words and concepts with a "flavor" that was so appreciated, it became his livelihood and earned him millions. For others to replicate and profit off of Prince's flavor is one thing, and so perhaps his lawsuit against Pirate Bay is justified. But for Prince to try to criminalize people like Stephanie Lenz for expressing themselves in a way that draws from their life experience (which includes the flavored information he contributed) is a crime against human development.

Like Prince's songs, these fan sites and YouTube videos have become something entirely separate from what the author originally created; and now, even though Ben Margolin is confident that his own flavored information, Prince.org, benefits Prince significantly, today he maintains the site in-spite of that fact, not because of it. As he tells his readers, "We're here for you, the now or once-, or future-Prince fan. Even if it does benefit Prince's crazy ass in the process."

For more recent developments in this arena, check out the work of our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"... the sins of princes, it is the princes who have also suffered the penalty." -- Nicolo Machiavelli

Lead Developer for Deproduction/Civic Pixel, Kevin Reynen explains the process of setting up this revolutionary new system with Kate Gorman of UPTV, "Launching a basic Drupal site can be a lot for someone to take in... let alone all of the new hardware, networking changes, file transfers, encoding, projects, reservations, error logging, etc, etc. I'm sure Kate was overwhelmed at times, but she persevered all week and the small test group she brought in yesterday was blown away when they saw the 5-10 minute videos they pulled from DVD show up as Flash files on the server a few minutes later."

You'll notice that the new UPTV website resembles our own at Denver Open Media, but this is only temporary, as with all Drupal sites, the theme can be easily changed without impacting the content and functionality. Kevin explains:
"The folks at Acorn Active Media are excited to start customizing the TVFrame Zen sub theme and truly making the site their own."

This is one of the reasons we felt UPTV was such a good candidate for the program, with a great community of partners interested in the success of the project, we hope this effort will benefit the many noncommercial media organizations in town, such as the UCIMC.

After a full week working in Urbana, Kevin is optimistic about the future. "I'm sure with the support of everyone I met while I was in Urbana, UPTV's site will continue to improve over the next 30 days until they officially launch to the site publicly at the end of February." Next month we begin taking-on much larger partners, first Portland, then Austin, then Boston, Amherst, and Davis.

The project is being documented and summarized at http://groups.drupal.org/open-media-project

The second phase officially launches this week, and involves a group of 6 beta-test partners who we will guide through the process of implementing the modules, and revising the tools to meet the diverse challenges of each unique operation. Over 30 CTCs and PEG stations applied to participate, and in the end, we selected 6 partners, with several alternates following along and ready to step-in should any of the primary beta-sites need to withdraw.

Next week, our lead developer, Kevin Reynen, spends the week in Champaign-Urbana, helping to launch their new site and implement modules to enable their community of users to play a larger role in reserving equipment, submitting videos for web and TV broadcast, registering for classes, and determining the programming schedule of the TV station.

By the end of next week, both the D.O.M. site and the UPTV site should be entirely re-vamped, and in the coming months, UPTV will develop a unique look-and-feel, developing new themes for the Drupal site and contributing all their development back to the group.

We're excited to have such a great partner as the first to join the beta group, and look forward to the much larger Portland in Feb, and Austin in March (conveniently-timed to coincide with SXSW)

If you know of a Community Technology Center, Public Access TV station, University Media Program, or other non-commercial, community media outlet who may be interested in participating, please invite them to apply at http://deproduction.org/ombeta. They can read more about the program there, or on the Drupal Group, http://groups.drupal.org/open-media-project.

As requested, we've discussed the project with the early applicants and, in an effort to be entirely open and transparent, are providing some early feedback on our appraisal of each organization's fit for this Beta program. Below are the 11 groups who have submitted an early application, together with our evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of each as a potential participant in this Beta program, as well as our request for any additional steps we'd like each to take. We hope this feedback will allow some groups to move forward in their process with more clarity, and will also provide guidance for those on-the-fence as to what steps they could take that would make their application stronger.

We've separated the applicants to-date into 4 groups: "Already-Started", "On-The-Fence", "Needy-But-Appealing", and "Best-Served-to-Wait".

Already Started: The first group includes two groups who are already clearly headed down the same road, with not only a commitment to, but clear action towards, each of the 3 "requirements" of the OM Beta program: All-Digital workflow, increased community involvement and control, and Drupal development capacity.

Amherst: http://actvamherst.com
* * PROs: Hiring web community media coordinator, high bandwidth capacity, investing $23,000 in upgrading tightrope system
* * CONs: Very basic, non-drupal website, externally hosted, Don't seem to be proactively collaborating with other PEG2.0 stations in development efforts
* * Request: Support integration with Tightrope. Hire & train webmaster immediately, Provide support for Worcester, BNN, and other MASS groups interested in collaborating on a Drupal network

Humboldt: http://accesshumboldt.net
* * PROs: Upgrading to new Princeton Digital server, High Bandwidth Capacity, hiring part-time websmaster, able to allocate additional funds
* * CONs: No internal webserver, need to develop internal server combined with external media storage for VOD
* * Request: Need to allocate funds to set up their digital workflow immediately. Provide support for nearby CA Access groups interested in collaborating on a Drupal network

On-The-Fence: The second group includes 5 stations who have a clear commitment to some or all of the 3 "requirements", but are not actually moving forward on at least one of them. Our hope is to work with groups who are already headed in a similar direction, as opposed to waiting for (or depending upon) this program to bring them there. Our support will not be sufficient to carry a station through this digital, user-automated transformation. Some of these groups (especially Portland and Vermont) are far ahead of Amherst and Humboldt in some areas, but behind in others.

CCTV Vermont: http://cctv.org
* * PROs: Has overlapping grant and goals, Local webserver, drupal website, strong team of contract Drupal Developers,
* * CONs: OM System is designed for widespread Public use, user-generated content, only useful if CCTV is headed in that direction. User Ingest? User QC?
* * Request: CCTV is the strongest applicant in the group, but only fit if they are interested in the community playing a larger role in the station, which may not fit as a G station. Need another brief conversation.

Portland: http://pcmtv.org
* * PROs: Has overlapping grant & goals, has funds to devote to development, training internal drupal staff member, actively communicating and interested in collaboration
* * CONs: Currently on Dreamhost, no local webserver, Fiber on its way, but not yet setup, playback system is unfamiliar to us & timeline for replacement is delayed
* * Request: Establish high-speed internet connection, internal webserver, initiate new digital playback system as planned. These steps have at-times taken stations years to implement, but if they are done soon, Portland is among the strongest applicants here.

Austin: http://www.channelaustin.org
* * PROs: Plans to upgrade to new digital playback server, Large Cap Equipment funds available, commitment to being an interconnected community media center, convenient location (since we're going to SXSWi)
* * CONs: External website, Cable Modem connection, Synergy playback
* * Request: move to digital playback server, upgrade web connection, identify/hire drupal expertise

Urbana: http://www.city.urbana.il.us/urbana/finance/is/uptv/Main.asp or http://urbanapublictelevision.blogspot.com
* * PROs: Connected to fiber, building a network of community organizations on their fibre network, internal webserver,
* * CONs: No internal web staff or Drupal development capacity, no physical facility, no Drupal website (using blogspot)
* * Request: Develop internal webmaster/Drupal development resources

Worcester: http://www.wccatv.com
* * PROs: Located near to Miro, Uploading content to Archive.org, willing to devote up to 30% of Capital Budget and 25% of Operational Budget
* * CONs: DSL Modem, No internal web, IT or Network support
* * Request: would need to devote up to 30% of Capital Budget and 25% of Operational Budget and develop internal drupal capacity

Needy-But-Appealing: This third group includes two stations who are similar to the above, but have made less progress towards, and have fewer resources available to contribute to the process. Both are in Colorado, which is appealing to DOM, and would be great examples of how well the model works in the most meager of environments, but its possible that these stations would be best served by using the tools once the Beta-period is complete and we aren't relying as heavily on them to help us develop the modules.

Durango: http://www.dcat.tv
* * PROs: Digital Princeton Playback Server,
* * CONs: No internal webserver, no web staff or drupal management/development capacity, no local broadcast server in facility
* * Request: Would need funds for local support and development of website and OM System.

Boulder: No website currently (no station currently)
* * PROs: close to denver, Knight Community, good example, possible support from Knight
* * CONs: No webserver, no budget, no archive, no channels until city council re-activates them (hopefully in Dec)
* * Request: Submit proposal to Knight Community Grants Program to hire webmaster

Better Served to Wait: the final group is comprised of organizations who are not likely in a position to contribute to the development of these tools, as we're hoping for from each of the first 6 OM Beta participants. Our opinion is that they would be better-served to wait until we have completed this initial Beta period, allowing the other participants and DOM to further develop the tool-set such that it is better-suited to implement in environments with very limited resources.

Genesse:
* * PROs: One staff member with good technical skills, developing a media center
* * CONs: No Digital workflow, low bandwidth, no website, no webserver, Not ready to contribute to development of these tools at this time.
* * Request: Get prepared to adopt these tools in fall 2009 when they're more established.

Dekalb: http://www.iogcyvc.com
* * PROs:Good support from Comcast
* * CONs: no website, no local webserver, not located in the Access Center, incomplete proposal
* * Request: Get prepared to adopt these tools in fall 2009 when they're more established.

Deproduction has assembled a stellar Drupal Development team since being awarded the Knight NewsChallenge award, and they are making significant progress towards the first benchmark of our process: developing a robust set of custom Drupal Modules, ready to deploy in our beta-test group of 6 Public Access TV and Community Technology Centers across the US.

Participants include Free Speech TV, OurMedia, KGNU, LinkTV, the Media and Democracy Coalition, and dozens of Public Access TV stations and CTCs from across the nation. Its not too late to get involved, participate in a panel, or register to attend. For more information, please visit accesswithoutborders.org

Tony Shawcross

We're also lucky to have applied-for, and received, a CTC Vista, who will start on July 1 and will work full-time at DOM for at least 11 months. This team, combined with support from two frequent contractors and a part-time intern should represent an entirely new level of development capacity for the organization.

Goal 2: Reconnaissance.
Our second step is to ascertain and document the development already underway to be included in the suite of Drupal modules we hope to make available to the Public Access and CTC Community. We plan to catalog those efforts at groups.drupal.org/pegspace and will include the important work being done by MNN & OpenFlows, Vermont, Reno, and more.

Goal 3: Announce Beta-Grant Opportunity.
Our third goal for the summer is to release an application for Public Access stations or CTCs wanting to implement the beta-version of this tool-set and join Denver Open Media in testing and revising the tools througout 2009.