What is Free Republic all about?

Free Republic | 12/08/01 | Jim Robinson

[Jim Robinson]

What is Free Republic all about?

Free Republic is a personal avocation and project of my own. Prior to Free Republic, I had been a regular poster on the Prodigy Whitewater News BBS. Prodigy was an online service similar to the Internet, but more limited in scope. You had to be a paying subscriber or member of the Prodigy service to access it.

Prodigy was, at that time, a joint venture of two giant multi-billion dollar, commercial for profit enterprises, namely, Sears and IBM corporations. On Prodigy, we had several hundred members of this particular Whitewater BBS and we were engaged in posting news articles, primarily regarding President Clinton and his corruption. We had been doing this for at least a couple years. I believe I got started on Prodigy sometime in 1993 or 1994.

Each Prodigy BBS (and there were many) had its own moderators. Moderators were regular Prodigy members just like the rest of us, but they had volunteered to serve as moderators and they came and went and were generally not all that visible or problematic. Some of the Prodigy moderators cautioned that they might delete copyrighted articles, but they almost never did. One particular moderator started deleting some of our posts and it wasn't because they were copyrighted. Other posts, in fact, thousands of them remained up and they were complete full text copies of copyrighted articles. The posts were deleted simply because of the nature of their content and several of our members raised quite a stink about it.

This was in 1996, and I had already started getting interested in the Internet by that time. My company had acquired a small ISP service in 1995, and I was learning how it operates and saw its potential.

Prodigy had a very limited scope in terms of attracting a large audience. You had to be a paying subscriber to Prodigy in order to access the postings and, at the time, any serious participation was fairly expensive as they did not offer flat rates. You had to pay by the hour for access.

I wanted a larger participation and I did not want to be controlled by others. I had learned enough about the internet and how to establish websites, and thought that I could establish my own site and hopefully develop a larger readership than we had on Prodigy.

I had not been all that politically active prior to President Clinton's election. Yes, I complained about government and politics just like everyone else, and I participated in every election since I got out of the service in 1969, but politics was not particularly high on my list of priorities -- until Slick came along.

I had been a registered Democrat, but I did not necessarily vote Democratic. My first vote in a presidential election was cast for Richard M. Nixon. Over the years, I had began reading and listening more and more to conservative writers and commentators. I knew that the newspapers and news media were lying and I knew that government had been encroaching on our individual rights and that our politicians were as corrupt as the day is long. I also knew that nothing would be done about it unless we the people somehow joined together to exercise our political free speech rights to expose the corruption and demand that it be stopped and demand that the erosion of our individual rights be stopped and reversed.

As a result of all this, I set up the Free Republic website in September of 1996. At first I posted all the materials myself. I searched the internet looking for forum software, but was not very successful in finding any. I found and tested a few products, but they were all fairly primitive and did not have the features I was looking for. There were not very many forum software products on the market at that time, so I decided to develop my own.

I wrote the original version of our forum software and installed it on my website in January or February of 1997. Then I posted notices on BBSes, forums and newsgroups all around the Internet and invited others to join me in our political free speech forum. I also submitted my URL to as many search engines as I could find.

I also continued my Prodigy membership well up into the middle of 1997 and everything I posted on Free Republic, I also posted to Prodigy and included a link back to my forum. I was never kicked off of Prodigy for any reason as some have alleged. I also posted many articles and threads to the various political newsgroups and included a link back.

Soon people began reading and participating in Free Republic and the rest is history.

Free Republic is simply a political bulletin board and it was and is not a commercial business. The concept of posting copyrighted news articles under the fair use rules for discussion purposes is not new and is not mine. It had been a long standing practice, engaged in by huge multibillion dollar international corporations like Prodigy, (owned by Sears and IBM), Genie, Compuserve and many others, as well as wide open newsgroups and tiny one man operations on the Internet or even on private BBSes. And prior to computers, the practice of news clipping and posting and or reprinting had been going on since the times of our founding fathers. Political free speech was essential to our founders then, and is still essential today in order to maintain freedom and guard from tyranny.

The Congress is forbidden by the first amendment of making any law that would control or abridge or restrict or diminish our right to free speech. Free Republic is nothing more than an electronic edition of the original Liberty Tree.

We post articles and invite our participants to comment on them. We share them, compare them, examine them, look for lies or inconsistencies, expose corruption, praise good works, condemn the bad, spread the word, debate, develop plans and strategies, build activist groups, and carry out various activism projects. All of these activities are guaranteed us by our Constitution and we are definitely operating squarely within our constitutional rights and within the letter and intent of the law.

The fact that my personal avocation has grown beyond the point that I can no longer pay for it myself without help from willing donors does not change the underlying concept. It is a primarily a political discussion forum and it is a constitutionally protected activity. Nothing more nothing less.

When the first alleged copyright and unfair competition complaints came in, I posted them to Free Republic and many people discussed and debated the facts and options and whether or not we should fold up or fight off any attacks on our forum. Many of these people offering their opinion were lawyers and many of them (including our own Brian Buckley) said that we were operating well within our rights and that we should continue and that we should fight for our rights.

Well we did.

To be continued in Part II.

[elfman2]

…If we merely posted links they'd be broken in short order, making research an impossibility…

Well, not likely an impossibility, just a big inconvenience. I think there are almost always ways to find an article in a back issue. So were back to a "conflict" between property rights and convenience.

[6ppc]

Bump for JimRob.

[AAABEST]

My "intent" at causing you to lose money by publishing your book is irrelevant. I may just claim it was so great a book that I want to share it with the world. You can't prove that's not what I'm thinking.

Go back and read my post with some comprehension. My point isn't what JR intent is, it was what the LAT and WP's intent is.

My knowledge of law is limited, but I know that in order to collect damages, the aggrieved party must prove they are damaged in some way.

If the court ordered FR to cease and desist, your "tree in the forrest" argument might be halfway valid. The fact is a leftist Clinton judge (who's nomination was held up by republicans which the LA Times railed against in several editorials) ordered 1 million in damages awarded.

Gee, what a nice round number with no factual data whatsoever to support it. A cool million should be enough to flush a disabled vet's not-for profit forum down the toilet, no?

The whole purpose of our courts is to provide justice, not provide a staging area for political gauntlets. Nobody is being hurt and nothing is being damaged here except the leftist agenda.

Can I interest you in one of these?

They're great for driving carraiges. Unfortunately they've become completely useless since the invention of the automobile.

Bottom line is that all of this is a moot point. The hand wringing controllers are not going to have their way with the internet, it's going to have it's way with them. No matter how many Free Republics or Napsters they put down, the cat is out of the bag. They need to get that through their thick skulls.

[GOPJ]

Will this site become part of the history of our time? I'd bet on it.

[headsonpikes]

Your Post #8: "Simply put, this is the greatest web site on the internet...It is."

And more.

You are fighting the good fight and we know it.

My hat's off to JR!

[EdReform]

** "JIMBO...$5 month service charge? Who'd pay it? We all would. Do it. Those who wouldn't aren't true Freepers." **

* "As Jim Robinson has pointed out many times, the moment he does that, FR is no longer a "non-commerical" enterprise, and the fair-use defence goes out the window." *

The simplest solution is to join Grampa Dave's team and donate $5 per month via credit card (see reply numbers 81 or 82 above for the link to the secure server).

See Grampa Dave's 5,000 Freepers who care are needed now! thread.

An excerpt from Grampa Dave's Free Republic Lifeform post:

"This is a wonderful description of what Free Republic really is. It is a living and evolving Life Form to battle the left wingers and those who would destroy this country!...

Free Republic needs a constant infusion of cash to keep the Free Republic Life Form alive, viable and to grow. If we believe in Free Republic, we must donate each month or quarterly to keep this incredible life form alive... Good stewardship is what this world needs, not good intentions. Good conservative stewards will insure that the Free Republic Life Form continues to grow, be viable and thrives!"

The Free Republic Life Form continues to grow -- A $5 per month contribution will make a difference!!

[EdReform]

Bump!!

Bump!!

[unamused]

...and that we should continue and that we should fight for our rights.

Well we did.

And we shall continue...all together....

Freerepublic must continue to fight for the free expression of thos who are "politically incorrect." It is the voice of the stifled majority...
FR must never give in to the political pressures to stop a forum of free speech, and have us all back with our heads down, contentedly munching the grass....
We have a forum for freedom here, and must defend it as vociferously as necessary. FR must never kneel to PC.
(Don't make me give out no brass-knuckle head noogies...)

[elfman2]

Sorry, My ISP (DirectTVDSL) has been down so I couldn't reply sooner.

I also don't know the law well enough to be certain who's going to prevail. I only have a pretty good sense for what's objectively right and wrong.

I spend 1-2 hours/day on FR, but I visit more papers from the 5-10 minutes that I look into Drudge's linked headlines. The more news I get off of FR, the more banner ad revenue papers lose from my absence. Perhaps I'm unique is some way, but I doubt it.

Point taken regarding the focus of your "intent" comment. The WP, LAT and the judge's ruling were probably highly influenced by politics. The same could be said for defending Kuwait from Iraq or Israel from Hamas, but it's still the right thing to do.

"No matter how many Free Republics or Napsters they put down, the cat is out of the bag. They need to get that through their thick skulls."

I think you overestimate the security of stray cats. There are ways of making it difficult to run warez sites, but there's no political motivation to implement them. It's similar to the law of diminishing returns while hunting terrorists. Simply because taking down that last 10% is cost prohibitive doesn’t mean that the terrorists are going to win. But if you're willing to surrender to lawlessness, maybe you'll be interested in this:

Anarchist Yellow Pages

[The REAL Capt. MORGAN]

Thanks for not buckling under the knuckles of "terrorist" liar-lawyers.

[an amused spectator]

I have found that a newbie is anyone who was not one of the orginial members.

Actually, you're only a newbie on Free Republic till some of the other Freepers decide you're not. ;-)

[harrowup]

Actually, you're only a newbie on Free Republic till some of the other Freepers decide you're not. ;-)

Now, about my probationary status...?

[an amused spectator]

Anyway, that is why I hate to see FR doing a downhill slide into chat rooms, football scores in breaking news and vanities that have nothing to do with Conservatism.

Free Republic article posting is sinusoidal. This kind of thing has gone on before, and will again. This place is our fortress and home base against a foaming and ascendant liberal enemy without the walls. It's gotten quite comfy over the years. ;-)

[an amused spectator]

Just like free speech doesn't include a right to be published against the will of the publisher, I think free speech doesn't include a right to republish creative works against the will of the author (or his publisher).

I think that it's been conclusively proven that free speech includes a right to republish creative works against the will of the author (or his publisher) ONLY IF YOU'RE A LIBERAL. (Right, nnlb?) ;-)

[StoneColdGOP]

Thanks for this, Jim!

[an amused spectator]

Watch it, newbie! ;-)

[an amused spectator]

So we're back to a "conflict" between property rights and convenience.

I believe that AAABEST had it nailed when he said "It's because the other periodicals don't feel they're losing revenue and the intent of LAT and WP is to put FR out of business, not to recover lost revenue."

So there is no "conflict" between property rights and convenience, rather "property rights" are being used as a "convenience" to put FR out of business. All the evidence points to this fact.

[mlocher]

thanks for the post and for creating this forum. i have learned a lot about the conservative americans and their opinions on this forum. i have also been able to more adequately articlate the bias specifically in news stories and generally in the media.

i must disagree with some of your statements on free speech. congress, as you mentioned, is forbidden from passing laws that stymie free speech. the first amendment, however, does not state who can profit from someone's free speech. in fact, copywright laws have been written to ensure that profiteering by the wrong parties does not occur.

to draw an analogy, i have been warned at work about copying on a xerox copywrighted materials. further, i cannot take an article from time magazine and publish it without time's permission.

unfortunately, our ability to create and utilize technology is greater than our ability to pass laws moderating its use that is consistent with the constitution. (technology is amoral; how it is used defines its morality, but that is a different discussion). hence the courts get involved.

my hat is off to you for pushing what you believe is moral and within the law, and doing it within the system that is defined for us. this is a grey area and i am not so certain of the outcome.

[elfman2]

"So there is no "conflict" between property rights and convenience, rather "property rights" are being used as a "convenience" to put FR out of business. All the evidence points to this fact."

The two aren't mutually exclusive. (Addressed in #130)