Comments timoey has made

Small steps are necessary!

I strongly agree with this alternative view from the group of psychologist's and disagree with Mike Tidwell's perspective in this case.

Lots of little actions are required before people are willing to take big steps. This was the case in the Civil Rights movement and this is the case for Global Warming as well.

Big leaps often end in disaster. Little incremental steps are much safer and can more often get you to a good result with less wasted effort.

reduce, reuse/freecycle, recycle

Cheers,
Tim Oey
timoey.comOn Social scientists respond to Mike Tidwell posted 1 year, 10 months ago 39 Responses

Why freecycling must be kept free...

Hi all,

Most of you know this, but let me post this summary to educate new people and remind us all of what we are doing and why.

The freecycle case against The Freecycle Network (TFN) is about trademark protection, not copyright protection.  Words/terms cannot be copyrighted, but they can be trademarked.  The legal documents covering the case are posted at http://greenribbon.us, in particular see the PDF files posted there.

In brief layman terms, having the word freecycle be protected by a trademark in the area of generic recycling is a bad thing because:

1. Words should not be trademarked in their own area. Imagine if the following words were trademarked: "blog", "recycle", "newspaper" to cover what the words actually mean.  If that were the case then people might need permission from their owner to use these words to describe the things that they are.  Doing this is not legal and damages people's right to use their own language.

2. Words don't need trademark protection because they mean what they mean.

3. Freecycling is about things being free. The word was freely used and freely given away a long time ago. When you give something away, it is wrong to ask for it back. And even more wrong to punish people who were given it for free.  Neither Deron Beal nor TFN nor RISE, Inc originally invented the word although they did help popularize it.

4. TFN violates its own principles on a regular basis.  If freecycling is about letting go of ownership and giving things away, why doesn't TFN actually practice this more? http://freesharing.org and many others are much more open and giving than TFN is.  Others are willing to author documents to help people run freecycling groups and not require those groups to be controlled by any central "authority".

5. An important principle of the recycling movement is "reduce, reuse, recycle".  TFN is not practicing this as well as it should -- it is using quite a few resources to try to control people and words when it simply is not needed.

6. TFN has caused (and is causing) direct harm by deleting, damaging, or threatening perfectly fine running freecycling groups.  Almost all of the groups listed at  http://freesharing.org were once happy freecycling groups until TFN deleted the original groups, forcing them to recreate themselves, or TFN forced the original group to change its name to avoid deletion.

7. If lots of people are interested in creating lots of freecycling (or recycling) groups, what is the real harm in letting them? People will naturally gravitate toward the groups that are doing a good job. There is no need to force people one way or another. Just let nature take its course.

8. I and hundreds (thousands even) of other great folks were with TFN since the very beginning but were kicked out for really believing in freecycling. This is a tragedy.

9. TFN has ended up valuing trash more than people.  Trash can be freecycled, whereas people are put on the TFN junk heap permanently.

10. No single entity should control freecycling. It was meant to be free.

We believe that the folks controlling TFN are misguided and should improve their policies by letting go of the word freecycle.  This will allow the good people within TFN and the good people outside of TFN to achieve a happier and more peaceful coexistence.

BTW -- If TFN let go of the freecycle word, little groups would not be damaged by any of this and TFN would get kudos for freecycling freecycle.

Sincerely,
Tim Oey

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Copyright 2006 Tim Oey

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
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On As Freecycle grows, idealism and reality collide posted 3 years, 8 months ago 85 Responses

A freecycling update

To: fcnext@yahoogroups.com
From: Tim Oey <timoey@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 23:22:47 -0800
Subject: [fcnext] A public statement that you may forward...

Hi all,

Here is a public statement that you may forward to whomever you wish as long as you forward this email in its entirety. It would be great if folks could forward this to the same lists that got Deron's post as it would clear up many misconceptions about what is happening.

Knowledge and education are good things.

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Regarding FreecycleSunnyvale vs The Freecycle Network (lawsuit and trademark opposition)

We are not wrecking freecycle -- we are working to keep it free and legal -- that is the goal.

It is very important for everyone to stay true to their own principles and to have principles they can stay true to.  It drives me nuts when people do not think through the consequences of the choices they make.  It is also my belief that the best leaders lead by example, not by slapping folks. Honey works better than vinegar.

Here is my brief take on what has and is happening with The Freecycle Network (TFN):

1. In the beginning, freecycling was open, free, and a true grassroots movement.

2. Then it started going down a corporate path as The Freecycle Network (TFN). To enforce more goodness on people, TFN wanted more control and wanted to take back what it had given away for free (the word freecycle and its logo). Power and money started corrupting the system in subtle and not so subtle ways.

3. Freecyclers objected and were hurt and kicked out by TFN. A good group like TFN can still do bad things.

4. Then the grassroots movement fought back and filed a lawsuit and trademark opposition with pro bono support against TFN via the FreecycleSunnyvale group (a great group which TFN hurt).

5. While the final outcome of this story remains to be seen, a few important learnings are:

• If you want to lay claim to a trademark, you must use it correctly from the very beginning and pick one that the public is unlikely to use in a generic fashion.

• Don't give away things that don't belong to you. And don't be hypocritical. At the same time that TFN was punishing non-TFN groups with copyright infringement claims for using snippets of material that might have had TFN origins, TFN was itself violating copyrights by re-publishing hundreds of news media articles in their entirety without permission on its http://freecycle.org (this republishing started in 2003 and finally stopped in December 2005).

• Don't give things away and then expect to pull them back later. This is just wrong.

• If you are going to run a movement, you have to stay true to your roots -- freecycling is about freely giving your own things away, not owning things or taking things back.  If you violate your own principles, you'll find the activists who supported you vigorously, will fight back just as vigorously.

• Build a huge amount of positive goodwill by acknowledging that giving things away is one of the core values of freecycling and thus freecycle is free for everyone to use. This would also save them a ton of money and work now and in the future.  FreecycleSunnyvale has repeatedly offered to negotiate but TFN has turned a deaf ear.

• Reduce much of the work they are currently doing trying to police people into being good and instead be educators and good role models. This would also make it much easier for them to be recognized as a 501(c)3 -- their current business model of running an online free advertisement system supported by advertising plus sponsorship does not cut it.

• Recognize that while there will inevitably be some misuse of the new word freecycle, it is just a word like recycle. People are not stupid. They quickly understand what freecycling is about and will join groups where it is done well.  TFN can easily defend the name "The Freecycle Network" and this can be used as a well recognized trademark.

• Take advantage of the huge marketing opportunity that comes from coining a new word -- they can rightly claim that their work made the word hugely popular.

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Some facts:

1) On 1/17/2006, The Freecycle Network's (TFN's) proposed trademark registration was published for opposition in the Trademark Official Gazette at:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/trademarks/tmog/

2) On 1/18/2006, the unincorporated non-profit association FreecycleSunnyvale filed a formal opposition to TFN's trademark registration with the USPTO.  You can read it at:
http://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/ttabvue-91168664-OPP-1.pdf

3. On 1/19/2006, FreecycleSunnyvale also filed a lawsuit against The Freecycle Network in federal court (US District Court, Northern California). We will point you to a copy of this filing as soon as we can.

4. Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP (one of the 10 largest law firms in the world) are the attorneys for FreecycleSunnyvale and are providing their services pro bono.  None of the members of FreecycleSunnyvale (which includes Tim Oey) are spending any of their own money for the opposition or the lawsuit.  You can read more about the law firm at:
   

5. Anyone else who wishes may now file an opposition to TFN's proposed trademark registration (please note that there is a fee to file such an opposition). If you or your group has been harmed by TFN, you may also file a lawsuit of your own against TFN.

6. Since a lawsuit and an opposition are now underway, the members of FreecycleSunnyvale may be restricted in what they say.

7. If TFN chooses to negotiate, these cases could be settled in a few months. If not, they may take many months.

Copyright 2006 Tim Oey

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
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Sincerely,
Tim Oey on behalf of FreecycleSunnyvale
On As Freecycle grows, idealism and reality collide posted 3 years, 10 months ago 85 Responses

Freecycle & Civil Disobedience

Below is a communication that I sent far and wide within the freecycle community. I think it is a useful perspective to share here. Waste lines saw it coming...

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Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 23:36:40 -0700
Subject: [freecyclemodsquad] Civil disobedience...

Hi all,

First my sincere apologies!  I have had a significant role in a number of Freecycle directions that I now see are leading freecycle down a path that is not quite right.

Which directions were those?  

Ersatzfriend (came partly out of my efforts to see that groups have backup owners/moderators -- one of my bicycling friends was killed by a drunk driver -- leaving his popular and well run bicyclingadvocacy  group hanging without an owner -- it took Herculean efforts to get Yahoo to create a new owner for that group)

Freecycle trademark (Freecycle wanted to protect it -- so I contributed considerable energy and expertise, I was the main original author behind the current trademark guidelines)

Freecyclenext (Many could see that a much better system was possible, I'm a software developer, so I helped lead the charge)

I see two reasonable paths for Freecycle.

One is the traditional corporate style path that requires trademarks, money, lawyers, money, insurance, money, and strong controls.  Trademarks are expensive. 24x7 systems supporting millions of users around the world are expensive. Lawyers are expensive. Insurance is expensive. But if you start raising enough money to support all of these, you become a target and need lawyers and insurance, etc.  It's quite a treadmill.

The second less traveled path is one where freecycle goes back to its roots, lets go, and becomes, again, a true, open, grassroots movement. Some optional, helpful guidelines, but no absolute rules and no one telling anyone else what to do.  This may not perfectly fit anyone's ideal dream.  But it may just be good enough and much less resource intensive.

Here is my alternate vision for freecycle:

1. Allow ersatzfriend to be optional for those who do not otherwise have anyone else they can trust to be a backup owner. If a group has a 2nd backup owner then great -- that's super!  If they choose not to have a backup owner, oh well, they are setting up their community for possible outages but they are adults and can take responsibility for this.

2. Abandon the Freecycle trademark pursuit and let all freecyclers do as much freecyclin' as they please. This will force the term into the public domain such that no one can trademark it.  This action would be very natural, it would be free, it would be fun, and all freecyclers everywhere would help enforce it.  Furthermore it fits well with a "viral" marketing approach to freecycle. People hear about it and want to know where it came from -- which will lead back to The Freecycle Network without strong trademark enforcement. It will also generate lots of goodwill.

3. Abandon the effort to create a new freecycle system. A big industrial company like Yahoo has trouble enough keeping its servers stable and running. Having freecycle create such a system puts a considerable burden on it and also introduces a significant single point of failure -- if the freecycle system goes down, all freecycling on it stops.  Yahoo Groups has gotten freecycle very far so it obviously works. It may not be perfect but it seems to be good enough (like VHS, qwerty keyboards, Microsoft, and tons of other examples).

4. Do maintain the trademark on the full name "The Freecycle Network" (this should be fairly easy) and do take credit for birthing freecycle.

5. Do have The Freecycle Network become a 501(c)3 nonprofit and allow individuals and corporations to make donations to support the gentle expansion of freecycle -- enough to keep Deron and a few others gainfully employed -- and freecycle.org up -- but not enough to make it a target for those who might want to sue to win money.  After all, freecycling is an open movement -- it's like trying to sue the weeds that grow in the wild.

6. Drop strong enforcement of many things so that GOAs won't seem to be like police to some or enforcers to others but a genuine helpful set of people that may be able to come in and help a moderator out with their group -- make being a GOA easy and fun.

7. Welcome back all the freeshare and splinter groups and allow them to use the freecycle term freely. Plus most of the people who have left including Nancy, Lynnie, Judy, Deanna, Pastor Ken, and others are very good, thoughtful people.

8. Do keep a freecycle directory on freecycle.org but make the only requirements to be listed be:
   

• everything offered on such groups must free
  
• exchanges keeps stuff out of landfills
  
• centered on a single geographical location.
  

9. Make the NGA job fun and easy.  Allow NGAs discretion to tune their areas where they see obvious needs for more groups (high population areas).  The goal of NGAs is to see that there are as many successful groups in their area as possible -- they don't want just a few monster groups -- they also don't want millions of teeny groups that can't get enough critical mass to be effective.

10. In general make all freecycle volunteer roles fun and easy (not work!).

11. Make the organization very transparent and easy to understand so that everyone can know what's going on. Document everything publicly.

12. Give moderators a more direct voice in the future of freecycle. Establish a mechanism so that all moderators who choose to vote, can vote on changes and directions for freecycle. Having a discussion group focused on The Freecycle Network organization is critical to this. Moderators of this group could run it more like a "meeting" -- where there is a bit of process to introduce a topic, that one topic is discussed and debated until some options emerge, and then it is voted on.  Decisions that are made in the past can be re-visited -- it is ok to change as we grow, no need to be stuck with past mistakes.  The Freecycle Network then has a good way to perpetuate itself as a system.

Like my Ben & Jerry's bicycling jersey says "If it's not fun, why do it?"

Sincerely,
Tim Oey
Reduce_Reuse_Recycle
Former California NGA
Current Sunnyvale CA co-ownerOn As Freecycle grows, idealism and reality collide posted 4 years, 3 months ago 85 Responses

State of Kentucky supports Freecycle

The link:
http://www.waste.ky.gov/recycling
is to the state of Kentucky's Waste Management Division -- it is a part of the state government and that government acknowledges that Freecycle is the real thing -- a great service to folks wanting to reduce waste.

Enjoy!

Cheers,
Tim OeyOn As Freecycle grows, idealism and reality collide posted 4 years, 6 months ago 85 Responses