By Lawrence Lessig

Ok, I’m late. This is the 15th of the month email, sent to you on the 18th of this month. But I wanted to wait till I could send you one link with one important (non-fundraising) ask. So I’ll keep this short, while asking you kindly to help us spread the most important message that Equal Citizens was founded to spread.

Fix(ing) Democracy First: As most of you know, in the 2016 cycle, I tried to become a candidate in the Democratic primary pressing fundamental reform first. Lots of stuff worked together to keep me out of the early debates — and I take personal responsibility for the most important — but the central message of my campaign was “Fix Democracy First.” I had proposed a package of reform — public funding of congressional elections, gerrymandering reform, and an equal freedom to vote — and I had insisted that Congress needed to take up those reforms, first.

These ideas of course were not mine alone. Over the past 5 years, others too have come to see that there’s not just a single problem with American democracy, but there are many. And that what we needed was not a simple tweak, but fundamental reform.

Nancy Pelosi has now taken up this fight. H.R. 1 is an EXTRAORDINARY package of fundamental reform — public funding for congressional elections, gerrymandering reform, ethics reform, automatic voter registration, and the restoration of the Voting Rights Act — that, as the name suggests, she will take up first. Thus, the Democrats have now said as clearly as they could possibly say — we must fix Congress, and we must fix Congress first.

Here’s the ask: I have an op-ed in USA Today that describes this historic bill and why it is so critical. It also presses the obvious point — that reform needs a President. This is the central message of everything we are building for, so that 2020 will have committed reformers competing to become the next president.

Can you please help us spread the word by sharing the op-ed? You can click here to tweet it or share it on Facebook. The more who share it, the higher the chance that it will get published in the print edition as well.

Slow Democracy: You likely have heard of the Slow Food Movement. I’ve become a big fan of the Slow Democracy Movement. In the world of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, we need to balance short attention media with something more. Podcasts are an important balance. Last week, I had the incredible pleasure of spending 2.5 hours talking through our issues with Joe Rogan. You can watch/listen here.

Our cases: Progress. In the challenge to “winner-take-all” in the Electoral College, we will have our brief filed in the 9th Circuit next month. We’ll have a brief in the 1st Circuit a couple months after that. Justice is slow, but I am optimistic.

January will also see the argument in the two cases we have determining whether electors are free to vote their conscience. I will be arguing in the Washington Supreme Court on January 22. Jason Harrow, our Chief Counsel, will be arguing in the 10th Circuit on the 24th. More on those cases next month.

Our hope: It has been an exciting and hopeful year — so much so that Joe Rogan actually accused me of being optimistic. That’s a first for me. That’s hopeful for us. And so, optimistically, from all of us at Equal Citizens, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas. I am endlessly grateful to you for your support and to the amazing staff who works with me — Phoebe Wong, Jason Harrow, Adam Eichen, Blair Fitzgibbon, John Stewart, Tom Carmona, and Chris Bucchere — to make our work possible. Celebrate with love — for family, friends and country. We’ll see you in the new year.

This blog post was adapted from Lessig’s monthly email update. To receive these emails, click here.

Equal Citizens December 2018 Update was originally published in Equal Citizens on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Alasdair MacKenzie and Danny Holt

When we aren’t fighting for democracy reform with Equal Citizens, we are musicians.

Few things lift our spirits like creating new music and sharing it with fans. Writing music and playing in bands are work- and time-intensive pursuits, but we wouldn’t trade them for anything. In many ways, they are who we are.

There is a critical prerequisite for our work: access to already-created music. For many, listening to music is a pastime and source of enjoyment. For us, it is the linchpin of music creation. As songwriters, we hear seeds of new compositions in the melodies, rhythms, and textures on other artists’ recordings. As instrumentalists, recordings show us technical excellence to study and creativity to aspire. As makers of sample-based music, we incorporate other recordings into the fabric of our own work. Culture is additive — we create the future from the past. As such, access to all types of music, from Top 40 hits to flops, is imperative.

Unfortunately, Congress is about to limit this access.

Thanks to intense lobbying effort from major record labels, Congress is on the verge of passing the CLASSICS Act, a revision to the copyright laws governing sound recordings. While the main focus of the CLASSICS Act is to compensate legacy artists, which we firmly support, this bill will likely hurt artists like us and our ability to access our culture’s past.

Let us explain. Our current copyright system is a mess. Right now, pre-1972 sound recordings are governed under state and common law — not federal law — so that the rights-holders of those works are not under federal copyright protection when the songs are streamed or played on internet radio. This clearly hurts artists, and we agree that reform is needed. Under the CLASSICS Act, sound recordings made between 1923 and 1972 will be given a federal “pseudo-copyright” protection until 2067, so that the rights-holders of recordings made during those years can demand royalties as dictated under federal copyright laws. Using those recordings without a license will put users at risk of federal copyright’s massive, unpredictable penalties.

The problem is that such a blanket copyright expansion will unintentionally impact the availability of lots of music and sound recordings. Don’t worry: the most popular pre-’72 recordings will still be available, as digital music companies like Pandora and Sirius XM already pay for many popular works as part of private agreements. And these companies will continue to do so, since famous works will remain in high demand among listeners. (But still, there is concern that accessing famous older recordings will be difficult, as their rights-holders are increasingly hard to find.)

The real rub is that streaming services and internet radio stations will have no incentive to pay for less commercially viable recordings. Much of this music therefore could disappear from streaming services. And what is unavailable to stream is effectively unavailable in general, as streaming is the predominant form of music consumption in the United States today. This would gut the primary way that we are exposed to new music.

As Lawrence Lessig and other prominent copyright scholars have argued, it isn’t just about streaming music. Creators of any existing work that includes pre-1972 sound recordings will have to secure new permissions from the owners of each retroactive copyright in each sound recording. This will likely remove some popular audio documentaries and podcasts from the public’s reach.

On the surface, the number of commercially non-viable works affected by the CLASSICS Act may seem insignificant, but copyright experts estimate that commercially non-viable works comprise around 95% of recorded music from before 1972. In this way, the vast majority of half a century’s recorded sound culture would become more difficult, if not impossible, to access under the CLASSICS Act.

We care deeply about these lesser-known recordings and their continued accessibility. Recordings, no matter how obscure, are extremely valuable resources to our growth and creativity. Moreover, in a broader sense, they are historical documents and need to be continually accessible, for we cannot fully understand our past and present without them. Having these works languish in the cultural abyss, out of the public domain until 2067, would be a tremendous loss.

So yes, rewarding artists for their work is important (trust us, we want to be compensated!). But we also have to fix the negative effects of this copyright change.

And this isn’t difficult. One simple change to the CLASSICS Act would prevent most of its impediments to creativity. Congress could add a stipulation that the expansion of copyright will only be granted to recordings that are registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. In other words, if you make the effort to register your work, you receive the Act’s expanded protection. Under this scheme, the most profitable recordings would be registered — as their rights-holders would want to profit from streaming — while the remaining recordings, the ones that have no commercial value and whose rights-holders either cannot be bothered to register or who are unaware of what they own, would remain freely streamable. If those recordings became profitable at any point before 2067, their rights-holders would be free to register them.

A registration requirement amendment would allow the CLASSICS Act to fulfill its stated mission of rewarding artists for their “important contributions to society,” while also protecting sources of creativity for striving artists like us.

As musicians, we uniquely understand the tender balance between getting paid and having access to our culture. We urge Congress to appreciate it as well. Please sign Equal Citizens’ petition demanding the Senate add a registration requirement to the CLASSICS Act today.

Alasdair MacKenzie is a research intern at Equal Citizens and a rising senior at Harvard College. He performs and records with the band New Dakotas and produces recordings for numerous other artists.

Danny Holt is a research intern at Equal Citizens and a rising sophomore at Wesleyan University. He records solo work under the name Soggy Jockey and plays drums in the band Not the Village.

Congress Claims To Help Musicians, But… was originally published in Equal Citizens on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

On Monday April 11, 2016 over 400 people were mass arrested in Washington D.C.

“Wow,” you might say, “There must have been a riot, right?”

Actually there wasn’t.

It was over 400 people peacefully protesting a “nation on the take”. In a rousing call to action, #DemocracySpring leader, Kai Newkirk, explained:

We are here to defend our freedom, because the condition of freedom is participation in power. Because if you do not have a say — if you do not participate meaningfully in power — then someone else is ruling you.

Despite trending to the number two spot on Twitter — just behind the all important National Pet Day — mainstream media completely missed the event. An event that marks the largest mass arrest in our nation’s capitol this century.

In an act of civil disobedience, protesters blocked the steps in front of the Capitol building. After refusing three warnings of arrest if they did not move, each was processed and loaded onto buses that would take them to a temporary warehouse jail, because the regular holding cells were nowhere near large enough.

Yet, despite the significance of the event. Zero mainstream media covered it, but you can be sure they covered National Pet Day.

What the hell is going on? While Americans sacrifice their freedom in protest of a government corrupted by money, insiders, and corporate media, the nation just yawns?

Or does it?

Here you are now. Learning.

I get it, you might have more important personal concerns and on national issues, you might care more about national debt, climate change, term limits, or the size of government. That is fine, they are all important issues. Yet before anything will ever happen with your highest priority issue, your first issue must be to restore the balance within our system of representation.

Is it really that bad?

Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson cuts right to the chase:

I served 18 years in the U.S. Senate and was co-chairman of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform in 2010. So believe me when I say: it wasn’t always like this. When I first ran for office in 1978, money wasn’t the most important aspect of my campaign.

No current candidate for political office can say that now.

The balance is gone. Again Senator Simpson (emphasis added):

Day in and day out, members of Congress spend up to 50 percent of their time dialing for dollars. Unless you’re one of the wealthy few who can afford to “max out” by giving the full $2,700, it’s probably not your phone they’re calling. And it’s not your problems or issues they’re talking about either

This is not a bleeding heart liberal talking. Senator Simpson is a fiscal conservative from Wyoming. We need a WTFU (wake the …) moment.

This is not an unsolvable problem. There is legislation collecting dust in Congress right now that could fix half of the issues affecting our right to vote and fair elections. All we need is for Congress to do its job.

For the rest of the week Democracy Spring will be pushing Congress to do just that. If Congress does not act —and personally, I am expecting that they will not — then we must make it clear that there will be a political price to pay come November.

After the more than 400 people arrested on Monday pay their $50 forfeiture bonds, the government will have raised over $20,000 from this. It is an ironic consequence that should not go unchallenged. Perhaps those unable to sacrifice their freedom for a day could at least sacrifice that next beer or latte.

This is only the beginning after all.

Correction: The Monday arrests were the largest this century. The previous version stated that it was the largest ever. During the 1971 May Day Vietnam war protest, over 12,000 people were arrested.

Arresting Liberty — The Biggest Story You Didn’t Hear: #DemocracySpring was originally published in Equal Citizens on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Standing at opposite poles, two populist presidential candidates have some really great sounding slogans, but do either of them have a reasonable plan for creating a “political revolution” to “make America great again”? The truth is — even if they had the best plans in the world — the power of the president to affect the kind of changes they promise is pretty limited. Through the EqualCitizens.US project, we want to go beyond the flowery rhetoric of campaigns and get very specific about what achieving such fantastic claims will actually take.

You do not help a drunk find sobriety by having them promise or sign a pledge to work on it.

America has always had a deep love/hate relationship with presidents, which is why their elections capture more of the public’s attention — the percentage of voter turnout is an average 14 points higher compared to midterm elections. Yet the vast majority of policy decisions fall on Congress, not the presidency. More importantly, when it comes to fixing Congress, the president has very few options.

This is precisely why mobilizing ordinary citizens is just about the only chance we have at getting elections that aren’t rigged, a Congress that is free of corruption, and voting that is both convenient and secure. More plainly — You do not help a drunk find sobriety by having them promise or sign a pledge to work on it. You help an addict by changing the incentives and the environment until they themselves truly commit to reform.

We may indeed need a political revolution to make America great again, but before that is even possible, what we really need is a political intervention. Not a confrontation, not a fight, not another mass protest lacking in substance and a realistic plan of action.

Like any good intervention, you have to start with being very frank about the current state of affairs — Uncle Sam, you are a drunk — and how this reality affects the world around them. Next, you clearly identify all the steps — entirely possible right now — towards achieving sobriety. Lastly, you provide a strong community of support to help keep the addict honest and on the road to recovery.

EqualCitizens.US is a political intervention that is taking on the root causes of political inequality by bridging the gap between grassroots activism and expert reformers to pass real, honest federal legislation. To be sure, nothing like this has ever been done before, but building on the success of other crowdfunding and crowdsourcing approaches, we believe that the combination of good technology and a good process will produce success where other approaches have fallen short.

So what will it mean to “crowdsource” federal legislation? The exciting part is we really don’t know. It will likely be different for every bill that we consider in 2016. For example, our partners at FairVote have a largely complete and finalized bill for restoring multi-member districts to House elections and for incorporating Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). In this case, much of the work will be explaining to the crowd the problem — (gerrymandering, gridlock, etc.) and how the RCV Act goes about providing a solution — before holding an up or down vote of citizen approval.

In the case of taking on the corruption stemming from lobbying and campaign finance, our partners at Issue One have assembled the ReFormers Caucus to build upon past reform legislation to craft a new version that is both comprehensive and realistic. For this case the crowdsourcing will hopefully take on a more active role in shaping the legislation so that it addresses all the concerns and questions of average citizens.

To be clear, there is no guarantee that the crowd will fully endorse any or all of the bills being considered. Yet for anyone that truly believes in the power of a democratic process, crowdsourcing these bills is our best opportunity for passing real reforms in 2016 and 2017. Compared to the consequences of continuing to accept a failed system, the risk of only moving the dialogue along a little further forward is absolutely worth it.

If you agree, help give this political intervention a head start now by pledging to be an official co-sponsor today.

Bruce Skarin is the founder of EqualCitizens.US, a nonpartisan project to crowdsource three reforms by August 2016. Follow him on Twitter.

The political revolution to make America great again was originally published in Equal Citizens on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

After overloading on sugar coated treats during the holidays most of us probably made a New Year’s resolution to cut down on such unhealthy habits. We should do the same with how we talk about Congress.

For years most reformers have been calmly discussing the problems with campaign finance, gerrymandering, and voting rights as if they were giving a lecture to a bunch of graduate students. This is most likely just a desire to be “professional”, but it also badly understates how messed up Congress and today’s politics really are.

Lawrence Lessig was one of the first reformers to strip away the sugar coating of corruption by noting that referring to Congress as having a “campaign finance problem” was like saying that someone with “alcoholism” had a “liquid intake problem”.

By the same token we do not have a problem with gerrymandering. We have a problem with rigged elections that make 85% of the House seats “safe” for a particular party. We also do not have a problem with voting rights we have a problem with voter fraud and intimidation.

On the flipside, those that say members of Congress are all just “corrupt assholes” oversimplifies the problems we face. If bad leaders were the only issue, then we could simply elect new leaders. But we cannot elect new leaders, because the system is broken. As a system, we need to strip away all the sugar and be frank about what has happened to Congress and how we fix it.

The bitter truth is that Congress today is plagued by corruption, rigged elections, and acts of voter fraud and intimidation.

This is not an exaggeration. By every measure Congress is unresponsive and unrepresentative, with members installed into office through elections of very low integrity.

After several years of protests by a wide range of groups, I think most Americans are beginning to understand this cold hard reality. Where we fall down now is in talking about solutions.

Part of this failing can be blamed on the fractured reform movements, while the rest falls on the tendency for people to constantly frame every problem as a partisan issue. This kind of strategy will never work. In fact, it only divides us further.

Raising awareness is not a strategy either. We need to find a way to focus all the different groups on defining specific reforms that can be passed by a new Congress in 2017. At EqualCitizens.US we are readying a way to do just that by using the very same kind of representative democracy we seek to fix.

Instead of just petitioning leaders or relying on experts alone, over a six month project we will connect delegates with thousands of citizens to help shape three independent bills that address each problem with Congress. Through this process we can take on corruption, rigged elections, and voter fraud and intimidation, while building on the expertise of each individual expert community.

For some people I expect this strategy will not work for them. Yet for those people that truly appreciate the process of a representative democracy, they will find a refreshing place to privately voice their positions and see the product of their actions.

I have been told by a few reform leaders that it is “impossible” to get 50,000 people to put aside their differences and help crowdsource the review and clarification of three expertly defined bills designed to fix our Congress. Yet I have also seen firsthand the power civic action. From long brutal walks protesting the corruption in Washington to a string of local reform victories, I firmly believe that 2016 is the year we take our stand.

There is no more sugar coating it. The lobbyists and political establishment may have rented out Congress these past few decades, but they do not own it. This is our democracy dammit, and we are here to take it back. On January 29, 2016 we launch a new experiment in the fight to (finally) be equal citizens. Help us get started by becoming an official cosponsor today.

Bruce Skarin is the founder of EqualCitizens.US, a nonpartisan project to crowdsource three reforms by August 2016. Follow him on Twitter.

Time to stop sugar coating the problems with Congress was originally published in Equal Citizens on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.