indymedia romania / 06.07.04

An open letter by the Indymedia Romania editorial collective (signed by Iulian Basescu, Andreea C., Claudia Campeanu, Ruxandra Costescu, Andrei Costina, Liviu Pop, Crina Resteman, Joanne Richardson, Ovidiu Tichindeleanu)

First of all we want to say that the domain www.indymedia.ro has no connection to Indymedia Romania, which is part of the Global Indymedia Network and whose real website is on an Indymedia subdomain,  http://romania.indymedia.org.


The domain www.indymedia.ro was bought by Tudor Ionescu from the neofascist organization Noua Dreapta at the request of Bogdan Stanciu, the propaganda secretary of ND and the one-man show behind the Altermedia website. We are not using the label of “neofascist” as a cheap insult in order to provoke an emotional response, but as a concrete description of an actual phenomenon. Fascism as a political doctrine depends on a division of the population between those who receive recognition and rights as full citizens and others who are deprived of rights and a voice because they are perceived as the source of evil destroying and corrupting the unity of the nation. The first 3 objectives of ND’s program - a final solution to “the gypsy problem”, the recriminalization of homosexuality, and the struggle against religions and “sects” which seek dethrone the Orthodox Church in Romania - are directly in line with the ideology of fascism. The symbol of the white celtic cross on black background used by ND is the most widespread symbol used by Nazi skinheads in Europe and is an exact copy of the celtic cross flag of the German SS (  http://www.epier.com/store/outpostflags/Category.asp?cat=2790,  http://www.adl.org/hate_symbols/racist_celtic_cross.asp). There is no sense in which Bogdan Stanciu or Tudor Ionescu can pretend to be outraged when they are publicly called neofascists.

Unfortunately, the conflict between Indymedia Romania and Noua Dreapta/Altermedia has a long history, and we have already made public statements on several mailinglists that we consider Indymedia and Altermedia to be in fundamental contradiction on the level of principles and goals, and that we wish to have no association with ND and Altermedia even on a negative level of engaging in public quarrels. Although it has been our policy to not answer any recent provocations by Bogdan Stanciu, we consider it necessary to make a public statement in order to clarify the situation after constant attempts on his part to create a deliberate confusion.

The domain www.indymedia.ro was bought immediately after we were discussing on the Indymedia Romania list (which has public archives readable by anyone:  http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-romania) that in addition to the romania.indymedia.org domain, which we would receive from the global network, we should also buy a secondary www.indymedia.ro domain just to make sure no one else would claim it. We consider that ND bought the domain as an act of sabotage to prevent us from buying it, in order to use it against Indymedia Romania in a misleading way - as it is being used now by advertising that the “original” Indymedia Romania is really to be found on the neofascist Altermedia site. For anyone familiar with Noua Dreapta and Altermedia, there is no need to mention that similar tactics of infiltration and dissimulation were used on mailinglists like nuvreaurazboi and freeex, where ND subscribed using fake names like “civil society” and “free thought” and “I don’t want war” as an attempt to detourn discussions towards their own agenda and to provoke arguments and dissent between the members of the lists.

The latest provocation by Noua Dreapta/Altermedia has been to copy articles from the public Indymedia Romania working space (where we propose texts, vote on them, and prepare them for publication -  http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/ImcRomania) and to reproduce them on the Altermedia site, sometimes claiming that it is their own work. To justify this they have used the slogan of “copyleft” as a pretext to appropriate anything without asking for permission and lie about its source - in fact, many articles appearing on Altermedia are copied from other sources without permission, including materials which are copyrighted and prohibit reproduction without permission. And we assume it is unlikely that publications like the Guardian in the UK or even the local Evenimentul Zilei would give permission to have their content and name appear on a website that functions as a neofascist propaganda channel.

By denouncing the tactics of Altermedia, we do not wish to make an argument in favor of copyright. We recognize the dangers of intellectual property: in reality copyright is being used not to defend the rights of authors but to expand the pockets of corporations, and patents are being claimed on biological materials like seeds in order to prevent indigenous populations in third world countries from controlling their own agricultural production - which is truly a matter of life and death. During the construction of the Indymedia Romania website we have been using the banner of “copyLEFT” precisely because we are against the way copyright in particular and intellectual property law more generally is used to obstruct people’s right to self-determination and to prevent the free circulation and transparency of information.

Although copyleft is frequently described as a derivation of the General Public License (a license which makes it possible to copy, distribute, and modify free and open source software) it is important to see it in its proper historical context. Copyleft is actually a variation of the older practice of “anticopyright” which became popular during the 1960s. Anticopyright sought to abolish copyright because it was seen as a form of private property that prevented the free circulation of information. The gesture by authors of “anticopyrighting” their works was made in a spirit of generosity, affirming the idea that information can only flourish when it has no owners and that creativity should belong to everyone, without artificial limitations. In many ways copyleft represents an acknowledgement of the failure of anticopyright because of an initial naivete - the presupposition that everyone who would benefit from anticopyrighting shared the same values and would be using and reproducing information in the same spirit of generosity. What actually happened is that unscrupulous people and greedy corporations exploited the lack of copyright in the opposite spirit by re-privatizing information that was supposed to be free in order to try to make an economic profit from it. Copyleft attempted to fix this problem by promoting the free copying and distribution (and derivative use) of works ONLY if it is for non-commercial purposes, in other words, only if there is no economic exploitation. The idea has been formulated more clearly by the Creative Commons initiative (  http://creativecommons.org) under the slogan of “some rights reserved.” Anticopyright as a declaration of “no rights reserved” was a perfect slogan for a perfect world. Of course, in actuality and in an imperfect world if you don’t claim any rights, you cannot complain when your rights are being violated. And by living in the actual world, you realize that freedom is not something abstract, attained in the negation or abolition of all laws, but a concrete ability to do something which implies reciprocal rights and responsibilities.

The Copyleft/Creative Commons principle of “some rights reserved” has not gone far enough in specifying which rights are reserved, because so far the focus has been almost exclusively on preventing the misuse of freedom of information for economic gain, while saying nothing about possible ideological abuses. Linking the name of Indymedia Romania in a misleading way to a “project” we consider repulsive, opportunistic and ethically bankrupt is a violation of our freedom of choice. Copying texts written or translated for Indymedia and reproducing them on a website that is anti-roma, anti-gay and anti-anything-that-is-not-a-romanian-christian-orthodox directly contradicts our basic principles. This sentiment was echoed by Armin Medosch when he discovered that his article on free software appeared on Altermedia without his knowledge. Armin’s article was translated by Liviu Pop, a member of the Indymedia Romania editorial group, and posted on our public workspace - soon after, Liviu’s translation was copied word for word and appeared on ro.altermedia.info with the label “translated by Altermedia.”

Stealing a domain name and acts of plagiarism (lying about the source and the production of a work) have nothing to do with copyleft, which is based on a desire to free information by making it transparent. We don’t believe for a moment that ND or Altermedia have anything in common with the principles behind the copyleft movement. They are only using the slogan of “copyleft” in a hypocritical way to justify their own abuse of other people’s freedom - in the same way as they are yelling very loudly that they are the strongest supporters of “freedom of speech” only as a pretext for claiming that any criticism of their worldview is evidence that their freedom is being trampled ... and when in fact the content of their “free speech” calls for suppressing the right of homosexuals and the roma to express themselves (or to “manifest” themselves in public - to use Bogdan Stanciu’s elegant phrase).

As a consequence of this unpleasant experience with Altermedia, we have decided to rewrite our copyLEFT policy to make it clear that we absolutely do not give permission for our work and names to be reproduced in a context that fundamentally contradicts our principles and goals.

CopyLEFT Indymedia Romania. All material can be reproduced and distributed freely, with the following EXCEPTIONS:
(1) No permission is given to modify the content or to alter the name of the author and original source as this goes against our desire for transparency.
(2) No permission is given to reproduce this material for the purpose of making a profit, as this exploits our spirit of generosity.
(3) No permission is given to reproduce this material in a context that violates the rights of individuals or groups by discriminating against them on the basis of nationality, ethnicity, gender or sexuality as this contradicts our essential commitment to equality.