Posted by Andie Grace
On Wednesday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) issued a criticism
of Burning Man’s ongoing efforts to protect the rights of our
participants, and our efforts to forestall the creep of commercialism
into the foundations of our culture.
Image by brillig, 2008
Burning Man deeply respects the efforts of the EFF, and frankly,
would ourselves like to embrace their opinion - but we don’t think the
issue is as simple as Corynne McSherry would have you believe. Just
like the EFF, we honestly seek to think outside old paradigms and boxes
of “creative property” in the digital age, but we view Black Rock City
through a more complicated lens, and our view of issues facing creative
ownership is not rendered in extremes of black and white. To us, the
rights of the individual participant to privacy while in Black Rock
City in this unique environment for free expression — and our
philosophical desire to maintain it out of reach of those who would
exploit that expression just to sell cars or soft drinks — happens to
come first.
In fact, there are but two essential reasons we maintain these
increased controls on behalf of our community: to protect our
participants so that images that violate their privacy are not
displayed, and to prevent companies from using Burning Man to sell
products.
Livingbrush Woman Art by Scott Fray, Image by Bryce Hunt