Grassroots media site goes stellar from the start

Internet guru JD Lasica's new grassroots site Ourmedia crashed on its launch day this week after a massive surge of interest.

Ourmedia was launched on Monday to showcase and foster creative digital work and attracted more than 20,000 visitors in its first 24 hours.

Users can sign up to share, store and download multimedia content including video, audio, photographs and writing. The site is free to use and is likely to have particular appeal for video bloggers and podcasters: popular files usually mean costly data bills but Ourmedia will host files for free.

The founders hope that the site will become a rich repository of shareable digital media including documentaries, student films, grassroots political adverts and artwork.

"We're living in a time of fundamental change in the media landscape. We've been taught that only a trained professional elite can create media but people are now realising that there are alternatives to top-down, passive consumer culture," said Mr Lasica.

"The biggest hurdle people face today after creating a really cool movie or taking some really amazing photos is: What now? Where do I put it? How do I share it? We say: Put it here and we'll store it, safeguard it, and let you show it off. Free. Forever."

Ourmedia is already developing a global community, said Mr Lasica, with content moderators from Germany, Norway and the Netherlands, as well as Australia, the UK and US. But the site is calling for more international moderators - particularly in Africa, Asia and South America.

Expert advice from Lawrence Lessig, Howard Rheingold and Dan Gillmor, as well as legal advisors, shaped the site's elaborate guidelines on copyright and use of content.

A condition of posting material is that contributors must share their work. Reworking or remixing content is permitted including the use of 'snippets' of copyrighted work, although 'infringement and illegal misappropriation' are not be allowed.

"Fair use on the internet remains a grey zone - laws haven't caught up with the fast-changing customs and practices of the internet community. It's as if we were designing bridges or buildings using 19th-century technology," Mr Lasica told dotJournalism.

"We want to be careful not to cross the line of fair use and wander into infringement. All of our members, after all, are content creators.

"The fact that we require every person who uploads a piece of media to attach rights to the work - spelling out how it may be used by others - should help educate the public about copyright law and their rights in the digital sphere."

Mr Lasica co-founded the project with Marc Canter of PC Forum. The site was built by a team of 50 volunteers using a wiki, an open method of publishing that allows readers to edit and update web pages.

The site features RSS feeds for its content channels that provide instant updates on new content.

Online news guru Dan Gillmor recently gave up his widely respected column for the San Jose Mercury to set up his own grassroots journalism project. Writing on his blog today, Mr Lasica said that Ourmedia will not compete with Dan Gillmor or any other grassroots media project.

"We are, however, out to serve as the glue that bonds many of these efforts together," writes Mr Lasica.

• Mr Lasica recently completed his book 'Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation' which explores the personalisation of media. Darknet is due out in May 2005.

More news on dotJournalism:
Blogging: the new journalism?
UK stiffens copyright rules
Citizen journalism discussed
Citizen site takes off

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