Speaking at the annual conference of the UK's Association of Online Publishers (AOP) in London on 21 October, Mr Gillmor criticised the film industry's one-sided approach to the internet, saying that its definition of interactivity was just 'getting people to buy stuff'.
He urged publishers to fight back against the increasing trend of what he described as 'copyright abuse' by the 'copyright cartels' of the film industry.
"Permission culture could kill this amazing remix culture that creates online content, requiring us to get permission to do things that I regard as our right," he said.
"We do it in print when quoting from other stories, but Hollywood says 'if you use our stuff you have to pay us'."
Grassroots journalism
Plugging his recent book 'We the media - grassroots journalism by the people, for the people', Mr Gillmor explained how grassroots journalism is having a significant impact on the development of online news.
Bloggers in particular now have a significant impact on the industry and this year, for the first time, bloggers were given formal press accreditation to cover this year's political conferences alongside traditional journalists.
Bloggers are also part of the self-correcting mechanism of the internet. US political gossip site the Drudge Report, for example, has a huge number of readers but its reputation suffered after publishing a bogus rumour about presidential candidate John Kerry.
"Drudge put up a note about an alleged affair between Kerry and a former member of his staff. Many responsible news organisations didn't trust it, and it became clear that it was absolutely not true," said Mr Gillmor.
"There is an urge to get there first, rather than get it right, and that cost Drudge significantly in how people looked at him. People will now look for inaccuracies and go after them."
Media for the people, by the people
Giving more examples of participatory journalism, Mr Gillmor referred to Wikipedia, an online encyclopaedia written entirely by the public, reporter Chris Albritton who was able to cover the invasion of Iraq through reader donations of $14,000 and Korean news site OhMyNews.
OhMyNews employs a team of reporters and editors, but 80 per cent of content is written by readers.
"That is a model that has worked quite well. That idea of user-generated content is something that we should be working with more - not worrying about," said Mr Gillmor.
Online news sites need to do much more to adapt to the internet environment if they are to survive, said Mr Gillmor, and involving the reader is an essential part of this.
"My readers know more than I do. All journalists on all beats should know that: all readers collectively know more than all journalists," he said.
"Journalism has been a lecture. Publication is not the end of the story - it is the beginning."
• Dan Gillmor's recent book 'We the media' was published online and made available free of charge for non-commercial use through a Creative Commons licence. See http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wemedia/book/index.csp.
More news from dotJournalism:
Citizen journalism discussed
Bloggers join ranks with journalists
AOP to sharpen its cutting edge
See also:
AOP: http://www.ukaop.org.uk
Dan Gillmor's column: http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor
Mercury News: http://www.mercurynews.com
We the Media: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wemedia/book
Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org
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