These questions can only be answered by you

How different might the Internet look five years from now - and what will our future look like when it comes to accessing and sharing knowledge and culture online? At OpenMedia, we think these answers should be crowdsourced. We believe the people who are most invested in the Internet – who use it, create with it, and share with it - are those best placed to shape our collective digital future. In other words, we’re looking for your help. That’s why we’re creating a new, citizen-driven plan to develop copyright rules that work for everyone in the 21st century. Check it out now and have your say at https://OpenMedia.org/crowdsource

Why is this important? Because our digital future is under threat. It was back in February 2011 when we first heard about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a secretive and extreme trade deal being negotiated behind closed doors by 12 countries. Leaked drafts of the TPP highlighted how the it could criminalize your online activity, invade your privacy, and cost you money.

As word spread, netizens of the world fought back. Over 135,000 people spoke out at StopTheTrap.net to fight the TPP’s threat to our digital future. Inspired by the response from you, our community, we launched OpenTheTPP.net, a campaign that sent your voices straight to TPP negotiators.

Our Executive Director, Steve Anderson, even confronted lobbyists and bureaucrats with an iPad streaming your comments to show them just how determined we were to safeguard the free and open Internet.

It didn’t end there. In May, together with pro-Internet groups from around the world, OpenMedia launched the Fair Deal coalition to stop the TPP from changing our copyright laws in ways that would take a major toll on our society. We continued by launching our Digital Future tool – an open alternative to the backroom deals put forward by old industry lobbyists looking to shore up their outdated business models at the cost of global creativity and innovation.

In an amazing moment, your voices united in full force when over 100,000 people said NO to Internet censorship. That message was heard loud and clear in the media, with coverage of just how essential our fight for the open Internet had become.



It’s now more important than ever to keep this momentum going. We want to take your voices straight to decision-makers and propose our own vision for a fair digital future. What should our digital future look like? How can we access knowledge and share culture in a way that respects creators’ rights? And how can we continue to safeguard our digital future to support innovation, creativity, privacy, and our right to freedom of expression online? These questions can only be answered by you.

Let’s create a global crowdsourced vision of how we see the future of the Internet – and our role in it. Once the citizen-centered alternative exists, it becomes impossible for decision-makers to claim their extreme proposals are serving regular people.

That’s why we’re asking everyone to do their bit and help pitch in on this exciting global initiative. Can you share your vision, tell your friends, and spread the world online? After all, it only takes five minutes of your time to use the Internet to save the Internet - share your vision today at https://OpenMedia.org/Crowdsource

