Hi everyone. Along with the steady move toward Ourmedia 2.0, we're evolving a statement of princples for open media. The idea is that we want Ourmedia to be not just another destination website, but a window into the world of open media -- there is lots of great grassroots media being created, but the good stuff is still hard to find.

With more than 100 video hosting sites having sprung up over the past year, we need to make clear why we're here and how we're different, and what we and our partner sites stand for.

Here's what Ourmedia believes in: a set of principles for the open media movement. We hope others will join in the discussion and help evolve this draft in the months ahead.

Open media statement of principles

  • We believe in the creative power of the individual. We all have meaningful stories to tell. Individual lives and opinions are interesting, important and worth sharing.
  • Media is not just something done to us by big media and the entertainment companies. People are hungry for authentic voices and the immediacy and intimacy of personal media. We want to encourage the public to take up the tools of personal publishing.
  • We support open media, open standards and interoperability. It's not about walled gardens. The Web is about openness, connectedness and participation.
  • We support open source. In addition, we support any project or company that supports the Commons, community and the public interest.
  • Quality matters. We support efforts that encourage and teach people how to create high-value grassroots media that offers meaning and context.
  • The public benefits from long-term archives that preserve grassroots media for future generations.
  • We support remix culture. We believe in the idea of giving people access to video, audio, music and images for them to mash up and remix in a way that's easy, convenient and legal.
  • We believe in fair use and sensible copyright laws. Creative Commons and the GNU Public License enrich the culture while preserving creators' rights.
  • We support the right of long-tail artists, like all artists, to profit from their creations. We do not support unfettered file sharing of others' works without their permission.