| 1 | = May First/People Link Statement for the AMC 2009 Conference = |
| 2 | |
| 3 | We have all gathered because we believe in alternative media, its power and potential and its importance in the struggles of our peoples for a |
| 4 | better world. We are convinced that it is not only better, more complete and more accurate than mainstream media but that the role it plays, the |
| 5 | way it is developed and delivered and the access people have to developing and delivering it make it completely different from mainstream media. |
| 6 | |
| 7 | And we are here to protect and enhance that difference. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | But protecting that difference goes wider than the content of the media itself. As the potential for collaborative work and greater demands for alternative |
| 10 | distribution broaden, we are finding ourselves face to face with an enormous challenge and a politically critical decision. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Like all work, ours contributes to the work of others. The media produced by people here contributes to the software, websites and systems |
| 13 | constructed to distribute it and it is there that a choice is made. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | Most of our community is reliant on proprietary distribution systems -- YouTube, Google and others -- that are owned by large companies whose goal |
| 16 | is to control communications as a market and to control expression as a product. With these systems, we give up some of our rights to our own |
| 17 | media and we also support systems that aren't open, that are controlled by companies and that can and frequently do engage in censorship and content |
| 18 | control without our consent. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | There is nothing more poisonous than this situation and there is an alternative. |