The Freecycle Network

For other uses, see Freecycle.

The Freecycle Network (often abbreviated TFN) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization registered in Arizona, USA, that organizes a worldwide network of regiving groups, aiming to divert usable goods from landfill. It provides an online registry of worldwide groups, and coordinates the creation of forums for individuals and non-profits to offer and receive free items for reuse or recycling.

Background

The organization originated as a project of RISE Inc., a nonprofit corporation, to promote waste reduction in Tucson, Arizona, and reduce the need for landfills in Arizona's fragile desert landscape. RISE subsequently handed it over to the project leader, Deron Beal. On April 2004, it incorporated under Arizona law, and as of September 2006 is a registered 501(c)(3) charity in the United States.

Each local group exists as a Yahoo! Groups mailing list run by volunteer moderators. TFN encourages the formation of new groups, subject to approval by regional New Group Approvers (NGAs). Groups approved by TFN are listed at the official website, can use the name and logo, and are subject to rules enforced by a structure of global and regional GOAs (Group Outreach Assistants). TFN originally planned to move in 2004, then in 2005, and then in early 2006 from Yahoo! Groups to a centralized site, custom-made for the purpose; these plans have now been rescheduled for 2007 [1].

The term "freecycle" may have first been used by "Salvager Dali" in Toronto. [2] The concept and term "FreeCycle" were used and trademark asserted by Hemp Online Inc in 2000. [3]

The TFN logo is a registered trademark of The Freecycle Network in the United Kingdom and Europe, CTM Reg. No. 4287553.

Successes

TFN has grown rapidly into a global organization of over 3800 (October 2006) local chapters [4], and passed the 2 million member mark in February 2006 [5]. As of January 2007, the membership stands at 3,111,276 across 3934 groups. The original idea has since been copied and varied by hundreds of similar groups around the world.

Controversies

• Corporate sponsorship: In February 2005, Deron Beal accepted TFN's first corporate support of $130,000 from Waste Management, Inc. [6]. This polarized opinion amongst group moderators. Some saw it as a sensible way of raising funds from a company Beal describes as America's "largest recycler", but others saw it as selling out to corporate interests. Further criticism was provoked by a decision to take paid Google ads on the TFN web site, contrary to the initial stated principles, and by Beal's green ambassador role for WMI [7]. A second grant from Waste Management was received by TFN in February 2006 in the amount of $100,000, bringing total funding to $230,000 from WMI.
• Management Structure: further criticism has focused on the close-knit friends-and-family board structure, which delayed full registration as a non-profit. Although set to a nominal limit of 15, to date it has been limited to founder Deron Beal (chairperson and treasurer), his wife Jennifer Columbus (vice chairperson) and friend Jolie Sibert (secretary), prompting accusations of nepotism. Beal defends this as a necessary interim measure whilst the organization grows rapidly.
• Use of funds: some members have challenged how sponsorship funds have been allocated. The initial goals were to use them for a new website, Beal's salary, and lawyers' fees. After the first year, the new web site had not appeared, although $45,000USD had received by Beal in salary, and an unstated sum spent on legal expenses. However, the web site was claimed to be on schedule for Q1 2006 (since slipped to 2007). Former colleagues of Beal cite his behavior as an example of so-called "founderitis". [8]
• Trademark: Beal has been criticized for vigorously defending TFN's trademark, at the expense of closing down functioning community groups and imposing precise rules on logos and language for groups. Beal insists this is solely to prevent commercial interests taking the name and establishing an inappropriate freecycle.com. Critics claim that it could equally be protected from corporate abuse by establishment as a generic term. Ironically, Beal himself initially used freecycle as a generic term, and early documents [9] make frequent references to "freecyclers" and "freecycling", terms which now trigger letters from TFN's trademark protection legal team. A formal trademark opposition [10] was filed in January 2006. FreecycleSunnyvale filed a lawsuit in federal court against The Freecycle Network [11] in January 2006. An injunction was granted against Sunnyvale's freecycling group moderator Tim Oey in May 2006 [12] for allegedly disparaging the TFN trademark. This injunction was stayed in July 2006. During 2006, TFN also harassed other free recycling groups who either mentioned the term "freecycle" or allegedly had "confusingly similar derivations thereof".
• Copyright: while TFN has claimed copyright infringement against others, TFN itself has itself engaged in copyright infringement. From 2003 until December 2005, TFN republished hundreds of news media articles on freecycle.org without permission [13]. Although TFN has claimed copyright and trademark rights on its logo, opponents allege the copyrights on the bicycle [14] and the guitar [15] subelements are owned by NV Tech and their license [16] prohibits others from claiming copyright or trademark rights on composite works that include NV Tech art.
• Centralization: Opinion divides amongst Yahoo! list moderators on the merits of a single centralized forum versus the federation of individual Yahoo! Groups, and since there is no widespread consultation or firm schedule, many groups remain unaware of the centralization plan. The concentration of infrastructure has its parallels in TFN governance, with decisions and discussion on organization removed from the general modsquad group open to all local moderators, shifted to a smaller OIDG group, and finally to a handful of people known as the 'HUB' group [17], many of whom are salaried. In late 2006, control tightened with a "One Hat" rule preventing volunteers holding down multiple roles, for example being both an Interim Mod and a New Group Approver. As of March 2006, new groups go through a 30-step approval and setup process.
• Deletion of groups: TFN began removing many groups not registered, or subsequently de-registered on TFN's web directory of Freecycle groups; The Freecycle Network cites "refusing to comply with its practices and direction" as the reason for this. Group moderators receive cease-and-desist emails and a request made to Yahoo! to close the group account. This has happened to groups with as many as 4,500 active members, for example Baton Rouge, Louisiana [18] [19] and Ann Arbor,Michigan [20]. Starting in North America, mass purges of over 600 groups [21] [22] at a time have been witnessed by members of the network's 'modsquad' group; these purges extended on a smaller scale to Europe in 2005 where an alleged "rogue" group was closed down in Leicestershire; in late 2006, the Buxton Freecycle was erased without warning and TFN were thwarted in an attempt to delete the 8200-strong Glasgow group. The criteria for action, to quote from a TFN warning e-mail, "trademark-protected Freecycle name and logo, as well as any and all copyrighted texts, graphics, rules, and guidelines, in any part of the group including the title, or its URL". Deleted groups are often replaced by so-called "astroturf" groups, set up by central TFN management.
• Dismissing dissenters: the Freecycle Network dismissed members and senior people in the management structure who disagreed with or queried its practices and direction, deleting their messages from TFN administration forums, and have extended this to closing entire community groups moderated by dissenters, together with their email accounts.
• Free speech Free speech advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales [23] have joined a group of intellectual property lawyers to oppose [24] TFN in an Arizona trademark lawsuit TFN filed against Tim Oey. The basis for the opposition is that the lawsuit violates First Amendment rights.

References

• The Freecycle Network Board of Directors
• Freecycle Trademark Application (US)
• Freecycle Trademark Application (EU)
• Trademark Application (UK)
• Freecycle Statement of Centralization Plans
• TFN Filings with State of Arizona

External links

• The Freecycle Network
• Freecycle Network UK
• BusinessWeek blog on Freeyclce issues
• Grist article on Freecycle, May 04
• Grist article on Freecycle, May 05
• Grist article on Freecycle, July 06
• Green Ribbon Campaign to Keep Freecycle Free - Contains copies of court filings against The Freecycle Network

The Freecycle Network structure

• Organization Chart
• Board of Directors
• Staff - HUB group
• Group Outreach & Assistance Team (regional supervisors)
• OIDG - Confidential group for moderators to discuss organizational direction (334 members - Nov 2005)
• freecyclemodsquad - Mutual assistance group open to moderators of any local TFN group (2286 members - Nov 2005)