Uploaded October 2010 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=146
This Land is Our Land: The Fight to Reclaim the Commons
A Film by the Media Education Foundation
Featuring David Bollier
For more than three decades, transnational corporations have been busy buying up what used to be known as the commons -- everything from our forests and our oceans to our broadcast airwaves and our most important intellectual and cultural works. In This Land is Our Land, acclaimed author David Bollier, a leading figure in the global movement to reclaim the commons, bucks the rising tide of anti-government extremism and free market ideology to show how commercial interests are undermining our collective interests. Placing the commons squarely within the American tradition of community engagement and the free exchange of ideas and information, Bollier shows how a bold new international movement steeped in democratic principles is trying to reclaim our common wealth by modeling practical alternatives to the restrictive monopoly powers of corporate elites.
David Bollier
David Bollier is an author, activist, blogger and consultant who has spent the past ten years exploring the commons as a new paradigm of economics, politics and culture. He has pursued this work in collaboration with a variety of international and domestic partners. He speaks widely about the commons, and recently co-founded a new international organization, Commons Strategies, dedicated to developing and promoting commons-based public policies and initiatives. In 2010, Bollier taught a course on the topic as the Croxton Lecturer at Amherst College.
Bollier's latest book, Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own (2009), describes the rise of free software, free culture, and the commons-based movements seeking to advance open business models, open science and open educational resources. His first book on the commons, Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth (2002), is now widely used in colleges around the world. It surveys the many market enclosures of people's shared resources, from public lands and the airwaves to public spaces, plant and animal genes, and knowledge. Brand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture (2005) documents the vast expansion of copyright and trademark law over the past generation.
Bollier has worked with American television writer/producer Norman Lear since 1984, and is Senior Fellow at the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication. He is also Co-founder and board member of Public Knowledge, a Washington policy advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the information commons. Bollier lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Visit David Bollier's site at http://www.bollier.org.
mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=146
This Land is Our Land: The Fight to Reclaim the Commons
A Film by the Media Education Foundation
Featuring David Bollier
For more than three decades, transnational corporations have been busy buying up what used to be known as the commons -- everything from our forests and our oceans to our broadcast airwaves and our most important intellectual and cultural works. In This Land is Our Land, acclaimed author David Bollier, a leading figure in the global movement to reclaim the commons, bucks the rising tide of anti-government extremism and free market ideology to show how commercial interests are undermining our collective interests. Placing the commons squarely within the American tradition of community engagement and the free exchange of ideas and information, Bollier shows how a bold new international movement steeped in democratic principles is trying to reclaim our common wealth by modeling practical alternatives to the restrictive monopoly powers of corporate elites.
David Bollier
David Bollier is an author, activist, blogger and consultant who has spent the past ten years exploring the commons as a new paradigm of economics, politics and culture. He has pursued this work in collaboration with a variety of international and domestic partners. He speaks widely about the commons, and recently co-founded a new international organization, Commons Strategies, dedicated to developing and promoting commons-based public policies and initiatives. In 2010, Bollier taught a course on the topic as the Croxton Lecturer at Amherst College.
Bollier's latest book, Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own (2009), describes the rise of free software, free culture, and the commons-based movements seeking to advance open business models, open science and open educational resources. His first book on the commons, Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth (2002), is now widely used in colleges around the world. It surveys the many market enclosures of people's shared resources, from public lands and the airwaves to public spaces, plant and animal genes, and knowledge. Brand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture (2005) documents the vast expansion of copyright and trademark law over the past generation.
Bollier has worked with American television writer/producer Norman Lear since 1984, and is Senior Fellow at the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication. He is also Co-founder and board member of Public Knowledge, a Washington policy advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the information commons. Bollier lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Visit David Bollier's site at http://www.bollier.org.
![Mic Check [Trailer]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cqQXzN989X8/mqdefault.jpg "Mic Check [Trailer]
Now Available on DVD
http://www.mediaed.org
Mic Check
Documentary Shorts from the Occupy Movement
Short documentary films about the most important social movement of the 21st century
When thousands of people concerned about growing economic inequality gathered in Zuccotti Park in New York City on September 17, 2011, there was little indication that they would fundamentally transform American political debate and ignite a full-scale national and global protest movement. But within a year, the Occupy Wall Street protestors had done just that.
This powerful collection of short films, made by Occupy protestors on the ground, tells the story of the movement in real time. While the films range in length from just one to ten minutes, their combined force is spellbinding. Together they show how a fledgling movement came out of nowhere to challenge Wall Streets rapacious and predatory practices, force economic inequality and corporate greed onto the mainstream political agenda, and capture the imagination of the world. The result is a fascinating and multifaceted portrait of one of the defining political struggles of our time.
Mic Check is especially suitable for courses in political science, government, economics, history, human rights, sociology, social justice and activism, and for campus event programming dedicated to social issues. The films were curated by Nick Shimkin, a film programmer and writer based in Brooklyn, NY.
Now Available on DVD")
