The Oxcars are a non-competitive awards ceremony held at Sala Apolo in Barcelona, Spain, in October each year. They are a public showcase that puts the spotlight on cultural creation and distribution carried out under the paradigms of shared culture. Through presentations and symbolic mentions of works in a series of categories, real legal solutions are shown using parody as a strategy. The award categories include: Music, Animation, Theatre, Human Tools, Future Markets and Great Leftovers of Spanish Culture, among others.
About the Oxcars
The Oxcars are an awards ceremony organised by Xnet, a non-profit organisation that explores alternative models for cultural diffusion and royalties management. In 2008 and 2009 the oXcars were organised with the collaboration of Conservas, and in 2010 with Conservas, Red Sostenible and Telenoika. The awards ceremony is an overview of the most outstanding projects in the field of free/libre culture and knowledge, with live music, videos, brief presentations, performances and readings. Since 2009, the oXcars have coincided with the FCForum, an international conference in which organisations and experts in the field of free/libre culture and knowledge gather for the purpose of devising a global strategic framework and an international framework for coordination.
Categories
Music
Film
Dance
Theatre
Animation
Literature
Millions of Visits in Your Bedroom
Great Human Tools
Future Markets
Culture existed before the Cultural Industry
Great Leftovers of Spanish Culture
History
2008 Oxcars
The participants of the first Oxcars, on October 28, 2008, were Leo Bassi, The Pirate Bay, literary collective Wu Ming, filmmaker Guillermo Zapata, Pablo Soto, Platoniq, Alan Toner, FreeCinema, Griffi from Sólo los Solo, Molleindustria, Enrique Sierra from 127.es, the Blender Foundation with the 3D short filmBig Buck Bunny, Realidades Avanzadas and Matt Black. The evening was rounded off with live sets by K-Sero+Off://TV, Filastine and La Màquina de Turing.
Related activities
A series of activities related to free/libre culture were organised on October 29 and November 1, in conjunction with the 2008 oXcars. They included talks, debates, round table discussions and practical workshops on licences, examples of free culture, anonymity and cryptography on the net, production and royalties management for audiovisual projects, and Safe Creative, a service that allows users to register works with any type of licence at no cost. Activities also included the launch of the book New Thing by Wu Ming and a screening of the film Steal this film, part 2.
2009 Oxcars
The participants of the 2nd Oxcars were Duquende, the playwright Rodrigo García, the creators of the Internet series Malviviendo, Derivart, the Taller de Musics Original Jazz Orquesta, the writer Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Riot Cinema Collective, Jamendo, Illegal Art, FreeCinema, the publishers Alqua, the artist Evan Roth, the comedian Rémi Gaillard, psst!3, Shelios, short film maker David O'Reilly, Compartir Dòna Gustet, Xavier Theros and Martín Fernández. The evening ended with a concert and live DJ set by Daedelus and Martin Vallejo.
The participants featured in the 4th Oxcars included John Perry Barlow, who celebrated 15 years of the Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace; digital newspaper El Mundo Today, which gives a satirical account of political and social current affairs; Stéphane Grueso, director of Copiad Malditos, the first Creative Commons documentary co-produced by TVE; cartoonist Aleix Saló; and the group Las buenas noches, which releases its music under Creative Commons.
2012 Oxcars
The 5th Oxcars were held in Barcelona on 25 October 2012, and focused on identifying the defenders and detractors of the free circulation of culture and the new models of cultural creation. The show began with an adaptation of a speech by Cory Doctorow, "The Coming War on General Purpose Computation". Participants included the actor Paco León, with his film Carmina o revienta, premiered simultaneously in theatres and on the Internet; the rapper Dan Bull; the documentary No.Res, released under Creative Commons; the citizen legal action 15M pa Rato; the web portal Taringa! and the initiative Megabox by Megaupload.
2013 Oxcars
The sixth Oxcars were held in Barcelona on 24 October 2013. Participants included the lawyer David Bravo, a specialist in intellectual property and computer law, Toque a Bankia, My Open Source Cure, Paul Borons, Robocicla, Scann, and the electronic music group Kashba.