The Freecycle Network is a nonprofit organization registered in Arizona and as a charity in the United Kingdom. TFN coordinates a worldwide network of "gifting" groups to divert reusable goods from landfills. The network provides a worldwide online registry, organizing the creation of local groups and forums for individuals and nonprofits to offer free items for reuse or recycling and to promote a gift economy.
History
TFN originated as a project of RISE, a nonprofit corporation, to promote waste reduction in Tucson, Arizona. RISE then transferred the project to a newly founded nonprofit organization, the Freecycle Network, whose executive director, Deron Beal, was the initial project leader. Beal originated the first Freecycle email group for Tucson residents. In February 2005, TFN accepted $130,000 from Waste Management to help build out the website and the network. Over time, the concept has spread to over 110 countries, with thousands of local groups and millions of members. The organization began as a collection of Yahoo! Groups linked from freecycle.org. It has become a web-community platform on freecycle.org for all groups, which are run by local volunteers. TFN encourages the formation of new groups, subject to approval by regional new-group approvers. Groups approved by TFN are listed on the website, can use the TFN name and logo, and are subject to rules which are enforced by a network of global and regional group outreach assistance. As of March 2009, all new groups had to join freecycle.org's new-group system, which provides Freecycle-specific tools for local volunteer moderators and gives TFN oversight of individual groups. As of 2015, all local groups are listed on freecycle.org.
Membership
TFN has a global organization of over 4,000 local chapters, and passed the two-million-member mark in February 2006. By February 2014, its membership was 6,880,991 in 5,120 groups worldwide.
Controversies
Trademark issues
A notice of opposition was filed in federal court by FreecycleSunnyvale against the Freecycle Network in January 2006. An injunction was granted against Tim Oey in May 2006 for allegedly disparaging the TFN trademark. The injunction was stayed in July 2006 and dissolved by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in September 2007. To defend its trademark in 2006, TFN pursued other free recycling groups who used the word "freecycle" or allegedly had "confusingly similar derivations thereof". Free-speech advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and 38 law professors, filed an amicus brief opposing a trademark-infringement lawsuit filed by TFN against Tim Oey. The opposition was based on the position that the lawsuit violated Oey's First Amendment rights. Other law professors, including Lawrence Lessig, and Jimmy Wales filed a second amicus brief in support of Oey. On November 24, 2010, TFN lost its trademark claim to "Freecycle" and its logo in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Justice Consuelo María Callahan wrote in her opinion, "Beal did not coin the word 'freecycle' and TFN is not the first organization to promote freecycling... even... viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to TFN... engaged in naked licensing and consequently abandoned the trademarks." On September 25, 2012, TFN regained a registered trademark in the United States for Freecycle.org from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. TFN also received a registered-collective-membership trademark on that date. TFN maintains additional registered trademarks in the European Union, New Zealand, Australia and Canada.
Payments to founder
Although TFN is primarily run by volunteers, Beal received a salary of $70,000 and "other compensation" of $12,811 in 2014. To determine Beal's salary, the TFN board "sees what is a reasonable pay level comparable to similar other local nonprofits and then we see how close we can get to achieving that amount, then the board votes on it; Deron Beal abstains." The board consists of three people; one is Beal's wife, Jennifer Columbus.
UK breakaway
During 2009, there were conflicts between the UK's independent association of TFN moderators and the organization's founders over the UK-based TFN groups' lack of freedom to develop local initiatives and features and their treatment of volunteer group owners and moderators. This resulted in the dismissal of at least 20 local group owners and moderators, who were replaced with new local TFN volunteers. Many owners of UK-based TFN groups formed a new independent association, Freegle. TFN continued in the UK, with both groups present in many areas. In February 2015, TFN UK claimed 592 groups with 4,345,095 members.
Anarchist Analysis
activist and author Peter Gelderloos has both praised and criticised the freecycle network for creating a decentralised sustainable miniature gift economy but not providing a program to criticise capitalism.
