Blog
15 Nov 2006 By Michael Holloway
Release the Music – audio recording now available
Thanks to everyone who made it along on Monday night.
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14 Nov 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Release The Music: Off to a flying start!
Well, I think that the Release The Music event last night went superbly, getting our campaign off to a flying start.
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13 Nov 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Release The Music: Today’s the day!
Our Release The Music campaign is starting to get underway.
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12 Nov 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Trustguide and ID Cards
Trustguide reports on our views, beliefs and needs regarding trust, security and privacy in relation to new technologies.
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07 Nov 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Release The Music: Final speaker confirmed
We have finally confirmed our line-up for the Release The Music event on Monday 13 November at the Conway Hall in Holborn, with the addition of Richard Mollet from the British Phonographic Industry.
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06 Nov 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Dave Rowntree to speak at Release The Music
I’m delighted to announce that Dave Rowntree from Blur will be taking part in our debate about the extension of the term of copyright protection for sound recordings.
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06 Nov 2006 By Michael Holloway
As the world pulls back from e-voting, the UK opts for more pilots
Guest post by Jason Kitcat
Summary: This post summarises the newly announced UK e-voting pilots for 2007 and provides action you can take to help stop the pilots.
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06 Nov 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Seven days to apply
If you are interested in taking over the role of Executive Director of the Open Rights Group, don’t forget that our deadline for applications is 13 November, i.
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27 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Release The Music asks: Are you a blogger or podcaster?
If you write a music/MP3 blog, a law/copyright blog, or you are a podcaster and would like to come to the ORG press briefing on copyright term extension for sound recordings, 2pm on Monday 13th November, please contact Michael with your URL and preferred email address and we’ll send you a proper invitation with all the details.
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27 Oct 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Key UK Software Patent Ruling
The Court of Appeal has ruled on two cases involving software patents today.
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26 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
UKNOF5: Richard Clayton – Content Filtering
Just popped in to the 5th UK Network Operators Forum to hear ORG advisory Council member Richard Clayton talk on content filtering.
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26 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Release The Music, 13 Nov 06
Should the term of copyright protection on sound recordings stay at 50 years or be extended?
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26 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Future of Copyright: Roundtable 3 – Law, regulation and the future
Note: This was the last session on Friday, and again these notes are pretty much verbatim.
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25 Oct 2006 By Kevin Marks
EU ‘Television Without Frontiers’ Regulations Widely Rejected
The European Union’s plan to regulate the net as if it were TV – Television Without Frontiers – picked up a lot of attention in blogs this week, after the Times covered it.
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24 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Future of Copyright: Roundtable 2 – Business and economic drivers
Note: Again, these notes are verbatim and so things get a bit chaotic with so many people wanting to make different points, and revisiting issues brought up earlier in the conversation.
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24 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Future of Copyright: Roundtable 1 – Artists and copyright
Last week I went to a series of sessions run by Birkbeck, the AHRC New Directions in Copyright Network, and the Public Programmes Department of the Tate Modern, entitled Roundtable Discussions on the Future of Copyright and the Regulation of Creative Practice.
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12 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
ORG seeks full-time Executive Director
The Open Rights Group has grown astonishingly quickly over the last year, thanks to the hard work of the Board, the Advisory Council, our volunteers and part-time staff.
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12 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Parliament and the Internet: William Dutton
William Dutton, Director of the Oxford Internet Institute, Social dynamics of the internet This conference is focused on the future, and we wanted it to be evidence based, so thought to identify some patterns and themes in internet use, which are shaping the future of this emerging cyber-infrastructure.
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12 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Parliament and the Internet: Jon Gisby, Yahoo!
In UK: 26 million people online 20 billion minutes a month >20% media consumption time But big disparity in behaviour: for one part of the day it’s the major source of news and entertainment.
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12 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Parliament and the Internet: Plenary discussion round-up
Synopses of the discussions held earlier.
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12 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Parliament and the Internet: ISPs in the content driven era
So I’m here at the Parliament and the Internet Conference, which is being held at Portcullis House and which has been put together by the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group (APIG).
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12 Oct 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Making, supplying or obtaining articles for use in computer misuse offences
Some very well informed, entertaining and persuasive arguments were put forward in the House of Lords yesterday in a debate on ‘Making, supplying or obtaining articles for use in computer misuse offences’.
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11 Oct 2006 By Michael Holloway
Draft submission to EC Consultation on ‘Content Online in the Single Market’ – comments welcomed
Thanks for the comments on our draft.
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09 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
22nd October – Copyfighters Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop
The next London Copyfighters Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop will be held on Sunday 22 October.
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06 Oct 2006 By Michael Holloway
WIPO Broadcast Treaty scheduled for further scrutiny
There are concerns proposed WIPO legislation will further extend the social and cultural dominance of trad broadcasters over the internet, as mentioned here on this blog.
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05 Oct 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Software Patents – the stench lingers
The European Patent Litigation Agreement (blogged by us as Software Patents – back like a bad smell) remains on course to pass the European Parliament (EP) with a comfortable majority.
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05 Oct 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Computer Misuse Act – Potential disaster avoided
Good news!
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03 Oct 2006 By Michael Holloway
30 things we can do about DRM
To mark today as the global ‘Day Against DRM’, inspired by Michael Geist, here’s a list of 30 easy things we can do about DRM.
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27 Sep 2006 By Glyn Wintle
British Library launches IP manifesto
At a fringe event at the Labour Party conference on Monday, the British Library launched their manifesto for reform of UK intellectual property (IP) law.
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27 Sep 2006 By Michael Holloway
Anti-DRM event – Saturday 30th September – Central London
This Saturday 30th September there is an anti-DRM event in Central London, outside the Apple Store at 235 Regents Street, starting at 1400 until 1700.
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23 Sep 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Software Patents – back like a bad smell
More than a year has passed since the European Parliament’s historic rejection of the Commission’s and Council’s software patent bill.
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15 Sep 2006 By Michael Holloway
Broadcast Treaty will stifle tech innovation, freedom of expression and access to knowledge
There are two distinct concerns connected to the proposed WIPO Broadcast Treaty, one is structural / organisational – in terms of a lack of democratic accountability – and the other relates to an unprecedented expansion of protectionist legislation.
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14 Sep 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Digital Rights Ireland challenge data retention laws
Digital Rights Ireland has started a High Court action against the Irish Government challenging new European and Irish laws requiring the retention of telecoms and internet traffic data retention.
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09 Sep 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
The reason we do this
If anyone wondered why we – as individuals or together – fight the copyfight and why we support Creative Commons, and whether it really makes any difference: this is the reason why and the difference it makes.
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08 Sep 2006 By Michael Holloway
Spam all you want, but don’t crack DRM!
As revealed in detail by Bruce Schneier, Microsoft this week rushed a patch out the door, well ahead of their usual once-a-month Patch Tuesday.
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29 Aug 2006 By Michael Holloway
Come support the Open Rights Group in Scotland!
As part of the Gikii workshop leading up to the VI Computer Law World Conference, the Open Rights Group will be sponsoring an open reception for everyone to get to know ORG.
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25 Aug 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Denial-of-Service attacks
A Denial of Service (DoS) attack involves deliberately flooding a server such as a web or email server with information until that server collapses, causing difficulties to users, system admins and others dependent on the service.
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23 Aug 2006 By Michael Holloway
27th August – Copyfighters Drunken Brunch & Talking Shop with Dr Ian Brown
The next Copyfighters’ Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop will be held on Sunday 27 July, and it will be chaired by Dr Ian Brown.
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18 Aug 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
‘Blaggers’ on Radio 5
Our very own Dr Ian Brown is going to be on BBC Radio 5Live, this Sunday 20 August.
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17 Aug 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Belated Happy SysAdmin Day
OK, I know I’m several weeks late on this, but Electech and UKUUG‘s tribute to SysAdmins everywhere is well worth watching (and I’m not just saying that because it features our very own James Cronin, and the ORG logo).
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Digital Privacy
13 Aug 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Freedom of Expression – China’s Internet
The House of Commons’ Select Committee on Foreign Affairs have published a report on East Asia that strongly critisices internet corporations working for the Chinese government to filter, censor and control web content.
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12 Aug 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Consultation on the Creative Economy Programme
Shaun Woodward, Creative Industries Minister, has launched a consultation on the Creative Economy Programme draft working group proposals.
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08 Aug 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Gina Ford vs the Web
If someone defames you, most people support your right to stop that person from doing it again, and to pursue legal remedies.
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04 Aug 2006 By Glyn Wintle
ID card – Inconsistent approach to scientific evidence
The Select Committee on Science and Technology recently published a report entitled Identity Card Technologies: Scientific Advice, Risk and Evidence.
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04 Aug 2006 By Michael Holloway
Next ORG networking event – 14th August
Scrambling for Safety 8 is taking place on the 14th August at University College, London, where the focus will be on the Home Office’s access to keys and communications data code of practice consultations.
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01 Aug 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Content Online Consultation
The European Commission have launched a consultation titled “Content Online”.
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29 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Personal Internet Security
The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee has established a Sub-Committee, under the Chairmanship of the Lord Broers, to examine Personal Internet Security in the UK.
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27 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Tapping VoIP
We have seen attempts to add more legislation to voice over IP in America so I guess it was only a matter of time.
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Digital Privacy
27 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Consultation on penalties for breaching the DPA
Baroness Ashton has published a consultation paper on proposed custodial penalties for breaches of Section 55 of the Data Protection Act 1998, which deals with unlawful obtaining of personal data.
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Digital Privacy
21 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Public meeting on RIPA consultations
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act Part III gives law enforcement the power to serve notices requiring that encrypted material be “put into an intelligible form” (or as everyone else would say, decrypted).
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18 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Danny O’Brien at the Drunken Brunch
Last Sunday saw the latest edition of the London Copyfighter’s Drunken Brunch & Talking Shop.
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Digital Privacy
13 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Information Commissioners annual report
Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, has published his annual report.
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11 Jul 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
BPI asks ISPs to do its dirty work
As reported by Reuters and the BBC, the BPI has asked two ISPs – Cable & Wireless, and Tiscali – to terminate the accounts of 59 broadband users because the BPI claims that they are infringing copyright.
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11 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
700,000 children fingerprinted by schools
Children are being threatened with exclusion from school unless they submit to being fingerprinted, reports Leave Them Kids Alone.
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11 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Commission Cheats European SMEs in Patent Consultation
The European Commission has been consulting on the future of Europe’s patent regime and, as always, the FFII have been doing a good job of monitoring their progress.
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10 Jul 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
16 July, London Copyfighters Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop with Danny O’Brien
The next London Copyfighters’ Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop will be held on Sunday 16 July, and it will be chaired by Danny O’Brien.
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07 Jul 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
IPPR/Reuters – The Long Tail: Opportunities in a New Marketplace
The IPPR and Reuters held a seminar on Tuesday 4 July about the ‘long tail’ and niche marketing, and how it relates to IP.
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07 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
EC want to regulate internet TV
The “TV Without Frontiers” directive is a proposed piece of European legislation that would mean that anything that appears to be television and travels over the internet is television, and therefore becomes subject to TV regulations.
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06 Jul 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Data retention conference in Ireland
The Irish Centre for European Law is hosting a conference on “Privacy and the Data Retention Directive” on Wednesday, 19 July 2006, from 2-6pm in Dublin.
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Digital Privacy
06 Jul 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
What do businesses know about you?
Matt Mower has made a pledge on Pledgebank to write to a supplier – say a mobile phone company – to ask them what they know about him, as per the Data Protection Act, but he needs more people to sign up.
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03 Jul 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Protect your bits. Support ORG.
If you’ve been wanting a ‘Support ORG’ button for your blog or website, I’m happy to say that we’ve now created some.
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19 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
ORG Update – what have we been up to?
Last year, over a thousand people pledged a fiver a month to help us set up the Open Rights Group – an organisation to publicise and fight for civil liberties in the digital world.
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19 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Film censors want a stab at the net
The British Board of Film Classification want to have stab at classifying content on the net, a Sisyphean task if ever I heard of one.
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19 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Linux User
A few months ago, I started writing a monthly column for Linux User.
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15 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
ORG on the BBC
The Apple/iPod DRM story seems to be a hot one at the moment.
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14 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
ORG in the FT
In the UK, the Open Rights Group, another consumer protection organisation, has been lobbying MPs to force companies to open up their DRM.
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13 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Cryptography and fallacy
The Times has an emotive piece on the implementation of Part III of RIPA, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which demands that people hand over their cryptographic keys.
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13 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Denmark, Norway and Sweden put pressure on Apple’s iTunes
STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Denmark, Norway and Sweden plan to force Apple Computers Inc to break the exclusive link between its iPod music players and online iTunes store.
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05 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Launch of the APIG report on DRM
Last year, the Open Rights Group submitted evidence to the All Party Internet Group‘s public inquiry into digital rights management (DRM) after carrying out it’s own public consultation into questions raised by the call for evidence.
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05 Jun 2006 By Louisiana
Tech-Savvy MPs Come Out Against DRM
The All Party Parliamentary Internet Group today launched the report of their inquiry into Digital Rights Management.
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23 May 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Haranguing the crowds at Speakers Corner
We had the monthly London Copyfighter’s Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop on Sunday, and despite the rain we had a good turn out.
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10 May 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
21 May London Copyfighters Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop
The next London Copyfighters’ Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop will be held on Sunday 21 May.
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09 May 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Copyright in a collaborative age
The paper that myself and Michael Holloway, (who helps with admin and research for ORG) wrote for the Journal of Media and Culture is now out.
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25 Apr 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Jonathan Zittrain inaugural lecture
Wow, but sitting in Oxford University’s Examination Halls is intimidating.
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24 Apr 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Copyfighters’ picnic in the rain
Last month, Cory Doctorow passed over the reins of the London Copyfighers’ Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop to ORG, and yesterday we had our first brunch in the new format – a picnic in Hyde Park, followed then by the traditional oration at Speakers’ Corner.
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24 Apr 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Internet Governance and Regulation: The Future of the Internet – and How to Stop It
ORG Advisory Council member Professor Jonathan Zittrain is giving his inaugural lecture at Oxford University tomorrow, 25 April, at 5pm at the Oxford University Examination Schools, High Street (building 22 on the map):
The lecture will propose a theory about what lies around the corner for the Internet, how to avoid it, and how to study and affect the future of the internet using the distributed power of the network itself, using privacy as a signal example.
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03 Apr 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Unveiling the new ORG logo
Thanks very much to Denise Wilton, Chris Morrison and their collaborators both on and off the Haddock mailing list for designing the new ORG logo.
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30 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
ORG lists down — but now back up
Unfortunately, we’ve been having some technical difficulties with the ORG servers over the last couple of weeks, resulting in the Discussion list going down.
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30 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Cory Doctorow donates Razr mobile phone
Cory Doctorow, ORG Advisory Council member, famous novelist, copyright activist and one of the driving forces behind BoingBoing, has kindly donated a Razr mobile phone and a signed first edition of his novel Eastern Standard Tribe, to the Open Rights Group for us to auction.
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29 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
ORG becomes a provisional member of EDRi
The Open Rights Group has now become a provisional member of European Digital Rights (EDRi), a coalition of 21 privacy and civil rights organisations from 14 different countries.
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28 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Guardian Changing Media: Digital Rights Management
I was yesterday at the Guardian’s Changing Media conference, at which our very own Dr Ian Brown spoke on DRM.
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21 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
French lead the way on music downloads
French MPs are examining measures that would force the sharing of copy-protection software with the aim of ensuring that any music can be played on any player regardless of format or source:
The French bill says that proprietary copy-protection technologies must not block interoperability between different systems.
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20 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Neil Gaiman gets cease-and-desisted
Neil Gaiman, Patron of the Open Rights Group, got a rather clueless ‘cease and desist’ letter today:
A mysterious communication arrived via my agent.
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15 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Take part in the Gowers Review of intellectual property
If you’d like to take part in the Gowers Review of intellectual property in the UK, then the easiest way to do so is to leave a comment on the new Open Rights Group Gowers Review blog, where we’ve sliced the Call for Evidence into bite-sized chunks, each of which you can comment on.
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14 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Gowers Review Seminar notes
On 2nd March, the Open Rights Group was invited to attend a seminar on the Gowers Review.
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13 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Next ORG event: Copyfighters’ Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop, Sunday 19 March
For most of the last year, I’ve been going to Cory Doctorow’s Copyfighters’ Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop, a monthly (ish) gathering of copyright activists where we sit about and eat brunch, talk about copyright, and drink Mimosa (that’s ‘Buck’s Fizz’ if you’re a Brit) before going over to Speaker’s Corner to harangue the crowd.
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02 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Keep up to date with ORG
If you are interested in keeping up to date with ORG goings on, there are two mailing lists that you can join:
ORG-announce is a low volume announcement list where we will, from now on, announce our events, publish news, and generally let you know what is happening.
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02 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Government and privacy in the digital age
The talk that I gave at Trinity College, Dublin, kindly hosted by Dr Eoin O’Dell as part of his Dublin Legal Workshop series and organised by Digital Rights Ireland, is now up online.
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28 Feb 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
RSA/The Economist – The Internet’s Golden Age is Over
I spoke last Thursday at the RSA/Economist’s debate, The Internet’s Golden Age is Over, arguing for the motion that it’s basically doomed.
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28 Feb 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Technolotics videocast
Whilst I was in Dublin last weekend, I did a videocast for Trinity College bloggers Technolotics.
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24 Feb 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Trading Standards get in a tizz over free software
(Via BoingBoing).
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03 Feb 2006 By Ben Laurie
Sony Get Sued in Canada
Michael Geist reports that Sony are facing another class action suit over their PC-damaging DRM.
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02 Feb 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
APIG DRM public inquiry hearing
The following notes were taking during the inquiry and they are my best attempts at keeping up with what was said.
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30 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Open Rights Group hits the ground running
For Immediate Release Open Rights Group hits the ground running
Hundreds of cyber-activists fund UK digital rights group
British author Neil Gaiman joins as Patron
Group to give evidence to MPs on dangers of digital rights management this Thursday
London, UK – On Christmas Day, over a thousand people pledged to create an organisation “to preserve and extend traditional civil liberties in the digital world”.
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29 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Second ORG networking evening
The Open Rights Group is proud to announce that Cory Doctorow, outgoing European Co-Ordinator for the EFF, novelist and editor of BoingBoing.
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25 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Wikinews interview Danny O’Brien
Our very own Danny O’Brien was interviewed by Wikinews earlier in the week, about digital rights issues in the US.
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21 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
RSA Economist Debate – The internet’s golden age is over
February 23, 2006 – 18:30 – 21:00 – RSA Economist Debate – The internet’s golden age is over – at RSA, 8 John Adam Street, London WC2N 6EZ
Debate on the future of the internet.
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21 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
A date for your diary
We are planning the next ORG event for the evening of Tues 7 Feb, at 01Zero-One in Soho again.
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20 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
ORG invited to give oral evidence to APIG DRM public inquiry
The Open Rights Group has been asked by the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group to attend its oral evidence gathering session on 2 February.
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