[d@DCC] Forming an organization

[Darryl Moore]

I basically agree with you. But if you start talking to the average 
Canadian about TPM DRM DMCA (place acronym here) their eyes will glaze 
over. That is why, I believe, the US DMCA and the sonny bono act passed 
so quietly in the states. Nobody knew or understood the real costs.

I think any organization has to be active to illustrate the true costs 
of where WIPO and the USA want to take us.

Here are a few ideas off the top.

- Barricade libraries to illustrate their future loss due to TPM and DRM.
- non-damaging random acts of 'vandalism' to library photocopiers by 
using indelible marker to write appropriate phrases on the glass such as 
"Rights to make works available rescinded"
- Hand out pictures of Mickey Mouse in jail with an appropriate slogan. 
I think his earlier drawings are in the P.D. in Canada now. But who 
knows if they will remain so.
- Hand out leaflets with only the left half of a famous literary work in 
the public domain. On the right half tell them that the Public domain is 
under threat, and soon they will have to pay some anonymous rights 
holders to view what is or should be in the public domain.
- How about leaflets written in invisible ink to illustrate how DRM works.
- Leaflets with finger prints or SIN numbers on them, and tell people 
they can only read it if they have paid for the rights, and continue to 
pay every week.
- Lets bring to everybodies attention just how much Disney has relied on 
the public domain for its creative works, and how much they are trying 
to prevent others from doing the same.
- How about a demonstration with miles and miles of flying audio 
cassette tape to illustrate how big media wants to take away our rights 
to copy.
- How about mailing all our house and car keys to parliament to 
illustrate how ratifying the WIPO treaty will give control of our 
possessions to third parties.

Any other ideas? I guess that's another question. Are we looking to be 
activists, or just lobbyists?

cheers,
darryl


On 2004-04-14 8:27 PM, mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca wrote:

> I'm generally in favour of forming an organization, although I'd like to
> see just what its official goals will be before I declare that I'm willing
> to join and support it.  On naming, I basically like "Libre Culture
> Canada" except that "libre" feels like it should come after its referant,
> since it's not really an English word, and would come after its referant
> in French.  "Culture Libre Canada" sounds better to me, but I'm still not
> 100% convinced that is the best possible name.  A significant reason is
> that "culture" isn't really what I'm interested in.  I'm interested in
> protecting the existence of user-programmable computers, which would be
> outlawed if the media cartels had their way.
> 
> My most important goal is for Technological Protection Measures not to get
> any legal "teeth".  Closely related to that, I want reverse engineering to
> remain legal.  This mailing list was first incarnated as "Canada DMCA
> Opponents" and I suggest that that's still our common ground.  I'm not so
> much interested in trying to reform the music industry's business models
> or redesign the term length of copyright - I just want to be able to
> continue my own activities as a computer hobbyist, which include writing
> media software that answers to nobody but the user.
> 
> I skimmed a bunch of back issues of Heritage Committee evidence today,
> trying to catch up, and was rather disappointed to see that TPMs, their
> protection, and (especially) the arguments AGAINST their protection, went
> almost totally unmentioned.  The Heritage Committee and its witnesses
> remarked on the huge outpouring of EFF-inspired form letters back when
> that happened - but then went off on the file sharing and economic issues.  
> That's not what those letters were about; those letters were saying 
> "don't import the DMCA to Canada".  They were about TPMs and ISP
> liability.
> 
> Liability, especially for linking, is another Very Big Issue for me, and
> it similarly went almost totally unmentioned.  As far as I'm concerned
> those are the *big* issues that should be at the *top* of priority lists.  
> I'm afraid that instead we're going to get bogged down in subtleties of
> economic issues that really don't interest me, and the TPM protection and
> linking liability points will end up being decided by default, and badly.
> 
> So, to the people forming a new organization: seduce me!  Convince me that
> your organization will make TPMs and linking liability its number-one
> priorities.  Then go convince the legislators that those are hot-ticket
> issues...
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