ORG digital rights event update

Couldn't stay very long but the event was succesful (and crowded). I found the strong cheese odour to be faintly disturbing, but then it was very nice cheese.

I look forward to someone counting the index cards...

unfortunately couldn't come, although would've loved to. Any notes, what happened, gossip, etc?

We're not advocating targetted inaction at all. Deliberately subverting the conglomerates' own hubris, by encouraging them and advising the to be ever more draconian is hardly inaction.

It's Trotskyite direct action of the most classic and effective kind. We're subverting their effectively infinite funding to our agenda; they may even realise that. But their hubris will be powerless to resist once we've seeded them with some really nasty ideas.

Of course, the downside to all this is that we will be hated. I can speak for Mailer, Levine and myself when I say that's fine. We abandoned all hope of being loved a long time ago.

Infamy we can settle for.

Could you expand on what you meant by "Class action law suits (think, Sony), subversive technology (p2p) and well

Mailer sets out the stall rather eloquently in his lengthy piece linked above.

Martin

Every effort to do anything will attract commentary like Mailer's; don't worry about it. They of course will never actually do anything to further their own idea of what should be done.

The organisation isn't trying to "bring about wider change" at all. That is our complaint.

ORG wants to be the latest in a long line of mediocre, Blairite-friendly organisations that sends out Guardian press releases, and complains politely when Media Conglomerate X goes "a bit far", and succeeds in getting a small, meaningless concession, and then spends the next two months congratulating itself, slapping itself on the back, and generally being smug, self-satisfied but effectively useless.

That's not fighting, it's just pathetic.

<i>and this is no more than the usual list of charges, all of which will always be levelled at the start of any project...</i>

No. Just at any project that has no higher aspiration than being Yet Another New Media Talking Shop. "Facilitatory Space" "Media Clearing House" "Management Consultant" "Edutainment".

ORG's choice of nouns speaks volumes. It says "we'd rather be loved than right, any day".

I've been to enough launches to enough of these woeful talking shops, and talked to enough well-trimmed goatee polite Fabian men, and Media-spectacled Newmeedja types to know a talking shop car crash that will achieve nothing if it continues along this tragic path.

Martin

It seems you (levine, maxwell, mailer) actually don't know what you want ORG to represent or stand for, let alone do in practical terms. I think that was the point of us all turning up to at least provide some input. So if you (and others) would enlighten me as to what your concerns are regarding digital rights (et al) it will help me make up my mind to join ORG or not.

Come, we spent three hours working on an elborate Trotskyite subversion mechanism, wherein we use the Media Conglomerates' own budgets and hubris tou our ends, becoming the bad guys in the process.

I think the first thing we should be campaigning for would be to:

1) Ensure that all copyright violations become imprisonable criminal offences Europe-wide

2) Establish a European IP-enforcement police force with length detention powers, forced-entry rights and permission to hack and disable people's computers remotely.

3) An anonymous helpline whereby Children can report their parents IP violations and win prizes.

These three proposals should form the starting point of ORG's proposals for extending the DMCA as we move towards the elimination of outdated notions such as "limited term" and "fair use".

That should get the ball rolling.

Martin

Well, Mailer has elucidated a set of practical steps he is interested in seeing pursued. Logically they appear sound, though empirically I am still dubious. However, as the comments show, people seem to be afraid of debating the dubious benefits of the holy trinity of blogs, mailing lists and press releases which form the default actions that groups like ORG, AFFS and the FSFE all resort to.

I had assumed we all know what the problems are (patents, copyrights, bad media companies, privacy of data etc). If you don't know what the problems are, you are not paying attention and you can go back to watching I'm A Celebrity. I don't think we need another meeting to produce a list of what we are all concerned about. It comes up time and time again at every one of these type of meetings. It is getting dull.

I had assumed the ORG was the nascent EFF-Europe or intended to become the nascent EFF. You may not agree with the EFF's remit but at least, in its own small way, it is organised and doing something other than putting bits of white card board on a wall.

I freely admit that currently, in a full time job, it is not my priority to lead the faithful into jihad against the media companies. But I will donate freely to an organisation that actually likes it is going to achieve something. The current signs from the meeting on Monday were not positive, but I am ever an optimist.

L

Must say, this website and the general lack of responsiveness in hardly encouraging. It's ludicrous that my "travesty" remains one of the few records of the event. And before someone says "you try better", I refer you to the CUT website (http://www.unmetered.org.uk/). And it was all done by hand - no bloggery! Tsk.

Suw, good to hear! and yes, while I can't speak for anyone else, I do appreciate that the whole life-running thing is important too!

Levine, Coxall and Mailer started out <a href="http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/007012.html#103134" rel="nofollow">slumming</a> and moved on to trolling.
ORG should indeed be a 'big tent', as these issues do not divide cleanly along party or ideological lines. I've mentioned before that there is a useful commonality with <a href="http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/008298.html" rel="nofollow">libertarian</a> <a href="http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/008299.html" rel="nofollow">campaigners</a>.
However, lets leave these self-indulgent self-styled Troskyites out of it.
As a gedankenexperiment, let's briefly grant their nihilistic, 'grind the faces of the poor so they rebel' premise. For that kind of inhuman conspiracy to work, you have to keep it secret, you dozy fuckwits.
If you want to stage a long march through the institutions, bog off and do it quietly.

@john, you don't say what issue you are talking about... Copyright? Data retention?