Open Rights Group hits the ground running

Suw Charman Anderson, 30 January 2006

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". Now, within two weeks of beginning fundraising activity, five hundred supporters have already put their money where their clicks were: paying a fiver a month to ensure that the Open Rights Group becomes the lasting online advocacy group so desperately needed in the UK. Suw Charman, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group, said: "We are committed to giving a voice to the public - creators, consumers and mash-up artists alike - who have, until now, had no representation in discussions about legislation that affects their lives, their livelihoods, and their liberties. Our aims are to increase awareness of digital rights issues, help foster grassroots activity and to preserve and extend civil liberties in the digital age, and I am delighted that so many people are making their pledge support real." To assist in their aims, the Open Rights Group has announced multi-award winning author Neil Gaiman as their Patron. Gaiman, born in Porchester, is best known for his science fiction and fantasy work, including his best-selling graphic novel "The Sandman". He has also campaigned for many years for authors' freedoms, winning the Defender of Liberty Award from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund in 1997, and writes extensively online. "We're in a world in which digital rights, the world of the internet, and the exchange of information is getting more and more important and relevant to all our lives, wherever we are," said Gaiman. "I'm delighted that there's now a group of people committed to preserving and extending civil liberties in a digital world and to being sane and sensible as we careen into a digital future. I was honoured to be asked to be Patron of the Open Rights Group, and I look forward to working with them for years to come." Gaiman is joined by an Advisory Council, an extensive group of Net experts headed by fellow author Cory Doctorow. London-based Doctorow, who until recently was the Electronic Frontier Foundation's European Affairs Director, said "Britain needs a home for UK technology activists to converge on, more now than ever. This is, after all, the age of universal surveillance, extremist copyright and the elimination of due process rights. I'm enormously honoured to serve on the Open Rights Groups Advisory Council and am glad to see so many members of the public supporting us in the fight." The Open Rights Group joins a flurry of digital rights groups who have sprung up in the last six months in the UK, Ireland and Canada. TJ McIntyre, chairman of Digital Rights Ireland and Law Lecturer at University College Dublin said "We look forward to working with the Open Rights Group on a number of pressing issues which affect both our jurisdictions - data retention, ID card proposals and the plans to make copyright breaches a criminal rather than a civil offence." "National digital rights groups are proving to be some of the most effective advocacy organisations around", said David Fewer of Online Rights Canada. "We look forward to comparing notes and working together with our British cousins". This month, the Open Rights Group will be speaking with other organisations on the dangers of digital rights management at the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group hearing on Thursday February 2nd, and holding an open networking event in London on February 7th. Contact Suw Charman below for more details on either event. Supporters can donate at: http://www.openrightsgroup.org/support-org/ For more information, contact Turn on JavaScript!, Executive Director, Open Rights Group.

john

Reply #9 on : Mon January 30, 2006, 15:01:38

Clicks rather unfortunately reads like dicks in the 1st paragraph. Perhaps you should proof read some future press releases...

Suw Charman

Reply #8 on : Mon January 30, 2006, 15:16:59

It's not a typo. There's a 'c' and an 'l' there, so it's as well proof-read as it needs to be. The font on the blog does make a c and an l look a little bit like a d, I suppose, although try as I might it still looks like 'cl' not 'd' to me. Either which way, the main method of distributing this was email and the font will be changing here soon anyway.

Glyn Wintle

Reply #7 on : Mon January 30, 2006, 17:06:01

Chuckles I still laugh when i think of the acronym for Online Rights Canada

Martin

Reply #6 on : Tue January 31, 2006, 05:43:25

I'm glad to see that in this day and age it is still possible to find at least one person whom I can respect tremendously for both his art and his personal views. My hat of to Neil Gaiman, and my strongest encouragement to all who hasn't already read his books to get kicking.

-m

Chris Williams

Reply #5 on : Tue January 31, 2006, 14:20:51

I had exactly the same reaction as John to the 'dicks'/'clicks' bit. Perhaps it's my fault for browsing with IE, but I imagine that quite a lot of the people we're trying to reach use it too. Can you sort out the kerning or change the default font?

That's just a very minor point - keep up the good work, and you're welcome to my fiver a month.

Kevin Marks

Reply #4 on : Tue January 31, 2006, 22:59:03

Glyn, we could have called it British Open Rights Group...

Daniel

Reply #3 on : Sat February 04, 2006, 15:23:59

Eh, dicks/clicks. Yes. Definitely fault of your font. Why not stick to normal fonts? Whatever this font is, it's ugly and impractical. "clicks" reads perfectly like "dicks" even in Firefox. I'm sure you'll find a volunteer with a little bit of online layout experience? I can see that you're running this on WordPress, but what I can't understand is why you'd steer away from WordPress's default (and very beautiful and practical and readable) large font? Small fonts on the web are so 2002.

Otherwise, keep fighting that fight! Is there a similar group for Germany already?

Naich

Reply #2 on : Tue February 21, 2006, 11:10:47

If you are using Firefox, go to View->Page Style->No Style and the pages become readable again. The font chosen for this site is bloody awful.

tyciol

Reply #1 on : Sat January 17, 2009, 04:19:46

This is an example of Gaiman's ongoing social activism, it's totally great how he works with orgs like this and the CBLDF also mentioned.