Update: here’s a recording of Becky’s introductory remarks to the Westminster eForum on the future of copyright:

We don’t always trumpet the work we do, such as talking to civil servants, journalists, students or other groups interested in digital rights, so its nice when others compliment our efforts. On Monday of this week, we were at the Westminster eForum’s seminar on Intellectual Property and the Future of Copyright. Ray Corrigan (Open University), who opened the event with a great talk on UK copyright, has posted these remarks :

The other highlights of the seminar were contributions from Becky Hogge of the Open Rights Group and film-maker, Jamie King, director of Steal This Film II. On the industry side Shira Perlmutter of the IFPI was quietly effective though I disagreed with some of what she had to say; Richard Mollet of the BPI started out well as you would expect of a confident, experienced PR professional but then, from my perspective, slightly misjudged the mood and came across as irritated that others, such as Andrew Gowers, had a different world view which was taken seriously. What was interesting was when he admonished us to get our language right - we should apparently be labeling the ‘3 strikes’ laws/memorandums/agreements as a “graduated response” approach. Kettles, pots and a certain colour come to mind and anyway I think I prefer Louise Ferguson’s “Internet ASBOS” as a more appropriate tag.

The full text and slides from Ray’s talk, which covered the history of copyright legislation and the current reform landscape, are available from his blog. We’ve asked the WeF to supply an audio recording of Becky’s contribution and will link if it becomes available.

Last weekend, international divisions over how to deal with those who illicitly share copyrighted material online began to appear. It was announced on Saturday that Japanese internet service providers (ISPs) have agreed to cut off the internet connection of anyone who illegally downloads files, in plans that mirror France’s Olivennes Bill. Meanwhile Sweden’s Minister of Justice and Minister of Culture have rejected similar plans to disconnect filesharers, stating in an article for the Svenska Dagbladet daily that such an approach is not practical in modern society where Internet access is a prerequisite for so much else. Instead, Sweden will favour a process where rightsholders must prosecute suspected filesharers in court.

The UK government will consult UK citizens on their plans to tackle illicit filesharing this Spring. If you need to brush up on the arguments ahead of time, there are still a few places left at Musicians, fans and online copyright. This event, which takes place on Wednesday, will gather representatives from the recording industry, ISPs and consumer welfare groups together with academic and legal experts to discuss whether ISPs should monitor customers to try and spot copyright infringement, and disconnect downloaders. It promises to be a lively and informed afternoon, so do come along if you can. The event is being held from 1400 at the London School of Economics. It is free to attend, but you must register here.

When the government mailed half the nation’s bank details to the darknet at the end of last year, it looked like 2008 was going to be the year privacy issues hit the headlines. But, when it comes to digital rights stories, privacy has been seeing stiff competition from that old foe of the digital society: regressive intellectual property policy.

At the beginning of this week, The Times leaked a DCMS document that promised tough action on illicit filesharers via a disproportionate and ineffective “3 strikes and you’re out” model of disconnection.

Then yesterday, over in Brussels, Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy resurrected the zombie of copyright term extension in sound recordings. McCreevy said he “had not seen a convincing reason” why term should not be extended from 50 to 95 years. Must we therefore conclude that he has not read the research commissioned by his own Directorate that shows that term extension makes no sense?

The UK has already come out against copyright term extension. To find out why copyright term extension is a non-starter for the UK’s creative economy, download the Open Rights Group briefing pack.

If you’re feeling the need to brush up on all of this, then you’re in luck. The Oxford Internet Institute, encouraged by ORG Advisory Council member Dr Ian Brown, and in partnership with the London School of Economics, have just announced an afternoon of talks entitled “Musicians, fans and online copyright”. Here’s the blurb:

Is home downloading killing music? Should Internet Service Providers monitor customers to try and spot copyright infringement, and disconnect downloaders? Do musicians need new laws to benefit from the opportunities of the internet? Join us to debate these questions and more with leading copyright thinkers from the music world, government, consumer groups and universities.

It’s happening on Wednesday, 19 March, from 1400-1730 at LSE’s Old Theatre on Houghton Street. I’ll be speaking, along with confirmed speakers John Kennedy (IFPI), Paul Sanders (Playlouder), Lilian Edwards (Southampton University), Rufus Pollock (Cambridge University) and Michelle Childs (Knowledge Ecology International). Entry is free, but you’ll need to register here if you want to attend.

Today, the ORG Creative business team have announced that the application process for their free seminars “Creative Business in the Digital Era” is now open. The seminars, aimed at artists and creative entrepreneurs who want to make the most of the opportunities presented by the internet, will take place in March in central London and the deadline for applications is 15 February. You can find out more on the Creative Business microsite.

When the Open Rights Group stands up to over-zealous intellectual property legislation, or intrusive and censorious regulation intended to “protect artists”, we are often asked “well, how else do you expect artists to make money?”. This course might not have all the answers to the question, but its a good start. Suw, Michael and Jordan have been working away since the middle of last year preparing it - and they deserve hearty congratulations for what looks to be an excellent and innovative result. If you’re a writer, musician, film maker or visual artist, or a manager, promoter, or executive in the music, publishing, film/TV or visual arts industries, get on over to the Creative Business microsite and find out how to apply.

The resounding message of the Olswang’s and Greenberg Traurig’s Friday Open Source Summit (PDF) was that software patents are bad for business. Bruce Perens’s message against software patents and that the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA) should not become a reality was echoed throughout the day by numerous speakers to be restated once again during Simon Phipps closing keynote. The main argument was that these patents hinder software development because of their high transaction costs, and that Europe can maintain advantages by not allowing these patents (available in the US and elsewhere) on its shores. Naturally enough, there wasn’t anyone calling for the abolition of patents, only as they relate to software.

But software patents weren’t the only theme of the day.

Bruce Perens - Opening keynote

Perens is one of a handful of early and influential ‘founders’ of free and open source software (FOSS) and he gave an entertaining and informative overview of the benefits of FOSS and how they fit in with a company’s business model. The key for any business is to look at what is the “differentiating software” — the model or software that makes the business different from others. For non-differentiating software open source is key as it can help control costs while delivering a robust architecture.

Beyond his call against software patents, he suggested that the UK and Europe could use a law requiring open source software to at least be considered for (presumably) public purchasing.

Heather Meeker, of Greenberg Traurig, gave an excellent overview of the legal side of FOSS licensing.

Jim Markwith of Microsoft concentrated on issues surrounding open source in a mergers and acquisition (M&A) context. Often one of the issues is finding inappropriate (copied w/o permission) code in FOSS projects. Many of the problems that he sees in the M&A role at Microsoft are a result of poor IP management and not open source per se. As regards software patents, he only stated that Microsoft takes a different position than the other speakers.

On the GPLv3, he did note that “GPLv2 has built up a legal understanding over the past fifteen years and now v3 means that they don’t have that understanding.”

Nigel Swycher, Olswang and chair of the event, and Kat McCabe, Black Duck, both further reviewed FOSS within the M&A context. Black Duck makes a product that reviews and audits software code to make sure that it does not contain illegally copied code.

In the afternoon Jan Wildeboer, Red Hat, and Pieter Hintjens, iMatix, both further made the case against software patents and open source business models. Hintjens had the notable quote that the GPL is “an ‘ultra capitalist tool’ because it allows dual licensing a commercial option plus the GPL version.”

Dietmar Tallroth, Nokia, discussed some of the practical aspects of managing open source software through his experiences as the legal director of open source and licensing at Nokia.

David Wood from Symbian gave an overview of open source and smartphones.

John Powell, Alfresco Software, got back to one of the main themes of the conference. From the conference site:

The software development and licensing landscape has changed, and the US are perceived to be leading the way. The Summit seeks to address this imbalance.

Powell blamed the close ties and use of the English language for waves and waves of US commercial interests following a proprietary licensing model for crushing both the UK’s indigenous software industry and free and open source software development. In short, because of the lack of a language barrier, UK companies and public sector organisations bought into the FUD against FOSS and thus never got off the ground. Now however is the time for the pendulum to swing the other way and for a UK FOSS community and use to dramatically take off.

Graham Taylor, Openforum Europe, discussed open standards and mentioned that in his opinion the UK government has been largely absent when compared to its EU counterparts at European meetings on open standards, open source.

Michael Robinson, Deloitte, covered how they saved large amounts of money and introduced greater stability by introducing open source into the Oyster card system for London’s transport.

Simon Phipps, Sun Microsystems, closed the day with a slight restatement of the day’s theme against software patents. He wasn’t against them per se, however he thought that their granting should be greatly tightened so that they were very hard to get. There was still some room for their use if limited in this way.

He did however note that trade marks are the next wave of legal problems for the FOSS community and that this would be the most troublesome area moving forward. In addition, he gave a load of practical advice on using FOSS within a company and how to relate to the greater open source community.

The day was well attended by a diverse set of lawyers, academics, developers and others. A definite tip of the hat to Olswang and their partners on the event Greenberg Traurig for the day.

The “should we trust electronic elections” bandwagon rolled onwards through Bournemouth and the Labour conference this week. Our aim was to both recruit more supporters and inform the party faithful that e-voting and e-counting are unsuitable for use in our democratic elections.

Our panel - chaired by William Heath - comprised of Alun Michael MP, Andrew Scallan (Electoral Commission) and ORG’s e-voting supremo Jason Kitcat. As in Brighton, many in the audience shared our mistrust of electronic elections after difficult, personal experiences. Unlike Brighton, one attendee seemed very much in favour of holding future polls in a superstores.

We have both ogg vorbis and mp3 recordings of the hour-long debate. Listen in particular for Alun Michael praising ORG again and again for the fine work that went into our elections report! Thanks again to all the volunteer observers and Jason who led that effort. You can also listen here through our media player:

Next week we’re at the Conservative conference (Monday, Tuesday), as well as the ‘Future of Web Apps’ (Wednesday, Thursday) and then the University of London Freshers Fair (Friday).

(Apologies: both our cameras experienced technical problems so sadly photos are in short supply. Also, my machine mysteriously chose to stop itself recording, although fortunately only a minute or two before close.)

If you live local to Blackpool, please come along for a drink and meet the ORG team this Monday evening. We’ll be in town for our fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference - part of the “Should we trust electronic elections” roadshow - and are really keen to meet ORG supporters in the area and find out about your digital rights concerns.

We’re meeting at 19.00, Monday 1 October at The Saddle Inn, 286 Whitegate Drive, Blackpool FY3 9PH. So if you’re a local activist or want to become more engaged with digital rights issues, come down for a chat.

Instigated at Edinburgh AHRC in 2006, this year’s GikII - a one day workshop on the intersections between law, technology and popular culture - took place yesterday at University College, London. Its focus on intellectual property and IT issues is typical of an academic conference, but the irreverent subject matter and rowdy audience mark this out from average scholarly events. Thanks to Lilian, Andres, Ian and the other organisers for a fascinating day. I’m already looking forward to next year’s event, which Ian agreed to stage at the Oxford Internet Institute. ORG supporters with a legal interest should take a breeze through the papers, and consider signing up for next year’s event when it’s announced.

Here’s a flavour of the papers i enjoyed most:

• Faith Lawrence discussed community-standards issues, using LiveJournal as her case study, where the feisty fandom and freedom of speech communities had to battle hard against management’s efforts to sanitise user-profiles.

• Lilian Edwards’ and Ian Brown’s presentation, ‘Cyberstalking 2.0′, praised Facebook’s sophisticated efforts to offer users privacy, but criticised the default-settings for publicity.

• Ray Corrigan gave us the fascinating parable of a 6th century IP dispute, complete with mythical warrior-princes and ‘The Battle of The Book’. The parallels with today’s IP wars are clear - best check his new ‘digital rights’ book if you want to learn more.

• Simon Deane-Jones of Zopa treated the audience to a run-through of the dramatic changes ‘Web 2.0′ and the rise of e-pressure is causing to the political landscape. The vigilantes of political life are well-represented by moveon.org and tacticalvoter.net, whilst community spirit is reborn with fixmystreet.com.

• And finally, a doff of the cap to Jordan Hatcher, who stunned the audience with an analysis of the application of copyright law to tattoos.

The list of papers may soon be joined by powerpoint presentations.

Conference season got off to a fine start this weekend, as ORG set off around the country to raise awareness among grassroots party activists of the issues e-voting and e-counting pose for our democracy.

John Pugh MP, Tom Hawthorne (Electoral Commission) and ORG’s very own Jason Kitcat were expertly chaired by William Heath, and addressed a packed house. Some in the audience had had direct experience of the May pilots, some had seen the chaos in Scotland, others came with experience of postal voting, or simply with doubts about how a dramatic change like electronic voting would affect their campaigning work.

You can download audio of the proceedings in full (mp3, ogg) and there are more pictures from the event in the ORG Flickr pool.

Thanks to everyone who made the event run so smoothly, thanks to all the local supporters who showed up afterwards to celebrate with us and thanks to Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd for giving us the financial support to stage the event. Next stop, Bournemouth!

You can also listen here via our embedded media player:

If you’re in or around Brighton this weekend, be sure to come and have a drink with ORG. We’re really keen to meet ORG supporters in the area and find out about local digital rights concerns. It’s not often we get to leave the big smoke on official ORG business (we’re roadshowing our e-voting campaign at the Liberal Democrat party conference), so we want to make the most of it.

We’re meeting at the Black Lion Pub, on Black Lion St, from 1600 this Sunday 16 September. Who knows, we might even raise a belated glass to Software Freedom Day.