In an open letter sent today to David Lammy, UK Minister for Innovation, some of the country’s most eminent economists and intellectual property scholars, have hit out at government proposals to consider changing policy on term extension. The letter, which has also been sent to the Cabinet Office, the Treasury and the Culture Minister, voices [...]

Read the rest of "Leading Academics Hit Out as Government Abandons Evidence-Based Policy on Copyright."

Policy Exchange, a leading right-of-centre think tank, is holding a lunchtime panel debate to discuss ‘anti-piracy legislation’. Unusually, the event will question the view that Government and ISPs must crack down on filesharers and, also, is open to the public. The panel will feature Jim Killock (Open Rights Group’s Executive Director), Cory Doctorow (author and [...]

Read the rest of "ORG and Cory to debate NBC Universal and the chair of the Culture Committee"

Consumer groups, musicians, academics and industry stakeholders, together with a cross party panel of MEPs, hit out at the “fairy tale” of copyright term extension at the ORG “Sound Copyright” conference in the European Parliament last week.
One by one speakers rubbished the proposal, as outgoing ORG Executive Director Becky Hogge pointed out that “All the evidence [...]

Read the rest of "Sound Copyright conference attacks the “fairy tale” of copyright term extension."

Here’s the August update for all you supporters and soon-to-be-supporting readers. Click through for details of our 24 October event with Neil Gaiman and a whole heap more.
Supporter update - August 2008
Thanks to Jutta for the image.

Read the rest of "Supporter update - August 2008"

Open Tech 2008 is an informal, low cost one-day conference on technology, society and low-carbon living, featuring Open Source ways of working and technologies that anyone can have a go at.
We don’t usually flag events on this blog, instead we use Upcoming to publish events. Open Tech is exceptional because Open Rights Group was conceived [...]

Read the rest of "Open Tech 2008 preview"

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 [...]

Read the rest of "The future of copyright"

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 [...]

Read the rest of "Musicians, fans and online copyright - free event this Wednesday!"

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: [...]

Read the rest of "Copyright commotions 101: Free event at LSE next month"

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 [...]

Read the rest of "Creative Business Seminars - Now open for applications"

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 [...]

Read the rest of "Open Source Summit Review"