I’m pleased to announce that I can now reveal the location for our live collage of the hundreds of surveillance state photos you’ve been taking this week for the Freedom Not Fear, Big Picture event.
On 11 October, we’ll gather underneath the statue of Winston Churchill on Parliament Square in London to build an image showing [...]

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Happy-snappers unite! We need as many people as possible to take photos of stuff that embodies the database state, and the UK’s world-famous surveillance society (wake up! You’ve just walked into it).
On 11 October, No2ID and the Open Rights Group will make a live collage of the images you’ve taken in a prominent location in [...]

Read the rest of "Capturing the database state: community photocall"

Update (24/09/08): The votes are in. The bad news is that amendment 133 was rejected (watch this space for a link to a list of the MEPs who rejected it). But the good news is that amendment 138 was passed, with a last minute oral amendment. The European Parliament voted to adopt it in [...]

Read the rest of "To do this weekend: ask your MEPs to vote for Telecom package amendments 133 and 138"

Back in July, we asked you to write to your MEP about worrying last minute amendments to the EU Telecoms Package. Now, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), an independent supervisory authority devoted to protecting personal data and privacy, has commented in depth on the amendments in a 13-page report.
In reviewing the amendments, the EDPS [...]

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Read the rest of "Performers likely to get as little as 50¢ a year from increased term of copyright"

When the European Commission put forward their proposal to retrospectively extend the copyright term granted to sound recordings, locking away vast swathes of our cultural heritage in a commercial vacuum for 45 years, it was clear that they had rejected all the expert evidence in favour of voodoo economics.
Now Professor Bernt Hugenholtz has written a [...]

Read the rest of "Commission adviser accuses Barroso of intentionally misleading European policy-makers and citizens on copyright"

Last month, the Government announced it would be consulting with the public on ways to curb illicit filesharing. ORG will be developing a response to the consultation over the next two months and we’d like your help.
We’ve put the Executive Summary of the consultation document online. Please use our interactive consultation tool to tell us [...]

Read the rest of "Help ORG respond to UK consultation on illicit p2p"

Only 3 months late, the Government has finally released a consultation into potential legislation aimed at curbing illicit filesharing on the net. Several of the legislative options on the table are worrying, and mirror schemes being discussed in various national and international fora. They include streamlining the legal process to require ISPs to provide personal [...]

Read the rest of "Government to consult on legislation to curb illicit filesharing as industry agrees voluntary scheme"

In a letter to the Times today Europe’s leading professionals in the field of intellectual property have explained why the proposal for copyright term extension would harm Europe’s creators and consumers:

Read the rest of "Copyright extension: what you can do."

Disregarding the evidence-based findings of their own advisors, the UK government’s independent analysis, and those of Europe’s leading intellectual property research centres, the EU Commission has formally accepted DG Internal Market’s proposal to extend the duration of copyright protection for sound recordings.
Copyright term is a quid pro quo, designed to balance the interests of consumers [...]

Read the rest of "EU Commission proposes copyright term extension and ignores all the evidence"