Update #3: Raffle is now closed! See you tonight!

Update #2: Less than 24 hours now until we close the raffle (tomorrow, noon), so get buying your tickets!

Update: more prize donations - signed copies of Lawrence Lessig’s Code v2 and Andrew Gowers’ Review of IP, and £150 worth of O’Reilly vouchers!

Oh you lucky, lucky people… here comes the inaugural ORG raffle! Tickets are £2.50 each and make excellent Easter gifts.

Prizes include Neil Gaiman’s (signed) keyboard, a signed copy of Bruce Schneier’s Beyond Fear, a set of a dozen Beatpick compilations and a couple of extra special Doctorow donations: a signed author’s galley of his next novel, Little Brother (forthcoming in 2008), and the opportunity to be written into it!

We’ll make the draw as part of our spectacular ‘Support ORG! (and Party)’ 11 April event. All advance purchases (we’ll close the paypal interface an hour or two before the party) will be assigned a paper ticket, then added together with tickets sold on the night for the grand draw, to be selected by our yet-to-be-disclosed special guest.

And if you haven’t registered to attend Support ORG! (and Party) yet, get to it!

Thanks to everyone who made it along on Monday night. For those who could not attend, and also for reference purposes, you can now download the audio recording - in either MP3 or Ogg Vorbis format - from the link below. Its split into 2 sections, 1 covers the lecture from Jonathan Zittrain, and the other covers the panel discussion.

http://media.ito.com/suw/rtm/

We hope to make an audio-visual record available within a week or so.

Well, I think that the Release The Music event last night went superbly, getting our campaign off to a flying start. Jonathan Zittrain’s keynote was great, giving a clear and concise overview of what copyright is and how we got to where we are with the current copyright term of 50 years on sound recordings. It was good to see Jonathan neatly illustrate the difference between property rights and copyright. The debate was just as impassioned as I had hoped it would be, with some eloquent questions from the floor and a lively response from the speakers.

I’m very much looking forward to getting the audio/video up online so that those who could not attend will be able to find out what happened. In the meantime, there’s a blog post from Fernando Barrio with his take on the evening, and an article from PC Pro from our journalist briefing yesterday.

I’d like to thank:

• All our speakers - Professor Jonathan Zittrain, John Howkins, Dave Rowntree, Caroline Wilson, Richard Mollet and Martin Talbot - for taking time out to participate in our event.
• John Buckman of Magnatune for providing a venue for our journalists’ briefing yesterday.
• Derek Wyatt MP and his office for helping us organise the MPs briefing on Thursday.
• The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust for funding the Release The Music campaign with a grant of £5,000.
• And Michael Holloway, Becky Hogge, Lubna Azhaar, Mike Little, Lemon and all the ORG volunteers for helping with both the event and the site.

What next?
Last night’s event was the culmination of over a month’s work, but it’s really just the beginning of our campaign. On the Release The Music site we have a number of things that you can do to support our efforts, including sign our petition (according to Martin Talbot, Music Week got 2000 names and AIM got 4000 names in favour of extension which they presented to the Gowers Review, so we have a way to go to match those), blog about our campaign and the issues involved, or write to your MP.

Whatever you do, don’t do nothing. The music industry has a lot of resources, but we have you, and your voice is important.

releasethemusic

Our Release The Music campaign is starting to get underway. Last Thursday, myself, ORG Chair Louise Ferguson, journalist Becky Hogge and lawyer Lubna Azhaar gathered at Portcullis House to give an briefing to MPs, peers and their staff. Due to Parliament being prorogued (temporarily suspended) prior to the Queen’s Speech, attendance wasn’t quite as good as we would have liked, but nevertheless we had a very useful session.

Today we have our lunchtime briefing for journalists, and our public event at Conway Hall at 6pm tonight. I’ve closed registration, but if you want to come, please just show up as we’ve a few spare spaces.

Although all our work over the last month or two has been focused on today, really, this event is only the start. We’ll continue to expand the website, adding more information and content up there. And we’re already in talks about another couple of events that we might be able to pull together with some very interesting partners.

I’m very excited about tonight, but I’m even more excited that soon I’ll be able to start thinking about the next step in our campaign.

Meantime, if you agree that the term of copyright protection given to sound recordings should remain at 50 years, please sign our petition.

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We have finally confirmed our line-up for the Release The Music event on Monday 13 November at the Conway Hall in Holborn, with the addition of Richard Mollet from the British Phonographic Industry.

6.00pm - Registration
6.30 - 7.30pm - Professor Jonathan Zittrain, Oxford University
7.30 - 8.30pm - Should the term of copright protection on sound recordings be extended?
Moderator: John Howkins, Adelphi Charter
For: Richard Mollet, Director of Public Affairs, BPI; Martin Talbot, Editor, Music Week
Against: Dave Rowntree, Blur; Caroline Wilson, Southampton Law School
8.30 - 10.00pm - A pre-1955 DJ set
10.00pm - Close

There are still tickets left, so sign up now if you would like to come.

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If you write a music/MP3 blog, a law/copyright blog, or you are a podcaster and would like to come to the ORG press briefing on copyright term extension for sound recordings, 2pm on Monday 13th November, please contact Michael with your URL and preferred email address and we’ll send you a proper invitation with all the details. We have very few places, so please contact us as soon as possible.

The next London Copyfighters Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop will be held on Sunday 22 October. We will meet upstairs at the Mason’s Arms, 51 Upper Berkeley Street, Marble Arch at 12 noon for brunch. The Mason’s Arms is on the corner of Berkeley Street and Seymour Place.

Once we are suitably lubricated (at around 2pm) we will, en mass, go to Speaker’s Corner and orate on the subject of copyright, DRM, the weather — whatever. Speaking isn’t mandatory, but it IS highly encouraged. If you’ve never spoken before, then I would recommend it as it’s a bit of a mad experience you won’t get elsewhere!

Photos from past events are on Flickr, and we also have a new Flickr Group for the London Copyfighters . Please do feel free to join and add your photographs.

Please let us know if you are coming by signing up on the ORG wiki so that we can get an idea for how much food to order.

Nearest underground station is Marble Arch. Turn right at the top of the escalators, then right as you leave the station, then right down Great Cumberland Place, then left down Upper Berkeley Street. The Mason’s Arms is on the corner of Seymour Place and Upper Berkeley Street.

Any problems, please call Mike on 020 7096 1079 (which redirects to his mobile).

See you there!

The next Copyfighters’ Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop will be held on Sunday 27 July, and it will be chaired by Dr Ian Brown. We will meet upstairs at the Mason’s Arms, 51 Upper Berkeley Street, Marble Arch at 12noon for brunch. The Mason’s Arms is on the corner of Berkeley Street and Seymour Place.

Once we are suitably lubricated (at around 2pm) we will, en mass, go to Speaker’s Corner and orate on the subject of copyright, DRM, the weather — whatever. Speaking isn’t mandatory, but it IS highly encouraged.

Photos from past events are on Flickr.

Please let me know if you are coming by signing up on the ORG wiki page so that I can get an idea for how much food to order.

Nearest underground station is Marble Arch. Turn right at the top of the escalators, then right as you leave the station, then right down Great Cumberland Place, then left down Upper Berkeley Street. The Mason’s Arms is on the corner of Seymour Place and Upper Berkeley Street.

Any problems, please call Mike on 020 7096 1079 (which redirects to my mobile).

Hope to see you there!

Scrambling for Safety 8 is taking place on the 14th August at University College, London, where the focus will be on the Home Office’s access to keys and communications data code of practice consultations.

Those unable to make the main event are invited to the Jeremy Bentham pub on University St., WC1, to join attendees and speakers from the conference. We’ll have a room in the pub from 1730 til close.

Hope to see you there.