Over the weekend approximately 150 technophiles gathered for BarCampLondon2, an über-geeky conference on all things related to the web and an ideal opportunity to spread the word about ORG.

In addition to ORG supporters talking generally to people about ORG and digital rights issues, the programme included the following presentations:

• ORG - The British EFF: Protecting Your Bits (Glyn Wintle). A general introduction to ORG, current issues and how to get involved.
• e-Voting: World Domination Is Ours! (Sheila Thomson). A spoof evil-dictator presentation, pointing out the strengths of traditional voting methods and how e-voting makes it much easier to control the outcome of an election. It was captured on film by Ian Forrester

By the end of the conference there was a noticeable buzz of conversation about ORG and a stream of people heading off to find out more.

Last year, over a thousand people pledged a fiver a month to help us set up the Open Rights Group - an organisation to publicise and fight for civil liberties in the digital world.

So far, we have around 500 supporters who have been true to their pledge and are giving us a fiver each month. If you are one of those five hundred, thank you. That was enough money to secure our short term future and to begin laying the foundations for the group.

But we don’t have enough funding to achieve all that we set out to do. In the next six months, we want to expand the work that ORG is doing, and go beyond these first steps.

If you haven’t yet fulfilled your pledge to ORG, can I ask you to live up to your promise, and send us that fiver? Please become an ORG supporter, and one of the Founding 1000. We need your help to be able to expand and increase our campaigning power.

What have we been doing over the last six months? Working on a shoestring and a part-time staff, we’ve still managed:

• A phone and email service for journalists to find alternative voices for their digital rights stories. Put +44 (0)20 7096 1079 in your address book if you’re a journalist!
• Given written and oral evidence to MPs on the damaging effects of DRM. The All Party Internet group picked up on many of our points, and their report called for tighter controls on DRM in the marketplace.
• Collected public comments and submitted a digital rights perspective to the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property.
• Been mentioned or quoted in over 30 press articles and helped print, radio and broadcast journalists present a more balanced view of digital rights issues.
• Held networking events on digital rights and a monthly copyright activists’ brunch.
• Spoken at a number of conferences and meetings, including Xtech, an RSA/Economist debate, Radiator, RESfest, and Dublin Legal Workshop at Trinity College.

With your additional support, we’ll be able to expand our work. This year, the UK is facing some significant challenges in the online world:

• The criminalisation of many intellectual property rights infringements, in the form of the second EU Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive. Accidentally using copyrighted or patented materials in your own work? Under IPRED, you could end up in jail.
• The implementation of EU Data Retention legislation. Which ISPs are already storing your phone and internet usage on behalf of the police?
• Pushes to extend the copyright term for sound recordings. Cliff Richard may be all for it, but we think it’s bad for music and musicians. We’ll be publicising the benefits of public domain, examining the dangers of term extension, and lobbying for the term to remain the same.
• The introduction of Part III of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, permitting the government to seize private encryption keys. Will it stop terrorists? Or will it just compromise your security?

With your help, we can work to shine more light on these issues, bringing them to the attention of the media, the politicians and the wider public. Please support ORG with just a fiver a month.

Your promise is what will let us fulfill ours.

But remember, it’s not just your money that’s valuable, it’s you. To get more involved, please join the ORG Discussion list (sign up using the forms in the righthand sidebar) or visit the ORG wiki.

And thanks again for your support.

The Open Rights Group has been asked by the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group to attend its oral evidence gathering session on 2 February. ORG will send three representatives - the maximum allowed - who will be questioned by MPs.

Other groups that have been invited include:

• Society for Computers and Law
• British Library
• Libraries Archives Copyright Alliance (LACA)
• FFII-UK
• Share The Vision
• British Music Rights
• EMI
• AIM
• EMusic.com
• BREAK
• AOL
• BBC
• PACT
• The Publishers Association
• The Film Council
• NCC
• FIPR

It’s notable that there don’t seem to be any consumer electronics companies present.

If you want to see our written presentation, along with others from Kevin Marks, the UK Unix User’s Group, David Weinberger, the FFII and the National Consumer Council, it’s all on the wiki.

The Open Rights Group membership pledge has finally matured, just in time for our inaugural event tonight and, coincidentally, just as we are about to get our membership database online for you to join up! The pledge topped out with 1002 signatories, but if you haven’t signed up already, this doesn’t mean that you’re too late - you can still sign the pledge and still get involved with supporting ORG. I’ll post more info on exactly how to become a real, proper member as soon as I have it. Meantime, thanks to everyone who has pledged, and congratulations to everyone involved in promoting and supporting ORG in its first, fledgeling phase.