Blog
The latest blogs from Open Rights Group
12 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Parliament and the Internet: William Dutton
William Dutton, Director of the Oxford Internet Institute, Social dynamics of the internet This conference is focused on the future, and we wanted it to be evidence based, so thought to identify some patterns and themes in internet use, which are shaping the future of this emerging cyber-infrastructure.
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12 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Parliament and the Internet: Jon Gisby, Yahoo!
In UK: 26 million people online 20 billion minutes a month >20% media consumption time But big disparity in behaviour: for one part of the day it’s the major source of news and entertainment.
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12 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Parliament and the Internet: Plenary discussion round-up
Synopses of the discussions held earlier.
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12 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Parliament and the Internet: ISPs in the content driven era
So I’m here at the Parliament and the Internet Conference, which is being held at Portcullis House and which has been put together by the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group (APIG).
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12 Oct 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Making, supplying or obtaining articles for use in computer misuse offences
Some very well informed, entertaining and persuasive arguments were put forward in the House of Lords yesterday in a debate on ‘Making, supplying or obtaining articles for use in computer misuse offences’.
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11 Oct 2006 By Michael Holloway
Draft submission to EC Consultation on ‘Content Online in the Single Market’ – comments welcomed
Thanks for the comments on our draft.
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09 Oct 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
22nd October – Copyfighters Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop
The next London Copyfighters Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop will be held on Sunday 22 October.
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06 Oct 2006 By Michael Holloway
WIPO Broadcast Treaty scheduled for further scrutiny
There are concerns proposed WIPO legislation will further extend the social and cultural dominance of trad broadcasters over the internet, as mentioned here on this blog.
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05 Oct 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Software Patents – the stench lingers
The European Patent Litigation Agreement (blogged by us as Software Patents – back like a bad smell) remains on course to pass the European Parliament (EP) with a comfortable majority.
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05 Oct 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Computer Misuse Act – Potential disaster avoided
Good news!
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03 Oct 2006 By Michael Holloway
30 things we can do about DRM
To mark today as the global ‘Day Against DRM’, inspired by Michael Geist, here’s a list of 30 easy things we can do about DRM.
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27 Sep 2006 By Glyn Wintle
British Library launches IP manifesto
At a fringe event at the Labour Party conference on Monday, the British Library launched their manifesto for reform of UK intellectual property (IP) law.
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27 Sep 2006 By Michael Holloway
Anti-DRM event – Saturday 30th September – Central London
This Saturday 30th September there is an anti-DRM event in Central London, outside the Apple Store at 235 Regents Street, starting at 1400 until 1700.
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23 Sep 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Software Patents – back like a bad smell
More than a year has passed since the European Parliament’s historic rejection of the Commission’s and Council’s software patent bill.
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15 Sep 2006 By Michael Holloway
Broadcast Treaty will stifle tech innovation, freedom of expression and access to knowledge
There are two distinct concerns connected to the proposed WIPO Broadcast Treaty, one is structural / organisational – in terms of a lack of democratic accountability – and the other relates to an unprecedented expansion of protectionist legislation.
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14 Sep 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Digital Rights Ireland challenge data retention laws
Digital Rights Ireland has started a High Court action against the Irish Government challenging new European and Irish laws requiring the retention of telecoms and internet traffic data retention.
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09 Sep 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
The reason we do this
If anyone wondered why we – as individuals or together – fight the copyfight and why we support Creative Commons, and whether it really makes any difference: this is the reason why and the difference it makes.
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08 Sep 2006 By Michael Holloway
Spam all you want, but don’t crack DRM!
As revealed in detail by Bruce Schneier, Microsoft this week rushed a patch out the door, well ahead of their usual once-a-month Patch Tuesday.
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29 Aug 2006 By Michael Holloway
Come support the Open Rights Group in Scotland!
As part of the Gikii workshop leading up to the VI Computer Law World Conference, the Open Rights Group will be sponsoring an open reception for everyone to get to know ORG.
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25 Aug 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Denial-of-Service attacks
A Denial of Service (DoS) attack involves deliberately flooding a server such as a web or email server with information until that server collapses, causing difficulties to users, system admins and others dependent on the service.
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23 Aug 2006 By Michael Holloway
27th August – Copyfighters Drunken Brunch & Talking Shop with Dr Ian Brown
The next Copyfighters’ Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop will be held on Sunday 27 July, and it will be chaired by Dr Ian Brown.
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18 Aug 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
‘Blaggers’ on Radio 5
Our very own Dr Ian Brown is going to be on BBC Radio 5Live, this Sunday 20 August.
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17 Aug 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Belated Happy SysAdmin Day
OK, I know I’m several weeks late on this, but Electech and UKUUG‘s tribute to SysAdmins everywhere is well worth watching (and I’m not just saying that because it features our very own James Cronin, and the ORG logo).
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Digital Privacy
13 Aug 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Freedom of Expression – China’s Internet
The House of Commons’ Select Committee on Foreign Affairs have published a report on East Asia that strongly critisices internet corporations working for the Chinese government to filter, censor and control web content.
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12 Aug 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Consultation on the Creative Economy Programme
Shaun Woodward, Creative Industries Minister, has launched a consultation on the Creative Economy Programme draft working group proposals.
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08 Aug 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Gina Ford vs the Web
If someone defames you, most people support your right to stop that person from doing it again, and to pursue legal remedies.
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04 Aug 2006 By Glyn Wintle
ID card – Inconsistent approach to scientific evidence
The Select Committee on Science and Technology recently published a report entitled Identity Card Technologies: Scientific Advice, Risk and Evidence.
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04 Aug 2006 By Michael Holloway
Next ORG networking event – 14th August
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.
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01 Aug 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Content Online Consultation
The European Commission have launched a consultation titled “Content Online”.
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29 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Personal Internet Security
The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee has established a Sub-Committee, under the Chairmanship of the Lord Broers, to examine Personal Internet Security in the UK.
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27 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Tapping VoIP
We have seen attempts to add more legislation to voice over IP in America so I guess it was only a matter of time.
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Digital Privacy
27 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Consultation on penalties for breaching the DPA
Baroness Ashton has published a consultation paper on proposed custodial penalties for breaches of Section 55 of the Data Protection Act 1998, which deals with unlawful obtaining of personal data.
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Digital Privacy
21 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Public meeting on RIPA consultations
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act Part III gives law enforcement the power to serve notices requiring that encrypted material be “put into an intelligible form” (or as everyone else would say, decrypted).
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18 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Danny O’Brien at the Drunken Brunch
Last Sunday saw the latest edition of the London Copyfighter’s Drunken Brunch & Talking Shop.
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Digital Privacy
13 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Information Commissioners annual report
Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, has published his annual report.
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11 Jul 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
BPI asks ISPs to do its dirty work
As reported by Reuters and the BBC, the BPI has asked two ISPs – Cable & Wireless, and Tiscali – to terminate the accounts of 59 broadband users because the BPI claims that they are infringing copyright.
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11 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
700,000 children fingerprinted by schools
Children are being threatened with exclusion from school unless they submit to being fingerprinted, reports Leave Them Kids Alone.
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11 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
Commission Cheats European SMEs in Patent Consultation
The European Commission has been consulting on the future of Europe’s patent regime and, as always, the FFII have been doing a good job of monitoring their progress.
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10 Jul 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
16 July, London Copyfighters Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop with Danny O’Brien
The next London Copyfighters’ Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop will be held on Sunday 16 July, and it will be chaired by Danny O’Brien.
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07 Jul 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
IPPR/Reuters – The Long Tail: Opportunities in a New Marketplace
The IPPR and Reuters held a seminar on Tuesday 4 July about the ‘long tail’ and niche marketing, and how it relates to IP.
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07 Jul 2006 By Glyn Wintle
EC want to regulate internet TV
The “TV Without Frontiers” directive is a proposed piece of European legislation that would mean that anything that appears to be television and travels over the internet is television, and therefore becomes subject to TV regulations.
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06 Jul 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Data retention conference in Ireland
The Irish Centre for European Law is hosting a conference on “Privacy and the Data Retention Directive” on Wednesday, 19 July 2006, from 2-6pm in Dublin.
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Digital Privacy
06 Jul 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
What do businesses know about you?
Matt Mower has made a pledge on Pledgebank to write to a supplier – say a mobile phone company – to ask them what they know about him, as per the Data Protection Act, but he needs more people to sign up.
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03 Jul 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Protect your bits. Support ORG.
If you’ve been wanting a ‘Support ORG’ button for your blog or website, I’m happy to say that we’ve now created some.
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19 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
ORG Update – what have we been up to?
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.
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19 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Film censors want a stab at the net
The British Board of Film Classification want to have stab at classifying content on the net, a Sisyphean task if ever I heard of one.
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19 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Linux User
A few months ago, I started writing a monthly column for Linux User.
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15 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
ORG on the BBC
The Apple/iPod DRM story seems to be a hot one at the moment.
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14 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
ORG in the FT
In the UK, the Open Rights Group, another consumer protection organisation, has been lobbying MPs to force companies to open up their DRM.
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13 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Cryptography and fallacy
The Times has an emotive piece on the implementation of Part III of RIPA, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which demands that people hand over their cryptographic keys.
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13 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Denmark, Norway and Sweden put pressure on Apple’s iTunes
STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Denmark, Norway and Sweden plan to force Apple Computers Inc to break the exclusive link between its iPod music players and online iTunes store.
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05 Jun 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Launch of the APIG report on DRM
Last year, the Open Rights Group submitted evidence to the All Party Internet Group‘s public inquiry into digital rights management (DRM) after carrying out it’s own public consultation into questions raised by the call for evidence.
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05 Jun 2006 By Louisiana
Tech-Savvy MPs Come Out Against DRM
The All Party Parliamentary Internet Group today launched the report of their inquiry into Digital Rights Management.
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23 May 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Haranguing the crowds at Speakers Corner
We had the monthly London Copyfighter’s Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop on Sunday, and despite the rain we had a good turn out.
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10 May 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
21 May London Copyfighters Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop
The next London Copyfighters’ Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop will be held on Sunday 21 May.
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09 May 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Copyright in a collaborative age
The paper that myself and Michael Holloway, (who helps with admin and research for ORG) wrote for the Journal of Media and Culture is now out.
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25 Apr 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Jonathan Zittrain inaugural lecture
Wow, but sitting in Oxford University’s Examination Halls is intimidating.
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24 Apr 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Copyfighters’ picnic in the rain
Last month, Cory Doctorow passed over the reins of the London Copyfighers’ Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop to ORG, and yesterday we had our first brunch in the new format – a picnic in Hyde Park, followed then by the traditional oration at Speakers’ Corner.
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24 Apr 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Internet Governance and Regulation: The Future of the Internet – and How to Stop It
ORG Advisory Council member Professor Jonathan Zittrain is giving his inaugural lecture at Oxford University tomorrow, 25 April, at 5pm at the Oxford University Examination Schools, High Street (building 22 on the map):
The lecture will propose a theory about what lies around the corner for the Internet, how to avoid it, and how to study and affect the future of the internet using the distributed power of the network itself, using privacy as a signal example.
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03 Apr 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Unveiling the new ORG logo
Thanks very much to Denise Wilton, Chris Morrison and their collaborators both on and off the Haddock mailing list for designing the new ORG logo.
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30 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
ORG lists down — but now back up
Unfortunately, we’ve been having some technical difficulties with the ORG servers over the last couple of weeks, resulting in the Discussion list going down.
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30 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Cory Doctorow donates Razr mobile phone
Cory Doctorow, ORG Advisory Council member, famous novelist, copyright activist and one of the driving forces behind BoingBoing, has kindly donated a Razr mobile phone and a signed first edition of his novel Eastern Standard Tribe, to the Open Rights Group for us to auction.
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29 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
ORG becomes a provisional member of EDRi
The Open Rights Group has now become a provisional member of European Digital Rights (EDRi), a coalition of 21 privacy and civil rights organisations from 14 different countries.
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28 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Guardian Changing Media: Digital Rights Management
I was yesterday at the Guardian’s Changing Media conference, at which our very own Dr Ian Brown spoke on DRM.
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21 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
French lead the way on music downloads
French MPs are examining measures that would force the sharing of copy-protection software with the aim of ensuring that any music can be played on any player regardless of format or source:
The French bill says that proprietary copy-protection technologies must not block interoperability between different systems.
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20 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Neil Gaiman gets cease-and-desisted
Neil Gaiman, Patron of the Open Rights Group, got a rather clueless ‘cease and desist’ letter today:
A mysterious communication arrived via my agent.
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15 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Take part in the Gowers Review of intellectual property
If you’d like to take part in the Gowers Review of intellectual property in the UK, then the easiest way to do so is to leave a comment on the new Open Rights Group Gowers Review blog, where we’ve sliced the Call for Evidence into bite-sized chunks, each of which you can comment on.
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14 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Gowers Review Seminar notes
On 2nd March, the Open Rights Group was invited to attend a seminar on the Gowers Review.
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13 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Next ORG event: Copyfighters’ Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop, Sunday 19 March
For most of the last year, I’ve been going to Cory Doctorow’s Copyfighters’ Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop, a monthly (ish) gathering of copyright activists where we sit about and eat brunch, talk about copyright, and drink Mimosa (that’s ‘Buck’s Fizz’ if you’re a Brit) before going over to Speaker’s Corner to harangue the crowd.
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02 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Keep up to date with ORG
If you are interested in keeping up to date with ORG goings on, there are two mailing lists that you can join:
ORG-announce is a low volume announcement list where we will, from now on, announce our events, publish news, and generally let you know what is happening.
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02 Mar 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Government and privacy in the digital age
The talk that I gave at Trinity College, Dublin, kindly hosted by Dr Eoin O’Dell as part of his Dublin Legal Workshop series and organised by Digital Rights Ireland, is now up online.
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28 Feb 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
RSA/The Economist – The Internet’s Golden Age is Over
I spoke last Thursday at the RSA/Economist’s debate, The Internet’s Golden Age is Over, arguing for the motion that it’s basically doomed.
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28 Feb 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Technolotics videocast
Whilst I was in Dublin last weekend, I did a videocast for Trinity College bloggers Technolotics.
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24 Feb 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Trading Standards get in a tizz over free software
(Via BoingBoing).
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03 Feb 2006 By Ben Laurie
Sony Get Sued in Canada
Michael Geist reports that Sony are facing another class action suit over their PC-damaging DRM.
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02 Feb 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
APIG DRM public inquiry hearing
The following notes were taking during the inquiry and they are my best attempts at keeping up with what was said.
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30 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Open Rights Group hits the ground running
For Immediate Release Open Rights Group hits the ground running
Hundreds of cyber-activists fund UK digital rights group
British author Neil Gaiman joins as Patron
Group to give evidence to MPs on dangers of digital rights management this Thursday
London, UK – On Christmas Day, over a thousand people pledged to create an organisation “to preserve and extend traditional civil liberties in the digital world”.
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29 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Second ORG networking evening
The Open Rights Group is proud to announce that Cory Doctorow, outgoing European Co-Ordinator for the EFF, novelist and editor of BoingBoing.
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25 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Wikinews interview Danny O’Brien
Our very own Danny O’Brien was interviewed by Wikinews earlier in the week, about digital rights issues in the US.
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21 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
RSA Economist Debate – The internet’s golden age is over
February 23, 2006 – 18:30 – 21:00 – RSA Economist Debate – The internet’s golden age is over – at RSA, 8 John Adam Street, London WC2N 6EZ
Debate on the future of the internet.
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21 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
A date for your diary
We are planning the next ORG event for the evening of Tues 7 Feb, at 01Zero-One in Soho again.
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20 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
ORG invited to give oral evidence to APIG DRM public inquiry
The Open Rights Group has been asked by the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group to attend its oral evidence gathering session on 2 February.
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20 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
BBC music industry virtual panel
The BBC have put together a virtual panel of music industry representatives to answer your questions on DRM, downloading, and any other topic you feel important.
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17 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Dr Fun
Dr Fun explains the latest bad EU legislation.
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14 Jan 2006 By James Cronin
Sign up to support the Open Rights Group
Whether you pledged to support this project or whether you didn’t.
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04 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
IPPR white paper: Markets in the Online Public Sphere
Will Davies of the IPPR publishes a paper examining the politics and economics of online information:
This paper looks at some of the politics and economics surrounding online information.
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04 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
James Boyle on the Database Directive
James Boyle writes in the FT about the EU’s empirical evaluation of whether the Database Directive, which gave intellectual property rights over the creation of database, is actually helping stimulate the industry.
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03 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Radio Five Live’s Up All Night – the year in review
Went into BBC Television Centre last night to record a review of 2005 with Neil McIntosh, Tim Worstall, Chris Vallance and Kevin Anderson.
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03 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
APIG DRM Inquiry white paper
The white paper that we prepared before Christmas for the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group’s public inquiry into digital rights management is now up on the ORG wiki.
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02 Jan 2006 By Suw Charman Anderson
Gardening the ORG wiki
Spent a bit of time today working on the ORG wiki, so if you have a bit of time to add more information to it, that’d be superb.
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20 Dec 2005 By Suw Charman Anderson
The ORG website – we need a designer!
We had one of those moments last week when we realised that, because almost everyone involved in ORG has bucketfuls of experience of designing and launching websites (indeed, I started working as a web designer/developer in ’98, and I can do this shit with my hands tied behind my back), the one thing that had escaped our attention was, in fact, the website.
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19 Dec 2005 By Suw Charman Anderson
What next for data retention?
If you’ve been following the data retention directive’s progress through the EU, you’ll have heard long since that the directive was voted in by 378 in favour to 197 against and 30 abstentions – which totals 605 of the 732 MEPs who make up the European Parliament.
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09 Dec 2005 By Suw Charman Anderson
Slowly the pieces of the jigsaw fall into place
I spent an hour today talking to people at the Radiator Film Festival about digital rights and putting together an activist group, referencing directly my own personal experiences organising the Open Rights Group.
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09 Dec 2005 By Suw Charman Anderson
Fighting data retention
Word coming out of the EU Parliament is not good for data retention.
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06 Dec 2005 By Ben Laurie
France Gets Set to Ban Open Source
And anything else that doesn’t enforce DRM.
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04 Dec 2005 By Ben Laurie
Telecoms and Television
“john” writes, in a comment to an earlier post:
data retention; the LIBE report is being voted on the 12th and all the Parliamentary groups meet on Tuesday to decide their positions.
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02 Dec 2005 By Suw Charman Anderson
APIG DRM Inquiry: Overview
The All Party Parliamentary Internet Group (APIG) has launched a public inquiry into DRM and is looking for written evidence from anyone interested in copyright and digital rights management.
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