[DMCA-Activists] Kevin Marks' PROSUA

[Seth Johnson]

> http://prosua.blogspot.com/

ProSUA

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts

a weblog dedicated to the clarification of copyright law for
legislators and citizens alike

State logs: AL AK AZ AR CA CO CT DE DC FL GA HI ID IL IN IA
KS KY LA ME MD MA MI MN MS MO MT NE NV NH NJ NM NY NC ND MP
OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VT VA WA WV WI WY

Wednesday, August 28, 2002

Questions to ask your candidates

Possibly leading questions - these serve the purpose of
raising the issues in a public meeting, but it may be better
to ask more neutral variants to get a true opinion from the
candidate.

Do you believe that vigilante attacks by the entertainment
industry on your computer should have the support of law?

Will you promise to vote against the Peer To Peer Piracy
Prevention Act?

Do you want to make all current computers models illegal,
and insist they are replace by copy-prevention machines?

Will you promise to vote against the Consumer Broadband
Digital Television Promotion Act?

Do you trust computers to judge and enforce complex issues
of copyright law?

Will you work with Rep. Boucher to repeal the parts of the
Digital Millenium Copyright Act that give computer code the
force of law and make disagreeing with it a criminal
offence?

Ask these questions of your candidates, and blog the
answers, with the appropriate tag as described below. Set up
a state blog if your state doesn't have one yet, and email
me the url. so I can link to it from here,

Find out when your candidates are addressing public
meetings, list them on your blog, go to the meetings and ask
these questions, and report back.

BlogTheVote2002 USA VA 9


Posted 12:55 AM by Kevin Marks


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Tuesday, August 27, 2002

Better source site

thegreenpapers lists the seats that are contested and links
to the candidates website very clearly.

Posted 5:34 PM by Kevin Marks

BlogTheVote - a new BlogTag

BlogTags are otherwise rare words included in weblogs to
assist google searchs for specific topics. blogchalk being
the most common. WikiBadges are similar.

I propose a new naming scheme - BlogTheVote[year][country]
as one word, then an indication of the constituency. For the
US elections this would translate to BlogTheVote2002USA
[state] [district], so If I were discussing The Coble/Grubb
race, I'd add the words BlogTheVote2002USA NC 6 to the
entry. If I were commenting on a Senatorial race, I'd leave
off the district. Then a Google search for this tag in
quotes will find all the tagged discussion of that race.

Congress.org can find your district from your zip code and
lists candidates, which is a good starting point.

Posted 8:38 AM by Kevin Marks

David Reed debunks Coble

Contradictory justifications: As I've said before, there is
no need to extend copyright to create vigilante rights.
Copyright holders can sue under the existing laws. Why
create new rights of poorly restrained vigilantism?

Posted 7:50 AM by Kevin Marks

Dear Congressman

Aaron (who can't vote either, being a minor):

Dear Congressman,

I write you today not only as a constituent, but also as a
creator and consumer of copyrighted works. I fear that the
laws being pushed by the entertainment industry are
seriously harming the public at large.

BlogTheVote2002USA

Posted 1:59 AM by Kevin Marks

Cory gets it

Boing Boing

Akamai is seeking 9-figure damages from Digital Island --
meanwhile, Digital Island is countersuing Akamai for
infringing on its patents. Ah, the sweet smell of the useful
arts and sciences being promoted by our friends at the USPTO

Posted 1:57 AM by Kevin Marks


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Monday, August 26, 2002

Aux armes, citoyens!

In the next 3 months, all the representatives of the people
will be in their home districts, campaigning, holding public
meetings, trekking from one place to another to meet their
constituents.

What if there was a 'smart mob' waiting for them at each
one?

Local constituents concerned and informed about the CBDTPA,
Coble/Berman, the DMCA and the rest.

Lets set up a tree of weblogs - a top-level campaign one,
giving the overview and highlights, then state and regional
ones for each election. Brainstorm and hone a set of
questions to ask each representative, and publish their
responses, and an endorsement/rejection. Get the meeting
attendees to bring video cameras and tape recorders and post
the Q&A sessions in video and audio too. Sign up flyposters
and canvassers. If there isn't an endorsable candidate, come
up with a write-in candidate instead.

Instead of arguing about whether programmers or lawyers are
doing more, or the details of which licence you release your
software under, sign up to the broad principles we all can
agree on - that the CBDTPA and Coble-Berman bills are an
attempt to overturn the constitution by narrow interests.

Are we likely to win any seats? Probably not. But at the end
of it, every representative will be aware of a big
constituency who don't want the entertainment industry to
have veto rights over the constitution. The DMCA was passed
unanimously. Coble-Berman mustn't be.

I am a resident alien, and don't get to vote - taxation
without representation is my lot.

You citizens need to do this - they are YOUR
representatives.

Go out there and remind them.


Posted 1:56 AM by Kevin Marks

Starting up anew

Last week I wrote a call to arms - that technologists
worried about copyright laws extension should raise the
issue diring the US elections, and that they should organise
via the web. I've posted it above. I have since discovered
that I can campaign, even if I can't vote.

Posted 1:49 AM by Kevin Marks