[DotGNU]CFP: NY Fair Use Meeting, Sunday April 13, 2003

[Seth Johnson]

(Not to disrupt anything -- I know this might have the appearance of being a
bit off topic at this stage of the DotGNU project.  However, for any of you
who might be in the New York area this Sunday, take note.  I ow return to
lurkdom.  :-)  -- Seth)


New Yorkers for Fair Use Call for Participation
-----------------------------------------------

New Yorkers for Fair Use will meet this Sunday, 13 April 2003 at 6:00 pm, at
the Gyro Place and Bagel and Pizza Joint across the street from Cooper
Union, at Astor Place, that is, Eighth Street/St Marks and Third Avenue. The
Lexington Avenue subway line has a stop at Astor Place.  The Gyro Place is
about one half block east of the stop.  Look in the back for us.

The struggle for information freedom continues.  Volunteers are needed!

Today special interests grossly abuse copyright law in large scale attacks
on private ownership of computers, and on free private, tribal, business,
and public use of the Net.  The effective defense of these fundamental
rights of all human beings requires the ongoing and disciplined work of
dedicated individuals.  The special interests have money and lobbyists, but
they are no match for serious, coordinated organizing and action.  And all
their money and all their lobbyists cannot elect one member of Congress or
one Senator, if we build a movement that clearly communicates what the
stakes are to the voters and the public, the true stakeholders in these
policy decisions.

This meeting will be an opportunity to find out more about us, to see what
we are doing and to volunteer to help in the struggle.

We are recruiting volunteers to conduct outreach tactics on the street, by
phone, via online and offline press and other forums, to write as issues
commentators, and to take up administrative and promotional production
roles.  We encourage other groups to mobilize just as we are, and we will
provide support and training to help hit the ground running.


New Yorkers for Fair Use has had a number of successes in recent months:

- We played an important role in mobilizing the large number of public
comments (6,138 to date) which the FCC has received in response to its
proposal to allow Hollywood to set the rules for how digital television
recording devices may function (the "broadcast flag" proposal).  This
campaign included several months of street and phone outreach and a
successful online press outreach the weekend of Thanksgiving break prior to
the final week of the public comments period -- resulting in thousands of
comments being submitted in the final five days.

http://www.nyfairuse.org/action/fcc.flag


- Joining with NYLXS, we stood up at a crucial meeting among major old world
infotainment industry representatives which had been called at the
Department of Commerce for the purposes of addressing how to accomplish
digital restrictions management.  We declared in no uncertain terms that the
public were the stakeholders in this matter, and that government-mandated
universal content control would be an act of theft from the public on an
unprecedented scale.  This action, coming only a couple of weeks after
Microsoft announced their Palladium project, effectively prevented the
establishment of a precedent for government-mandated content control which
the meeting had threatened to create.

http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/07/18/0155208.shtml


- We helped rally constituencies to oppose the W3C's proposal to allow web
standards to be patented and to allow the imposition of royalties for their
use.

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpolicy-comment


- We have initiated a boycott to stop Palladium and TCPA before software is
released that uses these systems to allow others to control what we can do
on our own computers.

http://www.nyfairuse.org/action/palladium


These continuing successes are the direct result of the efforts of skilled
volunteers who have taken up key roles in the fight.  We recognize that we
are taking on formidable forces, and we intend to expand the strength of the
movement.  We need volunteers to take up roles in the movement, to build our
strength, to defend what we now hold, and to attack on many fronts.

Come on down this Sunday and join us!


Seth Johnson
Corresponding Secretary
New Yorkers for Fair Use

-- 

DRM is Theft!  We are the Stakeholders!

New Yorkers for Fair Use
http://www.nyfairuse.org

[CC] Counter-copyright: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/cc.html

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