[cumbria_lug] [Fwd: [lugmaster] Union for the Public Domain]

[Schwuk]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [lugmaster] Union for the Public Domain
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 00:15:58 +0000
From: Alasdair G Kergon <agk at lug.org.uk>
Reply-To: A closed discussion list for UK LUGMasters. 
<lugmaster at mailman.lug.org.uk>
To: lugmaster at mailman.lug.org.uk

----- Forwarded message from Apache <enquire at lug.org.uk> -----

Name: David Tannenbaum
Job: Coordinator
Company: Union for the Public Domain
Telephone: +44 7816 392 758
Email: davidt at public-domain.org
Subject: Help need to build tools for online organizing
Message: Dear LUGmasters, would it be possible to post this to the LUG 
lists? (It has already been printed to the OxLUG list.)
==============================

Hi all,

I've just started working with an organization called the Union for the 
Public Domain that is organizing to preserve the public domain in a 
broad range of sectors. We are creating tools tools for online 
organizing, and I was wondering if anyone on this list might be 
interested in helping? We are primarily using Perl and MySQL and could 
use help from folks who have experience in those areas.

The Union for the Public Domain (UPD) is a non-profit membership 
organization whose mission is to protect and enhance the public domain 
in matters concerning intellectual property. UPD has a very broad 
mission and we plan to work on a whole swathe of issues, from software, 
to access to textbooks, to webcasting, to essential medicines. There are 
a lot of groups working on these issues now, but they rarely leverage 
each other's power in numbers. We are hoping to build some coordination.

The other goal is to broaden the circle of activists working on IP, to 
include the more general public, which is affected by IP law and threats 
to the public domain, but doesn't really understand either enough to 
care (yet). We want to make the issues palatable so people understand 
them, and create a "politics of IP," much like there is now a politics 
of environmentalism.

The board of directors as it stands now includes Richard Stallman, Jamie 
Love, who runs a group called the Consumer Project on Technology, Robin 
Gross of IP Justice and Robert Weissman. The group was first started 
approximately 8 years ago, but has been dormant for nearly as long, and 
I've been hired part-time to restart it. We need all the help we can get.

We have a website (http://www.public-domain.org) and a listserve, but 
not much else at this point. We want to be as creative as possible in 
using online tools to mobilize the grassroots, and we want to have 
things up and running so we can mobilize opposition to the worst parts 
of the international broadcasting treaty this spring. The proponents of 
the treaty are seeking to give webcasters copyright over public domain 
material simply by webcasting it, among other things. The most pressing 
projects are:

- Setting up a database of members, volunteers, media outlets, allies, 
that would be accessible via a web interface, and could do things like 
generate action alerts to members based on their geographical location 
and other relevant characteristics. We are likely to use Perl and MySQL 
to do this.

- Setting up tools that let people send an e-mail to the relevant 
"target" (their EU representative; WIPO country delegate, etc).

- Setting up a mechanism for accepting donations, whether that means 
going through a third party or processing them ourself.

All of the resulting software, scripts, etc, will be free.

If anyone is interested in collaborating on these projects, you can 
e-mail me off list at davidt[at]public-domain.org. I'm based in the UK 
and would love to meet people in person, though e-mail is of course good 
too.


Yours,
David

-- 
David Tannenbaum
Coordinator
Union for the Public Domain
davidt[at]public-domain.org
+44 (0)7816 392 758
http://www.public-domain.org
____________________________________________________________

----- End forwarded message -----


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