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Philip HuntThe digital economy versus the Digital Economy Bill
25th January 2010 23:05 | by Philip Hunt
I was at an Open Rights Group event in Edinburgh yesterday, about lobbying MPs regarding the DE Bill. One of the attendees, Hugh Hancock, pointed out that he will likely be harmed by the DE Bill, even though he is a creative person who is part of the digital economy, one of the very group of people this bill is ostensibly intended to help. (Of course, we all know that the DE is really there to protect the content distribution industry, not creative people).
So I suggested a website be created where people who create digital content and will be harmed by the DE Bill can say so. And ORG have put a page up on their wiki doing just that: it's called Digital Economy Bill: Harming Creative People.
So if you're a digital creative, and will be harmed by the DE Bill, I suggest you add yourself to the page, with a brief paragraph saying how the DE Bill will harm you. And forward the URL to your friends, so they can sign it too.
8 comments
Jan 26 2010 07:01 by JohnB
I certainly regard the Open Rights Group as a complementary organisation to ours, operating on broadly similar underlying principles, yet taking a different approach to being effective. I used to be a member of that organisation before the Pirate Party formed and I felt that direct political action once possible was a priority, in addition to the approach ORG are taking, and very likely many Pirate members are also ORG supporters.I plan to attend a similar ORG event in London next Saturday, to the one which Philip describes here; I can also report that Andrew R, Graeme L, and myself had a useful conversation with Jim Killock and another ORG campaigner following the Talk Talk parliamentary event today, where we discussed both the similarities and differences between our organisations, and given our respective aims doubtless we will continue to have contact and encounter each other in future events.
Jan 26 2010 08:01 by rancidpunk
Contact and encounters with ORG are great but I'm with Eric on this one, two plugs on our front page FFS.Can I submit blogs about the PPUK and it's issues for approval 'cos even my stuff is better than two ORG ads, a Russian TV interview and while the Oink trial was an interesting case, it hardly tells prospective voters a whole lot about the PPUK and OUR activities.
Can anyone else who wants to submit blogs and articles for the front page please do so, we desperately need new, relevant and interesting things to put on our front page. It doesn't need to be an opinion piece or anything on behalf of the party, but it can be, so get writing and send it to one of the execs to get it published.
Edit http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters ... ing_w.html a rare mention on BBC news.
Jan 26 2010 08:01 by epriezka
rancidpunk wrote: Can I submit blogs about the PPUK
Sharing is caring.
Let members submit content for blogs. Someone on the exec can give it a quick read, and if reasonable, approve it. BANG! Loads more interesting content and we're spreading the burden. So long as members are sensible and don't flip out if their content isn't approved, it's a good idea.
Sharing is caring.
Jan 26 2010 09:01 by samgower
We've gone completely off-topic here, but...If we have a press officer (is it Phillip Hunt? The wiki has said "pending replacement" since September, so I'm not sure what's going on with that) then they could be the one to approve/post blogs written by members.
Jan 26 2010 10:01 by epriezka
samgower wrote: If we have a press officer (is it Phillip Hunt? The wiki has said "pending replacement" since September, so I'm not sure what's going on with that) then they could be the one to approve/post blogs written by members.
Incredibly, we don't have a press officer. I tried to set up special teams of volunteers with limited success, including one for journos. Arguably that's not the job of a Treasurer, but I was just rolling up sleeves and getting on with it. However, nobody's cultivated the volunteers that came forward. If we had, then probably one of them would be press officer by now.
But hey, why bother with proper organization when you can just implement a forum, a wiki or an email distribution list and let everyone sort it out for themselves?
Part of the problem with this party is we have an excess of people who wrongly believe that organizational tools = organization.
Jan 26 2010 10:01 by samgower
In that case, I may volunteer (or nominate myself, should that be the case) to be press officer... Provided I can figure out what exactly I'd be volunteering for... Well, if nothing else, I'm a quick learner! 
Jan 26 2010 10:01 by cabalamat
rancidpunk wrote: Can I submit blogs about the PPUK and it's issues for approval
Of course you can John, just email the article to me or any of the other officers and we'll post it (assuming we approve, which we probably will).
Take a look at the front page of ORG. See how many times it mentions PPUK? None. How many times does our front page plug them? Twice. ORG is bigger than us, better funded than us, and has much better publicity than us. It's really quite ridiculous that the PPUK Campaigns Officer feels the need to dedicate his time and our most important communications channel to helping ORG's publicity machine. Notice how they don't waste a penny or a second helping us. So given ORG's lack of charity towards us, how about a change of approach - you tell visitors to PPUK's website what they can do to help PPUK and raise the profile of PPUK.