Perhaps you've been admiring our range of handsome t-shirts, hoodies and bags for some time, but you haven't yet got round to buying one?

Well, delay no longer! Shipping is free this weekend, 30th July to 1st August, on all items from our SpreadShirt store.

Tomorrow, the 30th July, is the deadline for submitting responses to OFCOM about their consultation on the Initial Obligations Code for the Digital Economy Act (DEA).

The draft Code that was sent out for consultation has several serious flaws, not least  of which is its failure to put in place an effective scheme to ensure the reliability and transparency of evidence-collection used in the process of issuing Copyright Infringement Reports.

If you haven't yet responded to consultation, please do! We strongly recommend that you take a couple of hours to draft and submit a response, even if only a brief one! Some resources that may be useful in preparing your response include:

• The consultation documents themselves on the OFCOM website.
• A discussion of some of the problems with the draft Code from the Open Rights Group.
• Our ongoing series of blog posts explaining what the DEA is and how it works.
• The official Pirate Party UK response that we're currently drafting.

We're still in the process of finalising our response, so even if you don't have time to write a response of your own, we'd still appreciate your help finishing drafting ours. Check out the forum thread to see how you can get involved.

Related to the DEA, supporters in the Nottingham area may be interested in attending "Digital Economy Act On Trial," a Nottingham Tuttle club event taking place at the Galleries of Justice Museum cafe in the evening of the same day, Friday 30th July. It sounds like a very interesting event, and should be a great opportunity to meet legal experts and talk to the about the DEA. For more information, visit the Nottingham Tuttle Club website.

At ORGCON this weekend we launched our new and improved general campaigning flyer. Thanks to the hard work of Andrew Tindall, the Member Communications Officer, we now have a fantastic design, including amazing and innovative features such as spelling, grammar, and a striking blue background.

This time, the design revolves around the idea that although the Pirate Party UK's manifesto is based around a small set of core principles, our ideals can be put into practice in many policy areas. In response to feedback we got from the first round of flyers earlier this year, we've printed these on a heavier-weight grade of card. We've also subsidised the cost of the flyers and improved the packaging, so getting hold of some high-quality Pirate publicity postcards has never been so easy.

In order to simplify the ordering process (and make things easier for the poor person who has to package them up and send them out, i.e. me) we're only offering one pack size this time around. Each pack of 450 flyers costs £5.50 including postage and packaging, and will be delivered within 7 working days.

Order yours today!

The Open Rights Group, a UK lobbying organisation that has similar aims to those of the Pirate Party, is holding its conference in London this coming Saturday, the 24th July. We've been given a slot at the end of the day, in which I'm going to be giving a short talkand Q&A about why ORG supportrs should also support the Pirate Party. However, I'm going to need some help during the day to hand out flyers and persuade people that they should come along to our session instead of going straght to the pub -- because I'm sure that going to the pub will be very tempting after a long hard day at a conference! If you're going to be at ORGCON this coming weekend and can give me a hand, please get in touch with me ASAP.

Often, people respond with incredulity when we explain our political objectives. "What? You want to promote sharing? On the Internet? No-one who actually produces creative works would possibly support that!" Well, no, you see, that's not actually true. Enter Joe Konrath, a prolific US author. I recently came across his blog, and thought that you might appreciate his explanation of why fighting piracy is not only futile, but quite likely counterproductive.