[p2p-research] Fwd: [fcf_discussion] Free Culture Ireland & The Free Culture Forum

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kevin Flanagan <kev.flanagan at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 9:12 AM
Subject: [fcf_discussion] Free Culture Ireland & The Free Culture Forum
To: fcforum_discussion at list.fcforum.net,
free-culture-ireland at googlegroups.com


Hello Everybody,

I'm writing to bring those of you interested up to date on events in
Ireland.
Following the UPC ruling it seems the music industry and in particular
Paul McGuinness U2's manager has had the ear of the Senate where the
issue of filesharing was subsequently raised and debated.
http://www.kildarestreet.com/sendebates/?id=2010-11-11.120.0
The Irish Government seems to see its role more as a mediator between
the business interests of ISPs and the Music Industry then as a
guardian of peoples privacy and freedoms. A number of citizen bloggers
including myself wrote to Senators. One of which was read to the
record by Senator Brendan Ryan. A copy of my own letter can be found
on my blog https://kevflanagan.wordpress.com/

Having written to all the members of the Senate I received replies from 3.

Senator Ciaran Canon responded that he will continue to support the
music industry until "those who are anxious to allow free and
unfettered access to the internet can come up with some mechanism for
protecting artists"

Senator Ivana Bacik said "I share your concerns about the potential
criminalising of music fans for file sharing, and about the need for
the music industry to look at different models for enabling the
downloading of music over the internet instead of just clamping down
heavily in the '3 strikes' style of response."

I sent a 2nd letter which included links to research on filesharing
which I want to thank Jérémie and everyone who put it together at La
Quadrature its a great resource
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Studies_on_file_sharing_eng

Following this I received correspondence from Senator David Norris who
seemed to be most active and vocal in raising the issue of filesharing
in Senate and he said the following -

"With regard to Neelie Kroes who you quote in your last paragraph I
have no difficulty what ever with that. It seems a very sensible view.
I am happy to continue to be briefed by you although I am not sure
what is going to happen now in these very difficult political times.
It is unlikely that there will be major concentration on this
particular aspect of things."

So the battle is not yet lost and it seems the crisis in the politics
of this country has bought us some time to organise.
I've started a mailing list for this purpose - Free Culture Ireland

https://groups.google.com/group/free-culture-ireland

So far it is just a small group but I'm counting on the principle that
if you build it they will come.
It would be great if you could share this link with anyone you think
might be interested.
On the list description I've linked directly to the Charter and
encourage all new members to read it.

Also there has been some interesting movement in the whole area of
Open Data here
As we were meeting in Barcelona a group got together and set up

https://groups.google.com/group/open-data-ireland

There was a http://scraperwiki.com/ hackathon in Dublin and this
Saturday the 4th in collaboration with http://www.deri.ie/ my local
hackerspace http://www.091labs.com will be hosting a hackathon for
international Open Data Day.

So lots happening
Ok its late time to switch off

Sorry I've taken so long to get in touch
It was lovely to meet so many of you in Barcelona
You gave me lots of energy and inspiration

Wishing you all the best

Kevin Flanagan

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