From pedro@tastytronic.net Wed, 25 Jul 2001 10:13:40 -0500 Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 10:13:40 -0500 From: Peter A. Peterson II pedro@tastytronic.net Subject: [sklyarov-chicago] Chicago Monday Recap Ok, here's the recap from Chicago in Monday. (I realize it's late now, but just so you know.) Monday morning, people arrived downtown at the plaza by the Dirksen federal building between 11:00 and 11:30. Between 20 and 25 people filtered in, including one guy who was at Grant Park in 1968 and one high-school freshman! (http://www.aaronsw.com/) We didn't chant, or march, but instead focused on hitting all the high traffic areas on the block with signs and posters. Within an hour and a half, we had passed out around 1,000 copies of the JPEG poster I made, some with press releases on the back, some with cards with representative's addresses, etc. on them, some with both. Good collaborative work from the chicago list people; almost everyone brought copies of the poster, and we had zero attention from the CPD (Gno Gnus is Good Gnus). Towards the end of the alloted time we were running out of posters so someone ran and printed up 250 more, of which we probably passed out half before it was time to go. All in all, we got a good reaction from the crowd. I had several extended conversations with people regarding the situation, and many people were genuinely concerned. We felt that most of the people we knew did not even know the DMCA existed; and so we felt that education and presence were more important that "raising hell" about an issue that nobody knew about. (Wheras this was totally appropriate in San Jose.) We did not get any press coverage, other than a lone photographer, which was a disappointment. I'm not sure why exactly, but I'm sure that part of it was that the concurrent protest at the Italian consulate regarding Genoa -- I know there were crews there. Pictures are here: http://two-bit.ufo.chicago.il.us/~pictures/ I gave some of them useful names. If anyone wants to use any of them, let me know and I'll make sure it's cool with the photographers. Regardless, we felt good about it, and many people are willing to do a second round -- I think we'll even get a better response now that Adobe has called for his release. sklyarov-chicago is still getting a few submissions a day, and a couple totally unconnected individuals have emailed their support to us. Also, regarding a second round, we'll have a lot more time to prepare, and that's good. We really liked having the jpeg on one side and info on the back, but originally, I didn't even have a URL on the poster, much less local contact info. I'm going to edit that up before I leave town tomorrow, so that people who want to add information will be welcome to do so -- it felt right to give out legislator's information wiht the posters -- in fact, it killed me that I didn't think to do that ahead of time. At this point it doesn't matter whether Adobe did that just to "wash their hands" -- in the proverbial "court of public opinion," this will put pressure back on the federal government for holding and potentially trying a political prisoner that *nobody* wants imprisoned. We are not going to focus on boycotting adobe, but again on releasing Dmitry and getting the DMCA repealed. I can't guarantee that we are going to be on for next monday, but that information will unfold as today and tomorrow roll along. Thanks to everyone who participated in Chicago and around the world, as well as to the EFF for their work in the lawyer pit of the legal arena. Free Dmitry, pedro -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- FREE DMITRY SKLYAROV -- FBI has imprisioned a Russian software engineer for promoting and teaching the concept of "fair use". Read more: http://www.eff.org/alerts/20010719_eff_sklyarov_alert.html
From pedro@tastytronic.net Wed, 25 Jul 2001 14:41:08 -0500 Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 14:41:08 -0500 From: Peter A. Peterson II pedro@tastytronic.net Subject: [sklyarov-chicago] Chicago Update: from the legal point of view... Hi all, I have a friend who is currently in law school and is sympathetic to Dmitry's cause as well as being anti-DMCA. He sent along some documents that I don't have time to read right now, but I thought I'd pass them along. If you think they're useful, I encourage you to use them (or contact the authors and use them) in defining your position and/or creating literature to use in your further protests. They are available at: http://two-bit.ufo.chicago.il.us/free-sklyarov/ Free Dmitry, pedro ----- Forwarded message from "Werling, Kristian" <Werling.Kristian@rosshardies.com> ---- Pete- I dug up two articles from an online legal service about copyrights in general and the DMCA. The DMCA article is by Barb Samuelson, a leading IP and DMCA expert. These articles are from law reviews which are generally pretty technical legal writing. They aren't a really good short introduction, but it's the best I could come up with for now. I had a great professor this past semester in a class called "Cyberlaw." We spent a good bit of time on the DMCA and its negative aspects. I e-mailed the prof to ask him about good intros for a layperson to both copyright and the DMCA. Hopefully he can point out something good. Feel free to forward those articles to whoever, I didn't know if you would want to throw them out on the mailing list or not. Keep up the good work. Some interesting conversation on the list. I'm enjoying it. Krist ----- End forwarded message ----- -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- FREE DMITRY SKLYAROV -- FBI has imprisioned a Russian software engineer for promoting and teaching the concept of "fair use". Read more: http://www.eff.org/alerts/20010719_eff_sklyarov_alert.html