[FS-UK-announce] Some Quick Thoughts on Strategy (read before IRC if poss.)

[Julian T. J. Midgley]

NB: If you are pressed for time, the agenda for tonight's IRC meeting is
at the bottom of this email.


I thought I'd quickly update everyone on some plans I've been coming up
with for the long term strategy of the Campaign for Digital Rights:

At the IRC meeting last week, it was decided that the CDR should
concentrate on the following:

1. Campaigning re EUCD to ensure that it is enacted in a form that is as
"harmless" as possible.

2. Continuing to hold demonstrations/other events in support of Dmitry
Sklyarov (our original purpose).

3. Develop a useful resource site and campaign on the Copy Protected CD
issue, since we appear to be ahead of any others on this, most of us seem
to care strongly about it, and it is an excellent way to get the general
public thinking about the consequences of EUCD style legislation.

At present, the CD Task Force established last week is working hard on 3.
above; background research on 1. continues (and 3.'s activities are at
least vaguely related to 1.), whilst our effort on 2. has been limited to
noting when Dmitry's next court appearance will be.

Over the next fortnight, I would like to put the framework in place to
allow as to tackle all three of the above simultaneously; some thoughts on
how to do this follow.

Each of the three activities above involve the following functions (to
differing degrees in each case) (and in no particular order):

a. Background research (inc. legal) and 'analysis generation'
b. Website maintenance/update
c. Press liaison and publicity (inc. generation of press releases)
d. System administration/maintenance.
e. Organising 'visible' campaigns (demonstrations, leafletting,
conferences, etc).

Some of these functions are easily centralised (b. and d. in particular)
(ie.  the same group of people can perform those functions for all three
primary activites (1,2,3 above)).  Others will benefit from having
independent teams specialising in a particular function for a particular
activity.  (eg. separate research teams for EUCD and the CD issue).

Therefore I propose that we form some new "task forces" or teams who will
concentrate on performing a. c. and e. for the EUCD and Sklyarov issues.

Alan Cox pointed out at the last IRC meeting that the most effective way
to ensure success in the UK on the EUCD is to target industry, encouraging
representatives of companies to submit their concerns about the EUCD to
the patent office during its forthcoming consultation period.  To do this,
the EUCD team will need to have several members who have (or have time to
establish) contacts with relevant industry associations and individual
companies.  They will probably also benefit from conducting their
activities under a different name, since many in business will immediately
dismiss communications from an organisation which has both "Campaign" and
"Rights" in its title.

I am not proposing that the CDR change its name, merely that we seriously
consider spawning a loosely connected group acting under a more
respectable title whose explicit goal is to target industry.

Looking at the free software world for inspiration, it seems that the CDR
would benefit from adopting some semi-formal structure along the lines of
the Debian organisation, to allow us to tackle all three goals
simultaneously.  It's probably time to create some new mailing lists - the
CD issue is big enough that it deserves its own, and dedicated lists for
the EUCD and Sklyarov would likely be sensible too.


I think the above would form a useful subject for discussion at tonight's
IRC meeting, and so propose the following agenda (not least because I
don't want to accidentally drive the CDR in a direction that the rest of
the campaign disagrees with):


Agenda for IRC meeting to be held on 3.10.2001.
-----------------------------------------------

1. Motion: "The CDR should form independent teams to tackle the separate
issues of CD Copy Protection, the EUCD, and the Dmitry Sklyarov case".
  - Discussion, followed by a vote (email votes (send to
jtjm@uk.eurorights.org) from those unable to attend are welcome, and will
be accepted until noon on Saturday- feel free to make points on the
mailing list if you can't make tonight's discussion.)

2. Quick check for volunteers for the EUCD and Sklyarov teams.

3. Final plans for Saturday's "Day of Action" on CDs.  (Inc. any late
breaking news from the research team):

4. AOB

As ever, the IRC meeting will be held at 2000 tonight:

Server: slashnet.org
Port: 6667
Channel: #sklyarov-uk    (make sure to check spelling)

All the best,

Julian

-- 
Julian T. J. Midgley                      http://www.xenoclast.org/
Cambridge, England.                          PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F
Beware the European Copyright Directive:  http://uk.eurorights.org/