Re: [Patents] Re: FFII: Brussels 2004-04-14 Events

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> > [...]. And I am 
> > convinced that if the European Commission received +100,000 postcards 
> > (or letters) from everywhere in Europe, the media coverage would be 
> > incomparably greater that the one due to a demonstration with a 
> > few hundreds people.
> > 
> 
> But that did already happen (well, 1% of that) in the CEC consultation 
> years ago... only the thousand odd answers weren't from the "economic 
> majoriy",
> but from the "majoritary majority". There were press releases back then.

Some of the info should be available through

        http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eukonsult00/

Note that even in this official consultation the response rate to our 
mailing was between 1 and 5 percent, and it would be much lower for a 
postcard action.  And then, even if we had 100k postcards arriving in
Brussels, that would be like sending them into a dustbin.  Journalists
wouldn't even know about it.
 
> I for one have already explained to CEC my opinion by letter in the 
> context where I think was more appropiate, a consultation, and I don't 
> think 
> I have to send them anything else. The CEC officials are (remotely) put 
> there by the people, so it is now time to tell the public they've kept 
> refusing to listen. 

Indeed a demo is intended for reaching out to the media and the public at
large.

People know that putting a few hundred people on the streets for such
issues as patents is not easy.  The phenomenon fascinated some journalists
how enjoyed the unlikely juxtaposition of the words "patent" and "riots".

If you can get a few 100 people on the streets of many European cities, 
then people do start believing that you may have a few 100k supporters in 
virtual reality.

There are some Wiki pages for working on other cities

        http://kwiki.ffii.org/DemoLisboa0405Pt
        http://kwiki.ffii.org/DemoBerlin0405De
        http://kwiki.ffii.org/DemoMadrid0405Es

etc and you can of course create yours and get an associated static page.

As far as postcards are concerned, distributing a series of
http://webshop.ffii.org/ postcards with pre-printed recipient addresses
(not so much CEC as national MPs and other interested people in politics
and media who might help us) at trade fairs might make a difference.

But here again, we need people helping with address collection on pages 
such as

        http://kwiki.ffii.org/SwpatdeDe
        http://kwiki.ffii.org/SwpatfrFr
        http://kwiki.ffii.org/SwpatesEs

etc, and with the pr materials work as outlined in

        http://plone.ffii.org/prmat/

This is certainly not an action that can be completed in 1/2 hour.  And if 
there is an action that can be completed in 1/2 hour, then many of the 
300k signatories will perceive any notification about such an action as
spam.  People help only when there is an organised effort by which a lot
of work has already been done for them and they just have to add the last 
touches.

Again, this is largely offtopic here, and if you want to pursue the topic, 
then follow the steps outlined at

        http://swpat.ffii.org/group/todo/

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
300,000 votes 2000 firms against software patents    http://noepatents.org/