[Fwd: Outreach Volunteers Needed - Content Control is a Dead End]
Forwarded message:
>
> I'm sending this because I am looking for concerned individuals who
> understand the importance of the following cause:
>
>
> Content control is a dead end.
>
> The legal tradition in copyright has always drawn a distinction between
> facts and ideas on one hand, which nobody can own; and expression on the
> other hand, which is what has been allowed to be copyrighted. The thing
> is, data elements are facts, whether they are part of an expressive work
> or not. Free speech, the use of information and the very purpose of
> copyright are being revised by publishers and other "content"
> stakeholders by means of "content" control measures, such as the
> American Digital Millennium Copyright Anticircumvention Act, and the
> provisions of the international TRIPS treaty.
>
> Currently, a Russian citizen, Dmitry Sklyarov, is being prosecuted for
> felony charges under the DMCA, for work he did in developing software
> that decrypts the Adobe e-Book.
>
> The Copyright Clause in the US Constitution is geared toward allowing
> Congress to grant artificial monopolies ("exclusive Right" for "limited
> Times" to "Writings and Discoveries") in order to "promote the Progress
> of Science and useful Arts." It does not grant copyright as a natural
> right, and it does not provide for the superseding of free speech by
> this power of Congress.
>
> Do you agree that content control must not be allowed to enable
> copyright to supersede our free speech right to process and distribute
> information?
>
> We need outreach volunteers and coordinators who wish to help get the
> word out about what is going on, and to build the constituency of those
> who are affected by these developments.
>
> If you agree that content control must not be allowed to enable
> copyright to supersede free speech rights, then please contact me, or
> subscribe to the C-FIT Content Control Outreach discussion list by
> sending an email saying "subscribe C-FIT_Release_Community" to
> ListServ@realmeasures.dyndns.org.
>
> Seth Johnson
> seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org
>
> Information Producers Initiative Basic Position Statement:
> http://realmeasures.dyndns.org/C-FIT/Theory1.htm
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