tim <tim at tneu.visi.com> wrote: > > Is anyone else planning on attending the protests at Adobe on Monday? > > I'm on the free-sklyarov mailing list and most cities are planning to > continue with the protest on schedule Monday. (as well they should to > raise public awareness of the DMCA). I stood out in the cold weather with you back in January of 2000, when 2600's DMCA case was new. I was disappointed by it in a certain way, because I discovered just how hard it is to stand on a corner and explain this sort of thing in 5 seconds to the folks walking or driving by. You need to be in a good location, and you need ways to draw people in to explain your ideas in more detail. That's difficult to do. Still, I was surprised to see people come up to us, and ask for a better explanation of what was going on. Many of them appreciated the difficulty, as they had participated in something in the past, a union walkout or who knows what. Too bad I was inexperienced and didn't have good answers. The 2600 protests, as I recall, were organized in two or three days. Calling them organized is a gross overstatement. I'm convinced that such short timetables are very bad for this sort of thing. If people do protest on Monday, there will need to be follow-ups. Send letters to the editor, etc. However, I think a much more effective system would work the other way around. Set a date a month or so away, and prepare to set up an educational session of sorts with a speaker or three, etc. Then, send out letters to the editor, giving people a taste of what will be said, and contact some community calendars. Educate, don't pontificate. I think the DMCA is pretty bad, and it's being invoked by organizations that are more concerned about their stock price than actually getting something out of life. It's important to spread the word, whether on the Internet, in letters, or out in public, but remember who you represent and what is involved when you spread that word. I'm not sure about this Sklyarov case, however. There seem to be some aspects to it that are much more understandable than the 2600 case or others. I don't know at this point. It's late, and I've been thinking about this too much already. -- _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ ___ _ _ __ `stressed' spelled / \/ \(_)| ' // ._\ / - \(_)/ ./| ' /(__ backward is `desserts' \_||_/|_||_|_\\___/ \_-_/|_|\__\|_|_\ __) [ Mike Hicks | http://umn.edu/~hick0088/ | mailto:hick0088 at tc.umn.edu ] -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 232 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://shadowknight.real-time.com/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20010721/a0298695/attachment.pgp