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Demonstration Against Software Patents in Europe

Posted by michael on from the fighting-the-good-fight dept.

bram.be writes "On April 14, FFII is organising a walking demonstration in Brussels against the legalisation of software patents in Europe, as well as a legislation benchmarking conference. Like in August last year, these events will be accompanied by an online demonstration whereby webmasters are asked to close their websites in protest. The reason for the renewed protest is that after the European Parliament voted for a great directive, it is now the Council of Minister's turn, whose working party proposes as 'compromise' to simply discard all good amendments and on top of that to even make program publication an infringement. Already more then 1300 sites participate in the online demonstration. Among them are some big sites like KDE, the GNU Project and the Gimp. Also, on April 15 the European Greens/EFA group is organising a Euro-LUG party inside the European Parliament, 'with a view to enhance the networking among the free software community in Europe [...], to inform the EP about what free software is, how it works and which ideas lie behind.' Speakers will include Gwen Hinze (EFF), Jon Lech Johansen (DeCSS), Georg Greve (FSF Europe and Alan Cox. Prior registration is mandatory for this event."

2 of 374 comments (clear)

  1. Re:My favorite arguement against is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    >When put in those terms the rediculousness of the idea becomes obvious.

    Firstly, learn how to spell.
    Secondly, these losers aren't against patenting the obvious, they're against patents per se.

    I suggest they stop patent protection of all European companies and make freely available all intellectual property of:
    a) European pharmaceutical companies
    b) European car companies
    c) European software companies (SAP, etc.)

    If they can do that, victim companies will go bust soon(er) and there'll be less tax money to support left-wing deadbeats like these activists, which will hopefully help us get rid of their presence.

  2. Re:Oh great, another week of broken web sites by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    If you really want to convince ME and other people who will be involved in IP litigation, lobbying, and IP issues in general, stop the villifying and start thinking rationally about how you can actually protect intellectual property while still preventing high transaction costs to software development.

    Thats the same arrogance the internal markets commissioner displayed, we don't need to convince you or the patent lobby. We have convinced the EU parliament to place explicit limits on patentability. I find your arrogance especially insulting when you deride software patent proponents as marxists and then tell them to stop "the villifying". Evidence presented on /. and the ffii has more substance the the enless unsupported dogma of the pro-patent lobby. You can repeat things as often as you like, they don't become any more true.

    lawyers and others certainly have their vested interests

    Lawyers do not produce wealth, they are a by-product of a wealthy society and society cannot afford these rediculous demands.

    journalists even try not to plagiarize

    Copyright protection and patent law have virtually NOTHING in common, you would know this if you were not just a troll.

    The patent lobby was told very clearly what EU citizens would find acceptable. That will be all.