Re:I want to help, what can I do?!
on
Lawsuits Suck
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· Score: 1
Some suggestions:
1. What else can I do?
See below.
2. Who could head up an "internet users association" like we need? (possibly someone at the EFF? IEEE? ACM? A
friendly lawyer you know?)
The ACM and IEEE are probably poor choices for such an organization. They are academic and professional, and do not necessarily share our values (coercive and excessive patent issuance might very well benefit IEEE members). The EFF sounds like a good idea, but they would seriously need to alter their strategy and focus on membership.
Another possibility would be a confederation of the various conference organizers (LinuxWorld, E3, etc).
I'll call the possible organization $ORG for the purposes of this post.
3. What do we have to do to get this person (or people) to work on our behalf?
Write them, ask them. Work up a clear and specific set of suggestions, and mail away.
4. How do we get enough members to join?
5. Once we get members, how do we become an unstoppable juggernaut lobby like the NRA?
Good call. The NRA is a handy organizational model, at least for our purposes. The Christian Right, Labor Unions, and NAACP all have a certain amount of ideological and demographic purity requirements, which could not apply in our case, given our broad and contentious diversity of circumstance and opinions on roughly everything not related to brain-dead legislation on technical issues.
Members + dues = legislative muscle. Think about it for a minute. The NRA's constituency (3.5 million, I think) consists of a large number of mostly rural folks, whose incomes are likely less than the national average. They control certain rural states and rural districts of other states.
$ORG couldn't possibly have that many members, but many of us make loads of dough. Due to the lack of even potential members, we can't control many voting districts. So, money it is. Lots of it. The NRA's dues are about US$30 per year. Surely we could shell out $150/year. We'd only need 700K members (plus wealthy private benefactors, and you know who you are) to equal their fundraising. Probably more, if we could siphon off conference fees and corporate contributions (the NRA doesn't get much from firearms companies, at least according to Handgun Control, Inc., so that's a plus in our favor.)
The NRA got where it is not by fiery invective and bulletin board whining, but by providing services, certification, and information. Most of the private (and many police) hunting safety, concealed carry, and general marksmanship classes are organized under their aegis. They also organize conferences and shooting competitions. They publish several reasonably well put-together, if overly dogmatic, magazines.
We can do this. Create Linux, open standards, and network certifications outside the corporate umbrella. Recruit community college teachers. Get the conferences (and hotels and transportation associated with those conferences), game tournaments, trade publications and possibly software companies to give discounts to $ORG members. Have a handy clearinghouse of human-readable computer and technical information, along with press-(read: lowest common denominator) friendly position papers available on a website. Publish magazines (or at least newsletters) ourselves.
Lastly, $ORG would need focus, and a lack of partisanship. The NAACP has lost a considerable amount of power tying itself to various non-CP issues. The Christian Right has much the same problem, given their attacks on roughly everything from homosexuality to public schools. Labor Unions are focuesd, but overly exclusive. The NRA has kept their focus on opposing gun controls, and have been largely successful.
We need to do the same. Sure, if we follow the NRA's model, we'd wind up getting demonized as an out-of-touch bunch of misanthropes. Much like today, really. A sense of humor (which the NRA appears to utterly lack) would help, too. The J-school educated popular press have thus far displayed little analytical ability and a lack of discipline when it comes to reporting on technical subjects. Fear sells. People fear what they do not understand. Barring a sudden and dramatic improvement in the US's educational system, John Q. Random's understanding of even basic concepts like operating systems and code will be limited to what the entertainment media tells him. Our best chance for strangling things like the DMCA lies in influencing the legislature and challenging them in the courts.
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Some suggestions:
1. What else can I do?
See below.
2. Who could head up an "internet users association" like we need? (possibly someone at the EFF? IEEE? ACM? A
friendly lawyer you know?)
The ACM and IEEE are probably poor choices for such an organization. They are academic and professional, and do not necessarily share our values (coercive and excessive patent issuance might very well benefit IEEE members). The EFF sounds like a good idea, but they would seriously need to alter their strategy and focus on membership.
Another possibility would be a confederation of the various conference organizers (LinuxWorld, E3, etc).
I'll call the possible organization $ORG for the purposes of this post.
3. What do we have to do to get this person (or people) to work on our behalf?
Write them, ask them. Work up a clear and specific set of suggestions, and mail away.
4. How do we get enough members to join?
5. Once we get members, how do we become an unstoppable juggernaut lobby like the NRA?
Good call. The NRA is a handy organizational model, at least for our purposes. The Christian Right, Labor Unions, and NAACP all have a certain amount of ideological and demographic purity requirements, which could not apply in our case, given our broad and contentious diversity of circumstance and opinions on roughly everything not related to brain-dead legislation on technical issues.
Members + dues = legislative muscle. Think about it for a minute. The NRA's constituency (3.5 million, I think) consists of a large number of mostly rural folks, whose incomes are likely less than the national average. They control certain rural states and rural districts of other states.
$ORG couldn't possibly have that many members, but many of us make loads of dough. Due to the lack of even potential members, we can't control many voting districts. So, money it is. Lots of it. The NRA's dues are about US$30 per year. Surely we could shell out $150/year. We'd only need 700K members (plus wealthy private benefactors, and you know who you are) to equal their fundraising. Probably more, if we could siphon off conference fees and corporate contributions (the NRA doesn't get much from firearms companies, at least according to Handgun Control, Inc., so that's a plus in our favor.)
The NRA got where it is not by fiery invective and bulletin board whining, but by providing services, certification, and information. Most of the private (and many police) hunting safety, concealed carry, and general marksmanship classes are organized under their aegis. They also organize conferences and shooting competitions. They publish several reasonably well put-together, if overly dogmatic, magazines.
We can do this. Create Linux, open standards, and network certifications outside the corporate umbrella. Recruit community college teachers. Get the conferences (and hotels and transportation associated with those conferences), game tournaments, trade publications and possibly software companies to give discounts to $ORG members. Have a handy clearinghouse of human-readable computer and technical information, along with press-(read: lowest common denominator) friendly position papers available on a website. Publish magazines (or at least newsletters) ourselves.
Lastly, $ORG would need focus, and a lack of partisanship. The NAACP has lost a considerable amount of power tying itself to various non-CP issues. The Christian Right has much the same problem, given their attacks on roughly everything from homosexuality to public schools. Labor Unions are focuesd, but overly exclusive. The NRA has kept their focus on opposing gun controls, and have been largely successful.
We need to do the same. Sure, if we follow the NRA's model, we'd wind up getting demonized as an out-of-touch bunch of misanthropes. Much like today, really. A sense of humor (which the NRA appears to utterly lack) would help, too. The J-school educated popular press have thus far displayed little analytical ability and a lack of discipline when it comes to reporting on technical subjects. Fear sells. People fear what they do not understand. Barring a sudden and dramatic improvement in the US's educational system, John Q. Random's understanding of even basic concepts like operating systems and code will be limited to what the entertainment media tells him. Our best chance for strangling things like the DMCA lies in influencing the legislature and challenging them in the courts.