[DMCA-Activists] Online Demo Against Software Patents

[Seth Johnson]

(This protest action is ongoing.  The EU Parliament vote on the Software
Patent Directive is currently planned for some time in September.  More
demonstrations are planned then.  The August 27 streetside demonstration was
also very successful.)

> http://swpat.ffii.org/group/demo/index.en.html


Online Demonstration Against Software Patents

We can show our concern by physical presence as well as by more or less
gently blocking access to webpages in a concerted manner at certain times. 

     Introduction 
     Annotated Links 
     Questions, Things To Do, How you can Help

Introduction

The FFII is organizing an online demonstration against software patents. We
want you to replace the title page of your project's site with a protest
page against software patents (for examples see below) on August 27th. If
you don't want to block access to your site you can for example put a small
link on the protest page as seen in one of the examples. 

The idea is that with software patents many sites running/serving possibly
patent infringing software have to go offline sooner or later. So why not
demonstrate this effect before it's too late? 

It might be a good idea to include a link to the Petition and Call for
Action, and this demo web page, so that we can use the opportunity to
increase the number of signatures. Much of the basic introductory
information could be on your site, so as to avoid overloading of ffii.org.
Feel free to copy the title page of swpat.ffii.org onto your demo page, if
you like. 

Annotated Links

      http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/OnlineDemoPartnersWebsites 
        If you want to participate in the Online Demo, enter your website
into this wiki! 
      http://swpat.ffii.org/group/demo/demo.en.html
        Sample page that could be used to replace another web page. 
      http://swpat.ffii.org/group/demo/intro.de.html
        Another variation, more entertaining, more complicated, in German 
      http://www.bxlug.be
        Very informative, in French 
      Fabrizio Tarizzo: Protesta online contro la brevettabilità del
software (http://www.fabriziotarizzo.org/swpat.php)
        informative page in Italian 
      http://www.itanguy.org/ 
        Due to software patents, this website is not running any more 
      http://bh.udev.org/ 
        Benjamin Henrion's homepage implements yet another variant in black. 
      http://www.opensides.be/ 
        Another variant, in French 
      http://jonagold.elis.ugent.be:8080/ jonas/fpc/fpc.html 
        This one will be used at http://www.freepascal.org. 
      Aug 27 Demonstrations against EU Software Patent Plans
(http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/demo0819/index.en.html)
        The Proposal for a software patent directive, which will be
submitted to the European Parliament for plenary debate and subsequent
decision on September 1st, is giving rise to another wave of protests.
Various groups in Belgium and elsewhere are mobilising for a rally in
Brussels on August 27th and are calling on web administrators to temporarily
block their web sites.



Questions, Things To Do, How you can Help

      How you can help us end the software patent nightmare
(http://swpat.ffii.org/group/todo/index.en.html)
      Prepare a simple introductory page on software patents to put on each
site that participates. 
        We don't want masses of people to be redirected immediately to an
ffii site. It is better if most of the explaining is done on the original
site and only some optional links go out.

-- 

DRM is Theft!  We are the Stakeholders!

New Yorkers for Fair Use
http://www.nyfairuse.org

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