All the hoopla today in the news is about IRMA sending in the legal heavies against 17 irish people. I wish we had an up and running version of EFF here in Ireland so it could help set the facts straight by pointing out things like this study showing filesharing doesn’t damage music sales or point to the fact that other types of media are in decline such as Music, Television, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines and Books while Movies, Videogames and the Web are being viewed more.
This EFF style group would have been essential to combat Herr Flick sneaking in the data retention law.
If we had this EFF group they could have also come out strong against the Software Patents Fiasco and countered the Microsoft Sponsored FUD on Open Source which has ended up with the Irish Software Association trying to dig itself out of a hole. It’s shameful too that our E-Minister cannot see beyond MicroSoft’s lobbying.
Lastly as we in the BoggerSphere become more read and listened to, the more we will need our own BoggerEFF to help protect our digital rights.
[…] A while back I asked where was our EFF after once again listening to a biased, one-sided and truth bending interview with the folks from IRMA, who blamed all the woes of the record industry on piracy and those evil terrorist funding music downloaders. Today at 1715 on the Today FM’s Last Word a representative from Digital Rights Ireland is going to bring some balance to this argument. Tune in here. […]