(Forwarded from Software Patents list. Hartmut is pitching for volunteers. Let's take off with this. -- Seth)
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Patents] howto help immunise the media Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 20:06:21 +0200 (CEST) From: Hartmut Pilch phm@a2e.de To: patents@aful.org
Also, we need as exact as possible a transcript of the monday jury session. McCarthy, Rothley and a few others made statements which we need make quotable for journalists. We only have Rothley ready so far.
Those who want to talk to journalists can send a short text based on the following template. If you need further help in reaching out to the media or want to supply others with media contacts (even phone numbers gathered from websites), please write to
media at ffii org
When first contacting a journal and you don't have any good text yourself, use something like the following:
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Dear Sir
On June 30th a far reaching decision is scheduled to be taken at the European Parliament. Europe stands to lose much of its freedom and productivity to a small but highly active group of owners of illegal patents. The press release which you find below/attached explains you the details. They are quite different from what leading politicians will tell you. Since few poeple understand questions of software and patents, misinformation campaigns in this field pay off. But so does writing of well-researched articles. We are trying to put all the materials at your fingertip at
Please mail to us or to media at ffii org if you need further assistance.
Yours sincerely
<!--#include signature.txt -->
<!--#exec lynx -dump http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/juri0317/ -->
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Also call the people by phone a few hours after having sent the this text and try to find out who might be interested and send this info to media at ffii org.
If you have some experience in the swpat case or in media work, you can also be one of the coaches at media at ffii org. We need people to volunteer with this. After some initial trials, we may procede to mobilise our supporters more systematically.
To write instructions or usable pieces, use your own website or a wiki, such as
or the swpat section on
as much as possible.
I also need help with documentation
At
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/juri0304/
you find some of the details (e.g. how many for, how many against each amendment) I obtained from the protocols of the sound recordings pointed to at
http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/juri0617/
but these are far from complete.
It would be particularly helpful to know how many (and possibly) who supported COMP-1 (compromise amendment 1).
The recordings contain some speeches from which we need to supply exact quotes to journalists. Protocols of this would be extremely helpful. I don't have an mp3/ogg system and many other people either don't or won't take the time to use it.