Italian copyright law

[Stefano Maffulli]

Hi all,

>  From: Josef Dalcolmo
>
>  Ok, if there are no direct representatives (like congressmen in
>  the USA),
>  which one can contact on this issue in Italy, then one has still the
>  possibility of an open letter to the responsible polititians in the
>  appropriate newspaper. Unfortunately, my Italian is not
>  sufficient for this
>  task...

the open letter you talk about has already been written by the Associazione
Software Libero (http://www.softwarelibero.org/) and addressed to SIAE, all
major newspapers and more including a former member of the parliament
http://www.softwarelibero.org/docs/lettsiae.shtml . The main issue here
IMHO is that Italy right now does not have a parliament, we will elections
in May and before the copyright law issue can be analysed by the parliament
it may take time.

Meanwhile what we can do is keep up the buzz volume, raise consciousness of
the people in all events, conferences we participate to. We as Milano LInux
User Group (with ErLUG, too) are going the be present at the FuturShow and
we are planning to print posters saying "We can't distribute free software"
and also give away CD-W empty with the same words on.

At a European level, we could contact the Italian representatives in
Bruxelles and bug them to provoce discussion about this in the EU, too.
Don't know anybody there, though.

Regards
Stefano Maffulli
MiLUG