players civil society

Riferimenti ai comitati di lotta, alle associazioni della società civile e alle organizzazioni professionali

GRASSROOT ASSOCIATIONS

Comitati di lotta e ssociazioni della societa’ civile che affrontano uno o piu’ aspetti dei temi dei “diritti di proprieta’ intellettuale”, privacy, diritti civili sulla rete, privatizzazione della conoscenza e dei beni comuni, etc…

Indymedia Italia Informazioni in categoria diritti digitali http://italy.indymedia.org/features/cyber/

Indymedia e' un network di media gestiti collettivamente per una narrazione radicale, obiettiva e appassionata della verita'. Ci impegniamo con amore e ispirazione per tutte quelle persone che lavorano per un mondo migliore, a dispetto delle distorsioni dei media che con riluttanza si impegnano a raccontare gli sforzi dell'umanita' libera" (dalla presentatione americana).Indymedia ha rappresentato una rottura nel mediascape nord-americano ed ora si appresta a fare lo stesso anche in Italia, ultimo nodo ad aggiungersi al suo network internazionale. Nato per esigenze di copertura mediatica di un evento che i media rischiavano di deformare, le proteste di Seattle contro il WTO, Indymedia ha dimostrato possibile grazie a internet la creazione di mass media dal basso, autogestiti, non-profit e indipendenti dai media istituzionali e commerciali.

Indimedia global network http://www.indymedia.org/

The Independent Media Center is a network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth. We work out of a love and inspiration for people who continue to work for a better world, despite corporate media's distortions and unwillingness to cover the efforts to free humanity.

History
The Independent Media Center, was established by various independent and alternative media organizations and activists in 1999 for the purpose of providing grassroots coverage of the World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle. The center acted as a clearinghouse of information for journalists, and provided up-to-the-minute reports, photos, audio and video footage through its website. Using the collected footage, the Seattle Independent Media Center (seattle.indymedia.org) produced a series of five documentaries, uplinked every day to satellite and distributed throughout the United States to public access stations.

The center also produced its own newspaper, distributed throughout Seattle and to other cities via the internet, as well as hundreds of audio segments, transmitted through the web and Studio X, a 24-hour micro and internet radio station based in Seattle. The site, which uses a democratic open-publishing system, logged more than 2 million hits, and was featured on America Online, Yahoo, CNN, BBC Online, and numerous other sites. Through a decentralized and autonomous network, hundreds of media activists setup independent media centers in London, Canada, Mexico City, Prague, Belgium, France, and Italy. IMCs have since been established on every continent, with more to come.

Hipatia - Free knowledge in action for the people of the world http://www.hipatia.info/

Software without borders. Knowledge without frontiers, that is Hipatia. We strive to have free knowledge, in action for towns and villages of the world.
Hipatia came up as a spontaneous coordination of people from all around the world that share a vision and a goal. And the vision is to have a global knowledge society based on freedom, equity and solidarity. Manifesto of Hipatia outlines this vision in detail.

Hipatia people want to:

promote freedom of (and free sharing of) knowledge, as is the right of all human beings to access, use, create, modify and distribute knowledge freely and openly;
realize, favour and/or promote the sustainable diffusion of human knowledge.

To make this goals reality hipatia people promote:

public policies, human and social behaviours and outlook that favour free accessible, sustainable and sociable technology and knowledge;
solidarity in the use of knowledge in the framework of an economical and social model built on the principal of equality of all human beings in all the countries of the world.

Hipatia - Conoscenza libera in azione per i popoli del mondo

Software senza frontiere. Conoscenza senza frontiere, questa è Hipatia. Lottiamo per la conoscenza libera, in azione per città e villaggi del mondo.
Hipatia nasce dal coordinamento spontaneo di persone da tutto il mondo che hanno una visione e obiettivi in comune. La visione e di avere una società della conoscenza globale basata sulla libertà , equità e solidarietà .
Il Manifesto di Hipatia spiega in dettaglio questa visione.

Le persone di Hipatia vogliono:

promuovere la libertà e la condivisione della conoscenza, èun diritto di tutti gli esseri umani l'accesso, l'uso, la creazione, modificazione e distribuzione;
favorire e/o promuovere la diffusione della conoscenza umana.

Per raggiungere questi obiettivi la gente di Hipatia promuove:

politiche pubbliche, comportamenti umani e sociali che favoriscano l'accesso libero, sociale e sostenibile alla tecnologia e conoscenza;
solidarietà nell'uso della conoscenza in nell'ambito di un modello economico e sociale basato sul principio di equità di tutti gli esseri umani in tutti i paesi del mondo.

http://www.publicknowledge.org/

Public Knowledge is a new public-interest advocacy organization dedicated to fortifying and defending a vibrant information commons. This Washington, D.C. based group works with wide spectrum of stakeholders—libraries, educators, scientists, artists, musicians, journalists, consumers, software programmers, civic groups and enlightened businesses—to promote the core conviction that some fundamental democratic principles and cultural values—openness, access, and the capacity to create and compete—must be given new embodiment in the digital age.

Public Knowledge will seek to fulfill four broad goals:

Ensuring that U.S. intellectual property law and policy reflect the "cultural bargain" intended by the framers of the constitution: providing an incentive to creators and innovators while benefiting the public through the free flow of information and ideas.
Preserving an Internet that is built upon open standards and protocols and "end-to-end" architecture, thereby fostering innovation and user control.
Protecting consumers of digital technology from market practices designed to erode competition, choice and fairness.
Ensuring that international intellectual property policies are adopted through democratic processes and with public interest participation.

and Public Domain Enhancement Act http://eldred.cc/
This site serves as the focal point for information about the campaign to restore balance to copyright laws by expanding the public domain. Founded as part of Eldred v. Ashcroft, the legal action to overturn the Copyright Term Extension Act (Phase I), it now houses all the documents from that case, as well as new and up-to-date information about advocacy efforts to reclaim the public domain through legislation.

Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure http://www.ffii.org/ http://noepatents.org/

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a non-profit association registered in Munich, which is dedicated to the spread of data processing literacy. FFII supports the development of public information goods based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 300 members, 700 companies and 50,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions in the area of exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing.

Mission: FFII want

to make basic informational resources freely usable
to protect the creator against the plagiator and the public against monopolies
to give political weight to programmers, information-creating enterpreneurs and informationally literate citizens

http://www.zmag.org/italy/index.htm Znet.it ; http://www.zmag.org/ Znet - ZMagazine

Le pagine di ZNet-it offrono la traduzione di una esigua selezione del materiale presente sul sito della rivista Z Magazine, ZNet.

Z Magazine è una rivista politica indipendente che sviluppa un pensiero critico della vita politica, culturale, sociale ed economica degli Stati Uniti. Al centro di questo pensiero è la considerazione che le dimensioni razziale, sessuale, politica e di appartenenza di classe sono le chiavi per la comprensione ed il miglioramento delle condizioni della vita contemporanea. Z Magazine si propone inoltre di contribuire concretamente agli sforzi degli attivisti per un futuro migliore.

http://creativecommons.org/

"Some Rights Reserved": Building a Layer of Reasonable Copyright

Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control — a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which "all rights reserved" (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy — a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation.
Balance, compromise, and moderation — once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally — have become endangered species.

Creative Commons is working to revive them.
We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare "some rights reserved."

Thus, a single goal unites Creative Commons' current and future projects: to build a layer of reasonable, flexible copyright in the face of increasingly restrictive default rules.

Creative Commons was founded in 2001 with the generous support of the Center for the Public Domain. It is led by a Board of Directors that includes cyberlaw and intellectual property experts James Boyle, Michael Carroll, Molly Shaffer Van Houweling, and Lawrence Lessig, MIT computer science professor Hal Abelson, lawyer-turned-documentary filmmaker-turned-cyberlaw expert Eric Saltzman, renowned documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, noted Japanese entrepreneur Joi Ito, and public domain web publisher Eric Eldred.

Fellows and students at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School helped get the project off the ground. Creative Commons is now housed at and receives generous support from Stanford Law School, where Creative Commons shares space, staff, and inspiration with the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society. The Board oversees a small administrative staff and technical team, and is advised by a Technical Advisory Board. Creative Commons is sustained by the contributions of a growing group of supporters.

http://www.eff.org/

If America's founding fathers had anticipated the digital frontier, there would be a clause in the Constitution protecting your rights online, as well.

Instead, a modern group of freedom fighters was necessary to extend the original vision into the digital world.

That's where the Electronic Frontier Foundation comes in.

Just as Patriots fought for liberty and freedom, we fight measures that threaten basic human rights. Only the dominion we defend is the vast wealth of digital information, innovation, and technology that resides online.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a group of passionate people — lawyers, volunteers, and visionaries — working in the trenches, battling to protect your rights and the rights of web surfers everywhere. The dedicated people of EFF challenge legislation that threatens to put a price on what is invaluable; to control what must remain boundless.

Electronic Frontier Foundation: Because being able to share ideas and information is the reason the Web was created in the first place!

Progetto Libera Cultura, Libera Conoscenza http://www.liberacultura.it/
Per la libertà di cultura e di conoscenza, qui e ora [IN ITALIAN]

Il progetto Libera Cultura, Libera Conoscenza vuole offrire la possibilità di scaricare legalmente materiali creativi di vario tipo, con redistribuzione libera e gratuita – iniziando con alcuni volumi già pubblicati in formato cartaceo da Stampa Alternativa. I materiali saranno rilasciati sotto “licenze libere", in particolare sotto Creative Commons, le licenze lanciate in USA nel Dicembre 2002 dall’ omonimo consorzio non-profit guidato dall’ avvocato Lawrence Lessig, autore di Cultura Libera, in uscita presso Apogeo.
Le licenze Creative Commons vanno rapidamente affermandosi nel mondo come strumento ideale per la condivisione della conoscenza e per bilanciare le istanze di protezione degli autori con le libertà d’ accesso del pubblico. Il mese scorso le licenze Creative Commons sono state presentate anche nel nostro paese grazie all’ operato di iCommons Italy e delle Affiliate Institutions Italiane.
E’ in questo contesto che s’inserisce Libera Cultura, Libera Conoscenza, progetto aperto a editori, autori, artisti ed altre entità che vorranno aderire con l’ obiettivo di promuovere la libera circolazione delle idee e della cultura. Oltre a proporsi come portale italiano per la diffusione di opere liberamente condivisibili, il sito fornirà notizie e aggiornamenti continui su analoghe iniziative a livello globale.

Per la prima volta in volume gli scritti e gli interventi di Richard Stallman, l’ideatore del movimento del software libero.
Un’attenta scelta dei suoi saggi per comprendere appieno le dinamiche più scottanti dell’era digitale – al crocevia tra etica e legge, business e software, libertà individuale e società trasparente. Dagli abusi del copyright (diritto d’autore) alla necessità del copyleft (permesso d’autore), dai pericoli dei brevetti sul software alla storia dettagliata del “free software”.
Vent’anni di testi e interventi pubblici su argomenti che hanno modificato la concezione dell’informatica e della tecnologia.
Un condensato dello Stallman-pensiero, a sostegno della condivisione del codice, ma ancor prima e soprattutto a tutela di un bene essenziale di ogni società: la libera e totale circolazione delle idee per ciascuno e per tutti.

La copertina (56K)
Il testo integrale (524K)

Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) http://fsfeurope.org/

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe) was founded in 2001 as the sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in the USA to take care of all aspects of Free Software in Europe.

The FSF Europe is available for everyone as a contact point and orientational help on all issues regarding Free Software.
The FSF Europe is lobbying for Free Software by actively offering itself as a competence center and seeking the dialog with politicians and the press.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) http://www.fsf.org/fsf/fsf.html

The Free Software Foundation (FSF), founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software ---particularly the GNU operating system(used widely today in its GNU/Linux variant)--- and free (as in freedom) documentation. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software.

Many organizations distribute whatever free software happens to be available. In contrast, the Free Software Foundation concentrates on development of new free software---and on making that software into a coherent system which can eliminate the need to use proprietary software.

Besides working on software development, the FSF protects, preserves, and promotes free software. The FSF distributes copies of GNU software and manuals for a distribution fee, and accepts tax-deductible gifts to support GNU development. Most of the FSF's funds come from its distribution service. This is why we urge you to order CD-ROMs and manuals (but especially CD-ROMs) from the FSF when you can.

Il Secolo della rete - for a Free Knowledge Society http://www.ilsecolodellarete.it/html/ [in Italian]

L’associazione “Il Secolo della Rete – for a Free Knowledge Society” nasce a Pisa il 6
dicembre scorso con l’obiettivo di riunire soggetti diversi intorno ad una piattaforma
comune e concreta tesa a sostenere quelle caratteristiche dell’economia di rete che la
oppone come irriducibile antagonista dell’economia di guerra

L’associazione intende promuovere e favorire, a partire dalle tematiche proprie della Information Communication Technology e della Conoscenza in generale:
una riflessione complessiva che integri le tematiche sociali, economiche, giuridiche, del lavoro, e della comunicazione, tenendo anche conto dell'approccio di genere e dello sviluppo locale
la ricerca di soluzioni alle problematiche inerenti lo sviluppo della Società dell’Informazione, con particolare attenzione:
- allo sviluppo di modelli economici innovativi (organizzazione del lavoro, metodologie e prodotti)
- alle politiche per contrastare il digital divide e promuovere l’accesso di tutti alla Rete e alla conoscenza, per il rafforzamento della cittadinanza.
- alla promozione di nuove forme di partecipazione dei cittadini alla politica.
iniziative e politiche che favoriscano la produzione sociale, l’abbondanza, la condivisione, la trasmissione e la pluralità delle conoscenze e dei saperi che considera un patrimonio sociale universale e mezzi sempre più importanti nei processi produttivi materiali/immateriali, e componenti rilevanti per l'affermazione delle identità individuali e collettive

http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/

Multilangual site, for the campaign against the legalization of software patents

Sito multilingue che si occupa in modo specifico ed esclusivo della campagna contro la legalizzazione dei brevetti software.

"Questa campagna contro la legalizzazione dei brevetti software è indipendente da organizzazioni o partiti politici. Ha ricevuto il sostegno economico da un piccolo gruppo di aziende IT e software."

"In questa campagna non risparmiamo le parole. La questione dei brevetti software è critica per il nostro futuro. Dobbiamo esprimere in modo chiaro che cosa non va con i brevetti software, e quali sono le deficienze strutturali su cui il sistema di brevetti deve lavorare prima di poter anche pensare di espandersi in altre aree.
Grosse compagnie hanno il diritto di ritenere che i brevetti software possano incrementare i ritorni per i propri azionisti. Noi siamo di un parere diverso. Crediamo che i brevetti software siano un male per l'intera economia e la società con l'eccezione di un ristretto numero di persone che ne trarrebbero un profitto. Non abbiamo altra scelta, se non quella di smascherare tutte le falsità che i sostenitori dei brevetti software diffondono. "

"This campaign against the legalization of software patents is independent from political organizations and parties."

The issue of software patents is critical for our future. We have to speak out clearly on what is wrong with software patents, and which structural deficiencies the patent system needs to work on before it can even think of expanding into any new areas.
It has received the financial support of a small group of software and IT companies. Large corporations have the right to believe that software patents would enhance their shareholder value. We view that differently. We think that software patents are bad for the entire economy and society with the exception of a small group of people who make money with them. We have no other choice than to debunk all of the lies that the proponents of software patents spread.

NONSIAMOPIRATI.ORG - Il manifesto: 10 e lode a chi copia http://www.nonsiamopirati.org/manifesto.html

Questo sito si potrebbe anche chiamare 10 e lode a chi copia e ora vi spiego perché .
Il promotore e'Renzo Davoli, professore di Informatica all'Università di Bologna, renzo(at)cs.unibo.it.
Il sito spiega perché divulgare software musica libri non solo non è vietato, ma è un obbligo se non si vuole perdere la libertà <...>

La musica, la letteratura, il cinema, le immagini, il software sono forme di cultura e non deve mai venir negato il diritto di libero accesso alla cultura. Non sono qui a dire di violare le leggi ma semmai di cambiarle. <...> continua...

Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons http://scdc.sccs.swarthmore.edu/

The Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons was the first student organization to emerge in the growing free culture movement that we are building at FreeCulture.org. It is dedicated to promoting a bottom-up, participatory structure to society and culture, maintaining a free flow of information, and resisting the recent radical expansion of intellectual property law (as exemplified by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act).

IP Justice http://www.ipjustice.org/

IP Justice is a grass-roots membership based civil liberties organization that promotes balanced intellectual property law. IP Justice defends consumer rights to use digital media worldwide and is registered California non-profit organization.

IP Justice’s mission is to:

Build international coalitions and networks between independent organizations working to protect freedom of expression;
Promote laws and technologies that encourage further creativity and innovation, and fairly compensate creators;
Raise global public awareness on the threat to individual freedoms posed by technological restrictions to control intellectual property;
Empower individuals worldwide to advocate for balanced intellectual property laws that preserve traditional consumer rights such as private copying, the public domain, and reverse engineering.

foundation for information policy research http://www.fipr.org/index.html

The Foundation for Information Policy Research is an independent body that studies the interaction between information technology and society. Its goal is to identify technical developments with significant social impact, commission and undertake research into public policy alternatives, and promote public understanding and dialogue between technologists and policy-makers in the UK and Europe.

The Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) is the leading think tank for Internet policy in Britain. It studies the interaction between IT, Government, business and civil society. It researches policy implications and alternatives, and promotes better understanding and dialogue between business, Government and NGOs across Europe.

To further these objectives, the foundation's current approach is to:

monitor technological developments and policy initiatives in Government and business;
identify how information technology issues affect business, freedom of speech, privacy, democratic governance, and the accountability and efficiency of public administration;
commission and conduct research on relevant topics;
disseminate and promote the findings of research;
organise specialist seminars and conferences;
work with Parliament, officials and others to improve the quality of Government policy making and legislation;
use the news media to stimulate wider public debate about the policy implications of new developments in technology.

The Foundation for Information Policy Research is a non-profit organisation established in May 1998.

WSIS CIVIL SOCIETY WORKING GROUP on PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS http://www.wsis-pct.org/

The thematic Working Group (WG) dealing with Patents,Copyrights, Trademarks (P.C.T) and related issues, within the framework of the Civil Society contribution to the World Summit On the Information Society (WSIS) organized by the United Nations.

The WG comprises two kind of boards. The Steering Committee includes NGOs' representatives. The Advisory Committee may include representative of any WSIS participants : UN, IGOs, Governments, Business Entities and NGOs. The task of the Steering Committee is to prepare contributions to the draft Declaration of Principles and Action Plan, to organize round tables, meetings, actions in relationship to WSIS PCT issues. The Advisory Committee provides help to the Steering Committee, and may include representatives of governments, foundations and companies that are willing to participate and provide assistance to events organized by the WG

http://www.centerpd.org/

It is a non-profit foundation that supports the growth of a healthy and robust public domain by establishing programs, grants, and partnerships in the areas of academic research, medicine, law, education, media, technology , and the arts.

http://yro.slashdot.org/

On-line community and dicussion group.

Slashdot is owned by Open Source Development Network, Inc. ("OSDN").
OSDN (Open Source Development Network, Inc.) is the most dynamic community-driven media network on the Web.

OSDN publishes two world-renowned networks of Web sites: the OSDN technology network, and the MediaBuilder network. OSDN delivers more than 180 million page views and reaches 10 million unique visitors per month.
OSDN technical sites attract all levels of IT decision maker and technical buyer, from C-level to project managers. Technologists, enterprise architects, developers and system administrators all turn to OSDN to create, debate, and make or break IT news, and learn about the latest tools, technologies and techniques.
OSDN sites include Slashdot.org, the award-winning news discussion site; and SourceForge.net, the world's largest collaborative open source software development site.

European Digital Rights http://www.edri.org

European Digital Rights was founded in June 2002. Currently 14 privacy and civil rights organisations from 11 different countries in Europe have EDRI membership.
Members of European Digital Rights have joined forces to defend civil rights in the information society. The need for cooperation among European organizations is increasing as more regulation regarding the internet, copyright and privacy is originating from the European Union.
Some examples of regulations and developments that have the attention of European Digital Rights are data retention requirements, spam, telecommunications interception, copyright and fair use restrictions, the cyber-crime treaty, rating, filtering and blocking of internet content and notice-and-takedown procedures of websites.
European Digital Rights has an active interest in developments regarding these subjects in the EU accession countries and would like to identity partners in those countries.

Since January 2003, European Digital Rights produces EDRI-gram, a bi-weekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe.
European Digital Rights is an international non-profit association (AISBL) under Belgium law granted by decree Nr7/CDLF/14.853/S of 12 February 2003 and registered in Brussels.

Statutory membership is restricted to not-for-profit, non-governmental organisations whose goals include the defence and promotion of civil rights in the field of information- and communication technology. Organisations that which to join should contact European Digital Rights or one of its members.
The members of European Digital Rights are (in alphabetic order):

Association Electronique Libre (AEL) – Belgium http://www.ael.be/
Bits of Freedom – Netherlands http://www.bof.nl/
Chaos Computer Club (CCC) – Germany http://www.ccc.de/
CPSR-ES – Spain http://www.spain.cpsr.org/
Digital Rights – Denmark http://www.digitalrights.dk/
Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFI) – Finland http://www.effi.org/
Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) - United Kingdom http://www.fipr.org/
Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft (FITUG) – Germany http://www.fitug.de/
Internet Society Bulgaria http://www.isoc.bg/
Imaginons un Réseau Internet Solidaire (IRIS) – France http://www.iris.sgdg.org/
Privacy International - United Kingdom http://www.privacyinternational.org/
Swiss Internet User Group (SIUG) – Switzerland http://www.siug.ch/
Quintessenz – Austria http://www.quintessenz.org/
VIBE!AT – Austria http://www.vibe.at/

http://resist.ca/ Resist.ca is a project of the Resist! Collective.
The Resist Collective is a group of Vancouver-based activists based in Vancouver, Canada. His purpose is to aid in the creation of a free society, a world with freedom of expression and freedom from want, a world without oppression or hierarchy, where power is shared equally.

Resist!Collective does this by providing communication, computer resources, technical services, information and education to the greater activist community and to those who the Collective identify as allied in struggles against capitalism and other forms of oppression and for a better word.

We value, support, and engage in struggles for human liberation, the ethical treatment of animals, and ecological sustainability. We join in the fight for freedom and the self-determination of all oppressed groups. We oppose all forms of prejudice, authoritarianism, and vanguardism.
We organize on the basis of autonomy, mutual aid, resource sharing, participatory knowledge, social advocacy, anti-oppression work, community creation, and secure communication.
We work to create revolution and a free society in the here and now by building alternative communication infrastructure designed to oppose and replace the dominant system.
We promote social ownership and democratic control over information, ideas, technology, and the means of communication.
We empower organizations and individuals to use technology in struggles for liberation. We work to support each other in overcoming the systemic oppression embedded in the use and development of technology.

The Resist! Collective working to provide communications and The Resist! Collective (Resist!) and resist.ca project grew out of the old Vancouver TAO collective. We first set up our own server in the summer of 2000 and started letting people know about our email and list services in May of 2002. We currently host over 500 email accounts, lists for tens of thousands of subscribers and host dozens of domains.

http://www.nyfairuse.org/icc/index.xhtml

This organization defends the commons under attack.

NYfairuse states:
“Today our commons is under attack

The attack is wide and pervasive. Even our right to own and use computers inside our homes and offices, is under attack.

The time has come to assemble and declare our rights. We call upon advocates and organizers, authors and cow-orkers, readers and singers, politicians and students, grandmothers and children of all ages, and all who support the right of free human beings to the free dissemination and use of information rendered to the commons for the benefit of the public

Sustaining and expanding the Internet as a global commons requires a cohesive international unity movement analogous to environmentalist efforts protecting natural resources. The Internet Commons Congress provides an opportunity for education, networking, and cross-fertilization between efforts like those supporting peer-to-peer file sharing, VoIP, free software, open access, digital divide, and tax moratoriums.”

League for Programming Freedom http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/

The League for Programming Freedom is an organization that opposes software patents and user interface copyrights.

LPF states:
"Software patents threaten to devastate America's computer industry. Patents granted in the past decade are now being used to attackcompanies such as the Lotus Development Corporation for selling programs that they have independently developed. Soon new companies will often be barred from the software arena--most major programs will require licenses for dozens of patents, and this will make them infeasible. This problem has only one solution: software patents must be eliminated."

http://www.democraticmedia.org/

The Center for Digital Democracy is committed to preserving the openness and diversity of the Internet in the broadband era, and to realizing the full potential of digital communications through the development and encouragement of noncommercial, public interest programming. To these ends, CDD has four broad goals:

To enhance public understanding of the changing dimensions of the US digital media system, by explaining the communications options and the public-interest resources that citizens should have at their disposal.
To foster the development of a new generation of activists to work on digital media policy issues, and to make the media industry more accountable to the public.
To promote the development of a new online "commons," a consolidated and more visible space in which the public will have access to a variety of noncommercial sources of information and service.
To stimulate nonprofit organizations (especially progressive, public-interest groups) to become active producers of next-generation broadband media content.

Global Policy Forum http://www.globalpolicy.org/visitctr/about.htm

Global Policy Forum monitors policy making at the United Nations, promotes accountability of global decisions, educates and mobilizes for global citizen participation, and advocates on vital issues of international peace and justice.

GPF is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization, with consultative status at the United Nations. Founded in 1993 by an international group of concerned citizens, GPF works with partners around the world to strengthen international law and create a more equitable and sustainable global society. GPF uses a holistic approach, linking peace and security with economic justice and human development, and we place a heavy emphasis on networking to build broad coalitions for research, action and advocacy.

http://www.complessita.it/

Sito in Italiano, attento ai temi dei brevetti, attacco alla proprieta' intellettuale, privacy, trustworty computing, etc...

Professional Organisations

Council of European Professional Informatics Society http://www.cepis.org/

CEPIS is a non-profit organisation seeking to improve and promote high standards among informatics professionals in recognition of the impact that informatics has on employment, business and society

Special number (Vol.IV, no. 3, Giugno 2003) of UPGRADE(CEPIS's newletter) on
Open Knowledge [in EN] , also in Italian: Conoscenza libera [IT]

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