OK, first things first. Last year I pledged that I would help fund the creation of the Open Rights Group if 1000 other people did. Over 1000 people eventually signed the pledge and the ORG was founded, but almost half of the people who originally pledged didn’t pay up! Not fair I say!

The Open Rights Group is a bit like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in the USA. They have some pretty noble goals:

• To raise awareness in the media of digital rights abuses
• To provide a media clearinghouse, connecting journalists with experts and activists
• To preserve and extend traditional civil liberties in the digital world
• To collaborate with other digital rights and related organisations
• To nurture a community of campaigning volunteers, from grassroots activists to technical and legal experts

Recent successes for ORG include:

• Submitting written and oral evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group public inquiry into DRM, much of which made it into the final report
• Submitting written evidence to the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property
• Raising awareness of the problems with DRM in the media, with several articles picking up on ORG’s position

So if you care about your digital rights, join the ORG and get the privileged status of ‘Founding 1000’ member, like me! 🙂