6 Nov, 2009: Lack of Transparency Surrounding Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) Negotiations Causes Concern For Many Public Interest Groups
The proposed global treaty to address intellectual property rights in a digital environment spurs letters, petitions to US Obama Administration to open the process to public view. The public interest and the concerns of developing countries and small business have been left out of international treaty negotiation process to date providing a skewed proposal, a new leak has confirmed.

8 Oct, 2009: IP Justice and Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure File Amicus Brief to US Supreme Court on Software Patents
Two international intellectual property policy groups IP Justice and the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) filed an Amicus Curiae Brief in the United States Supreme Court in the Bilski v. Kappos case dealing with software patents. The US Supreme Court's decision in this case is expected to be a landmark decision on the limits of patentability on abstract ideas....

30 Sep, 2009: ICANN Accountability Post-JPA: No Meaningful Change Expected
While many are dancing in the streets over today's decision by the US Government to loosen some of its ties to ICANN as its a single governmental authority, I'm not convinced this decision will change much on a practical level. The Affirmation of Commitments was signed today by ICANN and the US Government to replace the Joint Project Agreement, and expand oversight to a more international community. Unfortunately ICANN still lacks any framework for meaningful accountability to the public. And recent efforts seem to indicate noncommercial interests are being systematically squeezed out of ICANN, which is dominated by lobbyists from big business and special interests. Adding more governments to ICANN's accountability framework is good on ...

22 Sep, 2009: ICANN Staff Up To Same Old “Divide & Conquer” of Civil Society Strategy
I had a conversation recently with a person who had been actively engaged at ICANN in its early days but became disillusioned and disengaged after a few years because his participation lead him to the conclusion that ICANN staff manage the organization's board of directors and the "community" via the GNSO and the At-Large Advisory Committee. He said the staff intentionally worked to stir up divisiveness between community participants in order to justify adopting the staff's own agenda. Before I even had the opportunity to say my first word about my own experience with participating at ICANN, this person who hadn't even been at ICANN in nearly 10 years spoke my thoughts and described my own experience about ...

3 Sep, 2009: Public Interest Groups in ICANN Appeal to New President For Fairer Treatment For Civil Society
The organization that represents Non-Commercial Internet Users in the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) issued an open letter to the Board this week, expressing concern about the possible failure of ICANN's attempt to balance the representation of commercial and noncommercial interests.

24 Aug, 2009: ICANN GNSO Chair Joins the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) to Support Civil Society at ICANN
GNSO Chair Avri Doria joined ICANN's Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) to support civil society at ICANN in its struggle for a stakeholder group charter that is drafted in a bottom-up fashion and considers the needs of noncommercial users of the Internet. Although not a card-carrying member of NCUC before now, Doria had been a long time supporter of civil society at ICANN with strong ties to noncommercial users and individual Internet users. Doria had been appointed to serve three terms on the GNSO Council from ICANN's Nominating Committee (first was a partial term) and she was elected to Chair the GNSO Council thrice..."

21 Aug, 2009: “Top Ten Myths About Civil Society Participation in ICANN” From the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC)
ICANN Staff and the commercial constituencies at ICANN have been busy spreading mis-information about civil society participation at ICANN - largely to keep civil society and noncommercial interests marginalized. For example, ICANN is not allowing the noncommercial users to elect their representatives on the GNSO Policy Council and will instead "appoint" representatives, unlike all the other constituencies at ICANN. Here are a few of the top myths spread about civil society at ICANN and the truth about these myths.

18 Aug, 2009: Letter from Non-Commercial Users to ICANN Board of Directors and CEO on Stakeholder Group Charter Issue
This letter comes from nearly 150 individual and organizational members of ICANN’s Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC). It is also endorsed by public interest groups outside of NCUC. We are all deeply concerned about the July 30, 2009 ICANN Board decisions regarding the restructuring of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO). We believe that the Noncommercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) chartering process has been seriously flawed on both procedural and substantive grounds. We appeal to you to address these problems before permanent damage is done to ICANN’s reputation, to the GNSO reform process, and to the interests of noncommercial users of the Internet....

26 Jul, 2009: Will ICANN Listen to Civil Society and Respect Noncommercial Users?
Public comments on stakeholder group charters are in - again. Comments submitted to ICANN were overwhelmingly in favor of reinstating the consensus charter submitted by noncommercial users. The Internet Governance Project asks "Is ICANN Listening?" to civil society yet.

24 Jul, 2009: Scooby Doo and Mystery Crew Take on ICANN to Defend Noncommercial Users
Longtime ICANN participant Harold Feld's amusing tale of Scooby Doo and the Mystery Crew go to ICANN. "...recycling the same tired plot line of ICANN staff and Business & IP constituencies trying to limit the ability of the Non-commercial User Constituency (NCUC) to “cause trouble” — especially those meddling civil society do-gooders Milton Mueller and Robin Gross. Season after season, we get to see the same accusations that NCUC is “divisive,” or “not representative” or other code words for “Goddam it! Get those $#@! civil society groups out of our club house!!!!”...."

21 Jul, 2009: ICANN Injustices in Stakeholder Group Charters - Ask ICANN to Respect Democratic Process and Noncommercial Users
The public is invited to send an email to ICANN on the subject of the injustices of the draft charters proposed for the noncommercial and commercial stakeholder groups in the new GNSO. ICANN will accept public comment on the subject until 23 July. Send a comment to ICANN by sending an email to gnso-stakeholder-charters@icann.org.

21 Jul, 2009: Letter to Support Public Access to Tax-Payer Funded Research
Public Interest Organizations Thank US Senators Lieberman and Cornyn for Sponsoring Bill to Improve Public Access to Research Funded By Tax-Payers. IP Justice, Knowledge Ecology International, Electronic Frontier Foundation, OXFAM, Essential Action, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, are part of a broad coalition of groups ....

16 Jul, 2009: IP Justice in Financial Times on ICANN Being Driven by Commercial Interests
"Icann is full of people who work for corporations and think that Icann should be run like one. When I try to remind people that it is a not-for-profit public benefit organisation, they look at me like I am mad. Icann is dominated by commercial stakeholder groups" said Robin Gross, a cyberspace rights lawyer, and executive director of IP Justice, an international civil liberties organisation. "In Iran the protesters were able to communicate with the outside world because of proxy servers that allowed them to remain anonymous. But there are working groups within Icann working to prevent anonymous proxy servers because they might interfere with trademarks."

13 Jul, 2009: Is ICANN Accountable to the Global Public Interest? ICANN Ignores Non-Commercial Users in Internet Policy Development Process
The message is clear. ICANN has forgotten who it works for - us - Internet users - including noncommercial users. Now is the time to remind ICANN that it must be accountable to the global public interest or it has no business in Internet governance. Tell ICANN to listen to noncommercial users and not to impose the stranglehold charter on noncommercial users against our will. Thomas Jefferson noted that the exercise of political power without the consent of the governed is illegitimate. ICANN's attempt to impose a governance structure on noncommercial users against our will calls into question ICANN's legitimacy to govern; it undermines confidence in ICANN's commitment to democratic values; and it ...

6 Jul, 2009: IP Justice Comments on ICANN Proposal to Expand Trademarks Rights in Domain Names
IP Justice submitted comments today in opposition to the proposals contained in the "IRT Report" a proposal from ICANN's Intellectual Property Constituency to create new trademark rights to domain names that do not exist in law. ICANN's Noncommercial Users Constituency (NCUC) also filed comments with ICANN discussing thesubstantive problems with the proposal and also the procedural concerns, which led to the creation of a one-sided report....

1 May, 2009: Global Civil Society Weighs In Supporting Petition for a Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group at ICANN
Dozens of civil society organizations from all corners of the globe signed a statement submitted to ICANN's Public Forum supporting the proposal to form a Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) from the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC). Supporters of NCUC's petition include non-commercial organizations such as Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, FreePress, European Digital Rights Initiative, ARTICLE 19, EPIC, Rits-Brazil, Alfa-Redi, Association for Progressive Communications, African Commons, Internet Society of Mauritius, UWI At-Large, ICT Consumers Association of Kenya, Knowledge Ecology International, Privacy International, Yale Law School Information Society Project, and dozens more...

19 Mar, 2009: Ralph Yarro and His Anti-Porn Crusaders March on ICANN & Demand Global Censorship
ICANN is accepting comments from the public on the proposed censorship constituency until 5 April 2009. SCO Group Chairman Ralph Yarro III, the ultra-conservative behind what Business Week dubbed "the most hated company in tech" (SCO) for stealing the computer code of thousands of Linux open source programmers is now behind efforts to flood ICANN with identical form letters encouraging the adoption of Yarro's "Cybersafety" Constituency during the Public Comment Period. The proposed "Cybersafety" Constituency claims to be concerned with "safety", but in reality is just a couple of anti-porn extremists in Yarro's flock who see ICANN as an opportunity for control of the flow of information on the Internet. The proposed constituency is run by CP80, ...

16 Mar, 2009: Non-Commercial Users File Petition to Form Stake-Holder Group at ICANN
The essential elements of this proposal are: Noncommercial stakeholders join the NCSG directly, and the NCSG keeps track of membership and administers voting for Council seats by the membership as a whole. The NCSG is administered by an annually elected Chair and a Policy Committee. The Policy Committee is composed of the 6 elected GNSO Councilors and one representative from each Constituency. There are three classes of membership: 1) large organizations (which receive 4 votes), small organizations (which receive 2 votes) and individuals (who receive 1 vote). Constituencies are formed as sub-units within the NCSG. We have deliberately made it relatively easy to form and join constituencies; at the same time we have de-linked Constituency formation from Council seats so ...

4 Feb, 2009: Associated Press Erroneously Claims Copyright Infringement on Obama’s Image in Campaign Poster
Poster-Child Case for Fair Use or Illegal Art? The Associated Press is claiming that it is the copyright owner of a photograph of President Obama that was used by an Obama supporter to create to poster for the political campaign and the now-famous poster is a copyright infringement of its photo. However this case could be considered the "poster-child" case for fair use. It is unfortunate that the AP is trying to turn political expression into illegal art. But these facts would be a good opportunity to set some positive legal precedent protecting fair use of political expression should the AP pursue this matter in the courts. ..."

7 Jan, 2009: Obama Picks Hollywood’s Favorite Lawyer for a Top Justice Post
Obama's voting record in the US Senate on civil rights issues always troubled me. Sure, he talks beautifully. But he voted for some of the worst things that the Bush Administration did to the US and the world (surveillance on US citizens in Patriot Act, telecom immunity for spying, invading Iraq, etc). So it should not be surprising to learn in this article from CNET News that Obama has picked attorneys for the notorious Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to lead his Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Ironically, attorneys who sue Peer-2-Peer file-sharers, chip away at online free expression guarantees, and have systematically worked to eliminate the privacy rights of US consumers are being put ...

2 Dec, 2008: Get Involved in Internet Policy at ICANN: NonCommercial Users Constituency (NCUC) Membership Drive
CALL TO ACTION: Individuals and nonprofit organizations are invited to join ICANN's Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) to become involved in Internet policy discussions. Protect privacy rights, free expression guarantees, and due process of law regarding Internet domain names by getting involved and joining NCUC today.

1 Dec, 2008: A2K@IGF Dynamic Coalition Session: Access to Knowledge and Freedom of Expression Policies for the Development of a Global Information Economy”
Hyderabad, India - 5 December 2008

28 Oct, 2008: Open Letter to World Customs Organization Concerning Increased Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights
We the undersigned public interest groups and individuals are writing to raise our concerns about recent developments in the World Customs Organisation, in particular the setting of intellectual property enforcement standards that go beyond the TRIPS agreement (TRIPS plus) in the SECURE Working Group, the lack of dialogue with, and involvement of public interest organisations in the standard setting process and the lack of transparency surrounding the Working Group’s work. The Expansive IP enforcement standards being pushed hurriedly in the SECURE Working Group are of deep concern. It is well known that the recent push for strong TRIPS plus enforcement standards comes from developed countries and their commercial entities, and they are seeking international organizations to set such standards on their behalf. ...

9 Oct, 2008: Freedom Not Fear Day 2008 International Campaign
Please Join IP Justice, EPIC, and EFF in signing the Freedom Not Fear Declaration. In recognition of Freedom not Fear Day, many US organizations set out the following recommendations: - End Watch Lists, Fusion Centers and other data profiling programs that fail to comply with the full requirements of the federal Privacy Act; - Affirm international human rights, including freedom of expression and privacy protection, so as to strengthen democratic institutions and protect the rights of individuals; - Repeal the Patriot Act and other legal authorities that permit warrantless surveillance and unconstitutional monitoring and tracking of individuals; - End the culture of secrecy that allows government officials to hide mismanagement, fraud, and incompetence behind the veil of "homeland security"; ...

18 Sep, 2008: Coalition of Technology Companies and Digital Rights Groups Comment on ACTA to USTR
Joint Statement on ACTA from American Association of Law Libraries, American Library Association, Association of Research Libraries, Center for Democracy & Technology Computer & Communications Industry Association, Consumer Electronics Association Digital Future Coalition, Entertainment Consumers Association, Home Recording Rights Coalition, Information Technology Association of America, Intel Corporation, Internet Commerce Coalition, IP Justice, Knowledge Ecology International, Medical Library Association NetCoalition, Public Knowledge, Special Libraries Association, US Internet Industry Association, Verizon, Yahoo! Inc.

16 Sep, 2008: UN Agency to Curb Anonymous Internet Communications
An alarming report shows that the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations agency that coordinates global telephony policy, is quietly working to make anonymous Internet use impossible. The ITU's "IP Traceback" proposal would enable governments (and some big companies) to spy on every individual's Internet use via embedding specific technical standards in Internet communications protocols. The surveillance proposal was originally sponsored by the Chinese government, but now the US National Security Agency (NSA) is one of it's biggest proponents. Companies such as Cisco Systems and VeriSign are also working closely with the ITU, NSA, and Chinese government to install this global spy network, called the "Q6/17 Drafting Group". Anonymous communication is a well-recognized ...

15 Sep, 2008: Secret Counterfeiting Treaty Public Must be Made Public, Global Organizations Say
More than 100 public interest organizations from around the world today called on officials from the countries negotiating Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) to publish immediately the draft text of the agreement. Secrecy around the treaty negotiation has fueled concerns that its terms will undermine vital consumer interests. Organizations signing the letter include: IP Justice, Consumers Union, Essential Action, Knowledge Ecology International, Doctors without Borders’ Campaign for Essential Medicines, Australian Digital Alliance, The Canadian Library Association, Consumers Union of Japan, U.S. Public Interest Research Group ...

10 Sep, 2008: Public-Interest NGO’s Express Concerns with Proposed Senate Bill on Intellectual Property Enforcement
Twelve Public Interest Organizations Send US Senate Judiciary Joint Letter on Concerns Regarding S.3325, the "Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008": "The undersigned groups write to express our concerns with S. 3325, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, soon to be marked up in the Committee on the Judiciary. While enforcing IP rights is necessary to ensuring the progress of science and the useful arts, an unbalanced approach to enforcement would lead to unintended harms and impede that progress. Several of the provisions contained within S. 3325 threaten such an imbalance...."

24 Aug, 2008: Sen. Joseph Biden’s Anti-Free Speech, Anti-Privacy, and Anti-Internet Platform
"US Senator Joseph Biden, Barack Obama's choice for Vice-Presidential candidate has a long track record in the US Senate of chipping away at Americans' privacy rights and freedom of expression rights - especially when it comes to the Internet and technology. Biden has done the bidding of Hollywood in the Senate for decades - he's fought P2P file networks, been a staunch supporter of the controversial DMCA, and sponsored RIAA bills to restrict a consumer's right to record songs over satellite radio. Biden sponsored FBI wire-tapping bills, voted for war in Iraq, voted for the (Anti) "Patriot" Act, and has a long history of working to keep strong encryption out of the hands of Americans. Biden helped ...

7 Aug, 2008: Statement on Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) to USTR from US Tech Trade Associations and Companies
Letter from AT&T, Amazon.com, Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), Consumer Electronics Association, eBay, Information Technology Association of America, Internet Commerce Coalition, NetCoalition, US Internet Service Provider Association, US Telecom Ass., Verizon Communications, Yahoo! Inc.

29 Jul, 2008: LEAKED: “Business Perspectives on Border Measures and Civil Enforcement”
Leaked Industry-Lobbyist Memo to ACTA Negotiators From "Concerned Business Groups in ACTA Nations" at 2nd Round of Secret Trade Negotiations in Washington, DC from 29-31 July 2008

23 Jul, 2008: Letter to USTR on ACTA from Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), Library Copyright Alliance, NetCoalition
Tech Industry Statement on 29-31 July 2008 ACTA Negotiations in DC: "We strongly oppose any requirement in ACTA that signatories enact statutory damages... Copyright statutory damages are one feature of our IP law that we should not seek to export.... Finally we wish to express our disappointment that we learned of the agenda for next week's negotiations from the DFAT [Australian Govt] website rather than our own government...."