[Advocacy Advisors] Freedom of Panorama

[ENWP Pine]

Hi Steven,

My understanding was that nonprofits can lobby all that they like but they cannot support individual candidates for elected political office. Is that not true?

Since Congress seems to be the obstacle rather than the courts then I think maximizing lobbying by the community, chapters, and WMF when the next round of US intellectual property law revisions happen would seem to be the right time. Isn't there some discussion that the US patent system is so cumbersome that it's forcing a lot of technology organizations to spend a lot of their effort on amassing patent portfolios and defending against patent trolls? When Congress discusses intellectual property law seems like a good time to also bring up the issue of FOP for the Internet age.

Pine

Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2012 14:21:12 -0800
From: slaporte at wikimedia.org
To: advocacy_advisors at lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Advocacy Advisors] Freedom of Panorama

[Was: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Internal-l] Israeli Government to Release its images under a free license for public use]
Hello Pine,
A number of possible freedom of panorama initiatives are being discussed here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Freedom_of_panorama_campaign These proposals are not being led by the WMF itself because there are strict regulations on how a tax-exempt nonprofit organization may engage in legislative activism.

The Wikimedia community has many creative ideas. Here are the proposals under discussion on Commons: 
* Write a convincing rationale for why FoP is a good thing* Petition
* US chapters lobby Congress* Set-up an umbrella lobbying organization* Geotargeted CentralNotice banner* Identify allies (was: "Talk to Google")* Identify educational audience for these photos
* Sample offline Wikipedias with Kiwix offline reader that need photos* Summary FoP law table* Proposed wording* Short and long term goals* Baby step: state-level arts grants
* Identify violations* Throw our toys out of the pram* Lead by example* Guerilla art campaign
Which do you think would be the most effective?

Best,Stephen
On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 1:39 PM, ENWP Pine <deyntestiss at hotmail.com> wrote:




Good!

To the WMF folks, is WMF doing any advocacy of its own regarding FOP in the US?

Pine

-- 

Stephen LaPorteLegal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
For legal reasons, I may only serve as an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation. This means I may not give legal advice to or serve as a lawyer for community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.



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