[Foundation-l] EU wants to increase musicians' and singers' copyright to 95 years

[Lars Aronsson]

David Gerard wrote:

> I mean in terms of what does and doesn't constitute political 
> lobbying.

The Swedish chapter, where I'm a board member, is a Swedish 
membership organization and should have no formal problems with 
doing political lobbying.  The bylaws state we cannot take sides 
with political parties ("partipolitiskt obunden" = we promise to 
remain independent of political parties), but we certainly can 
express our views on issues that relate to our mission, the 
promotion of free knowledge.

However, since new Swedish copyright legislation is introduced by 
directive from the European Commission, any successful lobbying 
would have to take place in Brussels and not in Stockholm.  I know 
the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is active in Brussels, 
and cooperates with the Free Software Foundation-Europe (FSF-E). 
Rather than sending our own lobbyists to Brussels, perhaps it 
would be smarter to join their cause?  Would that be a problem?


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se