Over 100 high-profile specialists from 20 countries participated in the Free Culture Forum in Barcelona (Oct 29 - Nov 1, 2009) convened by EXGAE, Networked Politics and the Free Knowledge Institute.

The Forum began an unprecedented civil society campaign in defence of fundamental rights in the digital era. These rights include: the right of free expression, the right of access to culture and knowledge and the right to an equitable distribution of copyright benefits. The inviolability of communications, privacy and neutrality of internet access are necessary to defend these rights and to serve as levers for economic, political and social transformation.

The first International Free Culture Forum will take place in Barcelona from October 29 to November 1 2009. This event will bring together the main organisations and most active voices in the world of Free Culture and Free Knowledge to set common agendas and strategies.

The Free Knowledge Institute co-organises the Free Culture Forum and invites you to be part of this unique and historical moment.

Paris, September 16th 2009 - We Must Protect Net Neutrality in Europe! Organizations from all around Europe share their concern of seeing Net Neutrality being sacrificed during the conciliation procedure of the directives of the EU Telecoms Package. They sent this letter to the Members of the European Parliament, urging them to take decisive action in order to guarantee a free, open and innovative Internet, and to safeguard the fundamental freedoms of European citizens.

The International Forum on free culture and knowledge will take place from October 29 to November 1st 2009 in Barcelona. This event is a unique opportunity to bring together under the same roof the main organizations and active voices in the world of free culture and free knowledge; a meeting point to sit down and work together setting common agendas and strategies, and also to reflect, from a critical point of view, on the different views, dangers and contradictions of free culture. At the same time, the forum is an opportunity to give more visibility to alternative conceptions of knowledge, culture and creativity, different from the ones that the entertainment industry and universities insist
on imposing.

Need for international
and community cooperation
in Latin America in favor
of Free Software

Caracas, Venezuela. July 20th, 2009

Free Software Foundation Latin America's
First Meeting

Preamble

In Caracas, Venezuela, on the 20th day of the month of July, 2009, in conformance with the Freedom values established in the GNU Manifesto and in the Free Software definition,

As communicated here before, and by several stakeholders, such as government (1, 2)  and educational partners (1, »

• wouter's blog
• Login to post comments
• Read more
• 1 attachment

The Free Knowledge Institute supports the Free Software Pact Initiative. With this campaign, candidates to the European Parliament are asked to subscribe the Free Software Pact. This initiative started as a joint effort of the French association April and the Italian Associazione per il software libero.

If you live in Belgium or The Netherlands and want to ask your candidate to sign the Free Software Pact, you can download the Dutch translation in ODT format or PDF format.

On June 6th the members of the European Parliament for the 2009-1014 period will be elected by the citizens of the 27 member countries. Shortly after this, the new representatives will start a new round of negotiations of the infamous Telecom package. If you are a citizen of one of the member countries, we ask you to consider the position of the different parties before casting your vote. You can check the list of parties and their votes on previous negotiations in this page.

The Free Knowledge Institute is a member of the OpenNet Coalition, a joint effort of several organisations to raise awareness about civil rights in the digital era. For more information on this campaign, http://blackouteurope.eu

Update - Vrijschift has released a summarised report of the vote cast by each of the current groups in the most relevant decisions taken by the European Parliament regarding copyright law and net neutrality. The report concentrates on Belgium and The Netherlands but includes information about the rest of Europe as well.

Strasbourg, May 6 2009 − The debates on the Telecoms Package, thanks to a remarkable citizen mobilization, led to an extremely strong recognition of the access to internet as a fundamental right with the re-adoption of amendment 138/46 in second reading by a qualified majority. It is the final blow against three-strike laws such as Nicolas Sarkozy's HADOPI bill, which are explicitely banned. The European Parliament nevertheless adopted a soft compromise on issues of network equity: no strong protection against “net discrimination” was adopted.

More information on: http://blackouteurope.eu and http://www.laquadrature.net/en/amendment-138-46-adopted-again