Re: [Fsfe-uk] EU Ambassadors vote to back Software Patents

[Kevin Donnelly]

On Monday 10 May 2004 2:39 pm, Tom Chance wrote:
> We should have the "campaign pack" ready by the end of the week, if all
> goes to plan. All it will then require is that people phone their local
> MEPs and ask them a few questions. Full instructions, with background
> links, have been written, so you just need to follow the guide :-)

Something like this is certainly needed - if you're running a campaign, you 
need a succinct summary of the issue that the campaigners can use to catch up 
on what the substance is before they relay that to whoever they are talking 
to.  I think a lot more people would get involved if they didn't have to do 
the spadework first, and could use pre-digested stuff.  But writing such 
stuff can be very time-consuming :-)  

I wonder about a three-level approach:

- bullet points/soundbites: really simple one liners which encapsulate the 
main points, even at the expense of glossing over some aspects;

- Q&A brief: a set of questions with suggested answers, no longer than a 
paragraph each; ie questions your interlocutor might ask if they have the 
time/inclination to look for a bit more detail, along with brief but less 
one-dimensional answers than are possible with the bullet points;

- one-page papers on particular aspects, which could be sent out to "policy 
wonks"; these would go into a bit more detail still, and might well give some 
flavour of the pros and cons of some of the more esoteric points.

This, however, is a counsel of perfection; I don't know enough about these 
issues to begin working on something like this, for instance.

> The campaign guide, yet to be finalised, is being worked on here:
> http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/MEP-Position-Lobbying-Guide

This is interesting, but I'm afraid that if I was an MEP I would vote against 
whatever it was you wanted me to vote for after receiving a call like this 
:-(  I think it's too hectoring, and will only antagonise people.  

I know it's fashionable nowadays to think of politicians as slippery 
characters, but the vast majority of them are decent people trying to do the 
decent thing as they see it.  They're pulled in all sorts of directions by 
groups who obviously have a vested interest in whatever they're promoting, 
and it can be quite hard sometimes to decide who the good guys are.  
Presumably they may already have been approached by suave marketing types 
from industry groups, and trying to reduce what is a complex issue to four 
questions may strike them as a bit naive. 

The things that I think will go through most MEPs' minds are that large 
companies are saying they need patents to protect their businesses, and 
presumably they should know; smaller companies and developers are saying 
patents will destroy their businesses, and presumably they should know.  So 
who is telling the truth?  Maybe both are, depending on the circumstances in 
whcih patents are applied?  Is it possible to have patents applied in such a 
way that both groups can be satisfied (satisfying as many people as possible 
is a politician's job-description, after all)?  If only one can be satisfied, 
what option will cost the most jobs in the economy?  And will that have any 
knock-on effects?  Will an initial job-loss in one group be balanced by job 
gains in the other, and how long will that take to happen?

Obviously there are answers on our side to at least some of these questions, 
and it may be that not all MEPs will go into this in much detail.  But I 
think many are used to asking questions like this, and it means that their 
decisions can't be reduced to a simple yes/no tick in a box.

My view would be that this is something you can only work on gradually, by 
educating your MEP, and this is quite a major task in itself, without the 
added complication of trying to do it in short order because of a voting 
deadline.  I wonder rather about trying to get some face-time with MEPs (and 
prospective MEPs).  If each constituency could get together a delegation of 
3-4 people, preferably from a range of backgrounds, backed up by good 
material of the sort above, and have 40 minutes with the MEP, it might be 
possible to approach the issue in a more constructive way, which gives a 
better flavour of the long-term damage that these things are going to do.

This is a different approach from "issue politics", and of course it's an 
individual choice as to which should be preferred and which is thought to be 
the most effective.  My personal problem with issue politics is that it 
doesn't encourage joined-up thinking - people will quite happily say they are 
in favour of more spending on education, for example, and then go on to say 
they are in favour of lower taxes, as if funds for education will somehow 
appear from the twilight zone.  

I can't, of course, say which approach would be better (and I hope no-one is 
going to phone me and ask me to say "yes" or "no" to the question - "Will you 
vote for phone-lobbying instead of facetime at the AFFS AGM?").  Doing 
something, as you are doing, is clearly better than doing nothing.  

-- 

Best wishes

Kevin Donnelly

www.kyfieithu.co.uk - Meddalwedd Rhydd yn Gymraeg