Orgcon 2010

Orgcon 2010 24th July 2010 City of London University

Orgcon was the first event organised by the Open Rights Group.

The purpose of the event was to raise awareness of our digital rights, and provide an open forum for discussion.

I set off for the event at 6am, in a taxi, bound for Blackpool North train station. I quickly arrived at the station and got on the train, settling in for the journey.

During the journey I spoke to a guy called John, from Glasgow, who was using Vista on his Dell Studi 15 laptop. We got talking because I have a Dell Studio 17 laptop.

I asked John what he uses his laptop for, and after some discussion I gave him a live demo of Ubuntu on the train (Using my trusty EEE pc 701). He enjoyed the look of Ubuntu and that software was easily available. So I gave him a CD (I took a few with me to OrgCon, just in case).

I arrived at London Euston, and said goodbye to John. I then met my old mate (and fellow Oggcamp Ubuntu Installfest Crew member Aijaz (@Gnudoc), we took the tube to Angel, then walked to the event.

We arrived at the University, and it is a lovely building, a mix of old and modern design.

We walked to the first floor and met Cory Doctorow,

then we met another Oggcamp Ubuntu Installfest Crew member, Stuart Ward. We had a chat and then went to the Open rights group stall and had a chat with the very knowledgeable stall holders.

After that we went to the Great Hall (no not the one from Harry Potter, athough there were a few life like pictures dotted around.

The first keynote was a panel discussion, which consisted of

• Cory Doctorow (Author and Open Rights Advocate)
• David Rowntree (From the ORG Advisory Council)
• Jeff Lynn (Coadec)
• John Buckman (Magnatune)
• Obhi Chatterjee (Shyama)

The topic of conversation was Thriving in the Real Digital Economy.

The talks was extensive, and covered many topics of a digital life that some take for granted (me included). I wouldn’t say that I understood everything, but I will be reading up on the topics covered to further my knowledge.

The second session was a workshop on how to talk to your MP, in regard to digital liberties, and specificaly the Digital Economy Act, there was role play, with one person being an MP, the other a savvy consumer of digital media.

The next talk was a keynote in the great hall by Prof. James Boyle (William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law and co-founder of the Centre for the study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School.

James had an excellent style of delivery and ensured that the crowd were entertained and informed.

Next it was lunch, at a local takeaway, we had a great lunch and the owner treat us like royalty (5 hungry lads turning up at the takeaway was incentive).

Back to the event and the next keynore was a panel discussion which consisted of

• Tom Watson MP
• Julian Huppert MP
• Eric Joyce MP
• John Grogan
• Anita Coles (Liberty)
• Richard Allan (ORG Advisory Council, and Chair)

The topic of discussion was Digital Economy Act: What’s Next?

This was an interesting topic of discussion,let down by a hot room and dodgy PA. But none the less it was interesting.

Next up was a workshop on the Digital Economy Act Campaign, this had great potental but was let down by assuming that everyone would just pick up the task and run with it, and we were short of time. We all split into four groups, and each investigated a different aspect of the DEA, my group discussed Website Blocking, Cory took the lead and everyone put something in to the discussion.

I then went to a talk on the Open BBC, discussing the BBC’s stance on DRM and its content, the main topic was that if the BBC tried to enforce DRM they would likely need to generate revenue from the content, thus losing their status as national television subsidised by the TV licence.

I then went to a talk on Web-blocking, this talk, unfortunately was not at a level that I understood, so I was easily bored.

My last talk was the future of privacy, another panel discussion. This was interesting but again the level that it was pitched at was way above what I understood on the topic.

On the whole the event was interesting, but didn’t capture my imagination. The work that the ORG (and other groups) is valuable, and I support what they do, but maybe next time they could have a crash course for dummies, or run a 101 session?

Well done to all involved and thanks for all your hard work.

My full set of Flickr picture can be found here