[ubuntu-uk] Writing to MPs about software patents

[Lucy]

On 24/02/2008, Chris Rowson <christopherrowson at gmail.com> wrote:
>  I was shocked to learn that software patents are being granted in this
>  country (high-court ruling recently on a specific matter) and in
>  Europe (EPOrg still grants them against the ruling of European
>  Parliament).

Hi Chris,

Thanks very much for bringing this up. I was hoping that the software
patents issue was dead in Europe, but recently that seems not to be
the case so I'm very glad that the FFII are doing something about it.
I will be writing to my MEPs as soon as I've finished writing to my
local MP about the proposed copyright term extension to sound
recordings [1].

I would strongly urge anyone else thinking about writing to their MEPs
NOT to copy Chris's letter. Form letters are a very bad idea [2], they
get ignored by the recipients and most likely will be picked up by
writetothem.com too. The ORG have a short guide to writing letters [3]
to MEP/MPs as do many other places.

Lucy

[1] http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/02/21/fighting-copyright-term-extension-the-home-front/
[2] http://www.writetothem.com/about-qa#formletters
[3] http://www.openrightsgroup.org/orgwiki/index.php/Letter_writing