Digital Rights Ireland Launch
Posted on December 7, 2005, under general.
Yesterday, following a recommendation from Sarunas and a pointer to the facilities of Newark airport from Sarah I went ahead and bought a 60GB iAudio X5. It plays ogg, MP3s, movies, will show text files, has a built-in FM radio, does voice recording and has a lot of all-round nice features that, so far at least, I’m very happy with.
This morning, brand new iAudio X5 in hand, I walked into work with a skip in my beat listening to Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton and some Kate Rusby tracks. I’ve paid for every piece of music I listened to at least once. Yet listening to these tracks, brightening my morning start, probably involved breaking the law. This is ludicrous. And yet, that’s how Irish Copyright law is structured.
And this isn’t anywhere near the most ludicrous law we have on our statutes. Ireland has the unenviable distinction of having the most draconian data retention legisilation in Europe.
For these reasons and more, Digital Rights Ireland held its formal launch today. It was well-attended and well-received, and hopefully this will serve as a great start to our efforts to influence change in all of the areas which affect our Digital Rights.
Our chair, TJ McIntyre, was interviewed by Pat Kenny, and you can hear the interview (about 1:30 in), we also made the 6.1 news and watch out for us in tomorrow’s papers.