#CRC12 – Online submissions – the more, the merrier

#CRC12logosmallI’m delighted that lots of people are engaging with the consultation process on the Copyright Review Committee‘s Consultation Paper (update: you can download a pdf of the Paper here (via DJEI) or here (from this site)). First, the Committee now has a dedicated website and it will be directly linked from the Department’s homepage until the Review process is complete. The Committee’s site provides various ways to participate in the consultation process. As well as by post and email, the Committee has prepared an online questionnaire to reply to the questions they pose in the Consultation Paper.

Second, taking up an invitation from the Minister of State with responsibility for Research and Innovation at the Department of Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation, Seán Sherlock TD, the Irish Internet Association is also providing an online mechanism to facilitate internet stakeholders who wish to respond to the Paper. This will collate the views of its members and of the members of the Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland, and will gather the views of other members of the online community who wish to provide feedback in this way.

Third, Bernie Goldbach and David Brophy have written blogposts listing all of the questions from the Paper, making them very easily accessible indeed (update: I’ve also got around to listing them on this blog as well). And Joe Drumgoole has gone further, providing various web-friendly versions of the Paper.

Fourth, along with the IIA/ISPAI, various other communities are also looking for feedback (eg, libraries, photographers); and poethead has written what seems to me to be the first blogpost actually engaging with an issue in the Paper.

Announcing the Committee’s online questionnaire, and welcoming the the IIA’s survey, the Minister said that he would “also welcome any similar initiatives undertaken by other online representative groups. The wider the consultation on the Committee’s work is, the better the outcome will be”. I agree. As I say in the title to this post, the more, the merrier. Which-ever mechanism you choose, please make your submission before close of business on Friday 13 April 2012 Thursday 31 May 2012.

Finally, there will be a public meeting from 10:00am until 12:00 noon, on Saturday 24 March 2012, in the Robert Emmet Lecture Theatre, Room 2037 Arts Block (map here), Trinity College Dublin. Attendance is free and open to anyone interested in the work of the Committee, but registration is necessary. To make a written submission, or to register for the public meeting, please email the Review, or write to Copyright Review, Room 517, Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Kildare Street, Dublin 2.