Representatives from the Center for Technology and Society at Brazil's prestigious FGV School of Law were barred from entering a recording industry press conference.
Yesterday, IFPI (the international version of the RIAA) held a press-conference in Brazil to announce their massive new global lawsuit campaign, suing 8000 people in 17 countries.
The delegation of scholars and activists from the Center for Technology and Society had been accredited to attend, but when they arrived, they were not permitted in the room. Organizers claimed the room was full, but press representatives in the room say that there was plenty of room. IFPI wouldn't even give the professors copies of the press-release, saying they'd run out of them.
FGV has fielded a petition to the Brazilian National Congress decrying this. The Congress is considering changes to Brazil's copyright law, and this is the kind of shenanigans that the entertainment industry is running:
The IFPI, that represents the major recording companies in the world, held this morning a national (Brazilian) press release to officially inform that they are initiating a new round of court actions, this time in Brazil, against users of peer-to-peer networks, a system for downloading files, including music, through software like Soulseek, eMule etc.. They are spreading their court actions from the USA to Brazil.
FGV´s Centre for Technology and Society, under the A2K programme, has prepared a document clarifying the situation and proposing an amendment to the Brazilian copyright law in order to bring a balance to the discussion.
Since FGV was not allowed to enter the conference room, there being bodyguards walking around to intimidate our peaceful professors, they waited until the journalists and photographers were coming out of the room to speak to them and to deliver the document.
All of the journalists got very interested on the issue, and were surprised that FGV was barred from the meeting, despite having had its accreditation accepted.
(Obrigado, Pedro!)
