What is EEPI? EEPI -- Electronic Entertainment Policy Initiative -- is a project launched in March 2005 to encourage, foster, and facilitate cooperation between the various interest groups concerned about "electronic entertainment technologies" and their impacts, including current and future technical, legal, policy, and other issues. These groups include a vast range of entertainment industry content providers; electronic equipment manufacturers; consumers and consumer interest groups; entertainment industry artists and their representatives; and a range of other interested parties. EEPI has been founded by two longtime experts in their respective fields: Internet and technology veteran Lauren Weinstein, and recording industry veteran Thane Tierney, both based in the world's entertainment capital of Los Angeles. A searchable archive of materials related to EEPI discussions (please see below for information regarding the EEPI-Discuss List) is available for your perusal. EEPI is pronounced as "e-pie" (rhymes with "free pie").   The Issues The power of new digital entertainment technologies and the Internet have created a "perfect storm" of lawsuits, criminal cases, copy-control battles, and other conflicts that threaten to undermine both the entertainment industry and consumers, with effects that potentially could spread far behind entertainment-related concerns. Battles over music and movie piracy, DRM (Digital Rights Management), the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), HDTV/digital TV (e.g., the "broadcast flag"), and a growing list of other concerns threaten to spill out to broadly affect basic technologies and intellectual property rights (both of the entertainment industry and consumers) in ways that can negatively affect everyone. Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Peer-to-Peer (P2P) software firms and users, and other groups are increasingly finding themselves in the crossfire of these battles. From DVDs and CDs to multimedia cell phones, from digital video recorders to Internet file sharing, from piracy to iPods, a mountain of issues continues to grow like an erupting volcano. A seemingly endless series of of legal and technical skirmishes have been forthcoming, with each side basically reacting to the other side's efforts in an escalating and increasingly shrill fashion. The lawyers and courts are being kept busy, but there's been little evidence of any real progress toward acceptable solutions for anyone involved. All sides appear to be largely entrenched, and the situation is rapidly deteriorating. There are valid concerns on all sides. The entertainment industry and broadcasters don't want their content illictly pirated and devalued. Consumers and intellectual freedom advocates object to controls that negatively impact the legal use of both technologies and content, including fair-use, public domain, and other completely legitimate aspects and applications. Legislators and government agencies (e.g. FCC, ITU, etc.) attempt to create laws and regulations that can drastically affect these issues, yet often work from a foundation of incomplete or unbalanced information that may yield distorted or otherwise unfortunate results. Meanwhile, the courts are faced with an endless stream of both civil and criminal cases that might potentially have been avoided. The electronic equipment manufacturers are caught in the middle, wanting to design, build, and market equipment that consumers will want but not wishing to offend content providers whose products play on these devices. And often left out in the cold are the artists themselves. Whether in the music, film, television, or other related arenas, their creative and financial interests are often viewed as mere footnotes in the battles that have been occurring, and new technologies (such as "virtual actors" to name just one) will be affecting artists in ways that we can hardly imagine today.   EEPI Goals EEPI is dedicated to creating, coordinating, and sustaining ongoing forums where the various parties concerned about these issues can work together toward cooperative policies and solutions that are both in their own and the public's mutual interests. This will be accomplished by means such as working groups meeting both virtually (Internet mailing lists, conference calls, etc.) and through physical meetings, workshops, and conferences. EEPI has no illusions that all of these complex issues relating to entertainment technology can be easily solved in ways that will be prove agreeable to all involved parties -- some issues will prove to be very difficult or even perhaps ultimately intractable. But we firmly believe that a key step toward a more reasonable approach to this entire area is to get the various parties talking directly and frankly about their goals, needs, and concerns. A great deal can be accomplished through discussion, even in such a contentious environment. At the very least, perhaps more than a few future lawsuits can be avoided. The status quo has become so intensely toxic that even small increments of improvement would be worthwile.   How to Participate Depending upon your level of interest and other factors, there are several ways to get involved with EEPI activities. If you are a party directly involved with EEPI issues and would like to participate in EEPI working groups, meetings, and other EEPI efforts related to these topics, you can e-mail a note to:      eepi@eepi.org expressing your interest and briefly describing your involvement in these issues. Or you can reach EEPI by telephone via:      +1 (818) 225-2800 (9:30am - 5:30pm Pacific Time) You can contact Lauren Weinstein and Thane Tierney at their direct e-mail addresses as listed below. Another way to participate is via the mailing and discussion lists that have been established (also described below). As various forums, meetings, and other EEPI-related work progresses, you will be able to stay involved and be kept informed via these lists.   Mailing and Discussion Lists Two public mailing lists are available that you may find to be useful if you are interested in EEPI-related issues, eepi-announce (for announcements, etc.) and eepi-discuss (you guessed it -- for discussions!) The names and e-mail addresses on the mailing lists are private. They will be used only for the distribution of the described materials. Subscriptions are handled through an automated list system, and are free, of course. Important Note: Please do not attempt to subscribe an address that uses a "challenge-response" system for spam blocking -- such addresses will not be successfully subscribed. < EEPI-Announce > The first list is an "announce-only" mailing list -- eepi-announce -- that is used by EEPI to distribute EEPI announcements, policy statements, or other relevant communications. If you just want to stay informed regarding EEPI activities but don't wish to participate in ongoing issue-oriented discussions more directly, this is the only EEPI list you'll need. To subscribe via the Web, please visit the:      "eepi-announce" subscription page To subscribe or unsubscribe via e-mail, please send a message (subject and body text are unnecessary and will be ignored), to either:      eepi-announce-subscribe@eepi.org OR:      eepi-announce-unsubscribe@eepi.org as appropriate. < EEPI-Discuss > The second list is a public discussion list -- eepi-discuss -- where you can directly engage regarding any of these topics. Please see the EEPI-Discuss Searchable Archive for access to previous and ongoing messages, discussions, and other materials related to this list. EEPI-Discuss is a moderated discussion list -- the moderator will distribute to the entire readership those submitted messages that are judged to be relevant and advance the discussions. This list will be an important forum for continuing work on these issues. You may choose to receive this list either as immediately delivered individual messages (the default setting), or as a daily digest of messages (no more than one digest per day). All messages distributed via this list are subject to being included in a publicly available message archive on this site. To subscribe via the Web, please visit the:      "eepi-discuss" subscription page To subscribe or unsubscribe via e-mail, please send a message (subject and body text are unnecessary and will be ignored), to either:      eepi-discuss-subscribe@eepi.org OR:      eepi-discuss-unsubscribe@eepi.org as appropriate. < Subscription problems > If you're having problems subscribing or unsubscribing through the automated system, please e-mail a human at:     list-maint@eepi.org   Contact EEPI     General contact address:   eepi@eepi.org     Telephone:   +1 (818) 225-2800 (9:30am - 5:30pm Pacific Time)     Lauren Weinstein:           lauren@eepi.org   OR:   lauren@vortex.com           http://www.eepi.org/lauren     Thane Tierney:           thane@eepi.org           http://www.eepi.org/thane   Thank you for your interest !

 
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