[sklyarov-chicago] Report from Champaign-Urbana

[Fred Gray]

[Also sent to the national list, but I thought our Illinois neighbors might
also be interested.]

I'm happy to report that our educational protest this morning down in 
Champaign-Urbana was a success beyond my wildest expectations!  There were 11
of "us" there at various points between 11:00 and 1:00.  I think the maximum
number at any one time was 8.  I'm sure we set the record for largest fraction
of the area population at an anti-DMCA protest, for what it's worth. :-)
(There are 179,669 of us according to the 2000 census.)

We handed out flyers and said a few words to about 200 people.  We had detailed
conversations with about 20 to 30 people, most of whom were quite sympathetic.
We used one locally-made flyer, and also Ben Fry's "About the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act" flyer (many thanks to Ben!). 

We took a group picture, and I'll try to get it on the Web sometime soon.
I also plan to send the picture to our Congressional delegation.  
This might be a good thing to do as a general practice for each rally: a 
picture can show that there are real honest-to-gosh human beings behind the
letters that they're getting flooded with.

A reporter from the local public radio station, WILL, came by and interviewed
several of us.  He said that they would probably run a story on their 
afternoon newscasts today.  Maybe we'll make the local break on "All Things
Considered": that would be pretty cool.

Thanks very much,

-- Fred Gray

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*** FREE DMITRY SKLYAROV *** http://www.freesklyarov.org ***