Below you'll find the letter we enclosed with each iPod. I'm thrilled with the support you have given us since we launched the campaign earlier this year.

You can find all the content we put on the iPods including a special video presentation created for IPac by Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig entitled 'Read/Write".


Dear Senator,

My name is Jake Fisher, and I am writing on behalf of a nonpartisan political action committee called IPac. IPac represents thousands of Americans committed to promoting the public interest in technology and copyright policy. Founded in 2004 by Internet pioneers, IPac is the leading political organization working to restore balance to American copyright and patent law by protecting the right to innovate. IPac endorses and contributes to candidates for Federal elective office.

Enclosed with this letter is an iPod we sent your campaign as an in-kind contribution valued at $316.94. Our hope is that by using the iPod you and your campaign will better understand that new innovative technologies need to be fostered not hindered by restrictive legislation that amounts to a innovation tax.

We thought you might have some questions about this peculiar contribution, so we took the liberty of answering a few of the likely ones here. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like to know anything else about this campaign jake@ipaction.org.


Who paid for this iPod?
In January, IPac started a public campaign to buy iPods for Senators’ campaign who work on technology and copyright issues. To date, ordinary Americans have contributed thousands of dollars to this fund, and we sent a dozen iPods to Senate reelection campaigns this week. While this purchase was made possible by many contributions, you need only list IPac as the donor for the purposes of FEC reporting.

Why did IPac send my campaign an iPod?
Though iPods are best known for playing music, they can also be used to assist your campaign. You can use the device to store contact information for donors or manage your busy calendar. You can archive footage of your public speaking engagements or view recorded television and radio interviews on the road. We hope you find other uses for the device as well.

The iPod is also a useful illustration for many complicated copyright and technology issues. In fact, pending legislation in the Senate will make some of your iPod's uses illegal. For example, if Senator Gordon Smith's "Digital Content Protection Act" becomes law, it could prohibit the transfer of digital broadcast content to personal media players and stifle American technical innovation. We believe that hands-on experience with the same devices that your constituents use can provide a new perspective on these topics.

Other legislation would make this device more useful. For example, the House has been considering Representative Rick Boucher's "Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act"

(DMCRA, HR 1201), which would amend our copyright law to protect American consumers and technological leadership.

What is on my iPod?
Your iPod has been pre-loaded with video, music, images, and text that is in the public domain or released under permissive terms like those provided by Creative Commons licenses. This means that everything on your iPod is free.

But that does not mean it isn't valuable.

Far from it. In the "Notes" section, you'll find the complete works of Shakespeare, the Constitution of the United States, and other important literarature. The audio content includes music by David Byrne, the Beastie Boys, and scores of independent artists. We also included a slideshow with 101 photos selected from the millions in flickr.com's Creative Commons image pool. Under "Videos," you'll find a special presentation from Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig on the importance of balancing copyright law with technical innovation and the rights of the public. A full list of your iPod's contents is available here:

https://ipaction.org/campaigns/ipod/content.html

If you are pleased by the richness you see and hear, we also hope that you are troubled by what you do not. In the public domain texts there are very few female and non-European authors. That is because in America, the public domain was essentially frozen in 1923, when our national chorus was only open to certain voices. The public domain has become an island, cut off from our cultural mainland and populated by ghosts.

Copyright policy shouldn't only be concerned with expanding copyright - it should focus on calibrating these policies to support artists, the public, and access to our common heritage. We look forward to working with you and your campaign in the future to ensure American innovation continues.

Sincerely,

Jake Fisher
Executive Director