Intellectual Property Law

We Interrupt Your Copyright Wars for a Moment

By Posted by Alan Wexelblat

I'm sure all of my readers have been reading plenty about the disaster in Haiti. If you're in a position to make some kind of donation to help out, please do so. Every relief expert I've heard talking in the past few days says there is a desperate need for simple cash, which can be used by organizations that already have infrastructure in place to get the most needed supplies to the people who are in the direst need in the shortest amount of time.

My personal choice for donations is MSF/Doctors without Borders. But there are a lot of good people doing their best work in this crisis and you can choose one that meets with your philosophies and practices I'm sure.

Along the way, please be careful of scammers. There are a lot of new Web sites and organizations springing up and sadly some of them are just plain old rip-off artists. If you are unsure of how your money will be used you can visit some third-party rating sites like Charity Navigator that will attempt to give you guidance on charitable organizations based on parsing their income/expense statements, tax-exempt status filings, and so on.

Some of the larger news organizations also have lists of charities for you to look over. For example, here is a list from MSN that includes several religious and non-denominational charities and picks out some Haiti-specific organizations they consider good to support.

Full post as published by Copyfight - The Politics of IP on January 14, 2010 (boomark / email).