The digital economy versus the Digital Economy Bill

I was at an Open Rights Group event in Edinburgh yesterday, about lobbying MPs regarding the DE Bill. One of the attendees, Hugh Hancock, pointed out that he will likely be harmed by the DE Bill, even though he is a creative person who is part of the digital economy, one of the very group of people this bill is ostensibly intended to help. (Of course, we all know that the DE is really there to protect the content distribution industry, not creative people).

So I suggested a website be created where people who create digital content and will be harmed by the DE Bill can say so. And ORG have put a page up on their wiki doing just that: it’s called Digital Economy Bill: Harming Creative People.

So if you’re a digital creative, and will be harmed by the DE Bill, I suggest you add yourself to the page, with a brief paragraph saying how the DE Bill will harm you. And forward the URL to your friends, so they can sign it too.

Britblog Roundup #256

Britblog Roundup #256 is here.

Britblog Roundup #255

Britblog Roundup #255 is here.

Mousavi: I’ll die for freedom

Mir Hossain Moussavi, the man who would have won last year’s Iranian election if the votes had been counted properly, has said that he is prepared to be a martyr in the struggle agianst the Iranian government:

Mousavi [...] has said he is “not afraid to die” in defence of people’s rights and called for an end to the government crackdown on anti-establishment activists.

In a statement on his Kaleme website on Friday, Mousavi also said that the Islamic Republic was in “serious crisis” following the disputed presidential election in June.

“I am not afraid to die for people’s demands … Iran is in serious crisis … Harsh remarks … will create internal uprising … the election law should be changed … political prisoners should be freed,” his statement said.

I think this is going to be big. The struggle of the Iranian opposition is coming to a head; in 2010 either they will win, or they’ll be seriously repressed, and the regime will lose a great deal of its legitimacy.

So that was the noughties

Yeah, I know –the noughties was a shit name for a decade. But let’s see what happened.

Politically the biggest single event was the 9/11 attack and its aftermath. American soldiers invaded Afghanistan, and NATO troops are still there. The USA, with the UK as its poodling sidekick, invaded Iraq, and that country probably won’t get back on its feet before the middle of the next decade.

The biggest story economically was the rise of China. China is still a relatively poor country, but at their current rate of growth they will surpass the US economy sometime between 2030 and 2035. China recently executed a British man, and their government seeks to forbid the British government from criticising this decision:

A spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Jiang Yu, told a press briefing in Beijing no-one had the right to comment on China’s judicial sovereignty.

“We express our strong dissatisfaction and opposition to the British government’s unreasonable criticism of the case. We urge [them] to correct their mistake in order to avoid harming China-UK relations,” she said.

If that’s how arrogant China is now, how arrogant will they be when they equal or surpass our power? The Chinese government is deeply undemocratic, and can be expected in their own interests to hinder the growth of democracy worldwide.

The West became powerful because its economy was thriving, which made it militarily strong. Now China has 9% growth rates, it is beating us at our own game. Modern China the biggest threat to western civilisation since Attila the Hun. It is in our interest that either they become a democracy, or we seek to prevent them from getting wealthier than us.

The biggest winner from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is China, since these wars inflame sentiment against the West in Muslim countries, and make it easier for China to gain common cause with these countries. Similarly the West’s support of Israel also alienate moderate Muslim sentiment from the West. The West therefore needs to tell Israel to get out of all the land it occupied in 1967, or it is on its own. At the same time we need to do a deal with Fatah where they suppress Hamas (because the best cure for religious extremism is a bullet in the head) and allow the conditions whereby Palestine can become a relatively liberal democracy, a decade or two hence.

In technology, this was the decade of the Internet. Most people in developed countries have broadband today, and by the end of the next decade, most people in the world will have it. The content industries  have fought back against the freedom to exchange information that the net brings, and to counter them, the Pirate Party was born in Sweden which is today part of an international Pirate Party movement in 30 countries. Expect the copyfight to continue in the 2010s, and Pirate Parties will become a mainstream political movement, at least as mainstream as Green parties are today. By the end of the decade, Pirates will have achieved some of their goals, by preventing future restrictive laws from being enacted. In the early part of the 2010s this will mainly involve the ACTA Treaty which will lead to an almighty row and will never be implemented.

2009 saw the failure of the Copenhagen summit to achieve a meaningful settlement on climate change. In response, sensible Green activists will start thinking about technology instead of politics as a possible solution to reducing carbon emissions. For example if solar cells or solar furnaces could produce electricity cheaper than current power stations, everyone would move over to them and carbon emissions would be reduced.

In Britain, we had the first ever full decade where the Labour Party was in power. What started on a hopeful note — the sun still shone out of Blair’s arse in 2000 — ended in a despairing note as Labour look forward with dread to see what revenge the voters will take on their perceived failings.

Labour failed to tackle poverty: their solution of a minimum wage makes a minimal difference to the problem, because many people on the minimum wage aren’t poor (they live in multiple-earner households) and many people who are poor aren’t on the minimum wage (they are unemployed). Instead, the correct solution would be to reform the benefit system to reduce the 100% marginal tax rates of those going off benefits (the best solution would be a citizens income) and to allow more housebuilding (so that people can buy a house for approximately the cost of building a house, not 4 times more as at present). No doubt the incoming Tory government which will rule for at least the first half of the 2010s will also fail to make these reforms, just like they did when they were last in power (1979-1997).

Labour did succeed however in destroying civil liberties, with their detention without trial, control orders, people being harassed and arrested as terrorists for taking photographs, and to cap it all their law giving them the power to do anything they like, the Civil Contingencies Act. Nice one lads; we can all rest assured that should the BNP ever win an election, they won’t have to pass a single law to make this country a repressive dictatorship.

Labour also managed to wreck the economy by vastly increasing public spending (from 36% or GDP to 48%) without much in the way of improved outcomes (are the British people healthier or better educated than a decade ago?). Now we have a 14% budget deficit and people are suggesting that the UK might lose its status as a safe country to lend to; if that happens and we have to cut spending in a hurry, we’ll get a double dip recession and the shit will really hit the fan.

Britblog Roundup #253

Number 253 is your last Britblog Roundup for 2009, so let’s see what we’ve got in store…

Mark Pack looks forwad to the leaders’ debates in next year’s General Election, when “worms” might be deployed. What are worms?:

The “worm” is an instant poll tracker which wriggles across people’s TV screens, showing the net negative or positive reaction of a small group of the public to what is happening on screen. Running a worm across a politician’s speech or a debate between politicians has become a not uncommon feature of political coverage across many democracies. Known in the US as dial groups (because a group of people is each given a dial to twist towards positive or negative), worms have often been the cause of controversy there.

The liberal Democrat leader, captain Clegg, seems to be getting into the spirit of the election campaign:

Hmmm. I wonder if that imagery would work for the Pirate Party? Speaking of the Pirate Party, it’s one to watch in 2010. According to advertising agency JWT anyway:

While critics dismiss them as just a bunch of kids proclaiming their right to free file-sharing, this grassroots movement is broadening to embrace issues of the digital age: censorship, privacy rights and civil liberties on the Web.

Weggis thinks Brown’s for the chop:

The back pages of the tabloids and football chatrooms are rife with rumours that the manager of UKFC, Gordon Brown, is to be sacked. However, the changeover is not expected to take place until next May and Mr Brown will not be informed of the decision until after it is announced.

Greenman was not impressed with the deal at Copenhagen:

So, a pathetically weak “deal” that is not binding and basically, if not improved on, condemns large number of humans and other species to perishing as temperature change exceeds 2 degrees in the direction of 3 degrees and beyond.

Nor was James MacKenzie, who blames the left:

This betrayal was therefore delivered by the most left-wing American president since FDR, a notionally communist regime (although more accurately an authoritarian capitalist one), the more left of the main Indian political blocs, the most left-wing Brazilian government in modern times, and a South African president promoted by the South African Communist Party over his predecessor.

Clearly none of the various forms of vague leftism on offer are going to save us.

Molly Scott Cato has a different take on it:

From rhetorical bravura to rhetorical bravado, in one short speech Obama demonstrated that, like every other US President, he is utterly controlled by the economic actors who dominate his domestic politics.

The F Word asks why the success of the England women’s cricket team doesn’t get more recognition:

In March, the England women’s cricket team won the World Cup in Australia. This was followed by victory at the Twenty20 World Cup in June. Yet the media attention given to the women’s cricket team relative to that given to the men’s team is almost non-existent.

Philip Wilkinson looks at Lincoln Cathedral:

Lincoln is my favourite of all the English cathedrals – for its stunning hill-top setting (a site equalled only by that of Durham cathedral), its graceful silhouette, and its absorbing Gothic interior so packed with detail that there’s always something new to see no matter how often one visits.

Backwatersman listens to the Christmas service from King’s College Cambridge:

I do think it’s a great mistake to try to be too original at Christmas. “I know, let’s do something totally different this year” is not a sentiment that finds any echo in this human bosom. So you may well be planning to listen in today to the service of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College Cambridge (3 o’clock on the Home Service).

Weanwhile, Dungeekin imagines what a New Labour carol service would be like:

Please be seated. There, wasn’t that lovely? Now, the New Labour Christmas is, as you know, a time for children – and by that, of course, we mean that we’ve borrowed the money for the hall, the decorations and the food and your kids are going to be paying for it for the next thirty years.

Now, you’ll see that there are some differences between the New Labour Christmas and the traditional Tory Toff christmas. Obviously the Nativity Scene doesn’t have any Wise Men, because we discovered the one bearing Gold was actually an investment banker so we taxed him, and the other two are locked up in Belmarsh under terror legislation.

There’s no star because of regulations on light pollution, and you’ll also note that there are no cattle in the Nativity scene due to an unfortunate outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease. Oh, and there aren’t any Shepherds as their Enhanced CRB checks haven’t come through yet. Finally, Mary and Joseph are currently in Campsfield House Detention Centre pending deportation back to Nazareth.

Diamond Geezer remembers his mum over Christmas. And looks at Whitewebbs Museam of Transport.

Peter Ashley stopped by a snowy wood that reminded him of a poem:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Paul at Liberal Burblins saw St Alban’s tower on TV. Twice.

Georgian London looks at relationships in the 18th century:

The idea that 18thC swains and shepherdesses met at the country fair, then married after a few chaste kisses is not impossible, but in reality is highly unlikely. The openness of courting in England in general (outside particularly religious communities) was observed with both astonishment and approval by Continental travellers, who noted young unchaperoned couples eating picnics together on Sundays in London’s various pleasure gardens. Any reader of Samuel Pepys is aware of the amount of grappling a young woman could expect if caught unawares, or if she had led a man to think she might permit it. I think Sam was rather enthusiastic in his approach, but he certainly sheds light on the interaction between the sexes in the late 17thC and it appears women were not exactly put on a pedestal, unless they were worth a very great deal of money.

What happens when a woman calls an ambulance for a cup of tea? Find out in Random Acts of Reality:

Our ‘patient’ was an eighty year old woman who got up and opened the front door when we arrived. Trying to be as polite as possible I asked her what the problem was. ‘My carer hasn’t arrived, I need a cup of tea’.

Natalie Bennett looks at the exhibition for the Centre for Medical Research and Innovation.

Derek Wall isn’t a fan of the SWP:

am not a fan of the Socialist Workers Party to be frank. The Party clearly has a control freak tendency. Building the SWP as a Lenninist vanguard is more important than building for wider political change. It used to be that you would organise an anti-cuts meeting, trade union campaign, peace movement and a small number of SWoppers would swop in and take it over.

The Daily Maybe discusses slogans:

All too often a catch phrase is given far too much heavy lifting to do and they are usually loose enough to mean all things to all people.

Rumbold looks at “honour” killings:

History provides only a partial answer. For hundreds of years, Europe was blighted by men (and women) fighting each other to defend their ‘honour’, whether in the classic duel, or ambushes, and so on. Yet that phenomenon doesn’t exist now, as a result of centralising states (which cracked down on duels and feuds since they threatened public order), and a shift from a culture that prized martial prowess to one that put more emphasis on learning and culture (and a few other factors). So in the end it was the combination of the state and contemporary opinion that reduced the need to defend one’s ‘honour’ through violence. Can the same thing happen to ‘honour-based violence? I hope so.

And that’s all for this week. Next week’s roundup will be by Jackart of A Very British Dude.

Britblog Roundup #252

Britblog Roundup #252 is now up at Mr Eugenides. It’s fully of bloggy goodness.

I’m doing it next week so send your submissions to the usual address — britblog AT gmail DOT com.

Music industry faces $6 billion copyright lawsuit

This:

A class action by Canadian musicians accuses the music industry of systematically infringing copyright, with potential damages of $6 billion.

Given the excessive punishments for copyright infringement that the music industry has successfully lobbied for, the final payout on this, both in Canada and worldwide, could easily exceed the combined market capitalisation of all the big recording companies put together. So it looks like they’ve been hoist by their own petard, although I’m sure their lawyers are working overtime trying to worm out of their just deserts.

There is no conformation yet that Lord Mandelson is planning a “300,000 strikes and you’re out” law to combat these serial copyright infringers.

LOL.

Update: This story has also been picked up by: Boing Boing, TorrentFreak, The Devil’s Kitchen, Copyfight, Hacker News, Techdirt.

Britblog Roundup #251

Britblog Roundup #251

Music industry screws musicians

The music industry screws musicians (via Hacker News).

What a surprise. Not.

The gist of this story is that royalties are often incorrectly calculated. Assuming this is the case, what’s the likelihood that the innaccuracies are consistently in the favour of the record company? I suspect very likely indeed, and in my opinion it constitutes fraud.

When record companies deprive artists of income through misaccounting, they should be charged with copyright infringement, and fined at the same high rate per copy that they have bribed legislators to apply when others infringe copyright. And if that means they go bankrupt, it’s no more than they deserve.