Tories want to castrate the BBC

Tory MPs, along with Rupurt Murdoch, want to castrate — or destroy entirely — the BBC’s news website. Here’s John Redwood:

First, the magazine industry lobbied MPs hard about the way the BBC moved into their business, using its own free ads for its own products to gain entry to their market. Next, the local and regional papers lobbied MPs about the impact the free BBC web and media service was having on their sales. Now James Murdoch points out the obvious main concern – the stronger the BBC brand and web offer is, the less private sector competitors can charge for news and views and the less plurality and choice there will be. The BBC web offer is paid for by a poll tax which others cannot share or levy.

There needs to be a new settlement, to promote a vigorous and diverse media. We want the digital revolution to open up and sustain more choice.

It’s obvious why Murdoch wants to castrate the BBC: he wants to charge people money for reading the Times online, which is harder to do if there is a free alternative. And the Tories persumably want to go along with this because Murdoch has promised that in return his media will push a pro-Tory line; possibly a bribe donation was also involved. Which just goes to show the Tories are just as bad as Labour when it comes to doing what their rich chums want.

But that’s not important. The important question is: do these proposals make sense? Redwood is concerned that the BBC, by virtue of being popular, is unfair competition to private sector news websites. To a certain extent, that’s a valid concern. But the economy doesn’t exist to make private sector entrepreneurs rich, it exists to make things people need and want. And people clearly do want the BBC — according to Alexa the BBC have the number 2 and number 4 news websites worldwide, and by far the most popular UK-based one.

Making entrepreneurs rich is a means goal not an end goal; it’s only good if it furthers the end goal of the economy making things that people need and want. The BBC news website is clearly something people want, because it is very popular, and sacrificing it just so Rupert Murdoch can make more profits would harm the overall welfare of the people of Britain. But maybe the Tories care less about the British people than they do about their rich friends.

Cabbies and the music industry

According to Chris Dillow:

If I give a friend a lift in my car, should BP refuse to sell me petrol to punish me for depriving cab companies of revenue? No-one is proposing this. So why is the government proposing that ISPs cut off services to people who swap music files? The analogy holds because the cab firm and music company both lose potential business to people giving stuff away for free; the stress here is on “potential”  – there’s no out-of-pocket loss [...]

Could it be that we don’t protect cabbies from thieves who give other lifts simply because cabbies don’t have dinner with Peter Mandelson?

Mandy pays off £750,000 mortgage

The Daily Telegraph writes that Lord Mandelson has paid off his £750,000 mortgage on the £2.4 million house he bought in 2006.

This does not of course indicate that Lord Mandelson has received bribes from rich businessmen such as David Geffen, and it would indeed be totally improper to suggest any such thing.

I do however wonder what possessed Mandelson to announce that he will cut off the internet for 7 million filesharers, a move that’s likely to be incredibly unpopular, less than a year before the general election.

LD and Tory response to Internet disconnection

Lord Mandelson wants to disconnect filesharers from the Internet. What do the other political parties think? It appears the Lib Dems are against the idea:

Don Foster MP, the Liberal Democrat’s culture and media spokesman, told BBC News that Lord Mandelson’s move was “reckless and dangerous”.

“There are many families whose children, unbeknown to them, might be illegally downloading but now their own access could be put in jeopardy by Lord Mandelson’s proposals.”

Mr Foster acknowledged that online piracy was “a major problem in the UK” but said overriding the opinions of Lord Carter and two secretaries of state was “bizarre”.

The Tories, on the other hand, seem to want to have their cake and eat it:

The Conservative MP John Whittingdale, who is also chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, said he was broadly supportive of Lord Mandelson’s proposals, but said that he may have inadvertently “killed his own bill”.

“Personally I am on his [Lord Mandelson's] side; peer-to-peer sharing is the greatest threat to our creative industries,” he said.

“I don’t think people should have their broadband cut off, but there are measures to restrict speed which is better than prosecuting people so they get a criminal record.

“That said, I have severe doubts that the government can get this bill through in the time available as if there is any opposition to it – and there will be now – there will be a general election before it goes through.”

The Pirate Party, of course, is totally against — we think filesharing should be encouraged, not criminalised.

PPUK parodied by Daily Mash

You can tell Pirate Party UK is getting recognition when the Daily Mash starts parodying us:

PLANS to cut-off the internet connections of people who share films and music have been branded an attack on the basic right to steal other people’s property.

Emma Bradford, 17, from Grantham, said: “I went into Reg Vardy’s this week intending to drive off in a brand new Ford Focus. But the guy refused to give me the keys and pointed to this big sign saying that all the cars have to be paid for, like they were someone’s property or something.”

She added: “People don’t own cars. Cars just exist. They’re in the ether. They’re like the air that we breathe. I suppose you want to charge me for breathing now?”

Stephen Malley, an 18 year-old thief from Hatfield, said: “I don’t have the balls for shoplifting which means I am forced to help myself in the privacy of my own bedroom.”

BBC’s Have Your Say on filesharing

The BBC are doing a Have Your Say on the question: Should file-sharers be cut off?

If you have a look at the Readers Recommended responses, they are nearly all against filesharers being cut off. Some samples:

• If my partner downloads files which turn out to be pirated how do you then cut them off without cutting me off – who has not broken the law?
• Let me guess: do the government’s plans for cracking down on illegal file sharers by any chance include a provision for tracking the internet usage of absolutely everyone in a giant database?
• Who the hell is Mandleson to decide who can and cannot access the internet?
• Lord Mandelson meets with David Geffen on holiday and suddenly we need to change our laws – is this the correct way to conduct our government affairs?
• Seven million people are doing something that is deemed to be illegal … I don’t know about you, but I would suggest that when so many people are doing something, the law is what needs fixing, not the people.
• The large media publishing companies need to work with consumers on this issue. Over pricing of DVDs, earlier releases in America, region locking. All of these lead to people turning to piracy.
• Leave people to enjoy TV and film in peace. Free from Labour’s net police!
• Now [we are] told what we can and can’t do on the internet, all this from two unelected politicians (Brown & Mandelson)
• Isn’t it amazing how big business like Sony BMG for instance control governments. It happened in France, its now happening here, forced upon us by the big names in Music and Films.
• The popularity of the up & coming UK pirate party will make the gov. think twice
• Also, I thought we had to be tried before being found guilty? Would the CPS really wish to spend hours and hours taking teenagers to court, just for listening to the latest Kylie song?
• Most people only download stuff they can’t get anywhere else – TV shows only shown in the US, for example.
• Cutting people off from the internet is not the solution.
• Why should the ISP’s be forced to act against their customers because of a whim of Government in cahoots with big business?
• ISPs should not be allowed to arbitrarily punish people, especially in the days of wireless internet when the owner of a network may well not be the person who has downloaded illegal material.

We’re winnnig the argument!

My offer to Tom Watson

Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East, and sensible person on digital rights issues, said this on Twitter:

@bengoldacre Apologies. You were right on filesharing. I was wrong. How could I believe my side would be so silly?

I replied:

@tom_watson My comiserations. Perhaps you should leave Labour and join the Pirate Party.

What’s wrong with the government’s proposals

Today the government announced it was going to cut off people’s internet access for filesharing, and force ISPs to pay part of the costs of the regimne to prevent illegal filesharing. These proposals are deeply flawed, and would harm the people of this country to benefit a few music industry fatcats.

The proposal to cut off internet access is flawed on a number of grounds.

1. It’s disproportionate. 50 years ago, people did most of their communication by talking face to face. If anyone had suggested a law cutting criminals’ tongues off or damaging their ears to induce deafness, it would have been seen as barbaric and disproportionate, whatever the offence.

But today, many people do most of their communication via digital electonic networks. This includes the telephone system, but mostly means the internet — especially considering that telephony is becoming just another application available on the internet.

So cutting off internet access is essentially cutting off people’s access to the outside world, to their friends, to accessing government services, to finding out what’s going on in the world. It’s the modern equivalent of cutting their tongue off or destroying their hearing.

2. It goes against the government’s target of getting everyone online. You can’t get people online, if you’re forcing them offline! Furthermore, once everyone is online, the government can save money by putting many public services online where it’s cheaper than an offline service. But if significant numbers of people aren’t online — particularly if the government have forced them off — they can’t do that.

3. It infringes on human rights by imposing collective punishment, because everyone in a household is punished because of one person’s filesharing. Collective punishment during wars is considered a war crime, so why does the British government want to impose it on our people in peacetime?

4. It will hit poorest people the hardest, increasing social exclusion. Two or three families might club together to buy an interent connection collectively if they can’t afford one each. This is easy to do and just requires an ethernet cable (or if they’re using wifi, not even that). But under these proposals, if one member of one family that collectively buys internet access is cut off, then all will be cut off. This will make it in practise harder for people to come to this sort of agreement amonst themselves. The people worst hit will inevitably be the poorest. If a child’s internet access is cut off and they can’t do research for their homework, when all their schoolmates can, that will harm their academic progress.

5. It stops people from being good neighbours. Some people deliberately leave open their wifi connection, as a service to their neighbours and the community. Under these proposals, these good neighbours will be treated like criminals and could face their internet access being cut off.

The government want to force ISPs to pay part of the cost of enforcing this crackdown. This is also flawed, because it will increase ISPs’ costs, which will inevitably be passed on to the public. People on low incomes will be hit hardest by this, which will increase social exclusion, and act against the goal of getting everyone online.

With all these disadvantages it’s surprising the government has announced this. Maybe they care more about music industry fatcats’ profits than they do about the welfare of the British people.

Government plans to cut off internet access: the main proposals

Well, the government’s statement of P2P filesharing has finally arrived (“Government statement on the proposed P2P file-sharing legislation”), and it contains 3 major proposals.

The most important is that the government has changed its mind and appearently decided to cut off internet access for suspcted filesharers, although they realise how extreme this is and tie it up with lots of weasel words:

We are considering the case for adding suspension of accounts into the list of measures that could be imposed. This does not necessarily mean that suspension would be used – this step would obviously be a very serious sanction as it would affect all members of a household equally, and might disrupt access to other communications, so it should be regarded as very much a last resort.

On timescale, the government want things to happen a lot more quickly. Originally, the actions against filesharers would only kick in after the general election — which made a lot of sense politically. But now they want to do it sooner:

Timescale – the previous proposals, whilst robust, would take an unacceptable amount of time to complete in a situation that calls for urgent action. We continue to believe that these two obligations will make a significant difference in the level of unlawful P2P activity, and represent the most effective way in dealing with unlawful file-sharing. But this is a complex area which has not been tackled in legislation before, and we acknowledge that if the original proposals are shown not to be fully effective, this could mean it would be a very long time before further steps could be taken.

I’m puzzled why they have changed their mind on this. They must realise that annoying millions of internet users just before a general election isn’t going to improve their chances at all.

On costs, they want ISPs and rights holders to go 50:50 on the costs of notifying alleged filesharers:

We are minded to allocate costs so that essentially individual parties will have to bear the costs they incur as a result of these obligations apart from the operating costs of sending notifications, which will be split 50:50 between ISPs and rights holders.

Because all these changes affect the ongoing consultation, they’re extending it:

In order to allow us to do so and to give people more time to consider their response, we will be extending the deadline to 29th September 2009. We would also welcome additional comments from those stakeholders who have already submitted a response.

OK, that’s what the government intend to do. In my next post I’ll explain why it’s a bad idea.

Britblog Roundup

Britblog Roundup #236