Where the Bong-Tree grows

"They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose.."
Edmund Lear

I'm off in search of the Piggy-wig...
.. but the world I'm sure will still be here when I get back.

Normal service will be resumed shorly.....

The French again... Privacy, what privacy?

This one I found a little depressing...

As part of the provisions for the revised Hadopi legislation there is the opportunity to introduce surveillance of communications - including e-mail. The motive is to be unbiased - so that it is not just peer to peer traffic that is being monitored for copyright infringement. So maybe they should read all your mail as well??? ... just to see you're not including anything naughty?

Don't these people have any sense of what it is they are doing?!?

Unjust business practices

The private copyright police are busy in Hull in the UK. Karoo, the local operator, are acting as judge and jury in enforcing alleged copyright infringement.

As reported by the Open Rights Group,
"None of this takes place through a court. The ‘evidence’ is not examined and cannot be disputed. Users have to accept responsibility for the alleged infringements in order to be reconnected."

What is taking place is a form of 'three strikes' policy - with a disturbing lack of judicial oversight. Three strikes proposals in France that were based on a government agency making assesssments have been struck down as unconstitutional and breach of individuls rights -yet here we have a private company taking on the responsibility to police copyright with no mandate or judicial revue whatsoever. Forcing people to sign confessions to get reconnected to the service is something the mafia would be proud of...

Contrast this with the how Swedish ISP Ephone is in court to defend the interests of it's subscribers. One of the issues there is the quality and validity of the 'evidence' provided by media companies of illegal activity. How are Karoo making their judgements?

Bear in mind that the subscription holder may not be the offender - and that this policy impacts everyone in a household not just an alleged offender - and you can see that this is just not a defensible policy.

Cease and desist!!

The Pirate Party & Piratpartiet are working for copyright reform, and an individuals rights to privacy.

Sauce for the goose: What we do, they do.

When it comes to privacy, state surveillance and the Internet I have a simple rule of thumb when it comes to judging whether legislation is reasonable, proportional and democratically defensible.

What would I think of these measures if I lived under a dictatorship - or some other less enlightened form of government? There is a risk that circumstances can change at home, and powers brought in in good faith could be misused in the future. More than that though there is a good chance that other countries around the world will use our behaviour as a justification for introducing powers that might not be so benignly employed.

The latest example of this was Iran's decision to introduce something equivalent to the EU's Telecom directive - which will allow them to monitor, amongst other things, where people surf to. The law will allow them to tackle 'cyber crime', but what else might it be used for?

Fundamentally, the rights of free speech and privacy are not served by governments keeping track on what we see, think or do. Technological advances are making it possible to monitor every aspect of our lives - but just because we can doesn't mean we should.

Western society, with high ideals on human rights needs to set a shining example... and remember that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. .

The Pirate Party & Piratpartiet - Putting privacy first.

More beer....

Actually, thinking about it...

The decline of the pub trade is probably a result of the rising sales of digital media. Everyone is at home watching cable TV, pay to view films, listening to music and playing games. Therein lies the rub... you can't buy films and music AND spend it on beer.

News in fetters?

The latest Piratpartiet newsletter from Anna Troberg picks up on the Hamburg Declaration. This is a collection of newspaper publishers setting out their stall for the EU Commission for increased copyright protection on the Internet - with the aim of manipulating the legal structure to give them a preferential advantage to exploit the news - that is, changing the law to line their own pockets.

In the linked article is the quote "we no longer wish to be forced to give away property without having granted permission." which I find frankly bizarre.

My view on this is that, following the model set by the film and music industry the press have decided it is easier to lobby their way to a profit than to find a way to run an effective web based business. A key complaint is that aggregators and search engines are making money out of linking to their content and they want to be able to charge for content re-use.

But consider that:

• Newspapers today make substantial use of free sources (reporting on news coming from 'citizen journalists', blogs and similar sources) and cross citation from other papers, TV and radio
• Restrictions on reporting and citation are a limitation of free speech.
• Many newspaper websites make substantial use of user generated content - blogs and user comments - to attract readers.
• A newspaper is not forced to put items on the web.
• Many publications already make some or all of it's content available on a registration only or subscription basis - like the Financial Times, Economist and New Scientist for example.
• Search engines and aggregators drive traffic to newspapers. They provide free advertising for the newspapers.
• Search engines link rather than copy material.
• A website can simply prevent it's content being included in search engines - they just don't want to.
• Nothing is stopping newspaper sites themselves providing news aggregation to increase their coverage and share of advertising revenue.

More laws aren't the answer.

For more on the debate round newspaper strategies for the digital age check out Debategraph - a reall nifty site I just discovered thanks to The Open Rights Group (also a good read).

Pubs in decline. Music is small beer...

The British Beer & Pub Association published this week a report on the decline of British pubs. An average of 52 pubs closed every week in 2008 with an estimated 24 000 jobs lost.... By historical standards it's a very high level and a true cause for concern to see this British institution in such decline.

The BBPA are quick to point the finger at increased regulation and taxation as the cause for the decline - althought without actually researching why people are not going to the pub it is a bit bold to come to a conclusion. Other reports - you can find it in the Times, Financial Times and The Telegraph for instance - raise other factors into the equation.

City pubs are faring much better than country pubs, and pubs focussing on food are doing better than those that are out and out drinkers pubs. One report suggested that tied* pubs are particularly hard hit, suggesting that it is monopolistic practices in the brewing trade that are at least as much to blame as government tax policy, and the high level of rents are a long standing issue of concern for landlords.

But.. go back to the beginning and read again... 24 000 jobs lost in the pub industry. Real jobs. People that worked last year that don't have the same job this year. Now compare that with the estimated cost to the economy of free downloads in the UK. A postulated four thousand jobs lost in 2004.

So... the crisis at your local is hurting the economy six times more than any potential loss of sales to file sharing. Remember that the next time someone down the pub starts rattling on about the costs of piracy.

Music is small beer... go have another pint!


*A tied pub is independantly run, but under obligation to buy beer from a particular supplier - often above the market rate.

The Pirate Party & Piratpartiet are working for copyright reform. Can't you add cheap beer to the manifesto guys?

Privacy, libel & freedom of speech

Free speech hangs on the right and ability to say what you think or believe without fear or sanction. It's a right that is tempered by the constraints of the law covering slander, libel and defamation. If you say something contentious you may be held to account for what you've said. Libel actions are notoriously expensive to pursue, making the threat of prosecution a real threat to the right of free speech...

Speaking out legitimately is harder if you don't have the resources to defend your rights in court - self censorship comes into play and society loses out in the process. It's a theme picked up and discussed in more detail on Heresy Corner. Well worth a read..

What price MP3? The hidden cost of streaming music.

MP3 is widely associated with web distribution of music, and the movement to free music from the constraints of physical delivery. Free music is often considered synonymous with MP3. But MP3 is not free.. There are patents on MP3 so if you want to sell hardware or software to code or decode MP3 you need to pay a fee.. and if you want to run a commercial streaming music service based on MP3 you also need to pay a fee.

Looking just at the latter case… a quick look at the MP3licensing site shows that if you gross more than $100 000 dollars a year you need to pay a 2% licensing fee. Now MP3 is really nifty stuff so you might think two percent is not that unreasonable… but let’s think about my streaming business. Let’s say after all my costs are in I might be aiming for a profit of ten percent on turnover… That means that a two percent license cost eats a fifth of my profit. Or put another way… four days a week I work for my shareholders, and one day a week I work to pay off the MP3 license fees.

So… Free music anyone?

“Ogg Vorbis is a completely open, patent-free, professional audio encoding and streaming technology with all the benefits of Open Source.”
So why isn’t everyone using .OGG?

And don't forget.... The Pirate Party & Piratpartiet are working for patent reform

(NB: I haven’t checked out the norm for profit levels for streaming music businesses.. treat this as an example, and if you have real numbers let me know)

We know who your friends are...

Two recent posts about Facebook caught my eye - two which any Facebook user ought to be interested to read. The first is another post from Michael Geist, reporting that Facebook has been found in violation of Canada's privacy code.
Facebook is great... But as every user needs to understand, it can give away lots of information about your private life.

You might think it it only your friends that see your data so what's there is Ok. But consider that Canada's criticisms hinge mainly on controls over information that goes out to all those third party application providers... Who was it you gave perrmission to to read your profile data - do you really know?

We often don't think how 'innocent' information may be used. This second post, though anecdotal, shows that even just showing pubicly who your friends are may be just a little too much information in the wrong hands.... We know who your friends are...

Privacy matters.... Which is why The Pirate Party and Piratpartiet are campaigning to protect the individuals right to privacy.

I used to think human rights were not important…

I used to think human rights were not important… There is essentially nothing in nature that makes rights rights – they are at the end of the day only things people have agreed on as just principles. If you looked in on society from space you’d see that the only natural law we are bound by is the law of the jungle – people, and governments, do what they can get away with.

The principle still stands… but human rights do matter. They matter because we choose to make them matter. We choose to live our lives according to principles. How we expect to be treated is how we should expect others to be treated.

People and governments do what they can get away with. But rights matter… and that means that each of us has a responsibility to see that they don’t get away with breaching our rights – not individually and not collectively.

Rights come with responsibilities – and our responsibility is to see that everyone gets to enjoy the same rights that we enjoy and take for granted.

Inactivity is acquiescence.

..supporting Bloggers Unite for Human Rights 2009

Against the Stockholm Programme: Jakop Dalunde in translation

I didn't make it to Humlegården yesterday for the demonstration against the Stockholm Programme. For those that also missed it here is a taste plucked from the Stockholm blogosphere...

A translation of the speech by Jakop Dalunde of the Young Greens (Grön Ungdom Riksorganisationen) from yesterday's demonstration in Humlegården, Stockholm.

"Many before and after me will talk about the Stockholm programme's content, on technicalities and details. That is important, because that is where the devil sits. But we must also raise our eyes and see the broader picture.

The surveillance laws that are now being pushed through not only have direct consequences for privacy, but it also affect how we see each other and society at large. We are gathered here today because we know there are no terrorist threats that justify the extent of repressive measures. We do not accept the problem image of hordes of illegal immigrants who must be hunted down.

But I am sadly afraid that the surveillance lobby's propaganda will affect millions of Europeans' views on terror and migrants, and eventually change our whole society. More and more people will believe that migrants are fundamentally a problem and it is actually a terrorist lurking behind the next corner. An important part of the Stockholm program is cooperation with the U.S. so we can check what the terrorist threat debate had for consequences there.

In Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9 / 11 he travels to a small town in the middle of nowhere and interviewing citizens on the street about how they see the terrorist threat. The interviewees respond that they are afraid, and that they now live differently and look out for what could be suspicious. And when Michael Moore then asks what they think would be the target for terrorist attack in this little town, and an interviewee pointed to the local Wal-Mart store, then it is difficult to know whether to laugh or cry.

An example from a major city, New York. When I was there last spring, it struck me how the terrorist threat embraced their society. Cameras everywhere. In the entrance to all shops there were big signs that said "If you suspect terrorism, call this number". Can you imagine seeing a sign like that every time you shop for food? It affects your mentality. It makes people close up, when instead we should open up.

It is not only morally right to open Europe's borders for migrants, we also have a duty under the Geneva Convention to allow asylum seekers the opportunity to test their right to protection. But what is happening right now is that the EU's refugee hunters Frontex stops most of them before they reach the border to, with immigration minister Billström's words "jointly and severally accept responsibility for those who come to Europe". The newspeak is strongly provocative.

I think there were many of us who rucked our eyebrows when justice minister Ask today said "the EU summit must strengthen citizens' privacy." Or try on this sentence, "Our hope is that individual rights and privacy should be strengthened within the EU through the Stockholm programme."

This undermines not only the Swedish language, but also confidence in public debate. Can we trust what ministers say is true? Can a society without faith in their elected officials work?

We are gathered here today because we know that a suspicious and closed society has no future, and that the good power of the red and the blue, the purple and the green must fight together to take back a trusting and open society!"

EU Big Brother plans

More in English on the Stockholm Programme - "a five-year plan they claim is designed to make it easier to catch criminals and keep Europe’s citizens safe".

Cribbed from the ever resourceful HAX...

Net Neutrality hearings in Canada - what's that all about?

In Canada they have just completed hearings on Net Neutrality - hearing evidence from operators, ISPs, consumer groups and media groups on whether and how the network should discriminate between different types of traffic. The Internet is a busy place, and at times lines get full to capacity - either on the link down to your house, in the network itself or in the links to the web servers you are accessing.

Operators commonly use a 'shaping' or 'throttling' to cut down the amount of traffic - basically putting caps on the rate at which data can be sent or received by users (or wholesalers). There are different ways to do this - you can limit everyone a bit, limit the highest users a lot, or limit certain types of traffic. Often it is the latter that is done. Operators use a technique called 'Deep Packet Inspection' - looking inside the data being carried - to find out what type of traffic t is and then selectively restrict what they see as bandwidth eaters - which usually means peer to peer traffic.

The problem for them is that a few users generate a high volume of traffic and that means less capacity to share amongst the rest - but for the consumer it means both that you don't always get the high speed connection you think you are paying for - and someone is looking inside your traffic to see what sort of things you are doing. Usually they don't keep records of who does what - but the potential exists....

You may think it is reasonable for the operators to cut back heavy users to ensure all their customers get a reasonable service even in busy times... (even thogh they thought they paid for a full rate service) but the evidence presented shows that some are throttling peer to peer traffic all the time, or between certain times of day, regardless how busy the network actually is. In other words the operators are deliberately degrading service to customers even when they don't need to.

It costs money to build network capacity - which is a cost that we consumers share. The thing is though that that capacity can also be used to provide fee paying services like IP-TV linked to the operator or ISP. These are often time critical services that need to have bandwidth available to deliver glitch free performance... and the service providers expect the operator to provide them with enough capacity for there to be no problems.

The public internet can also provide similar services downloaded from independent suppliers out on the web. They also want good access to bandwidth to get their service over - but there's no revenue in it for the operator - apart from the fact that you've already paid for your internet access.

So the point is... is your traffic being throttled to free up capacity for someone else's service? Are operators prioritising their opportunities to make money over providing an impartial service? The hearing make interesting reading on what the different players say they are up to.

You can find reporting on the seven day hearing on Michael Geist's blog... and more on net neutrality here.

Ephone & IPRED: the customer is always right

Swedish ISP Ephone has announced that it will appeal the decision that it must release IP address details for alleged illegal filesharing using their service. The case is the first introduced under controversial IPRED legislation allowing the industry access to information about filesharers.

Ephone have argued that the evidence presented is insufficient to say a crime has been committed. This case is doubly interesting as the alleged offence took place on a password protected server (i.e. a site with limited access) and it's not clear how the publishers have gained access to gain evidence - unauthorised access to the server as I understand it would in itself be an offence.

Before deciding to appeal Ephone set up a webpoll asking visitors to their website to vote on whether they should or sould not appeal the original verdict. 99% side "Yes".

The story continues.....

A Fair(y) Tale.... on Copyright

Fair Use of course is an american legal concept... which probably means that the dwarfs will get Grumpy if I post it here in cyberland....

Emission cuts. Offsets are not the answer!

For a simple but effective analysis of what's wrong with current plans to cut global emissions by offshoring them using offsets check out this article in the Guardian:

The rich can relax. We just need the poor world to cut emissions. By 125%

Notice also the bit that says - G8 countries need to cut emissions by >93% by 2050 to avoid a two degree rise in global temperature. And the bit that says acting now is more effective than waiting to the last minute - obvious but sadly overlooked by politicians everywhere....

Ireland repeals Freedom of speech

In a move that is more medieval than post modern the Irish parliament have just passed legislation creating a new crime of blasphemous libel. It can variously been seen as a modernisation of existing blasphemy laws (cutting the maximum fine from €100 000 to €25 000), a tool against 'religionism', or a pointless and dangerous infringement of free speech.

You can apparently be convicted if you cause “outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion.” ... which is an interesing sort of definition. The whole point with freedom of speech is that you can say things that are unpopular and have the protection of the law.

Normally to prove libel you show that the (defamatory) statements made are purported facts that are untrue - that people don't like what you said doesn't in an way enter enter it. Thus, this new legislation strikes clearly aganst EU citizens rights of expression.

Atheist Ireland is actively opposing the legislation which, at an AI meeting Professor Richard Dawkins called "a wretched, backward, uncivilised regression to the middle ages".

If you want to imagine the scope of this legislation to infringe on free speech consider this example that 'outraged a substantial number of people' in Alabama...

Footnote:
Atheist Ireland also provide 'Count me Out' - a site for people wishing to officially leave the Catholic church... if that's not a blasphemous suggestion?

Pirates say NO to increased state surveillance

Piratpartiet in Sweden are organising a demonstration this Wednesday against the EU's "Stockholm package"- a set of measures that, while talking of improving protection of citizens privacy and rights includes a number of measures that strengthen the rise of the surveillance state.

These include:
* Increased co-operation between the EU and the US "in the field of freedom, security and justice".
* National anti-terrorist centres in all EU states that report in to Brussels
* All EU states wil share their espionage information with all their EU states
* More and more effective, "data-mining".
* Real time access to citizens data on e.g travel, banking, mobile position, internet use as well as fingerprint and picture.
* More effective surveillance through pro-active collection of individual citizens electronic footprints.
* EU-standardisation of surveillance
* Harmonisaton of EU rules to avoid (legal) obstructions to surveillance and tapping.
* Analysis at EU level of material from member states sureveillance and mass surveillance.
* An extended EU-bureaucracy for surveillance, tapping and analysis called SitCen.

Sweden have the EU presidency right now - which puts them in the driving seat to push forward this programme - but public opinion throughout Europe will have a bearing on what mandate exists to push through measures.

Piratpartiet is supported in its opposition by a number of other politic organisations including the Green Party, the Young Greens, the Liberal Network for Integrity and 'Social Democrats against Big Brother'.

These measures were discussed in the UK press a year ago but now will move forward towards implementation. Make your voice heard - talk about it, write about it, blog about it - write to your local paper, and write to your MP and MEP....

Facebook event

Links:
The Telegraph:
The Guardian:
EU information:

Tell it how it is - bankers on the web

The Guardian reports today under the title 'Twitter is not for teens' on a report by Morgan Stanley on internet usage by teens. What makes it diferent is the report is witten by a 15 year old 'intern' at the bank.

The report:

• dismisses Twitter
• says online advertising is pointless
• teenagers are using more and more media, but are not willing to pay for it
• most teenagers have signed up for Twitter, but aren't going to use it -'they realise that no-one is viewing their profile so their tweets are pointless'.
• no teenager reads newspapers regularly
• and they are put off by intrusive advertising so they prefer listening to advert-free music on websites such as Last.fm ..
• advertising is seen as extremely annoying and pointless.
• most teens have never bought a CD

And so it goes on.

I guess at the bottom this is anecdotal evidence from a small sub-sector of the teen generation - but it is clear that how young people see the online world is not how most politicians and industry leaders would like to have the world. It is perhaps a sign of the times that investment bankers are now telling their clients that things ain't like they used to be....

But really this shouldn't be a suprise.. this is exactly what the Piratpartiet has been saying for some time.

Links: The Pirate Party, Piratpartiet

Who do they thnk they are?

Cabalamat at 'Amused Cynic' has a link to a lovely little news item from Russia. Deep Purple have been found guilty of breach of copyright..... for playing their own songs.

Canuck Pirates in the press

Canadian press coverage of the formation of a Pirate Party in Canada. A lot of focus on copyright, and only passing mentions of integrity, privacy and state surveillance - but it is nice to see that they are getting publicity even from day one...

As spotted on Michael Geist's blog.

2008 updates in intenational copyright legislation

The International Federation of Library Associations & Institutions (IFLA) have a useful resource page with annual reports on changes to copyright legislation in a range of different countries including Sweden.

Some basic facts never did any harm.....

Featured Artist Manifesto

Searching round for something else I found a news article I'd missed on the launch of the Featured Artist Coalition - a trade and lobby group set up to lobby for artists rights within the music industry. The groups premise is that featured artists - the main name on the cover - are what sell music, but that artists in fact get a bad deal from the music companies and that no-one is representing artists interests as the industry moves into the digital age. (You might wonder what the musician's union has been doing for the last fifty years?)

While viewpoints can differ on what are sensible limits for copyright I find a lot to sympathise with in their manifesto:

• artists rights should be licensed not assigned - meaning artists keep rights to their work
• licensing should be fixed term and lapse back to the artist
• artists should get paid on the same terms as songwriters (who get paid whenever their work is played in a cinema showing for instance)
• copyright owners should be obliged to 'use it or lose it' preventing work being lost to the public (with consequent loss of earnings for the artist)

Last but not least they also support a key plank of Piratpartiet's policy on copyright - that it should not be a criminal act to share music for non commercial use. They specifically distance themselves from the music industry making villains of their customers.

As a lobby organisation they will have two things working in their favour... first that they are fronted by a number of well known pop celebrities including Billy Bragg, Jools Holland, David Gray, and the amazing Annie Lennox (The clip is there in sympathy for all those used and abused artists.. ;-)

The second is that membership is a mere 5% of an artists UK performing rights income - which should give them a healthy warchest to lobby from. (That was 5% tax deductable so the tax payer will be paying for a chunk of their lobbying activities... which goes a bit against the grain).

Footnote: They estimate an average artist would pay a few hundred pounds a year - equivalent to about £8000 gross income. Most artists dont make enough to live on then......

Working 9 to 5: pay up or face the music

"Nine to five

What a way to make a livin'

Barely gettin' by

It's all takin' and no givin'

They just use you mind

And they never give you credit...."

....as made famous by Dolly Parton

It's no news that STIM, the Swedish performing rights society, wants payments from companies using music in their business or playing music in the workplace. Now though they have gone one further and started requiring licensing from companies that 'give their employee the possibility to play music'. ... which includes those providing them with a PC capable of playing tunes... which is pretty much any computer you can buy.

At up to 40 000 kronor per company (around £3300) that's a fat price to pay for something you dont even know get's used. Not only that of course but if you are playing music at your desk you're most probably not playing out loud i.e. making a public performance, and you have probably already paid for the music at least once - either buying the disc or download - or by the radio station paying to STIM.

Reading between the lines this looks like another case of outdated rules. Not so very long ago if the company gave you the ability to play music that usually meant a radio that was going to be played to the room. These days a music player comes free on every computer - a tool for the trade. It used to make sense that a company providing a means to make music meant it to be used in public... but that isnt true any more, and STIM wanting a tax on computers is just plain stupid - except of course they already have a tax on media and hard drives :-(

It is though another good example that you never pay for music.. but they are quite happy to get paid for letting you play music you already own.

Could this be why Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party are working for reform of copyright?

Simple choices make a difference

I enjoyed the news today... The president of Russia and the USA sat down together today to talk about their differences. Not shout across the pond or wave sabres. Just talk - like they meant it.

We don't know what was said, or how seriously it was said - but communication is a HUGE step on the road to a better world. And there's significant symbolic value in the outcome of the talks. More nuclear disarmament - must be considered good - but things like allowing American transports to Afghanistan to overfly Russia and resumption of 'military co-operation' are both public signs of more positive relations.

Thank you..
..but don't stop there...

Who owns the word of God?

E-books are the next big thing - and are even coming to Sweden..... as noted by Dagens Nyheter last week (..and highlighted by HAX).

Generally that's a good thing - lots of works easily accessible online, simple to find and simple to buy (or download for free from sites like the excellent Project Gutenberg). There is one small fly in the ointment though. Conversion to e-format means a whole new copyright on existing works that are already in the public domain.... so although we, the public, own them - someone else gets to set their monopoly on them and sell it back to us. Isn't that slightly strange?

This is highlighted by today's news that the Codex Sinaiticus- an early christian bible from the 4th century, & one of the world's greatest literary treasures - is now available on-line. Great!
But - if you think you might like to translate a few stanzas for your next sermon on the mount, (or church fundraiser) - do read the small print.

"The original item itself is in the public domain in most jurisdictions and therefore not protected by copyright under applicable laws. However rights in the electronic copy and certain associated metadata are owned by the holding institutions. If you wish to make use of this electronic copy or its metadata other than for non-commercial personal or educational use, you must first obtain the written permission of the relevant institution."

It does seem a bit anachronistic you must admit... (although having created translations in multiple languages I understand that there is a lot of work behind making this available.) Full marks though for making this unique resource available for non-commercial and educational use...

Bit of a shame the church is a commercial organisation though ;-)