Britannia in chains....

"Rule Brittannia, Britannia rules the waves,
Britons never, never shall be made to slaves"

"It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as

• the Protection from Harassment Act (1997),
• the Crime and Disorder Act (1998),
• the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000),
• the Terrorism Act (2000),
• the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001),
• the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001),
• the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002),
• the Criminal Justice Act (2003),
• the Extradition Act (2003),
• the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003),
• the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004),
• the Civil Contingencies Act (2004),
• the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005),
• the Inquiries Act (2005),
• the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005),

not to mention a host of pending legislation such as the Identity Cards Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. "  after Philip Pullman

Just a reminder... 
Not mentioning it doesn't make it go away

Britannia regains her pride...

The LibDems report on the proposed programme for the new coalition government.

Under Civil Liberties
"The parties agree to implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour Government and roll back state intrusion.

 

This will include:

• A Freedom or Great Repeal Bill.
• The scrapping of ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the Contact Point Database.
• Outlawing the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.
• The extension of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.
• Adopting the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.
• The protection of historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury.
• The restoration of rights to non-violent protest.
• The review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech.
• Safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation.
• Further regulation of CCTV.
• Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason.
• A new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences."

More commentary at Heresy Corner.


Can we get Habeus Corpus back too....?

Big boost in online income for UK Music

(resurrected from my drafts folder...)
PRS for Music - the UK Performing Rights Society has reported on their income for 2009.  It's timely as UK MPs prepare to vote on Digital Britain's future to see what dire warnings it gives about the state of music today... what with all that piracy and all....

So what do we find?

• income from digital music downloads is up by over 70%
• income from performances is up by 2,5%
• income from overseas is up 19%
• income from recorded media is down 8,7%
• the rise in income from downloads exceeds the drop in CD sales for the first time.

 It underlines two themes that have been seen before.... that income from live music will be an increasingly important part of an artist's - or songwriter's - income -  and that the music industry needs to provide good commercially attractive online offerings if they want to capture the interest of online music consumers.

Napster was a  decade ago... Did it have to take this long?

Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party -  Make your voice heard.

Britain falls into the democracy gap

Another UK election, and this time it's clearer than ever that first past the post system really doesn't deliver a democratic result. That anyone can defend a political system that delivers such skewed results frankly beggars belief.

Skewed? Well lets see now... The Libdems polled over one fifth of the vote and received about one in twelve of the seats in the house (57) - about 75 seats short of the number that they might expect. Labour's extra six or so percent brought them an additional 200 seats. If it happened in the Ukraine there would be protests on the streets....

Britain though is more worried about a hung parliament. It's better, apparently, to put up with a flawed and biased electoral system than to contemplate that politicians might, perish the thought, be required to co-operate and find what is actually in the national interest.

Language speaks volumes. The very phrase, the Opposition, defines an adversarial role across the benches. Some good old fashioned compromise will do them good...

Whoever ends up wooing the liberal democrats to form a government will do something quite unusual for modern times and actually have a government that represents the majority of the electorate - something that neither the Labour party or the Tories have a habit of achieving in their own right, regardless of how crushing a majority they have in the house. That makes this hung parliament the most legitimate form of representative government in modern times. Is that something to be scared about?

It is at times like these that the 'others' come into thier own - and yes, if you need their support they are going to expect sometrhing in return... but if you can't find a majority of members to support you without those concessions maybe you should wonder if your policy is really what the best thing for the country?

Digital Britain down the drain...

The Digital Economy.. that needs openness and innovation to thrive and grow today lies fettered by the Digital Economy Bill... a bill drafted to serve the interests of vested media industry interests, not to provide vehicle to stimulate and nurture all that the web could provide.  It's a bill that sets economics above rights and political machination above open democratic debate.  It's a bad bill.. and a bad day seeing it on the statute books.

 "I've heard arguments that I should be responsible for the Internet connection I pay for, just as a business is responsible for its network activities. Please! Let's put this into perspective - I'm a working mother of four children aged between 14 and 21. I'm not a network administrator, and pardon me if I'm too busy being a mother to commit my time to monitoring the home Internet connection. Also, even if I somehow managed to look over all four of their shoulders whenever they were online, I wouldn't know what I'm looking at..." Vanessa.. Mother of four

...taken from the comments on an article in the Daily Record  where the Scottich Law Society comment the bill...
 "This in our view raises serious concerns with the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides that everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law." Law Society of Scotland 

The possibilities for injustice are legend.

I hope our MPs are proud?

"As a twice ex-Whip, I am rather embarrassed by the fact that the Bill is being railroaded through in the wash-up. Frankly, there has been a squalid deal between the three Front Benches, and they should be ashamed of themselves. The people who care about this Bill -and there are many out there -will see that for what it is."  Tom Watson MP

Of course...  politicians are ultimately answerable to us the electorate.... so you might be interested to know which of our representatives had the spine and the vision to vote against the whips in the interests of our digital future...  The full list here

No compromise on Digital Rights..
It's time to vote Pirate!

Piratpartiet &; The Pirate Party -  Make your voice heard.

Privacy, Copyright & Integrity: Steps in the right direction..

I've been a bit busy recently - but things are happening out there in the big wide world...

You no doubt saw that in Australia they've ruled that an ISP shouldn't be held to account for the content carried...  a revalidation of the 'pure carrier' doctrine with it's analogy in "don't shoot the messenger".  A great commentary on the judgement by Technolama

In the UK, the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights were not at all happy with the provisions of the governments proposed Digital Economy Bill - which is hardly surprising but reasuring to hear.  Meanwile the EU parliament think the privacy of their citizens merits protection and have said no to the Swift agreement that gives the USA bulk access to european banking data. Thanks you guys (& gals)!

The EFF today reports on a victory in the US courts that confirms the 'first rights' principle that if you buy something it's yours to enjoy, share and sell as you like - no matter what small print a company may add on the box.  You bought it, you own it.

..and Cory Doctorow explains how if you look into the issues with IP, copyright and innovation you come to very different conclusions than if you crib your research from lobbyists... (from the tireless Michel Geist).

And of course Christian Engström, Piratpartiet's MEP, celebrated making it to the big 50.  Congratulations Christian - keep up the good work!

What makes a pirate?

In an election year in both Sweden and Britain it's interesting to understand - what is a pirate anyway? Or more to the point - what does the Pirate Party stand for?  And that's just the question that Michael Davies has put on his blog with an open letter to Andrew Robinson, leader of the Pirate Party.  He asks a number of pertinent questions, on politics and pirates, on copyright and patents and on the importance of the rights that copyright enforcement increasingly infringes.

The entry has seen promises from both Andrew and Piratpartiet leader Rick Falkvinge to answer in more depth - responses I look forward to reading.  In the meantime, on The Pirate Party Forum, JohnB has given a long and full answer of his own...    and maybe, in the fullness of time I might try and add my view on these questions here...

Put simply...  the internet has brought huge changes in how we communicate - and equally huge changes in the possibilities to track and monitor our everyday lives.  How society decides to use or constrain these forces, for better or worse, is an intensely political question and one which demands focus and attention by us, the populace - otherwise other interests in industry, law enforcement and in government will do what they can get away with.  They will do what they can - not what they should.

If you want it any other way you need to make your voice heard.

Shouting louder, means shouting in unison.... 

Welcome on board.....

OiNK - news or propaganda?

Andrew Norton at Politics and P2P has been reading the news... specifically coverage of the soon to restart trial of Alan Ellis for running BitTorrent tracker OiNK. But as Andrew points out the piece is full of inaccuracies and misinformation - particularly the popular fallacy that trackers store and copy copyright material. 

Andrews criticism was pointed first at the Northern Echo, who were quick to respond and correct their article... but it was based on information from the Press Association - which means that it will be spread all across the news.

Inaccurate reporting is misleading...
Misinformation is propaganda....

Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.

Think tank says think again on Digital Economy

The Adam Smith Institute is the latest to come out with criticism of the UK Goverments plans for the 'Digital Economy'.  They have released an online briefing paper on Digital Britain - which is described in brief on their website under the title Leave 'Digital Britain' alone.

Aside from a key message that the digital economy is doing very well thank you without government interference it takes the government to task for not taking privacy issues seriously.  It also makes this superbly simple suggestion.
"The report suggests that personal identity and all data associated with it should be defined in law as private property owned by the individual. Any use of that personal data without the owner’s consent would thereby become unlawful."

Yesterday would not be soon enough....

Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party -  Putting privacy first.

Musicians and the Mona Lisa effect

The availability of music as digital files has made recorded songs a commodity.  Reproduction costs are low and there is a huge and ever expanding choice of artists and titles to choose from.  Market economics say that prices should fall - and consumers clearly expect that to be the case.  It's not unsurprising then to hear that revenues from selling music are falling...

As a consumer I see it as what I call the Mona Lisa effect.  Leonardo's masterpiece has world renown - everyone knows what it looks like.  The original is worth a fortune - (more probably several fortunes) - but a printed copy in a newspaper, or a jpeg image on the web, is practically worthless.  Seeing the copy in the consumer's mind is not the same as seeing the original. 

And that's the way it's going in the music industry.  Listening to the record is not the same as seeing the original.  Musicians are artists - performance artists - and it is in performance that the public value what the artist does.  With that in mind it is interesting to read the figures on the Times Labs Blog showing that artists revenues are increasing thanks to live performances - while record label incomes are falling.  They have a telling graph that highlights this well - also copied and with comment on Boing Boing, and Christian Engström's blog.  The raw data is available here.

Artists income from recordings has fallen 27% over four years - but during the same period artist's income from live performance has gone up 70%, giving artists a net gain of 45% over four years.  Not many industries can point to the same good news in the midst of a recession.......

As the Mona Lisa shows - the value lies in the original...   remember that next time you see that enigmatic smile  ;-)


Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party -  Working for copyright reform.

UK Culture Minister - filesharers to be guilty until proven innocent.

MP Tom Watson has an interview with UK Culture Minister Ben Bradshaw on government plans for cutting off illicit filesharers.  Right at the start he answers the question:

" Given ... the proposals to temporarily cut people off as a result of accusations of illicit file sharing by some sections of the music industry, do you think that those people deserve to prove their innocence in a court of law."

To which the answer was " Absolutely, Yes".  He then goes on to explain how court orders will be taken out on the basis of accusations - and only then will accused copyright infringers be given the opportunity to prove their innocence. 

I was gobsmacked....   How is this an acceptable and fair judicial process? - the burden of evidence (not accusation) ought to lie in proving guilt - not in proving innocence.  What sort of tin-pot country are you running over there? 

It does of course get around the problem seen in countries like Denmark where prosecutors have more or less given up because providing evidence that stands up in court has proved almost impossible to get.

This neatly sidsteps that issue and instead puts the defendant in the tricky position of proving they weren't the one making downloads....

Reading on in the interview we hear that he doesn't know how much the new systerm will cost to implement, and he doesn't know how much artists can expect to gain as a result.  He does however know that the music industy is losng £200m a year from piracy - because they told him.

Then in a wonderful piece of double talk he goes on to tell us that illicit filesharing is potentially devastating for the creative industries - industries that are growing much faster than the rest of the economy.  Strange that - if they have such strong growth given the current levels of file sharing, doesn't that kind of say there is no problem???

Some days I wonder what planet these people are on.....
(There's no date on the blog post so I don't know when it was posted - it is reported on P2PNet as being from Novemeber)

Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party -  Working for copyright reform.

Bad habits, bad government - Fudging the figures

You may remember the fuss about government statistics on piracy being based on adjusted, interpolated figures sourced from industry lobbyists.

Heresy Corner has a super piece on 'Abusing the evidence' (about amongst other things, sex trafficking) that shows that the use of selective statistics to support UK government policy making is endemic.  As the Heresiarch puts it..
"The government has loudly proclaimed its commitment to "evidence-based policy-making" while instead pursuing policy-based evidence making."

Statistics is only evidence if it is honestly presented - and scientifically valid.  Fudging the figures will just lead to bad policy - and bad government.

Do I mean will - or has?

UK Government out of touch on copyright

The UK is one of the main movers behind the Council of Minister's refusal to accept  'innocent until proven guiilty' as a guiding principle for cutting internet access to suspected copyright infringers...  However, at home things are far from quiet in opposition to the government's plans. 

Tom Watson's early day motion on illicit file sharing continues to gain MP's support, while the Open Rights Group has published the results of a survey that shows that supporting cutting people off from the internet for filesharing is a clear vote loser.  Sixty eight percent thought that internet users should be disconnected only once evidence had been considered by a court - a pretty resounding chorus in defence of our rights to 'innocent until proven guilty'.

If you are one of those sixty eight percent then write to your MP and tell them so...  and also write to your MEP (right away!) and tell them to put pressure on the Council of Minister's to accept Amendment 138 as proposed by the EU parliament - it's the first and best way to ensure just due process is protected in law.

Meanwhile the government get a knocking too in the recently published report by the UK All Party Parliamentary group on Copyright.  It has lots of interesting reading, with details of the evidence from a wide range of parties on both sides of the debate.  On illicit file sharing the group concludes

"We conclude that much of the problem with illegal sharing of copyrighted material has been caused by the rightsholders, and the music industry in particular, being far too slow in getting their act together and making popular legal alternatives available.

We do not believe that disconnecting end users is in the slightest bit consistent with policies that attempt to promote eGovernment, and we recommend that this approach to dealing with illegal file-sharing should not be further considered.

We think that it is inappropriate to make policy choices in the UK when policy options are still to be agreed by the EU Commission and EU Parliament in their  negotiations over the “Telecoms Package”. We recommend that the Government terminate their current policy-making process, and restart it with a new consultation once the EU has made its decisions."

Which is pretty blunt, given that this is a cross parliamentary group.

Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party -  Working for copyright reform.

MPs challenge the UK government on file sharing

A parliamentary early day motion on illicit filesharing is challenging the governments position on how to tackle filesharing.  It highlights that alleged offenders can easily conceal their (IP) identity, that not-for-profit downloads don't necessarily cause financial loss, and that cutting people off the net is unjust for others using the same connection.  Pretty obvious stuff - but the government clearly don't get it.  Great anyway to see the mainstream parties waking up to address the issues. 

So far eighteen MPs from five partys have signed  up....   More please!
(so much for two party politics!)

Update: now 26 MPs

Tips: Pirate Party blog " MPs start to get it"

Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party -  Working for copyright reform.

Right symptom, wrong diagnosis: Lily Allen on music piracy

Lily Allen has made the headlines talking about the impact of filesharing on the music industry - but while she recognises the symptoms she really is pointing to the wrong diagnosis...

(The original post has dropped off her blog.. but it's widely quoted - like here at the Times...)

In her blog in an article targetting the Featured Artist Coalition opposition to stricter measures against filesharers she complains that new musicians are finding times hard...

Quoting...
"The coalition also says that file sharing is good because it “means a new generation of fans for us”. This is great if you are a big artist at the back end of your career with albums to flog to a new audience, but emerging artists don’t have this luxury."
..and further on
"They (music executives)have been complacent about new technology and spent all the money on their own fat salaries, not industry development. As they start really to lose out from piracy, they’re not slashing their salaries, they’re cutting what they invest in A&R (artists & repertoire). A&R people won’t have the funds to take risks, which again makes British music Cowell puppets."

New artists struggling, artists with back catalogs doing nicely thank you, and record companies unwilling to take risks are precisely what you expect - not from piracy - but from the structural change that online digital music has made to the business.  New artists compete not just with their contemporaries but with every artist ever released.  Back catalog sales suck sales from new artists, and record companies get better returns selling old tracks than developing new talent. 

Lost sales to piracy are hypothetical...  (no one really thinks a teenager would cough up another $800 for all the downloaded tracks on their mp3 player do they? ) Competition from millions of back catalog tracks is  real and the key element that puts new music at risk. (Why total music sales are dropping is a different question for another post)

Two things are needed...

• Musicians.  Stop expecting record companies to discover you and market you.  The internet gives you direct access to the public... 
• Cut copyright terms. Hard.  The only thing that will persuade the industry to invest more in new talent is to take away the crutch of a fat back catalog and focus them on finding new music and artists to promote.  Copyright is supposed to promote creativity not stifle it....

 More on Why it doesn't pay to be a musician.

Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party -  Working for copyright reform

Blowing in the wind

After questioning whether Britain is a lost cause in the face of increasing surveillance and a hard handed approach to copyright enforcement, it seems that the wind of change is already in the air. Conservative MP Dominic Grieve has announced Tory party intentions for a range of measures to push back state surveillance. It has to be a move to be welcomed though there is some skepticism just how far reaching changes would be when the Tories have their hands on the reins of power.

There is an excellent article on the topic entitled 'Reasons to be Cheerful' over at Heresy Corner - who also links to this article in the Guardian on the rise of Libertarianism -  with poll figures that 79% think the state has too much of a say in their lives, and a scary report that in the UK 1 in 78 people had been subject to some kind of official eavesdropping last year.  It's not hard to think that change is already long overdue....

Take it away Ian.....



Tags: surveillance, tories, The Pirate Party

Britain a lost cause...

Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Swedish Piratpartiet made a throw away comment on the state of affairs in Great Britain in a reply to a comment on his blog. "Det är kört". The race is run, it's finished... a lost cause.

The UK government continues to push the boundaries for state surveillance at the cost of individuals privacy, and the chance to reform copyright to meet the needs of the digital age is being squandered in legislating to defend outmoded ideas on how culture should be created, distributed and shared. Big business has the ear of the government, and Big Brother is alive and well in the corridors of Westminister.

But government is not the people. The number of people filesharing shows that there are many people that don't share establishment views on copyright, and privacy issues are a genuine concern for many.. Topics like the introduction of identity cards, and repeated incidents of loss of private data on millions of people have created an awareness that privacy matters and that blanket surveillance is not a good thing.


It's the people's job to watch the government, not the other way round... though governments it seems have a habit of forgetting that. Our best service is to continue to raise the awareness of the issues and make people aware of where the country is heading - and just as importantly that there are alternatives - that we can build an open, trusting creative society fit for the twenty-first century.

Awareness comes from the press, from advocacy groups like the excellent  Open Rights Group, from industry, - and now of course from The Pirate Party.  Britain is not lost.. just in dire need of a new map and a new direction....

Technorati on: UK,copyright,surveillance,The Pirate Party,Piratpartiet,

Copyright. Consultation UK style

And while the Canadians are doing their best to find out what the public want the UK government continue their Dickensian march towards public floggings and debtors jail for persistent copyright offenders. (Wouldn't keel-hauling or walking the plank be more appropriate?).

Having put out their plans for consultation they have come back before the consultation is concluded with more radical proposals for cutting off internet access for offenders a process that unfairly penalises other people relying on the same Internet accout). To conclude after the consultation that measures needed to to be tougher would be one thing... to change your mind mid-stream rather smacks of having made your mind up and not being interested in what the consultation results in, making a mockery of the whole process.

The Times has a thoughtful article on the issue by John Nouhghton, a professor in Public Understanding of Technology at the Open University.

The Open Rights Group is also clear in it's opposition to this latest move, encouraging people to contact their MP with their views. You can also contribute with your views to the copyright consultation. More information on doing that is available in a wiki here.

Labour MP Tom Watson also has an interesting blog post on why the government needs to tread warily on handling online piracy.

The Pirate Party are campaigning for copyright reform, including legalising non-commercial file sharing and reducing the excessive length of copyright protection.

Note that I've not commented on speculation that the process has been influenced by personal contacts between government ministers and influential media industry figures. Nothing so nepotistic would happen in Britain surely?

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.

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......