Wild Webmink

• The Statute of Anne, the Digital Economy Bill and the Red Flag Act

  Kevin Marks with a great (and short) comment that highlights the real, long-term issue with where copyright, trademark and especially patent law is headed. All three were originally intended to prevent abuse by originators of products. All three have become instruments to control consumers of products in the digital realm.

  Until now, those of us with first-hand contact with the emerging digital economy have gone largely unheard as the giants of 20th century industry have used the influence granted to them in the years since they were the underdog to manipulate legislation into shoring up their businesses. Today, legislation acts against citizens rather than protecting them. It’s time to reverse the trend and be heard. I called my MP about the Bill, and I am not alone.

  This election in the UK, we need to put the real digital economy – the one with citizens in it – on the agenda.

Shorter comments:

• UK Shop Refuses To Make Prints Of Digital Photos Because They’re ‘Too Good’ And Must Infringe
  “As copyright laws get more ridiculous, we’re teaching people to not move forward if they don’t know for sure — and that can create a massive stifling of creativity and expression.” — This is the reason we need to turn back the trend expressed by the Digital Economy Bill. As Kevin Marks suggests, it’s creating a digital economy the same way the Locomotive Bill created a transportation system.
• Open Letter to the Negotiators of ACTA
  This is an excellent idea, and I think helping Norbert get the letter tidied up is a worthwhile activity.
• Online Communities Patented; Lawsuit Against Facebook Moves Forward
  Presumably after this the trolls with the patent pursue pretty much everyone else on the internet? It’s hard to imagine a better poster-child for patent reform.
• UK Digital Economy Bill Turns To Ashes
  “Quick, define irony: the BBC, one of the main proponents of a bill to allow them to use other people’s images in ways they didn’t envisage without permission or payment, is furious that somebody has taken a BBC image and used it in a way the BBC didn’t envisage without permission or payment.” — Section 43 of the Digital Economy Bill is a travesty of justice for photographers, from amateurs-on-iStockPhoto like me all the way up.

Filed under: Digital Economy Bill, Links | Comments Off on ☞ The Digital Election

Tomorrow is the second reading of the Digital Economy Bill in the House of Commons in the UK. It’s important that we all let our representatives know that geeks vote too and that the people with a first-hand understanding of the issues think it needs more scrutiny. I’ve included three great, thoughtful posts from JP Rangaswami of BT which provide explanations that are good for non-specialists.

• Two Days To Go

  “We have two more days to mobilise online opposition to the Digital Economy Bill. Here’s what you can do.”

• The Digital Economy Bill: Be Careful What You Wish For

  JP has written here a long article about the potential unintended consequences of the Digital Economy Bill for the music industry. I disagree slightly with his continued focus on the downloads aspect. The biggest problems with the bill are that, in the name of protecting Cliff Richard’s pension, it will remove photographers’ rights, eliminate open wifi, enable easy censorship for unethical corporations and introduce other abuses the way the DMCA did.

  His analysis is still very much worth reading to bring home the fact that the Bill dabbles inexpertly in an incredibly complex area of interlocking ecosystems and will upset them just as surely as introducing cane toads did in Australia.

• The Digital Economy Bill: Thinking about Banana Ice Cream

  JP with a delicious parable explaining why the Digital Economy Bill, although well-intentioned, acts in a way that’s disproportionate. Personally I am amazed to hear Gordon Brown preaching about the need for every citizen to have internet access and the need for online access to government services, and then in the next breath saying it’s fine to have it taken away for an offence whose analogue equivalents wouldn’t result in suspension of access to government services.

• The Digital Economy Bill: Fred Figglehorn, won’t you please come home?

  JP illustrates nicely the disconnect between what our politicians think the digital economy is from their (at best) second-hand pedestal and what people actually engaged first-hand in the digital economy think it is.

• Police secretly snapping up to 14m drivers a day

  I have so far seen no mention of the challenges of the surveillance society by any political party in the materials delivered to my home.

  While the front benches of the main parties try (hopefully unwittingly) to criminalise kids over copyright, rob photographers of their income, shut down nationwide wifi and provide a way for corporations to censor citizens and competitors, the police are running roughshod over our rights using exactly the same technologies.

  The Digital Economy that our politicians have in mind is second-hand, relayed to them via lobbyists. Today is the day to contact your MP and the candidates in the upcoming election and tell them that you, a first-hand participant in the Digital Economy, are not satisfied.

  (tags: surveillance Police UK Privacy Rights Freedom accountability)

Filed under: Digital Economy Bill, Links | 1 Comment »

• Stop the UK Digital Economy Bill Clause 43

  Yes, another posting from me about the Digital Economy Bill. As I keep saying, this bill is about more than just disconnection. Clause 43 sounds fair enough – putting “orphan works” where the copyright owner can’t be found into the public domain sounds a good thing. But it has been badly constructed, presumably with input from lobbyists with skewed interests.

  It will have the side effect of making all photographs public domain unless they are painfully obviously marked with the photographer’s identity. When you write to your MP, ignore disconnection (it will just make them toss your letter); complain about clause 43, about the threat to open WiFi and about the apparently corrupt avoidance of democratic process. Oh, and write today, we’re running out of time.

  And sadly this is not an April Fools prank.

  (tags: photography debill DigitalEconomyBill Politics UK activism)

In other news:

• OggCamp, May 1-2, Liverpool
  As you may have heard on the Ubuntu UK Podcast, I’ve confirmed I’ll be attending – I’ll be opening the day on Saturday with a discussion on digital liberty, the threats it faces and the actions geeks can take.
  (tags: OggCamp Liverpool SimonPhipps Events)
• Geeks Vote Too : Let The Politicians See
  Get them while they’re hot!
  (tags: Cafepress T-shirt Activism Election)
• Aphorisms and favorite sayings : Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
  Finally found the origin from which the saying “The Greatest Enemy Of Freedom Is A Happy Slave” is derived. I’ll add attribution on the slide where I cite it.
  (tags: Presentations Freedom)
• South Downs National Park is designated
  The countryside has always been gorgeous, but this means we now officially live a 15 minute drive from a national park from SW all the way round to ENE.
  (tags: Southampton Hampshire NationalPark Travel Nature)
• Open-Core: The Emperor’s New Clothes
  “when we start talking about business models, what matters is not how a vendor generates incremental revenue but how you generate incremental value.” — All of the value a business derives from open source software arises from the freedoms it delivers. When access to those freedoms is prevented, you have a plain, vanilla ISV. Heed Gartner for once!
  (tags: Gartner FOSS OpenCore OpenSource BusinessModel)

Filed under: Digital Economy Bill, Links | Comments Off on ☞ It Can Get Worse