As per the meme, here are my 20 points on Gov Camp UK.

Sign up early.

I dawdled and so was only able to get a ticket for Saturday. I feel like I missed out on a lot of interesting conversations.

BarCamps should be recorded for posterity.

It’s a point I’ve made before. Cameras and disk space are so cheap, we should record what we say and do at BarCamps by default. Now, that may inhibit some of the conversations and reduce the “Chatham House” aspect – but individuals can decide whether or not they’re happy for their sessions to be recorded.

Take business cards.

Take lots of business cards. So many serendipitous meetings that it’s hard to remember who’s who. Make sure that your business card carries your Twitter name.

Don’t take a laptop (or, at the very least, use it rarely).

As I sat down in one session, a woman said to me “Gosh! You can tell it’s a techie event; every one is using their laptops and no one is talking to each other.” She was absolutely right. The day is mostly about communication and – while Twitter is great for that – nothing beats turning to the person sitting next to you and having a natter.

Present.

I think it’s an immutable law of BarCamp that everyone has to present. Even if it’s just standing up and saying who you are.

Guaging interest is hard.

I ran two sessions, one only filled up about a fifth of the cavernous space I booked – which was pretty embarrassing. The other was so full it had people sitting on the floor. Don’t be afraid of moving rooms – but make sure you let everyone know where you are going.

WordPress is really popular.

I was surprised by how many attendees were WordPress aficionados. It’s good to see that Government isn’t entirely tied up in proprietary crap.

QR codes generate a lot of interest.

The session I ran on QR was well attended and produced lots of positive feedback. Some people are just starting out with QR and there were loads of great ideas on how they could be used.

The police have an odd sense of humour.

One was wearing a shirt which read “Keep Calm and Carry Baton Rounds” the other, in his introduction, said “I work for the police, previously I was at Rentokill. It’s basically the same job!” While I appreciate near the knuckle humour and value free expression, I found the two incidents made me really uncomfortable. Had I turned up wearing a “Burn down the Government” t-shirt, I doubt I would have received a positive welcome. Still, I’d rather people felt free to express themselves at a BarCamp than not.

HMRC will happily let you take the piss out of them.

They’re very good sports and lovely people in real life.

Government needs more freedom to innovate.

That was a moan that I heard from several people. They wanted to do amazing things with the knowledge they’d gleaned – but getting sign off in a risk adverse, budget conscious department is tricky.

Building should mean building.

The second day was meant to be about getting people to build, create, or make stuff. In my WordPress session, I asked for volunteers to upgrade their blog to WordPress Mobile Pack live on stage. Amazingly, three did! Now, none of them where major Government sites(!) but it showed people were willing to take a risk and build things.

Perhaps the grid needs curating?

There were too many sessions in the first timeslot, and empty rooms later in the afternoon. There’s no way of judging how popular a slot will be, so many sessions were in an room that didn’t suit the attendees.

There’s no such thing as a silly question.

As a presenter, it’s really important not to dismiss a question. If someone hasn’t understood something basic, it’s more likely to be the presenter at fault than the person asking the question.

Government needs to celebrate their successes more loudly.

I saw some amazing websites, prototypes, and service – none of which I’d heard about. I think it’s entirely appropriate for people to make some noise about things they’ve done well.

Gender Balance.

For a technology conference – there were more than 3 women! A lot more! It’s a common moan in IT that the industry has trouble attracting women. Perhaps they all work in local government?

Not Many Female Presenters.

Perhaps it was the sessions I went to, or perhaps they all presented on day one – but there didn’t seem to be many women presenting. I wonder if this is something which needs to be addressed?

Big Business Isn’t Much different

Everyone goes on about how inefficient Government is and how they’re usless at getting anything done. All the complaints I heard from Government people were the same as those that I’ve heard while working at big businesses. And start-ups. Every organisation has inefficiencies.

Take Photos

I was too busy chatting to snap anything. Luckily there’s a rather good set on flickr.

Overall

A great day, thought provoking, useful. I hope I convinced some people about why mobile is important and how awesome QR codes are.

These posters were designed by participants at the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City. They are in the public domain. You are welcome to print them out and post them in your own location.

See all the posters.

I love this use of QRpedia – but I have two minor suggestions.
QR codes work best with some whitespace around them, so:

1. Move the QR code away from the margin – so it won’t get covered by tape etc.
2. The call to action – “Learn More At Wikipedia” – should be slightly further away from the main body of the code.

Other than that – very impressive.

OccupyLSX

I took a walk through the OccupyLSX encampment at St Pauls. I have to say, the QR codes on display weren’t as impressive as the above posters.

More Resources

There are a range of Occupy QR codes out there. Some work really well, some don’t. Take a look at:
Occupy Syracuse QR.
Occupy Austin QR.
Occupy Las Vegas QR.
Occupy Davis QR.
And finally, Occupy Legoland.

Because of Greg Barker MP’s idiotic decision to scrap the Feed In Tariff with only six weeks’ notice – we’ve had to get this done in rather a rush.

Thanks to Angi and Philip at Sunny Future Solar, we were able to get our system installed before the deadline. Yesterday, we received confirmation that panels were installed and working and had generated their first 15W of electricity!

Total cost of installation: £12,000. Ouch!

How Making Money From Solar Works

Once solar panels are installed, there are three main income streams.

1. Reduced electricity bills – when the sun is shining, your toaster and computer are powered by Earth’s yellow sun.
2. Any electricity you generate but don’t use is sold back to the grid* at 3p / kW.
3. For every kW the panels generate, you are paid 43.3p.

*Rather than actually measuring this, it’s assumed that you only use half the electricity generated.

All the prices are index linked (so they should rise with inflation) and guaranteed for 25 years. Any money generated is tax-free.

The Economic Reality

There are two main sites which will tell you how much energy you are likely to generate over the year. The calculations are based on where the property is, which direction it faces, inclination of the roof, etc.
The Energy Saving Trust Solar Power calculator estimated around 2,500 kWh per year
The Europa Solar Calculator estimated around 2,700 kWh per year.

Even at the lower estimate, that’s ~£1,100 per year from generating the electricity – and a further ~£40 from selling electricity back.

We’re in a slightly unusual situation in that we’ve installed the panels on our rental property. So our tenants will be getting the benefit of reduced electricity bills.

At the moment, that’s only around one hundred pounds per year. But if there’s another energy crisis, the amount saved would be higher.

So as greedy landlords, could we charge a premium for a property with cheap electricity bills? Say…. ooooh… £50 per month? Well, probably not that much – and we try not to be evil bastard landlords. Especially as we’ve been on the receiving end of scummy landlords in the past.

The idea is that the property is more attractive and so isn’t left vacant for so long between tenants.

Even if we were making a full £1,200 (tax free) from these solar panels, is that an unreasonable subsidy as the government claim? Let’s do the maths.

Total earnings (excluding money saved on bills) = £1,140.
The solar panels are meant to degrade by a maximum of 1% each year. Assuming they do so, that’s a total of £25,000 after 25 years.

So, 25k on an investment of 12k. That’s pretty good, right?

No. Not really. That’s about a 3% rate of interest. Even if we were really lucky with the weather and the panels didn’t degrade, we’d be looking at a return of 30k – which works out as a 4% interest rate.

Hardly the deal of the century! To give you a comparison, the government predicts a 7% interest rate if you stick your money in a pension.

Now, it is guaranteed – assuming the government doesn’t renege on its promises and we don’t enter a period of nuclear winter – and it is tax free, but is it really a generous subsidy which needs trimming?

And, even if it is; how can giving just 6 weeks’ notice be remotely fair?

A Better Way of Subsidising Solar

Barker has announced huge cuts to the solar subsidy. Whereas before the cut, the FIT would have paid off the capital cost of the panels in 10 year, after the cut, it will be more like 20 years. And that’s assuming you haven’t taken a loan out to pay for the panels.

Personally, I don’t understand why the government doesn’t just pay for the damned things themselves. It seems bureaucratically perverse to agree to pay a subsidy, via energy providers, to people who have paid installers, who have purchased the panels.

Surely just simpler to buy the panels and give them to anyone willing to pay for installation. That way there would be vastly less paperwork, no worrying about how to keep track of who needs to be paid what, etc.

Even if you ignore the environmental impact, energy security is one of this countries most pressing problems. We cannot depend on volatile foreign sources of energy.

Surely finding a sane and simple way to subsidise should be one of this government’s priorities?

Banks are fucking us over.

They gamble with our money, lose it, ask us for a bail out, lose more money, then ask us for yet another bail out!
They are resisting even the very modest changes the government is imposing on them.

No more.

We have a very easy way to stop the banks pissing about with our money. Take our money from them.

I’m not talking about taking out your savings for a few days. I’m talking about a permanent withdrawal of our consent. We take our money and we move it elsewhere. Move our money to somewhere safe, ethical, and local.

I think that it’s time to move all our money to Building Societies.

Building Societies Are Better Than Banks

Building societies are owned by their members. If you’re a saver or a borrower, you get a vote in how the business is run. That means there are no excessive profits, no fat cat bankers taking extortionate bonuses, and no gouging fees.

Building societies are safer. Banks try to make money by gambling on the stock market and the wholesale money markets. The Northern Rock bank gambled 75% of its customers’ money – the average building society has 30% from the money markets. By law, the maximum that a building society can gamble is 50%.

Building societies are friendlier. They’re all based in the UK, have UK call centres, and – because they’re not beholden to shareholders – dedicated to serving their customers.

Building societies offer the same services as banks.

Quick Comparison

Are There Any Building Societies Left?

Yes!

There are 47 Building Societies in the UK.

Chances are, you have a branch of the Nationwide near you – but there are many smaller, local institutions you can do your banking with.

Most of them offer Internet and telephone banking, all of them let you withdraw your cash from any ATM,

Didn’t Lots of Building Societies Become Banks?

Yes, many people thought that turning Building Societies into banks would be a great idea.

They were wrong.

There were several Building Societies which turned into banks. You can judge for yourselves whether they offer superior products or excellent customer services, but of those 10…

• One was acquired by Barclays.
• Two had to be bailed out by the government.
• Three were bought by Lloyds.
• Four were taken over by Santander.

What’s Stopping You?

Switching accounts is fast, easy, and free. The FSA has has an excellent guide, but here are the basics.

Your old bank will only have three working days to start to process of moving you to your new building society. Your direct debits and standing orders will be transferred.

Once your application has been approved, the building society will have ten working days to set your new account.

The whole process will take less than two weeks. A fortnight to make a change for the better.

I’ve done it – what’s stopping you?

Make the switch now.

I nominally joined in and took this selection of some of the more humorous signs I found.

The photos seemed to go down well on Twitter – this one had 15,000 views and reached at least 26,000 users. If you’re interested in using / licensing them, please use the high resolution images on Demotix.

Barefoot Into Cyberspace tells the story of the “hacker scene” over the tumultuous last few years.

Yesterday, Becky released a transcript of her interview with Julian Assange – in it he discusses the News of the World hacking, amongst other things. A fascinating interview which helps set the scene for Becky’s book.

I’ve only just started reading the book, but it’s clear that it’s been written in a very accessible way. You don’t need to be a hard-core techie to understand what’s going on.

I’m also impressed with her radically honest blogging about the process of writing and publishing the book.

It’s available on Kindle for the bargain price of less than £3 – or available in dead-tree format from most retailers.

The HTML & PDF version of the book is Creative Commons and I have taken the liberty of creating an ePub Version – for your edification and delight. Do let me know if you spot any formatting mistakes and I’ll do my best to correct them.

The full version of the book contains illustrations which are not part of the free version. A neat idea to encourage sales.

@edent Yes, the Kindle version contains the illustrations, which are not part of the CC release (so should be excluded)

28/07/2011 09:47 via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@barefoot_techie

Becky Hogge

So, support the author and buy the book now!

I don’t have the money to lobby bribe donate to the Conservative party. I’m too scared of the police attempting to kill protesters to go and stand up for my beliefs. What can I do that will make me feel smug and self-righteous yet won’t involve me having to go outside in the snow?

It is, I understand, illegal to blockade Parliament. But there’s nothing to stop us enforcing a virtual blockade, is there?

I tweeted as much on Twitter, and got the following reply.

@edent I like the sound of your #blockparliament campaign. Where do people sign up?

20/12/2010 13:33 via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@iamdanw

Dan Williams

How

So, here’s how to blockade Parliament. This guide assumes you have moderate technical ability and know what an .htaccess file is. If you are unsure, please ask a geek to help you. They will, invariably, accept payment in beer, pizza or sexual favours.

The Houses of Parliament have the following IP address range.

194.60.0.0/18

That translates to every IP address from 194.60.0.0 to 194.60.63.255 . (See http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Range_blocks for details.)

In your .htaccess file, add the following

<Limit GET HEAD POST>
order allow,deny
deny from 194.60.
allow from all
</LIMIT>

That will simply block access from the Houses of Parliament. It will also catch a few other IP addresses in the same range – but that’s acceptable collateral damage.

If you want to be a bit more creative, you can redirect the users to any URL you want.

RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^194\.60\.
RedirectMatch 301 ^.*$ http://www.example.com/index.htm

All we need now is for every website – from the humblest blog to the mightiest newspaper – to block Parliament from their websites and redirect them somewhere more enlightening.

Where Should I Redirect Them To?

My good friend Tom Scott has penned this rather eloquent piece for the Guardian explaining why filtering cannot work.
I would refrain from pointing at shock-sites. You’ll only give MPs something else to consider banning.

Hang On! There Are Massive Flaws In This Plan!

Yes, yes there are.

Politicians may need access to information which has been inadvertently blocked. For example, a gay MP might want help coming to terms with his or her sexuality – only to find the content unavailable.

Of course, politicians could use a proxy to get round these restrictions. They could use their phone’s web browser. They could access from a friend’s house. They could get a mate to download content onto a USB drive and hand it over in the playground.

In short, this plan is as ill-conceived as the ridiculous notion that you can ban children from access naughty images and videos.

Open Rights Group

If you care about Internet Freedom, please join the Open Rights Group.

Copyright Matt Jones used under a Creative Commons non-commercial, attribution, share-alike licence.

I attended last year’s event which inspired me to create my “VoteUK” service for the 2010 general election. I had considered doing a talk about the trials and tribulations of using open – and not so open – data. Instead, I gave a more general talk about how to harness the power of the mobile web to empower people – and why iPhone apps are the wrong way to get data to the masses.

More details in a moment. First off, my thoughts on the rest of the presentations.

Mozilla Drumbeat

Gervase Markham always gives a good presentation. The new projects coming out of Mozilla Drumbeat look great – I’m particularly enamoured with Universal Subtitles. For too long, web video has been inaccessible to those with hearing difficulties – or who do not understand the language spoken.

Visionon.tv

A rather ramshackle presentation from VisionOn.tv. I fail to see what they’re doing different than Miro in terms of getting activist video out to the masses. Their ideas of training Citizen Journalists seems to be a good one – but they failed to articulate what exactly their credentials were.

Openly Local

Chris Taggart gave an inspiring talk about Openly Local. His efforts in scraping inaccessible data and setting them free are truly heroic. The work he did to open up to obstinate Charities Commission should be the stuff of geek legend.

LinkedGov: Filling in the Gaps

Hadley Beeman took us through the intricacies of tying up hundreds of disparate data sets. Not a naturally exciting topic, but one which went to the very heart of the issue of open data. Thousands of separate databases, all containing indecipherable acronyms, frustrate even the hardiest geek.

Open Data in Clinical Trials

Ben Goldacre retains his title as most impassioned speaker. Working with Louise Crow, they are in the process of opening up clinical trial data. With this, they hope to be able to see which drug companies are withholding trial information from the public.

Rewiring the State

The speakers from Young Rewired State were the stars of the day. Seeing the dedication and enthusiasm of people – not yet school-leavers – as they hack away at open data was hugely uplifting. A full list of the projects is available.

The most impressive was Issy Long‘s site to display Government energy usage “GovSpark”. I’m sure this young woman will go far.

Data.gov.uk

The data.gov.uk folks were out in strength. They announced data.gov.uk at OpenTech 2009. This presentation was a summary of where they have got to and where is left to go.

I demo’d VoteUK to Thayer Prime and won a swish t-shirt! Hurrah!

Wild Ducks – An Open Source Symbian Phone

Sebastian Brannstrom from Symbian took to the stage to talk about marrying Open Hardware with the newly opened Symbian Source Code. The (unfinished) result is Wild Ducks – a completely* open phone. Open hardware and open software.

If you are interested in helping, the group meets every Sunday to eat pizza and hack.

*The radio driver, has to be closed source for various legal and regulatory reasons.

Why Doesn’t Your Site Work On My Mobile Phone

My presentation. Slides and further discussion are available. Unfair of me to comment – so I’ll let twitter do the twalking.

gdb_

(Graham Bleach)

Great talk from @edent at #opentech about not neglecting older phones when developing for mobile web.

On 11-9-2010 15:37:28 from Twitter for Android

dogsbodyorg

(Dan Benton)

If to are developing for mobile then I encourage you to look up @edent . Some great real stats and real world advice #opentech

On 11-9-2010 15:34:23 from twidroid

People Power in Your Pocket

Craig Heath lead an informative session around security and personal privacy. I’d advise anyone interested in mobile to take a look at Symbian’s Security Roadmap and Strategy. This talk would have been more suited to the Over The Air conference – but for mobile wonks like me, was very interesting.

FrontlineSMS

This is exactly the sort of empowering technology I love hearing about. The FrontlineSMS project aims to be “Outlook for SMS”. Using a cheap laptop, a GSM dongle and free software – anyone can become a campaigner. It’s used for coordinating disaster relief, informing farmers about diseases in their area, telling trader the best prices. Its software has been expanded to work for medical, legal, business and political campaigns. Open Source – so hack away!

Apps for Good

I really admire the theory behind Apps for Good – teach disenfranchised young people how to make apps. However, I think their approach is 100% wrong. They’d clearly done no market research – they were trying to create Android apps when their target demographic are BlackBerry users (as they admitted). Some of the projects they showed off would have been much more successful and useful as mobile websites. For example, the Stop and Search app is only available on expensive Android handsets. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have created the app – just that they should have created it as an enhancement for a mobile website.

That said, I’m filled with hope when I see what they are doing. Getting young people into programming, designing, creating is vital to raising their awareness of the opportunities out there.

Overall

A fantastic day – huge thanks to Sam Smith and all the organisers. It’s really inspired me to get cracking on some of the open data ideas I’ve had bubbling away. Every Council Chief, Mayor and Senior Civil Servant should attend OpenTech 2011 and understand why we need Open Data and what magical things we will create using it.

Huge thanks to the Government for sponsoring the event and finally creating an open data platform. Data.gov.uk shows how to do a successful IT project which comes in quickly and cheaply. And is genuinely useful. Kudos.

Last night I was fortunate enough to find myself addressing the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Digital Economy Act.  Eric Joyce MP managed to bring together a diverse group of people from all sides of the debate for a (mostly) civil discussion on the Act, its limitations, and potential problems.

MPs and Musicians in Perfect Harmony

This was exactly the sort of discussion which should have taken place before the bill became law.  Sadly, we’re left with trying to correct an extremely illiberal and technically infeasible piece of legislation.

I’ll recount the highlights to the best of my memory – any corrections or clarifications gratefully received.

Representatives of the BPI – a trade group who claim to be the “voice of the UK recorded music business” – were in attendance.

The BPI made an extraordinary claim that this act isn’t even needed.  They were confident that existing laws would be enough for them to pursue copyright infringement.  They weren’t challenged on this statement – why lobby for a bill if you don’t need it?

The BPI also claimed that their methods or evidence gathering are robust and proven in the high court.  I can’t find a good source for this claim – but, again, why lobby for a bill they didn’t need.

The representative from FAST seemed to say that they were speaking for the entire software industry. Many of us don’t mind our code being shared freely.  Having said that, FAST did make some good points about how Open Source derived a lot of its protection from strong copyright laws.

Representatives from libraries made an excellent point about their liability.  There seems to be no definition of responsibilities – are libraries communications providers? Are they liable for what their users get up to?

I love the smell of democracy in the evening...

Taking On The BPI

Not being a professional lobbyist – nor representing anyone other than myself – I was surprised to be allowed to address the room.

I made an unprepared and impassioned speech about the one sided nature of the bill.  Others will corroborate or correct, but the gist of what I said was…

• This bill is massively one sided.
• There has been no lobbying (or donations) by regular citizens – only by corporate interests.
• The bill contains no penalties for incompetent or malicious prosecution.
• ACS Law has already drawn the ire of many consumer groups for sending threatening letters with no apparent basis in fact.
• If I can be cut off the Internet after three accusations, why wont BPI members be cut off after three incorrect prosecutions?
• Given the criminal nature of the BPI, why should we trust them to bring prosecutions in a fair or just manner?
• Rather than relying on private enterprise to pursue these cases – why can’t the alleged copyright holders go through the normal legal channels?

One of the ways you know you’ve hit a nerve in a conversation is with the ferocity of the reply…

The response from the BPI was swift and harsh. To he best of my recollection they said

“if you were to write those allegations in a newspaper, we would sue you.”

In my haste, I had (erroneously) stated that the BPI was guilty of massive abuses of trust and had operated an illegal cartel which had been convicted of price fixing.

Crikey! Was I about to rely on Parliamentary Privilege extending to random blokes sitting in a committee room?

In 2002 the following record companies were fined a combined $143 million for illegal activity:
Sony Music – member of the BPI
Warner Music – member of the BPI
EMI Group – member of the BPI
BMG Music – now a part of Sony. I’m reasonably sure BMG were a member of the BPI at the time.
Vivendi Music Group – not a member of the BPI, although its subsidiary Universal Music is a member.

So, I had erred. The BPI has never sent a threatening letter. The BPI has never engaged in price fixing. The BPI – which is entirely funded by its members – has never engaged in illegal activity.

I am happy to set the record straight.

Furthermore, I am sure that my concerns about the standard of evidence which will be presented by these upstanding corporations are entirely unfounded.

Best view from any bar in London?

Next Steps

1. Please, respond to Ofcom’s consultation.
2. Write to your MP and tell them of your concerns.
3. Join the Open Rights Group.

You can find out more about the day at Eric Joyce’s Blog, Kerry McCarthy’s blog, Martin Brown’s Digecon, and no doubt more blogs to follow.

Huge thanks to Eric Joyce, Steve Lawson, James Firth, Hadley Beeman, Paul Clark, and all others who contributed.

Bootnote

As I was taking the photos you see in this piece, a very polite policeman told me photography wasn’t allowed.  While normally one to argue the toss on such matters – who knows what crazy laws protect Parliament.  As it happens, as soon as his back was turned, everyone started snapping pictures anyway.

Here are the brief facts of the case.

1. A local councillor (John Dixon) has a Twitter account “CllrJohnDixon”
2. Last year, he tweeted: “I didn’t know the Scientologists had a church on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid rubs off.”
3. Someone in Scientology didn’t like this and raised an official complaint.
4. The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales investigated and found there was likely to have been a breach of the code of conduct local authority members must follow.
5. The ombudsman referred the case to Cardiff council’s standards and ethics committee. They will take a look at this case later in the year.

Are more detailed account is on The Guardian.
You can see John Dixon on Newsnight (40 minutes in).

So, is this an evil cult trying to repress free speech?  I don’t think so.

Imagine if John had tweeted “Going past a Synagogue – better watch my wallet.” or “Near a Church – hope they don’t molest me” or… well, pick a religion of your choice and a slur.

People are free to hold these opinions.  I don’t believe in thought crime.  If an elected official chooses not to socialise in her free time with Mormons, Hindus or Agnostics, that’s their choice. 

What is totally unacceptable is for an elected official to publicly say, in an official capacity “this group of people are totally unworthy of my respect.”

When I go and see my local councillors, I don’t want to think that I’m being badly treated because I’m an Apathist.  As stupid as Scientologists are, I’m sure once in a while they need to go to their council for planning permission or complain about noisy neighbours, etc.  How can they go to John Dixon knowing that he thinks their church is “stupid”?

The democracy we practice in the UK means that all people are equal in the eyes of officialdom.  Whatever views an elected official may hold, constituents must have faith that they will receive a fair hearing.  The (hypothetical) Scientologists in John Dixon’s ward now know that their representative publicly denigrates their faith through his official publications.

John Dixon needs to make it quite clear that his personal opinions will not affect how he treats people when he is acting as their democratically elected official. He also needs to understand that – for some people – separating their professional and personal Twitter accounts is a prudent measure.

For the record, I think Scientology is a devious, manipulative, lying, shallow front for a group of disreputable people who are only interested in money, power and control.  It’s no different to any other religion.

Using data from The Guardian, we can see if the Lib Dems cost Labour a majority.

In how many seats did a Labour candidate lose to a Conservative? 137.

But this doesn’t tell the whole story. In Clacton, even if all the 5,577 Lib Dem votes had gone to Labour, the 16,376 is still well short of the Conservative’s 22,867.

So, in how many of those seats, would the Labour candidate have won if every single Lib Dem voted Labour? 92.

Conclusion

If every Lib Dem voter in a Lab/Con marginal had voted Labour, the result would be
Con = 214
Lab = 350
Lib = 57

So, the Labour Party would have ~3% majority in Parliament. Only 24 seats. A majority, sure, but not a hugely useful one.

Remember, that’s assuming every single Lib Dem voter in a Lab/Con constituency voted Labour.

Would you call that the Lib Dems costing Labour the election?

The Stats

This table show every Conservative won seat where Labour came 2nd.
What would have happened if 100%, 75%, or 50% of the Lib Dem vote went to Labour.
As some have mentioned in the comments, there is no guarantee that Lib Dem voters would automatically vote Labour.
Given that support for the Lib Dems only went up 1% nationally, it’s hard to credit Labour’s defeat to the Lib Dems.



I want to explain why – without resorting to attacking the other parties.

Voting Reform

As I’ve said, I was raised in a Labour household.  I went to university expecting to vote Labour.  Yet in ever constituency I’ve ever lived, the Labour Party haven’t fielded a viable candidate.  It costs a lot of money to run an election, so naturally parties only focus on where they think they have a realistic chance of winning.

Because of the ridiculousness of “First Past The Post” any vote for a minority party would be wasted.  So I never got to vote Labour.  Instead, I read the Lib Dem and Conservative manifesto and picked the LibDems.

I dare say I would like to vote Labour again in the future, but I want to do it when my vote will matter.  If the only thing a LibDem coalition / government bring about is voting reform, I’d be happy.

Tax

I was always taught that you shouldn’t vote for the party that benefits you personally – you should vote for the party that provides the best for society.  I would probably be financially better off under a Conservative government.  Their plans for tax (assuming they or any other party stick to their promises) would help me out.

But this election isn’t about me.  It’s about everyone.  I am a big fan of reducing the tax burden on people who aren’t as lucky as me.  Essentially, the LibDem plan would eliminate income tax for anyone who was making the minimum wage (£5.80 * 35 hours a week * 52 weeks a year = £10,556. The LibDem plan is for the starting rate of income tax to be £10,000).

While I may profit slightly from this tax break – imagine how it would benefit hundreds of thousands of families who could then afford the things I take for granted.  Better educational opportunities, entertainment to keep their kids from running wild, the occasional holiday, better and fresher food, a computer, broadband, and reduced stress from financial hardship.

Digital Economy Act

So much has been written about the Digital Economy Bill / Act, it feels pointless to rehash it.  Despite the best efforts of some brave Labour politicians, the bill passed.  The Conservative front bench said how much they despised the bill – yet they voted for it anyway.  The LibDems were the only party to fundamentally oppose the bill. I felt they could have been stronger.  Their performance in the House of Lords was very dispiriting, with LibDem Lords inserting a clause written by the BPI.

The bill was written and debated mostly by people with no grasp on modern technology.  The LibDems are the only party that I have seen who have embraced the Internet and are trying to find positive solutions for some of the challenges it presents.

Nuclear Armageddon

As a child of the eighties, I was spared most of the horrors of “Protect and Survive”.  I don’t want to live in a country where – by accident or design – we could kill billions of people with a push of a button.  Maybe I’m a softie with no experience of how the real world works – but I think the world would be safer without a nuclear deterrent.

Traditionally, the Labour Party has been closely allied with CND – the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament – but you wouldn’t know it from their actions.

The LibDems are committed to not renewing Trident. However, they do want to replace it with a smaller nuclear arsenal.  I don’t think they  are going far enough. We should join South Africa and completely disarm.

Regardless of whether Trident is scrapped or replaced with a cheaper option, the money saved can be better used for other things.

In October 1952, Britain successfully tested a nuclear bomb. It can be argued that our nuclear “deterrent” has been in place ever since. We cannot know which countries haven’t attacked us because of our bomb, but we do know it hasn’t deterred….

• Korean War (1950–1953)
• Mau Mau Uprising (1952–1960)
• Cyprus Emergency (1955–1959)
• Suez Crisis (1956)
• Brunei Revolt (1962)
• Dhofar Rebellion (1962-1975)
• Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation (1962–1966)
• Aden Emergency (1963–1967)
• Northern Ireland Troubles (1969-mid 1990s)
• Cod War Confrontation (1975–1976)
• Falklands War (1982)
• The First Gulf War (1990–1991)
• The Bosnian War (1995–1996)
• The Kosovo War (1999)
• Sierra Leone Civil War (2000)
• The Global War on Terror (2001-Present)
• The Afghanistan War (2001–Present)
• Iraq War and Iraqi insurgency (2003–2009)

In each of those conflicts, our nuclear arsenal hasn’t been enough to stop British troop being killed, British interests being attacked and infringement on our sovereignty.

With the rise in Christian terrorism and Islamic terrorism, there is a strong argument that we have no one to use these weapons against.  Would we ever be justified in staging a nuclear attack on a location from which terrorists may have originated?

Etc.

I could fill another several pages with my thoughts on ID Cards, civil liberties, libel reform, press freedom, sustainable energy, the environment, the recession, the wider economy, live music, Europe, Parliamentary reform, expenses.  Suffice to say, after reading and comparing the manifestos, I feel more closely aligned with the Liberal Democrats on most – but not all – issues.

What Do I Want?

Because of our unfair voting system, I think it’s highly unlikely that the LibDems will form a majority – I doubt they’ll even be hugely strong minority.  I want them to govern but – more than that – I hope newspapers, politicians, people and institutions will realise that there’s more than two sides to every argument.  That the UK deserves the best government possible.  That our votes must be counted fairly.  That there is another way of doing things than flipping between two parties again and again and again.

I want the next government to set politics in a new direction.

I think that the Liberal Democrats are the only realistic choice for me. Both in the area where I live and nationally. This isn’t a protest vote – this is a commitment.

I Agree With Nick.

“It may seem surprising but there simply is no single listing for all prospective parliamentary candidates. We want people to make an informed choice and that’s difficult because so many new people are standing this time – and a record number of incumbent MPs are standing down because of expense scandal,” said Edmund von der Burg from YourNextMP.

One recent poll (PollLab 10/3/10) found nearly half of voters cannot name their MP and three quarters have no idea who their candidates are.

The message from four independent groups which collect and display candidate data online (YourNextMP, hustings.com, iElect UK & ivote2010) is a simple one – don’t leave the decision about who to vote for until polling day – check out the candidates first and make them work for your vote.

In recent weeks, the British media has touted this election as the “first truly digital election.” Online tools such as myconservatives.com and its Labour counterpart membersnet are being used in local campaigns to recruit volunteers and collect donations. But, Frances Harrison from iElect UK argues that the Internet’s greatest impact is in empowering the ordinary citizen and allowing undecided voters to learn more about candidates.

“The much-touted digital election campaign is not just about new communication channels for the big parties – it’s just as much about empowering ordinary citizens and giving them a voice to disseminate information,” said Harrison.

YourNextMP, which is affiliated to DemocracyClub, allows any member of the public to upload candidate names, photos and details online. Hustings  compares candidates in much more detail in the key marginal seats. While iElect UK is an iPhone app with candidate data and iVote2010 is aimed at any mobile phone with a web browser.

WHO WE ARE IN DETAIL

YourNextMP is a comprehensive list of candidates for the general election which is made freely available as a website (http://www.yournextmp.com) and as data downloads for others to build on. The details are editable in a wiki-like manner and many of the contributions are from members of the public. By ensuring that their details are on YourNextMP candidates can be sure that they will appear on all the services built on the data that it shares.

Contact: Edmund von der Burg, mobile  07903 420 689.
Email: hello@yournextmp.com
Site: http://www.yournextmp.com/

iElect UK is a new, free iPhone app that helps you know who to vote for. It allows users to find their constituency, using GPS or postcode, and then view a list of candidates as well as the MP. The user can ask to be contacted by any of the politicians. The idea being to promote a conversation between the electorate and their representatives. It’s been developed by two London women: an ex BBC journalist & promotional marketing manager.

Contact: Frances Harrison, 07764355260 or Nerissa Martin
Email: info@crowdspeak.co.uk
Site: www.crowdspeak.co.uk

Hustings gives links to sites being used by candidates for their online campaigning, e.g. twitter, facebook, youtube, flikr, winkball etc. It also collates news on candidates and offers candidates the option to upload their own data such as podcasts, photos and videos.

Contact: James Evans, mobile 07770 852 858.
Email: james.evans@hustings.com
Site: www.hustings.com

iVote2010 is a mobile site that allows any phone with a web browser to find their prospective parliamentary candidates.  The site has been tested on over 250 of the UK’s most popular phones.  Visitors can use iVote2010.co.uk to contact their PPC’s by phone, text or email. It also provides help in registering to vote – with the phone number and address of their local council.

Contact Terence Eden 07717512963
Email:  ivote2010@shkspr.mobi
Site: http://iVote2010.co.uk

Denny is standing for parliament in Hackney South and Shoreditch. He is standing on a platform of Direct Digital Democracy.  If he is elected, he will run an online poll for his constituents.  Whichever way they vote, he votes.

Why This Is a Dumb Idea

• The wisdom of the crowds relies on an informed crowd.  Asking people to guess the weight of a cow relies on them having some understanding of weight, density and – crucially – seeing the cow.
• Who would vote against The PATRIOT Act?  Aren’t you a patriot?
• The Sun lies to its readers – what if people are motivated by misinformation?
• Will only extremists vote for certain bills?
• Engagement.  Not everyone has access to a PC – those that do often don’t have access to their own PC.  Who wants their partner looking at their votes?

Finally, Denny says that

There are three exceptions; three types of law which I will always vote in favour of. I hope that you will agree with me on these three points:
* 1. I will always vote for laws which improve equality.
* 2. I will always vote for laws which improve civil liberties.
* 3. I will always vote for laws which improve our democracy.

I’m reminded of that old joke. A man asks a woman if she’ll sleep with him for a million pounds. She says yes. What about ten pounds? “What kind of woman do you take me for?” She says.
“I already know what sort of woman you are,” he says, “All we’re doing is haggling on the price!”

What other issues are so important that he’s willing to sacrifice the ideals of DDD? Which issues couldn’t be shoehorned into one of the above categories?

Besides, what if Denny’s constituents want to disenfranchise black lesbians and place them in labour camps? If voters can’t be trusted on those issues – how can they be trusted with tax, pensions, the Digital Economy Bill, etc?

Why I’m Supporting Him

getavote

(Denny de la Haye)

I have just received (in person) the final donation I needed to raise my deposit - thank you @edent!

On 24-3-2010 19:12:16 from dabr

Because I might be wrong.

I think that DDD is a flawed idea. But I don’t know. We need experiments within a democracy. We need to have our assumptions challenged.

I hope – I really hope – he gets in. I want to be proved wrong. I want to live in a world where single issue candidates can make a difference. Where experimental democracy thrives.

If you live in Hackney, Vote Denny

Protestors

Protesters

Despite what El Reg reported, there was a good crowd there – maybe 250 people.

Photo - http://www.flickr.com/photos/amilm/

Overall, a worthwhile and useful day.

Please, write to your MP to ask them to debate this bill.

Usually, I would be a big fan of this move – especially if it forces password anti-pattern sites like TwitPic to implement the new, secure standard.

This means that you won’t be able to log in to a third party site by giving them your username and  password.  You will have to use OAuth to securely validate with the main Twitter site.

But – as ever – there’s a dark side to OAuth.

Repressive Regimes

One of the joys of Twitter is that its clients are decentralised from the main site.

This means that if Twitter is blocked in your country, you can use a third party client (like Dabr) to access it.

Twitter User -> Dabr -> Twitter API -> Dabr -> User

If Dabr became sufficiently popular to be blocked by an oppressive regime, you can switch to any one of the thousands of Twitter web clients.

OAuth forces you to the main Twitter site.  While you may visit Dabr to start with, you would be redirected to Twitter to complete OAuth.  If Twitter is blocked, you can’t connect.

At a stroke, Twitter has shut itself off to anyone in a repressive country.

This has been picked up by some concerned users.

A (Hacky) Way Around It

There’s really only one way around this problem.  The third party web client has to act as a man-in-the-middle.  There’s a patch for Dabr – developed by cnyegle – which will ask for a username and password, then proxy it to Twitter, get the OAuth token and tweet on behalf of the user.

From the user’s point of view, they are still giving the (potentially untrusted) site the username and password.

Challenge Response

This could be solved by implemented a challenge / response system.

1. Alice visits the Dabr website.
2. Dabr asks Alice for her username (and only her username)
3. Dabr asks Twitter for the challenge associated with Alice’s username.
4. Twitter checks that Dabr is an authorised website (i.e. has signed up for OAuth).
5. Twitter returns the response:  A secret phrase which Alice has previously chosen.
6. Dabr displays this phrase to Alice.
7. Alice knows that Twitter trusts Dabr
8. Dabr asks Twitter for the password challenge.
9. Twitter returns that it requires the 3rd, 5th and last character from Alice’s password (the characters requested change randomly).
10. Dabr asks Alice for only those characters.
11. If Alice provides the correct characters, an OAuth token is granted to Dabr to tweet on behalf of Alice.

This has the advantage of proving that Dabr is trusted (by displaying Alice’s pre-defined secret phrase) and mitigating the risk that Dabr is untrusted (by only revealing part of the password).

Conclusion

This is a very new area, and I’ve not had a chance to read through all of the proposals.  Nevertheless, it remains a fundamental problem that, if you can’t access a site, you need to delegate your trust to someone else.

I’m not a security expert – so I would appreciate someone pointing out the flaws in my reasoning.

I’d be delighted to answer any questions you may have. Post them as a comment here, send me an SMS or an email and I’ll do my best to answer.

A quick look over the candidate statements shows that we’re all fairly well aligned. For no reason other than they’re very Web 2.0, I’ve made a Wordle of the candidate statements.

ORG Wordle - Click for Bigger

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic License.
Thanks to those who helped me craft my statement.

Voting is open to members only. Votes have to be returned by 15 February 2010.

I’m not just putting my money where my mouth is.  I’m also standing for the Board of Directors.  I was nominated by the wise and talented duo of Suw Charman-Anderson & Basheera Khan.

As part of the election, I have to produce a 400 word statement.  I want to make ORG more member lead – and I’m starting as I mean to go on. Here’s my first draft – I want your crowd-sourced contributions!

(BTW, If you think I’m talking a load of old rot, feel free to vote for Emma Byrne, Felix Cohen, Neil McGovern, or Christi Alice Scarborough.  All of whom seem like fine people to me.)

This statement has to be ready by Tuesday 12th January – so get your oar in quickly!

ORG

The Internet is no longer a wild frontier.

The hurds of wild GNU have been safely corralled. Every uncharted port has been nmapped.  Huge sums of money are being made in the 24 carat data-mines.

Where there’s money, immorality and new ideas – Governments lay their heavy hands.

Our Problem

We have a technologically literate population – but we don’t have a technologically literate governing class.

Like a teenager to pornography – Governments are irresistibly drawn to the Internet. In much the same way, they don’t really know what to do with it once they get their hands on it.

Our Solution

Government in the UK is run by those who bother to show up.  At the moment that’s only the army of industry lobbyists and the 45% of the population who votes*.

I want to make sure we are listened to and our needs are met with Government action – or inaction.

The ORG must be seen as the de-facto commentators on digital life in the UK.

The “Taxpayers’” Alliance have managed to get their organisation into the front pages of the papers.  I believe our digital civil liberties are just as important as how our taxes are spent.

Striking The Balance

I want the Government to get out of our way.  I don’t want to register my blog with the state. I don’t want my traffic monitored on spurious pretexts.

I want the Government to keep us safe from [cr|h]ackers.  I want tough penalties for spammers.  I want those who breach our privacy to pay the consequences.

How do we reconcile these two opposing views?  By being member lead.  I want to see a much stronger community built around ORG.

I want to use you to shape our message and help us disseminate it.

Members should decide our priorities and be responsible for executing our campaigns.

0. Our Problem

We have a technology literate population – but we don’t have a technology literate governing class.

1. Our Solution

We need to urgently redress this problem.  Government in the UK is run by those who bother to show up.  At the moment that’s only the 45% of the population who vote* and an army of industry lobbyists.

ORG must be seen as the de-facto commentators on digital life in the UK.

I’m amazed at how The “Taxpayers’ Alliance” have managed to dominate the front pages of British newspapers.  I believe our digital civil liberties are just as important as how our taxes are spent.
We need to ensure our message is widely heard.  We have to demand that our needs are met with Government action – or inaction.

10. Striking The Balance

How do we target our resources effectively?  By being member lead.  I want to see a much stronger community built around ORG.  You fund it – you should have a strong say in how it is run and on what it campaigns.

I want to use you to shape our message and help us disseminate it. ORG will lobby Parliament & chat with civil servants if you write to your MPs & stick up posters in your workplace.  Deal?

Members should decide our priorities and be responsible for executing our campaigns.

This means finding better ways to involve all of you.  A members’ web forum, open conference calls, and regular blogging where you can help shape the message.
ORG’s website needs to be kept up to date and be seen as the premier resourse for journalists writing about digital rights.

Finally, I’d like to experiment with a member-get-member scheme. If you can help recruit people, we’ll make sure you are rewarded.

11. About Me

My name is Terence Eden. I got my first 14.4K modem when I was 15. I never looked back.
I have a degree in Applied Computing from the University of East Anglia.
For the last 6 and a half years, I’ve been working for Vodafone.  I currently look at mobile Internet trends.
My blog – http://shkspr.mobi/blog – covers a wide range of technology and political topics.
I am not a registered member of any political party.

*UK Voter Turnout 2005 – http://www.ukpolitical.info/2005.htm

Adrian Askew, Connect’s General Secretary, said:

I am delighted that our members have strongly backed plans to merge with Prospect.  This promises an exciting future and we look forward to working closely with colleagues in Prospect, sharing our expertise and our innovative approaches to trade unionism to represent and protect our members.

While it would have been nice to remain independent, Prospect offers us many more benefits than the moribund CWU.

Connect South have further details.

On this mater which has dominated the news and the blogosphere, they received only 503 formal responses. Seriously, if the blogosphere wants to change the world, it needs to direct people to respond to those who make the descisions. You don’t even need to lift your arse off a chair and find a stamp! I emailed in this quickly written response:

If a person is not found guilty or never charged, their DNA and Fingerprints should be removed and destroyed from any Government database as soon as practically possible.

The only possible exception to this is if their biometric information can be safely encrypted and stored as a “one way hash”.

At the moment it is trivially easy to forge fingerprints.  In the future it will be just as easy to forge DNA evidence.  With direct access to raw fingerprint and DNA sample I believe that the temptation to “reuse” the evidence will be too strong.

By this, I mean police taking a copy of the raw DNA evidence and planting it in order to secure a (unsafe) conviction.

If the evidence is stored as the function of a one-way-hash, there is a reduced possibility that this can be misused.

If the proposals to indefinitely store biometric information goes ahead, I would like to see it store the biometric information of all Members of Parliament, Senior Police Officers and those likely to come in to contact with the database.  The only way to secure this information is if those in charge of it have a vested interest in keeping it secure.

I do not know how you propose to record responses to this consultation – but I would like this message to be counted in the “against retention of innocents’ data” column.

On the 11th of November, they wrote back:

Thank you for taking the time to respond to the consultation paper titled “Keeping the Right People on the Database: Science and Public Protection” that closed on the 7th August 2009. The consultation intended to promote public debate on how long we should retain fingerprints and DNA setting out the benefits of DNA and fingerprints in detecting offenders and helping to bring them to justice.The summary of responses to the consultation paper is published today and is available on the Home Office website www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/cons-2009-dna-database/. The paper also sets out the Governments proposals for implemeting [sic] the judgment [sic] of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of S and Marper and for improving the governance and accountability around biometric data.

The response is certainly a step forward.  I would have like to have seen a substantial reduction in the length of time DNA is stored.  I wonder what response they would have published if everyone who blogged and twittered about the consultation had taken 15 minutes to write a note?

“[Blog posts are] a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Today Ofcom published the responses it had for its consultation on plans for the BBC to encrypt its HD broadcasts.

The blogosphere went nuts! DRM? Not on our watch.  Boing Boing mobilised its army of commentators, the BBC published two blog posts which quickly filled up with comments, Facebook statuses were updated and all these links were retweeted until our fingers were worn to their nubs.

No doubt Ofcom has collapsed under the weight of public opinion. How can the BBC possibly hope to get away with their feindinsh plans with such a backlash?

90 People

Ninety.  Less than one hundred.  Smaller than the viewing figures for BBC Three.  That’s how many people could be arsed to type a few dozen words to Ofcom, spell check them, then hit send.

More people signed a petition asking for a Yorkshire sign to be erected on the M1 than responded to this consultation.  Now, maybe my finger is off the pulse, but I haven’t seen major blogs crying foul over Yorkshire’s lack of signage.

On The Plus Side

You can read my response on their site.  Like all the others I’ve read, it’s against the proposals.  I haven’t read every response, but the twenty or so that I downloaded were all against the plans.

I know that there’s typically low turn out to consultations of this kind.  Organisations know that for every person who bothered to complain, there’s more waiting in the wings quietly seething.

But only 90 people?  I realise that the power of retweeting helped free Iran from a stolen election, but sometimes you actually have to do something.  You don’t even need to get off your computer.  Find an email address, write a few sentences and let those in charge know how you feel.

This will help get you started.

• List of government consultation websites
• Public Consultations in your area
• Ofcom Consultaions

After reading EU Parliament’s credibility undermined by back track on citizens’ rights on the Open Rights Group blog, I was moved to write to my MEPs.

FOR THE ATTENTION OF:

Sharon Bowles MEP
Nirj Deva MEP
Nigel Farage MEP
Caroline Lucas MEP
Marta Andreasen MEP
Catherine Bearder MEP
Peter Skinner MEP

Dear Nigel Farage, Marta Andreasen, Caroline Lucas, Sharon Bowles, Nirj Deva, Peter Skinner and Catherine Bearder,

Regarding Amendment 138. I understand that the lead negotiator, Catherine Trautmann, has reversed the decision of the Parliament.

I confess I have little understanding in how the EU works in this regard. But I strongly urge all of you to use your considerable influence to protect the rights of all EU citizens to a free and open Internet.

The Internet is our generation’s printing press. It must not be allowed to become restricted or corrupted by private interest – it must stay free of state interference. Otherwise we run the risk of entering a digital dark ages – where only “official” information is sanctioned and our every move is monitored and recorded.

Please, contact Catherine Trautmann and tell her that the citizens of Europe expect her to respect the Parliament and to fight for the rights of citizens.

Further information on the subject is at http://www.laquadrature.net/en/amendment-138-the-parliament-betrayed-by-its-negotiators

Yours sincerely,

I’ve had a mixed response when writing to my MEPs. The Anti-European ones are usually very quick at replying – but their replies often take the tone “Everything the EU does is bad – vote for us and we’ll stop it”. The Greens usually give a detailed response. I rarely hear back from the other parties.

Let’s hope this email gets through to enough of them.

UPDATE 19/10/2009

Lib Dem MEP Sharon Bowles is the first to reply to me with this very well considered email.

Dear Mr Eden,

Thank you for writing to me regarding the Telecoms Package.

I agree with you that net neutrality is a fundamental freedom. As a
Liberal Democrat I am fundamentally unable to support such restrictions
as you have outlined. In particular motions to grant quasi-judicial
authority to ISPs are a dangerous and illiberal step and an open door to
abuses.

For some in industry and in the political sphere the internet poses a
threat to the protection of intellectual property. While I understand
that the internet poses new challenges, it is my firm opinion that those
who see the answer to those challenges in repressive restrictions are
profoundly mistaken. It is clear to me that concern for the short-term
bottom line has blinded the entertainment industry to the need to adapt
to the age of file-sharing.

I should mention that despite these serious issues, the overall Telecoms
package is a good one that is mainly concerned with providing a common
regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and
services. It is designed to facilitate access to spectrum for operators,
foster innovation and make European rules on telecommunications more
consistent. It will also enhance competition in the communications
sector and thereby ensure that all market players have sufficient
incentives to invest in infrastructure and customer services.

These are necessary reforms given the advances in the technology and
changes in the market over the past decade, so I regret that the
legislative process has been hijacked to include proposals of this sort
after heavy lobbying by industry.

We are currently at the third and final stage of a legislative process
that has continued now for two years. The European Parliament has
consistently voted by large majorities to ensure that no restrictions
are imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of internet users
without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities. The European Council
has consistently rejected these amendments.

Both Parliament and Council must give their assent if any legislation of
this type is to pass. The strong consensus remains in Parliament that
such restrictions are not acceptable. It is important that the Council
must accept Parliament’s amendments to remove all potential restrictions
on internet access and allow the good aspects of the telecoms package to
pass.

I have urged those who have written to me in the past on this issue to
petition the British government to change its position on the Council to
support net neutrality and accept Parliament’s amendments. I would urge
you to do the same. At present it appears that the government is
listening more to those interested parties who would benefit from
further restrictions on internet use, than it is listening to the
concerns of ordinary internet users who would be affected by such
restrictions.

There remains the possibility that, should no agreement be found,
Parliament may reject the proposal in its entirety. This would be highly
unfortunate for the good economic measures that this package contains
within it.

Thank you once again for contacting me on this issue.

Yours sincerely,

Sharon Bowles MEP

Hope I get some feedback from the others…

Update 2 21/10/2009 – the Green Party replies

Dear Terence,

Thank you for your recent email about the EU’s Telecom Package. Caroline has asked me to respond on her behalf.

The “telecom package” is in reality a set of 5 Directives. The legislative proposals are designed to protect the rights of the consumers with regard to telecommunication services. During the Telecom Package’s First Reading a number of important provisions won support from MEPs, including access to more flexible contracts, better emergency services and improved information about prices and tariffs for telephone users. However, there was less agreement on the critical issues of data protection and ‘unlawful’ use of the internet. You might know that an initial compromise between the EU’s 3 institutions was reached ahead of the First Reading vote, but that the issue of net neutrality remained controversial.

The text that MEPs were asked to vote on was open to interpretation and could be used to advocate a “three strikes and you are out” approach against anyone eg downloading music in breach of copyright laws. Greens strongly disagree with the three strikes model or any other similar attempts to restrict internet access. Caroline recognises that important questions are posed by the proliferation of new media, particularly in relation to copyright. However, these must be answered in ways that protect important freedoms and do not curtail the emergence of internet based cultural activity or free access to the internet.

Green MEPs from the Internal Market Committee said:

“Unrestricted access to the internet is an essential right for a functioning information society, which should not be curbed simply at the whim of large media firms. For this reason, the Greens will re-table an amendment (originally amendment 138) to protect citizens’ rights and prevent the arbitrary restriction of internet access.”

Caroline was delighted that the main “Citizen amendment” was then carried in plenary; this was proposed originally by, among others, the leader of the Greens in the Parliament, and guarantees that an internet user’s connection will not be cut without a prior ruling by a judge. This is a victory for citizen’s rights.

Unfortunately, in the other chapter of this telecom package, the Harbour report, the definition of net neutrality is not good enough to ensure that traffic Management Policies cannot be used for anti-competitive purposes. Greens will keep working on these issues during this legislature in order to guarantee protection for net neutrality.

It is also critical that you lobby your MP as national governments, via the Council of Europe, are in favour of significant restrictions and of giving internet service providers and businesses greater powers to eg control information flow or monitor individual usage of the net. Parliament has formulated its conciliation team, who are responsible for negotiating with the Council and seeking agreement on the final text of the legislation. The EU’s telecoms ministers have already indicated that the Council would not approve the Citizen’s Amendment so these negotiations will be lengthy. No Green MEPs are part of the conciliation team but Caroline is hopeful that members will fairly represent the view of the Parliament on net neutrality. She shares your concern about any attempt to reverse the decision of the Parliament on amendment 138 and will be working to keep up pressure on the negotiating team to ensure that the MEP’s position is properly reflected in any agreement.

Thank you for taking the time to write to Caroline and please be assured of her commitment to protecting the rights and freedoms of internet users. If you need any further information do not hesitate to get back in touch and you can read more about Caroline’s work at www.carolinelucasmep.org.uk

Kind regards,

UPDATE 19/10/2009 – The Labour Party replies

Dear Mr Eden,

Thank you for contacting me about the ongoing negotiations concerning Article 138 of what is known as “the telecoms package”. Please forgive my delay in replying to you.

On 6 May the European Parliament adopted its second reading on the proposals that constitute the package and we are now still in discussions with the European Council to reach an agreement on a final law.

Labour Euro MPs are committed to achieving an overall package that delivers real benefits for consumers by opening up competition in the telecoms market, while strengthening consumers’ rights and the protection of their privacy.

We have listened carefully to citizens’ concerns about the protection of their fundamental rights in the online environment. I agree with you that the internet is an important tool for education, civil society and freedom of speech and that needs to be fostered and protected. This is why Euro MPs inserted amendments making clear that all laws affecting the internet must respect the fundamental rights of citizens. Legal opinions issued by the legal services of the European Institutions make clear that, under the Treaties that establish the EU’s powers, European legislation cannot go beyond this, for example by requiring Member States to follow a specific legal procedure. As such these issues remain a matter for national law.

The conclusion of the package is important to deliver many priorities that Labour Euro MPs have campaigned for, including limits on contract length in order to prevent consumers being ‘locked in’ to a bad deal, the ability to switch your mobile number to a new network within 24 hours and a guarantee of equal access for disabled people to communication services. The final proposal also adopted amendments I put forward that will ensure the 116 000 missing child hotline, a crucial plank in developing an EU rapid child abduction alert, will be set up in every country of the European Union.

Labour Euro MPs will work towards a final agreement on this legislation that maintains these benefits and upholds citizens’ rights.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Skinner MEP

MEP for South East England
www.peterskinnermep.eu

This Is What A Feminist Looks Like (AKA spot the odd one out)

The conference was inspiring, depressing, uplifting and infuriating in equal measures. That’s probably a good thing.
I’ll briefly discuss some of the sessions I attended and also what I think the organisers could do better next year.

The Conference

Kate Smurthwaite expertly chaired proceedings and kept the event running to time.  Not an easy task with several hundred people to shepherd.  I found the talks by Beatrix Campbell and Susie Orbach very inspiring but was very conscious of the fact that many of the aspects of feminism they addressed did not directly affect me. There was no doubting the passion and ire that the speakers felt and they held the audience spell-bound.
A few interesting titbits I picked up…

• Labiaplasty is being “aggressively” marketed to young women.  That’s the surgical mutilation of the sex organs for cosmetic reasons.
• Plastic surgery in general is specifically targeting young women and girls.
• The rise of photoshopping models is creating a idealised body image which is literally impossible.
• In 2006 the US spent $56 billion on education – it spent $100 billion on diet industry.
• If dieting worked – you’d only have to do it once and the industry would go bankrupt.
• For more discussion on body-image issues – visit AnyBody.

At the back of the hall were a pictures of amusing subvertising – that is sexist adverts which had been defaced.

Somewhat Strident has a set of stickers that you can use to “accessorise” any sexist material you find.  Zazzle sell a “This is offensive to women” sticker which can be stuck on to any poster you find offensive.

“It’s easy out here for a pimp” anti-porn slideshow

This was simple a slide show with a commentary – no time for Q&A.  It was also quite US focused.  The material was from Stop Porn Culture.

The first half was about the pornification of society – especially that targeted at children.  There were audible gasps of horror at the “Hooters Girl (In Training)” t-shirt.

Is this suitable for kids?

Then there was the superb juxtaposition of these album covers.  One from Tiffany the other from Shakira.  Both aiming at similar demographics but separated by 20 years.

Tiffany Album from 1987

Shakira Album Cover

The essential point was that children are being groomed to believe that they are merely sexual objects.  That the only way to happiness is hyper-masculinity – guns, girls, bling – for boys, or hyper femininity – guys, stripping, submissiveness – for girls.

The porn aspect – as in the deliberate watching of sex acts – only covered a small portion of the talk.  It covered contemporary attitudes to pornography among young people, such as

“From what you’ve said, it sounds like your relationship is fulfilling otherwise, so it might be best to keep his porn-watching in perspective and to try deal with the feelings that come up as a result of your recent discovery.” Gurl.com  answer to “My Boyfriend’s Into Porn“

And the way that pornography producers don’t just try to feature younger and younger models – they also seek to attract a younger audience.

“[Playboy] knew that this would really appeal to the 20-something crowd,” said Playboy spokeswoman Theresa Hennessey.

Given my former involvement with the porn industry, you will be unsurprised that I didn’t agree with all the sentiments presented.  However, it’s very clear from watching modern music videos that women are usually presented as little more than sex-objects and men as all-powerful beings who can control women.

It may even be said that groups like the Pussycat Dolls are little more that strippers marketed at children.

I don’t think that we need to protect children from their own sexuality – nor should we seek to regulate consenting adults’ sexual urges.  But I do find it very worrying how highly sexualised images are being used in the most mundane and inappropriate places.

What’s Wrong With Prostitution?

I’ve never visited a prostitute.  I’ve never known anyone who has gone – or admitted going – to a prostitute.  My knowledge is, essentially, from Belle de Jour and Band of Gold.  Presented by Rebecca Mott, Anna Travers and Denise Marshall of the Poppy Project.  What I heard was distressing, uncomfortable and yet, somehow, filled with hope and optimism.

I’ve linked to their sites so you can read their words rather than my interpretation of them – but I’ll summarise some of the points which came out of the Q&A.

• “Prostitution isn’t the oldest profession – agriculture is.”  Prostitution hasn’t been going on for ever – it is not inevitable.
• “Do a privileged minority of women prostitute oppress the vast majority who don’t want to be involved?”  There are a few, well educated women for whom prostitution is a choice.  But their voices tend to drown out the vast minority for whom it is abuse.  The case for prostitution is often skewed towards the minority at the incalculable expense of the majority.
• Prostitution is rape. It is rape on an industrial scale. Too many left leaning / liberal groups ignore the mental, physical & sexual abuse of prostitutes.  Instead they concentrate on the “liberty” to sell oneself.
• The GMB have a union section specifically for sex workers.  However, they allow pimps, brothel-keepers and other “abusers” to be member.
• “Prostitutes don’t need a union because prostitution isn’t a job – it’s abuse”
• Prostitutes shouldn’t be criminalised – paying for sex workers should be.
• When Sweden criminalised paying for sex, their was a massive drop off in prostitute numbers.
• New Zealand’s legalised brothels have lead to a massive increase in trafficked women.

It’s fair to say that this session did change my opinion.  I’d previously been fairly blasé about sex workers.  I’d assumed that it was a person’s right to sell their body if they wished.  But the reality of the massive scale of abuse has lifted the scales from my eyes somewhat.

As Rebecca Mott said (and I paraphrase) “You can’t say that women choose prostitution. If you’d asked me, I would have told you I entered prostitution as a free choice and that I really enjoyed it. It was only after I was free that I realised what terrible abuse I had been through.”

Poverty and motherhood: How society undervalues women’s work

I’m not a mother and I have no intention of being one.  That didn’t stop the final two sessions of the day being inspiring.

• Abi Moore from Pink Stinks was hugely entertaining and moving on the needs to prevent “pinkification” of women’s culture.  You can hear her on Woman’s Hour.
• “Early Learning Centre – teaching girls their place since 1974.”  Specifically in relation to their stifling lack of choice in girls’ fancy dress.
• The average age of a single mother giving birth is 31. Not, as the tabloids would have you believe, 14.
• Less than 2% of new single mothers are teenagers.
• “Women’s rights do not come cheap – neither do women”
• “Liberation does not look like Gok Wan!”

A full list of all speeches is available.  The event was also videoed and, I hope, will be available later.

So, on to the inevitable critique of the day…

Organisation

This was one of the most well organised conferences that I’ve attended. Sessions ran to time, everyone was given a handout showing where and when each workshop would be, the PA was loud enough so everyone could hear. However, there were some traps that they – and many other organisers – fell into.

Queues

It’s the nature of events that there will be queues – but there are actions you can take to mitigate your patrons’ annoyance.

• Tell people which queue is which.  It’s incredibly frustrating to get to the front of one queue only to be told you were in the wrong one and have to go to the back of another.
• A simple sign or a few volunteers is enough to ensure people know where they are supposed to be.
• Get everything done in one queue if possible.  Rather than queue for a meal ticket and then queue for lunch, consider integrating the two queues or selling tickets directly to those standing around.

Dissent

There was a noticeable lack of dissenting opinion.  I’m not talking about getting Richard Littlejohn in to abuse people, but having someone from Red Thread or the English Collective of Prostitutes in the prostitution section may have been interesting.

However, it wasn’t billed as a debate – so it’s a fairly minor quibble.

Audio Visual

I’ve never been to a conference where the AV equipment has worked flawlessly.  FiL was better than most in that not too long was spent fiddling with microphones.

• Make sure you have enough mics. If you don’t, make sure your cables are long enough to reach all participants.
• Do a dry run so you know your slides work.
• Don’t position anything between a projector and its screen unless you want to make shadow puppets.

Microphone Shadow

Payment

I was surprised that this was a paid-for event.  After attending several free conferences / BarCamps, it’s temping to think that every event should be free.  Given that the hall was full to busting, it’s obvious that a sub £5 ticket isn’t a barrier for entry.

The event was sponsored by The Maypole Fund – although there was no overt sponsorship.  No schwag, banners, leaflets etc.  I wonder if getting a few more organisations to sponsor the even could have lowered the cost further or paid for lunch.

There were several stalls – such as those from The Fawcett Society and Pink Stinks – who were selling membership, books, giving out fliers.  I’m not suggesting that they should be charged for exhibiting – but I wonder if, say, a Fair Trade chocolate stall would have been able to help fund the event.

Conclusion

Feminism isn’t dead.  It’s not even resting.  It is a living force with thousands of millions of women and men pushing forward for equality.  We’re in a better position than we were, but are a long way from where we want to be.

This is not what a post-feminist society looks like. Not yet.

Further Reading

• The F Word – Charlotte Cooper reports back from the capital’s second Feminism in London conference
• Subtext Magazine – Laura from Subtext also reviews the event

In short – could the workers purchase Royal Mail?  The idea isn’t as crazy as it first may seem.  We need to take the market value of the Post Office’s shares – then divide them by the number of workers willing to put their money where their mouth is.

According to the CWU, roughly 80,000 postal workers voted in their latest strike ballot. Around 60,000 voted for strike action.  The CWU claims to have 240,000 total members.  The Post Office has 141,000 employees.

I can’t find out how much the Post Office is worth.  I wrote to their press office but didn’t receive a reply.  Let’s assume that the post office is as valuable as, say Vodafone Group.  I choose Vodafone for a few reasons – they’re a modern communications company and I work for them (this post is my own opinion and does not represent Vodafone’s views).

Vodafone trades on the FTSE.  The share price today is about £1.35.  It has 526 million shares.

£1.35 * 526,000,000 = £710,100,000

Vodafone has 79,000 employees.

£710,100,000 / 79,000 = £8989.

So, each Vodafone employee would have to stump up around £9,000 to move the company into the ownership of the workforce.  That’s not a totally extravagant amount of money – although remember that 79,000 employee figure includes everyone from the CEO to the people who clean the toilets in Vodafone Afghanistan.

It also doesn’t take in to account that not everyone would be willing to sell their shares, the share price may fluctuate based on the buying, and the some employees already have shareholdings.  But it gives us a rough idea of what the workforce would have to do in order to own the company.

So, how much would each postie have to find to purchase her share of the Post Office?

Here’s a crappy visualisation.  I take a range of values for the Post Office’s worth from £100 million up to £1 billion.

Possible per-worker cost of buying the Post Office

I assume a range of posties putting up their cash ranging from 24,000 (less than half who voted for a strike) up to 240 thousand – the entirety of CWU’s membership.

The results are quite stunning.  If the Royal Mail’s shares were worth “only” £100 million – every CWU member would have to pay £417 for their share of the Post Office.  If only half those who voted to strike wanted to invest, it would cost them £4,167 each.

Now, let’s assume that the Post Office goes for £1 billion – which is possible given that selling off the Tote, Dartford Crossing and Student Loans book would raise £3 billion.

It would take every member of CWU buying in to drop the price to £4,167.  If only half those strikers chose to invest they’d be paying £41,667 each.

Now, I don’t know about you, but £42 grand isn’t something I just have in my wallet.  But, is it such an unobtainable sum?  Could those posties re-mortgage, sell a kidney or otherwise raise the money?

Could privatisation be the workers’ chance to run the Post Office in the way they think it should be run? For people – not profit. Putting the needs of the workers on an equal footing with the needs of the customers.

I’m sure I’ve got my sums wrong somewhere – and I’d appreciate any corrections.  At the very least it shows that dedicated postal workers could have a chance to gather a significant stake in the Post Office.

Unions – in the UK at least – are democratic structures. What gets proposed at conference has to be approved by a majority vote of members – not just those who could take a few days off to go to Blackpool.

Casting My Ballot

The irony is that the strikers at the CWU will be delaying our votes from reaching their destination. I’m sure the bad press and ill-sentiment that the CWU are generating has influenced more than a few votes to fall from their hands into Prospect’s.

I cannot conceive of a union, workforce, or employer allowing industrial relations to deteriorate to such a point as the CWU and Royal Mail now have. That is one of the many reasons why I hope Connect members will vote for a merger with Prospect.

A few days ago, the Post Office – in their infinite wisdom – set their legal dogs on those running Ernest Marples.

The Post Office charges for the file that they generated which converts post codes to location.  It can cost anywhere from £1,000 to £4,000 per year to get accurate data.  That’s a price that I can’t afford – neither can many non-profits, startups or innovators.

“I take the position that the postcode file and the data set of physical coordinates that go with it are a national asset that should be freely available to any UK citizen“  – Tom Watson MP

The Guardian has shown that there is more economic benefit to the UK by setting this data free.

So, what can be done about it?

• Sign the petition to the Prime Minister
• Write a blog post, send a tweet, and tell your friends what’s happening!
• Call, email or fax your MP

The Royal Mail is in its death-throes. It is vital that data created and supported by public money is returned to the public before it is sold off to the highest bidder… only to be sold back to us.

The other potential merger was with CWU.

There’s a plethora of articles about the CWU ruining businesses.  Is this really the union people want representing them?

Let’s face facts, the postal service is dying.  I literally can’t remember I posted a letter.  Email does for me.  To tie our fortunes to a sector which is rapidly vanishing is madness.

Some talk of the synergies between CWU and BT.  Well, that may have been true – once.  If it’s still true, it’s an irrellavance.  Connect is more than BT. Much much more. Members now come from T-Mobile, Vodafone, Orange, Yell, Seimens etc.  We have nothing in common with the CWU.

There may be some managerial members of the CWU – but over 70% of members are posties.

Imagine your boss asks you about your union – do you want her thinking you’re a striking postal worker or a professional worker?

When the Connect ballot paper comes, I’ll be voting for a merger with Prospect.

Yesterday morning I asked the Number 10 Downing Street web team if they could provide their statistics. I figured that the PM’s website gets enough readers from a wide selection of the web community to give a fairly impartial measure of the popular web browsers.

Here’s their (very quick) reply

DowningStreet

(DowningStreet)

@edent Top are: IE7 22%, IE8 20%, IE6 12%, Firefox3.5.3 9%, FF3.5.2 7%, FF3.0.14 5%, FF3.0.13 4%, Safari 4.0.3 4%, Chrome 2.0.172.43 2%

On 2-10-2009 09:46:44 from web in reply to Terence Eden

Or, to express it graphically…

Chart Showing Browser Stats

Firefox overall accounts for 25% – a fairly strong showing. But with IE6 stubbornly stuck at 12%, it will be a while before we can consign it to the dustbin of web history.
Opera is languishing in the 15% marked as “Other” along with my browser of choice, Lynx.

This is my response to your consultation “Consultation on Legislation to Address Illicit P2P File-Sharing“. I believe that the paper “GOVERNMENT STATEMENT ON THE PROPOSED P2P FILE-SHARING LEGISLATION” is dangerously flawed.

In this response, I shall outline four general areas of concern. Practical, Philosophical, Technical and Cultural. I also will provide a series of solutions which I believe will have a positive impact for the creative industries of the UK.

Practical

There are several aspects of this proposed legislation which need to be considered carefully if they are to make any impact.

Justice

In this country we believe that the accused should be able to see the evidence presented against her and be able to challenge it. As it stands, your proposed legislation enables an alleged copyright holder to accuse an alleged sharer without giving the alleged sharer the ability to see or challenge the accusation.

I say “alleged copyright holder” because your proposal contains no method to verify whether the complaint originates from the correct copyright holder.

Proof

What standard of proof will a copyright holder have to produce? In conversation with your department you indicated that the proof presented to an ISP would be to the same standard as would be presented in court. This raises some very important questions:

1. How is an ISP to judge if a complaint made against one of its customers is valid? Are ISPs expected to interpret legal documents and make judgements in law?
2. If a copyright holder believes that they have proof which would stand up in court – why don’t they go to court?
3. How will an ISP or their customer be able to verify that the complaint has come from the genuine copyright holder?

Mistakes

Inevitably, there will be mistakes in this process. What redress does a user have if falsely accused?

What punishment will there be for those who accuse falsely – knowingly or unknowingly? The way the proposal is written, it would only take three complaints from Political Party X to knock a competing Parliamentary candidate off the Internet. A handful of bogus requests would be enough to cripple any business.

Without a strong disincentive against false or malicious accusations, this proposal could result in large scale problems for honest citizens, businesses and organisations.

Will a false accusation be considered libellous? What options will a customer have against an ISP who responds to a bogus request?

Responsibility

Many people make their wireless Internet connections (WiFi) freely available to anyone who passes. I see sharing my WiFi as a civic duty as do many others. Are WiFi sharers expected to police everyone who uses their connection? If so, how would this work given that WiFi networks are very difficult to secure? Will a WiFi sharer be liable if they do not know that their Internet connection is being used illicitly?

If a user is kicked off from an ISP, the proposals are unclear as to whether they will have to pay for the remainder of their contract. If the user is not required to pay for the remainder of their contract, who will compensate the ISP for lack of custom? Given that ISPs subsidise their hardware and connection fees – will we see British businesses forced to close because they are forced to cut off their paying customers?

Mobile

(In the interests of fairness, I should point out that I work for, and own shares in, Vodafone Group. These views are my own and do not represent those of my employer)

All mobile telephone networks now offer 3G data across the country. 3G networks currently offer speeds of up to 14Mbps – much faster than the 2Mbps minimum mandated by the Digital Britain report.

Anyone can buy an unregistered SIM card, plug it into their laptop and have an instant, high speed connection to the Internet. Assuming that your proposed legislation covers mobile ISPs (again this is not clear in the proposals) how do you suggest that a mobile ISP contacts a customer who does not give her address? If the user is cut off with no warning (ignoring the legal and contractual issues resulting from this) what is to stop her buying another SIM from that, or any other, network provider?

Technical

Everyone’s connection to the Internet is assigned an IP (Internet Protocol) Address. This is the globally unique number that defines them on the Internet.

Most ISPs assign Dynamic IP Addresses. This means that a user’s IP Address may change several times a day.

At the point when an accusation is made, an error of a few milliseconds could mean the difference between targetting one user and another. How would it be determined that an IP address was assigned to any particular user? What level of accuracy will be used to make an accusation?

Every item connected to the Internet provides a unique MAC (Media Access Control).

Given that most home computers allow a user to change the hardware’s MAC on demand, how is a copyright holder able to prove that the computer they allege was involved in the possession of a particular user?

It is reasonably easy for any Internet user to pass their traffic through a Proxy. This allows a user to route their entire internet connection via another user’s computer. This Proxy may be located anywhere in the world. How would a copyright holder determine whether the illicit P2P traffic they see is or is not via a proxy. This proposed legislation would only cover the UK – what is to stop a user proxying their traffic through Europe?

Given that the traffic between P2P users can be encrypted, how will a copyright holder be able to intercept and analyse the contents of the traffic? Assuming that they have the ability to break the encryption (which is highly unlikely) would this not be a breach of RIPA?

This legislation specifically discusses P2P traffic. Many forms of downloading copyrighted content do not use P2P protocols. How does this legislation address people who share copyrighted works via Email, FTP, or sneakernet?

Philosophical

I do not believe that downloading a DVD without the copyright holders’ permission is the same as stealing it from a shop.

• Copyright infringement is defined separately from theft. They are very different crimes as their position in statute makes clear.
• In the case of theft, the owner of the goods loses them. Downloading merely makes a copy, it does not destroy or remove the original.
• There is no difference between reading a book in a shop before deciding to purchase it, than there is watching clips on YouTube before deciding whether to purchase a film. Many larger bookshops have coffee shops and other reading spaces specifically to encourage customers to read the material prior to purchase.

There are many activities that millions of citizens do which deprives a copyright holder of potential revenue – yet we don’t criminalise them.

• Lending a book or DVD to an acquaintance. Just because the way we lend now involves computers, does not mean it needs to be treated differently from our traditional methods of sharing culture.
• Selling a second-hand DVD, CD or book. P2P sharing does not have any profit element for the sharers – yet selling second hand does.
• Church fêtes and school jumble sales rely on the donation of copyrighted works in order to raise money. Given the amounts of money these generate without returning anything to the copyright holders – why are they exempt from this proposed legislation while the sharing that does not generate any revenue is so punitively targeted?
• Donating second-hand DVD, CD or book to a charity shop. In this case, the charity shop is given copyrighted work for free and then sells them at an inflated price. Yet charity shops are seen as an important lifeline for those unable to afford retail priced works – not to mention the sums raised for worthy causes.

Cultural

Studies have consistently shown that those who download the most also buy the most. There has been no correlation shown between increasing number of file-sharers and decreasing profits made by the creative industries. What we are seeing is a new way for people to express their enjoyment and involvement with popular culture.

With an estimated 7 million file sharers in the UK, it is obvious to me that there has been a massive failure in the marketplace to provide people with what they want. Businesses are faced with the unenviable task of changing their decades-old business models. Rather than having buggy-whip manufacturers petition the Government to ban Horseless-Carriages, the Government should be assisting businesses to adapt to this new world.

To this end, the Government needs to consider what changes it can bring about to the culture of the country which makes it more attractive to copy than to pay.

• The most common cause for British shows like Doctor Who, Top Gear and Coronation Street being copied from abroad is the fact that they are shown months or years after their UK transmission. The Government should work with British content producers to ensure that they are able to quickly sell their content abroad at a fair price.
• The same is true of television copied in the UK – if fans did not have to wait, they would not have to illicitly copy. The Government can liberalise television market and the available transmission spectrum to allow allow overseas shows to be cheaply and legally broadcast.
• British cinema is enormously popular throughout the world. Delays in distribution encourage people to download rather than wait and pay. The Government should encourage co-production and simultaneous release of British works shown abroad.
• Subsidise the conversion of cinemas to fully digital projection. Digital cinemas are cheaper to run, do not require pollution producing lorries to deliver heavy rolls of quickly degrading film and provide a more pleasant experience for the customer.
• Broadcast TV is giving way to IP television. The Government and Ofcom should ensure that ventures like Project Kangaroo get the backing they need to provide a legal alternative to P2P file sharing.
• If an artist – independent or otherwise – wishes to release their work in Europe, they have to deal with separate licensing bodies. The Internet ignores geographic boundaries. The Government should spearhead the creation of a pan-European licensing body to allow artists and companies to market their works easily and without excessive cost. We live in a large trading block – there is no reason why a digital download should cost more in one EU state than another.
• VAT on cultural products. Books and printed music are exempt from VAT as are cultural performances. Are DVDs and video games any less culturally worthy? Cutting VAT on creative works produced in this country would encourage cheaper prices.
• Live performances. The Government should make it easier for venues to get licences for live music. Many artists and venues have complained about the difficulty of obtaining the permission necessary to stage live music. The experience of live music cannot be replicated via file sharing.
• Encourage the Metropolitan Police to drop Form 696. Barriers to live performances discourage artists and dent the ticket and album sales they need to thrive.
• Encourage the production and manufacturing of creative works in this country. There is a growing sense that businesses are able to outsource their manufacturing to countries with lax labour laws – why then shouldn’t a citizen purchase music from a country with lax copyright laws?
• Increase funding for libraries and extend their remit to cover CDs, DVD and the digital distribution of books.

Finally, if the Government wants to increase the penalties for copyright infringement, it must reduce the length of copyright terms.

The Statute of Anne originally set copyright to a length of 14 years. This has subsequently been increased to the extent that we may never have the same access to the work of The Beatles as we do Beethoven. The popular song “Happy Birthday To You” cannot be sung in public without paying a fee to Warner Chappell Music. This is despite the fact that the music was originally composed in 1893 and the lyrics in 1912.

A short copyright term encourages artists to create new work. With a potentially infinite Government backed monopoly, what incentive is there to create new art? A popular image or song only need be created once to provide a lifetime of revenue – including revenue for the creators’ descendants. What incentive does copyright give to the creation of new art?

A short copyright also allows works to fall into the public domain. Think of the amount of new art which has been created on the basis of Dickens or Shakespeare. Hugely profitable – and copyrightable – derivative works have been created without having to pay anything to their respective estates.

Copyright provides specific protection in return for their eventual return to the public domain. This is an incredibly important part of the copyright equation which is often forgotten. Unless works are eventually placed into the public domain, they are effectively stolen from us. Our culture thrives on sharing stories freely. Laws which prevent us from freely enjoying our culture robs us and future generations of their heritage. Imagine a United Kingdom that forbade people from performing Romeo and Juliet, or from singing Handel’s Messiah.

With copyright being such a poor deal for the public, it’s easy to see why it gets so little respect.

Conclusion

The Internet provides citizens with many opportunities and business with many challenges. It is an enormous, technically complicated organism – perhaps the largest creation humans have ever assembled. The Government should not attempt to regulate the use of this new marketplace without first fully understanding it. From the proposals given, it seems clear that the Government is out of step with technology and with the culture of many of its citizens.

The Prime Minister recently stated that “The internet is as vital as water and gas“. In this context, it’s hard to see what can be gained from cutting off a vital service on the basis of unchallenged accusations.

It has been nearly 10 years since A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. Yet the creative industries have prefered to bury their heads in the sand and refused to innovate while people have grown used to the idea that they can download what they want, when they want it, without having to remunerate the copyright holders.

The Government must help business explore this new frontier and help business find new models which are profitable. It must do this without criminalising customers.

The proposed legislation is the equivalent of gas companies threatening citizens who dare light their homes via electricity. I oppose it and hope you take my response under consideration.

Many thanks

Terence Eden

This work is licensed as Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales

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They’ve released a document entitled GOVERNMENT STATEMENT ON THE PROPOSED P2P FILE-SHARING LEGISLATION.  It’s only 5 pages long, I really suggest you read it.

Being part of a democracy means you’re allowed to talk to the decision makers, so I called the number at the end of the document and had a very interesting call with Adrian Brazier.

These notes are taken off the hoof – I didn’t record the call.

I asked a range of questions.

Q1) What are the punishments for copyright holders who make false claims about an Internet user (whether malicious or not

A1) None. Yet.  A good point that they hadn’t thought of.

Q2) What standard of proof will a Copyright Holder have to provide an ISP?

A2) This will be worked out by Ofcom.  It will (probably) be of a similar level of proof as required by law. The standard of proof has not yet been published because it is up to Ofcom to formulate.

Q3) I pointed out that if a Copyright Holder had the standard of proof required for court, why wouldn’t they just go to court?

A3) Save everyone the cost and trauma.  Going to court is an expensive and protracted business for all involved, if a simple letter will stop someone breaking the law, that’s probably better for all involved.

Q4) ISPs are not lawyers and judges – how can they tell if a claim is valid. If the claim is invalid – does their customer have the right to sue them (or the Copyright Holder)?

A4) A good point not yet addressed.  If a user is falsely accused, they should have the power of redress.

I was highly impressed with the thought given to the answers – even if I disagree with their conclusions.  Full credit to Adrian for taking the time to listen to my points.  The above is my interpretation of his answers – any mistakes are mine and mine alone.

Please – if you care about Digital Britain, respond to the consultation. An simple email to adrian.brazier@bis.gsi.gov.uk or mike.klym@bis.gsi.gov.uk will do, you can telephone them on : 020 7215 1295/4165.  If you’re feeling old-skool, write to Communications & Content Industries Unit, BIS, 1 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0ET.

It only takes a few minutes of your time to ensure that the Government don’t make a massive mistake.  If you are going to phone or email – please remain polite.