Informationoverlord

The government has published its interim Digital Britain report today. I have written a post on various aspects of the report at Ofcom watch, but here I want to just highlight the government’s announced approach to illegal Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing.

According to the report: “Our response to the consultation on peer-to-peer file sharing sets out our intention to legislate, requiring ISPs to notify alleged infringers of rights (subject to reasonable levels of proof from rights- holders) that their conduct is unlawful. We also intend to require ISPs to collect anonymised information on serious repeat infringers (derived from their notification activities), to be made available to rights-holders together with personal details on receipt of a court order. We intend to consult on this approach shortly, setting out our proposals in detail.”

Now, I guess IP Minister David Lammy did not get to see a copy of the report before today, as he apparently told the Times earlier this week that legislation had been ruled out.

The government’s official response to its consultation on the way forward with this issue accepted that its preferred co-regulatory proposal was not going to work ” It is clear that it would be extremely difficult to develop a co-regulatory code which fairly represented the interests of all parties and was effective in addressing unlawful file-sharing.”

Interesting the government states: “There was general agreement among respondents that there was no one solution which would effectively tackle unlawful file-sharing. Rather almost all parties recognised there was a need for new sources of attractive legal content offering consumers what they wanted, in the format they wanted and at a price they were willing to pay.”

I can see a bright light, and it’s the light of the bleedin’ obvious. HELLO, my mom could have told you that was the best way forward - and several years ago.

However, due to the government’s plan A going out of the window that leaves us with plan B, which requires some legislation to specifically oblige ISPs to notify alleged infringers of rights (subject to reasonable levels of proof from rights-holders) that their conduct is unlawful. It also means a Code of Practice dealing with illegal file-sharing, supported by backstop powers overseen by Ofcom.

I Look forward to the consultation.

One final note: What I do love about government responses is the way they throw in stuff but don’t clarify anything, so we get the following:

“However, it is clear that rights holders are suffering financial losses, and that their losses due to unlawful P2P file-sharing are growing. To take three sectors as an example, in the UK in 2007, the music industry claimed losses of £180m; the film industry £55m; and TV £22m.”

Now, I’m sure the government and the entertainment industry want you to read those loses as being solely down to illegal P2P file-sharing, and not: bad business practice; poor products; lack of advertising spend and many other reasons. The only thing missing is the proof. Still, a minor point.

The UK Film Council has just launched a film search engine - findanyfilm.com - allowing UK film buffs to locate films legally available in the UK ( Note: It does not class DVDs encoded for regions outside of ‘region 2′ as being legal).

According to the site: “our aim to give you the best possible movie experience, promoting every type of film that’s available for viewing in the UK. To do this, we’re working with the UK Film Council, the Industry Trust, and exhibitors, distributors and retailers, to promote legally available films - making high-quality, legal viewing one of our top priorities. We’re also committed to becoming the UK’s most comprehensive film-watching search engine, with an ever-increasing number of titles and a wide choice of reputable retailers. We list films across every format, and if a film is not immediately available, we’ll do our best to find it for you and let you know the details as soon as possible.”

A search for the Louise Brook’s classic, Pandora’s Box returned 6 results - it seems to be a free text search, unless you go into advanced search where you can search by Title, Actor, Director, Year, Genre, Certificate, Language, or Keyword.

Not a brilliant start. Why is the 2001 film “Trois 2 - Pandora’s Box.” the number 1 result, and “Pandora’s Box” number 2. How can an exact title match be the second hit??

Clicking on Pandora’s Box, brings up a new page, providing Film viewing options: In the Cinema; On TV; On DVD; On Blu-ray; To Download; To watch Online; In Other Formats.

Where, for example, it is available on DVD, it will take you to a page listing a number of online sites, where the film can be purchased, with prices also displayed.

If the film is not available in your preferred viewing format, the service lets you sign-up for alerts on film’s, so you can be informed when they are coming to a Cinema near you, appearing on TV, coming out on DVD/Blu-Ray, or being made available via downloads or online. This is really good, although I would have hoped that this information could have been delivered by an RSS feed as well as via individual emails - which does not seem to be the case. Also, there does not seem to be an option to have a ‘page’ to visit to display/check just what films you are keeping an eye out for. The site could do with taking at look at Locate TV to pick up some pointers on that point. It does does something similar for TV and DVD, and can let you create your own ‘watch list’ page - [Although Lottie, I’d STILL like an rss feed option there too! Not going to stop asking :-)]

The alerts page also provides a list of ‘related titles’. From here, for example I can see that another fine Louise Brook’s film - Diary of a Lost Girl -  is on at The Barbican at 4pm on 22 February 2009.

I think this could turn into an excellent resource for all film buffs. Worth a look.

The US Supreme Court has decided not to hear the appeal by the US government against a Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision (itself upholding a District Court ruling (remanded from the Supreme Court) that, the 1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA) is unconstitutional. Whilst I think this is great news, I also must admit that I am surprised that the Court passed on this - especially considering that it was a 5-4 split that originally remanded the case.

COPA was the US Government’s second attempt at protecting children online. Its first attempt, the 1996 Communications Decency Act (the CDA), was also struck down by the Supreme Court in Reno v American Civil Liberties Union , where the court found that the Act’s ‘indecent’ and ‘patently offensive’ provision abridged freedom of speech as protected by the First Amendment. COPA did not fair much better, with the courts affirming the original District Court opinion blocking Congress from enforcing it. That court found that the act was not the least restrictive means of accomplishing the government’s objectives - the use of filtering software could actually exceed the protection available under the law - and violated the First Amendment rights of US website operators. In particular, the court(s) found that COPA could not withstand a strict scrutiny, vagueness, or overbreadth analysis and thus is unconstitutional.

I pleased to see this law finally laid to rest. The disappointment is in the 10 wasted years, and wasted money by the US government continuing to fight for a law they knew was fatally flawed; and the irony of arguing in another case - the case of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which makes federal funding of libraries conditional upon their use of filters - that filters were the answer, whilst at the same time arguing they were not the answer to protect children from the very same content in COPA.

Because our Politicians think they are above the law, and can just change the law if a court tells them to do things, it is pleasing to see some are willing to take a stand. This early day motion is one you should keep an eye on to see if your MP wants to hide EXACTLY what he/she is  spending your money on.

That this House notes with concern the provisions in the Freedom of Information (Parliament) Order 2009 to remove the expenses of hon. Members and Peers from the scope of the Freedom of Information Act; notes that this Order singles out hon. Members and Peers in a special category as the only public officials who will not have to disclose full details of their expenses; further notes the High Court judgement of 16th May 2008 and subsequent reassurances to hon. Members that expenses would be published in full by autumn 2008; further notes with concern the regressive effect of this Order on parliamentary transparency and the detrimental impact it will have on Parliament in the eyes of the public; and calls on Ministers to block or repeal the Order in the interest of hon. Members’ and Peers’ accountability to members of the public.

They Work For You can help you contact your MP to ask them what they have to hide from you. If they have nothing to hide they should block the order - if they do, they do not deserve your vote at the next election.

ICELAND

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“Experts say Monday, January 19, 2009, will go down as the most depressing day in history.” reads the headline.

Now I had gotten up this morning feeling not too bad. I’d watched on the news about Obama’s latest party bash, and how everyone is looking forward to him becoming President of the US tomorrow; I’d checked to find that the DLR seemed to be running ok; and I had some podcasts downloaded onto the iPhone to listen to on the way back and from work. All was well with the world. And then …

I saw this headline, and it all changed. It is a good job we don’t have windows you can open in our building or I’d have had to fight my way past people to throw myself out of the nearest window. I even contemplated visiting someone else’s building that does have windows to give it a go. However, instead I choose to go outside in Canary Wharf, and licked my middle finger and held it up in the air; and I think I can say with all certainty that it is 7.6 on the Scott Vine finger depression scale [FDS] ™

Yes, I know, 7.6. You must remember what it was like when it was that 6.9 day back in October 2008? I know there are people still trying to recover from that one. Back then we didn’t even know which celebs where going into the Big Brother House - that’s how traumatic it was.

No wait, what’s that you say? Blue Monday sounds bollocks? [Don’t let any New Order fans here you say that] Hmm, you may have a point. Maybe we should look at who these ‘experts’ are: take a bow, Psychologist Dr Cliff Arnall, who devised a mathematical formula (though one that is not as good as my FDS one) that pinpoints today as Blue Monday. He says there are six depressive factors - winter weather, Christmas credit card bills, abandoned New Year’s resolutions, job security fears, mounting debt and the house price collapse.

Now, Dr Arnall is so clever that he realised that these factors will not have occurred to you yesterday - it was a Sunday after all: day of rest and all that. He also realised that by tomorrow you’ll be feeling just that little bit better about all this stuff, after having time to rationalise today. I am not worthy Dr Arnall. [ On a side note, could you let me know where you sign up to get gigs like this, as I feel that my FDS™ could have many uses]

Still, I’m sure the supporters of Everton football club (who play in Blue) will be hoping that it is indeed a ‘Blue’ monday when they play city rivals Liverpool this evening. maybe Dr Arnall is just a ‘Toffee’.

Regular readers will be aware of my position on the EU’s proposals for a term extension on the related rights in sound recordings. The Open Rights Group have produced this informative video explaining some of the reasons for my opposition to the proposals.

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I note that the UK government has published the responses to its consultation on unlawful Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing and its impact on the British arts and entertainment industries. The consultation called for evidence on the issues involved and invited views from rights holders, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), consumer organisations and the wider public on a range of options to tackle the problem.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the responses did not give united support for the proposals, or the government’s preferred co-regulatory proposal, which would give legal footing to an industry code of conduct agreed by the rights holders and ISPs.

There was across the board rejection of the governments proposals by the country’s ISPs. According to BT “Unauthorised P2P file sharing of copyright material is fundamentally a market issue which needs to be addressed through a range of commercial means.” Almost all ISPs suggested the way to deal with P2P was through the provision of legal offers, education and the use of the existing legal system to enforce copyright holders rights, and that any other approach jeopardised “the development of the ISP industry and reduce incentives for investment in infrastructure etc.” (BSkyB), and/or would constitute a “tax on the legitimate internet use” (Orange).

The ISPs are also united on their desire not to be seen as being the entertainment industries’ policing arm. BskyB argued that it should not have to warn their customers merely on the basis that a rights holder has said that a particular file was downloaded by a particular IP address. BSkyB states it should not be forced to act against any of its customers without actual proof of infringement- proof it would have to put to its customers before weighing up the claims of both sides. This is a job for the courts BSkyB argue. They - and others - also point out that the proposed technical solutions are also a none starter for ISPs unless it can be guaranteed to them that in doing so they would not jeopardise their ‘mere conduit’ protection from liability under regulation 17 of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) regulations.

Tiscali and others criticised the consultation for virtually ignoring the current legislative options open the rights holders, and for taking the view that because rights holders find the process onerous that ISPs should be made to do their work for them instead. The current laws protect rights holders - use them, they say. They also point out the false - or at least unproven - assumption that a reduction in illicit file sharing would lead to an increase in legitimate revenues to rights holders. According to them, the consultation’s proposals all have the goal of obliging “ISPs to take action to safeguard/grow the revenues of rights holders. No obligation is proposes nor foreseen for the rights holders.”

The ‘lost revenue’ argument is one that I have long held to be false. In rights holder logic, every track, album, film downloaded illegally robs them of the revenue for each and every one of those items. Now, you don’t need a PHD to spot the flaw in this logic. If person A downloads 5 albums and 3 films a month for free, if they are prevented form doing this they are no suddenly going to go out and spend the money on those 5 albums and 3 DVDs. True that person might buy 1 albums and 1 DVD, but that is not the one for one argument that the entertainment industry have continued to claim. The additional problem is that that person is probably ALREADY buying that 1 albums and 1 DVD legitimately, and the 5 albums and 3 film downloads are additional to that ‘legal’ buying, not instead of.

On the other side of the argument, it will come as no surprise to find that rights holders are in favour of the government proposals and the co-regulatory approach in particular, seeing ISPs as needing to take some responsibility for copyright infringement on their networks. Some responses to the consultation were in favour of streamlining the legal process to enable personal information to be passed directly from ISPs to rights holders. However, the Information Commissioner expressed concern about any move in that direction.

Lord Carter stated that the government would respond to the views expressed as part of the interim ‘Digital Britain report’ due to be published at the end of next week. No-one is expecting the government’s views to have altered, and see the threat of a legislative solution now very firmly on the table.

This is the 20th country I have done so far. Complete list here

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