Information Overlord

Move completed

2007-11-11T14:21:00.001Z

Have now fixed feed and moved this part of site to http://www.informationoverlord.co.uk/oldblog. New look blog now at http://www.informationoverlord.co.uk and feed http://www.informationoverlord.co.uk/?feed=rss2 (which should bepicked up by my feedburner feed) but if you don't see any new content in next few days, it means not working!

On the Move

2007-11-10T18:06:00.000Z

I have decided to move this blog over to Wordpress. As a result,this part of the site will no become an archive. The New blog is here and the feed here

Information

2007-11-08T11:29:00.000Z

This is really rather cool. Frommthe same man who brought us the equally cool Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

What's my name

2007-11-08T09:43:00.000Z

Prince is still trying to get Web Sheriff to police the internet and help him remove any photos, videos featuring his music and any other images to protect his 'image'. According to the Beeb he is also hoping to have any album covers, images of him in concert and any lyrics removed. Which is not what Web Sheriff actually say however - "The dispute, in so far as there is one, is related to the use of photographs and images of Prince, many of which are Prince's copyright," said John Giacobbi, managing director of Web Sheriff.

Prince, Prince, Prince ... 'I feel for you', but you need to 'right the wrong'. This is 'scandalous' that you object to the 'joy in repetition' of your words and images. Let's not play this 'silly game'. On 'reflection', I'm sure you'll 'come back' to the view, that this is just a 'sign o the times' and that your own 'arrogance' has made you look like a 'jughead' instead of our 'daddy pop'. You should be 'willing and able' to set this 'controversy' aside, give us your 'trust', so we can get through this period of 'chaos and disorder'. 'Have a heart'. 'Goodbye'.

Should Dewey Retire?

2007-10-31T17:11:00.000Z

I was thrown back into the world of cataloguing for a brief period earlier today when reading a great post by Paige Turner (still wish I'd have thought of that nom de plume). 'Paige' has a blog detailing the development of the new Swansea central library. Now as someone that worked in the old central library for around 6 years I have an interest in the old place. However, I digress, the post was about Dewey. What about Dewey? Exactly! Paige dares to ask - or at least hints at - do we need him in public libraries???

I'll let Paige explain (Paige hope you don't mind me reprinting most of your post!?)

Anyway, for the sake of argument, you're a customer and you're looking for Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking.

You walk into a bookshop - you look around at the headings on the bookshelves - you notice that there is an area headed "cookery" or "food and drink", you think - ah, yes, that sounds right. On closer inspection, you notice that every couple of shelves is a smaller sign "barbecues", "soups", "A-z by country" Ah-ha!!!! a,b,c,d,e,f - French cookery.

You take the initiative - you read the titles and author's names on the spines of the books - OK sorry, getting a bit controversial there. But hey - you did it!

Now the alternative scenario - you walk into a traditional library. There are no signs above the shelves. On the end of each run of shelving, you notice an array of numbers (340-385, 610-649 etc.) You walk further and may notice a decrepit poster filled with a list of these numbers and what they mean, written in arcane language. (If you're a kid, your poster may have a jungle theme but the language will be the same).

OK - you say - I get it, there's some sort of coded system in play here! But, I'm an intelligent human so I can work it out. Right, let's see:

000 - computers, information and general works (nope)
100 - philosophy and psychology (nope)
200 - religion (well Delia's a bit fanatical about eggs but...nope)
300 - social sciences (don't think so)
400 - language (non!)
500 - science (erm, no)
600 - technology (nope)
700 - arts and recreation (ah-ha! The culinary arts! Recreational activity - sounds good, just finish checking)
800 - Literature (nah!)
900 - History and geography (no - hee-hee! I've cracked it, now, off to find the 700 section!)

time passes.

slowly.

Give up.

Go home or ask the code master.

Of course 641.5944!! "Utilising the sciences to harness the natural world and it's resources for the benefit of mankind" = Cookery! Silly me.

By the way - helpful tip, when you do get to it, if you do get to it, hope there's not too may books on French cookery, because chances are, you won't be able to identify the book you want behind all the spine labels.

Sound familiar??

Now, I like Dewey. Yes, that makes me strange - or strang(er) - but I do. HOWEVER ... I have never been a fan of making it harder rather than easier to find things. This was indeed something that the people I worked with in my time at Swansea Reference Library agreed with me on. So we started to make Dewey a bit more user friendly. No Dewey number would go more than 3 numbers after the decimal point for starters. Then, in areas such as ART, Literature and a few others we swapped what was after the decimal point with the first three letters of the Author, Artist etc.

So, we were not getting rid of Dewey, but we WERE trying to make him more useful to our patrons, and yes dear reader, even ourselves as it make it much easier to reshelve items using this system.

Could we have gone further - yes, I think we could of done: but what we did was a start.

Even now in my current job, I have created a filing system for my small collection of 450 books that makes it easier for me and my lawyers to find them, rather than using an established 'system'.

Of course, Paige's post is putting the question out there of whether - in the 21st century - we actually need Dewey in libraries (esp Public Libraries) at all. So, is it time for Dewey to be retired? Should the Library of Congress system join it? What do you think, dear readers?

CC sponsors Blog

2007-10-31T11:35:00.000Z

I see Clifford Chance is now sponsoring a blog. Conflict of Law is a "news and discussion portal to those interested in the conflict of laws (otherwise known as private international law)." Which is a posh way of saying it's a blog. To be fair, it is a blog I've been following for a while and contains some good stuff - if private international law is your thing - so congrats to Martin George. [Geek Lawyer isn't happy though ...]

MindMaps

2007-10-31T00:45:00.000Z

Simon at Slaw mentioned a mindmapping tool I wasn't aware of - Mind42 , which in turn reminded me to bookmark and mention one that I came across late last week called Wisemapping . Both are Beta products, and look promising.

Happy Halloween

2007-10-31T00:38:00.000Z

With All Hallows Eve upon us, I thought you'd like some links to some Halloween goodies on YouTube...

This is Halloween song from The Nightmare Before Christmas

Buffy and Halloween
The Simpsons -'The Raven' The Trailer for the Original Halloween film
Siouxsie and the Banshees -Halloween
Ryan Adams - Halloweenhead and finally, The History of Halloween from the History Channel

Jiglu

2007-10-29T23:40:00.000Z

Decided to give Jiglu a try on this site and my other site Todd is God. Jiglu is "a super-smart engine that pieces your site together, intelligently tagging and linking your web content" ...

That's what they say, but in reality, does it work??? No results for this site as I write, but over on Todd is God it has identified the "people" : 'Sunny Afternoon' (as in the Kinks Song) and 'Summer Clothes' ( as in 'Girls in their SUMMER CLOTHES - a track on the new Bruce Springsteen album).

It does better on topics although we do have 'n roll hall' (as in rock 'n' roll hall of fame).

Will wait to see how it copes with this site before making a decision as to whether it is worth while or not.

Sky offer up 3% for ITV competition concern clearance

2007-10-29T17:36:00.000Z

BskyB, Virgin and others have replied to the possible remedies and the provisional findings of the Competition Commission (CC) that the acquisition by British Sky Broadcasting plc (BSkyB) of a 17.9 percent share in ITV restricts competition, and therefore operates against the public interest.

The CC invited views on three potential remedies to alleviate the situation: (i) BSkyB sells its entire stake; (ii) BSkyB sells enough of its stake to ensure it no longer has material influence over ITV (previous examples include reductions to just below 10% and just below 15%); and (iii) BSkyB sells some of its stake and is subject to behavioural restrictions, which might relate to areas such as voting behaviour and the solicitation or acceptance of board representation; as well as asking for any other proposals.

Needless to say, BSkyB started by stating that the CC is wrong and they will submit evidence to back up their argument that a 'relevant merger situation' hasn't been created or that the creation of such a situation would be expected to lead to a lessening of competition in the market due to a loss of rivalry between ITV and BskyB. However, they pragmatically say that 'if' the CC persists with its incorrect view then the only viable solution to the problem identified by the CC in its preliminary findings would be for Sky to place 3% of its 17.9% in the hands of 'a voting trust with a respected institutional trustee'. This, according to Sky, would address their alleged ability to block special resolutions of the ITV Board, put to shareholders.

'A Media Company' seemed to agree the pacing of shares in trust could work, but argued that whole of BskyB's holding be put in a discretionary trust.

Unsurprisingly, Virgin Media doesn't agree with either the trust or the 3% reduction (however achieved), and on this very point states in its response to the possible remedies that even if BskyB had to sell that 3% "BskyB would still be able to vote shares representing almost 21% ...[and] would need shareholders holding only 2.9% of ITV shares to vote with it in order to block a special resolution of ITV in circumstances in which up to 4.9 % of votes were cast against resolutions at the last ITV AGM"

Virgin states the only solution is for BskB to sell its whole 17.9% and get out of ITV altogether. At 14%, Virgin reckon BskyB would still represent 21% of votes cast at ITV General Meetings; and at around 10% would stop potential bidders for ITV (for which, read Virgin Media) being able to buy the company outright, by essentially acting as a pain in the arse (a ye olde technical legal term, I believe).

Of course, it is not just a Sky/Virgin spat. Rapture, who are also not exactly Sky's biggest fans [ They are currently appealing a determination by Ofcom, to the Competition Appeals Tribunal (CAT), that charges levied by BSkyB for the provision of electronic programme guide (EPG) services between November 2005 and November 2006 were fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory] also chipped in.

They were short and sweet in their response stating " Please note my objection to the BSkyB purchase of ITV shares and I would recommend that BSkyB be forced to sell all shares in ITV without delay. Furthermore BSkyB should be forbidden to extend its influence to any and all other broadcasters/content providers and should certainly not be allowed to launch its technology on any other platforms in the UK. This would at least help reduce the risk of future abuse by BSkyB."

Incorporated Society of British Advertisers Ltd (ISBA) remain disappointed that the CC dismissed competition concerns in airtime sales and TV News arising form the ITV stake, but think that either a complete divestiture of divestiture to below 10% would be acceptable.

The CC is expected to issue its final report to John Hutton, Secretary of State for the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR) in December (although it has until January 2008 to do so).

Yahoo pulls plug on 360

2007-10-26T22:20:00.000+01:00

It seems that Yahoo has finally decided to pull the plug on their original failed attempt at social networking/blogging - Yahoo 360. This is not a great surprise, especially considering that they are currently beta-ing yet another attempt, with 'Mash'

So what is the reason?

"Yahoo! is building a universal profile system to provide a more integrated experience. We currently have many different profiles for different Yahoo! products. Our goal is to centralize as many of these as possible into one common profile"

Now this new platform will have blogging capabilities and - if like me - you do have any content on 360, you will be able to get it out/move it to the new platform, which will be Mash, right? Erm, sort of ... "The universal profile will not be Mash -- at least not the Mash that you see today. The new profile is likely to share the same platform as Mash, which means that we can provide you with greater flexibility than you currently have on 360°."

According to Yahoo's Matt Warburton "our goal is to build a new profile and blogging solution that will delight all of you". So watch this space.

CC Challenge lethal injection to gain Stay of execution

2007-10-26T17:47:00.000+01:00

I'm sure most people reading this will know I work for Clifford Chance. We're a corporate law firm so we don't usually hit the headlines in other aspects of law. So it makes a change to report that lawyers from our London and New York offices succeeded in securing a stay of execution for Jack Alderman, the US' longest serving death row prisoner, who was due to be executed last Friday by lethal injection. After four unsuccessful appeals in the previous seven days, the stay of execution was granted late on Thursday, 18 October as the prison were preparing Jack Alderman for execution. Jack Alderman has been on death row for 33 years during which time he has continued to protest his innocence and to fight to clear his name.

We succeeded on arguing that lethal injection was cruel and unusual punishment and therefore breached the Eighth Amendment. The Supreme Court will now look at this and is expected to reach a decision on the legality of lethal injection around spring 2008, by which time the firm hope to have secured a new trial and/or succeed in getting Alderman acquitted.

You can read the CC press release here and learn more about the case here

Sporting Stuff

2007-10-26T14:37:00.000+01:00

I had to do some sport related research yesterday (sadly not something I get asked to do that often) so I thought it might be an idea to list a few sources that I have found useful.

World Sports Law Report (and associated blog)
Sports Betting Update (subscription service from PA Sport)
Sport Business - news site
EUFootball.biz - a very good site covering the business side of football
Sportcal.com - this was new to me until yesterday. It provides news, information on broadcast and marketing rights etc. Need to subscribe to get full access but you can look at the latest issue of their quartely Media Rights Review to get a flavour of what they offer.

Crackberry Facebook

2007-10-26T14:25:00.001+01:00

If any more proof was needed that business' need to think again about allowing access to sites such as Facebook, then surely the announcement from RIM that they have launched Facebook for BlackBerry Smartphones, for that essential business tool - the BlackBerry - is it. If RIM think it makes sense to add it to what is sold as a business tool, then that says a lot."Now you can take Facebook with you on your BlackBerry smartphone! The best part is: you stay connected to Facebook the whole time. Download this free application and take communicating with your friends to a whole new level" Of course, if you work for the type of company that blocks access to such site, then they've probably already crippled your blackberry to prevent you downloading things such as this software add-on.

Swedebook

2007-10-26T11:20:00.000+01:00

According the The Local,Pär Ström, a member of the Swedish government's IT Council and integrity spokesman, says that agreeing to facebook's T&C's amount to a ‘slave contract.’ He says ‘People think it is free to join, but you pay with your personal integrity and your future. When you apply for a job in 30 years, the recruiter will be sitting there with what you have written.’

Is he right?

Odds & Sods

2007-10-23T17:17:00.000+01:00

Helen Rose of Bristows looks at the recent flurry of negative publicity when Facebook announced that details of its users would appear in publicly available search results, leading to allegations that Facebook was sacrificing users’ privacy in an attempt to drive more users to the site via search engines. She asks if these claims stand up to scrutiny, and whether Facebooks actions make it comliant with UK data protection law, concluding - rightly in my opinion, that this was really a non-story.

Meanwhile Make Watts (also of Bristows) asks - just what is web2.0 ... and states it depends on who you ask, suggesting 4 meanings

According to Lee Bryant of Headshift, Microsoft has announced a strategic partnership with Atlassian's Confluence wiki platform and Newsgator's enterprise RSS system to extend its Sharepoint portal product in the direction of enterprise social computing. This is undoubtably good news for many organisations fighting to get web2.0 technology and thinking behind the firewall in what remains - more often than not - a Microsoft IT world. And speaking of Microsoft Steve Ballmer proclaimed that Microsoft has made plans to purchase 20 web companies a year for the next 5 years.

BlogRovr looks quite interesting. You import your OPML to the service and then from that point onwards when you're surfing away it will (apparently) tell you if a page your on has been linked to by any of the subs in your OPML, and then let you jump to the relevant blog post. Sounds pretty cool if it works, must find time to give it a go.

Twine is all over the place - so much so I have fallen over twice. Have signed up (of course) and now wait to see if it is a great as it tells me it is, or whether it should be called old rope.

Latest News Round-up Type Stuff

2007-10-23T15:23:00.000+01:00

This is a round up of a few more things that have gone on whilst I was holiday:

A coalition of media and internet companies - CBS Corp, Dailymotion, Fox Entertainment Group, Microsoft Corp, MySpace, NBC Universal, Veoh Networks, Viacom and the Walt Disney Co - have issued and signed up to standards governing user-generated content. "Copyright Owners and UGC Services recognize that they share several important objectives: (1) the elimination of infringing content on UGC Services, (2) the encouragement of uploads of wholly original and authorized user-generated audio and video content, (3) the accommodation of fair use of copyrighted content on UGC Services, and (4) the protection of legitimate interests of user privacy."

The European Commission has decided to send a letter of formal notice to Germany concerning its public contracts for legal database services. According to the Commission " In 2006, the judicial authorities of 13 federal states awarded contracts for legal database services directly to juris without publishing calls for tenders. juris, a company partially owned by the Federal Republic of Germany, is the leading operator of legal databases in Germany. Under an agreement with the Federal Government, juris maintains and operates its legal information system while the Federal Government provides specific documentation such as consolidated documentation of federal legislation and judgments by the federal courts in a specially edited version for the exclusive use of juris. The Commission considers that the contracts for database services concluded by the 13 states and the agreement between the Federal Government and juris might be public contracts which should have been awarded by competitive tendering procedures with publication of European-wide calls for tenders".

Taxonomies and Thesauri: This bibliography from the UK government has been updated to help workers throughout the UK public sector as they plan implementation of taxonomies for use with subject metadata.

The Information Commissioner's Office has amended its guidance on the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) removing references that stated that marketing messages sent using Bluetooth technology would be subject to PECR rules relating to the sending of unsolicited marketing. The Regulations only apply to messages sent over a public electronic communications network and the ICO, following discussions with the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and others, have concluded that Bluetooth messages are not in fact sent using such a network. The ICO however urges marketers to still use the technology responsibly in their marketing strategies.

Ofcom is consulting on proposals to enable airlines to offer mobile communication services on UK-registered aircraft. I'm with CharonQC on this one.

ITV and GMTV - Was it fraud???

2007-10-23T15:18:00.000+01:00

Whilst I was away Deliotte finished their investigation of the use of premium rate interactive services ("PRS") in programming on all ITV channels. Before its release Michael Grade had spoken of a Zero Tolerance approach the channel would take. On its release, Grade told us, had he been in charge whilst all this was going on that he'd have resigned. Correct me if I am wrong, but some of this similar behaviour was going on at the BBC WHILST he was in control. Handy he changed job then. I am not calling for Grade's head - I think he's the kind of person ITV need in control - but to take no action against anyone involved (which seems to be what has happened thus far) is just jaw dropping - anyone would think he was the Prime Minister.

Deliotte's report is quite clear that their were serious issues in a (limited) number of ITV programmes including Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Gameshow Marathon and Soapstar Superstar, where Production staff consistently over-rode votes or allowed viewers to enter competitions they had no chance of winning. And yet everyone keeps there jobs?

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has said it is now looking into whether there is any case to be answered by GMTV and Opera Telecom over the quiz's on Richard & Judy (the answer surely is yes). If that is the conclusion they reach is another matter of course, and ITV will certainly be hoping the answer is no. If the SFO does go after GMTV, then despite claims in the deliotte report that 'ITV has taken specialist legal advice ... and is advised that the evidence does not support any allegations of criminal behaviour', the Channel may be quickly looking for a second opinion, as it seems clear that production staff ignored the terms and conditions of competitions and made their own decisions.

According to the report, in relation to PrizeMountain (Ant & Dec): "Working from a randomly selected shortlist, researchers responsible for winner selection would listen to telephone messages left by entrants to identify those who sounded lively and who were, therefore, likely to be entertaining on-screen recipients of the Prize Mountain. A final shortlist was then prepared of the potential winner and other possible winners who lived in locations that could be visited at the same time. A researcher would then visit those on the shortlist on a pretext, and engage them in conversation in order to judge their likely reaction on screen if they were to win the Prize Mountain. On the basis of that assessment the winner was selected. This process did not comply with the terms and conditions for the competition, which stated that the winner would be the first correct entry drawn at random from all eligible entries".

If we look at the Fraud Act 2006, it provides for a general offence of fraud with three ways of committing it, which are by false representation, by failing to disclose information and by abuse of position.

Section 2: Fraud by false representation
10. Section 2 makes it an offence to commit fraud by false representation. Subsection (1)(a) makes clear that the representation must be made dishonestly. This test applies also to sections 3 and 4. The current definition of dishonesty was established in R v Ghosh [1982] Q.B.1053. That judgment sets a two-stage test. The first question is whether a defendant's behaviour would be regarded as dishonest by the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people. If answered positively, the second question is whether the defendant was aware that his conduct was dishonest and would be regarded as dishonest by reasonable and honest people.
11. Subsection (1)(b) requires that the person must make the representation with the intention of making a gain or causing loss or risk of loss to another. The gain or loss does not actually have to take place. The same requirement applies to conduct criminalised by sections 3 and 4.
12. Subsection (2) defines the meaning of "false" in this context and subsection (3) defines the meaning of "representation". A representation is defined as false if it is untrue or misleading and the person making it knows that it is, or might be, untrue or misleading.
13. Subsection (3) provides that a representation means any representation as to fact or law, including a representation as to a person's state of mind.
14. Subsection (4) provides that a representation may be express or implied. It can be stated in words or communicated by conduct. There is no limitation on the way in which the representation must be expressed. So it could be written or spoken or posted on a website.

Now, I am not a lawyer, but I can see how this could be applied in both the GMTV and ITV cases to at least bring charges. GMTV and ITV may yet escape, whether Opera Telecom will be as lucky is another question.

Booker Wrong Again

2007-10-22T19:33:00.000+01:00

Well, I'm back, and getting up to date with things that happened whilst I was on Holiday - such as the Booker Prize result. You will know dear reader, that I try (and fail usually) to read the shortlist before the prize is announced. This year I only made it through three and a half by judgment day: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan ; Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones; The Gathering by Anne Enright; and Darkmans by Nicola Barker (the half, 400 pages down and about the same to go ...)

As you may be aware, the judges gave the prize to Anne Enright, for a book some say has echoes of Joyce's excellent 'Dubliners' collection (not for me it doesn't). It is a perfectly fine book, but one which did very little for me whilst reading it. I just didn't care about the characters. For me, it fell flat. Whilst McEwan and Jones' books are flawed (both in there endings), I still connected, delighted, and enjoyed both much more (and they will feature in xmas stockings come the end of the year). Barker's is the most 'modern' of the books and her style is in equal measure challenging and annoying, but there is a braveness in the scope of the book, which I hope it can maintain until the end.

So, yes I have reader the Booker winner, but no, I won't be recommending (or buying it) to/for anyone I know

Overlord has left the building

2007-10-11T00:24:00.000+01:00

I'm off on holiday tomorrow, so the blog will be quiet until 21st October. Don't miss me too much.

To celebrate the fact that I am off to Italy, here's an urm, French legal Information Blog - Un blog pour l'information juridique [Thanks Joe/Frederic]

Re Meme Bur Me

2007-10-10T17:45:00.000+01:00

I have ummed and arhed this week over whether to add to the latest 'meme' started by Blawg Review calling on bloggers to name their favourite 'current 10 best law blogs’. Now as both Binary Law and Lo-Fi Librarian were kind enough to include me in their lists, I have decided to bit the bullet and list my 10, although Lo-Fi's is quite close to what my first blind run at this would have looked like (minus me obviously - not even my ego is that large) so you can take it as read that those 9 are all worth your time, if they are not already part of your regular reading regime.

So, I decided the question became more one of who do I read that I think may have been overlooked by those that I read that have been meme'd ?? and was there enough to make a top 10 that included none of those on Lo-Fi's list without skimping on quality? and hopefully without also repeating other peoples' choices? I figured it was worth a try, I knew I'd fail, but figured, what's a bit a failure on a Wednesday afternoon.

The first person/blogger to spring to mind was Michael Geist. Geist is the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, and writes frequently about Internet and E-commerce Law, mostly from a Canadian perspective, but also with some global insight (the BBC often reprint his stuff). Someone I never go a day without reading.

Next up, Eric Goldman's Tech & Marketing Law Blog - The time this man saves me is unbelievable. If (US) Tech law is your thing, then few people do a better job of providing succinct overviews and opinions of major (and minor) case law. Eric Goldman is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Santa Clara University School of Law

Sticking with the University theme, Susan Crawford. - Susan Crawford is a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, teaching cyberlaw and communications law. She is also a member of the board of directors of ICANN. I'm a big fan of Susan, and find her one of the most thought provoking bloggers that I read. Her position on the ICANN vote on the .XXX debate was particularly enlightening and her arguments for her position, quite faultless.

Cathy Kirkman's Silicon Valley Media Blog, is another great source of mainly US media law news and opinion /

Abstracked - Abbie Mulvihill is a wonderful source of information, and was a blogger I missed when she stopped blogging for some time. Is her blog a 'blawg' or not? Open to interpretation I guess, but for the purpose of this list, it is a yes

Not sure if anyone has included Bruce MacEwan and the Adam Smith Esq blog or not, but if there is a better blog about law firm management and economics then I have yet to read it.

Ofcomwatch and Content & Carrier. Again, there is a question here about whether anyone would call these blawgs. Probably not, but both sites cover telecoms regulation, and frequently touching on the law as it applied to the regulation of the telecoms and media industry.

The Recording Industry v The People - essential reading for anyone interesting in p2p cases involving the RIAA

Joy London's Excited Utterances is still a great read, although it is mainly locked behind closed doors these days on the excellent practicesource site.

Jaiku Googled

2007-10-10T16:29:00.000+01:00

I got an email this morning from Jaiku telling me that they were now part of the Google family. Must admit, as when Google nabbed Jotspot, this caught me a bit by surprise. I actually really like Jaiku although as I have had a hard time getting people off Twitter, I only really tend to post directly to it when Twitter is down - although it is set up to pick up feeds from my blogs and Twitter when I am not posting, so my Jaiku feed isn't a bad way to follow me.

Why did Google pass over Twitter ? (created by the same people responsible for that other google purchase Blogger). Hard to say, although I think that Jaiku has been positioning itself more as a mobile company and Google is currently ALL about the mobile space.

As usual with google, they have decided to close new user sign-ups for now (Jotspot has been closed to new sign-ups for over a year now, so don't hold your breath here). So, the big question is does this mean Twitter and even Pownce are going to be snapped up too? I'm not sure it does (at least for now). But people will certainly be watching what Google has planned for Jaiku very closely.

Enterprise 2.0 thoughts

2007-10-09T18:03:00.000+01:00

Oliver at Headshift has an excellent post entitled 'Behind "Enterprise 2.0" Performance: Exploitation or Exploration?'

Two particular comments stood out for me.

"IT people still put communication processes on the backburner and favour operational processes. They don't understand that knowledge work cannot be limited to processes, that it is multi-faceted communication flows around processed tasks that make things work. Meetings, e-mails, phone, IM, blogs, wikis, information aggregators and filtering devices wrap defined task oriented programmes up. The former help employees use the later, more efficiently".

and:-

"The corporate world needs no more old routines hidden behind new tools. Stop confusing documents and information. Stop forcing people using only emails and Enterprise Content Management. ECM reduces workflow to permission and conversation to versioning. Emails create confusion in conversations. This replicates ageless routines. Replication does not create performance in a world of innovation".

Meanwhile, Charon QC spoke to David Jabbari, of Allen & Overy on education, know-how and training in a City law firm on his podcast last week. Mentions the importance of harnessing social networking tools in business.

Media, Media, Media

2007-10-09T13:28:00.000+01:00

A number of media related stories/events have happened during the past week that I feel could do with short mentions from me, so excuse this collection of rambles.

The BBC published a report last week, by Will Wyatt CBE from his into the publication by the BBC of misleading footage relating to the Queen during a press launch for the BBC One Autumn season - which seemed to imply that the Queen had had a strop and stormed off from a photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz. This, it quickly turned out, was tosh and had been edited together by the company preparing the trail for the programme ( who were a different company to the one that actually made the documentary).

Whilst Will Wyatt concluded that no-one consciously set out to defame or misrepresent the Queen (which seems rather obvious really ), he did state that serious mistakes were made which led to the misleading information about the Queen entering into the public domain.

My first thought when reading this report was of deja vu. Weren't these the same type of editorial and management (or lack of) issues that the BBC were raked over the coals about during the Hutton Report on the Gilligan affair? (I'll admit I thought that report was overly harsh on the BBC at the time). The processes for how the BBC manages things still seems to be poor. Peter Fincham has resigned as Controller of BBC One over the issue, which is probably the right thing to do and probably saves at least one other person - who doesn't read their emails - their job.

Andreas Whittam-Smith in the Independent also sees the parallels and goes further

Meanwhile, Ofcom and the Competition Commission had BskyB on thier minds. Ofcom is consulting on BskyB's proposals to replace its three free to air channels on freeview with a pay tv package (Sky Sports 1 and, in the evening, Sky One (including an hour of Sky News content) and Sky Movies SD1). Sky would use the remainder of its capacity to retail two further channels from third party providers in the daytime: a factual channel and a children's channel. Ofcom believes that, whilst the proposal would increase the choice and availability of retail pay TV services on the DTT platform, it would also impact on competition for pay TV services on DTT and possibly across other digital TV platforms.

Where this document is amusing is that Ofcom seem to have taken a leaf out of the TV phone quizzes they have been so interested in recently when devising the three possible options they put forward. So instead of asking the question: "what colour is the black cat" ? and giving us the possible answers (a) White, (b) Black, or (c) Grey, we get: which of these three broad options do you favour?: (a) Consent to the proposal unconditionally; (b) Consent to the proposal, but impose additional conditions to reduce the risk of competition problems; or (c) Not consent to the proposal at this time.

As in the phone in question example there will be the one supporter for option (a) Sky, a number for option (c) lead by Virgin - although they will probably suggest (d) don't allow under any circumstances ever ever ever; but whilst Ofcom may claim not to be "making a specific recommendation", it is very clear form the document, and the three options, where the regulator wants to go with this one.

The Competition Commission has provisionally found that the acquisition by BSkyB of a 17.9 percent share in ITV restricts competition, and therefore operates against the public interest. Not a big shock this one although some of the reasoning behind the provisional finding does seem a bit odd as it seems to suggest Sky would potentially do things that would threaten ITV's business, and therefore its own investment. Now, I am not someone who you would ever call a big fan of Mr Murdock, and I would find some amusement in them having to sell their stake and the financial loss that would entail, but I'm not sure about this one.

The argument is that becuase Sky face competition from the free-to-air, of which ITV is an important part that its stake would give it both the the ability and incentive to take advantage of opportunities to weaken ITV or prevent it from taking actions that would threaten Sky’s interests.

Of course it could happen, after all the original move - which was (despite claims to the contrary) for no other reason than to scupper Virgin's attempt to buy ITV, so there was no thought of long term goal in buying the stake. It was also a piece of genius (no doubt about it). I'm just not sure Sky would act this way in this matter. But, what do I know.

The Competition Commission is looking for views on three potential remedies to alleviate the situation as it sees it : (i) BSkyB sells its entire stake; (ii) BSkyB sells enough of its stake to ensure it no longer has material influence over ITV; and (iii) BSkyB sells some of its stake and is subject to behavioural restrictions, which might relate to areas such as voting behaviour and the solicitation or acceptance of board representation.

Lawyer website revamp mess

2007-10-04T17:43:00.000+01:00

I realised this afternoon that I hadn't mentioned the revamp of the Lawyer website. I hate it. It is far too busy and cluttered and they have also opted for a small font size to exacerbate matters. The content itself is still perfectly fine, but the look and feel is just nasty. If you compare it with Legal Week's site for example, I don't think there is any competition as to which site I would prefer to be looking for material on.

On the plus side, you can now view a complete electronic version of the print publication of the Lawyer on the site. Using technology provided by Ceros Media you can download individual pages, multiple pages, or the whole thing - as well as just looking at it online. It also has a nifty 'image clipping' capability that allows you to selected a news item or piece of text/photo etc and it will bring up a pop up box which allows you to either save it or email it. Thumbs up for that one.