I've had an interesting morning so far, reading various articles and arguments in the field of copyright law. Well I thought it was interesting anyway. Its something I've long been interested in and something that is getting talked about more and more as its starting to affect things that some people care about. The main arguments I've been hearing on the news lately are from the likes of Sir Cliff Richard and the families of Lonny Donegan. The only way in which I can see they have a point is that other creative works benefit from a slightly longer term, but either way they seem to be misunderstanding what copyright is for. Copyright is not a natural state of the world. There is no natural law that ensures that someone should get paid for their ideas and art. For millennia these works were immediately entered into the public domain once they had been expressed or created. In fact the first copyright law, back in the late 17th century, was created to protect printers (not, it should be noted, the author of the works). In 1709 the Statute of Anne was reworded to grant the author exclusive ‘right and liberty’ of printing books. Of course this was usually exercised by granting a license to a printer (publisher). It should also be noted that the original writers of the law thought a 14 year term, renewable once (to 28 years total) was sufficient to reimburse the creator for their effort. Through the centuries the law of copyright has gradually been extended to include other forms of creative endeavour and lengthened to provide a monopoly situation for longer periods of time. The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works 1886 was the first time that a minimum framework of principles was produced to be observed around the world. In this, and all (most) future laws and conventions the key feature was to strike a balance between protecting the intellectual work of creators whilst also providing the public the freedom to access and build on such works. It seems to me that some current performers and artists are striving to upset this balance in the favour of a permanent monopoly on their works. The intent of copyright law, as I currently understand it, is to give incentive to people to create works which will be a benefit to society. The people wishing to change these laws seem to think that for art and abstract ideas to have a value they need to be owned by someone. This is almost exactly not what gives art and ideas their value. Furthermore, if someone has failed to extract the value of their idea within the first 50 years of its creation then why should they expect to get more value from any future years? It might also be useful to think off all the people that have benefited from works entering the public domain. Disney: A hugely successful company who are part of the lobbying group in the US asking for copyrights to be extended. Where did their stories come from then? Snow White for example, something Disney makes a lot of money from and tries to prevent anyone else from using. But isn't that an old folk tale written by the Brothers Grimm? Shouldn't Disney be paying the ancestors of the Grimms? Actually in this case the Brothers Grimm just collected that story as it is an even older tale probably originating in Asia in the middle ages. Pinocchio: I wonder if they are paying the family of Carlo Collodi? I wouldn't pick on Disney if it weren't that they are one of the biggest supporters of changes to copyright laws. Plenty of other people benefit from works in the public domain and I'm sure many would love to receive increased protection for their derivative works. Fortunately there are still plenty that understand why and how the current laws work. And anyway, other people have written much better pieces about Disney's two-facedness on copyright. See here for example. Another argument I hear is that after 50 years the creator of a house or of a car do not have them taken away from them. This is just a ridiculous argument. For one, if we are saying that physical property is exactly analogous to intellectual property then it would seem that we should remove all rights. There is no equivalent protection in the physical world so why have it in the abstract world? But more reasonably, the creator of a car or house does not get financial reward every year after he's built it does he? The people who own that one physical object get any reward from living in it, using it or selling it on. In the mean time the builder has been paid once and perhaps used part of that money to pay into some form of pension for his and his family's future. More importantly than all of this is the fact that I like creations such as Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Its littered with characters from stories now in the public domain. How many more of these types of works would we see if copyrights keep getting perpetually extended? (For another misguided article on copyright (US) see A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn’t Its Copyright? .  And the wiki showing why the author is rather foolish here - Against perpetual copyright.)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6329851.stm 'An EU bid to make internet broadcasters subject to the same laws as traditional television is "seriously misguided", a House of Lords committee has said.' Sometimes the House of Lords does something to make me really glad that they exist. Now I'm no expert on the workings of our UK political system, but it seems to me that whenever I hear of a high profile case making its way to the House of Lords, they do the sensible thing. So whilst people may complain that its "staffed" by life peers and hereditary peers, that's fine by me whilst they continue to make the right decisions. I particularly like the way the all-party Lords European Union Committee rejected the changes, saying it was not the role of regulation to protect established broadcasters from new competition operating under different business models. (the title of the post is taken from a Court paper issued by Justice Douglas when, with a single paragraph, he erased hundreds of years of US property law. It was a case in 1903 where some farmers complained that airplanes were trespassing. According to the law at the time their property extended "an indefinite extent, upwards")

I'm pretty certain I don't know enough about this to form an opinion, but then that doesn't stop everyone else on the Internet from having opinions about stuff does it? I suppose you have to start from the basic premise that something needs to be done to protect our fair nation. If you don't agree that anything needs doing then its all a none starter really isn't it? Then you have to think about where the information (that some people in this country are terrorists and/or aiding terrorism) comes from. Most, if not all, of that information comes from secret sources. Those secret sources of information would soon dry up should they be made public in an open court case. And thats where the problems start. On the one hand we have to protect the basic rights of individuals: I know I don't want to find myself behind bars for no good reason. On the other hand some people really do need reining in but without the reasons and evidence being made public. I can only see one way around all of this. And I don't like it much more than any of the rest of you. If you want something doing about it then we're going to have to trust those with that information. Obviously there needs to be some sort of accountibility so the evidence on which people are being convicted is made public once it is safe to do so. Now I really don't think that giving the Home Secretary sweeping powers to imprison people is the right way to go about it. Why not have some form of semi-secret trials? There are plenty of people with access to this information and who we should be able to trust not to break the official secrets act while still using their own individual judgment. We would probably have to find a few pretty trustworthy judges (do any exist) who would be willing to sign the official secrets act and preside over matters. Am I way off the mark though? Do most people think we should simply let the governament do what they will in times of "war"? Or do most people think that everyone should be left alone until such time as they do something on which they can be publicly tried? Its a tricky one, and I, for one, am glad I'm not having to make those decisions.

Here's an example of free speech at its finest. In around 1994 (I think) Mattel tried and failed to sue a Utah artist, Tom Forsythe, for exhibiting a photo of barbie in a blender. And now July 27th is National Barbie-in-a-Blender Day. So here's a site celebrating the fact with a collection of user submitted parodys of barbie including this one that I'm sure Ben could do a better job of. Enjoy.

http://www.preparingforemergencies.co.uk/ Its probably about as much use as the real thing anyway.

In a brave and unusual move I've decided to comment on the choice in education policy that both Labor and Conservatives both seem to be proposing but with slight differences: Its a load of rubbish isn't it? If you give everyone an equal choice of which school to send their children too then they'll all choose the same one. That is unless, of course, they are unaware of the choice being given to them which rather unfortunately is usually just the people that these ideas are supposed to help. So what happens if everyone chooses the same school (or at least the same local school)? Presumably the school in question gets to choose which pupils it accepts and leaves some pupils to the schools that they are desperately trying to avoid. That doesn't sound much like parental choice to me? And what happens if we assume that there are huge amounts of surpless places in these good schools so that everyone can choose the same one? What happens to the other schools then? Since schools get funding based on how many pupils they get, it's going to make it very difficult for the failing schools to improve isn't it? In fact I'd go as far as to suggest that they would cease to exist; choice is hardly top of my list of words to describe that outcome. Come on you politicians, use you heads. What people want is better schools not the choice to send their kids to schools further away because they are perceived to be better. Sorry about the rant. Normal geeky ramblings will resume soon.