When is Dr not a Dr?

... when they teach Media Studies or so it seems according to The Register's resident snark. Orlowski is normally only worth reading for a laugh, such is his snarkiness and here's a wonderful example of his snake-like charm:

Co-author Dr Camaerts - he's not a Medical Doctor - is a senior lecturer in Media Studies who lists as his areas of expertise "trans-nationalisation" and "social change and resistance".

He was writing on a piece about his favourite bête noire, namely filesharing, and how two LSE Media Studies lecturers have called for copyright reform.  I particularly like how he makes the point that Camaerts is not a medical doctor - as if that would actually help in this context. If I want advice on my kidney stones I might seek the advice of a medical doctor, but not when it comes to piracy and the creative economy, for pity's sake...

He also claims 'No attempt is made to quantify the economic costs or benefits of any of the approaches discussed' - mainly because this is nigh on impossible to do with any degree of accuracy given the illicit behaviour involved. The fact that Orlowski asks for the kind of data that the lobbyists in the BPI or the IFPI are keen to provide indicates his entrenched position fairly clearly: he's only discussing this issue to dismiss any counterpoints without really giving them any credence.

I hate that I might even be driving traffic to his dross.  So, why not read the LSE page instead?  Or alternatively, read a totally different take on the report from Ars Technica, which suggests the downward trend in global music sales may due to many other reasons such as pressure on finite resources:

"Downward pressure on leisure expenditure is likely to continue to increase due to rising costs of living and unemployment and drastic rises in the costs of (public) services"

They suggest that only about 20% of the total decline may be due to file-sharing, which makes a lot more sense.

I sometimes think that Orlowski is the character of Freddy Rat Tooth in Cory Doctorow's Makers, an odious British technology journalist...

ACS:Law pwnd by anonymous/4Chan

Image by Vincent Diamante, 2008, Flickr

Over the past week ACS:Law, a legal firm named and shamed in the House of Lords due to the number of complaints made about it to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, suffered a DDoS attack orchestrated by 'anonymous' users of the popular image board 4chan as part of Operation Payback.  This was one in a number of attacks which sought to target organisations and groups who many have thought to have been rather heavy handed in their dealings with the enforcement of supposed copyright infringements. I use the term 'supposed' here purposefully as several of the accused in this case deny any involvement in downloading illicit material at all (see the comments at the bottom of this BBC story)

For background to the story it's worth visiting TorrentFreak and the Guardian coverage for a decent overview.  Suffice to say, following the attack ACS:Law jeopardised the privacy of its intended targets by exposing its entire email database which has since been downloaded, archived and distributed across the web via sites like The Pirate Bay.  Data about 8000 internet customers solicited by ACS:Law on behalf of the copyright owners from internet providers like BT and Sky and several others firms (Plusnet) was passed to the legal firm in an encrypted form (passwords to the data were issued via telephone), only for this data to emerge unprotected when the website was restored.  This is something the Information Commissioner might take an interest in.  They have the power to levy a fine of up to £500,000 on the law firm.  Yesterday they posted a statement (.pdf)  claiming:

“The ICO takes all breaches of the Data Protection Act very seriously. Any organisation processing personal data must ensure that it is kept safe and secure. This is an important principle of the Act. The ICO will be contacting ACS:Law to establish further facts of the case and to identify what action, if any, needs to be taken.”

Reporting on guardian.co.uk yesterday evening, Josh Halliday noted that BT have serious doubts regarding the integrity of the process being used by rights holders to enforce copyright infringement claims.  They join TalkTalk and Virgin Media in expressing in their lack of cooperation with ACS:Law. When the ill-considered processes brought about by the Digital Economy Act start to be implemented next year, in which IP addresses accused of copyright infringement are issues gradated warning letters, these service providers may have very little choice but to comply with firms like ACS:Law, despite the problems associated with the veracity of the methodologies employed for data gathering (never mind establishing who is individually responsible for each supposed infringement).

Punitive threats at a national level to the identity of internet users accused of sharing copyright controlled content aside, the identity of the anonymous group of 4chan remains difficult to pin down. They did however include the following message bundled with the archive of emails:




Homepage of Operation Payback:
http://tieve.tk/
(Valid as of 24/09/10, things may have changed from then.)


-


To whom it concerns,


Over the past years we have seen an technological revolution. One where you are free, in the most extreme anarchistic sense, to share ideas. Some of these ideas are shared behind proxies, darknets, or similar "closed doors", but the ideas are out there. This kind of revolution is of the mind, and its effects on respective societies is all but surprising. While the people embrace this revolution, this new "anarchy" of freedom to share, leaders have crushed and seek to crush it before it even begins in earnest. 


These "anarchists", who are only anarchists in the minds of leaders seeking to destroy this freedom, have succeeded en-mass in distributing content to the poor, the underpriveleged, the restricted. The most popular pirates are the chinese, whose content filters restrict a vast amount of content from them. The second most popular, the poor, who cannot afford things like college books or entertainment. Indeed, while mostly ignored, a vast amount of educational literature is available to the everyday pirate. Enough that saw me through college, even, when I otherwise could not have afforded it.


It is no different, though, than when these powers that be tried to silence the record player, the cassette, the CD. The same claims were made then, and they were ignored, so why now are they listened to? This flawed application of extremist capitalism upon what is considered sacred by any culture - knowledge - is treason upon every human. All should have the right to listen to that beat, experience that twist in a plot, or learn from the mass volumes of literature now made available.


You already know this, however. You know it when you freely give your unused software, illegally I might add (remember: You don't own the software you buy [1]), to a friend or acquaintence. You know it when you give that old college book to a persin in need. You know it when little girls are basically raped in the name of "justice" [2]. You know it when thousands of bullshit legal letters are sent to SCARE money out of people [3]. You know it when such organizations lie through their teeth, produce false documents, and spread misinformation about its opponents [4]. You know that this is not right when your leaders inexplicably support massive capitalist enterprises over the majority opinion of their own people [5]. You know they are wrong when they use illegal means to get what they want, while simultaneously bashing us for doing the same [6].


If you were to assume the propaganda of various community-reputable organisations such as...


    The Motion Picture Association of America [MPAA]
    The Recording Industry Association of America [RIAA]
    The British Phonographic Industry [BPI]
    The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft [AFACT]
    Stichting Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland [BREIN]
    
...you would have heard many a story that if you say, 'pirate' a film or an album, you are depriving a simple artist, actor or crewmember from their rightful wage. They won't be able to break even for their next lot of groceries - and YOU robbed them of THEIR money. Money that they only see a small percentage of, they carefully omit. Do they ever tell you how small of a percentage most script writers, novelists, etc, actually make? No, and there is a reason why. Do they tell you how much THEY, the anti-piracy organizations, make? No, and there is a reason why.


In the end, our DDoS efforts have been compared to waiting for a train [7]. What do we have to do to be heard? To be taken seriously? Do we have to take to the streets, throwing molitovs, raiding offices of those we oppose? Realize, you are forcing our hand by ignoring us. You forced us to DDoS when you ignored the people, ATTACKED the people, LIED TO THE PEOPLE! You are forcing us to take more drastic action as you ignore us, THE PEOPLE, now.


We will not stop.


We will not forget.


We will prevail.


We are anonymous.




[1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/first-sale-doctrine/
[2] http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100722/09434710323.shtml
[3] http://technews.am/conversations/techdirt/acs_law_asks_those_who_deny_infringing_to_incriminate_themselves
[4] We DID NOT attack the pirate party, we ARE NOT affiliated with anti-scientology activism, and The Pirate Bay has not organized this.
[5] http://www.which.co.uk/news/2010/01/acs-law-letter-writing-continues-197714
[6] http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-boss-denies-dos-attacks-torrent-site-refutes-claim-100912/
[7] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/22/acs_4chan/


I await future developments in this story with baited breath

Tracking musical expenditure: February

Half way there! This is the sixth monthly instalment so we should get a clear indication as to how the project might pan out. In case you haven't been reading this series of posts (shame on you!), I've been running a year long project to monitor the amount of cash I have spent on music and music-related activities, inspired by a DEMOS report which stated that file-sharers typically spent more money (£77 per year) on music than non-filesharers (£33).

February was a big month for me, not least because I had to pay the remaining balance of my Glastonbury ticket, but also because there were a few albums I was looking forward to by Massive Attack and Yeasayer (which I already had wink wink before their release). Let's take a look at the figures...

The total monthly spend on music in February was £227.91! There were a few a couple of concert tickets in there which inflated the figure. Spending on traditional albums and singles were modest by comparison at £27.96, but that's still more than a typical month. I did win a little money on a bet so I bought a couple of extra CDs when I was feeling flush.

As for the overall total, it's standing at £1170.03. In terms of cash spent overall on what would be classified as singles or albums (as the wording in the DEMOS report goes), the figure comes in at £108.20 - that's nearly 4 times the figure quoted for the average non-filesharer. What does that tell ya?

As ever, you can see my my progress to date by clicking this link or take a little look at the spreadsheet below.

The Digital Economy Bill #debill summary to date

Late yesterday afternoon amendments made to the Digital Economy Bill (Twitter hashtag #debill) were heard in the House of Lords. This is a controversial bill for a number of reasons, not least the threat of disconnection for illegal filesharers without due legal recourse, but also for the sweeping powers the Bill seems to give to Ofcom to regulate 'broadcast' content (ie the content that a partial newspaper or press publisher can host on their website), thus jeopardising press freedom. Writing in the Guardian last November, Lillian Edwards, a professor of internet law warned how the Bill would jeopardise open wi-fi spaces. Universities and libraries have also complained about the Bill's impact.

For the uninitiated text from the original Bill can be found here and the amendments can be found here.

Responses

There has been a great deal of interest in this Bill from people interested in copyright and what it might mean to them in the future. Indeed, the Open Rights Group have been actively lobbying to raise public awareness, and several of their members provided excellent Twitter commentary whilst the debate was taking place (notably Glyn Wintle @glynwintle and Florain Leppla @florian107).

In the blogosphere photographer, Philip Dunn, wrote one of the most compelling and lucid criticisms of the Digital Economy Bill. I'll have to link to the Google cached page hosting the piece as his host received so much attention the server was closed. [Edit: Paul Bradshaw @paulbradshaw is hosting the article via the Online Journalism Blog]. His main bone of contention was with what the Bill describes as 'orphan works' under Clause 42 - these are typically works where it's difficult or impossible to contact the copyright holder. This situation can arise for many reasons, not least that the author may never been publicly known because the work was published anonymously or the work may have never been traditionally published at all. The concern in this context is that the bill may mean that photographers might lose ownership

You can find excerpts of his argument below:

Photographers to lose copyright protection of their work

This startling and outrageous proposal will become UK law if The Digital Economy Bill currently being pushed through Parliament is passed. This Bill is sponsored by the unelected Government Minister, Lord Mandelson [sic].

[...]

The idea that the author of a photograph has total rights over his or her own work – as laid out in International Law and The Copyright Act of 1988 – will be utterly ignored. If [sic] future, if you wish to retain any control over your work, you will have to register that work (and each version of it) with a new agency yet to be set up.

[...]

International Law, through the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, recognises the ownership rights of the creator of the ‘property’. This enables image owners to control how their work is used, and whether it is used at all.

International Law will be ignored by the British Government and this new Act will overturn more than 150 years of UK copyright law.

If that wasn't enough reason to be concerned, there are even more problematic implications:

Photographers are to lose all effective rights to take photographs in public places.

Not content with taking away photographer’s copyright, another section of this Government is proposing sweeping changes to your freedom to take pictures in public places.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has deemed that a photograph taken in a public place may now be considered to contain ‘private data’

This means that if you take a picture in the street and there is a member of the public in the shot, that person has the right to demand either payment – if you wish to publish the image – or that you do not publish it. In fact, according to the ICO. There does not actually have to be an objection, it is up to the photographer to ‘judge’ whether the subject might object.

You can find more posts by Philip Dunn over on www.photoactive.co.uk

Philip goes on to question the sense of such a decision when the average Briton is captured on surveillance camera as much as 300 times per day! It also calls into whether or not a photographer can be prosecuted for uploading an image featuring members of the general public to a photo sharing site like Flickr or Facebook.

Exactly how this can be policed or enforced remains to be seen, especially when the services listed may be outside the national jurisdiction of the UK. Already, Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act has deemed it illegal to take photographs of police officers - something that would render the recording of Ian Tomlinson's death following police intervention during the G20 protests a crime. Critics fear this may lead to people being unable to record or photograph legitimate public protests which frequently feature the police.

Back to the Bill

Another area of concern was addressed by Conservative front bencher Baroness Buscombe (Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission), a point I alluded to briefly in the introduction. She pointed out that the phrasing of the Bill seemed to give Ofcom the power to regulate what was described as "broadcast material". The concern here lay at how that term was interpreted. Currently Ofcom regulates broadcast television content whilst the PCC deals with matters involving the press. In the context of news this is very important and the rules governing "due impartiality" are applicable to broadcast content, but not to the press which is permitted to be partial (ie the oft-quoted 'freedom of the press').

Lord Puttnam supported Baroness Buscombe in this matter by expressing his concern over what can be described as "broadcast" in a converged multiplatform media environment by citing the example of material rejected by a Public Service Broadcaster which then goes on to be picked up by a partial press publisher and is subsequently hosted on their website. Does Ofcom or the PCC regulate in such matters? Lord Davies' response was less than precise in that he described broadcasting as that pertaining to be the type of content appearing on television. The way in which audio and video content is remediated in the digital age poses more questions of this Bill than can be answered by its proponents, so it seems.

Anger

Lord Puttnam (a former Chancellor of the institution in which I work) expressed some anger at the fact the Bill was not going to be referred to the Information Commissioner, responsible for dealing with privacy issues. Lord Young (who is co-sponsoring the Bill with Lord Mandelson) indicated that such a deferment would delay the Bill from being passed. It seems the government would rather pass a Bill that is deliberatively vague, poorly written and ill conceived which would need to be rewritten rather than make the appropriate amendments first!

Lord Puttnam accused Lord Young of attempting to rush a Bill though the House "that none of us is particularly proud of" and which hasn't been discussed appropriately. He also expressed concern at the "extraordinary degree of lobbying" that those involved in drafting the amendments had come up against from the creative industries. Lord Whitty expressed concerns that the Open Rights Group have been actively campaigning against: that the consumer accused of infringement will not be able to defend themselves in a court of law.

Make no mistake, this is a Bill which seeks to favour the rights of the content industries over the rights of individuals who will be labelled as guilty until proven innocent. They will be pit against the strong arm of the content industries and their financial powers, with the burden of evidence placed at their feet to prove their innocence.

ISP TalkTalk has already expressed their concern at this Bill:

"The Digital Economy Bill will give rights holders the power to act as a judge and jury, allowing them to demand that ISPs disconnect their customers without having to prove their case in a court of law. TalkTalk is the only major ISP that has said it will simply refuse to do this and will fight its case in every court in the land and in Europe if it has to."

It's still not too late to get involved and have your concerns voices. Visit the Open Rights Group's website today and find out what you can do to be heard.

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nb: apparently #debill is an appropriately hashtag - in Polish it means 'moron'. Thanks to Falkowata for that.