BPI bloke suggests scanning & copying card, says he was joking

Adam Liversage of the BPI was busy with other matters than simply watching his beloved Digital Economy Bill pass the other day, struggling with copyright. Rev Dan Catt monitored it on Twitter:

A conversation on twitter on the day the Digital Economy Bill was passed between Adam Liversage (Director of Communications for the BPI, the BPI that supports/wrote some of the DEBill) and Janet Liversage.

Janet: "Great. Bought a card but forgot the envelope - doh."
Adam: "There's some in my study on the shelf."
Janet: "yes but not necessarily ones that will fit the card I have bought"
Adam: "Crop the card using scissors - job done. Or scan the card, shrink it and re-print it."

Where Adam suggest stealing and repurposing a bought card.

Wait, I don't mean stealing I mean making a copy leaving the original intact, and then adjusting the second copy to better suit a purpose.

When you've shrunk it and sent it, the original will still exist. I assume you can just then use the original for something else, sell it on, or perhaps scan it again and again and again that's a money saving tip right there. Shame the copyright owner wont get the benefit of all those copies.

Just saying; copyright, it's a bit complicated.

The BPI's Communications Director rushed back to Twitter to make it clear he was only joking:

Is it really not obvious that my comment about cutting or scanning a card was a joke? Let me be clear: I do not condone card-scanning.

Liversage has missed the point - not unusual for people working in the copyright industry. Because had he scanned a card he'd bought to resize it, he would have technically breached copyright, but nobody could possibly object. Indeed, it would be a perfectly sensible thing to do. That was why you were being joshed, Adam, because you were proposing a quite legitimate remix.

It's actually a bit more surprising you felt the need to rush out a justification. Although the next tweet did swerve charges of being po-faced:

I also think that a card-cutting has the potential to ruin the artistic integrity of the original card, and I am also not in favour of it.

Back at the day job, and the BPI was busily making delighted honks that the narrow interests of a few foreign companies had outweighed the entire concept of democracy:

BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor welcomed the passage into law today of the Digital Economy Act as a key milestone in the development of the internet, which will help secure Britain’s world-beating status as a creative force in music and entertainment.

Geoff Taylor said: “The Act’s measures to reduce illegal downloading will spur on investment in new music and innovation in legal business models. An internet that rewards taking creative risks will mean more British bands enjoying global success, more choice in how to access music online, and more jobs in our fast-growing creative sector.

“These measures will not eliminate all piracy, but they will go a long way towards reducing illegal freeloading and will help to build a more sustainable ecosystem for content on the internet.“

Bless. You know what, he really does think it's going to make a difference. You know, the way the DMCA virtually stopped "illegal freeloading" in the US.

That's the bitter joke at the end of the week: the legislation won't do anything to address the 'problems' the BPI sees - all it will do is lead to the creation of a lot of expensive work for lawyers, create a couple of martyrs, and force Taylor to shuffle on breakfast TV sofas in about eighteen months to shiftily try and defend the implementation of a pointless, punitive law made in haste.

[Thanks for card story to @electroweb]

Digital Economy Bill: Was your MP arsed to show up?

Yesterday's rotten vote approving bad legislation made in haste was notable for how few of our legislators could be bothered to show up.

Happily, you can find out if yours did, thanks to didmympshowupornot.com.

[via @carolinelucas]

Twittergem: Digital Economy Bill

Interesting tweet from Nick King:

@madmezza Sorry I hadn't properly understood #debill Made some enquiries last night - strong opposition on our side to it passing in wash up

Who's Nick King? Tory candidate for Mid Dorset and North Poole.

That's not been the general picture emerging from Westminster, where the Conservatives have seemed quite happy to help push things through - perhaps the depth and breadth of opposition that was being shown on Twitter yesterday has spooked them?

Liberal Democrat peer takes dictation from BPI

Here's some murky behaviour from the Liberal Democrats: it turns out that Lord Clement-Jones has added a clause to the Digital Economy Bill that's virtually word-for-word a BPI proposal.

That's right: a bloke who's never been elected sticking clauses into a bill written by a lobbying group representing international businesses. Don't you love democracy?

From MediaGuardian:

Today a spokesman for the BPI insisted that the organisation was not embarrassed at the disclosure of the source of the amendment.

"This was a suggestion that we made to the government in 2009, with this wording. This version of the proposal was sent to the government and also to the opposition parties. The government decided it wanted to go a different way. The opposition parties, while not fully agreeing with it, saw it as a good framework for what they wanted to put down," the spokesman said. "We have consistently said that the digital economy bill should have sensible measures to deal with peer-to-peer file sharing."

Clement-Jones had added a few extra words, but effectively, he's just got the BPI to do his homework for him. And ended up handing in work that's fundamentally flawed.

Stacking the cards in the labels' favour

As the Digital Economy Bill makes its way through parliament, it attracts amendments and its shape clarifies itself.

For example: if you get accused of listening to music without a licence, and your internet connection hangs in the balance, you have a right of appeal, yes?

Well... sort of. Only if you can afford it:

People wrongly accused of illegal downloading would be able to appeal the disconnection before it happened and could be charged by Ofcom, the media regulator, to cover the administrative costs of the appeals process run by the Tribunals Service.

So, to clarify what Mandelson's bill is proposing: if you're unjustly accused of sharing material without the correct licence, you're still going to have to pay a levy to a government body to keep your internet connection.

The whole concept of copyright has gone so far from being about fairness, it's perhaps not surprising that those innocent of all charges will end up out of pocket just to keep access to their blameless connection. The record labels want this; they should fund this.

BPI decides to try directly writing laws

Seemingly forgetting its position as little more than a trades group, the BPI has taken it upon itself to start drafting UK legislation.

Surprisingly, they've gone with something designed to tighten up planning legislation in areas near, but not part of, national parks with regard to buildings of more than three stories.

No, no, they haven't. It's an attempt to sneak DCMA style rules in through the backdoor. Just being helpful, you understand:

“Clause 17 [of the Digital Britain bill] is an essential component of the Bill since it provides a mechanism to deal with the increasing threat of illegal downloading from non-P2P sources and other future threats. In light of the ongoing debate on the current draft of Clause 17, we thought it prudent to propose possible alternative approaches, including a straw-man s.97B. However, Clause 17 remains our favoured approach to address forms of online infringement other than P2P filesharing.”

Aha. "Son, I'm delighted that you're thinking about marrying Mary. Mary is my first choice for a daughter-in-law. However, you're wavering, and so - while I really, really want you to marry Mary - I've set you up on a series of blind-dates with all of the Sugababes. Just, you know, to help you make up your mind."

The proposal from the BPI would shift responsibility for policing rights from the people who benefit from the rights to the publisher. You know, like in the way the BPI are trying to shift the costs of policing peer-to-peer material from themselves to the ISPs.

If you drive a taxi, I'd advise you never to pick up a fare from the BPI - you'll arrive at your destination only to be told that you should underwrite the cost of the journey, being as how you've arrived at the location first.

299 proposed amendements to the Digital Economy Bill

Currently chuntering through committee the House Of Lords, the Digital Economy Bill has attracted nearly 300 amendments of varying quality. Most notably is an attempt to value infringement:

[One of Lord Lucas'] proposal would validate the belief of some record labels and movie studios that one illegally downloaded song or film amounts to one lost sale. Amendment 105 states that the process by which copyright holders would alert ISPs to alleged piracy should “value ... an infringement on the basis of the benefit that would have accrued to the owner had the copyright material been legally acquired from an ordinary internet retailer”.

Given that it's virtually impossible to prove that something you've uploaded has been downloaded at all, this kind of implies - should the ammendment stand and the bill pass - that record labels will find themselves chasing the odd 79pence here and there.

There's more, though:

—Illegal downloads of as-yet-unreleased material (ie. leaked albums or films) would be subject to a 10x valuation.
—A zero valuation must be used if the material has been illegally downloaded in a format the copyright holder has not made available legally

That's quite a radical proposal: the idea that simply by using a different format, the cost of the losses would be reduced to zero is fascinating. You could argue, though, these clauses cancel each other out - has an unreleased album (ten times valuation) actually been made available in any format? (zero times valuation).

Labour propose 'liberalisation' of live music laws

If you're generous, you'd call it liberalisation, anyway. It's more correcting some of their gung-ho legislation; the idea being that indoor, evening gigs with less than 100 people attending would be exempt from needing a license.

Let's hope they expedite this, and it doesn't get lost when parliament prorogues.

Mandelson plots whim-based copyright legislation

Some really disturbing news from Boing Boing about what it claims Milord Mandelson is cooking up to drop into the Digital Economy Bill:

These changes will give the Secretary of State (Mandelson -- or his successor in the next government) the power to make "secondary legislation" (legislation that is passed without debate) to amend the provisions of Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988).

This is good news for any rich man who can offer Mandelson canapes on a yacht - no more pesky having to wait for parliament to do their bidding; he can have their new rules in place before the second glass of wine is poured.

There's more:

Mandelson is also gunning for sites like YouSendIt and other services that allow you to easily transfer large files back and forth privately[...]. Like Viacom, he's hoping to force them to turn off any feature that allows users to keep their uploads private, since privacy flags can be used to keep infringing files out of sight of copyright enforcers.

Well, yes. It also allows you to keep things that are private private. For legitimate reasons. Effectively, since YouSendIt is an FTP replacement, you could argue that Mandelson is arguing that anything online would have to be made open - who knows what's going on on behind those sign-in boxes, eh?

It's a ridiculous idea, which almost certainly wouldn't stand up to the passage of legislation in the Com... oh, hang on: under the new rules, it wouldn't have to.

As principles to fight for go 'British law shouldn't be made on David Geffen's yacht' is a pretty strong one.

France tries three strikes again

Having been told that, actually, throwing people off the internet on the say-so of a bunch of record company executives isn't the way democracies should be treating its public, the Sarkozy government is trying again with a modified version:

Defended before the Senate by Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, the new bill shifts the final decision on cutting off web users from the state agency to the courts.

On the third strike, the agency would report offenders to a judge, who would hand down either an Internet ban, a fine of up to 300,000 euros (415,000 dollars) or a two-year jail sentence, under a fast-track ruling system.

I'm not entirely clear how passing the plug-pulling from a state agency acting at the behest of EMI and friends, to the courts is going to make a difference to the fundamental problem that its unconstitutional to remove people's ability to communicate; perhaps we'll find out if the law ever gets used in anger.

New Zealand rips it up, starts again

Probably brought about in part by the recent failure of attempts to implement a three-strikes style law, the New Zealand government is going to completely overhaul copyright law.

From scratch. Not trying to bend a law designed for paper and plastic into a digital age.

It's a wise approach to the problem of how you can make 200 year-old laws fit in a world that could never have been predicted, and a lot of countries could do worse than follow New Zealand's lead.

The worry, though, is the risk of merely remaking copyright law from scratch without having an open and honest debate about what the law should be for is simply going to create a law that is much more effective at doing all the wrong things. And given the party which is pushing this new legislation, that has to be all too likely.