Issues in 2012

One of my ISPs, entanet have posed the question "Which of the following issues will most greatly affect the Internet market in 2012?" Options range from Ofcom’s latest plans to abort net neutrality and BT’s PIA pricing announcement for duct and pole access, through The DEA – three strikes rule, website blocking plans, etc and one close to my heart, The lack of adoption of IPv6, but the top one, in my view, is The court order to force BT to block Newzbin2.

Each of those issues is important, but I'd suggest that it is the court blocking of a website which bodes worst for the market and internet users next year. Putting it simply, if people cannot access every website, every service, every IP address (v4 or v6!) then there is censorship and that, surely, destroys the freedom of access we presently have.

Internet access is now considered by many (including, aiui, the EU) as a 'necessity', in the same way as a fresh drinking water supply, a roof and four walls, etc. are. But we don't permit the state to tell us we may only use our water supply to make coffee and never tea, or that we may only sleep in our homes during the hours of local darkness and never take an afternoon nap.

I may disagree with the perceived 'rights' of Newzbin2 to publish and be damned (and I do), but court-sanctioned censorship for what is, at root, a civil copyright matter, is not the way to go.

The Child Seat

I remember when I first found some 'erotica' at home. I was still very much a young and naive child of 12 or so — they were far simpler times back then — and it was a book called "The Perfumed Garden". I could tell there was something forbidden about it as it wasn't on our bookshelves but hidden away (where, to be fair, I shouldn't have been looking anyway!)

I didn't really understand what it was about, so put it back and ignored it.

This morning, however, I hear and see news reports that the Government has 'persuaded' four of the UK's major ISPs to "block access to pornography" on the internet, on the spurious grounds that it is to protect children. Ignoring that fact that ISP accounts are contracts with, and paid by, adults only; that there are more households without children in than those with; and that, surely, it is for a parent to teach their child about the realities of life and, if they think best, protect them from some of those realities. The censorship would also be opt-out not opt-in.

It is not the job of a government to impose what amounts to censorship. To say this is about 'pornography' is to ignore the track record of what has happened in the past when opt-in services have tried to so such filtering. Visitors to Scunthorpe have been blocked, as have the details of students who graduated at the top of their class Magna cum laude. Worse, sex education websites — offering anonymous help to troubled teens who don't know where to turn for sensible, independent advice — are blocked from those who most need them. Who determines what is considered "pornography"? Websites about STDs are about health issues, sites about coming to terms with homosexuality, or contemplating plastic surgery, or about great paintings by the 'Old Masters' are — incorrectly — trapped by some 'pornography' filters.

"But what about the children" seems to be a common cry amongst those who would prevent their own child from ever growing up, instead keeping them locked in some Lala-Land where reality won't arrive until they leave the family home to go to college — and yes, it does seem to mostly be the 'middle classes' who most believe in this 'I don't want my parental responsibility - give it to the government' approach. And when they do leave the nest? They haven't learnt self-moderation (which often also applies to alcohol usage.) Dr Brooke Magnanti has also written today on on who is behind these proposals.

The world is not the same place as when I was a child. Things are shown on public television which raise issues I was never aware of as a child, but EastEnders, Hollyoaks, and Coronation Street are mass-market visual fodder where, it seems, anything goes. And for the child which wants to make sense of what they see but gets an indifferent response from their 'responsible' adult so goes online? Failures, like this in Canada where right-wing openly promote homophobia and, closer to home, proposed bills in Parliament like this one from Nadine Dorries .

Once you have a government deciding — on an opt-out basis — what someone may or may not see and do online, you have a government engaging in censorship. That this censorship is alleged to be 'for the public good' is irrelevant; it remains an unwarranted intrusion into the freedom of an adult to engage in legal activities. Moreso, if the details of what is being blocked from view are not public — which seems most likely — then who is to know what else a government is seeking to suppress in the name of children?

Earlier on Twitter I compared this proposal to requiring every car in the country to have a permanently-fitted child seat, no matter that there would never, ever be a child carried in the car. A friend suggested it was closer to requiring that seat to be the driver's seat.

State-sanctioned murder

Earlier this evening I watched a powerful drama on Channel 4. The Execution of Gary Glitter was — in its final outcome — expected from the very name of the programme. A superbly made film, with an absolute tour-de-force from Hilton McRae in the lead role, it was disquieting and terrifying in the possibility that state-sanctioned murder could ever come back to this country.

The ' death penalty' (ie Judicially-sanctioned murder) does not work - just look at the countries which still have it and note how often those crimes which get 'death' as the punishment still happen regularly. It has no deterrent effect whatsoever and instead, just as this film showed, we end up with a population in a state of 'excitement' of mob rule and their belief that they should have their way. A (fictional) Home Secretary saying that a decision was based on the desire of the people to have a killing is not an acceptable way for the elected government to act. Death, for practical purposes of the person found guilty, is no different from a whole-life sentence served behind bars, yet just as we abhor death by terrorists so we must find state-sanctioned murder no better.

In many ways we are all children of the modern era, in that most of us - thankfully - rarely see death in front of our eyes. We watch hundreds of fake deaths daily on television and in films, yet news programmes ensure they do not show the act of violent death when reporting from war zones or relaying film from al-Qaeda showing another captive being beheaded — little different to the effect of a hanging. Cowboys and Indians as children again make us learn that death is an impermanent state of being and little happens to change that early view. Even in the case of this dramatisation the executive producer, Samir Shah, has said "The director Rob Coldstream felt we had to show enough to convey the grim reality of the execution but it would have been gratuitous to show more."

That some comments on the Channel 4 website have said things such as "that drama put a smile to my face. bring back the death sentance (sic) and hang huntley and glitter. they won't be smiling then", and "The only dissaponting (sic) thing about this programme is that it wasnt for real" makes me feel very sad and disappointed, not to say very worried.

For the state to accept mob rule and fail civilisation in killing offenders for the fun of the few should never be acceptable. That polling suggests 54% of the UK adult population want the 'death penalty' returned shows both that there is a lack of education about what it really means, and — arguably — that the result of any polling is questionable, based on the way a question is asked ( Sir Humphrey in Yes, Minister comes to mind) and how inaccurate electoral polling often is.

Whilst some may believe in the (Judeo-Christian) bible's "an eye for an eye" approach, I believe we have moved on. Even Gandhi noted "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" and we no longer permit many activities sanctioned in the bible and to kill someone because they did something we find totally, utterly, and completely reprehensible makes us as bad as them.
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clip from Yes, Minister
"Are you worried about the number of young people without jobs? … Are you worried about the rise in crime amongst teenagers? … Do you think there is a lack of discipline in our comprehensive schools? … Do you think young people would welcome some authority and leadership in their lives? … Do you think they'd respond to a challenge? … Would you be in favour of re-introducing national service?"

"Are you worried about the danger of war? … Are you worried about the growth of armaments? … Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill? … Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms against their will? … Would you oppose the re-introduction of national service?"

The arguments about filesharing

It seems that every day there are new comments about the issues involved in people downloading content over the internet, be it music, films, television, books, or images. 'Copyright' is the argument against it, alongside the suggestion that by downloading something for 'free' there is a direct, attributable, and identifiable loss of income to the producer or owner of that content. The Guardian has written about the Illegal filesharing crackdown launched by UK government whilst the BBC tells us that musicians' pressure group FAC — Featured Artists Coalition — along with other industry bodies say they "vehemently oppose" plans to punish downloaders. Various organisations, such as the Open Rights Group are running petitions on the subject of the proposed "three strikes" disconnection, planned by Lord Mandelson. So let's look at the issues here. With a first-run film the argument against downloading (aka 'file sharing') is that the producer, distributor, cinema, and everyone else involved in the making of the movie, lose out directly by the loss of income from the sale of seats. I'd agree, mostly. The downloading of a first-run film which is currently on release is a clear loss and wrong. When the film concerned is years after its tour of movie theatres though then whether someone would pay to locate and purchase a DVD (which might not even still be available) is not always going to be a loss to the production. The costs would almost certainly have been covered and the profit made when it was on release. Music, again, has a logical difference between new output — available in your local record store with ease — and old, out-of-production LPs which wouldn't be available in any other way. Many rights holders of music do not even make it available after only a few years have passed since the original release, and many older-but-still-in-copyright performances would be completely unavailable without people sharing what they have already purchased. And there is also the 'format' question. I started buying music on big circular slices of squashed vinyl and shellac. Yes, I can still play them on my record player, but each time I do they degrade in quality. Some I have purchased the CD of the same performance, but I've also recorded some of them to computer in order to create a WAV or MP3 version which is both easier to listen to and won't degrade further. This is, in reality, no different to my copying an LP to cassette so that I could listen to it in my car, as I now do with MP3-formatted CDs. So if I make my own 'digital copy' or I download one of music I already own there is no difference; no loss to the creator-distributor. There are no circumstances in which I would be buying a further copy and they aren't losing out as they've already received payment from me for that item (sometimes twice!) And then there is television. When I was at Capital Radio in 1999-2000 it was pointed out to me that — along with independent television broadcasters — the station didn't sell what it produced. Radio programmes, just like Pop Idol, I'm a celebrity, Despatches and Big Brother on ITV, aren't actually sold to the public at any point. The gaps between and within the programmes are sold to advertisers, but not the actual programmes themselves (as a primary income stream, anyway). I don't download music or films (other than from paid-for sites like Amazon and HMV)† but I see TV as different. When it is broadcast free-to-air then there is no fee payable to watch it so, I would argue, there should be no prohibition against downloading it - much as once upon the past we would 'tape' a programme to watch again later, or even to lend to a friend. The producers' costs have already been covered by the initial broadcasts, so there is no direct loss of income. Indeed, if you were to argue that it may detract from eventual DVD sales I note that many people (including myself) will then buy those once they become available so they can have a higher-quality experience. (Points to 26 retail-purchased box sets on her DVD shelf of 'television' programmes) Before the internet it didn't matter that each country saw the same series on a different schedule, sometimes years after it was originally broadcast in its 'home' country. Now, though, we have friends around the globe and keep in touch with them in near to 'real time' online or by telephone. These conversations mean that we now easily get 'spoilered' for the storylines of the shows we follow but haven't reached our own country yet. The only option, therefore, is to download. Indeed, some series are considered 'unsuitable' for some countries and may never reach us on broadcast (terrestrial or satellite/cable) television or DVD. When I was Treasurer for the British Softball Federation, Warner Brothers invited a few of us on the BSF and BBF to see a private viewing of Cobb, starring Tommy Lee Jones as Ty Cobb, to ask us whether we thought it would be worth them releasing it theatrically in the UK. We said it was, and they did. This doesn't seem to happen though with television programmmes and so some wonderful content never gets beyond its country of production. I understand that the BBC programme 'Top Gear' has a fanatical following by downloaders in the USA. So turning to the proposed 'three strikes' rule — also named for baseball, as it happens. It has been reported that if someone is alleged to have illegally downloaded or shared copyrighted material and has been warned about it three times then their internet connection should be cut off. Without, it seems, any opportunity for the person concerned to make representations of any sort. But an 'allegation' is not a 'truth'. Without any evidence being properly examined in a court of law then convicting and punishing someone on the grounds of hearsay would be incompatible with a society based on the rule of law. And the 'evidence' would be very difficult to obtain. ISPs have said that the technical means to check every connection on the internet just isn't available. File sharing protocols — such as BitTorrent — are legally and frequently used by Open Source developers and companies to circulate and deliver new builds and by independent music and film producers to circulate content under development. They also underpin the broadcaster's own delivery services such as the BBC's iPlayer and Channel Four's 4OD. One can also legally watch some television online by purchasing a subscription, such as I do for MLB.tv 's baseball service. Internet traffic is just a stream of ones and zeroes; it doesn't inherently have meaning as a film, an email, or a web site, legal or illegal. Then there is the issue of terminating a broadband connection. How many people share it? Is the person who pays for it the one who allegedly did something wrong? Should the sins of the son or daughter be visited upon the parents or siblings? And if the 'illegal download' is made by someone in a school or business? Do they get get off under this proposal where someone at home wouldn't? File sharing, of itself, is completely legal in the UK and many other jurisdictions. If material is not otherwise available, despite it being in copyright, should the Government be making it a criminal law matter instead of a civil law question? 'Piracy' is something clearly criminal that involves the direct and unauthorised removal of a tangible item — often on the high seas off of West Africa or in the China sea — but the use by individuals of downloading or sharing something isn't the same. It is, instead, primarily a civil matter between a content rights holder and an individual who may be alleged to own a copy without paying the proper cost of that copy, even though they may not actually have the option of purchasing a legal copy anyway! Cutting a whole family off from the internet is not a way to solve that. It is time to rethink the whole proposal. † I've since recalled that I did download a poor copy of Serenity. A few days after I'd paid full price to see it in a cinema and the afternoon after I'd pre-ordered the DVD online. It was then deleted.