Politicians long ago gave up on politics. Instead of articulating great ideas, the choice that faces voters today is between identikit managerial bureaucrats who’ve never had a job outside politics. Most of their adult lives have been spent in the hermetic world of wonkdom. So it’s little wonder, then, that they have trouble distinguishing between fiction and reality.

And it’s no surprise at all to hear that a virtual Presidential candidate is throwing his electrons behind a virtual cause, to repeal a virtual law that never existed.

What else would a cypher do?

Asked whether he’d “re-instate Net Neutrality” as “the Law of the Land”, trailing Presidential Candidate Barack Obama told an audience in Cedar Rapids, Iowa pledged that yes, he would.

He also said he’d protect Ewok villages everywhere, and hoped that Tony Soprano had survived the non-existent bloodbath at the conclusion of The Sopranos.

(So we made the last two up – but they wouldn’t have been any more silly than what the Presidential Candidate really said.)

There are several problems with Obama’s pledge.
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Business-wise, Skype is a basketcase. But that’s just one of the things that makes it one of the most emblematic companies of our time – a real, Ur-Web 2.0 company.

Like so many internet companies, Skype has millions and millions of users. Like these internet companies, too, it can’t make very much money off all these users. Hello, Facebook! And like these internet pin-ups, it owes a great deal to utopian power fantasies.

But what makes Skype so very of its time is the peculiar relationship it has with incumbent telecomms companies.

Think of Skype as a kind of parasitic virus that threatens to bring the host to its knees – but which can’t survive without a living host. Bloggers and mainstream newspapers are another good example.

How so?

Well, Skype has no network of its own – it’s simply an open protocol (SIP is more than one protocol, but bear with me) wrapped up in some proprietary bits. Apart from a few authentication servers, its only real asset is its “brand” – which isn’t the most concrete or tangible line item to have on your balance sheet.

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TV shrink Tanya Byron blamed over-protective parents for keeping “bubble wrap” kids away from real social interaction and tethered to technology such as the internet, we reported yesterday.

The government is hiring Byron to tout a “Live Consultation”, soliciting views on how the internet might affect children. That’s your taxes at work, Part One.

How odd then that the BBC, while making deep cuts in real current affairs coverage, is investing heavily in “virtual worlds”. That’s your taxes at work, Part Two.
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Manchester’s In The City music conference this year was the first without the presence of co-founder Tony Wilson, who died two months ago.

But the local music network – and some parts of the London business – rallied to bring the event back to its roots. Unlike the endless circuit of “Future Of Music” talking shops, the panels at In The City reflect a much more practical focus. The event itself is still, first and foremost, about the 600-odd unsigned acts who perform over the three days.

Here are my highlights…
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A new report suggests that Apple and Tesco, not P2P file sharers, should take the most blame for the woes of the British music industry.

The report, prepared privately by consultants Capgemini for the Value Recognition Strategy working group, set out to examine the “value gap”, the amount sound recordings revenue has fallen in the UK since 2004. The report remains confidential, but details are starting to emerge.

The consultants suggest that “format changes” and price pressure from discounted CDs on sale in supermarkets, are most to blame for this “value gap”.
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Science Fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin has given the anti-copyright fanatics at the Boing Boing weblog a quick refresher in authors’ rights.

The blog posted a short piece by Le Guin, erroneously slapping a Creative Commons license on it.

“This is incorrect,” wrote her representative. “Ms. Le Guin has not placed this work under such a license and retains these rights. Ms. Le Guin has not given blanket permission for everyone to copy or create derivatives (which can include film, TV adaptations, etc.),” Andrew Burt told SF author Jerry Pournelle.

Robo-bloggers who act as repeaters of Boing Boing material – vital nodes in the Hive Mind, we like to think of them – added to the confusion.

“Numerous copies of her piece have been discovered on the web and attributed to boingboing, illustrating that many people are being mislead by this incorrect application of a Creative Commons license.”

“Given Doctorow’s intense interest in issues of copyright,” added Burt, “it is easy to imagine that he has let his wishes run ahead of reality, and so committed some serious ethical and legal errors, which he might wish to begin to redress by taking the Le Guin piece off his site and putting an apology in its place.”

Boing Boing has since truncated the excerpt, but declined to apologize or remove it. There’s more details on Pournelle’s letters page here.

It’s another example of the confusion generated by Creative Commons licenses – the autistic person’s answer to a problem that doesn’t really bother anyone. If even the most dedicated, foaming-at-the-mouth Commons evangelists can’t use it properly – what hope do us mortals have?

The license-abuser, Cory Doctorow, was recently a professor at the University of Southern California – where he was lecturing students about copyright.

In its first incarnation as a print ‘zine back in the late 1980s, “bOING bOING” (as it was) was one of the most highly regarded chroniclers of cyber culture. The title was revived in blog form as a self-promotional vehicle seven years ago.

This is how it looked before the Trotskyist-style takeover. And this is what it looks like now.

Quite a difference.

Ironically-named P2P user Jammie Thomas, who was fined $220,000 for copyright infringement in a case brought by the RIAA last week, wants to appeal the Minnesota jury’s verdict.

The lady is certainly unlucky. But is she ill-advised by her attorney Brian Toder – or is she just incredibly stupid? You decide:

• Jammie Thomas had used one hard drive for her Kazaa file sharing… then sent a different one to the plaintiffs. Amazingly, they noticed.

Doh!

• Thomas’s attorney claimed that her account might have been hijacked by a Wi-Fi hacker hovering outside her window. The plaintiffs had little trouble disproving this: she wasn’t using Wi-Fi.<

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Doh!

• Jammie Thomas carefully covered her tracks – by using the same login name for Kazaa that she uses for all her email, online shopping, and MySpace account.

Doh!

The blue-collar jury in Duluth wasn’t impressed by the dissembling, and a juror told WiReD that the fine they imposed reflected her dishonest defence. Michael Hegg, a 38-year old steel worked told WiReD:

“Her defense sucked… I don’t know what the f*ck she was thinking, to tell you the truth.

“She should have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars. Spoofing? We’re thinking, ‘Oh my God, you got to be kidding’.”

As if Thomas hasn’t had enough bad legal advice already – now the preppie lawyers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) want to “help out”.

The EFF reckons that making files available isn’t “making available” if er… no one downloads them. And they reckon that the copyright act only applies to physical objects. That’s genius! 1983 sure is shaping up to be an interesting year…

An appeal fund has been set up for Ms Thomas, but perhaps a nomination for the Darwin Awards might be more appropriate?

The RIAA wants to put the fear of prosecution into internet users – but millions of P2Pers are cheerfully carrying on downloading today, knowing that their chances of being caught for copyright infringement are negligible.

What a pity that a few retarded bloggers want to connive with the RIAA in this ridiculous pantomime. The two sides really do deserve each other.

Last week, the ailing sound recording industry in America found someone even dumber to pick on. Kazaa user Jammie Thomas had got on the internet, and was doing just what the adverts and mass media say you should do once you’re there – fill your boots with free stuff.

This is a case that should make everyone involved feel ashamed of themselves – with no exceptions. But I’m amazed by the howls of outrage.

Without this free stuff, the internet would be worth very little: it’s simply an extension of the telephone network with added pictures, and would otherwise be priced accordingly, as a low-cost or free addition to your phone bill. Everyone knows that pictures of cats falling down stairs, or even feature-light web-based office suites aren’t really money spinners. Google and BT can’t say so explicitly, but most people are only here for the free music or porn. The rest are here for online games. The stuff about getting broadband “to help with the kids’ homework” is sanctimonious crap.
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The veteran BBC TV composer and arranger Ronnie Hazlehurst died on Monday night. His long career at the corporation produced some of the most (irritatingly) memorable theme tunes: including The Two Ronnies, Reggie Perrin, Last Of The Summer Wine, Blankety Blank and the Morse Code theme for Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em.

But when his obituaries appeared yesterday, there was an odd addition to Hazlehurst’s canon. Apparently he had emerged from retirement a few years ago to co-write the song ‘Reach’, a hit for Simon “Spice Girls” Fuller’s creation S Club 7.

“There could only be one source for this,” suggests Shaun Rolph, who tipped us off.

And yes – you can probably guess what it is:

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Imagine if you walked into Scotland Yard to report a crime involving children, only to be given a telling off, before you’d opened your mouth, about the dire penalties for wasting police time. And that your complaints would be forwarded to a watchdog – and that you’d better come back with a lawyer.

That’s how a group of parents feel after seeing photographs of their kids defaced on Orkut. Members of Google’s social network created “mash-ups” of photographs originally posted to Flickr – adding text, some of which contained sexual innuendo, for children as young as five.

The upset parents turned to the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which permits private copyright holders to deal with infringement, without going through a lawyer.

Now if you only read WiReD magazine or anti-copyright bloggers, you’d think the DMCA was only ever abused by corporate bullies: the Act is notorious for being deployed under dubious pretexts in a small number of high profile cases.

However, it’s also been used by thousands of individuals, including many artists, and remains the most powerful tool for the ordinary citizen to seek redress without expensive litigation. It’s a question of filling out a simple form.

Not that you’d ever guess from Google’s page for DMCA complaints. The web advertising giant turns the presumption of guilt back onto the complainer.
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