The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property is to be abolished. The Coalition has decided that dismantling copyright is a task that the Intellectual Property Office is quite capable of performing without assistance, and has folded SABIP’s duties back into the IPO.

SABIP was founded in 2008 in the wake of the Gowers Report, as a quasi think-tank focusing on copyright policy. New technology has allowed many more people to record and distribute material – “everyone’s a creator” – we’re told, and this hasn’t gone unnoticed. From publishers such as News International to giant web data aggregators such as Facebook, the pressure to weaken the individual’s rights remains enormous. All are eager to exploit amateur material, and drive down the cost of professional material.
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Parallel moves in Canada and the US may signal the end of the honeymoon for web-based political campaigning – or change it beyond recognition.

Politicians are becoming increasingly familiar with sudden squalls of email filling up their inboxes, and policy makers with responses to public consultations arriving via a web intermediary. But not surprisingly many of these can be phoney, inflating the true size of what purports to be "grassroots" campaign.

The shortcomings of the web-based approach were illustrated here recently. Photographers on a shoestring budget successfully mobilised against Clause 43 – but internet campaigners concerned about file-sharing who used a site to send 20,000 emails about the Digital Economy Act failed to make an impression, resulting in a triumph for the BPI.

Earlier this month Obama’s internet guru, Harvard academic Cass Sunstein, warned departments that internet opinion shouldn’t be used as an opinion poll or focus group. He advised that:

Agencies exercise good judgment and caution when using rankings, ratings, or tagging. Specifically, agency use of the information generated by these tools should be limited to organizing, ranking, and sorting comments. Because, in general, the results of online rankings, ratings, and tagging (e.g., number of votes or top rank) are not statistically generalizable, they should not be used as the basis for policy or planning.

That’s pretty conclusive. Four years ago, Sunstein published a love letter to Web 2.0 called Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge that praised Wikipedia, blogs and prediction markets. But this is an altogether more sober assessment. He seems to have had second thoughts.

A vivid illustration of how a few single-issue fanatics can skew the results of an opinion poll is currently being digested in Canada. Lawyer Richard Owens has investigated the responses and found something quite interesting.

In response to a copyright form paper, over 8,000 responses were submitted, but 65 per cent of these were an identical form email from one IP address, the "Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights". Owens notes that these:

…Included Submissions in which: no names were used; only first names were used (there were, for example, sixty-eight “Chris” and seventy-two “John” who made Submissions); and, suspect names, such as – “D Man”, “El Qwazo”, “pr0f1t”, “Cereal”, and “Eagle” – were used. Given the ability to submit anonymously or under false identification, is highly probable that there are multiple Submissions from the same persons.

The CCER form letter had been circulated around Bittorrent P2P fan sites. But most of the visitors to these sites aren’t Canadian. Quantity overruled quality.

Observers wondered whether something similar might have happened in the UK. When the Open Rights Group ventured into the real world, the numbers were small: it mustered just over 100 bodies for its main demo, and only single figures for its "flash mobs". The ORG’s "Your Message To Mandelson" campaign launched last year rapidly gathered 300 anonymous messages – but stalled at around the 500 mark.

Such disparities led people to question how representative the online activity really was. "Is this a particularly well-focussed campaign by a relatively small group of activists?", asked the BBC’s Rory Cellan Jones.

Read more at The Register

How did the music business end up with a triumph with the new Digital Economy Act? How did photographers, whose resources were one laptop and some old fashioned persuasion, carry an unlikely and famous victory? How did the digital rights campaigners fail so badly?

Back in January, a senior music business figure explained to me that Clause 17, which gave open-ended powers to the Secretary of State, was unlikely to survive the wash-up. But he didn’t much care; the other sections which compelled the ISPs to take action against infringers were good enough. Anything else was a bonus – possibly even a distraction. Yet to the amazement of the music business, web blocking is now legislation.

I think this is a watershed in internet campaigning. It’s not just a tactical defeat, it’s a full-on charge of the light brigade…

Read more at The Register

Richard Madeley told the nation how the Government was going to whisk away his computer last week. The BBC has promised to investigate.

The segment on Monday’s Simon Mayo drive time heard Madeley, who is filling in for Mayo, say:

“What a pain! I only got computer literate three years ago, just as I get wised up to it, they take it away.”

We don’t yet know how many car accidents were caused by the news of mass confiscations.

Madeley was following a segment of the show about the Digital Economy Bill (now Act). The sole ‘expert’ was Professor Lilian Edwards. Edwards was simply billed as “a Professor of Law” at Sheffield University.
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Never let the facts, or taste, get in the way of a marketing campaign, we say.

TalkTalk boldly promised today to fight disconnection requests in court, at least until after the election. Carphone Warehouse strategy director Andrew Heaney made the pledge on his blog.

The fact that ISPs don’t get any disconnection requests, and if they did, they would (rightly) throw them in the bin along with other junk mail, isn’t mentioned. Such a request would currently have the legal validity of a request to paint your house pink, scribbled on a fag packet and thrown from a passing car.

Heaney’s pledge is only good until “after the Election”. If account suspensions are eventually approved, it won’t be for a long time.

Maybe Heaney thinks we’re all extremely stupid. Or maybe he’s just found his audience.

“I’m impressed. Well done,” comments Stef Lewandowski, a marketing guru who has advised quango Nesta and the Department of Culture Media and Sport, and is a Cultural Leadership Fellow at the Arts Council-sponsored Clore programme, studying “Accelerated Serendipity“.

“Seven Years of Donations Fighting, Brothers…”

Meanwhile Open Rights Group’s Maximum Leader, Comrade Jim Killock, was crowing about the success of the appeals drive, launched to capitalise on the ORG’s spectacular success (are you sure? – Ed) with the Digital Economy Bill.

The ORG’s entire front page was replaced with a “Fuck You” graphic, soliciting donations. This prompted dismay from supporters, according to emails that fell into our inbox.

“Someone – please – say that the ORG server has been hacked by some script kiddies,” wrote one supporter. “Oh, for heavens sake are we in the school playground? Who are we trying to attract?” asked another. “Yes, we lost a round – there’s no reason to become petulant and offensive.”

Killock eventually obliged, but then noticed something:

“Hum guys, since we took the graphic down, nobody’s joined up (from 16.50 till now) – that’s cost us about £2000* assuming they’re not joining because we’re not pushing them as strongly”

So he put it back up again.

Comrade Jim explained that five people an hour were joining while the front page had displayed the middle finger – which indicates what an impressive mass movement the music industry is up against. That’s almost enough for an ORG Flash Mob. The average pledge was £60, which Jim multiplied over seven years.

(Obviously he expects the ‘copyfight’ to go on… and on… and on.)

“I’m very understanding of the issues people have raised, but a strong reaction – one that will offend some people while making other people agree violently – is required to make people part with their cash.”

That’s the spirit, Jim.

Maybe photographers have a guardian angel, after all. The Stop 43 campaign to throw out the orphan works clause may be the only part of the vast Digital Economy Bill where activists have achieved their goal – rather than made things worse. With the Tories pledging to drop the clause, it’s unlikely to survive the wash-up – although we won’t know for sure until very late tonight.

Eleventh-hour validation for the photographers came thanks to Labour’s obsession with Web 2.0 gimmickry, which delivered them a gift last Friday.

Labour launched a Photoshopped poster of David Cameron as Gene Hunt, which the Guardian soberly reminded us, showed “a recognition that the best ideas do not always belong to ad executives in London”.

Two Milliband brothers were on hand, looking extraordinarily pleased with themselves. Just one problem: they didn’t ask for anyone’s permission. Image rights for Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes belong to the BBC. Cameron’s mugshot is also under copyright.

“It demonstrated every point we had been making,” a Stop43 campaigner told us today.

It’s not the first time Labour has used images to which they have no rights. And to demonstrate that they’re 100 per cent fail-compatible with Labour, the Webtastic Tories followed suit.

It didn’t go unnoticed by MPs.

Yesterday Peter Luff (Con.) pointed out it was a “spectacular demonstration” of Stop43’s points.

Tom Watson MP, currently with Labour but also the First Minister of Freetardia, disagreed. He arose to gave the boilerplate Web2.0rhea perspective:

“That message was mixed by Labour spin doctors, then remixed by Conservative spin doctors. He is proving the point that mixing culture and the power of sharing are new in the internet age”

“That is precisely why the Bill is so incompetent. We are not going to stop people sharing content with each other and using it creatively to create new things. He should be proud that young people are mixing up these images to engage in political debate.”

Maybe.

But the problem with Freetards, even Freetard MPs – is that they don’t just miss the point, they close their eyes and run as fast as they can past it, screaming.

It was left to Luff to apply the lethal injection:

“Ah, that is a very interesting point,” he said. Luff pointed out that a quick search showed how easy it was to find the BBC original and contact the photographer. There was even a telephone number. He continued:

“We should not forget that the BBC, as this blog says, is one of the main proponents of a Bill to allow use of other people’s images in ways they did not envisage without permission or payment, yet it is furious that without permission or payment someone has taken a BBC image and used it in a way that the BBC did not envisage.”

Moral rights, or droit d’auteur, isn’t mentioned very often in Professor Lawrence Lessig’s books. That’s undoubtedly why Watson hasn’t heard of it.

Music House — HQ for a number of the UK music industry’s trade groups — was in a lock-down situation this lunchtime as an Open Rights Group Flash Mob descended, protesting against the Digital Economy Bill.

As many as seven protesters could be seen outside the Berners Street offices, according to staff who phoned us from beneath their desks. This is slightly down on the nine who had pledged their support on Facebook.

Twitter was a hive of activity, too. We’d counted two Tweets on the protest in an hour. Photographic evidence below suggests that after an hour, the number had swelled to almost double figures.

In a simultaneous gesture, over at the BPI’s HQ, three protesters handed in a “disconnection notice” to chief executive Geoff Taylor, who apparently wasn’t in.

Music House, the focus of the main protest, is home to the PRS For Music performing rights society, the Music Publishers Association, the Musicians Union, the Music Managers Forum, the British Academy of Composers Songwriters and Authors, and umbrella trade group UK Music.

The ORG’s FlashMob was trailed as a “Stop Disconnection April Fools Flashmob” with the question “Are we being made fools of?”

But with a turnout of less than a dozen, that’s a question that answers itself, really.
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A clear winner is emerging from the Digital Economy Bill – and it’s the UK Pirate Party. The penny only really dropped for me yesterday, after the Open Rights Group’s big demonstration at Westminster.

“What was all that about, Andrew?” someone asked me in the pub afterwards. He’d been at the Commons for a meeting, and walked past the demo too. The confusion was understandable: the ORG’s clever wheeze of blank placards and a silent protest meant anyone walking past had no idea what it was about. The glorious exceptions were a beautiful banner and a large flag from the Pirate Party. The logo is very cool, as you know.

As an exercise in communicating, the Pirates were the only success of the event. At least the logo will have got on TV, and made an impression with passers-by.

Nobody particularly likes the Bill, but as long as the sheer joy of filesharing remains an illicit one, and not part of the legitimate music market place, then Piracy will have a lustre, and the Party will be in with a chance. You may find them childish, ignorant and selfish – as I do – but they have a simple message that eludes other digital campaigners. But I think the Pirates may flourish for a few other reasons. I’ll try and explain what they are.

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Do no evil? Google execs knew YouTube was in the wrong, but swallowed hard and bought it anyway, emails disclosed to a US court show. In 2006 execs at the Chocolate Factory were aware that the startup was less than wholesome, describing it as a “rogue enabler of content theft” whose “business model is completely sustained by pirated content” – in emails now made public. They acknowledged it would raise ethical questions.

In October the same year, Google acquired the video site for $1.65bn. The cynical calculation meant swallowing a few principles.

Google Video business product manager Ethan Anderson wrote to Patrick Walker, a senior Google executive:

“I can’t believe your [sic] recommending buying YouTube. Besides the ridiculous valuation they think they’re entitled to, they’re 80% illegal pirated content.”

To complete the purchase, Google’s definition of evil needed to become as flexible as The Invincibles’ Elastic Girl. David Eun, content manager at Google wrote:

“As Sergey [Brin] pointed out, is changing a policy to increase traffic knowing beforehand that we’ll profit from illegal downloads how we want to conduct our business? Is this Googley?”

In other documents, YouTube’s co-founder Steve Chen declared that YouTube should

“concentrate all our efforts in building up our numbers as aggressively as we can through whatever tactics, however evil”.

And so Google rewarded evil: Chen received Google stock worth $310m from the acquisition. It has since increased in value. YouTube investor Sequoia Capital realised over $500m from a mere $9m investment. If you’re wondering just what technological innovation or original idea Google was supporting – you’ll be scratching your head for a long time. The value of YouTube was its collection of other’s people’s stuff.

The emails are a devastating indictment of Google’s ethics – and the Chocolate Factory must have anticipated the damage the disclosures would cause. Overnight Google launched a spoiler, leaking a batch of emails alleging that Viacom uploaded its own material to the site. It’s embarrassing, for sure, but not in the same ballpark – Viacom’s property is Viacom’s property to do what it likes with.