The Inquisitr » england

The usual suspects are threatening to dismantle our Internet

Steven Hodson — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:42:28 +0000

We are coming up to a watershed moment in the existence of the Internet and very few people seem to care. Right now there are two separate events happening that will have a direct impact on both the Internet we have right now and the one we will have in the future.

While they might seem like two disparate events they are in fact being lead by one industry. Under the guise of copyright infringement and piracy the entertainment as a whole is spearheading the adoption of the Digital Economy Bill in England and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) which would be global in impact.

It is easy to shrug our collective shoulders over the Digital Economy Bill suggesting that it’s strictly a British problem and doesn’t affect the rest of at all. Well one only has to look at the persuasive use of CCTV in Britain and how it became the template for other countries like the U.S. to follow suite to see how foolish that argument is.

When I first wrote about the Digital Economy Bill here back in August of 2009 it was in light of how the original bill was changed after a weekend meeting get-together on the Greek island of Corfu. This little confab consisted of Lord Mandelson, the British business secretary, members of the Rothschild banking dynasty; who paid for the retreat, and David Geffen, an American billionaire record producer.

Prior to this retreat in sunny Corfu the Digital Economy Bill was actually a forward looking document that the British government hoped would take the country into the next millennium. After the trip though it suddenly became a totally different beast all together that saw everyone using the Internet as a criminal.

Now just this past week thanks to Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing we find out that this new Digital Economy Bill that is now before the British Parliament not only will treat web users as criminals but it is also being used to create a process that will see unelected officials able to do just about anything without Parliamentary oversight or control as long as it is done in the name of protecting copyright.

Doctorow was able to get his hands on some reliable information (via a British Labour Government source) and points to the three specific arguments that Lord Mandelson uses for justifying the revamped bill

1. The Secretary of State would get the power to create new remedies for online infringements (for example, he could create jail terms for file-sharing, or create a “three-strikes” plan that costs entire families their internet access if any member stands accused of infringement)

2. The Secretary of State would get the power to create procedures to “confer rights” for the purposes of protecting rightsholders from online infringement. (for example, record labels and movie studios can be given investigative and enforcement powers that allow them to compel ISPs, libraries, companies and schools to turn over personal information about Internet users, and to order those companies to disconnect users, remove websites, block URLs, etc)

3. The Secretary of State would get the power to “impose such duties, powers or functions on any person as may be specified in connection with facilitating online infringement” (for example, ISPs could be forced to spy on their users, or to have copyright lawyers examine every piece of user-generated content before it goes live; also, copyright “militias” can be formed with the power to police copyright on the web)

As Doctorow points out in this post, and a follow-up to it, unelected officials like Lord Mandelson would have the power to create and run a private copyright police force that wouldn’t answer to anyone.

But that’s just for starters. The real meat is in the story we broke yesterday: Peter Mandelson, the unelected Business Secretary, would have to power to make up as many new penalties and enforcement systems as he likes. And he says he’s planning to appoint private militias financed by rightsholder groups who will have the power to kick you off the internet, spy on your use of the network, demand the removal of files or the blocking of websites, and Mandelson will have the power to invent any penalty, including jail time, for any transgression he deems you are guilty of. And of course, Mandelson’s successor in the next government would also have this power.

Now it would be a common reaction from the rest of us in the world to shrug our shoulders saying ah it’s a British problem, if they want to let this happen it’s their own fault and carry on our way. The problem is that besides recent history showing that this is a short-sighted position to take there is also another much more subtle and potentially dangerous change to individual country laws.

Under the guise of protecting corporate copyrights a new global treaty; think WTO, WIPO, WHO etc., called Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is being created and agreed to in secret. The secrecy around ACTA is so persuasive that anyone viewing the actual agreement and participating in the talks around it are forced to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). The Electronic Frontier Foundation has even had to go to court to force the release of any documents surrounding the Treaty.

This is a treaty that has been written by the entertainment industry and then promoted to governments around the world and being the necessary way to protect the status quo in a world that is changing to fast for many people – especially in the corporate world. Both here in Canada and in the U.S. this treaty will fundamentally change the way that copyright laws are written and policed – just as we are seeing in England with their Digital Economy Bill.

In an article published in the Yale Journal of International Law (PDF version) Eddan Katz and Gwen Hinze wrote

In brief, the ACTA process has been deliberately more secretive than customary practices in international decision-making bodies to evade the debates about intellectual property (IP) at established multilateral institutions. The Office of the USTR has chosen to negotiate ACTA as a sole executive agreement. Because of a loophole in democratic accountability on sole executive agreements, the Office of the USTR can sign off on an IP Enforcement agenda without any formal congressional involvement at all.

via Cory Doctorow

In Canada Professor Michael Geist; Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, has been heavily involved in trying to keep this treaty in the public eye. You can read his work in this area here at his blog but he points to the spin that the organizations and governments involved in foisting this treaty on the world are putting around the secrecy.

In their opinion this secrecy is just normal business when working on large treaties like this but the facts; and history, tell a different story.

In the face of widespread criticism of the lack of ACTA transparency, participating governments and music industry lobbyists have claimed that the transparency issue is much ado about nothing. As governments seek to keep relevant information secret, those same governments released a joint statement last week arguing that “it is accepted practice during trade negotiations among sovereign states to not share negotiating texts with the public at large, particularly at earlier stages of the negotiation.”

It is important to emphatically state that this is simply not the case for many multilateral agreements and the activities of international organizations that typically serve as the forum for global agreement discussions. U.S. NGO groups have made a strong case for how ACTA’s lack of transparency is out-of-step with many other global norm setting exercises.

Michael Masnick at Techdirt also has a good post where he examines this argument that secrecy is normal and that any open discussion about ACTA is nothing more than a distraction.

A third point raised is that this isn’t a “treaty” but a “sole executive agreement,” so we shouldn’t worry since it can’t change the law. Except, by categorizing it as such, it’s actually a loophole that could potentially take Congress out of the process of reviewing or approving anything that’s in the agreement, and then just wait for the “but we must live up to our international obligations” to start pouring out of lobbyists and industry lawyers’ mouths.

This isn’t a treat about securing copyrights for rights holders as much as it is a method by which the entertainment industry of the U.S. can exert a stranglehold on the Internet. James Love at Knowledge Ecology International has a list of who the White House shared the ACTA text with; under an NDA, but what is more interesting is seeing just who some of the corporations behind this push for the acceptance of ACTA are.

In this regard Michael Masnick has a list of entertainment companies that signed a letter that was sent to the government supporting ACTA; which considering that they helped draft the treaty shouldn’t be too surprising.

Advertising Photographers of America
American Association of Independent Music (A2IM)
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
American Society of Media Photographers, Inc. (ASMP)
Association of American Publishers (AAP)
Broadcast Music, Inc (BMI)
Commercial Photographers International
Directors Guild of America (DGA)
Evidence Photographers International Council
Independent Film and Television Alliance (IFTA)
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE)
Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA)
National Music Publishers Association (NMPA)
NBC Universal
News Corporation
Picture Archive Council of America (PACA)
Professional Photographers of America (PPA)
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
Reed Elsevier Inc.
Society of Sport & Event Photographers
Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)
Stock Artists Alliance
Student Photographic Society
The Advertising Photographers of America
The Walt Disney Company
Time Warner, Inc.
Universal Music Group
Viacom Inc.
Warner Music Group

In combination these two seemingly disparate items might seem to be connected but the fact is that behind both of them are the powerful people in the entertainment industry that don’t want to boat rocked. In fact they are doing everything they can to get the boat back into dry dock and under lock and key.

We might like to believe that the Internet will always be open and free but the reality is that there are some strong forces at work that want to turn it into something totally different. It is my fear that with the secrecy surrounding things like ACTA and the Digital Economy Bill along with people’s seeming nonchalant attitudes we will end up with something totally different than we dream of.

That would be a sad day.

Twitter hell breaks loose in England

Steven Hodson — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:55:13 +0000

At the end of October I wrote a post here telling how Stephen Fry, England’s best know Twitterer was thinking about calling quits his love affair with the service. It all centered around a message on Twitter from one @brumplum who messaged “Much as I admire and adore the chap, they are a bit … boring,”.

Now in the scheme of things the message on a scale of one to ten for insult value barely registers above one. This didn’t stop Fry from letting it get to him. It should be noted that Fry has been very open about how he suffers from depression and is bipolar so quite possibly this message hit him at the wrong time.

However the reaction to the incident by the many fans of Stephen was fast and furious (Tworm?). In a Twitter instant @brumplum, or Richard as he is known to friends and family, suddenly found himself facing an onslaught of truly mean and abuse Twitter messages.

When Mr. Fry’s followers heard of his distress, they tended to do two things: offer their support and criticize his perceived antagonist. And suddenly Richard from Birmingham, who says on his Twitter profile that he writes “one-line movie reviews, and more,” found himself the target of a stream of unpleasant, even abusive, tweets. Among the most upsetting, to him at least, were those from the well-known British actor and comedian Alan Davies. Mr. Davies, who is a friend of Mr. Fry’s and has more than 104,000 Twitter followers, called Richard a “moron,” and worse.

Source: The New York Times

The end result of all this?

Well we still don’t know if Stephen Fry will be sticking around Twitter or not but the controversy sure hasn’t hurt @brumplum’s follower count. Before all this started he had 340 followers and now upon checking his Twitter page we see it has climbed very nicely to almost 1,500.

UK’s Brown Would Sell Channel Tunnel To Cut Debt

AHN — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:44:33 +0000

London (AHN) – Prime Minister Gordon Brown may sell the Channel Tunnel, along with other high-profile government assets, in hopes of cutting in half the national debt.

The assets are valued at $25 billon dollars.

Brown made the announcement Monday while addressing economists on a London business television network.

Britain’s deficit is expected to be near $259 billion this year, the highest in the Group of 20 nations.

Brown wants to halve the budget deficit in four years. His projections call for raising 16 billion pounds through asset sales and 14 billion pounds from tax increases, crackdowns on tax evaders and spending cuts.

Under his proposal, the national government would sell a betting company, a student loan portfolio, the rail link between England and France and a 33 percent stake in a uranium processor, Urenco.

An additional 13 billion pounds would come from the sale of assets by local governments.

The assets that may be put up for sale will be appraised in November by Bank of England Governor Mervyn King using new economic forecasts.

The sale of Urenco might be fraught with the most problems, as national security concerns would have to be addressed. Urenco is one of the world’s largest uranium enrichment firms. Co-owners include firms in The Netherlands and Germany.

The budget deficit is expected to be a major issue in parliamentary elections that must be held no later than June.

Man helps find rapist, donates reward to victim

Kim LaCapria — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:14:38 +0000

Lloyd Gardner, 22, contacted police in 2006 to help solve a rape case.

The victim was brutally raped and left for dead, naked under a truck with a fractured skull. The woman is still confined to a wheelchair. Gardner, a waiter for Wagamama, viewed footage of the suspected rapist speaking to two women before the crime and assisted in identifying the women. Police later apprehended the suspect, thanks to Gardner’s intervention.

Gardner’s salary is a modest £20,000 a year, so a £10,000 reward is a tempting thing. But instead of keeping it for himself, Gardner donated his windfall to the victim, whose life has been left in tatters recovering from the vicious attack. He says:

“I didn’t feel like I’d earned it,” he said. “The fact that such a horrific thing happened to that lady, I thought it would benefit her life more than it would mine. I just wanted to try and improve her standard of life. It is a huge amount of money but I’ve been lucky throughout my life — she nearly died and was left in a horrendous state after the attack.

“I thought the money would go a lot further to improve her situation. I just wanted to help in any way possible and I hope this has done that.”

Jakub Tomczak, 24, is currently serving a double life sentence in Poland for the crime. The victim, who has not been identified, is expected to be disabled for life due to the vicious attack.

Tattoos in all their glory

Steven Hodson — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:44:57 +0000

I’m not big on tattoos but I know a lot of people are and recently in London, England, the fifth London Tattoo Convention was held. Over 200 body artists from different countries took part as did countless number of people either admiring the work on display or getting just that perfect tat done.

Courtesy of Fresh Pics here’s some pics of the convention.

11 Million Britons will need to register before being allowed near kids

Steven Hodson — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:24:18 +0000

Using the argument that if this new vetting and barring scheme being handled by the Independent Safeguarding Authority of the Home Office even saves one child from the hands of a pedophile it is worth it.

The program will see anyone even remotely involved with children having to be registered by the ISA after being subjected to what some are calling some of the most unprecedented delving into a person’s background and private lives. As well they will be subject to on-going monitoring.

Those that will be required by law to register or face fines of up to £5,000 include

parents volunteering to transport children for club events or sports – this includes things like the Scouts
300,000 school governors
all the doctors
all the nurses
all the dentists
all the teachers
all the prison workers

From November next year workers taking new jobs which qualify for the scheme must be registered. Any activity which involves contact with children or vulnerable adults three times in a one-month period, every month, or once overnight, qualifies, as do jobs in specified places such as schools, prisons and children’s homes.

Source: Guardian – Parents who ferry children to clubs face criminal record checks

All I can say is beware the unintended consequences of something like but given England’s already high disregard for the individual this comes as no surprise.

UK park cracks down on body odor

Duncan Riley — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:55:57 +0000

A UK theme park as declared war on a serious problem in sunny and hot England…..body odor.

Starting last week, Thorpe Park in Surrey is banning visitors from their rides if they lift their arms, sharing their favorite body smells with those around them.

The problem, surprisingly for England, is the heat (the introduction was meant to be sarcastic though.) Temperatures in the area are expected to hit a whopping 29C (84F) next week, and the locals start to smell when the temperature hits 25C (77F).

“It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster summer in regards to the weather but we have found that when the temperature gauge tops 25°C the level of unpleasant smells can become unacceptable and we do receive complaints” a park spokesman told the Surrey Herald. “Coupled with the fact that our rides are really scary and people sweat more than normal due to the fear and anticipate they experience whilst queuing up, it can get really pongy.”

To get the message across, the park has also installed charming signs like the one above.

British ex-cop owns a database of 40 million stolen identities

Steven Hodson — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:45:00 +0000

Stolen identities are traded on the web all the time. The information can be as simple as credit card information and email address or in some case complete records. It is this type of trading of personal information that a British company by the name Lucid Intelligence intercepts and then stores in their own database. This database contains the records of four million Britons and 40 million people world-wide, most of which are Americans.

The database is controlled by Colin Holder who happens to be a retired Metropolitan police officer. He has spent the last four years collecting all this data through sources that include police departments around the world, which includes both the British police departments and the FBI in the US. AS well he gets information from anti-phishing and hacking groups groups.

Of course all this hasn’t come freely as Mr. Holder has invested £160,000 into the project so far. In order to recoup that money as well as turn a profit Mr. Holder is planning on letting the public access his database but for a fee.

This whole thing isn’t being done without some concerns being voiced about protection of personal data. This in turn has the Information Commissioner keeping a close eye on the database as it grows.

The legality of the database could be put to the test in the coming week. The Information Commissioner’s Office said it could not endorse a commercial service or make a ruling on its validity unless someone made a complaint. But the privacy watchdog said it had “provided advice to help the company comply with the principles of the Data Protection Act”.

Source: Times Online :: Four million British identities are up for sale on the internet

Yup I can see how moving everything we do to the cloud is going to be safer – not!

J.K. Rowling a Potential Pedophile? UK Laws strike again

Duncan Riley — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 07:00:48 +0000

The British Government has introduced a law that forces all children’s book authors who visit schools to register in a national database intended to protect children from pedophiles.

The Vetting and Barring Scheme begins October 12, 2009 and requires all adults who work with children, even on special one off occasions, to register for a fee of $105. The law is similar to child protection laws in place in other countries (most Australian states have such laws) however are usually only applied to those working full time with children, such as child care workers or teachers, as opposed to book authors who make the occasional special appearance.

Carnal Knowledge reports that several well-known UK authors will boycott schools in protest of the requirement including Philip Pullman, Anne Fine, Anthony Horowitz, Michael Morpurgo, and Quentin Blake. Pullman called the policy “corrosive and poisonous to every kind of healthy social interaction…This reinforces the culture of suspicion, fear and mistrust that underlies a great deal of present-day society. It teaches children that they should regard every adult as a potential murderer or rapist.”

The UK Government defended the law, saying that it was necessary to defend children from predators. I’m sure J.K. Rowling will be highly amused at the notion that she could be considered a predator, after all that label is usually only applied to her by extreme Christian organizations.

No related posts.

Airplane delay averted by passenger

Steven Hodson — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:21:33 +0000

Usually when an airplane crew is in need of help the call goes out to see if there is a doctor on board. For the passengers and crew of a Thomas Cook flight from Menorca however it wasn’t a doctor they were in need of but rather an airplane engineer.

The holidaymakers were advised that unfortunately they would be experiencing an eight delay of their flight due to a mechanical problem. It seems that the problem required that an engineer had to be flown out from the UK in order to fix it. This was the point when one of the passengers identified themselves as an airplane engineer who was more than qualified to fix the problem.

A spokeswoman for Thomas Cook said the company followed strict procedures to ensure the man was qualified to work on the aircraft, a Boeing 757-200, during the incident on Saturday.

The passenger worked for another airline, Thomsonfly, which has a reciprocal maintenance agreement with Thomas Cook.

"When they announced there was a technical problem he came forward and said who he was, " she said.

"We checked his licence and verified he was who he said he was, and he was able to fix the problem to avoid the delay.

Source: BBC ::Passenger fixes faulty airliner

Needless to say his fellow passengers where very happy especially since they arrived at their destination only 35 minutes late.

image courtesy of BBC

Michael Owen to Manchester United?

Paul Montgomery — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:36:02 +0000

Michael Owen looks set to join English Premier League powerhouse Manchester United on a free transfer pending a medical test on his chronic knee and ankle injuries.

Contract talks between United powerbrokers and the former Liverpool and Real Madrid striker will continue into the night, according to BBC Sport.

Manchester United are in the market for several big name forwards after selling Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid and losing Carlos Tevez as well in the current off season. Owen would be a risky signing due to his lengthy injury history, a weakness which ruled him out of a move to Blackburn earlier in the offseason.

Owen has been disappointing for pretty much all of his career since his initial stint at Liverpool, finding it hard to stay on the pitch and/or in the good books of his managers during his time at Madrid and Newcastle United. His form has been so poor lately that he has been dropped from the English national squad.

Newcastle were relegated from the English Premier League in 2009 after injuries to Owen and Mark Viduka, amongst many others, left them with few options up front. It will be a long way back for them to regain a place in the EPL as they clean out their books of star players.

Ashes combatants warm up with patchy batting

Paul Montgomery — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:10:28 +0000

The Australian cricket team has opened the tour match against the England Lions with three good innings but zero depth in between, while only Alastair Cook can say he did his innings justice in England XI’s total of 290 against Warwickshire.Australia started their second four-day match of the 2009 Ashes tour at the New Road ground in Worcester on a flat, slow pitch in conditions that allowed a decent amount of swing. A big hundred from Mike Hussey (143*) with support from Simon Katich (95) and Mitchell Johnson (47) helped Australia to a total of 331/8 at the close of the first day’s play. No other Australian could score higher than seven runs, though all but Marcus North (1) got runs in the previous match against Sussex at Hove.

The English Lions, a second XI which is equivalent to the Australia A team of the antipodeans, worked professionally in the field without any of their bowlers demanding a place in the first Ashes Test at Cardiff. Spinner Tim Bresnan (3/46) was the pick of the bowlers, Steve Harmison (3/67) and Graham Onions (2/66) were at about the same pace, while Sajid Mahmood (0/74) was punished by Hussey and Johnson in particular.

Most of the pre-match hype at Worcester was around the last bowling spot in the Australian XI, with Mitchell Johnson and Peter Siddle guaranteed spots and Stuart Clark, Brett Lee and Nathan Hauritz fighting over the other two. With the pitch being as dull as it is, in contrast to the Cardiff pitch which is expected to take a lot of spin, the Australian selectors may not get a clear idea over the next three days in any case.

Meanwhile, over at Birmingham it was the Alastair Cook show, whose 124 included 21 fours. Cook enjoyed good partnerships with Andrew Strauss (31) and Ravi Bopara (43) with both out to indifferent shots. Bopara, who skied gently to midwicket, is the man slated to replace the recently retired Michael Vaughan at the forefront of the English assault on the Ashes. None of the other English batsmen reached 25, with Pietersen (1) nicking to slips in disappointing fashion. Anderson took the only Warwickshire wicket to fall in the 10 over stint at the end of the day.

Some people just don’t have a clue, this includes the Newspaper Licensing Agency

Steven Hodson — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:00:00 +0000

Just as we think that people are beginning to understand how things work on the web along comes idiots like this. It was ridiculous when an organization like the Associated Press (AP) said that bloggers and the such were going to have to pay to be able to quote from any AP articles if the quote was over a certain number of words. Now it seems that PR firms and news monitoring services in England are going to be facing an effort by the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) to impose a license fee for any links shared with customers.

This is according to a post at the Press Gazette by Matt Wardman where he wrote

According to a circular sent to members of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, and seen by Press Gazette, the NLA will be introducing a new form of licence from 1 September to regulate "web aggregator services (such as Meltwater) that forward links to newspaper websites and for press cuttings agencies undertaking this type of activity".

From January 2010, the licence charges will also apply to PR practitioners and "other organisations forwarding links to newspaper websites as part of their commercial activity".

The CIPR states that this will apply to "almost all newspaper websites excluding News International titles and the Financial Times".

NLA managing director David Pugh today confirmed the introduction of the new licence extension governing weblinks.

Do these people just not get it? The idea that they really think that they can actually make some-one pay a license fee in order to send links in an email is beyond stupid – it’s moronic.

Good luck with that.

EU wants horse owners to promise not to eat them

Duncan Riley — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:00:59 +0000

The European Union (EU) is preparing to introduce a law that would force horse owners to sign a pledge promising not to eat their horses.

The move is in response to concern about vet drugs entering human diets, with around 2 million horses are eaten in the EU every year. The EU is also introducing a system of “horse passports” for horse tracking (we’re not making this up.)

The Telegraph notes rightly that the law would mean that the Queen would also have to sign the pledge, a move that her majesty may not find amusing.

UK Police accused of searching innocent white people to balance racial quotas

Duncan Riley — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:00:19 +0000

UK Police have been accused of stopping and searching innocent white people in an effort to balance racial quotes, a UK watchdog head has claimed.

Head of the antiterroism watchdog Lord Carlile of Berriew said in the organizations annual report that the searches were “almost certainly” illegal and that police were wasting time and money by carrying out “self-evidently unmerited searches”, which were also an invasion of civil liberties.

The Times noted that the searches came in response to a “backdrop of complaints from rights groups that the number of black and Muslim people being stopped and searched by police was disproportionate.”

Lord Carlile said that a racial imbalance in the numbers of people stopped because they fitted a terrorism profile was fine “as long as it is not racist.”

UK telco BT proves the need for net neutrality legislation

Duncan Riley — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:15:44 +0000

UK telco BT is pushing to charge content providers a carriage fee for content offered on its internet network.

BT claims that video sites including YouTube and the BBC iPlayer are getting a free ride on its network, because they use more bandwidth than other sites. The company claims that someone has to pay for it.

“We can’t give the content providers a completely free ride and continue to give customers the [service] they want at the price they expect,” John Petter, managing director of BT Retail’s consumer business told the Financial Times.

BT has already started throttling video content in the UK, cutting user access speeds for video sites from 8mbps to 896 kbps during peak periods.

The startling thing with the proposal is the sheer greed of BT to begin with. Even if video sites do take up more bandwidth, customers paying for internet access expect access to those sites; if BT can’t profit from its existing network, it needs to charge customers more for access, make changes to the network to cut costs, or get out of the game altogether.

But is BT currently losing money on its broadband network? It’s not. Their last profit figure did drop 81% in February, but not due to UK broadband, but problems in its Global Services division. Digging through the paper work though, I found this statement in their annual report

Broadband and convergence revenue increased by 9% to £1,298m in 2009 (2008: £1,189m, 2007:£985m), reﬂecting the successful retention of customers in the maturing broadband market, together with revenue from services such as BT Vision and mobility. The broadband installed base increased by 355,000,to 4.8m customers at 31 March 2009.

They don’t break out the broadband costs, so there’s no straight comparison on profit margin. The broadband results though are lumped in with BT Retail, which includes a rapidly shrinking land line business. Despite company profit dropping 81%, guess which way BT Retail went? (and lets not forget the recession):

Gross proﬁt increased by 2% in 2009 to £3,186m (2008: £3,114m, 2007: £2,938m), compared with an increase of 6% in 2008. Gross proﬁt margin increased by 0.9% to 38% in 2009.

Sound like a company that can’t make a profit from broadband, or just sheer greed?

I’ve always been able to see both sides of the network neutrality debate, but this is as good an example as any as to why such network neutrality are needed.

YouTube: 1 – UK’s PRS: 0 and kissing a lot of butt

Steven Hodson — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:55:23 +0000

Back in March Duncan wrote a post about how U.K’s Performing Rights Society (PRS) decided to go ahead with their gouging of online video sites like YouTube only to have YouTube say basically – screw you. At which point YouTube started blocking most music videos on the site to United Kingdom viewers.

YouTube said in a blog post that it would block premium music videos in the UK until it can agree to a new contract with The Performing Rights Society (PRS) that is “economically sustainable.”

“But PRS is now asking us to pay many, many times more for our license than before,” YouTube’s Patrick Walker wrote. “The costs are simply prohibitive for us – under PRS’s proposed terms we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback.”

Fast forward not even a month and that groveling sound you hear is the PRS sweet talking YouTube to come back after PRS halved its royalties. Mind you it is no wonder that PRS wants the video giant back as YouTube contributed 40 percent of PRS members’ plays during one point last year.

But Shaw was clear that won’t see Google’s site treated as a special case and denied the rate slashing was specifically designed just to lure it back: “Our organisation is here to license the entire market… This consultation period started long before the YouTube dispute arose.” Shaw admitted that YouTube was significant but said PRS has lots of online payees like Spotify and Napster.

Source: paidContent:UK

Okay, sure, whatever helps you sleep at night. The fact is YouTube traffic carries some pretty heavy weight and increasingly trade groups like PRS are realizing that they need YouTube much more than the video giant needs them.

800 line up to set the day they want to die

Steven Hodson — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:02:49 +0000

The right to decide when you want to die, otherwise known as euthanasia, is a really touchy subject for a great number of people. While we are more than willing to let our pets go when their pain is incurable we don’t let ourselves have that right. I still remember arguing the pro side of euthanasia in my high school law class and even then, and among a class of young people, tempers got a little carried away.

For 800 terminally ill people in Britain though that has been an easy decision that they made with the help of the controversial Swiss clinic Dignitas. It’s not an easy process to go through so it’s not like you wake up one day and phone up Dignitas to make an appointment to die with some dignity. Of the 800 who have joined Dignitas 34 men and women have begun to make their preparations to travel to Switzerland.

One of the 34 is due to undertake an accompanied suicide very soon. Four have already secured fixed dates for their deaths, but adjourned them. The remaining 29 have not yet arranged a specific date.

A further four British people failed to get Dignitas’s permission after the Swiss doctor who examines all applicants said they should not be helped, either because they did not have an incurable illness or were judged not of sound enough mind to reach such a decision.

Source: Guardian Online

The major roadblock for the families of these people is that if they accompany their family member to Dignitas they could very well be arrested upon returning to Britain. Since 1961 the Suicide Act in the country criminalizes anyone who aids, abets, counsels or procures someone else’s suicide. Some relatives of people who have already travelled to Dignitas have been questioned by the police on returning to Britain.

However there is a move by some very prominent people with medical and legal backgrounds who are pushing to have this law repealed.

The peers – led by Lord Falconer, a former lord chancellor, and Baroness Jay, a former leader of the House of Lords – will table an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill in an attempt to lift the threat of prosecution from people in England and Wales who want to support someone in their final moments.

[….]

"It’s a tragic anomaly that people who are giving a last loving assistance to a loved one find themselves under threat of 14 years’ imprisonment if they do," Jay said last night. "Having made the very difficult decision to travel abroad to somewhere like Switzerland, where assisted dying is legal, someone would want the sort of support they would expect here from a husband, wife or loved one. The law in this area is a fudge and parliamentarians are lagging behind public opinion on this."

Dignitas figures show that 15 Britons took their lives there in 2003, 26 in 2006, 8 in the first five months of 2008 as well as 23 in the past twelve months.

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Residents change street name after deciding that Butt Hole Road no longer appealed

Duncan Riley — Wed, 27 May 2009 05:47:26 +0000

Residents in Conisbrough, England have changed the name of their street after deciding that Butt Hole Road no longer appealed to them.

The name, despite its modern meaning, was given to the street hundred of years ago, and is named after a communal water butt.

Resident Peter Sutton told The Daily Mail that “he originally thought the street’s name would be fun – but admits he soon got tired of the jokes.” The paper also noted that the street had become a tourist attraction, particularly popular with Americans.

The street formerly known as Butt Hole Road is now known as the far less interesting Archers Lane.

(image: Pez-o-vision on Flickr)

Facebook manages to do what the English couldn’t properly do for 1000 years

Duncan Riley — Wed, 20 May 2009 10:15:17 +0000

Facebook has upset the Welsh by placing a range of Welsh towns in England, including the Welsh capital Cardiff.

Towns that have mysteriously found themselves in England and not Wales include Swansea, Wrexham and Llandrindod Wells, according to the BBC. Over 8,000 Welsh Facebook users (or is that English Facebook users) signed a petition calling on Facebook to move the border back to its historic location in the East.

Facebook has called bug, and promised to rectify the issue.

Wales, located to the North West of England in the United Kingdom, has long been in union with England, having been conquered in the 13th century as part of the Anglo-Norman conquests, and was incorporated as a single entity with England in the 15th century. In more modern times, Wales has been recognized as an entity within the United Kingdom, and has a limited form of self government. Notably, Welsh culture is very distinct from England, and includes its own language, and a Celtic blood line vs the Saxon bloodline most common in England.