Vox Polis

In a report released today the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) recommend changing UK copyright law to allow fair use copying. Currently activities such as copying a CD to an iPod are illegal in the UK due to the lack of a fair use provision in our copyright law (such as that found in the US). In addition they recommend keeping the copyright term for sound recordings at 50 years after the date of recording and allowing the British Library to circumvent anti-copying measures for archival purposes.

Given how much illegal activity there is, giving us fair use rights is long overdue. Having a law that is so widely flaunted weakens public understanding of (and adherence to) copyright law as a whole. Provisions for the British Library are also a good thing, although exactly what DRM encumbered fluff they feel the need to archive is a bit of a puzzle. As for leaving the copyright period alone I am personally of the opinion that the current terms are far too long but there doesn’t seem to be much public appetite for a change.

Update - the full report is available at the IPPR website.

There’s an article in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph which highlights the ways people are making money out of climate change, called “Guilt-edged profits”- as if this in itself is a bad thing. Personally i have no problem of people making money if the scheme works- unfortunately many of them don’t reduce the problem- offsetting and the ETS don’t work.

And it looks like some in the government have realised this, if we are to believe the policy paper leaked to the Daily Mail over the weekend, and the move towards green taxes. It also looks like the UK government might even sort out the ETS by expanding the use of auctioning- something we’re very supportive of.

Now that Al Gore’s going to advise the Government, I think he’ll also press for the uptake of CSS- he stresses in The Inconvenient Truth how important it is and that “we’ll be hearing loads about that soon”.

Whether this all amounts to more spin, we’ll have to wait and find out. What is certain is that the government has been under pressure to do something, especially when all the opposition parties have promised to introduce green taxes.

I’ll be upgrading our Wordpress install this morning, weirdness may follow.

Update - Everything seems to be ok but please let me know if you find anything I’ve missed.

Well i’m just not nerdy enough.  Are you?

Amnesty International have a new campaign to highlight how freedom of speech on the web is under threat - a worthwhile cause.

They point to bloggers who have been locked up for putting their political views on the web. They want people to sign their pledge at irrepressible.info. I’ve been trying to access the site for ages, and all i get is an error message.

Do you think that someone is trying to cull their freedom of speech on the web?

Let me know if you manage to get on.

Update - It’s now working (13.40) after trying for most of the morning (although I did receive a few server errors when trying to send my pledge). I suggest you sign this, although I can’t see what good it’ll do. Government’s will just ignore it.

David Miliband announced plans today to bury the nuclear waste from new round of nuclear power plants. Now your first thought might be “Who in their right mind is going to agree to having radioactive waste buried underneath them?” A reasonable question but Miliband’s got it covered - local councils will volunteer to take the waste. Same question as before right? Once again there’s an answer - the councils that are…err…lucky enough to get a nuclear dump will benefit financially from the multi-billion pound construction project for the facility. If that sounds a bit like a bribe then you should probably take a long hard look at how cynical you are. As a side note, Miliband has apparently taken to referring to this method of dealing with the problem as “geological disposal” rather than “burying nuclear waste with a half life of thousands of years” presumably because the latter’s a bit of a mouthful (and true).

Via The Register.

Good to see that the Government is to introduce an unworkable, ill thought out, populist, immigration policy - not for the first time.

Restricting workers from Romania and Bulgaria will mean:

• Britain cannot benefit from the advantages they bring.
• The measures suggested by Reid, which include allowing self employed workers, are unworkable. Workers will just use self employment as a loophole (they’ll all become consultants).
• It should be left to the market not some Migration Advisory Council.
• Most will not come to the UK anyway.
• You can’t stop them coming here even if you wanted to.
• They’ll just work in the grey economy and not pay tax.

Looks like the EU environmental commissioner Stravos Dimas has admitted what we’ve known for a while - the EU ETS scheme as it currently stands will not reduce emissions - see Vox Polis’ view here and here. Dimas said that the scheme could become “pointless”. Unfortunately it already is.

The only way to get this to work is to take the allocation out of the hands of member states and allow the markets to allocate them (i.e. through auctioning).

The Department of Constitutional Affairs (DCA) today announced changes to the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act which would increase administrative charges for requests made under the act. Increased charges would lead to a greater number of requests breaking the £600 threshold above which a request can be denied due to cost. According to Maurice Frankel of the Campaign for Freedom of Information the changes “…would knock out a significant volume of the most important requests on public issues so it would have a pretty drastic effect on the legislation.” In addition to this it will become possible for information holders to refuse requests if the total of cost of requests from a single organisation in a 3 month period exceeds the £600 threshold. This bundling of requests would have a serious impact on the ability of journalists working for large organisations to make requests. It has been suggested that the changes would also make it particularly difficult to question ministers since passing a request up to a minister immediately adds several hundred pounds to the cost of a request. Needless to say a spokesman for the DCA (sort of) denied that the changes were intended to decrease legitimate use of the act - “The government are doing what they always said and reviewing the position after 12 to 18 months live running and considering changes in light of experience.”

I’ve no doubt that the FoI Act is used to make frivolous requests and that these cost the taxpayer money. However given the government’s willingness to waste money on say a giant tent, their zealous pursuit of savings in the case of FoI suggests that there might be more to the changes than just the finances. It’s all very depressing really, once again the government seem to have forgotten that they work for us not on a higher plane were they must occasionally tolerate requests from the proles. Hopefully further oversight freedom minded backbenchers or an outcry from the media will prevent these proposals from passing into law.

More at The Register.

It’s Energy Saving Week, and to kick it all off the Energy Saving Trust has a nice survey showing that the UK is the top energy waster in Europe (well out of the 5 European countries surveyed). The survey points out how us Britons fail to switch off lights and unplug chargers.

To make a difference they’ve come up with an action plan for Energy Saving Week. Today (Monday) we’re supposed to go out and buy lots of new energy effiicient appliances - If we actually did that then think of the damage we would be doing to the country. The fridge mountains would double.

The other suggestions are sensible (Tuesday we’re to boil less water), however there is no mention of the key things mentioned in the survey - such as not leaving things on standby, unplugging chargers etc. Wouldn’t that be more sensible than buying new appliances?