Open letter to my prospective Labour candidate, Susan Elan Jones
Dear Susan
Thanks for your swift reply (and apologies for taking a while to get back in touch, myself -- I've been busy).
You're interested in my concerns about the Digital Economy Bill.
First, some background -- I've used the internet for work, usually self-employed work, for the past 13 years. For the past 10 years, about 90% of any work I've done has involved extensive, daily internet use, working from home. I work as a writer, editor, designer, & researcher. I work with hundreds of people who are in similarly creative fields -- writers, artists, designers, small publishers, small software houses, etc. Many of them work from home, too, using internet cafes or free wi-fi facilities as backups to their home net connection.
So, clearly there are concerns about the draconian possibilities outlined in the DEB regarding the closing down, without trial or even evidence, of people's net connection, just on the say-so of big business interests. This could also, of course, apply to the many libraries, free wi-fi bars & cafes, etc. All it takes is a record industry representative claiming that they believe a person's net connection has been used to download copyrighted material, and that person could have their net access cut off.
Now, of course, it's likely that in many or even most cases they'd be right -- that person's net access had indeed been used to download copyrighted material. However, the lack of a requirement for a fair trial or even the presentation of evidence is clearly a major concern here. It's not so much that I and others think that the big business interests that this Bill empowers are somehow inherently malevolent and will take delight in closing down people's net access; it's just that we don't want to take the risk, which seems reasonable. I have a lot of faith in human nature, but not enough to suggest that we, for example, replace the current system of an accountable police force & trial by jury, with privately run police forces who can dispense "justice" at their whim.
Even when a person or business's net access has been used to download copyright material, in many cases, closing their net access down will punish far more people than the guilty party. If a neighbour or passer-by is able to hack my Wi-Fi & use my net connection to download the latest Lady Gaga album illegally, should I be punished? Likewise -- though my son is currently only 9, and not yet technically savvy enough, and hopefully never unethical enough, to download his favourite movies illegally -- should I really be punished with the loss of my means of earning a living, solely because of his or his friends' actions? Without a burden of proof? Without trial? Without appeal?
I'm very glad to hear you also opposed the Iraq War. You'll doubtless be aware of the recent publication by the Wikileaks website of footage of US helicopter crews in Iraq gunning down innocent unarmed people, including Reuters staff and children, and laughing and joking about it. Did you realise that the Digital Economy Bill gives the government the power to block access to Wikileaks, or indeed any other website, to all UK people, again without the need for evidence, if it is believed that the website in question might at some point be used in connection with the distribution of copyrighted material? Wikileaks, in fact, exists primarily to distribute copyrighted material, and quite rightly too -- the US government attempted to prevent them from distributing the film from those helicopters, but Wikileaks recognised that in this case, telling the world about the murder of innocents was more important than worrying about which US government body owned the copyright on the footage. The Digital Economy Bill doesn't worry about such things as the greater good, or the possibility (currently recognised in the wider body of British law) of committing a crime to prevent a greater crime from being committed.
I mentioned earlier that I know, work with, & do business with several hundred creators of intellectual property -- supposedly the people the Digital Economy Bill was created to protect. I don't know any of them who approve of the Bill, and in fact the majority of them are among the 20,000+ people who wrote to their MPs to oppose it. This Bill has been brought in by a few big businesses, not by the actual creators of intellectual property. It gives big business another tool with which to harass & persecute ordinary people; a somewhat cheaper tool than the usual means of pursuing them through the court system. If Labour want to protect the livelihoods of the actual creatives, the writers and artists and musicians and programmers, you need to give us more tools to ensure we get a fair deal from the big businesses we often deal with -- not empower the big businesses even further.
I would suggest you take a look at Tom Watson's Digital Pledges:
http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/2010/04/my-digital-pledges/
If you want to ensure that Britain remains at the forefront of intellectual property creation -- purportedly the aim of the Bill -- you would do well to consider signing up to a similar pledge & doing all within your power to get the Bill repealed if Labour returns to office. If you're willing to make such a public pledge, I will very gladly give you my vote in the upcoming election.
I'm in the process of posting this to my blog, too, and will be linking to the blog post from my Facebook account, so you will get around 700 other people reading it. You'd be very welcome to reply directly to the blog post as well as to me, if you want to respond to any of their comments, or ensure they read your reply too -- alternatively, I will very happily post your reply to my blog myself, if that's acceptable to you.
(I do, of course, need to get your permission before I can make your response public, as any letter or email written by you is copyright to you, and I don't want to have my internet access taken away by reposting it without your permission. More importantly, though, it wouldn't be ethical for me to do so without permission, so I won't. Odd, isn't it, how somehow people do the right thing anyway, without the need for yet another nanny-state law to enforce obedience? It'd be lovely if you also opposed Labour's other rather random nanny-state nonsense, like the excessive anti-terrorist legislation which has so far been used predominantly to harass ordinary people like photographers, but that's not strictly necessary to get my vote; just sign up to the Tom Watson pledge or something similar.)
Here's a link to the blog post:
Kind regards
--
Ian Sturrock
Thanks for your swift reply (and apologies for taking a while to get back in touch, myself -- I've been busy).
You're interested in my concerns about the Digital Economy Bill.
First, some background -- I've used the internet for work, usually self-employed work, for the past 13 years. For the past 10 years, about 90% of any work I've done has involved extensive, daily internet use, working from home. I work as a writer, editor, designer, & researcher. I work with hundreds of people who are in similarly creative fields -- writers, artists, designers, small publishers, small software houses, etc. Many of them work from home, too, using internet cafes or free wi-fi facilities as backups to their home net connection.
So, clearly there are concerns about the draconian possibilities outlined in the DEB regarding the closing down, without trial or even evidence, of people's net connection, just on the say-so of big business interests. This could also, of course, apply to the many libraries, free wi-fi bars & cafes, etc. All it takes is a record industry representative claiming that they believe a person's net connection has been used to download copyrighted material, and that person could have their net access cut off.
Now, of course, it's likely that in many or even most cases they'd be right -- that person's net access had indeed been used to download copyrighted material. However, the lack of a requirement for a fair trial or even the presentation of evidence is clearly a major concern here. It's not so much that I and others think that the big business interests that this Bill empowers are somehow inherently malevolent and will take delight in closing down people's net access; it's just that we don't want to take the risk, which seems reasonable. I have a lot of faith in human nature, but not enough to suggest that we, for example, replace the current system of an accountable police force & trial by jury, with privately run police forces who can dispense "justice" at their whim.
Even when a person or business's net access has been used to download copyright material, in many cases, closing their net access down will punish far more people than the guilty party. If a neighbour or passer-by is able to hack my Wi-Fi & use my net connection to download the latest Lady Gaga album illegally, should I be punished? Likewise -- though my son is currently only 9, and not yet technically savvy enough, and hopefully never unethical enough, to download his favourite movies illegally -- should I really be punished with the loss of my means of earning a living, solely because of his or his friends' actions? Without a burden of proof? Without trial? Without appeal?
I'm very glad to hear you also opposed the Iraq War. You'll doubtless be aware of the recent publication by the Wikileaks website of footage of US helicopter crews in Iraq gunning down innocent unarmed people, including Reuters staff and children, and laughing and joking about it. Did you realise that the Digital Economy Bill gives the government the power to block access to Wikileaks, or indeed any other website, to all UK people, again without the need for evidence, if it is believed that the website in question might at some point be used in connection with the distribution of copyrighted material? Wikileaks, in fact, exists primarily to distribute copyrighted material, and quite rightly too -- the US government attempted to prevent them from distributing the film from those helicopters, but Wikileaks recognised that in this case, telling the world about the murder of innocents was more important than worrying about which US government body owned the copyright on the footage. The Digital Economy Bill doesn't worry about such things as the greater good, or the possibility (currently recognised in the wider body of British law) of committing a crime to prevent a greater crime from being committed.
I mentioned earlier that I know, work with, & do business with several hundred creators of intellectual property -- supposedly the people the Digital Economy Bill was created to protect. I don't know any of them who approve of the Bill, and in fact the majority of them are among the 20,000+ people who wrote to their MPs to oppose it. This Bill has been brought in by a few big businesses, not by the actual creators of intellectual property. It gives big business another tool with which to harass & persecute ordinary people; a somewhat cheaper tool than the usual means of pursuing them through the court system. If Labour want to protect the livelihoods of the actual creatives, the writers and artists and musicians and programmers, you need to give us more tools to ensure we get a fair deal from the big businesses we often deal with -- not empower the big businesses even further.
I would suggest you take a look at Tom Watson's Digital Pledges:
http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/2010/04/my-digital-pledges/
If you want to ensure that Britain remains at the forefront of intellectual property creation -- purportedly the aim of the Bill -- you would do well to consider signing up to a similar pledge & doing all within your power to get the Bill repealed if Labour returns to office. If you're willing to make such a public pledge, I will very gladly give you my vote in the upcoming election.
I'm in the process of posting this to my blog, too, and will be linking to the blog post from my Facebook account, so you will get around 700 other people reading it. You'd be very welcome to reply directly to the blog post as well as to me, if you want to respond to any of their comments, or ensure they read your reply too -- alternatively, I will very happily post your reply to my blog myself, if that's acceptable to you.
(I do, of course, need to get your permission before I can make your response public, as any letter or email written by you is copyright to you, and I don't want to have my internet access taken away by reposting it without your permission. More importantly, though, it wouldn't be ethical for me to do so without permission, so I won't. Odd, isn't it, how somehow people do the right thing anyway, without the need for yet another nanny-state law to enforce obedience? It'd be lovely if you also opposed Labour's other rather random nanny-state nonsense, like the excessive anti-terrorist legislation which has so far been used predominantly to harass ordinary people like photographers, but that's not strictly necessary to get my vote; just sign up to the Tom Watson pledge or something similar.)
Here's a link to the blog post:
Kind regards
--
Ian Sturrock