US Public Affairs - 30/08/08

Huge and important news: free licenses upheld
"I am very proud to report today that the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (THE "IP" court in the US) has upheld a free (ok, they call them "open source") copyright license, explicitly pointing to the work of Creative Commons and others. (The specific license at issue was the Artistic License.) This is a very important victory, and I am very very happy that the Stanford Center for Internet and Society played a key role in securing it. Congratulations especially to Chris Ridder and Anthony Falzone at the Center." [Lessig]

An Inquiry into the Problem of Digital Copyright Law
"This is a draft introduction to an extended study on copyright law. The study examines issues of access, access to information and digital copyright law. Considering the major crisis in copyright law and the mismatch between the purpose of the law and its effect on society, the study concludes that copyright protection in principle remains justified and desirable also as applied to digital works in the network reality. At the same time, the study does not support the view that adjusting the current system may successfully survive the transition to digital markets and cultures. The study concludes that the present structure of entitlements is inherently inadequate for regulating the digital information environment. In modern reality and under digital infrastructural conditions, the smallest tradable unit of transaction is access to copyright subject matter. The positive law does not correspond to that reality. Traditional copyright law has not been designed to regulate the new environment, and it may only awkwardly accommodate new situations and problems." [SSRN]

Copyright Renewal, Copyright Restoration, and the Difficulty of Determining Copyright Status
"It has long been assumed that most of the works published from 1923 to 1964 in the US are currently in the public domain. Both non-profit and commercial digital libraries have dreamed of making this material available. Most programs have recognized as well that the restoration of US copyright in foreign works in 1996 has made it impossible for them to offer to the public the full text of most foreign works. What has been overlooked up to now is the difficulty that copyright restoration has created for anyone trying to determine if a work published in the United States is still protected by copyright. This article discusses the impact that copyright restoration of foreign works has had on US copyright status investigations, and offers some new steps that users must follow in order to investigate the copyright status in the US of any work. It argues that copyright restoration has made it almost impossible to determine with certainty whether a book published in the United States after 1922 and before 1964 is in the public domain. Digital libraries that wish to offer books from this period do so at some risk." [SSRN]

The Free Jammie Movement: Is Making a File Available to Other Users Over a Peer-to-Peer Computer Network Sufficient to Infringe the Copyright Owner'S 17 U.S.C. Section 106(3) Distribution Right?
"The internet is a copy machine. . . . The digital economy is thus run on a river of copies. Unlike the mass-produced reproductions of the machine age, these copies are not just cheap, they are free. . . . Once anything that can be copied is brought into contact with internet, it will be copied, and those copies never leave. Even a dog knows you can't erase something once its [sic] flowed on the internet.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), representing the major music record labels, knows this all too well. As technology advances and becomes cheaper, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), representing the major movie studios, also fears for the survival of its industry. In contrast, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), declaring that it champion[s] the public interest in every critical battle affecting digital rights, fears for the survival of free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today." [SSRN]

Music News Bulletin - 29/08/08

Now Hollywood is chasing UK downloaders: And getting the wrong guy 29/08/08
"Tiscali threatened to disconnect a customer for illegally downloading a TV show last week, after receiving a copyright infringement notice from a Hollywood studio. The only problem was the customer had quit the ISP months before the alleged transgression was made." [TheRegister]

Pandora prepares to join titsup.com club: Web radio outfit struggling to cover royalties 18/08/08
"This weekend saw a cry for help from personalised web radio outfit Pandora. It blubbed that music industry royalties are too high for it to survive on meagre web 2.0 advertising revenues. In a Washington Post confessional, the firm's founder and CEO Tim Westergren said: "We're approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision. This is like a last stand for webcasting."" [TheRegister]

World shocked (shocked!) by Legal P2P: Old news sinks in 13/08/09
"Why does the idea of legal P2P - something music fans have been clamouring for since the original Napster - still cause so much confusion? Britain is set to be the first country outside Korea where punters will be offered such services (as we revealed back in June), but the idea still seems too incredible for many journalists and bloggers to comprehend." [TheRegister]

EU Gives Green Light to Sony's Acquisition of BMG 16/08/09
"Yesterday the European Union approved Sony Music's acquisition of Bertelsmann's half of its Sony BMG joint venture. Last month Sony agreed to purchase BMG from Bertelsmann for around $900 million. The need for regulators' approval is a standard procedure and an especially potent topic in a recorded music market with such concentrated ownership. The EU approval effectively ends an appeal by indie trade group Impala that asked the EU to rescind its original approval of the merger. As I wrote last year, indie label sales in the US -- either because of or in spite of the merger -- fared well since the merger. From the time of the merger through October of 2007, a period of just over three years, Sony BMG's share of US album sales dropped to 21.76% from 29.78%. Indies rose to 20.55% from 17.58%." [Coolfer]

Another Case Against Long Tail Economics 15/08/09
"At Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge, John A. Quelch has a post titled "Long-Tail Economics? Give Me Blockbusters!" Quelch is the Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Quelch explains the benefits and lures of blockbusters and offers five characteristics that define a blockbuster. His bottom line is this:
More risky than pursuing blockbusters is not to pursue them, to condemn your enterprise to a lifetime of slave labor harvesting the long tail of micro-opportunities rather than imagining, pursuing, and marketing the global solution to an important, widely shared problem." [Coolfer]

EU Commission: Enterprise and Industry Monitor - 29/08/08

FoCus Online-Training 29/08/08
The FoCus training concept is particularly targeted at representatives of trade associations, regional development agencies and politics, who it is envisaged will subsequently act as multipliers by passing on their e-business know-how to small and medium-sized enterprises. The objective of the training is to help these multipliers plan and implement e-business more efficiently. They are supported with practical tips for designing and implementing successful strategies to encourage e-business adoption. [Focus]

Education essential for an enterprising Europe
A new report identifies a range of actions which will encourage more young people to view entrepreneurship positively, and to consider it as a potential career. By adding specific educational activities from the early years in school and university curricula, the experts behind the report suggest that Europeans will gain more entrepreneurial mindsets and abilities and therefore be more likely to start out in business themselves. [Europa]

UK’s Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme lending falls to 2,619 loans in 2007/8 22/08/08
(22/08/2008) The recently published 2007/8 annual report on the UK’s Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme has revealed that lending under the Scheme fell by 13% in volume terms and 12% in value terms year on year. [Europa]

Supporting Social Tourism 21/08/2008
Social tourism gives travel and leisure opportunities to groups like the elderly, youths and persons with disabilities. By encouraging amongst other initiatives low-season travel it supports local economies and provides year-round employment. Possible EU support measures for social tourism were discussed at a recent conference organised by the Enterprise and Industry DG. [Europa]

Incentives for the increased commercialisation of unused patents 06/07/08 (Deadline: 12 September 2008)
In the framework of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Work Programme 2008 and Innovation Framework Programme, this study is meant to advance further theoretical and empirical insights into the existence of an increasing percentage of unused sleeping patents across numerous sectors in Europe. Unused sleeping patents are patents that are kept in force by the patentee but not (yet) used productively. While there might be legitimate technical reasons for such behaviour, it becomes sub-optimal for society if the underlying reason is the non-willingness or non-ability of patentees to trade them, as this blocks the innovation process. [Europa]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 27/08/08

Feds arrest man accused of posting unreleased Guns N' Roses songs August 27, 2008
"How he got his hands on the goods, we don't yet know. But today, police visited the home of a Culver City man and arrested him on suspicion of violating federal copyright law by posting nine previously unreleased Guns N' Roses songs on a website, Scott Glover reports in this L.A. Times story.

In June, the nine songs, from the band's upcoming album "Chinese Democracy," ended up on the website Antiquiet, which drew the attention of the feds. The site received so much traffic that it crashed.

Kevin Cogill, 27, told the FBI that he had posted the songs, according to an arrest affidavit. (In other stories, Cogill has been quoted as Kevin Skwerl, who, according to Rolling Stone, operates Antiquiet and used to work in the distribution office of Universal Music. The Recording Industry Assn. of America says it's the same person.) "Leak or no leak, I said that the only way the album would be a net success would be if the music was good enough to move units for years to come," he wrote at the time on his blog." [LATimes]

Co-regulation for “illicit P2P” August 5th, 2008
"The Department for Business (BERR) is consulting on a co-regulatory approach that it is considering adopting to tackle the use of peer-to-peer filesharing networks (P2P) for copyright infringement.

The six largest consumer broadband access providers by market share have agreed to a Code of Practice that would see them writing to customers instructing them to stop infringing activity when they receive a complaints from rightsholder bodies. They would also pass on copies of the rightsholder’s complaint. This plan has been criticised by both rightsholder and ISP sympathisers: the latter see “nasty-grams” as harming the ISP’s relationship with their customer, and conceding the dangerous principle that the ISP is responsible for their customers’ use of the network, while the copyright activists say that the scheme doesn’t go far enough, and unless the ISPs actually disconnect customers then users can just ignore it." [PublicAffairsLynx]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 24/08/08

IFPI: "Three strikes" efforts hit worldwide home run 19/08/08
"The music business doesn't actually enjoy suing its fans, nor does it like being the worldwide target of scorn, wrath, calumny, disdain, rancor, and ridicule (did I miss any?). No, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, or IFPI -- the global music recording trade group -- the industry would much rather solve the P2P file-sharing problem through ISP partnerships rather than lawsuits.

We reported yesterday on Jim Griffin's work with Warner to make a voluntary blanket music license a possibility by partnering with ISPs and college networks. That's the "carrot" approach, but the music business wants some effective "sticks," too, and IFPI now believes it has found a good one: graduated response, also known as "three strikes" rules, which are being trotted out of regulatory dugouts around the world." [ArsTechnica]

Small Business Administration Orphan Works Roundtable August 24, 2008
"The Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy held a roundtable on the economic impact on small business (every artist) of the orphan works legislation at the Salmagundi Club in Manhattan on August 8. A webcast is available. (The Salmagundi Club is a 137-year old institution to promote the visual arts, named after Washington Irving's Salmagundi Papers.)

The roundtable participants included a broad cross-section of the creative community all of whom objected to, and many outright opposed, the orphan works legislation." [MusicTechPolicy]

Music News Bulletin - 21/08/08

What does the future hold for songwriters' royalties? August 21 2008
"In the Guardian's In Praise of ... songwriters blog on Monday , I read that "Songwriters are being feted by the European commission which wants to extend musicians' royalty rights from 50 years to a very generous 95 years."

This is a misunderstanding that I've come across quite often, especially when the European directive was applauded (or, more often, criticised) in the recent media coverage. The misunderstanding arises from people confusing musicians with songwriters." [Guardian]

Back to the Future? (LP) August 21st, 2008
"All this new music at our fingertips and all these new ways of buying and selling it. Aren’t we all so lucky. I recently reported how Madonna’s album was available for mobile phone downloads prior to the physical CD release (We’ve also had Bryan Adams selling his album exclusively through Walmart and Sam’s Club stores in the US (not quite as Rock n Roll, but you gotta take what you’re offered, right Bry?)).

Yet, amongst the digital revolution and traditional record shop mass-exodus, us dance music fans still like to buy physical products. It sure is hard for the retailers to keep on making money, times have changed, and a few vinyl junkies aren’t enough to keep a business afloat, but it was a very pleasant surprise to read about the recent RISE in sales of vinyl (RIAA 2007 Year-End Shipment Statistics - PDF). I’m not saying it’s saved, or making a comeback (especially after one year’s rise compared to nine years decline), but i realised that my own buying habits have changed over the years. I still go hunting for the odd 2nd hand bargain, or an old release with a killer B-side that everyone looked over at the time. But, i’m afraid i feel it hard to pay more than 8 quid for a piece of wax. Unless…. it’s an LP." [UKMusicJobs]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 15/08/08

Italy Bans Access to Popular Pirate Hangout 15/08/08
Web users in Italy may find it difficult to access The Pirate Bay, a site that freely distributes the tools needed to trade copyrighted music, movies and software over the Internet. A complaint brought up by an anti-piracy group in Milan resulted in a judge's order to Italian ISPs to block the Web site, which is based in Sweden.

An Italian judge has ordered the country's Internet service providers to block access to The Pirate Bay, a Swedish file-sharing Web site, as part of a probe into copyright law violation, officials said Thursday." [TechNewsWorld]

In The Loop: 14/08/08

MoD tests 'flying saucer'
A "flying saucer" is one of several unmanned "mini-vehicles" taking part in a government competition starting this weekend designed to find machines to protect British troops serving in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. [Guardian]

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Heron's Eye: 14/08/08

MP's death leaves Brown facing new SNP challenge in neighbouring Fife constituency
Gordon Brown faces a difficult byelection in his neighbouring Fife constituency after the death of Labour MP John MacDougall from cancer.

Downing Street is likely to wait until after Labour's conference next month before facing the Scottish National party in Glenrothes. MacDougall, 60, held the seat with a majority of 10,664 at the 2005 general election. But the SNP in effect won the seat in last year's Scottish parliamentary elections with a majority of 1,166 - although the Holyrood constituency, Central Fife, has a slightly different boundary. [Guardian]

Jack McConnell: Should he stay or should he go?
Severin Carrell on the issues facing the Labour party and byelections at the moment. [Guardian]

Labour is in a deep hole, former minister admits
Gordon Brown is in a "deep hole", placing Labour in a more serious position than other governments that have experienced mid-term blues, a former minister said yesterday. [Guardian]

Unions and MPs back 'dream ticket'
A powerful coalition of mainstream Labour MPs and leaders of Britain's biggest unions is backing a right-left 'dream ticket' of Alan Johnson and Jon Cruddas to lead the party into the next general election, having given up on Gordon Brown's premiership. [Guardian]

Gethsemane: David Hare's satire crucifies New Labour
David Hare anatomised the failure of privatisation in The Permanent Way; in Stuff Happens, he turned a ruthless eye on the double-think and culpable naivety that led to the Iraq war. And in his new play, Hare dramatises his final and bitter disenchantment with New Labour, the Guardian can reveal. [Guardian]

Tories' favourite thinktank brands northern cities failures
A Tory push to win back seats in the north of England suffers a blow today with the party's favourite thinktank declaring that key cities, such as Liverpool and Sunderland, have "failed" and people should be paid to move south. [Guardian]

Cameron rubbishes 'barmy' report on failing north
"

It was dreary and wet, and slumped in a chair opposite David Cameron was a jobless hoodie: much of the north in a nutshell according to Policy Exchange, until yesterday the Tory leader's favourite thinktank.

Not any more. Cameron took less than a minute after arriving in Carlisle - as far north as you can get on England's western side - to pan the group's dismissal of the region. It wasn't cities such as Sunderland, Bradford or the European Capital of Culture, Liverpool, which were hopeless, he said, after joining a confidence-building class for local teenagers. It was the thinking at Policy Exchange." [Guardian]

In praise of the north
"A rightwing thinktank has written off many northern cities as worthless failures and advised their inhabitants to move south at once. In fact, everything about life in the north of England - from the people and the food, to the politics and the fashion - is the best in Britain. Here, 10 writers explain why."[Guardian]

Geographic folly
Steve Bell on Policy Exchange’s report on the north of England. [Guardian]

Bling culture turns youths to crime, says minister
Young men are shunning work and turning to a life of crime as Britain develops a "get rich or die trying" culture, the country's most senior black MP warns today. David Lammy, the skills minister, says young men are encouraged by a "bling culture" to pursue crime as a short cut to wealth in the face of a rapidly changing economy which no longer places a premium on manual jobs. [Guardian]

Brown ally joins call for windfall tax on energy companies
One of Gordon Brown's closest allies has joined calls for a windfall tax on oil and energy company profits to pay for measures to alleviate the impact of higher fuel bills on the poor. [Guardian]

Companies face crackdown on electricity greenwash
Dozens of companies face having to report embarrassing sharp increases in their carbon pollution under government plans to crack down on greenwash. [Guardian]

Ex-drugs policy director calls for legalisation
A former senior civil servant who was responsible for coordinating the government's anti-drugs policy now believes that legalisation would be less harmful than the current strategy. Julian Critchley, the former director of the Cabinet Office's anti-drugs unit, also said that his views were shared by the "overwhelming majority" of professionals in the field, including police officers, health workers and members of the government. [Guardian]

The media's addiction to controversy can seriously damage your health
Peter Wilby on the dangerous effects of journalists’ desire for a news story overpowering rational examination in scientific matters. [Guardian]

From courageous to stubborn
Martin Kettle prods around Gordon Brown’s brain in order to highlight how Brown’s impression of what is courageous becomes something else when he is unable to change direction on issues. [Guardian]

Tories pledge to grant police greater surveillance powers
Police would be given greater powers to conduct surveillance operations on people suspected of crimes such as burglary and vehicle theft under plans the Conservative Party will announce today. [Guardian]

National security: Plans for 'secret inquests' face defeat in Lords
Ministers' plans to hold in secret inquests that are deemed to put national security at risk are expected to face defeat when the House of Lords votes on them this autumn. A cross-party committee of peers, including a former lord chief justice and two former attorney-generals, has told the government that any decision to hold an inquest without a jury must be taken by a judge and not a minister. [Guardian]

'Snooper's charter' to check texts and emails
Local councils, health authorities and hundreds of other public bodies are to be given the power to access details of everyone's personal text, emails and internet use under Home Office proposals published yesterday. [Guardian]

Today's Tories really are the party for the arts
Ed Vaizey, Shadow Culture Minsiter: “One of Peter Mandelson's enduring political legacies has been a pithy maxim: only when you are bored of what you are saying will the public start to hear you. So at the risk of boring myself, let me respond to the attack on Conservative arts policy by Dominic Cooke, the artistic director of the Royal Court theatre in London (Lurking in the wings, August 6)….” [Guardian]

So what's the big idea, Chancellor?
Heather Stewart on the possible options available to the Chancellor to stimulate the economy. [Guardian]

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Grimsdale's Ire: 14/08/08

Smithfield market plans refused
A part of the historic Smithfield market earmarked for demolition has been saved after planning permission to redevelop the site was refused. [BBC]

Booming Liverpool rejects 'counsel of despair'
The claim by the Conservative-leaning thinktank Policy Exchange that some northern cities are beyond revival did not go down well in Liverpool. The city - currently undergoing one of the biggest regeneration programmes in Europe - saw off competition from the likes of Bristol, Brighton and Hove, and Oxford to become the European Capital of Culture 2008. [Guardian]

Police call to action after pay talks collapse
The Police Federation yesterday called on its 140,000 members to in effect work to rule after talks broke down in a bitter pay row. The federation's chairman Paul McKeever called on rank-and-file members to conform strictly to their conditions of employment after discussions broke down in the long-running pay dispute which saw more than 20,000 officers march on Westminster in January. [Guardian]

Ethnic minority lawyers discriminated against, report finds
The body that regulates solicitors has been discriminating against ethnic minority lawyers and subjecting them to potentially ruinous investigations, an independent report has concluded. [Guardian]

Building up hope
It might seem a far cry from the golden age of post-war housing, when both main political parties competed to deliver millions of homes in record time and "credit crunch" had yet to enter the popular vocabulary, but after a gap of more than 20 years, town halls are now re-entering an area regarded as no-go territory until recently - planning thousands of new council houses. [Guardian]

Boris Johnson backs 'disproportionate' development project
Boris Johnson has given the go-ahead to a £50m development project in a London borough led by a political ally, despite a warning from his own planning officers that it will fail to help meet the housing needs of some of the poorest local residents. [Guardian]

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EU Commission: Competition - 12/08/08

The European Commission’s Reexamination of the SonyBMG Merger: A Precedent-Setting Attempt to Jump the Fence August 11, 2008
ABSTRACT: On July 13, 2006, the European Court of First Instance annulled the European Commission’s decision authorizing the creation of Sony BMG, a joint venture incorporating the worldwide recorded music businesses of Sony and Bertelsmann. In its 2004 clearance decision, the Commission had concluded that the merger would not create or strengthen a collective dominance position on the part of the majors (i.e., Universal, Sony BMG, Warner, and EMI). In Impala v. Commission, however, the CFI harshly criticized the decision because it found that the evidence relied on by the Commission was not capable of substantiating this conclusion. [LawProfessors]

Impala vs. Commission... and the alleged 'blow' for the Commission 12/08/06
It took me a while to go through the IMPALA vs. Commission judgment. Everyone knows the story: the CFI quashed down the Commission's clearance of the JV between Sony and Bertelsmann. The Commission, after having raised serious objections against the transaction (on the grounds that there was arguably tacit collusion on the market prior to the merger, and that this situation would be further strengthened following completion of the transaction) made a surprising U-turn and cleared the deal without further objections. [ProfessorGeradin]

The Commission's Non Contractual Liability in the Field of Merger Control - Don't Use a Hammer When You Need a Screwdriver 01/07/07
It has become conventional wisdom to view the rulings handed down by the CFI in Airtours, Schneider, Tetra Laval and Impala as unprecedented setbacks for the European Commission ("the Commission") that would usher in a new era of administrative accountability in the field of merger control. However, several commentators still consider that the Commission regretfully enjoys a de facto power of "life or death" over notified mergers, and that judgments striking down its decisions are unlikely to change much in practice. Parties to a blocked merger generally abandon their projects following the Commission's decision, irrespective of the outcome of the actions they may subsequently bring before the EC Courts (e.g. the Airtours/First Choice or Schneider/Legrand mergers). Third parties - competitors or consumers - to an illegally approved merger have little prospect of inducing the Commission to unscramble a consummated transaction (e.g. the Sony/BMG merger).

Commission again clears music giants' merger 3 October 2007
The European Commission has cleared, for a second time and without imposing any 'remedies', the joint venture between music companies Sony and BMG, which had been set aside by the European Court of Justice in 2006. [Euractiv]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 11/08/08

80% of artists would get <€30/year from copyright extension September 08, 2008
The EU is considering a plan to extend musical copyrights for another 45 years, ostensibly to help out aging performers who are being cut off when the current 50-year terms expire. But those musicians (can someone introduce them to the concept of saving for retirement?) won't see much of the new cash, according to the UK's Open Rights Group. Most performers will make less than €30 a year, even as major labels and big stars take far more.

The Open Rights Group, a UK "grassroots technology advocacy organization," is responding to a request for comments from the UK's Intellectual Property Office. UKIPO wants to know how it should weigh in on the EU-wide proposal, and the Open Rights Group's response is clear: the proposal is a bad idea." [ArsTechnica]

Committee amends, approves "enormous gift" to Big Content September 11, 2008
"The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, which was blasted by consumer groups and library associations this week as an "enormous gift" to the content industry, won the approval of the Senate Judiciary Committee this afternoon by a 14-4 vote. As first reported by Ars this morning, a series of amendments were added during committee mark-up, providing privacy safeguards for records seized under the law and stripping away several controversial provisions—though not the hotly contested section empowering the Justice Department to litigate civil infringement suits on behalf of IP owners.

Related Stories
One significant change to the proposed legislation addressed, at least in some small measure, a concern broached by Public Knowledge and other consumer groups in a letter to the Judiciary Committee yesterday. Though the amended bill still creates expanded provisions for civil forfeiture of property implicated in an IP infringement case—potentially including servers or storage devices containing the personal data of large numbers of innocent persons—lawmakers altered the bill's language to affirmatively require a court to issue a protective order "with respect to discovery and use of any records or information that has been impounded," establishing "procedures to ensure that confidential, private, proprietary, or privileged information contained in such records is not improperly disclosed or used." They did not, however, go so far as to immunize the data of "virtual bystanders" from seizure, as the letter had requested." [ArsTechnica]

Copyright bill blasted as "enormous gift" to Big Content September 11, 2008
"The United States Congress returned to work this week, and senators appear to have copyright on the brain: A broad intellectual property enforcement bill introduced in July is slated for markup by the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, and another aimed at cracking down on piracy overseas was introduced Wednesday.

As Ars reported in July, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), enacts a potpourri of measures long sought by content industries. Most significant of these is a provision allowing for the Department of Justice to bring civil suits against IP infringers, with any damages won to be turned over to content owners. It would also expand civil forfeiture powers in IP cases, create a federal copyright czar to "harmonize" IP enforcement between state and federal agencies, and establish liaisons to foreign IP "hot spots" where piracy is rampant." [ArsTechnica]

Music News Bulletin - 11/08/08

MySpace faces rejection, internal dissent in hiring music venture CEO August 11, 2008
"MySpace Inc.'s search for a new CEO to run the MySpace Music joint venture has hit a number of snags, not the least of which is that its preferred candidates have declined the job. Another obstacle: Key technology executives inside the company have urged top brass not to hire a new leader until after MySpace Music launches next month.

A source with knowledge of the situation says the company's technology team has warned MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe and chief operating officer Amit Kapur not to bring in a CEO with the new music service, a joint venture with three of the four major music labels, so close to launch for fear that a new executive would demand changes that would threaten the development team's timeline." [TheDeal]

The MySpace Music CEO Candidate Shortlist August 5, 2008

Get ready to start hearing a lot about MySpace Music, a huge joint venture project between MySpace and the big music labels. One big question about the project remains: who will be the CEO of the new company. We’ve gathered a shortlist of candidates that MySpace has interviewed. [TechCrunch]

Why are joint ventures such magnets for trouble? August 6, 2008
Why (apart from a journalistic weakness for handy labels) should this be? The governance challenge when two companies team up -- a great argument-starter whenever corp dev professionals talk about JVs -- is surely one factor. Decisions inevitably take longer with two parties involved.

But there's more going on.

Rarely a first choice as a strategic tool, JVs are usually formed because there seems no better way to solve a tough business problem. Sometimes the problem is one of market access. BP plc's deal with TNK and Group Danone SA's experience in China with Wahaha Group Co. Ltd. notwithstanding, these kinds of JVs do have a reasonable track record; lots of multinationals have used them to get established in developing markets, often buying them out as the local rules change. [TheDeal]

In The Loop: 10/08/08

Chaos as £13bn NHS computer system falters
A £13bn overhaul of the NHS records system has suffered so many problems that hospitals have struggled to keep track of people requiring operations, patients with suspected MRSA and potential cancer sufferers needing urgent consultations. [Guardian]

Home repossessions up by 48% on last year
The number of homes seized by lenders jumped by 48% in the first half of this year as borrowers, squeezed by the credit crunch and rising mortgage costs, defaulted at levels not seen since the early 1990s property crash. [Guardian]

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Heron's Eye: 10/08/08

Unions and MPs back 'dream ticket'
A powerful coalition of mainstream Labour MPs and leaders of Britain's biggest unions is backing a right-left 'dream ticket' of Alan Johnson and Jon Cruddas to lead the party into the next general election, having given up on Gordon Brown's premiership. [Guardian]

Rise up to curb knife culture, PM urges at book festival
Gordon Brown called yesterday for communities across Britain to 'rise up' and help end the spiralling violence of knife crime by making the carrying of weapons socially unacceptable. [Guardian]

Darling backs away from stamp duty cut
The chancellor, Alistair Darling, is prepared to disappoint millions of would-be home buyers by ruling out proposals to revive the housing market, Treasury insiders warned last night. After a chaotic week of claim and counter-claim about Treasury plans to suspend stamp duty for first-time buyers, Darling has hardened his stance against the move, which he believes could cost billions to little positive effect. [Guardian]

The perfect Sunday menu: grilled minister, or something over easy?
After last month's final edition of ITV's The Sunday Programme, its weekly early morning current affairs show, the channel that once produced Weekend World and Walden was left without any specifically political output. It scrapped The Sunday Edition, co-hosted by The Observer's Andrew Rawnsley, at the end of last year, leaving the BBC, which has to cover Westminster under the terms of its licence fee, as the only major broadcaster to offer extensive political coverage. [Guardian]

Rich-poor education gap wider under Labour, claim Tories
The Conservatives today set out their credentials to become the champions of social equality in a document outlining the education gap between rich and poor, which they claim has widened under the Labour government. [Guardian]

A Lib Dem tax revolution?
Michael White analyses Nick Clegg’s party leadership and his new direction for the Lib Dem’s tax policy. [Guardian]

Scramble for tickets to Tory conference
The Tories have begun planning for a record-breaking party conference this autumn which will aim to portray David Cameron as a statesmanlike future leader amid signs that the political and corporate establishment is shifting toward the Conservatives. [Guardian]

Transport: London still gridlocked despite congestion charge
The London congestion charge is losing its battle against gridlock after it was revealed that the capital's streets are as gridlocked now as they were before the levy was introduced. [Guardian]

Labour to offer 'birth to school' childcare
Parents could be offered a seamless system of state-organised childcare from birth to school under proposals being discussed within the government in the battle to win parents' votes. [Guardian]

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Grimsdale's Ire: 10/08/08

Pressure grows on Met boss after fresh claims of racism
Sir Ian Blair's leadership of Scotland Yard looked increasingly fragile last night as Britain's most senior Asian police officer announced that he was launching a legal claim against the Metropolitan Police over allegations of racial discrimination. [Guardian]

Call for Bill of Rights on homes and health
Britons should be guaranteed a legal right to a decent standard of living, health and housing under a Bill of Rights, according to a report by an influential group of parliamentarians. [Guardian]

Coal plant protesters injured in skirmishes with police
Protesters battled with police yesterday but failed to shut down Kingsnorth coal plant as the climax of the week-long climate camp ended with a series of skirmishes. [Guardian]

Capital charmer
Decca Aitkenhead interviews Boris Johnson following his first one hundred days in office as the Mayor of London. [Guardian]

Untested drugs offer cancer hope
Thousands of terminally ill cancer patients are to be offered the chance to take experimental drugs that may extend their life by months or even years, The Observer can reveal. [Guardian]

Warning over backlash in bail hostel row
The government has been accused of a 'shocking lack of consultation' over its plans to open hundreds of bail units in residential areas despite fierce opposition from councils. [Guardian]

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Music News Bulletin - 07/08/08

Warner Music Complains That Rock Band And Guitar Hero Need To Pay More For Music Aug 7th 2008
And here they go again. Despite the fact that the games Guitar Hero and Rock Band have breathed new life into various musical acts and helped pump up sales of certain artists, the recording industry is starting to complain. It seems unable to recognize how something that promotes its music or makes that music more valuable is beneficial -- instead freaking out that it's somehow being ripped off. Proving, once again, that they overvalue content and undervalue the service that makes that content valuable, Warner Music's Edgar Bronfman is bitching and complaining that Rock Band and Guitar Hero aren't paying enough for music. [TechDirt]

Music News Bulletin - 06/08/08

Why is Bertelsmann selling, and Sony buying? August 5, 2008
"Tuesday's news confirmed what reports speculated since March. Sony Corp. is acquiring the 50% stake in its Sony BMG joint venture with Bertelsmann AG it didn't own for $1.2 billion. In March, Bertelsmann CEO Hartmut Ostrowski hired Morgan Stanley to conduct a global strategic review of the German media giant after poor earnings in 2007, which it blamed on its Direct Group book club activities (sold to Phoenix's Najafi Cos.) and settlement costs related to now-legitimate file-sharing site Napster. It also sold its BMG Music Publishing division for $2.1 billion to Vivendi SA." [TheDeal]

Sony pays $1.2bn to buy out Bertelsmann from Sony BMG August 6th, 2008
"After protracted negotiations, Sony is now the full owner of Sony BMG, having paid former partner Bertelsmann Media Group $1.2 billion to buy out its 50% stake. The company will be renamed as Sony Music Entertainment, and will sit within Sony’s North American division." [MusicAlly]

Sony Takes It All August 06, 2008
"There's not much surprise - although their corporate pages don't mention it anywhere - that Sony has bought out Bertelsmann's stake in Sony BMG.

Well, no surprise that it's happened - it's been expected all week - but you'd have to wonder why Sony is so excited. The analysts line is that this is going to make it easier to integrate Sony music product into other Sony businesses; but we can't imagine that the poorly organised Sony corporate structure is going to make it any easier just because there's three letters gone from the letterhead.

You wonder if the real plan is to make it more-or-less impossible for anyone investigating the original merger of Sony and BMG to enforce a divorce, while allowing Bertelsmann to escape a sector in which it has lost heart." [XRRF]

O2 UK launches My Play Music Store With Sony BMG (UK)
"O2 UK, following the footsteps of Vodafone, will now be doing a music play of it’s own with Sony BMG. MyPlay is now added to its O2 Active portal, that offers videos, full-track downloads and realtones in a store. The uniqueness of My Play is that users get to music “simply by clicking on artist microsites as their gateway into the store”." [WirelessFederation]

New Water Safety Guidelines for Service Providers Aim to Enhance Child Safety

During the summer holidays 70% of Europeans will be spending their summer holidays by the waterside and 25% of those will be travelling with children under 18 years of age. Unfortunately, most families are unaware that adults and children have an increased risk of drowning or being injured on holiday. This situation is exacerbated by little consistency in safety practices both between and within countries.


For example, nearly half of water related injuries to children in the EU can be attributed to a safety of service issue. In Britain more children drown in swimming pools while on holiday abroad than at home. In Portugal’s coastal region 72% of children admitted to hospital as a result of submersion are foreigners. Within the EU each year there are approximately 50,000 injuries related to water sports and boating and more than 200,000 swimming pool injuries.


To improve this situation, Alliance, a programme of EuroSafe has launched Protecting children and youth in water recreation: safety guidelines for service providers in cooperation with EU Consumer Commissioner, Meglena Kuneva, and Chair of the Internal Market and Consumers Protection Committee, Arlene McCarthy. The guidelines offer service providers information, advice and measures to improve the safety levels of water activities in order to minimise accidents and improve responses to injury. When implemented these guidelines should protect holidaymakers without taking the fun out of water based activities, and improve the profile of European tourism.




The complete guidelines document can be downloaded at www.childsafetyeurope.org

eGovernment: Some Thoughts on Public Health and the EU

Using eGovernment to improve healthcare provision is important in boosting accountability to citizens, modernising organisations and lowering costs.

The Internet’s potential as a giant portal to greater and more useful information creates unprecedented opportunity for patients to improve their input into public policy decisions and make decisions on their choice of care. Citizens can be made aware of the latest healthcare developments, such as the UK’s Darzi Review or be able to do research to search for the cheapest price of private healthcare insurance or even research into the benefits of non-critical treatment in other European countries.

eGovernment practices can be effective at improving quality of service and reducing the cost of provision. Firstly, modern communication tools result in EU agencies and organisations working more effectively together, breaking down the ‘silo culture’ of existing organisational procedures and encouraging joined up and more integrated EU health initiatives. Secondly, the costs involved in non-ICT based communications are significant, as the administrative and logistical costs can be huge. For example, modern electronic patient referrals in Denmark are now currently saving 1m a year.

In The Loop: 03/08/08

Crisis is set to worsen as jails run out of cells

Britain's jails will struggle to cope with a predicted rise in prisoner numbers because the government plans to build far fewer cells than may be needed, The Observer has established.

Minutes from a private briefing given by the Justice Minister, David Hanson, to senior prison staff, civil servants and penal experts indicate that the government is facing a cells crisis.

'Our projections show we're going to need something like 96,000 prison places by 2012, 2014,' Hanson told the briefing last month. In a transcript seen by The Observer, he also expressed a desire to remove 6,000 prison places dating from Victorian times, which have long been criticised by penal reformers. [Guardian]

Energy giants forced to act on fuel poverty

Energy companies are to be told to reallocate some of the £3bn they must spend to reduce carbon emissions towards directly helping the fuel poor, following uproar over last week's decision by British Gas to hike gas bills by a third. [Guardian]

Property market: House prices down 8.1% in largest fall for 17 years

The average price of a UK home is now £15,000 less than it was a year ago, with prices tumbling at their fastest rate since 1991 in the year to July, Nationwide said yesterday. [Guardian]

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Grimsdale's Ire: 03/08/08

Illegal filesharing: Government hits back at BPI over last-minute letter

A hardline letter sent by the BPI at the 11th hour threatened to undermine a deal to tackle illegal filesharing, prompting the government to express its displeasure of the music industry body in a terse response to record label executives. [Guardian]

POCA: Threat to 3,000 more post offices if card account is lost, says union

Up to 3,000 more post offices could be closed if the government hands a key contract to one of the network's rivals, a union warned yesterday.

Already suffering from the latest round of branch closures, the viability of the network could be threatened if the Post Office fails to win the tender to provide the successor to the current Post Office card account (POCA) through which millions of people are paid benefits, according to the Communication Workers Union. [Guardian]

DNA testing: One in five fathers wrongly identified by mothers in Child Support Agency claims

Nearly one in five paternity claims handled by the Child Support Agency end up showing the mother has deliberately or inadvertently misidentified the father, figures show. [Guardian]

Et voilà, France has a better way of justice

Simon Jenkins on the lack of human institutions on a local level to encourage civil society. [Times]

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Heron's Eye: 03/08/08

'There's no one to tackle Salmond'

Paul Kelbie on the dearth of candidates with the right attributes in the Scottish Labour Party’s leadership contest. [Guardian]

Miliband: Has he got what it takes to be PM?

Gaby Hinsliff, political editor of the Observer analyses deeply David Miliband’s political life. [Guardian]

Pig Ignorant Foreign Secretaries R Us

Merkin on Foreign Secretaries being poorly briefed. [BloggersOnTheRun]

There is no doubt about it, this is a full-frontal assault

Andrew Rawnsley continues the media’s 'waping' of Machiavellian analysis/soap story editorial. [Guardian]

David Miliband 'duped' over US rendition

David Miliband was today accused of letting himself be "duped by the US on a colossal scale" following the publication of new claims about the interrogation of terrorist suspects on UK territory. [Guardian]

Boris Johnson's approach to youth crime is good news

Dave Hill on Mr Johnson’s proactive approach to youth crime. [Guardian]

Did Team Boris delete Ken’s 100 days of achievements?

Recess Monkey on the disappearance of a description of Ken Livingstone’s first hundred days in office from the GLA’s media centre. [RecessMonkey]

The government is right - we need to lock up more offenders

The streets feel safe as a result of a lot of tough talkers going about the place? Westminster’s David Hanson MP, Minister of State for Justice talks on the need to justify Cube and filling it with inmates. Worth reading merely for the CIF commentary afterwards. [Guardian]

Below are two comments I included on the discussion forum:

I wish the people in charge saw that pulling the weeds from the root is a more effective than merely pruning the leaves.

Too many people talk about the need to increase prison places to fit an ever growing population but they rarely raise the need to spend money on making sure that youths dont get to the stage where they are caged before they are even adults.

I heard a figure saying that to convict somebody costs around £120,000 and £80,000 per year to keep a person incarcerated. Now why havent frothing right wing groups such as the Taxpayer Alliance not directed their venom at such subjects of criticism? It seems to me that even one person bypassing prison through whatever intervention could allow for tax money to be spent on more productive things. Improved housing? New school facilities? New railways or roads? Less taxes? An extra trident missile? Or maybe punishment, prevention and enforcement is just too profitable?

Just remembered the mid 90s film Cube, where a group of people wake up in a mysterious building set with traps with no reason why they were there, no idea how to escape and what the purpose of the Cube was.

I found some quotes from the film, which may have some parallels with the article:

"There is no conspiracy. Nobody is in charge. It's a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan. "

"Do you think somebody would go to all the trouble to build this thing if you could just walk out? "

"This is an accident, a forgotten, perpetual public works project. You think anybody wants to ask questions? All they want is a clear conscience and a fat paycheck. "

Quentin: "But why put people in it?"

Worth: "Because it's here. You have to use it, or you admit that it's pointless."

Quentin: "But it *is* pointless."

Worth: "Quentin... that's my point. "

7/7 memorial: Why have we become so poor at building these monuments?

Michael White on the disappointing quality of memorials. [Guardian]

Pakistan denies ISI behind Indian embassy attack

Pakistan's government said Friday it needs to purge Taliban sympathizers from the country's main intelligence agency but angrily denied a report that the agency helped plan a bombing that killed at least 41 in Afghanistan. [AP]

Right strategy, wrong candidate?

Chuck Todd, Political Director, NBC News provides an insight into positive and negative campaigning tactics when discussing the USA elections. [MSNBCNews]

Time to stop criticising China - we've already come so far

Lijia Zhang on how China has been making social progress in the last couple of years. A large CIF discussion follows. [Guardian]

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Heron's Eye: 01/08/08

MPs ordered to pay back money used for 'propaganda'

Five were ordered to repay funds, including three Plaid Cymru MPs, Elfyn Llwyd, Hywel Williams and leader Adam Price, who were each required to give back more than £5,000, and Sidiq Khan, a Government whip, and Malcolm Bruce, Liberal Democrat MP for Gordon, who returned £500.

Separately, Derek Conway, the disgraced former Conservative MP, was asked to return £13,161 after overpaying his student son for working in his office. [Telegraph]

That golden age? It never happened, except in the minds of pessimists

Mark Lawson on how the golden ages of Britain envisaged by commentators are often distorted and difficult to return to. [Guardian]

Blame the rich for feeding the drug industry

Melanie Reid on the hypocrisy within drugs prosecution based on income. [Times]

Clegg Does Realpolitik, Ends Policy of "Equi-Distance"

Guido on the Liberal Democrats positioning themselves to take advantage of anticipated Labour weaknesses in the next general election. [GuyFalkes]

Election spending: Labour shrugs off Electoral Commission reservations

The government today insisted its plans to curb spending outside of an election period – widely seen as an attempt to outmanoeuvre Conservative donor Lord Ashcroft — would not be derailed by the Electoral Commission's "strong reservations" about its proposed reforms. [Guardian]

Scottish Labour leadership: three MSPs line up to replace Alexander

Former Holyrood health minister Andy Kerr will today launch his bid for the Scottish leadership of the Labour party as nominations close at noon for what is widely expected to be a three horse race.

The leadership and deputy leadership contests were triggered by the resignation of Wendy Alexander, who quit five weeks ago in a row over donations to her leadership campaign last year.

Kerr, the MSP for East Kilbride, will launch his campaign just an hour before the noon deadline.

Cathy Jamieson, who stood down as deputy leader to pitch for the top job, and the finance spokesman, Iain Gray, have already launched their bids. [Guardian]

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Grimsdale's Ire: 01/08/08

Blindfolds that wrecked a deal to boost global trade

Excellent article by Phillip Stephens in the FT, discussing the lack of heroes participating in the Doha round. He mentions the likely effects on international trade, geopolitics and on the impact on the poorest nations. [FT]

Erdogan must seize this chance to reform Turkey

Soli Ozel on a key episode in Turkey’s democratisation process, involving Turkey’s court deliberating that the AKP should not be shut down despite being engaged in anti-secular activities. [FT]

A windfall tax is an easy solution – but a wrong one

The Independent’s leading article on why a windfall tax on energy companies would only be a short-term solution and how more effective regulation would be more appropriate. [Independent]

The Cost of Oil Subsidies

NY Times editorial on developing economies continuing their oil subsidies. [NYTimes]

Sam Freedman: Good teachers are made in the classroom

Sam Freedman, head of the education unit at Policy Exchange reinforces the importance of high quality teaching on educational attainment and on possible innovations such as paid learning on the job to encourage recruitment and development of trainees. [Independent]

Pensioners are a blessing, not a problem

Melanie McDonagh takes an optimistic view of the consequences of longer life expectancy on society. [Telegraph]

How to regain popularity: windfall taxes or surcharge on banks?

Michael White on Gordon Brown’s options for alleviating poverty caused through soaring energy prices. [Guardian]

The return of Nicolas Sarkozy, the great reformer

Rosemary Righter on Nicolas Sarkozy’s sudden flourish of legislative reforms. [Times]

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In The Loop: 01/08/08

John Hutton “disappointed” at EDF failure

Mr Hutton commented on the failure EDF and British Energy to agree a deal, saying that he was "disappointed". [PolitcsHome]

Conditions for a rebalanced economy

Samuel Brittan writes in the FT on the need for some perspective on the state of the current economy. He highlights the size of the financial market in the UK (12%) and how growth is not as low as people suggest, pointing towards the still high levels of growth in many developing economies. [FT]

A symbolic nutcracker will not solve the crunch

Stuart Fraser, chairman of the policy and resources committee, City of London Corporation on the need for the EU commissioner, Charlie McCreevy to display more caution in responding to the credit crunch. [FT]

Government and Web 2.0

The Government has launched BuildingDemocracy.co.uk, combined with £150,000 for the top ten ideas submitted on how to strengthen democracy in the UK. [LabourOutlook]

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