changing rules of copyright on the web – the NLA case

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I’ve been wondering about the broader copyright implications of a case that went through the England and Wales Court of Appeal earlier this year.  The case was brought by  the NLA (Newspaper Licensing Agency) against Meltwater, who run commercial media-alert services; for example telling  you or your company when and where you have been mentioned in the press.

While the case is specifically about a news service, it appears to have  broader implications for the web, not least because it makes new judgements on:

  • the use of titles/headlines — they are copyright in their own right
  • the use of short snippets (in this case no more than 256 characters) — they too potentially infringe copyright
  • whether a URL link is sufficient acknowledgement of copyright material for fair use – it isn’t!

These, particularly the last, seems to have implications for any form of publicly available lists, bookmarks, summaries, or even search results on the web.  While NLA specifically allow free services such as Google News and Google Alerts, it appears that this is ‘grace and favour’, not use by right.   I am reminded of the Shetland case1, which led to many organisations having paranoid policies regarding external linking (e.g. seeking explicit permission for every link!).

So, in the UK at least, web law copyright law changed significantly through precedent, and I didn’t even notice at the time!

In fact, the original case was heard more than a year ago November 2010 (full judgement) and then the appeal in July 2011 (full judgement), but is sufficiently important that the NLA are still headlining it on their home page (see below, and also their press releases (PDF) about the original judgement and appeal).  So effectively things changed at least at that point, although as this is a judgement about law, not new legislation, it presumably also acts retrospectively.  However, I only recently became aware of it after seeing a notice in The Times last week – I guess because it is time for annual licences to be renewed.

Newspaper Licensing Agency (home page) on 26th Dec 2011

The actual case was, in summary, as follows. Meltwater News produce commercial media monitoring services, that include the title, first few words, and a short snippet of  news items that satisfy some criteria, for example mentioning a company name or product.  NLA have a license agreement for such companies and for those using such services, but Meltwater claimed it did not need such a license and, even if it did, its clients certainly did not require any licence.  However, the original judgement and the appeal found pretty overwhelmingly in favour of NLA.

In fact, my gut feeling in this case was with the NLA.  Meltwater were making substantial money from a service that (a) depends on the presence of news services and (b) would, for equivalent print services, require some form of licence fee to be paid.  So while I actually feel the judgement is fair in the particular case, it makes decisions that seem worrying when looked at in terms of the web in general.

Summary of the judgement

The appeal supported the original judgement so summarising the main points from the latter (indented text quoting from the text of the judgement).

Headlines

The status of headlines (and I guess by extension book titles, etc.) in UK law are certainly materially changed by this ruling (para 70/71), from previous case law (Fairfax, Para. 62).

Para. 70. The evidence in the present case (incidentally much fuller than that before Bennett J in Fairfax -see her observations at [28]) is that headlines involve considerable skill in devising and they are specifically designed to entice by informing the reader of the content of the article in an entertaining manner.

Para. 71. In my opinion headlines are capable of being literary works, whether independently or as part of the articles to which they relate. Some of the headlines in the Daily Mail with which I have been provided are certainly independent literary works within the Infopaq test. However, I am unable to rule in the abstract, particularly as I do not know the precise process that went into creating any of them. I accept Mr Howe’s submission that it is not the completed work as published but the process of creation and the identification of the skill and labour that has gone into it which falls to be assessed.

Links and fair use

The ruling explicitly says that a link is not sufficient acknowledgement in terms of fair use:

Para. 146. I do not accept that argument either. The Link directs the End User to the original article. It is no better an acknowledgment than a citation of the title of a book coupled with an indication of where the book may be found, because unless the End User decides to go to the book, he will not be able to identify the author. This interpretation of identification of the author for the purposes of the definition of “sufficient acknowledgment” renders the requirement to identify the author virtually otiose.

Links as copies

Para 45 (not part of the judgement, but part of NLA’s case) says:

Para. 45. … By clicking on a Link to an article, the End User will make a copy of the article within the meaning of s. 17 and will be in possession of an infringing copy in the course of business within the meaning of s. 23.

The argument here is that the site has some terms and conditions that say it is not for ‘commercial user’.

As far as I can see the judge equivocates on this issue, but happily does not seem convinced:

Para 100. I was taken to no authority as to the effect of incorporation of terms and conditions through small type, as to implied licences, as to what is commercial user for the purposes of the terms and conditions or as to how such factors impact on whether direct access to the Publishers’ websites creates infringing copies. As I understand it, I am being asked to take a broad brush approach to the deployment of the websites by the Publishers and the use by End Users. There is undoubtedly however a tension between (i) complaining that Meltwater’s services result in a small click-through rate (ii) complaining that a direct click to the article skips the home page which contains the link to the terms and conditions and (iii) asserting that the End Users are commercial users who are not permitted to use the websites anyway.

Free use

Finally, the following extract suggests that NLA would not be seeking to enforce the full licence on certain free services:

Para. 20. The Publishers have arrangements or understandings with certain free media monitoring services such as Google News and Google Alerts whereby those services are currently licensed or otherwise permitted. It would apparently be open to the End Users to use such free services, or indeed a general search engine, instead of a paid media monitoring service without (currently at any rate) encountering opposition from the Publishers. That is so even though the End Users may be using such services for their own commercial purposes. The WEUL only applies to customers of a commercial media monitoring service.

Of course, the fact that they allow it without licence, suggests they feel the same copyright rules do apply, that is the search collation services are subject to copyright.  The judge does not make a big point of this piece of evidence in any way, which would suggest that these free services do not have a right to abstract and link.  However, the fact that Meltwater (the agency NA is acting against) is making substantial money was clearly noted by the judge, as was the fact that users could choose to use alternative services free.

Thinking about it

As noted my gut feeling is that fairness goes to the newspapers involved; news gathering and reportingis costly, and openly accessible online newspapers are of benefit to us all; so, if news providers are unable to make money, we all lose.

Indeed, years ago in dot.com days, at aQtive we were very careful that onCue, our intelligent internet sidebar, did not break the business models of the services we pointed to. While we effectively pre-filled forms and submitted them silently, we did not scrape results and present these directly, but instead sent the user to the web page that provided the information.  This was partly out a feeling that this was the right and fair thing to do, partly because if we treated others fairly they would be happy for us to provide this value-added service on top of what they provided, and partly because we relied on these third-party services for our business, so our commercial success relied on theirs.

This would all apply equally to the NLA v. Meltwater case.

However, like the Shetland case all those years ago, it is not the particular of the case that seems significant, but the wide ranging implications.  I, like so many others, frequently cite web materials in blog posts, web pages and resource lists by title alone with the words live and pointing to the source site.  According to this judgement the title is copyright, and even if my use of it is “fair use” (as it normally would be), the use of the live link is NOT sufficient acknowledgement.

Maybe, things are not quite so bad as they seem. In the NLA vs. Meltwater case, the NLA had a specific licence model and agreement.  The NLA were not seeking retrospective damages for copyright infringement before this was in place, merely requiring that Meltwater subscribe fully to the licence.  The issue was not that just that copyright had been infringed, but that it had been when there was a specific commercial option in place.  In UK copyright law, I believe, it is not sufficient to say copyright has been infringed, but also to show that the copyright owner has been materially disadvantaged by the infringement; so, the existence of the licence option was probably critical to the specific judgement.   However the general principles probably apply to any case where the owner could claim damage … and maybe claim so merely in order to seek an out-of-court settlement.

This case was resolved five months ago, and I’ve not heard of any rush of law firms creating vexatious copyright claims.  So maybe there will not be any long-lasting major repercussions from the case … or maybe the storm is still to come.

Certainly, the courts have become far more internet savvy since the 1990s, but judges can only deal with the laws they are give, and it is not at all clear that law-makers really understand the implications of their legislation on the smooth running of the web.

  1. This was the case in the late 1990s where the Shetland Times sued the Shetland News for including links to its articles.  Although the particular case involved material that appeared to be re-badged, the legal issues endangered the very act of linking at all. See NUJ Freelance “NUJ still supports Shetland News in internet case“, BBC “Shetland Internet squabble settled out of court“, The Lawyer “Shetland Internet copyright case is settled out of court“[back]

the problem with a gift – the Christmas we get we don’t deserve

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Malaysia in early December was full of Christmas preparations. No nativity scenes as this is a Muslim country, but gingerbread houses, Santa Claus, and Christmas trees everywhere.  And always, in hotel lobbies, in restaurants, in shopping malls the sound of carols playing; not “Fairytale of New York” or “When a Child is Born“, but traditional carols like those that played when I was a child.

Back in the UK and Ireland, actually less decorations, and certainly none of the giant gingerbread houses (except in the German Market in Birmingham), but certainly, in hotels and shops, tinsel and Christmas trees, and piped carols and Christmas music.   This time a broader selection of music, including “Fairytale’ (which I love) and ELP’s “I believe in Father Christmas” (which is also glorious).

Maybe the words of the latter are a little too dark for Malaysian taste.  According to Wikipedia’s page on the song,  some think the lyrics are anti-Christian, but Greg Lake evidently said it was written as reaction to the commercialisation of Christmas.   Certainly the song captures some of the disillusionment of a world that has lost its certainties, yet wistfulness at what it has lost, and still feeling a sense of the hope that Christmas conjures even when the reasons for it have been long forgotten:

I wish you a hopeful Christmas
I wish you a brave new year
All anguish pain and sadness
Leave your heart and let your road be clear

On a recording of an interview with BBC Scotland on Lake’s own web site, he even says that he does believe in Father Christmas 🙂

However, as I heard it again and again on my travels, and especially as I sat musing in the Harbour Hotel in Galway, it was the last lines of the final verse that captured me:

They said there’ll be snow at Christmas
They said there’ll be peace on earth
Hallelujah, Noel, be it heaven or hell
The Christmas you get you deserve

When it was written not long after the napalm drenched years of the Vietnam war and today when radio-controlled drones and road-side bombs are never far from the news, the message of peace on earth can sound like a cruel joke.  Maybe the ravaged world at Christmas time is no more than we deserve.

Yet the strange and shocking message of the child in the stable is exactly the opposite, the Christmas we get is not what we deserve.  The Christmas story isn’t about God waiting until the Jewish nation were good enough, nor the Romans that occupied their land.  Like every baby born to every couple, it does not wait in the womb until we are good enough to beparents, God help us if it were so, the human race would have long perished!  The Christ child is not a reward for the deserving, but, to a broken world, a free gift for all.

I think this lavish free gift was particularly close to mind due to a talk I heard while in Malaysia.  The speaker was working with IT systems for disabled children, and started his talk referring to the Koran for motivation; he said how the Koran teaches that if you do good on earth you will receive a reward in heaven. For me coming from a Christian background, this message was both familiar and similar to teachings I’ve heard from childhood, and yet also in some ways precisely the opposite.  The two parts of the clause are the same, but the connective is different.  In Christian theology, it is not that there is a reward in heaven because we do good, but rather we are enjoined to do good because we already have a reward in heaven.  The full, unstinting, unreserved gift of God always comes first.

This said, my feeling is that things are not so different in the actual practice of life.  Certainly, Muslim friends I know are not counting up their good deeds in some celestial bank balance.  For Muslim, Christian and Atheist alike, those who give themselves to ‘charity’ (such a lovely world, sadly debased) find it becomes its own purpose.

But for Christians, it also seems hard to accept that the Christmas we get is not what we deserve.  There is something uncomfortable and difficult about that free gift.  It is like those spam emails that come offering free computers or free holidays, we feel there must be a catch, or maybe that we don’t want to be beholden to others.  We invent ways to invert the clauses, to try to earn things, to turn the gift into wages.  In traditional churches it is about rituals and observances, in reformed churches it tends to be about statements of belief and right doctrine.  Both are important, but so easily become ways of earning what has already been given, of distracting us from and detracting from the core message of Christmas, as told to the shepherds 2000 years ago: “good news of great joy that will be for all the people“.

A Gift.

ignorance or misinformation – the press and higher education

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I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at poor reporting in the Mail, but it does feel slightly more serious than the other tabloids.  I should explain I have a copy of the Mail as it was the only UK paper when I got on the Malaysian Airlines plane in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday evening, and it is the Monday copy as I assume it had flown out of the UK on the flight the day before!

Deepish inside, p22, the article was “UK students lose out in sciences” by Nick Mcdermott.  The article quotes a report by Civitas that shows that while the annual number of students in so called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) courses rose by around 6500 in the 10 years 1997-2007, in fact this is largely due to an increase of 12,308 in overseas students and a fall in UK students of nearly 6000.  Given an overall increase in student numbers of 600,000 in this period and employers “calling for more science graduates”, the STEM drop is particularly marked.

While the figures I assume are correct, the Mail article leaves the false impression that the overseas students are in some way taking places from the UK students, indeed the article’s title “UK students lose out” suggests precisely this.  I can’t work out if this is simply the writer’s ignorance of the UK higher education system, or deliberate misinformation — neither are good news for British journalism.

Of course, the truth is precisely the opposite.  Overseas students are not in competition with UK students for undergraduate places in STEM or other subjects, as the number of UK students is effectively controlled by a combination of Government quotas and falling student demand in STEM subjects.  The latter, a disinterest in the traditionally ‘hard’ subjects by University applicants, has led to the closure of several university science departments across the country.  Rather than competing with UK students, the presence of overseas students makes courses more likely to be viable and thus preserves the variety of education available for UK students.  Furthermore, the higher fees for overseas students compared with the combined student fees and government monies for UK students, means that, if anything, these overseas students subsidise their UK colleagues.

We should certainly be asking why it is that an increasing number of overseas students value the importance of a science/engineering training while their British counterparts eschew these areas.  However, the blame for the lack of UK engineering graduates does not lie with the overseas students, but closer to home.  Somehow in our school system and popular culture we have lost a sense of the value of a deep scientific education.  Until this changes and UK students begin to apply for these subjects, we cannot expect there to be more UK graduates.  In the mean time, we can only hope that there will be more overseas students coming to study in the UK and keep the scientific and engineering expertise of universities alive until our own country finally comes to its senses.

intellectual property issues in dreams

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Had an active night of dreams last night, but my favourite point was in some sort of workshop, where we had clearly put slides on the web and someone said that we had had a ‘cease and desist’ request concerning one of the slides.   They showed me the web page with the comment below.  Unfortunately, I never seem to be able to read text on the web so first two words of the comment are interpolated, but the last part is verbatim:

1 Comment »
.      . Prior art  O  : – )

If the person who left the comment on the blog in my dreams is out there — good on you!

Deadly curse of health and safety culture

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Yesterday’s Times front page story “death by red tape” described the sheriff’s report on a woman who had fallen down a 45 foot (less than 15 metre) mine shaft in Ayreshire, and died after 6 hours while emergency services argued on the surface about health and safety issues. I was reminded of a similar case a while ago when an ambulance crew had to wait for police backup while again a patient died.

Neither report mentioned the Fire Chief who was charged with manslaughter after the warehouse blaze in the south of England a few years ago. In this case he did allow teams into the building, allowing them to do their job. In this case it was the fire crew who died and their manager held responsible.

With those responsible in these situations having to be constantly aware that they may face criminal
prosecution if they make the wrong decision, no wonder they delay.

Those on the front line in these circumstances have to make difficult decisions. While these decisions certainly should be reviewed analysed and used to improve training and advice, we need to end the blame culture and accept that these decisions will occasionally turn out in the light of time to have been wrong.

Our belief we can create a risk free world is hubris, and while we maintain this myth, those who are faced with the real decisions have their already difficult job made harder, and incidents like the preventable death of this woman in Scotland will continue.

After the Tech Wave is over

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The Second Tiree Tech Wave is over.   Yesterday the last participants left by ferry and plane and after a final few hours tidying, the Rural Centre, which the day before had been a tangle of wire and felt, books and papers, cups and biscuit packets, is now as it had been before.  And as I left, the last boxes under my arm, it was strangely silent with only the memory of voices and laughter in my mind.

So is it as if it had never been?  I there anything left behind?  There are a few sheets of Magic Whiteboard on the walls, that I left so that those visiting the Rural Centre in the coming weeks can see something of what we were doing, and there are used teabags and fish-and-chip boxes in the bin, but few traces.

We trod lightly, like the agriculture of the island, where Corncrake and orchid live alongside sheep and cattle.

Some may have heard me talk about the way design is like a Spaghetti Western. In the beginning of the film Clint Eastwood walks into the town, and at the end walks away.  He does not stay, happily ever after, with a girl on his arm, but leaves almost as if nothing had ever happened.

But while he, like the designer, ultimately leaves, things are not the same.  The Carson brothers who had the town in fear for years lie dead in their ranch at the edge of town, the sharp tang of gunfire still in the air and the buzz of flies slowly growing over the elsewise silent bodies.  The crooked major, who had been in the pocket of the Carson brothers, is strapped over a mule heading across the desert towards Mexico, and not a few wooden rails and water buts need to be repaired.  The job of the designer is not to stay, but to leave, but leave change: intervention more than invention.

But the deepest changes are not those visible in the bullet-pocked saloon door, but in the people.  The drunk who used to sit all day at the bar, has discovered that he is not just a drunk, but he is a man, and the barmaid, who used to stand behind the bar has discovered that she is not just a barmaid, but she is a woman.

This is true of the artefacts we create and leave behind as designers, but much more so of the events, which come and go through our lives.  It is not so much the material traces they leave in the environment, but the changes in ourselves.

I know that, as the plane and ferry left with those last participants, a little of myself left with them, and I know many, probably all, felt a little of themselves left behind on Tiree.  This is partly abut the island itself; indeed I know one participant was already planning a family holiday here and another was looking at Tiree houses for sale on RightMove!  But it was also the intensity of five, sometimes relaxed, sometimes frenetic, days together.

So what did we do?

There was no programme of twenty minute talks, no keynotes or demo, indeed no plan nor schedule at all, unusual in our diary-obsessed, deadline-driven world.

Well, we talked.  Not at a podium with microphone and Powerpoint slides, but while sitting around tables, while walking on the beach, and while standing looking up at Tilly, the community wind turbine, the deep sound of her swinging blades resonating in our bones.  And we continued to talk as the sun fell and the overwhelmingly many stars came out , we talked while eating, while drinking and while playing (not so expertly) darts.

We met people from the island those who came to the open evening on Saturday, or popped in during the days, and some at the Harvest Service on Sunday.  We met Mark who told us about the future plans for Tiree Broadband, Jane at PaperWorks who made everything happen, Fiona and others at the Lodge who provided our meals, and many more. Indeed, many thanks to all those on the island who in various ways helped or made those at TTW feel welcome.

We also wrote.  We wrote on sheets of paper, notes and diagrams, and filled in TAPT forms for Clare who was attempting unpack our experiences of peace and calmness in the hope of designing computer systems that aid rather than assault our solitude.  Three large Magic Whiteboard sheets were entitled “I make because …”, “I make with …”, “I make …” and were filled with comments.  And, in these days of measurable objectives, I know that at least a grant proposal, book chapter and paper were written during the long weekend; and the comments on the whiteboards and experiences of the event will be used to create a methodological reflection of the role of making in research which we’ll put into Interfaces and the TTW web site.

We moved.  Walking, throwing darts, washing dishes, and I think all heavily gesturing with our hands while taking.  And became more aware of those movements during Layda’s warm-up improvisation exercises when we mirrored one another’s movements, before using our bodies in RePlay to investigate issues of creativity and act out the internal architecture of Magnus’ planned digital literature system.

We directly encountered the chill of wind and warmth of sunshine, the cattle and sheep, often on the roads as well as in the fields.  We saw on maps the pattern of settlement on the island and on display boards the wools from different breeds on the island. Some of us went to the local historical centre, An Iodhlann [[ http://www.aniodhlann.org.uk/ ]], to see artefacts, documents and displays of the island in times past, from breadbasket of the west of Scotland to wartime airbase.

We slept.  I in my own bed, some in the Lodge, some in the B&B round the corner, Matjaz and Klem in a camper van and Magnus – brave heart – in a tent amongst the sand dunes.  Occasionally some took a break and dozed in the chairs at the Rural Centre or even nodded off over a good dinner (was that me?).

We showed things we had brought with us, including Magnus’ tangle of wires and circuit boards that almost worked, myself a small pack of FireFly units (enough to play with I hope in a future Tech Wave), Layda’s various pieces she had made in previous tech-arts workshops, Steve’s musical instrument combining Android phone and cardboard foil tube, and Alessio’s impressively modified table lamp.

And we made.  We do after all describe this as a making event!  Helen and Claire explored the limits of ZigBee wireless signals.  Several people contributed to an audio experience using proximity sensors and Arduino boards, and Steve’s CogWork Chip: Lego and electronics, maybe the world’s first mechanical random-signal generator.  Descriptions of many of these and other aspects of the event will appear in due course on the TTW site and participants’ blogs.


But it was a remark that Graham made as he was waiting in the ferry queue that is most telling.  It was not the doing that was central, the making, even the talking, but the fact that he didn’t have to do anything at all.  It was the lack of a plan that made space to fill with doing, or not to do so.

Is that the heart?  We need time and space for non-doing, or maybe even un-doing, unwinding tangles of self as well as wire.

There will be another Tiree Tech Wave in March/April, do come to share in some more not doing then.

Who was there:

  • Alessio Malizia – across the seas from Madrid, blurring the boundaries between information, light and space
  • Helen  Pritchard – artist, student of innovation and interested in cows
  • Claire  Andrews – roller girl and researching the design of assistive products
  • Clare  Hooper – investigating creativity, innovation and a sprinkling of SemWeb
  • Magnus  Lawrie – artist, tent-dweller and researcher of digital humanities
  • Steve Gill – designer, daredevil and (when he can get me to make time) co-authoring book on physicality TouchIT
  • Graham Dean – ex-computer science lecturer, ex-businessman, and current student and auto-ethnographer of maker-culture
  • Steve Foreshaw – builder, artist, magician and explorer of alien artefacts
  • Matjaz Kljun – researcher of personal information and olive oil maker
  • Layda Gongora – artist, curator, studying improvisation, meditation and wild hair
  • Alan Dix – me

The Great Apple Apartheid

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In days gone by boarding houses and shops had notices saying “Irish and Blacks not welcome“.  These days are happily long past, but today Apple effectively says “poor and rural users not welcome“.

This is a story about Apple and the way its delivery policies exacerbate the digital divide and make the poor poorer.  To be fair, similar stories can be told about other software vendors, and it is hardly news that success in business is often at the expense of the weak and vulnerable.  However, Apple’s decision to deliver Lion predominantly via App store is an iconic example of a growing problem.

I had been using Lion for a little over a week, not downloaded from App Store, but pre-installed on a brand new MacBook Air.  However, whenever I plugged in my iPhone and tried to sync a message appeared saying the iTunes library was created with a newer version of iTunes and so iTunes needed to be updated.  Each time I tried to initiate the update as requested, it started  a long slow download dialogue, but some time later told me that the update had failed.

This at first seemed all a little odd on a brand new machine, but I think the reason is as follows:

  1. When I first initialised the new Air I chose to have it sync data with a Time Machine backup from my previous machine.
  2. The iTunes on the old machine was totally up-to-date due to regular updates.
  3. Apple dealers do not bother to update machines before they are delivered.
  4. The hotel WiFi connection did not have sufficient throughput for a successful update.

From an engineering point of view, the fragility of the iTunes library format is worrying; many will recall the way HyperCard was able to transfer stacks back and forth between versions without loss.  Anyway the paucity of engineering in recent software is a different story!

It is the fact that the hotel WiFi was in sufficient for the update that concerns me here.  It was fast enough to browse the web, without apparent delay, to check email etc.  Part of the problem was that the hotel did offer two levels of service, one (more expensive!) aimed more at heavy multimedia use, so maybe that would have been sufficient.  The essential update for the brand new machine consisted of 1.46 gigabytes of data, so perhaps not surprising the poor connection faltered.

I have been concerned for several years at the ever increasing size of regular software updates, which have increased from 100 Mbytes to now often several Gbytes1.  Usually these happen in the background and I have reasonable broadband at home, so they don’t cause me any problems personally, but I wonder about those with less good broadband, or those whose telephone exchanges do not support broadband at all.  In the UK, this is mainly those outside major urban areas, who are out of reach of cable and fibre super-broadband and reliant on old BT copper lines.  Thinking more broadly across the world, how many in less developed countries or regions will be able to regularly update software?

Of course old versions may well run better on old computers, but without updates it is not just that users cannot benefit from new features, but more critically they are missing essential security updates leaving the vulnerable to attack.

And this is not just a problem for those directly affected, but for us all, as it creates a fertile ground for bot armies to launch denial of service attacks and other forms of cybercrime or cyberterrorism.   Each compromised machine is a future cyberwarrior or cybergangster.

However, the decision of Apple to launch Lion predominantly via App Store has significantly upped the stakes.   Those with slower broadband connections may be able to manage updates, but the full operating system is an order of magnitude larger.  Of course those with slower connections tend to be the poorer, more vulnerable, more marginalised; those without jobs, in rural areas, the elderly.  It is as if Apple has put up a big notice:

“To the poor and weak
we don’t want you“

To be fair, Lion is (one feels grudgingly) also made available on USB drives, but at more than twice the price of the direct download2.  So this is not entirely shutting the door on the poor, but only letting them in if they pay extra.  A tax on poverty.

Of course, this is not a deliberate act of aggression against the weak, just the normal course of business.  The cheapest and easiest way to deliver software, and one that incidentally ensures that all revenue goes to Apple, is through direct online sales.  The USB option adds complexity and cost to the distribution systems and Apple seem to be pricing to discourage use.  This, like so many other ways in which the poor pay more, is just an ‘accident’ of the market economy.

But for a company that prides itself in design, surely things could be done more creatively?

One way would be to split software into two parts.  One small part would be the ‘key’, essential to run it, but very small,  The second part would constitute the bulk of the software, but be unusable without the ‘key’.   The ‘key’ would then be sold solely on the App store, but would be small enough for anyone to download.  The rest would be also made available online, but for free download and with a licence that allows third party distribution (and of course be suitably signed/encrypted to prevent tampering).  Institutions or cybercafes could download it to local networks, entrepreneurs could sell copies on DVD or USB, but competition would mean this would be likely to end up far cheaper than Apple’s USB premium, close to the cost of the medium, with a small margin.

Of course the same method could be used for any software, not just Lion, and indeed even for software updates.

I’m sure Apple could think of alternative, maybe better, solutions.  The problem is just that Apple’s designers, despite inordinate consideration for the appearance and appeal of their products, have simply not thought beyond the kind of users they meet in the malls of Cupertino.

  1. Note, this is not an inevitable consequence of increasing complexity and (itself lamentable) code bloat.  In the past software updates were often delivered as ‘deltas’, the changes between old and new.  It seems that now an ‘update’ is in fact complete copies of entire major components.[back]
  2. At the tiem of wrting tjis Mac OSX LIon is available for  app store for $29.99, but USB thumb drive version is $69.99[back]

trouble in the City – wise as serpents

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It is wonderful to see the conflict over the St Paul’s protest camp resolved at last, but I am left with the sad image of many in the City gloating over this dispute.

I usually find that incompetence and coincidence are better explanations than intrigue and conspiracy, but one wonders here whether there has not been some careful PR management in the background.  Certainly, the effect of the last weeks has been to divert the attention of media and public away from the real issues of the protest: the contrast between growing poverty in the country and increasing wealth in the finance industry, so that even the news of obscene corporate pay rises during the period was sidelined.

Perhaps more significant in the long term has been the weakening of the position of St Paul’s staff who have often been a gentle but persistent critic of the City, long before the protesters camped and will continue to be long after the camp is dissolved and they return to their normal lives or the next cause.

Jesus said “be as wise as serpents, yet harmless as the dove“, but it seems this time the real serpents have won on wisdom.  I just hope that during the coming months the spotlight can shift to where it belongs, and public and press focus on the increasing injustice and disparity not just in the City of London, but across the country and world.

roots – how do we see ourselves spatially

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I was just reading the chapter on Benedict Anderson in “Key Thinkers on Space and Place”1.  Anderson forged the concept of a national imagination, the way nations are as much, or more, a construct of socio-cultural imaginings than physical topography or legal/political sovereignty.

However, this made me wonder whether this conception itself was very culturally specific, to what extent do people relate to nation as opposed to other areas.

I was reminded particularly of a conversation with, the much missed, Pierro Mussio. He explained to me the distinct nature of Italian cultural identity, which tends to focus on regional and local identity before national identity, partly because Italy itself is quite young as a nation state (a mere 150 years in a country which sees itself in terms of millennia). There is even a word “campanilismo”, which is literally relating to the “bell tower” (campanile) in a town, meaning one’s primary loyalties lie to that bell tower, that town, that community.

How do you see yourself?  Are you British or Geordie, French or Parisian, American or New Yorker?

I know I see myself as ‘Welsh’.  Wales is part of Britain, but my Britishness is secondary to Welshness.  I was born and brought up in Bangor Street, Roath Park, Cardiff, but again while the street, area and city are foci of nostalgia, it is the Welshness which seems central.  For Fiona she is Cumbrian (rather than Wetheral, English or British), Steve who is visiting is British, but says his brother would say Scottish, despite both having spent equal amounts of time in Scotland whilst growing up and since.

I asked people on Twitter and got a variety of answers2, most quite broad:

“I always think English rather than British but I don’t have a more specific area to identify with.”

“I think I primarily think of myself as both “Brit” & “northerner”. Lancastrian when differentiating myself from Yorkshire lot!”

“in decreasing granularity I’m a Devoner (south, of course!), west country-er, English, British, European, World-ean.”

Some less clear:

“I’m confused specially. I am Coloradan and American by birth, but feel more at home in England, and miss Scotland.”

“ooh, complicated. I’m British but not English. that’s as specific as I get.”

The last perhaps particularly interesting in its focus on what he is not!

Obviously the way we see ourselves varies.

The choice of a ‘level of granularity’ for location reminds me a little of the way in which we have some sort of typical level in a classification hierarchy (I think Lakoff writes about this); for example you can say “look at that bird”, but not “look at that mammal”, you have to say “look at that dog” or “look at that cat”.  This also varies culturally including subcultures such as dog breeders – saying “look at that dog” in Crufts would hardy sound natural.

Some cities have specific words to refer to their natives: Glaswegian, Geordie, Londoner; others do not – I was brought up in Cardiff, but Cardiffian sounds odd.  Does the presence of a word (Cumbrian, Welsh) make you more likely to see yourselves in those terms, or is it more that it is that, where cities have forged a strong sense of belonging, words naturally emerge … I sense a Sapir-Whorf moment!

Now-a-days this is even more contested as loyalties and identities can be part of networked communities that cut across national and topographical boundaries.  In some way these new patterns of connection reinforce those focusing on human relations rather than physical space as defining countries and communities, but of course in far newer ways.

However, it also made me think of those parts of the world where there are large numbers of people with problematic statehood.  There is how we see ourselves and how states see us.  We tend to define democracy in terms of citizenship, and laud attempts, such as the Arab Spring, that give power to the people … but where ‘people’ means citizens.  In Bahrain the Shite majority are citizens and therefore their views should be considered in terms of democracy, whereas the migrant workers in Libya fleeing the rebels in the early days of the recent Libyan war, or the Palestinians in Kuwait during the first Gulf War were not citizens and therefore marginalised.

Defining citizenship then becomes one of the most powerful methods of control.  This has been used to powerful effect in Estonia leaving some who had lived the country for fifty years effectively stateless, and, while not leaving people stateless, in the UK new rules for electoral registration could leave up to 10 million, principally the young and the poor, voteless.

In the days of the nation state those with loyalties not tied to geography have always been problematic: Gypsies, Jews before the establishment of Israel, the various Saharan nomad trades.  Many of these have been persecuted and continue to suffer across the world, and yet paradoxically in a networked world it seems possible that pan-national identity may one day become the norm.

  1. I’ve got 1st edition, but 2nd edition recently come out.[back]
  2. Many thanks for those who Tweeted responses.[back]

TTW2 – the second Tiree Tech Wave is approaching

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It is a little over a month (3-7 Nov)  until the next Tiree Tech Wave 🙂  However, as I’m going to be off-island most of the time until the end of October, it seems very close indeed!

The first registrations are in, including Clare flying straight here from the US1 and Alessio coming from Madrid; mind you last time Azizah had come all the way from Malaysia, so still looking very parochial in comparison!

While I don’t expect we will be oversubscribed, do ‘book early’ (before Oct 10th) if you intend to come to help us plan things and make sure you get your preferred accommodation (the tent at the end of my garden is draughty in November) and travel.

If you want to take advantage of the island’s watersports, catch me in one place for more than a day, or simply hang out, do take a few extra days before or after the event.  One person has already booked to arrive a couple of days early and others maybe also.

To see what the Tech Wave will be like see the Interfaces report … although it is the people who make the event, so I’m waiting to be surprised again this time round 🙂

Looking forward to seeing you.

  1. In fact guided over the ocean by the ‘golf ball’ on Tiree, which is the North Atlantic civil radar.[back]