Family Holloway

ActivityPress says that “while commercial publishers work on their project to bring 1000 Great New Zealand ebooks to market, the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre (NZETC) has been quietly working to convert its collection to free downloadable ebooks — 1150 of them available right now.” Works include “The ‘Sure to Rise’ Cookery Book, third edition, 1914 (the Edmonds Cookbook that your great Gran used), The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield, The Maori Volumes I and II by Elsdon Best, The Life of Captain James Cook by J C Beaglehole, My Life by Jean Batten, The Story of a New Zealand River by Jane Mander, Man Alone by John Mulgan, The Godwits Fly by Robin Hyde, and The New Zealanders at Gallipoli by Colonel Fred Waite”

Techdirt reports that “certain industries have used copyright law not for its intended and stated purpose (to promote the progress) but for exactly the opposite reason. It’s been used time and time again as a weapon against progress and innovation, by industries who saw that innovation as a threat to their business model. In the 1980s, Hollywood tried to outlaw the VCR, declaring it “the Boston Strangler” of the movie industry. The reality was exactly the opposite. The VCR helped revitalize the movie industry and provided the fuel that grew the industry throughout the last two decades. Then, a decade ago, the music industry tried to kill the first MP3 players, again insisting that a portable MP3 player would destroy the music industry. Once again, they failed — and once again, their own failure has helped to save them. A recent Harvard study found that the success of the digital music market has grown the overall ecosystem and resulted in much greater output in music.” They are launching the Innovation Movement to help educate people about how old businesses with old business models are restricting art and business models more suited to the modern world.

CWUK reports that “News that the UK government was doing a U-turn over the use of a “three strikes and you’re out” approach has finally turned the growing tragedy of the Digital Britain process into a total farce. For all its faults, at least those putting together the Digital Britain report seemed to understand a fundamental truth: that access to the Internet is now on a par with access to electricity and water – you simply cannot function properly in a modern society without it. Thus its target of providing a minimum access speed of 2Mbits/s to everyone in the UK was a step in the right direction, albeit rather unambitious compared to what other countries like France and South Korea already provide. From that understanding flowed the inevitable conclusion that cutting people’s Internet connection was not a just or proportionate punishment for allegedly swapping copyright materials, any more than cutting someone’s electricity supply would be for watching the TV without a licence, or cutting someone’s water supply would be for brewing illegal spirits.”. More news over at the Guardian who calls the approach “unworkable, unnecessary and potentially illegal”.

BBC reports on yesterdays news that alleged copyright infringers will have their connections terminated. “Politicians on all sides have been split by the proposal, and that Lord Mandleson had reached ‘the wrong conclusion’”. Don Foster has called it “reckless and dangerous. There are many families whose children, unbeknown to them, might be illegally downloading but now their own access could be put in jeopardy by Lord Mandleson’s proposals.” Mr Foster acknowledged that online piracy was “a major problem in the UK” but said overriding the opinion of Lord Carter and two Secretary of States was “bizarre”. The Conservative MP John Whittingdale, who is also chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, said he was broadly supportive of Lord Mandleson’s proposals, but said that he may have inadvertently “killed his own bill”

Radio Wammo reports that “a concern for small independent music producers is the method by which music royalty fees are distributed. Unlike radio there is no record keeping of what is actually played in businesses where royalties are collected. Therefore many independent artists are seeing their royalties go to major label artists. Kristin admits the model is not perfect and it is up for review.” It’s an MP3.

(crossposted from CreativeFreedom.org.nz)

The Independent reports on UK schemes for online culture “Across the world, ordinary people are beginning to realise their stake in the copyright settlement, and demand that legislators act beyond the interests of the incumbent analogue publishers to secure the future of digital cultural production. Not only do the sanctions ultimately risk criminalising a large proportion of UK citizens, but they also attach an unbearable burden on an emerging technology that has the power to transform society, with no guarantees at the end that our artists and our culture will get any richer. A more fruitful path would be to ask why economic and regulatory conditions are not bringing about enough legal alternatives to draw UK consumers away from illicit peer-to-peer sharing. Working on the safe assumptions that (a) people like downloading music from the internet, and (b) most people would prefer not to break the law, we should aim to map a way forward for businesses to take financial advantage of the digital market.”

(crossposted from CreativeFreedom.org.nz)

Earlier this week bFM interviewed Bronwyn Holloway-Smith about the Section 92 dramas, internet termination as a form of punishment, and what the role of a tribunal would be.

Slashdot reports that in Australia “draft legislation has been released that allows network operators to intercept communications to ensure that their networks are being ‘appropriately used.’ Such legislation is particularly important given the interference of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy in a recent copyright lawsuit against iiNet, one of the largest ISPs in the country. Conroy called prominent filtering opponent iiNet’s inaction over copyright infringement ’stunning,’ whereas iiNet claimed that it would be illegal under current Australian law to intercept its users’ downloads.” The latest legislation appears to be a concession of that point.

(crossposted from CreativeFreedom.org.nz)

Techdirt reports that “One of the key points in William Patry’s excellent new book, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars is that the big defenders of stronger and stronger copyrights have taken and twisted the semantics around copyright issues to make it sound like a “war.” It’s a “battle” to “protect your property” against “pirates” who want to “steal” it. They’re using rhetoric to turn what is effectively a business model issue into something like a crusade that has nothing to do with reasoned arguments about how to actually “promote the progress” (the key reason for copyright).

Stuff reports that the CFF are calling for a limit on fines, although it gets it somewhat wrong with the idea that we’re calling for $100 per infringement. To put this in context the Disputes Tribunal have a limit of $15,000, whereas the proposed Copyright Tribunal has no such limit — no maximum that a person might have to pay — so we’re trying to avoid a situation like what happened in the United States of a $3 million dollar fine for sharing 24 songs. We’ve suggested that (1) for the extreme cases there’s a limit of $1,000 and (2) that music and movies fines be based on CD and DVD prices rather than any massive figures. In any case fines would be late in the process and not upon each infringement as infered in the Stuff article. Unfortunately it’s clear that NZFACT are still pushing for internet termination which will harm many innocent people for the actions of a single person. Read the CFF Submission on s92A here. We challenge APRA, RIANZ and NZFACT to make their submissions public so that artists know what’s being done in their name.

Read the CFF Submission here