Slashdot Mirror
UK Think Tank Calls For Fair Use Of Your Own CDs
jweatherley writes "The BBC reports that a UK think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, has called for the legalization of format shifting. In a report commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, they state that copyright laws are out of date, and that people should have a 'private right to copy' which would allow them to legally copy their own CDs and DVDs on to home computers, laptops and phones. The report goes on to say that: 'it is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers have. That is the job of government.' The report also argues that there is no evidence the current 50-year copyright term is insufficient. The UK music industry is campaigning to extend the copyright term in sound recordings to 95 years."
The only problem with think-tanks is that they're constantly coming up with common sense and good ideas like this, but no one in actual real grown-up government will give a rats ass. They commission a study to show that they care about the issue and then ignore the results. That's politics!
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
Fantastic, wonderful, hope it pushes the government to do something positive (for a change), and relax UK copyright law in the necessary way.
They almost got it right:
'it is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers have. That is the job of government.'
There I was thinking it was the job of society (i.e. the people themselves) to decide what rights people should have, and the job of the government to put into place laws describing and safeguarding (and where appropriate, limiting) those rights.
Guess I'm just getting old.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I'm not sure how accurate the above line from the summary is, since the article seems to contradict it:
It sounds to me as if this report is independent of the Government-run study, but the IPPR are hoping that it will influence it (as the article states).It's not the job of government to decide what rights people have, but to determine what rights they don't have, as by default, if freedom is the natural state of man, it is limitation of the rights of man that must be negotiated and/or dictated.
A single tear just rolled down my cheeks. I never thought i'd see the day...
A million monkeys and this is the best sig they could come up with...
The report goes on to say that: 'it is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers have. That is the job of government...
Well, actually, no... It's a basic human right to be able to access the cultural sphere. The statement above is simply a crypto-fascist bureaucrat's attempt to justify stealing control over cultural access from the music industry and hoarding it for himself.
Now I don't want to all libertarian on ya, and all that, BUT... Being able to listen to music or watch video or interact with any cultural form on a machine that you own is a fundamental and basic right that comes with the purchase of the machine. It's really time to put that concept into the forefront of all discussions of the topic of so-called intellectual property (a contradiction of terms, actually).
No entity, whether governmental, corporate, religious, or whatnot, has a authority (or the 'job') to control people's (that includes you and me and everyone else) access to the common human culture that we share. That we share with ourselves, our ancestors, and all future generations to come.
This is the starting point of all discussions on the subject, not the distant final dream. This is what Thomas Paine must have felt when constructing his work on basic liberty, Common Sense, two hundred plus years ago. This deep inner belief that certain things are basically not negotiable, like the right of people to use computers to access cultural activities in any way that the computers are able to do.
A drug company spends several hundred million to develop, test, and market a drug, and they get less than 20 years until generics can replace them. Milli Vanilli is supposed to get 95 years now? That's fair.
---
When you come to a fork in the road, take it! --Yogi Berra--
The Institute for Public Policy is some sort of progressive leftist lobbying firm. Just calling a spade a spade.
Rights aren't given to anyone by society, government or any corporations -- rights are inherent and they're only protected when we use them even in the face of those who wish to stop us.
Government can jail me, society can tell me to get lost, corporations can sue me -- but I will still use these hands and these ears and this voice as God gave them to me (yes, a religious slashdotter). No one can take them away, and no one can tell me what to do with them. I don't use them to hurt anyone. If I spend time making copies of something, it is my time I am wasting. I could use my hands to make a copy of a mechanical design that is patented -- it might take me thousands of hours, or I could just go and buy it. Some things are difficult to copy, so my time preference says it is better to buy it. I could make a copy of a CD -- it might take me 30 seconds, or I could just go buy it. Time preference works in my favor in this case.
I pay the plumber to fix the toilet -- his current action in front of me is worth my money. I pay the band to perform live for me -- their current action is worth my money. Recording their music on a CD is a great way for them to advertise their abilities to get me to come to their live show, but the CD is worthless. Supply and demand, people. The supply is near infinite (for the recorded music), so the price goes to zero. But the supply of the live band is limited, so the price goes up to meet demand.
'it is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers have. That is the job of government.'
I wholeheartedly support the things they're trying to achieve, but...I would be hard-pressed to find a statement that could be more fundamentally wrong than the above. It's that sort of thinking that's got us in the mess we're in.
The government, in no way whatsoever decides what rights people have. The function of legitimate government is no more or less than to recognize and to protect the rights people have*. The government doesn't grant rights, people have rights because they're people. The government, if anything, limits exercise of rights in the name of social order (don't read anything into this statement that isn't there - I'm not advocating anarchy, this is a legitimate function of government and necessary for society to function).
By ceding the power to government to decide what rights people have, we've opened the door for exactly the kind of abuse that now runs rampant. Government is controlled by money, and huge quantities of money are controlled by the pseudo-citizens we refer to as "corporations." Granting power to government is granting power to corporations.
It would be easy to say that the quote is just verbal shorthand, but I think there's a fundamental difference between the mindset "we have rights, and we delegate some authority to government" and the mindset "the government has authority, and delegates some rights to us" that is exhibited by such a statement.
*To demonstrate this to yourself, consider this: if government grants rights to people rather than people having rights and granting authority to government, then this means that there can be no such thing as a government abuse of rights. After all, if government can legitimately decide what your rights are, then you have no legitimate complaints about government trampling them. And I don't think you really need to look too far from home or too far in the past to find examples that, to me, pretty clearly indicate that the government can trample rights.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
What's a CD? Is that like a "record" that my great-great-grandma threw at my great-great-grandpa when she was drunk?
In Belgium it's 70 after the auther has died, now you try and explain that to me
"It is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers have. That is the job of government."
It's not the government's job to decide our rights. We have rights, they are inalienable. It's the government's job to protect our rights. Protect our rights from corporations which would ignore or destroy them for a buck, or the power to make a buck. And we create our government to protect our rights. Our job is creating and perpetuating that government.
When the founders of the US specified the rights we have that the government would protect, they also made a compromise with the existing economy. The government would promote "the progress of science and useful arts" by granting temporary monopolies - exclusive rights - to authors and inventors of their writings and discoveries. This limitation on freedom of others to copy and use writings and inventions was necessary in the late 1700s, and for many years after. But as the centuries have progressed, those writings and inventions have changed the economy so that "the progress of science and useful arts" is better promoted by more copying, not less. Even if temporary monopolies like copyrights and patents are still necessary, they are necessary for much less time than before. Instead, those monopolies are now extended for much more time, totally unjustified by any necessity to "promote progress".
The original time set in the 1790s was 17 years, a human generation. The next generation that grew up with the writings and inventions could, by the time they became adults and likely started having their own children, use those writings and inventions freely. Writings and inventions passed into the folk art, the folk consciousness, the folk wisdom, the folk heritage, for everyone to use. By which time, most of the value, especially of the writings, was delivered not by the author, but by the audience, the consumers, the people using it and perpetuating it. And any honest author will tell you that the process of adoption of their writings by their people is the most powerful promotion of their useful art.
Maybe the Internet has changed things, along with the rest of communications, manufacturing and distribution tech over the past 200 years. If anything, the lifecycle of content is much shorter before it's "old", either folklore or just obsolete. Likewise with most inventions. The length of copyright and patent exclusion should be, if anything, shorter - maybe 8-10 years, maybe 2-5. Maybe different for different kinds of "writing", whether a news article or an opera. But certainly promotion of progress is much more hurt now by these monopolies.
We still have control over our governments. Except when we ignore that control, and corporations and other greedy monopolists move into the power vacuum. If we don't create governments to protect our rights, we're creating ones to destroy them.
--
make install -not war
In Belgium it's 70 after the auther has died, now you try and explain that to me
It is the same for all countries in the European Union, including the United Kingdom. And every country that ratified the Berne treaty grants at least 50 years after the death of the author. However, this only cover the author's copyright. It does not cover the actual performance, which is covered by separate rights, which are shorter.
This means that the performers that did not write their own songs, and whose performance has been recorded a long time ago, will not earn any revenue if anyone uses those recordings. The only ones earning money will be the authors, if their rights are still valid. For many classical music pieces, this means that there are now available recordings that are fully free of any copyright.
In Belgium it's 70 after the auther has died, now you try and explain that to me
Is that the mechanical copyright or the authors copyright? The mechanical copyright is just the right to copy any particular recording. The author's copyright is the royalties that must be paid to the songwriter to record a new version of the song, or put out a public performance of the song. Generally, the life+70 is for authors, but I'm not sure what Belgian law says re: mechanical copyrights.
Also, most continental European states have a private right of copy which extends considerably further than copying your own CDs for your iPod, etc. Consumers there have the right to perform small scale distribution (ie, copy stuff for family and friends). Wish we in the UK had that level of common sense...
--Ng
I think that the government has virtually* no business in a contract between two parties over a luxury good or service. If an ignorant customer agrees to a stupid contract (the terms of the contract must be clear)* then they only have themselves to blame.
CDs that predate this issue should be placed under the contract made at the time (copyright law). The only issue the government should look at is copyrights which define what constitutes theft of a creation.
This doesn't mean that I am opposed to populism, but the power of democracy and government shouldn't be (ab)used over the use of luxury items. The difference in our opinions is that I see this issue as contract and copyright law, not just the later.
Then again, I'm kind of a hypocrite because I don't define computers as a luxury item and wish to see consumer protection against "trusted computing" occur*.
*The government has business if there are valid safety concerns surrounding the product/service, transaction, or if details of the transaction were not properly disclosed/met.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
Goddamnit, why does every discussion that involves the word 'rights' and a non-US country always have to devolve into an our-constitution-is-bigger-than-your- sucky-parliament-and-can-kick-its-head-in polarised slagging match? If this leads to UK government policy that bars corporations from imposing their DRM bullshit on the UK, then it's a good thing. Otherwise, it's a waste of time. Can we wait and see before jumping down each other throats over who's form of government has the biggest swinging dick?
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
Stevie, time to move in with a couple of chairs and teach them a proper lesson on how you'll be going to f...... bury these guys, and that you've done it before, and you'll do it again.
Come on, man, you know what I mean. You're the best !
"In Soviet Russia, we send man or woman who make shit content to Gulag in Siberia, one-way trip."
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
The only reasonable cause that the UK current dictatorship propose this will be due to them added another 'steath tax'. I beat my last penny there will be a tax introduced on media that is copied - and it will be sourced at purchase.
At last, someone using the word correctly.
After all, the root of ignorant is ignore!
Wikileaks, no DNS
Copyright owner's job (not RIAA) is to decide how a person can use a product. If one decides that the CDs of "New Brave World Records" are going to be listened only on CD-players, then let it be written explicitly on every CD they sell. If "New Brave World Records" is entering a monopolistic agreement with "Clueless Sound" and "Sheep Music" to enforce the same rules on all customers, then the government should interfere and break this monopolistic cartel.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
But IP isn't really a fundamental right, like property. It *is* different. The artifical legal creation of pseudo-property rights was done for a purpose, rather than based on any sort of inherent principle. IP is a form of social engineering. If we do away with that social engineering, we needs must do away with IP. The principles upon which property rights rest don't extend naturally to cover IP. Since the only IP rights that exist where created by government for the purpose of social engineering, then truely it is correct (in this instance) to say that it is the job of governemnt to determine what rights consumers vs producers vs middlemen have.
The US system and UK system are entirely different. In the UK, there is parliamentary sovereignty and no written constitution. There are no courts with the power to overrule any law passed by parliament (no uk version of the supreme court). There are no REAL powers to curb the parliament's will. The House of Lords is mostly symbolic and if it ever stood in parliament's way by making a serious nuisance of itself, parliament could legally abolish it or curb its power further (as they have done throughout the twentieth century). Technically, the crown is supposed to sign off on any legislation passed by parliament (royal ascent), yet they never challenge parliament because if they did, this would probably spell the death-knell of the monarchy. Royal-Ascent is a rubber-stamp. Thus, parliament is entirely sovereign. Any law they pass automatically becomes part of their ever-evolving and expanding constitution. Think of every single law as a constitutional amendment without requiring anyone's review or permission -- except that of the current parliament. They do not require a super-majority, just a simple majority will do. There is no written Bill of Rights. Tony Blair's government recently removed the right-to-remain silent without so much as a public debate and did so in a single afternoon with the stroke of a pen. The right-to-remain silent is now not a right and parliament was entirely within their own rights to do this.
In the Lockean philosophy of the United States constitution, and Declaration of Independence, Parliamentary Sovereignty is a crime and I agree with that view. This is why we fought to free ourselves from the authority of Britain. However, it is naive for people to make such bold assertions as, "It is NOT the role of the government to grant rights", when in fact, it IS the role of government (in the UK) to grant rights and take them away. It is important to accept this reality to better understand such things as why Britain has such high voter-turnout (wouldn't we have high voter turnout if the Pres was chosen by the House, the Senate was only symbolic, There was no Supreme Court and anything a new House passed was part of the constitution?), and important for understanding why there is a movement in Britain to pass a Bill of Rights, Create a codified Constitution, and other issues that pose sticky questions: "Parliament has been ceding its authority to the EU, what happens when the EU asserts its authority over Parliament and Parliament tries to take it's authority back?" Who is sovereign in that situation?. By actually trying to understand the realities of systems of government in other countries, some people might have a better appreciation for what we have in the United States. Here, it is not the role of government to determine our rights, in Britain it is. -- Dave
-- I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous
Actually we do have a written Bill of Rights. We also have courts which are capable of overruling Parliament, as happened recently with control orders. There was also a recent instance, although I can't recall details, in which a court construed an Act as meaning the opposite of its plain reading. However, it's rare for legislation to be struck down except on the grounds of incompatibility with the Human Rights Act.
The British Phonographic Industry Association (Our RIAA) are lobbying for a disney-style extension of copyright, citing artists like Sir Cliff Richard who are about to have their early works go into the public domain (BBC story with details here)
Guess where our Prime Minister Tony Blair went for a free summer holiday? That's right, Cliff Richard's private island in Barbados (another BBC story)
Does anyone want to bet that sanity and common sense will triumph over bribery?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
It's about time. The music industry has no problem changing formats. I can look back at my 45's, FP's, 8-tracks, cassettes, CD, minidisks, etc...... Why do I have to re-buy my music due to the industry changing formats? I can't disagree that I could maintain all my old equipment (8-tracks, cassettes), but why would I want to? Why should I have to? The movie industry is going down the same path... beta, VHS, laserdisk, dvd's, now HD-dvd's. 'bout time!
On my passport it says "British Citizen". These days it's pretty rare to be a "British subject" - see Wikipedia's definitions of british nationalities
We still have Habeus corpus, even for "enemy combatants" and foreigners. I'm not in the UK atm, but I think there's a law been passed that allows holding of suspected terrorists without charge for 90 days recently. It caused quite a fuss, but they can't be tortured during that time, or in fact treated in any way contrary to the Geneva convention.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
In my opinion, if its intangible, then it shouldn't really be part of the economy in the first place. What is _actually_ happening is a portion of the economy is beginning show signs of no longer being relevant. With so much quality content out there for free, people are starting to wonder why they're continuing to shovel money to deified pop stars.
These are not "intangible assets." They are radio signals, waves, energy, which cannot be captured or sold. Stamp it on a CD, dress it up nice, and you've got something to sell. Something tangible you can look at in 50 years and remember (or wonder) why you spent the money.
Then there's the idea that entertainers should actually _perform_ to make their money, instead of selling copies of themselves... but that's just TOO revolutionary
-dave
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
The 1689 Bill of Rights is about protecting Parliament from the Crown. It primarily limits the Crown's interference with Parliament and is the document that essentially set the stage for Parliamentary Supremecy. It is not a Bill of Rights of the people, in the US sense, that lays out the individual rights of citizens and establishes their permanent protections from all forms of government. What the British lack is a Bill of Rights that sets boundaries on the supremacy of Parliament and holds individual liberties above any future acts of parliament.
Furthermore, this was an "Act of Parliament". Under parliamentary sovereignty no previous act of parliament can trump a future act of parliament. This can be overturned by another Act of Parliament until the British establish a Bill of Rights of the people which limits Parliament's sovereignty and binds all future parliament's to its provisions. Parliamentary Sovereignty allowed one Parliament, in 1689, to declare a Bill of Rights for themselves... But even so, Parliamentary Sovereignty allows for any future parliament to abolish this Bill of Rights. If the only thing sustaining any perceived rights in Britain is tradition and each new Parliament's own sense of self-restraint, then how much confidence can a Brit have that it will continue? Afterall, the right to remain silent was sustained for 300 years based on tradition and self-restraint, yet Blair's government tossed both out the window and now that long-held right that was taken for granted is now gone.
-- Dave
-- I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous
The people of the U.S. have pretty much divorced themselves away from the politics of the U.K.; In a more simple statement, "It is none of our business anymore." But there appears to be a universality of common interests when it applies to forms of saved communications. Weather these saved communications are books, CD's, tapes, etc.; They were purchased because of a legal act, and one of the rights of ownership that was transfered is the right to keep, and maintain that ownership. To state, "Do not save, but throw away, and buy another." is to inforce an uninformed orientation. A more wise suggestion would be, "If your item is damaged beyond repair, then it is useful to sell you another." There are libraries filled with both pro and con on this issue, but as our planet shrinks more, and more; Respect for each other's property will, and without fail, become more significant.
Anybody remember how Digital Media started out? It was all "create your own website, make your own music, shoot and edit your own films, bring your creative vision to life". Sort of like DTP applied to all things audiovisual, multimedia and creative. Where is industry taking us now? Pay $$$ for a DRM locked audioplayer, $$$$ for DRM locked HD viewing gear, then lots of $$s for each little chunk of hour long or two hour long formulaic audiovisual content. You can view but you cannot copy. You can view but you cannot modify. You can view but you cannot share. That explains, in my opinion, why the internet landscape is so impoverished of quality audiovisual content today that people hang around viewing junk like what's on Youtube in their millions. P2P has been killed with fear of lawsuits. Indy film/music/games crushed by billion dollar commercial content marketing. What's left, really, is an impoverished landscape of non-participatory, formulaic view-but-don't touch content that is basically just there to pull another two 10 dollar bills out of your pocket.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
I respectfully disagree. Intellectual property is the only form of property that is *not* dependent on government. That is, I only own my house because I have a government document that says it's mine. Nobody, however, can take my ideas from me unless I willingly part with them. Patent/copyrights/trade secret laws just give me different options to monetize my ideas.
Furthermore, this was an "Act of Parliament". Under parliamentary sovereignty no previous act of parliament can trump a future act of parliament. This can be overturned by another Act of Parliament until the British establish a Bill of Rights of the people which limits Parliament's sovereignty and binds all future parliament's to its provisions.
:-)). This is not to decry the magnificence of the US Bill of Rights or the US Constitution. Merely to say that a written constitution has certain advantages, and certain disadvantages, and that a constitution in itself is no guarantor of liberty.
Actually, that's not quite correct. The courts (which are independent of the executive. Well, as independent as any judiciary can be) have long held that there are "ordinary statutes" and "constitutional statutes". And only a new constitutional statute can overturn an existing one. In other words, things like the Human Rights Act, the Representation fo the Peoples Act and the Bill of Rights (along with the Acts of Union, Settlement, etc, etc) must be purposefully overturned. You cannot just stick a rider onto a Fisheries Bill abolishing the right of appeal, or fling in a statutory instrument asserting the right of the executive to have detention without trial. It must be specifically brought forth and voted in by Parliament (all of Parliament, not just the House of Commons).
Afterall, the right to remain silent was sustained for 300 years based on tradition and self-restraint, yet Blair's government tossed both out the window and now that long-held right that was taken for granted is now gone.
Actually, that was the last Conservative government, with Home Secretary Michael Howard introducing the legislation.
In the end, the strength of the US Constitution is only as great as those charged with its defence, and the desire of the US population to see its strictures adhered to. It didn't stop the abomination of slavery - although its power was shown when that institution was finally abolished via constitutional amendment. Similarly, the desire of the US population to refrain from state torture seems to be somewhat ambivalent right now (And we can probably thank "24" for that...
At the moment, liberty is taking a bit of a pounding either side of the Atlantic. But it will reassert itself, and when it does, the centuries of British conventions, traditions and personal desire for liberty will prove just as powerful a force as the US's instruments of state. The British method of government and preservation of liberty isn't as capricious or fragile as one might think from your posting.
--Ng
Besides, as most musicians realize, having a copyright on a song doesn't prevent other people from copying your style, technique, or even creating very similar lyrics.
Whereas a drug company patent makes it possible not only to restrict distribution of a certain drug, but even research along the same lines, if it is too close.
Funny how far I can agree with you, right up to the conclusion.
Intellectual property is the only form of property that is *not* dependent on government. That is, I only own my house because I have a government document that says it's mine.
Yep, I can see that.
Nobody, however, can take my ideas from me unless I willingly part with them.
Yep, I can see that.
However, once you willingly part with them, are they not a part of something other than yourself? Else, what does "part" mean? It is exactly this jump you make to monitizing your ideas where the conflict is located.
What you want to suggest, it seems, is that by expressing your ideas you have placed a constraint on what other people can then admit they are thinking. This is where we disagree. So long as your ideas are in your head they are *yours* and yours alone. So long as you keep them there. Once you tell someone, the idea is in both heads. Whose idea is it then? That you had the idea first doesn't mean that the other person doesn't have the idea, too, now. Yet they didn't deprive you of the idea, it isn't like stealing physical property. This is the difference.
Well...
1) In the UK, there is parliamentary sovereignty and no written constitution
There is no *single* written constitution, but there is Magna Carta (1215), the Bill of rights (1689), the act of settlement (1701), and the Parliament acts (1911, 1949). These collectively form the constitution of the United Kingdom.
As for parliamentary sovereignty, that was effectively removed when the UK joined the EU - the European courts can trump UK law, and people do take cases there. Even without that step, there are cases where UK courts have ordered an act of parliament to be changed, and it has happened.
2) There are no courts with the power to overrule any law passed by parliament (no uk version of the supreme court).
Oh yes there is although they're still readying the building...
3) There are no REAL powers to curb the parliament's will. The House of Lords is mostly symbolic...
To abuse Pauli: "that's not even wrong". The House of Lords has been a critical part of UK parliamentary infrastructure. It has sent bill after bill back to the government for adjustment, and ironically enough is *far* more protective of the "common man" than the government of the day (whichever party is in power). As an overseer of an elected government body, they could do no better.
Of course, the House of Commons can ram legislation through if the Lords reject a bill 3 times, but this causes an immense, very public row. The Lords will quite happily eloquently state their case, or write op-ed pieces for the media saying why they rejected XXX, and since they're usually for very good reasons, politicians have to squirm on live TV interviews; they don't like that, which is why it happens rarely - usually a compromise is struck, or the Lords get their way. For an organisation with seemingly no power, they have a huge impact on UK law.
4) Royal assent (it's "assent" by the way, she's not climbing anywhere)
I'll just point out that just like life-insurance, past-performance is no guarantee of future success - just because royal-assent is only very rarely refused (the last time was 1708), it is still a requirement for any law. It is still a final check-and-balance within the judicial system. It is still very much *not* a rubber-stamp. Reserve powers like these *are* important during times of crisis, eg: the hung parliament example in the link.
If I go on like this, the reply will be miles long. Shortening things a little bit:
5) There is no written Bill of Rights
Yes there is. See above.
6) Tony Blair's government recently removed the right-to-remain silent without so much as a public debate
Apart from the massive public outcry, the weeks of TV coverage, and the end result being that in fact {you can remain silent, but the court is now told that you did} being the result of it all, you mean ?
Most of what you have written in the first paragraph (I'm not going to bother with the second, this reply is long enough, and it seems to be mainly based on the assumptions in the first paragraph anyway) is wrong and/or you've misunderstood the facts. That's not too surprising I guess - it certainly would be a lot easier if everything was collected in one place, and FWIW I'd like a constitution that placed limits on the UK government, but you can't use the above arguments to get there...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
That's not how I read it. From the Wikipedia page:
There are more, but these are very similar in nature (even the Wikipedia article says this) to the US bill of rights.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
England has had a constitution since magna carta. It's just not written down in one big book with carefully written rules about how you alter it. That's what happens when you let politicians, royalty and lawyers poke at something for nearly 800 years. As you say, every act of parliament is part of the constitution. The US executive can amend the US constitution, it just takes time or a large army. If George Bush decided to serve a third term, and the army backed him, how on earth would having the supreme court or a fixed constitution help?
George Bush has killed habeas corpus, given himself broad powers to declare martial law, pissed on free speech (in zones) along with various other offences. The constitution hasn't stopped him, the supreme court hasn't stopped him. Hell, they even pretty much destroyed the right of private property.
Technically speaking, the Human Rights Act 1998 could be regarded as a US-style constitution, as it cedes power to a higher court - that of the European Court of Human Rights. That said, the UK parliament could withdraw from the convention. It would likely cause a conflict within the EU, eventual sanctions against the UK (which we'd just refuse to pay, like the Italian or French government) and possibly might have the UK kicked out of the EU altogether. The UK parliament is still sovereign, it just chooses not to exert that sovereignty in certain ways as it perceives being part of the EU to be more valuable - for the moment.
Some people want a bill of rights, some of us like not having all our laws held up to the moral standards of some 200-odd year old dead guys. Imagine if the British had written a binding constitution that enforced the morals from 800 years ago! Our constitution is a living document, written by politicians with the consent of the (alas still often underinformed) populace. As long as we have elections, we have the power to remove politicians, and replace them with ones that will reverse the legislation of the last lot - something that happens about every 10-15 years. It means that the law is flexible and quickly can adapt to new situations and problems, instead of trying to work round a badly worded sentence (hello, well-armed militias) 220 years later. And if the government tried to remove elections? Well parliament would likely stop them (they're not that stupid, and there's a strong tradition of even the government's own party disagreeing with them when they try something too objectionable) and even if not then, the Queen wouldn't given royal assent. And we're back to which side the army follows again.
In the end of the day, a constitution is only of value if everyone in the chain accepts the artificial rules around it. In those circumstances it doesn't matter if the constitution is something hand-written 220 years ago, or built up mostly as tradition over 800 years - it comes down to the people consenting to be governed (even passive protests can bring down governments) and the army going along with it.
off-topic:
Oh, I'm also not sure what you mean about the 'right to remain silent' bit. There's the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, pre Tony, where police now say when arresting you "'You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.'" You can remain silent, but if you choose to give up that silence only in court, inference can be made from that. That's up to the jury. Perhaps I'm missing something about a right to silence.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
Egads, imagine that, CD sales rebounding!
Record executives publicly humiliated and forced to suffer a return to easy profits.
Ahh, but do you know how many lives could be saved by preventing the spread of Milli Vanilli?!?
Actually, that's not quite correct. The courts (which are independent of the executive. Well, as independent as any judiciary can be) have long held that there are "ordinary statutes" and "constitutional statutes". And only a new constitutional statute can overturn an existing one. In other words, things like the Human Rights Act, the Representation fo the Peoples Act and the Bill of Rights (along with the Acts of Union, Settlement, etc, etc) must be purposefully overturned. You cannot just stick a rider onto a Fisheries Bill abolishing the right of appeal, or fling in a statutory instrument asserting the right of the executive to have detention without trial. It must be specifically brought forth and voted in by Parliament (all of Parliament, not just the House of Commons).
Herein lies one of the frailties. The courts, though they may have "long held", are not the final arbiters of Parliamentary will. A constitutional amendment is still a simple act of Parliament. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_amendm ent They may not strike down a constitutional statute that overturns a previous constitutional statute. Abolishing a constitutional statute, or right, is still done via a simple majority that can practically rest on the determined will of the ruling government in the House of Commons. You say that approval is required from the House of Lords, yet, we both know that the House of Commons has limited the authority of the Lords through legislation and may continue to do so. Again, there is nothing to stop parliament from doing so other than tradition. Without a judiciary that has veto power over parliamentary acts and without a House of Lords that is free from working within the privileges granted them by permission of the Commons, the establishment and removal of constitutional provisions is structurally the same as any piece of legislation. For all practical intents and purposes, a determined House of Commons could still take away any rights you hold dear, even if they had to begin by taking them from the Lords. It could all be done legislatively. A far cry from the protection afforded by a 2/3 majority from both Houses of congress and ratification by 3/4 of the state legislatures.
In the end, the strength of the US Constitution is only as great as those charged with its defence, and the desire of the US population to see its strictures adhered to. It didn't stop the abomination of slavery - although its power was shown when that institution was finally abolished via constitutional amendment.
Actually, British Mercantilism, as it existed during the time of the colonies, depended on cheap imports from the colonies for Britains. The "Atlantic Triangle" involved British slave-ships traveling from Britain to Africa to purchase slaves for their import to the southern colonies for the purposes of producing cheap goods deemed essential to sustaining the British economy. The British created strict rules which required the vast majority of goods produced with slave labor to be imported back to Britain so that the British government would be able to tax the goods, sell them cheaply to their citizens and below-international market rates, and hoard any important raw materials for the British military and prevent the governments of Europe from acquiring them. The goods Britain allowed for resale in Europe were then sent from Britain to the mainland and sold at extremely high rates to ensure that the rest of Europe's economies, particularly that of France, had to bear a significant financial burden to acquire these goods. Slavery was essential to Britain's mercantile system and to helping her gain a militaristic and economic advantage over other European governments. It was England who created and sustained the worldwide economy of Slavery, both in the colonies and in Africa, and institutionalized slavery in the Southern colonies. To pretend the slavery problem was somehow an American inventio
-- I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous
off-topic: Oh, I'm also not sure what you mean about the 'right to remain silent' bit. There's the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, pre Tony, where police now say when arresting you "'You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.'" You can remain silent, but if you choose to give up that silence only in court, inference can be made from that. That's up to the jury. Perhaps I'm missing something about a right to silence.
If one chooses to remain silent in court then their silence can be used by the court to infer your guilt. This hardly allows one the right to remain silent if one's silence carries the penalty of guilt.
-- I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous
The Human Rights Act (1998) came into force on 2000-10-02.
Since then, not only is there a direct equivlaent of the "Bill of Rights" in UK law, but the various UK courts are required to adjudicate upon conflicts between various UK laws and the European Convention on Human Rights.
The courts are entitled to declare actions and Acts of government and Parliament as incompatible with the ECHR. It is unlawful for any public body to act in a manner incompatible with the ECHR under the HRA (1998), and the Act sets out both remedies and penalties for such incompatible actions.
The HRA has real teeth. Donate to Liberty if you want to help make them sharper against the authoritarians still in powerful positions.
Both the HRA and the ECHR are protected from repeal by Parliament by other legislation and the Treaty of Amsterdam, which obliges all signing parties (all EU member states must be signing parties) to hold to the Convention and subject itself to the Court established by it.
The HRA entrenched ECHR in UK jurisprudence. Prior to it, the ECHR acted as a "Bill of Rights" but required pursuit of remedies in Strasbourg as a parallel court system, which was expensive and awkward for all parties.
Undoing the past six years would result in the undoing of now well-established local case law and several new common principles. It would also require the full exit of the UK from both the European Union and the Council of Europe. These are unlikely events, despite the rhetoric from the UKIP and a variety of Tories.
That Parliament could do something in principle does not mean that it can afford to face the consequences of doing so, and legislative voltes face undoing the work of previous governments -- especially when that work was done after developing a broad consensus -- are exceptionally rare.
But see, when people talk about "intellectual property rights" (i.e. copyright), they don't mean you should be able to keep people from pulling ideas out of your head against your will. That's impossible. They mean you should be able to keep people from using or sharing your ideas once you've willingly divulged them, and that is dependent on government, because you have no ability on your own to prevent other people from sharing information with each other.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
It will be interesting to see if we'll also be able to 'format shift' from one DRM format to another. Although DVD is mentioned as a format I wonder if they went further and considered iPod and the like.
Sorry, you're blaming Britain for US slavery despite Britain abolishing slavery a clear half a century ahead of the US and abolishing it throughout the British Empire (a signficant proportion of the world) a couple of decades before the US gave it up?
The British may have introduced slavery for profit making purposes, but it's greedy Americans that chose to keep it.
1. Royal Assent (not "ascent"). Covered earlier. This is now fully "automated", and no monarch has been personally involved in the giving (or denying) of Royal Assent since Victoria. It is not a "rubber-stamp", it is the prerogative of the Prime Minister, and the current Prime Minister has advised the withholding of Royal Assent on mulitple occasions (the most recent in 1999 against a Private Member's Bill).
2. Written Bill of Rights. Covered earlier. UK Human Rights Act (1998) and the accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (which, incidentally, was largely drafted by UK lawyers) in 1953. The UK was in fact one of the first signatories of the Convention.
3. The House of Lords. Parliament consists of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Monarch. The initial theory was that all three parties would be largely co-equal in the legislative process, and this remains mainly the case in some Westminster-type countries such as Canada. The House of Lords has been substantially weakened in its legislative role because the current theory is that the government of the day need only be responsible to the House of Commons (i.e., only the confidence of the Commons is required), and that only the Commons may originate Bills of Supply. Secondarily, the prerogative of elevating commoners to the House of Lords was seized by the Prime Ministers of the 1800s and this was used as a weapon in eliminating the outright veto of the Lords in 1911 by threatening to elevate vast numbers of commoners friendly to David Lloyd George's ministry into the House of Lords in order to support even more drastic changes to the balance of power between the House of Parliament.
Lately there has been a tendency to blunt this prerogative (as is done with the Irish Senate) with a committee who would choose who is elevated into the House of Lords based on some (not necessarily political) merit, as well as real reductions in the hereditary membership of that House. This is likely to change the dynamics between the two Houses yet again, should the new type of member of the House of Lords be able to claim some sort of political legitimacy. Even now, the Lords is far from merely symbolic, as it regularly insists upon amendments to legislation introduced in the House of Commons, and has used its suspensive veto on numerous occasions in the last two Parliaments.
4. There is an actual Supreme Court as of the proclamation of the Constitutional Reform Act (2005). Before this there was still a "supreme court" although it was constituted as a special committee of the House of Lords, and would meet in a committee room of the House of Lords and comprised particular members of the House of Lords (the Law Lords). The establishment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is more an organizational clean-up post Human Rights Act (1998) than a significant Constitutional development on its own.
5. "anything a new House passed was part of the constitution". This is not correct. The Constitution is not consolidated, but it is largely written down. It consists of several well known Acts of Parliament and treaties such as the Act of Settlement (1701) and Magna Carta.
Westminster-type countries with consolidated Constitutions (such as Canada) also have several statuory and treaty instruments which are given "constitutional weight" even though they are not directly part of the document labelled "The Constitution", so this is not unusual. These countries typically have an official amending formula for their Constitution that also applies to these other documents.
Westminster itself does not have a consolidated Constitution, nor a document labelled "The Constitution", nor a uniform amending formula for the other documents of "constitutional weight", however some such documents have their own amending formulas which go beyond a simple majority in the House of Commons (and maybe House of Lords). Others probably cannot be altered without running the risk of such alterations violating other st
It exists, though.
The judicial body with blocking power over Constitutional amendments was the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council prior to the Constutional Reform Act (2005). This function is now mainly in the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
The JCPC is independent of the government of the day, and its membership includes current and previous Lords Chancellors, the current members of the Supreme Court, previous Law Lords, other rebadged Lords of Appeal (Senior Court justices), any Privy Councillor who has been a senior judge, and a variety of others with partial membership in order to deal with canon law and law as it relates to other countries who still use JCPC in their appeals system.
If the JCPC -- or now the Supreme Court -- declares that a statutory instrument is incompatible with the Constitution, or a Constitutional change has been made improperly, then Parliament is bound by that decision. These declarations are published and publicized and considered by more junior judges and lawyers.
Typically the Cabinet will meet with its legal advisors before any major legislation is introduced, precisely to consider the possibility of a reference to and an unfavourable ruling from JCPC or the Supreme Court with respect to constitutionality in terms of conflicts with other documents or the use of the appropriate amending mechanism (which is not guaranteed to be a simple majority in the Commons and maybe the Lords).
No, not against the wishes of the executive, since the Prime Minister has the absolute prerogatives of prorogation, dissolution, and refusal of royal assent. The Prime Minister also effectively controls the military and police through his Cabinet ministers and the Queen in her role of Commander-in-Chief.
It is more likely that a determined executive would ignore both houses of parliament (and the courts).
The major practical check on this is that the Cabinet system appears to encourage bitter infighting and backstabbing among the senior members of the executive such that they more often frustrate each other's power grabs rather than maintaining a common front in organizing a joint one.
In the UK you can buy mp3 players but they're illegal to use except for a small set of music? I know it looks like I'm just repeated what's in the article but it seems so crazy that I can't imagine I've read it correctly. So I need a sanity check. Is this actually what the article is saying?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
After Britain institutionalized slavery in the South by sustaining it and encouraging it during the colonial period, they had helped to create an economic system in the lower half of the United States that had grown entirely dependent on slavery. When the original rough-draft of the declaration was written by Thomas Jefferson, et al., it originally included the following passage
Yes, yes - but what has this to do with the matter at hand? My point was simply that the Constitution allowed slavery to continue (before thankfully abolishing it some 80 years later). And thus it follows that merely having a piece of paper is not enough. I'm well aware of the history of this matter (actually, my reading matter right now is Simon Schama's "Rough Crossings"), and my point wasn't to attack the USA or its Constitution. Just to say that it's just a piece of paper. The strength of the Constitution depends on the will of the American people to cherish it.
Now, with respect to your point about the "frailties" of British liberty (ie, depending on the sovreignty of the Crown-in-Parliament) is the fact that generally the best arbiter of liberty is political stability. Lots of countries have Constitutions which promise just as much as the US one (the Soviet one springs to mind) but political instability have caused their stricture to be abandoned, and atrocity after atrocity to be committed. The reason that the rights enshrined in the US Bill of Rights or Constitution does not depend on American exceptionalism (NB: I'm not saying that you said so either), but on economic prosperity, respect for democratic institutions, etc.
Again, my point is that you're reading the British constitution like it's a designed state. It isn't - but the bonds of tradition, convention and law can't just be pretended away like they are just so much ephemera. The British are really lousy at doing what they're told. Any government which seeks to impose the sorts of tyranny which is theoretically possible would end up out of office within days. It's not tidy and architected - it's organic, it's asymmetric, it's historical - but by and large, it's worked in both England and Scotland for a thousand years - with more than a few bumps on the way. The key is that it works for us. Not that it would work for anyone else (the entire dismal Imperial episode proved that all too well). Of course, we could write a constitution, with guaranteed rights for all, etc, etc. But that in itself wouldn't actually help anyone - not unless the British felt there was a crushing need to rein in the powers of a runaway government - which, for all their whining and bellyaching, they do not currently.
As for the destruction of liberty being done as per a legislative process - let them try. We've killed one King in the UK - the odd Prime Minister really isn't that much of an imaginative leap.
--Ng
As far as I know, the UK charges extra fees for blank media to compensate artists for copying, so you should bloody well be able to copy it. That's not even "fair use", that's paid use.
This is in addition to the fact that UK tax payers and television viewers are subsidizing music and the arts through their mandatory public radio and television fees, as well as grants to the arts.
How many times over are British tax payers supposed to pay for content?
sudden outbreak of common sense... and this cost their taxpayers how much to find out ??
This is *exactly* the nub of the issue. Some people think when they buy a CD, they're buying a physical artifact and can do what they like with it. Some people think when they buy a CD they're agreeing to a EULA-style agreement and the music in question happens to come on a physical CD.
In contract law, currently the latter appears to be considered law in the UK (albeit unenforced in the main), and this thinktank seeks to change it.
If CDs came with a massive (and probably illegal, certainly controversial!) EULA shinkwrap licence then it'd probably do two things: 1) clarify the record label's position on this argument, and 2) hopefully wake up a lot of consumers who would realise what a stupid situation we're in...
The report goes on to say that: 'it is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers have. That is the job of government.'
Holy cow! Did I read that correctly?
Isn't it the PEOPLE who decide what rights THEY have?
Or, to put it another way, isn't it the people who decide what rights the Gubnit can't deny?
"They mean you should be able to keep people from using or sharing your ideas once you've willingly divulged them, and that is dependent on government, because you have no ability on your own to prevent other people from sharing information with each other."
Agreed. The real question is whether said prevention is ethical. You give up freedoms to merge with society in order to gain more than you gave up. So long as the synergy works, the system is a good one. Do we *really* gain more in the long run by bullying people into giving up their natural right to copy a CD, in order to sustain the artifical pseudo-property right that is IP?
Let me be honest and say that I don't know. The thing is that until the question is firmly framed in such a fundamental context, there can't be answers. I insist on framing my questions as I do in hopes that people much smarter (and with research grants) will be intrigued enough to try to answer the real question.
What I find frustrating is people who assume that IP is a natural right. If black is white, and war is peace, then you can't even begin to debate let alone try to make an arguement.