And the more riots there are, the more chance for the AP et al. to get nice pictures to license out to the tabloids for tomorrow's front pages. Earlier, apparently, Sky News had a ticker thing listing places that didn't have police protection, until importantish people complained and it got taken down. But then, that's what comes from having mainstream media more interested in selling newspapers than anything else.
Today has been a rather different story - Twitter has been used to organise a community-driven clean-up process, with large numbers of people gathering in the damaged areas of London to help fix things and tidy up. #riotcleanup is still trending worldwide, and has been for most of the day, #riotwombles (a wonderful tag) has been used for organising people on the streets, and @riotcleanup has picked up over 70,000 followers today. There's also a sort of website running now.
Social media, the Internet and technology in general are just tools - it's how people use them that matters; and today we've definitely seen them being used for good.
Which was what I was referring to in the final sentence... Although, interestingly, with about 600 arrests so far, and apparently all jail cells in London full, Greater London has about the same incarceration rate as the entire US.
Please don't confuse "Westerners" with "citizens of the United States". Some "Western" countries don't have all that many guns, and significantly lower proportions of the population in prison (which tends to be significantly more civilised) than the US. Of course, one non-US western country is currently suffering from small-scale rioting and looting, so maybe today isn't a good time to argue this point.
I've been reading the headlines on this a couple of days....and I'm still not sure what all the rioting is about? The police shoot someone over there, and they have a riot? What's the deal with that? We don't lose our minds every time someone gets shot over here unless it is something pretty egregious....
I don't know about the rest of you, but personally I'm somewhat pleased that I live in a country where the police kill people rarely enough that it makes the national news and can spark a protest. I'm not sure I'd feel all that safe if I knew the authorities could go around killing people without anyone caring...
Of course, rioting and looting is just so uncivilised....
* DDoS is a crime in both the States and the UK, as is unauthorised access of a computer
Technically, DDoS isn't a crime in the UK - the offence that supposedly covers DDoS is the broader offence of "unauthorised acts with intent to impair, or with recklessness as to impairing, operation of computer etc." under s3 Computer Misuse Act 1990. I think the key word there is "unauthorised". While the recent Meltwater decision might say otherwise, it would seem odd if accessing websites was unauthorised by default, and there are some very interesting legal points in there.
Of course, we won't hear any of these legal points because the individuals won't be able to afford top lawyers, and will probably already have pleaded guilty; possibly to something they didn't actually do (as in some of the file-sharing cases). "Conspiracy to carry out a DDoS attack" sounds like either the journalists getting it wrong or the Police/courts making stuff up because they want more serious charges. However, the hacking stuff does fall under the CMA 1990, but has a maximum sentence of 2 years v the 10 years for the DDoS offence.
My understanding is that Newzbin 2 weren't even given an opportunity to say anything, or told about it. 3rd-party litigation is a major problem wherever it turns up - but that's the price you pay for staying anonymous.
Interestingly, Newzbin1 people turned up at the first trial, and were ripped apart on the witness stand - which is partly why a partial s97A injunction was granted against Newzbin 1 then, (with the site collapsing under legal costs/damages), and this didn't help Newzbin2, where the court assumed it was pretty much the same.
I imagine if Newzbin2 had been called something else, it wouldn't have lost the case today (or been involved at all).
Ah yes - the court found that he wasn't employed and so the s11 copyright ownership thing doesn't apply. Instead the court was willing to imply a term into the contracts between Ainsworth and Lucasfilm's people that any copyrights, design rights etc. would be owned by Lucasfilm. This is a fairly standard thing the Courts do in contract law (at least, as a first-year contract law student, it's something I've actually covered) - where a term can be implied into a contract through trade custom etc..
But, of course, this didn't matter as all three courts found that there was no copyright (in the helmets). Lucasfilm did, however, own the copyright in the Ralph McQuarrie sketches and the draft designs.
The relevant paragraphs are 182 - 189 in the HC judgment, and 196 - 208 in the CoA one.
Because extradition involves criminal law - this was a civil action.
But yes, if they have the same influence with the US's ICE et al. as Disney, they could probably make a complaint for various criminal offences, get his domain name seized and have him extradited. Of course, the difference between Ainsworth and O'Dwyer is that Ainsworth has enough money to hire a QC for a Supreme Court trial, while O'Dwyer is an impoverished student. Somehow I think that any attempt to extradite Ainsworth or seize his website will run into trouble.
Actually, the judges ruled that there wasn't any copyright in the armour in the first place. Just a design right (which is a different thing). There's copyright in the plans/design sketches/films, but they aren't infringed by making things from them (s51, CDPA).
He doesn't need to counter-sue for court costs... it's usually standard procedure in UK courts that the loser pays all anyway.
In this case, Lucas just showed up and bought some stuff from a shop. The shop had no affiliation with Lucas except to sell him what he bought (without a contract). As a result, the intellectual property is covered by the 15 year copyright.
No, no and no. Lucas entered into a contract with Ainsworth. They provided him with design sketches (covered by full life+70 copyright, owned by Lucasfilm due to employment of the designers) and a clay mock-up, and he turned them into mass-produced plastic props (with some minor design alterations). While Ainsworth claimed copyright over the stuff, this claim was dismissed quickly.
Today's judgment was whether or not there was any copyright at all in the armour. It was held that they weren't sculptures but utilitarian objects (used in the making of a film) and so there wasn't any copyright at all in the armour itself. There was a design right (which isn't a copyright) but that lasts 15 years so is long gone. There is copyright in the original sketches (and the films), and that might be infringed by making the Stormtrooper armour now... but for the s51 defence in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 that says it isn't an infringement of copyright in plans etc. to make something from those plans.
The effect of the ruling is that anyone can make replicas of any props etc. from films etc. more than 15 years old, in the UK, without fear of legal action, provided there is no issue with trademarks, passing off or copyright in details (such as particularly artistic surface designs).
The point of the ruling is that he wasn't a sculptor. If he was, he would have lost. He merely built props from designs provided.
Props, being utilitarian objects, aren't covered by copyright in the UK. So there's no issue with copyright at all....
Props may be covered by design rights, but they expire after 15 years in the UK, so are long-gone and not applicable. Where's the problem here? There's nothing stopping Lucasfilm from making stormtrooper armour and selling it themselves. With an "official" stamp to make even more money.
Also, where does government come into this? It's a ruling from the Supreme Court, which is very strongly separated from the government. And business has this massive government-sponsored monopoly called copyright in the first place... does it really need even more help?
I've explained some of this above, but... basically, go away and read the High Court judgment - Mann J explains it all in quite a lot of detail. The court found that, on the balance of probabilities, Lucasfilm owned the design rights and copyrights in the props and the sketches for the props. Ainsworth argued that he made up the armour himself, Lucasfilm successfully argued (with evidence) that any input to the design he might have had was not substantial.
Much of the High Court judgment was taken up arguing this (as Ainsworth was counter-claiming that *he* owned the copyright in the helmet), but it was ruled that if there were any copyright or design rights they would be owned by Lucasfilm as there are presumptions about employers etc. owning things, and the evidence suggested that Ainsworth had only made minor modifications to the original designs, and these had all be approved by someone at Lucasfilm, possibly Lucas himself. [You can read the HC judgment here.]
However, the court found that the helmet (and the other props he sells) weren't sculptures, so not covered by copyright at all in the UK (the design right they're covered by expires after 15 years). While there are copyrights etc. owned by Lucasfilm in the sketches, plans, drawings for the helmet (and in the films, of course), there is a specific exception to UK copyright law (under s51, CDPA) for making models from plans - this doesn't infringe copyright in the plans (otherwise you'd need a licence for every set of flat-pack furniture or Lego model).
The original designs and costumes were utilitarian in that they were used to make the film. It seems that props are now classed as things-used-to-make-a-film rather than sculptures in their own right. UK copyright and design law is something of a mess... (Buildings are still covered by copyright as architectural thingamies).
Yes - and the original English High Court case also concerned several other helmet designs. They just went with the stormtrooper helmet in the appeal courts (and press) because it was the most obvious, and the law applies the same to all of them.
The High Court judgment included an appendix with some of the original concept art and stills of models used as evidence and to describe the different models.
What about the Liberal Democrats? They've polled around 20% of the vote for a while, have 57 seats in Parliament,...
They may have got 23% of the vote (a record), but that only turned in to 57 seats out of 650 - or less than 9%. Also down 5 seats from the previous Parliament. In terms of number of votes in the Commons, the Lib Dems have no real say compared with the Conservatives (47% of seats) or Labour (40%). The only reason they have any power is because the Conservatives needed an extra 20 seats to get an absolute majority for forcing through budgets etc. - which allows them to get some concessions (such as a deputy PM and various cabinet ministers) that are vastly disproportionate to their voting power.
The ends result might be good (in terms of a balanced government) but I'm not convinced it's all that democratic.
They needed to do an experiment to figure this out?
Yes. That's what makes it science rather than gossip or hearsay. Science is when you take a hypothesis (whether accepted by the public; "fake 3D hurts people's brains" or not; "time varies with speed and gravitational field strength") and test it rigorously, trying to eliminate all other variables. Just because something is commonly accepted as being true (or even worse, "it's just obvious") doesn't make it true; it still needs proving (to the relevant degree).
It seems there are thee attitudes to a scientific discovery from the "armchair scientist"; if it agrees with his preconceptions, it's obvious, so the scientists were being silly for (and wasteful) testing something that we all knew already. If it disagrees, the scientists are wrong, they've just made mistakes which come from living in their ivory towers. If it's on something that he hasn't thought about, it's an example of scientists wasting their time on theoretical nonsense that doesn't really matter.
Is it any wonder we live in a world dominated by politics and marketing (not that the two are that different) rather than logic and science?
Doesn't that assume the criminal investigations will actually get anywhere, not just conclude there wasn't any wrongdoing? Maybe with some senior police officers being paid off. There's a reason the UK Parliament has had to get involved (not that they can do much good either).
I'm all for using the legal methods of obtaining justice, rather than resorting to illegal "vigilantism" but, personally, I'm rapidly losing faith in 2 of the 3 key elements of the legal justice system in the UK; the police services and Parliament. Particularly when it comes to big media.
Not unchecked powers - only in May an English court told the police off for acting illegally by keeping someone under arrest for more than 4 days (the legal limit) without charging them.
Of course, the police complained about the "bizarre" ruling, claiming it would lead to the release of 80,000 criminals (or rather, suspects) including "murderers, rapists and paedophiles" (interestingly, only two of those are criminal) and asked the government to change the law, completely overriding established constitutional principles. Oh, and it has taken 25 years for someone to spot that what they've been doing was illegal.
It took a week for the bill to get through the UK Parliament.
My understanding of the charges is that they're not actually charges; he is merely wanted for questioning in connection with events. From what I recall, that was one of the grounds of the challenge to the EAW; i.e. they weren't trying to extradite him to face charges. This may be because when they to charge him, they will have to provide his defence team with all their evidence, at which point the entire case is likely to collapse and the English court won't make him leave. Instead, they're extraditing him for questioning, then once he gets to Sweden they can lay charges and lock him up, in solitary confinement, while they drag out the legal process (and maybe hand him over to the US).
Of course, this is mostly speculative - sadly I wasn't in the courtroom today or yesterday - iirc it was journalists by invitation only...
In the UK, if you are questioned for a major crime, even as a witness, and a DNA sample is taken, you are on the database for life. You don't have to do the crime, you have to live within a few streets of someone might have done the crime.
This should be changing soon (if the politicians ever get around to that Protection of Freedoms Bill) because the Courts (now both the ECHR and Supreme Court) have said that this is illegal. Unfortunately, the court decided not to do anything (like punishing the police, or demanding that data be destroyed) until Parliament had their say.... and people say the Courts have no respect for Parliamentary Sovereignty.
[If you're really interested, I wrote something up for PPUk on this, here.]
I imagine that after child porn, there will be influential pressure groups demanding the blocking of the following:
- Sites aiding or promoting copyright infringement.
The UK has had some form of child-abuse-images Internet filter since 2004ish. BT, the UK's largest ISP, was dragged before a Court this week by the MPA et al., guess what [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13927335]they wanted to be added to the filter[/url]...
Fortunately, BT never really wanted to use this sort of filtering in the first place, but was forced into it by politicians, so they're opposing it. This time...
Don't be silly - it can't be a government agency. If it is part of the government it might count as a "public authority" and be open to Judicial Reviews of its decision and be bound by the Human Rights Act. Any government agency running public censorship will be dragged before the courts (either in London or Strasbourg; possibly Luxembourg) in days.
Far better to ask ISPs to set up a private organisation to do this, make it voluntary to implement, then threaten ISPs with legislation if they don't "volunteer".
Hopefully the ISPs won't fall for it this time; partly as "think of our profits" isn't quite as convincing an argument for the tabloids as "think of the children" - not that I wouldn't put it past them to run with it.
Slashdot Mirror
And the more riots there are, the more chance for the AP et al. to get nice pictures to license out to the tabloids for tomorrow's front pages. Earlier, apparently, Sky News had a ticker thing listing places that didn't have police protection, until importantish people complained and it got taken down. But then, that's what comes from having mainstream media more interested in selling newspapers than anything else.
Today has been a rather different story - Twitter has been used to organise a community-driven clean-up process, with large numbers of people gathering in the damaged areas of London to help fix things and tidy up. #riotcleanup is still trending worldwide, and has been for most of the day, #riotwombles (a wonderful tag) has been used for organising people on the streets, and @riotcleanup has picked up over 70,000 followers today. There's also a sort of website running now.
Social media, the Internet and technology in general are just tools - it's how people use them that matters; and today we've definitely seen them being used for good.
Which was what I was referring to in the final sentence... Although, interestingly, with about 600 arrests so far, and apparently all jail cells in London full, Greater London has about the same incarceration rate as the entire US.
Please don't confuse "Westerners" with "citizens of the United States". Some "Western" countries don't have all that many guns, and significantly lower proportions of the population in prison (which tends to be significantly more civilised) than the US. Of course, one non-US western country is currently suffering from small-scale rioting and looting, so maybe today isn't a good time to argue this point.
I've been reading the headlines on this a couple of days....and I'm still not sure what all the rioting is about?
The police shoot someone over there, and they have a riot? What's the deal with that?
We don't lose our minds every time someone gets shot over here unless it is something pretty egregious....
I don't know about the rest of you, but personally I'm somewhat pleased that I live in a country where the police kill people rarely enough that it makes the national news and can spark a protest. I'm not sure I'd feel all that safe if I knew the authorities could go around killing people without anyone caring...
Of course, rioting and looting is just so uncivilised....
* DDoS is a crime in both the States and the UK, as is unauthorised access of a computer
Technically, DDoS isn't a crime in the UK - the offence that supposedly covers DDoS is the broader offence of "unauthorised acts with intent to impair, or with recklessness as to impairing, operation of computer etc." under s3 Computer Misuse Act 1990. I think the key word there is "unauthorised". While the recent Meltwater decision might say otherwise, it would seem odd if accessing websites was unauthorised by default, and there are some very interesting legal points in there.
Of course, we won't hear any of these legal points because the individuals won't be able to afford top lawyers, and will probably already have pleaded guilty; possibly to something they didn't actually do (as in some of the file-sharing cases). "Conspiracy to carry out a DDoS attack" sounds like either the journalists getting it wrong or the Police/courts making stuff up because they want more serious charges. However, the hacking stuff does fall under the CMA 1990, but has a maximum sentence of 2 years v the 10 years for the DDoS offence.
[For the record, Ianaly.]
My understanding is that Newzbin 2 weren't even given an opportunity to say anything, or told about it. 3rd-party litigation is a major problem wherever it turns up - but that's the price you pay for staying anonymous.
Interestingly, Newzbin1 people turned up at the first trial, and were ripped apart on the witness stand - which is partly why a partial s97A injunction was granted against Newzbin 1 then, (with the site collapsing under legal costs/damages), and this didn't help Newzbin2, where the court assumed it was pretty much the same.
I imagine if Newzbin2 had been called something else, it wouldn't have lost the case today (or been involved at all).
Ah yes - the court found that he wasn't employed and so the s11 copyright ownership thing doesn't apply. Instead the court was willing to imply a term into the contracts between Ainsworth and Lucasfilm's people that any copyrights, design rights etc. would be owned by Lucasfilm. This is a fairly standard thing the Courts do in contract law (at least, as a first-year contract law student, it's something I've actually covered) - where a term can be implied into a contract through trade custom etc..
But, of course, this didn't matter as all three courts found that there was no copyright (in the helmets). Lucasfilm did, however, own the copyright in the Ralph McQuarrie sketches and the draft designs.
The relevant paragraphs are 182 - 189 in the HC judgment, and 196 - 208 in the CoA one.
Because extradition involves criminal law - this was a civil action.
But yes, if they have the same influence with the US's ICE et al. as Disney, they could probably make a complaint for various criminal offences, get his domain name seized and have him extradited. Of course, the difference between Ainsworth and O'Dwyer is that Ainsworth has enough money to hire a QC for a Supreme Court trial, while O'Dwyer is an impoverished student. Somehow I think that any attempt to extradite Ainsworth or seize his website will run into trouble.
Actually, the judges ruled that there wasn't any copyright in the armour in the first place. Just a design right (which is a different thing). There's copyright in the plans/design sketches/films, but they aren't infringed by making things from them (s51, CDPA).
He doesn't need to counter-sue for court costs... it's usually standard procedure in UK courts that the loser pays all anyway.
In this case, Lucas just showed up and bought some stuff from a shop. The shop had no affiliation with Lucas except to sell him what he bought (without a contract). As a result, the intellectual property is covered by the 15 year copyright.
No, no and no.
Lucas entered into a contract with Ainsworth. They provided him with design sketches (covered by full life+70 copyright, owned by Lucasfilm due to employment of the designers) and a clay mock-up, and he turned them into mass-produced plastic props (with some minor design alterations). While Ainsworth claimed copyright over the stuff, this claim was dismissed quickly.
Today's judgment was whether or not there was any copyright at all in the armour. It was held that they weren't sculptures but utilitarian objects (used in the making of a film) and so there wasn't any copyright at all in the armour itself. There was a design right (which isn't a copyright) but that lasts 15 years so is long gone. There is copyright in the original sketches (and the films), and that might be infringed by making the Stormtrooper armour now ... but for the s51 defence in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 that says it isn't an infringement of copyright in plans etc. to make something from those plans.
The effect of the ruling is that anyone can make replicas of any props etc. from films etc. more than 15 years old, in the UK, without fear of legal action, provided there is no issue with trademarks, passing off or copyright in details (such as particularly artistic surface designs).
The point of the ruling is that he wasn't a sculptor. If he was, he would have lost. He merely built props from designs provided.
Props, being utilitarian objects, aren't covered by copyright in the UK. So there's no issue with copyright at all....
Props may be covered by design rights, but they expire after 15 years in the UK, so are long-gone and not applicable. Where's the problem here? There's nothing stopping Lucasfilm from making stormtrooper armour and selling it themselves. With an "official" stamp to make even more money.
Also, where does government come into this? It's a ruling from the Supreme Court, which is very strongly separated from the government. And business has this massive government-sponsored monopoly called copyright in the first place... does it really need even more help?
If you want to know the details, the three UK judgements are all publicly available (under Crown Copyright).
The first instance High Court judgment contains most of the details, facts, evidence and arguments: Lucasfilm Ltd & Ors v Ainsworth & Anor [2008] EWHC 1878 (Ch) (July 2008)
The Court of Appeal judgment covers a few of the issues raised above (those which were appealed) in greater detail: Lucasfilm Ltd & Ors v Ainsworth & Anor [2009] EWCA Civ 1328 (December 2009)
The Supreme Court judgment looks only at the issues of sculpture/utilitarian use and jurisdiction - but in even more detail: Lucasfilm Ltd & Ors v Ainsworth & Anor [2011] UKSC 39 (July 2011)
I've explained some of this above, but ... basically, go away and read the High Court judgment - Mann J explains it all in quite a lot of detail. The court found that, on the balance of probabilities, Lucasfilm owned the design rights and copyrights in the props and the sketches for the props. Ainsworth argued that he made up the armour himself, Lucasfilm successfully argued (with evidence) that any input to the design he might have had was not substantial.
Much of the High Court judgment was taken up arguing this (as Ainsworth was counter-claiming that *he* owned the copyright in the helmet), but it was ruled that if there were any copyright or design rights they would be owned by Lucasfilm as there are presumptions about employers etc. owning things, and the evidence suggested that Ainsworth had only made minor modifications to the original designs, and these had all be approved by someone at Lucasfilm, possibly Lucas himself. [You can read the HC judgment here.]
However, the court found that the helmet (and the other props he sells) weren't sculptures, so not covered by copyright at all in the UK (the design right they're covered by expires after 15 years). While there are copyrights etc. owned by Lucasfilm in the sketches, plans, drawings for the helmet (and in the films, of course), there is a specific exception to UK copyright law (under s51, CDPA) for making models from plans - this doesn't infringe copyright in the plans (otherwise you'd need a licence for every set of flat-pack furniture or Lego model).
The original designs and costumes were utilitarian in that they were used to make the film. It seems that props are now classed as things-used-to-make-a-film rather than sculptures in their own right. UK copyright and design law is something of a mess... (Buildings are still covered by copyright as architectural thingamies).
Yes - and the original English High Court case also concerned several other helmet designs. They just went with the stormtrooper helmet in the appeal courts (and press) because it was the most obvious, and the law applies the same to all of them.
The High Court judgment included an appendix with some of the original concept art and stills of models used as evidence and to describe the different models.
What about the Liberal Democrats? They've polled around 20% of the vote for a while, have 57 seats in Parliament,...
They may have got 23% of the vote (a record), but that only turned in to 57 seats out of 650 - or less than 9%. Also down 5 seats from the previous Parliament. In terms of number of votes in the Commons, the Lib Dems have no real say compared with the Conservatives (47% of seats) or Labour (40%). The only reason they have any power is because the Conservatives needed an extra 20 seats to get an absolute majority for forcing through budgets etc. - which allows them to get some concessions (such as a deputy PM and various cabinet ministers) that are vastly disproportionate to their voting power.
The ends result might be good (in terms of a balanced government) but I'm not convinced it's all that democratic.
They needed to do an experiment to figure this out?
Yes. That's what makes it science rather than gossip or hearsay.
Science is when you take a hypothesis (whether accepted by the public; "fake 3D hurts people's brains" or not; "time varies with speed and gravitational field strength") and test it rigorously, trying to eliminate all other variables. Just because something is commonly accepted as being true (or even worse, "it's just obvious") doesn't make it true; it still needs proving (to the relevant degree).
It seems there are thee attitudes to a scientific discovery from the "armchair scientist"; if it agrees with his preconceptions, it's obvious, so the scientists were being silly for (and wasteful) testing something that we all knew already. If it disagrees, the scientists are wrong, they've just made mistakes which come from living in their ivory towers. If it's on something that he hasn't thought about, it's an example of scientists wasting their time on theoretical nonsense that doesn't really matter.
Is it any wonder we live in a world dominated by politics and marketing (not that the two are that different) rather than logic and science?
Doesn't that assume the criminal investigations will actually get anywhere, not just conclude there wasn't any wrongdoing? Maybe with some senior police officers being paid off. There's a reason the UK Parliament has had to get involved (not that they can do much good either).
I'm all for using the legal methods of obtaining justice, rather than resorting to illegal "vigilantism" but, personally, I'm rapidly losing faith in 2 of the 3 key elements of the legal justice system in the UK; the police services and Parliament. Particularly when it comes to big media.
Not unchecked powers - only in May an English court told the police off for acting illegally by keeping someone under arrest for more than 4 days (the legal limit) without charging them.
Of course, the police complained about the "bizarre" ruling, claiming it would lead to the release of 80,000 criminals (or rather, suspects) including "murderers, rapists and paedophiles" (interestingly, only two of those are criminal) and asked the government to change the law, completely overriding established constitutional principles. Oh, and it has taken 25 years for someone to spot that what they've been doing was illegal.
It took a week for the bill to get through the UK Parliament.
Sources:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13970159
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009917/Emergency-bail-law-needed-says-Policing-Minister-Nick-Herbert.html
http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/policedetentionandbail.html
My understanding of the charges is that they're not actually charges; he is merely wanted for questioning in connection with events. From what I recall, that was one of the grounds of the challenge to the EAW; i.e. they weren't trying to extradite him to face charges. This may be because when they to charge him, they will have to provide his defence team with all their evidence, at which point the entire case is likely to collapse and the English court won't make him leave. Instead, they're extraditing him for questioning, then once he gets to Sweden they can lay charges and lock him up, in solitary confinement, while they drag out the legal process (and maybe hand him over to the US).
Of course, this is mostly speculative - sadly I wasn't in the courtroom today or yesterday - iirc it was journalists by invitation only...
In the UK, if you are questioned for a major crime, even as a witness, and a DNA sample is taken, you are on the database for life. You don't have to do the crime, you have to live within a few streets of someone might have done the crime.
This should be changing soon (if the politicians ever get around to that Protection of Freedoms Bill) because the Courts (now both the ECHR and Supreme Court) have said that this is illegal. Unfortunately, the court decided not to do anything (like punishing the police, or demanding that data be destroyed) until Parliament had their say. ... and people say the Courts have no respect for Parliamentary Sovereignty.
[If you're really interested, I wrote something up for PPUk on this, here.]
I imagine that after child porn, there will be influential pressure groups demanding the blocking of the following:
- Sites aiding or promoting copyright infringement.
The UK has had some form of child-abuse-images Internet filter since 2004ish. BT, the UK's largest ISP, was dragged before a Court this week by the MPA et al., guess what [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13927335]they wanted to be added to the filter[/url]...
Fortunately, BT never really wanted to use this sort of filtering in the first place, but was forced into it by politicians, so they're opposing it. This time...
Don't be silly - it can't be a government agency. If it is part of the government it might count as a "public authority" and be open to Judicial Reviews of its decision and be bound by the Human Rights Act. Any government agency running public censorship will be dragged before the courts (either in London or Strasbourg; possibly Luxembourg) in days.
Far better to ask ISPs to set up a private organisation to do this, make it voluntary to implement, then threaten ISPs with legislation if they don't "volunteer".
Hopefully the ISPs won't fall for it this time; partly as "think of our profits" isn't quite as convincing an argument for the tabloids as "think of the children" - not that I wouldn't put it past them to run with it.