…meanwhile, 95 years later

copyright

When you create something in artistic format such as a piece of writing or music, you automatically get protection to use that creation how you wish without anyone necessarily being able to use it without your permission. This protection is known as copyright and allows the author to exploit their hard work and try and make money from it. The format that you create the piece of work determines how long the protection lasts for – it is not forever – and this duration has been at the heart of some quite strong discussion recently.

Looking specifically at music, to quote the Patent Office website:

Copyright exists in your original music composition or score for your life plus 70 years from the end of the year of your death. The same length of time applies for the lyrics, whereas the sound recording only lasts for 50 years from the end of the year in which it was made or, if published in this time, 50 years from the end of the year of publication. If not published during that 50 year period, but it is played in public or communicated to the public during that period, then copyright will last for 50 years from when this happens.

A socialist might ask why is there a duration at all whilst a capitalist would ask why is it not longer? The two extremes, whilst not really a fair description of the representatives of the two sides of the argument, do allow some form of reasoning to be applied to a) why there is a duration at all and b) why the number of years is set as it is.

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Petition the PM

Petition the PM

Today I was impressed by the government. It doesn’t happen often, but today it did. What was impressed by? I was linked to an online petition through the Open Rights Group I am a member of, hosted by the Downing Street website. I went on to discover that the website is running a trial of an online, automated petition system that allows any British Citizen to submit a petition to Downing Street and let any other British Citizen electronically sign it.

Petitions have long been sent to the Prime Minister by post or delivered to the Number 10 door in person. You can now both create and sign petitions on this website too, giving you the opportunity to reach a potentially wider audience and to deliver your petition directly to Downing Street.

The system is run by mySociety and the software used is open source and can be downloaded by anyone.

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A week of morality

A week of morality

David Mytton is having a kind of themed week on his blog. On Monday, today and Friday he is posting a discussion/analysis of certain moral questions interspaced by two posts yesterday and tomorrow with business advice.

On Monday the topic was:

Is there any difference between lying to someone and withholding something from someone?

and today the post is:

If a friend did something illegal, would you inform the appropriate authorities?

Thoughtcrime

Thoughtcrime

The latest post by Geeklawyer, specifically the first paragraph, caused me to think about the differences between inciting hatred and violence.

Geeklawyer is glad that the ultra right wing extremist British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin was acquitted of charges of using words or behaviour intended to stir up racial hatred. He is of the view that only speech which incites, or is genuinely immediately likely to do so, violence & discrimination should be unlawful. If hating $(todays_unpopular_group) is lawful, and even this government is not proposing to make it illegal to hate Muslims, then inciting hatred should not be an offence either. Inciting violence yes, inciting opinions no. Criminalising incitement because it makes it easier to prevent violence is not the answer since it has knock on effects on free speech.

What is basically being said here is that hate is a feeling and/or opinion – it is not something physical and is many cases results in no detriment to the hated object so far as physical action is concerned. In the UK we have the right to free speech and so we can enjoy hating whatever or whoever we want without fear of being arrested. Even when the hatred is voiced it still counts as opinion and we still have the right to freely say what we want.

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The God Delusion

The God Delusion

…the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;

This is an interesting quote from a treaty with Tripoli, drafted in 1796 under George Washington and signed by John Adams in 1797 (the first president and vice president respectively) because the common perception is that America is perhaps the most religious country in the world. This may or may not be correct, but as the BBC reported:

A survey done in 2001 by the City University of New York Graduate Center found that 85% of Americans identify with some religious faith. In contrast, in Canada and the United Kingdom, two societies often perceived as quite similar to the United States, only 28% and 17% respectively described religion as similarly important in their lives.

This clearly presents us with a paradox – despite the founding of the USA as a secular country, religion has far more of a part in daily life than in England where the entire constitution is based around a central church, a monarch as head of state and religion influencing many aspects of society including law and education.

Over the last few weeks I have been reading the latest book by Richard Dawkins, Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. Previously, I have read The Blind Watchmaker which goes into great biological detail about evolution, with the specific intention of countering creationism – and it does a very good job. So based on my experiences with that title, I immediately purchased a copy of The God Delusion which takes aspects from all of his books and presents them in a logical format in order to completely disprove religion.

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Expression

Expression

In English Language A Level you look at various aspects of the English language, one of which being comparing the types of form – i.e. spoken and written language. This includes looking at the features of each and comparing them. One of the “advantages” of written language that is highlighted during any comparison is its permanence in the sense that when something is spoken, unless you record it, it is lost, but something written is usually pretty permanent.

I enjoy writing and the written form is my favourite method of expressing myself. I find it easy to write down something – a description, a commentary, an answer to a question or my thoughts about something. I find that it allows me to logically transcribe what I’m thinking and arrange my ideas and thoughts effectively.

Usually, when I write something such as a blog post or an essay, I will sit and think for a few moments about how I want to start the first paragraph and then I will start writing. I rarely plan – I just start writing and the rest of the text just flows naturally. After I have written out the first draft, I will reread it several times adjusting phrases, updating grammar and perhaps rearranging a few sentences or adding some additional detail. Despite not planning I don’t find that I need to rewrite anything. I can only remember one or two instances where I have written something out for a blog post and then not posted it at all, and those were on a different blog about personal topics.

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Religious Dress

Religious Dress

It is currently Reading week – a time to read. Yeah. Or something like that.

In addition to reading, we have been set a short assignment to comment on a case we have been looking at in Constitutional & Administrative Law, an assignment I have just completed and am now going to republish here:

Read the Court of Appeal decision of Brooke LJ, and the House of Lords decision of Baroness Hale, in Begum v Denbigh High School. In your opinion, how should this case have been decided and why.

The UK is not secular – throughout the country there exist schools run by the church, Religious Education is part of the national curriculum and religious dress is often incorporated into uniform policy. Indeed, the history of the UK revolves around religion and the influence of the Church of English, and now increasingly the religious beliefs of a wide variety of faiths. In contrast, the United States (and many countries in Europe) operates a secular educational system to allow the state to appear neutral. However, despite this, an interesting paradox exists in that the US “is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England is among the least”[1] . This is particularly the case when the President of the USA himself openly states that “he [is] driven with a mission from God”[2] which goes against the original non-religious founding beliefs of the American government.

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The Perfect Example

detention-without-trial

When I showed the Military Commission article on The Register to one of my friends yesterday he said that it’s a sign of things to come here in the UK. I disgreed because in the UK we do have an effective parliament and safeguards in place. The government might try and instigate the likes of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill but they have so far, and I hope always will, fail.

Another perfect example of how this is the case is when the detention without trial idea was suggested only to be scrapped because it is against human rights laws. It’s ironic that it was this Labor government that passed the Human Rights Act in 1998 and now things they are trying to get through are being blocked because of it! I’d like to think that anything similar to this in the future will meet the same fate and our judicial system will ensure that even if something suspect does come into force, it doesn’t have much of an impact upon the freedoms we take for granted.

And I’m glad the Lord Chief Justice thinks along the same lines.

The beginning of the end

The beginning of the end

I hate the American media. I can’t stand their “news”. And I use “news” in the lightest sense. You only have to watch Fox News to see what I mean – a show of pure drama and hype. The news as I see it in the USA is purely for entertainment value and rarely shows an unbiased or independant view. Contrast that with the BBC News and even ITV or Channel 4 news and it really becomes aparrant. We are so lucky in the UK to have the BBC News providing real impartiality in their original news broadcasting.

However, despite my dislike for news reporting in the United States I am actually going to link to a 9 minute clip from an MSNBC broadcast which mirrors some of the points I highlighted yesterday. But even this clip that assults the Military Comissions Act and the government that passed it caused a shiver down my spine in the way that it was presented. If this had been reported by the BBC News (it may have been, but I don’t have a TV) I would have expected a summary of the points of the legislation covering both sides and possible impacts and perhaps a comment from the US political correspondant, but certainly no personal opinion. This MSNBC piece did none of that and focused entirely on what had happened in history and how it was the beginning of the end of America.

The media always hype things, particularly the destruction of freedom and liberty (rightly so?) and that is even more so in the USA. But on this occasion if you can put up with that, it’s worth watching.

Military Commissions Act

Military Commissions Act

So called “Western society” is supposed to be the pinnacle of democracy, fairness, justice and tolerance. I’m proud of British history and when people look back on the 21st century I want them to be just as proud of our the achievements.

Sometimes I feel sorry for the Americans who have to put up with the Bush administration. For the most part, Europe and the UK have been spared such crazy things like software patents, the full extent of the Patriot Act and forced teaching of creationism as a scientific theory (it might be a theory but it sure as hell isn’t scientific). So when I read an article today on The Register about the Military Commissions Act of 2006 I was dismayed at the extent to which rights are being eroded in the USA in the name of democracy – as a “a “vital tool” in the war on terror”.

My political alignment is not clearly defined – I like ideas from all sides of the political compass. As a result I’m by no means a liberal, but I think that aspects of law enforcement such as judicial review, parliamentary review, the right to legal counsel, the right to not be tortured et al are crucial aspects to a fair and just legal system. That the removal of these aspects of a legal system (all be it concerned with military commissions) can actually pass through the legislative stages in the USA is beyond belief. What exactly is the purpose of Congress if it just passes these bills without any consideration for the key aspects of modern society that it will demolish? I know our government has tried similar things, but they always fail – our parliament works in that stupid ideas such as these cannot get through.

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