Thanks for Keeping us in the Picture

Although e-petitions don't often accomplish much (the apology for Alan Turing being a notable exception), they do have the virtue of forcing the UK government to say something. In response to this:

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to remove new restrictions on photography in public places.”

we got this:

It is a statutory defence for a person to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for eliciting, publishing or communicating the relevant information. Legitimate journalistic activity (such as covering a demonstration for a newspaper) is likely to constitute such an excuse. Similarly, an innocent tourist or other sight-seer taking a photograph of a police officer is likely to have a reasonable excuse.

Since most people can't *prove* they had reasonable excuse for taking a photo - is "because it was a nice shot" *reasonable*? And how do you *prove* it was reasonable at the time? - this very high legal bar obviously implies that non-journalistic Brits had better not take any snaps of Plod because, otherwise, you're nicked.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Eee, Look: A Useful E-petition Response

Even though I keep signing the wretched things, e-petitions have not generated much action from the UK government. Which makes the following case rather interesting.

The following e-petition:

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ask the Communities Secretary to require that all software produced by councils under the Timely Information to Citizens project be released under an open source licence.”

Produced this response:

The Government supports the principle that, where new software is being developed by the Timely Information to Citizens pilots, this should wherever possible be released under open source licence and available for use by other local authorities.

For many of the Timely Information to Citizens pilots, the focus is not on new software, but on how existing tools and techniques can be used to bring information together and present it in more useful and accessible ways. Several of the projects will utilise existing open source software to create new information sources and channels, and will share their experiences of doing so with other authorities.

Where the pilots will result in new software tools, ownership and intellectual property rights will usually remain with the individual local authorities. However, most of the authorities concerned have already made a commitment to make these tools available as open source software, or for use by their partner organisations, and we are working to secure the commitment of the remaining.

What impresses me is (a) the reasonableness of the response and (b) the fact that the release of government-developed software should be released as open source "in principle". I do believe we're getting there....

More Feedback from Number 10

Those e-petition replies just keep on coming.

In response to the following:

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to not force internet service providers to act as legal representatives for the RIAA and be treated like a common courier.”

That nice Mr Brown says:

The Government recently published a consultation document on unlawful Peer-to-Peer (P2P) filesharing, which intends to gather views on proposals for a co-operative approach between Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and rights holders to address the issue of P2P file-sharing technology, used for the illegal exchange of copyright material.

Unfortunately, much of the media reports around this issue have been incorrect. There are no proposals to make ISPs liable for the content that travels across their networks. Nor are there proposals for ISPs to monitor customer activity for illegal downloading, or to enforce a “3 strikes” policy.

Instead, we are focusing on an approach that:

· educates consumers and citizens about the importance of recognising and rewarding content and the dangers of unlawful downloading;
· encourages the content and telecoms industries to concentrate on ensuring that content is made available to consumers in a variety of attractive packages; and
· takes action to ensure that where file sharing still happens people are made aware of the unlawful nature of their actions and effective mechanisms for dealing with repeat offenders are identified.

The consultation closes on 30th October 2008 and anyone with an interest in these issues is welcome to respond. The consultation can be found at: http://www.berr.gov.uk/consultations/page47141.html

I'll be writing more about the consultation in due course.

A Victory (of Sorts) for e-Petitions

It's easy to be cynical about 10 Downing Street's e-petitions (I should know). But here's a case where it might even have done some good.

Thank you for your e-petition, which asks that The National Archives convert its electronic records to Open Document Format rather than Microsoft Open XML Format, in order to make them accessible to users.

The National Archives is committed to preserving electronic records that are both authentic, and easily accessible by users. Wherever possible, records are made available online in a format which can be accessed using any standard web browser. Electronic records transferred to The National Archives are always preserved in their native format; if the native format is not suitable for online access then a separate ‘presentation’ version is created. No single format can address the diversity of electronic records held by The National Archives. At present, documents transferred in Microsoft Office formats are converted to Portable Document Format for online access. PDF is an international standard (ISO 32000-1: 2008) and is supported by all major browsers, either natively or via freely available plug-ins. The National Archives does not currently plan to convert any records to Microsoft Office Open XML format.

It's the last bit that's important: there were rumours circulating that some dark deal was being done to lock up the Archives in OOXML. For the moment we seem safe....

Number 10 Goes to Digistan

Well, not exactly, but that's we were asking for in an e-petition:

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to adopt the Hague Declaration of the Digital Standards Organisation.”

Details of Petition:

“We call on the UK government to: (1) Procure only information technology that implements free and open standards; (2) Deliver e-government services based exclusively on free and open standards; (3) Use only free and open digital standards in their own activities. as adopted and proclaimed by the founders of the Digital Standards Organization in The Hague on 21 May 2008.”

And this is what that nice Mr Brown replied:

The UK Government champions open standards and interoperability through its eGovernment Interoperability Framework Version 6.0, 30th April 2004 (eGIF) and through the publication of its Open Source Software Policy which is available in the document “Open Source Software, Use within UK Government, Version 2.0, 28 October 2004”.

This and eGIF are available from www.govtalk.gov.uk. Where possible the Government only uses products for interoperability that support open standards and specifications in all future IT developments.

So there you go.

Open Parliament

It's obviously petition season. Here's another one, Europe-wide in scope, calling for an "open European Parliament":

Citizens and stakeholder groups should not have to use the software of a single company in order to communicate with their elected officials or participate in the legislative process.

All companies should be given the chance to compete freely for contracts to supply ICT services to the European Parliament.

I am a citizen of the EU, and I want the European Parliament to adopt the use of open standards and to promote interoperability in the ICT sector.

We believe that the current situation, where the European Parliament’s ICT runs on proprietary software that is not interoperable with that of other vendors, where therefore citizens and stakeholder groups wishing to participate in the legislative process are forced to use the products of a single company, is in conflict with the first article of Chapter 1 in the Treaty of the European Union. An example of this is the live Web streaming from the European Parliament's plenary sessions – aimed at improving communication with citizens and insight into democratic processes – which will only work with Windows Media Player.

Sounds good to me. Just one thing: there's only 163 names at the moment, which isn't very impressive: why don't you join in?

Sounding Off Against Sound Copyright

Talking of petitions, here's one against extending the copyright in sound recordings, open to anyone. It includes the following excellent summary of what we're fighting for:

Copyright is a bargain. In exchange for their investment in creating and distributing sound recordings to the public, copyright holders are granted a limited monopoly during which are allowed to control the use of those recordings. This includes the right to pursue anyone who uses their recordings without permission. But when this time is up, these works join Goethe, Hugo and Shakespeare in the proper place for all human culture – the public domain. In practice, because of repeated term extensions and the relatively short time in which sound recording techniques have been available, there are no public domain sound recordings.

This situation is about to change, as tracks from the first golden age of recorded sound reach the end of their copyright term. The public domain is about to benefit from its half of this bargain. Seminal soul, reggae, and rock and roll recordings will soon be freed from legal restrictions, allowing anyone (including the performers themselves and their heirs) to preserve, reissue, and remix them.

Major record labels want to keep control of sound recordings well beyond the current 50 year term so that they can continue to make marginal profits from the few recordings that are still commercially viable half a century after they were laid down. Yet if the balance of copyright tips in their favour, it will damage the music industry as a whole, and also individual artists, libraries, academics, businesses and the public.

The labels lobby for change, but have yet to publicly present any compelling economic evidence to support their case. What evidence does exist shows clearly that extending term will discourage innovation, stunt the reissues market, and irrevocably damage future artists' and the general public's access to their cultural heritage.

As Europe looks to the creative industries for its economic future, it is faced with a choice. It can agree to extend the copyright term in sound recordings for the sake of a few major record labels. Or it can allow sound recordings to enter the public domain at the end of fifty years for the benefit of future innovation, future prosperity and the public good.

We 'Umbly Petition...

One of the novel options for companies introduced by open source is to release moribund apps in the hope that they might come to life again as free software. The two prime examples of this are Netscape Navigator, which begat Mozilla, which begat Firefox (somewhat painfully, it has to be said), and Blender, which begat, well, Blender.

Now those open sourcers are at it again, egging on the company MainConcept to turn over its unwanted MainActor video editing software to The People. Here's a petition for the same:

we, Open Source enthusiasts and non-linear editors, ask that MainConcept release most source code (if not all) of MainActor as Open Source so that the community can continue to support and improve it.

And who knew there was a self-styled group of "non-linear editors"? (Via PenguinWay.)

e-Postcard from Number 10

Ooh, look: an email from that nice man at Number 10 about my signing the petition against the Windows-only iPlayer:

The Government set up the BBC Trust to represent the interests of licence fee payers, and to ensure good governance of the BBC. The BBC Trust has responsibility for ensuring that the correct degree of scrutiny is given to all proposals from the BBC Executive for new services (such as the iPlayer) and any significant changes to existing services. To fulfill this duty, the Trust conducted a Public Value Test on the BBC Executive's proposals to launch new on-demand services, including BBC iPlayer. This included a public consultation and a market impact assessment by Ofcom. In the case of the iPlayer, following the consultation, the Trust noted the strong public demand for the service to be available on a variety of operating systems. The BBC Trust made it a condition of approval for the BBC's on-demand services that the iPlayer is available to users of a range of operating systems, and has given a commitment that it will ensure that the BBC meets this demand as soon as possible. They will measure the BBC's progress on this every six months and publish the findings.

Oh, so that's alright, then.

The Next Great Microsoft Lock-in

I've written a lot here and elsewhere about Microsoft's faux-open file format OOXML. I've also noted that there is an unhealthily close relationship between the BBC and Microsoft over the former's iPlayer and its chosen file formats. Now it seems that this kind of chummy lock-in is happening elsewhere, at the UK's National Archives and beyond.

The National Archive story is not new, but dates back to July of this year, when I first noted it. Here's what a Microsoftie said:

The announcement we just made with the National Archives is trying to address the issue of digital conservation head-on. With billions of documents in the world wrapped up in proprietary document formats (from Microsoft and many many other vendors) we felt it was important to focus on how we can help the body in the UK which has the biggest headache and do what we can to assist them in:

* Migrating documents to the latest Office format (Open XML) via our document conversion tools to ensure they can be accessed by the public in the future

Since then, people have started taking notice, to the extent that there is now an e-petition all us Brits can sign asking that nice Mr Brown to use ODF instead of OOXML for the National Archives (but don't hold your breath.)

However, I've just noticed that the Microsoftie quoted above mentions this little factette:

Well, we've actually been working with The British Library and The National Archive for about 18 months now on digital preservation with some other European organisations as members of an EU project called Planets.

And as far as the latter is concerned:

The Planets consortium brings together the unique experience required to research, develop, deliver and productise practical digital preservation solutions. Coordinated by the British Library

The British Library, you may recall, is also in cahoots with Microsoft when it comes to locking up our digital heritage. Some now we have the prospect of the OOXML cancer spreading to other institutions, and large chunks of European culture being locked up in proprietary formats.

This is getting serious. It's obviously time to call in the heavy mob: the Open Source Consortium....

10 Downing Street Talks Document Formats

Responsible citizen that I am, I signed an e-petition asking that nice Mr Blair to support ODF:

Government documents must be available for tens if not hundreds of years. Currently much electronic documentation is stored in proprietary formats, such as Microsoft's .doc format. In order to allow future generations access to these documents it is imperative that they be in a fully documented standard. Open Document Format (ISO/IEC 26300:2006) is now the international document standard and as such should be supported by the Government.

And here's what he (or just possibly one of his minions) said :

The UK Government champions open standards and interoperability through its e Government Interoperability Framework (eGIF). Where possible the Government only uses products for interoperability that support open standards and specifications in all future IT developments.

Interoperability and open standards also support the sustainability of digital information beyond any single generation of technology. New techniques for digital preservation being developed by The National Archives require the periodic transformation of digital information to new formats as technology changes. Such transformations will be simplified by the adoption of open standards.

No single format provides a universal solution for all types of digital information, and The National Archives therefore actively monitors and evaluates a wide range of existing and emerging formats (including OpenDocument Format). A policy on digital preservation, which includes guidance on the selection of sustainable data formats based on open standards, is being formulated by The National Archives, and will help define the standards for desktop systems. The National Archives technical registry 'PRONOM' (new window) supports this through the provision of key information about the most widely-used formats.

So there we have it.

Softly, Softly on Software Patents

This response to an e-petition "to make software patents clearly unenforcible" is interesting:

The Government remains committed to its policy that no patents should exist for inventions which make advances lying solely in the field of software. Although certain jurisdictions, such as the US, allow more liberal patenting of software-based inventions, these patents cannot be enforced in the UK.

The test used to discern between patentable and non-patentable subject matter in the UK has recently been clarified by the courts, and is applied rigorously by the Patent Office. Under this test, the true nature of the advance being claimed in a patent application must be determined, and if this advance lies solely in the field of software, or another non-technical field such as methods of doing business, the patent will not be granted. If the advance being made by an invention does lie in a technical field, it must also be non-obvious and sufficiently clearly described for the invention to be reproduced before a patent will be granted by the Patent Office.

The recently published Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, an independent review commissioned by the Government, recommended that patent rights should not be extended to cover pure software, business methods and genes. The Government will implement those recommendations for which it is responsible, and will therefore continue to exclude patents from areas where they may hinder innovation: including patents which are too broad, speculative, or obvious, or where the advance they make lies in an excluded area such as software.

Although it is little more than a statement that the current position will be maintained, it does contain the important confirmation that there are no plans to follow the US down the primrose path to the fiery furnace, and that US software patents are not enforceable in the UK. I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.

Credit, too, to the 10 Downing Street site for responding in this fashion to a petition that garnered relatively few signatures (I didn't see it and so didn't sign).

Vote for ODF

Undeterred by the fact that Our Tone simply ignored our last petition to dump ID cards, I've signed up for another one, this time calling for ODF to be used in UK government. If you're a citizen of Perfidious Albion, you might like to do the same.

Not that it will make a huge difference, but I think we have a responsibility to (a) use these new tools for democracy and (b) force the UK Government to repeat its pathetic excuses for not supporting eminently reasonable ideas. There's also increasing evidence that the e-petition site is turning into a thorn in the goverment's side - reason enough to keep using it.

We, the Undersigned...

Here's a slightly hopeful development. On the 10 Downing Street Web page (Tony Blair's official cyberhome), there's a new facility: e-petitions - kudos to Number 10 for adding this. Especially since the most popular petition is currently the following:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to create a new exception to copyright law that gives individuals the right to create a private copy of copyrighted materials for their own personal use, including back-ups, archiving and shifting format.

So, if you're a Brit, do sign; the cynic in me says it's not going to make the blindest bit of difference, but hey, it's worth a try. (Via Michael Geist's Blog.)

Update: The petition against ID Cards is also soaring away: you know what you need to do, O Britons!