A brief comment about digital rights strategy
In response to comments by the “Cream gang” here’s a brief and I hope final statement of why I think their approach to improving the public’s digital rights situation is wrong.
I agree with them that the public is currently unlikely to rally behind any calls for (for example) a roll-back of the number of years of copyright protection or controls on DRM. Unlike them I don’t think that if we give corporations their heads they will eventually overstep and make themselves fatally unpopular. I don’t believe they are that stupid - they will push copyright as far as the public will accept and no further.
I think we both agree however that the public will accept a situation which is worse than it needs to be - mainly because they don’t really understand what might be possible if things were different. (I think however that the row over Google Books might just provide one easy to grasp example of how excessively strict copyright protection damages the public interest).
I also agree that lobbying the Guardian and the Register et al is a bit of a waste of time since as Nick Mailer, Martin Coxall et al point out they are already converted (though by all means keep lobbing them the press releases - after all it costs little to add a few names to the list).
I think however (and this is where we differ essentially) that there are a large number of elected representatives who have not thought through copyright issues and are not that interested in them but who could be persuaded to take the right path through reasoned argument even if there are no votes in it for them. That’s where the focus of the Open Rights Group should be (and I imagine where it will be). Not in lobbying Internet users or the general public but in presenting persuasive arguments about the public good to key expert decision makers.
Of course it would be better if the public understood the issues and got on board but there are large swathes of policy-making that take place without substantial input from the public as a whole because the public as a whole doesn’t care enough about the issue in question.
December 5th, 2005 at 2:29 pm
Hi David,
I’m afraid your counter arguments to the Cream gang are rather weak.
First, companies *are* that stupid, at least in the sense that they are legally obliged (in the US) to pursue maximisation of shareholder value, hence their King Canute strategy viz a vis DRM etc. I don’t think you have successfully argued against their approach of letting the companies gorge themselves until they are sick.
Second, where is the evidence that elected reps are the best change agents? What is the link between a UK MP or MEP and US-led corporate legislation? Sure, if we alll worked very hard and focused on it exclusively, we might win a victory along the lines of the EU Windows sans Media Player farce. Most UK MPs have extremely limited influence on the relevant policy, even if they have the mental capacity to understand the issues.
I am not saying I agree with the Creamers, but we can’t just assume a strategy of media whoring and networking among the already-converted will actuallly change anything. At least these guys deserve some credit for imagination and bold thinking, but I wasn’t at the meeting so you probably know better.
I think they have done us all a service in forcing ORG’s hand in developing a real strategy that can have a real impact, not just create a warm glow that makes us feel like nice, well-meaning digerati. It’s a very useful debate to have right now, I think.
December 5th, 2005 at 3:43 pm
Well I don’t think that companies will pursue DRM to the point where customers will revolt precisely because companies need customers. And at the end of the day what is needed is changes in legislation (or prevention of further bad legislation) so our elected reps are exactly who we need to influence.
And as I said I don’t suggest we target people who are already converted - I think there are probably lots of MPs and MEPs who have not got strong views one way or the other or who haven’t yet heard a well-made case against DRM etc who can be swayed.
P.S. I wasn’t at the meeting either.
December 5th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
Can you point to any examples of ordinary MPs influencing corporate legislation in the UK for the better? Corporate lobbyists aimed at gov. dpts have influence, as do people who attend dinner parties with the PM’s friends, but MPs? What decade are you living in?
I think we all grew up with the assumption that you lobby MPs to make changes, but these days, in an area that affects big US corporate interests, I don’t think there is actually much evidence that it works.
I am not suggesting that it is entirely a waste of time, only that there is a valid debate to be had about strategy that needs to go way deeper than - hey: let’s have lunch with someone famous, send a press release to our friends at the Guardian and write to some MPs.
December 5th, 2005 at 5:14 pm
Someone at the launch event made the good point that actually things could be a lot worse. We still enjoy some important rights: open internet standards, data protection, freedom of speech, (eventual) copyright expiry. Failing to defend these, or allowing companies/government to erode these rights further won’t necessarily lead to a downfall of capitalism and an end to private property. It will probably just result in things being quite a lot worse. The twentieth century has shown that populations will tolerate far worse regimes that the one we have now.
As for examples of “ordinary MPs” influencing corporate legislation for the better. Well, yes - there are tonnes: the minimum wage, health + safety laws, paid holidays, tighter regulation of financial services, consumer protection etc etc. All of these came from trade unions, lobbyists, mainstream party activists, media campaigns and decent MPs, not from avant-garde Trotskyists.
December 5th, 2005 at 5:16 pm
I agree with Lee. The best that lobbying MP / MEPs can hope to do is to either delay or change legislation. You can’t beat the corporates at their own game. However, if you change the game then you have a chance.
Ironically a lot of corporate backed legislation is a knee-jerk reaction to the work of individuals and groups on the Internet already writing disruptive software. In effect, we are already setting the rules and the agenda, and corporations are reacting to that.
December 5th, 2005 at 5:31 pm
I wish I was as optimistic as you are about the willingness of elected representitives to listen to rational arguments, rather than the jangling of the corporate purse.
Politicians are nothing if not pragmatic to the point where it’s almost, but not quite, corrupt. If, as has been established, the electorate don’t give a flying one about digital rights issues, where is the practical benefit for an M(E)P to allow herself to be educated by us, when she can take the simple, and electorally safe and personally beneficial angle of siding with all the money in the world?
No. Given a choice between us smelly geeks, and wealthy content-owners in Italian suits, politicians’ capitulation to the conglomerates is absolutely assured.
Martin Coxall
December 5th, 2005 at 5:41 pm
Fair points, Tom, and a very useful reminder that part of ORG’s role is to educate people to protect current rights, which you rightly say we could easily lose.
But the examples you quote about MPs as change agents seem to stem from a previous era of real politics, principles and (dare I say) morals. I know some very good MPs who are still working and who embody these principles, but I just can’t see them pushing through legislation that the PMs big biz friends tell him is a barrier to their profitability. Just yesterday somebody told me how their friend a New Lab MP’s assistant was moving on because the MP turns out to be an unprincipled careerist who will do (and justify on TV) anything the PMs office tells them to do. Sadly, I think 1997 brought to power a wave of elected representatives with no identifiable principles other than to appear professional and stay in power until they hit paydirt with a senior role in industry. Anyway, I digress…..
The point is we should genuinely ‘think out of the box’ rather than just comfort ourselves with the idea that some gladhanding, personal networking and press releases will change the current situation with electronic rights.
In case anybody hasn’t read the whole thread: I don’t agree with Cream (and I am not a Trot) but I am a paid up supporter of ORG and I want to see them succeed. The best first step in my view is some really creative thinking about political change and the various ways in which it happens. Otherwise, ORG may become just a useful foil to the industry, who can respond by negotiating tiny compromises case by case as we all slide towards a DRM world.
December 5th, 2005 at 6:21 pm
I think you’re being too pessimistic. Lots of the examples I cited above are post-1997 and there are plenty more. Just to begin with there’s been: freedom of information act, free access to museums/libraries, BBC’s creative archive, ending of hereditary peerages, democratic government in London and nationalities, new laws around corporate governance and transparent reporting, myriad schemes around encouraging internet access and bridging the ‘digital divide’.
None of these are the kinds of issues that electorates are thought to get vexed about. Yes, many of these could have gone further, but they did happen, and are having an impact. I know most MPs live in a bubble of lobbyists, corporate hospitality and think tanks, but if ORG can penetrate that bubble, I think they can make a difference. Will they bring down capitalism? No, but I don’t really see anyone doing that, or even trying in a meaningful sense.
December 6th, 2005 at 10:49 am
That’s all well and good, and I take your point that MPs can and have been forces for change for the good. I’m not denying that.
What I am suspicious of is your claim that when ranged in a controversy between us and the big media conglomerates, any MP would see value in siding with us over the Big Money.
If it were a seat-losing issue, perhaps. But we all know it’s not.
Forced to choose between us and them, MPs will choose them.
December 6th, 2005 at 12:18 pm
Well … I am not arguing that nothing good has happened since 1997, and I am grateful for the developments you mention above, but only one of them could arguably be seen as affecting the profit of major multinationals or media companies.
Given the history of New Labour and its leadership’s susceptibility to big media influence (Murdoch et al), I remain sceptical that British MPs can or will mobilise to affect radical change in the current situation pertaining to DRM and digital rights in the face of fierce US-led corporate opposition.
I am just trying to be practical about the mission of ORG - i.e. how do we effect change? Arguably there is nothing the Disneys and Sonys would like more than a vocal but incrementalist lobby group (ideally led by people with funny hair or clothes) to argue with over minutae and then concede inconsequential compromises, whilst all the while protecting their current system.
Anyway, what’s wrong with ORG showing a bit of imagination? Is there some kind of unwritten rule that new interest groups must all adopt a fixed set of tactics that we all know rarely work? I just think we should think about it….
Also, why do you presume that anybody wants to bring down capitalism? This debate is about digital rights, not an attack on the market per se. Are you determined to label me a commie?
December 6th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
No, not you, but certainly some people at the ORG meeting clearly had much bigger ambitions than just changing digital rights policy!
I do actually agree with you - it would be good to see more imagination in how ORG gets its point across, and even the Cream boys with their Turner Prize leftist politics may have something to offer. But don’t under-estimate the power of the usual lobbying channels. My MP knows little about digital technology, but he does read the Guardian, listens to think tanks and speaks to campaign groups such as ORG.
To caricature all MPs as feeble and venal is unfair and lazy. After all, just last month, in the face of huge lobbying, tabloid frenzy and public opinion, MPs from across all parties defeated the government over its terrorist internment policy. No corporation paid them to do this, but the impulse to protect civil and personal liberties is a strong one across all spectrums of political opinion. I think can ORG can usefully tap into this.
December 6th, 2005 at 5:01 pm
To me, ORG is a good idea in the embryonic stage. Since the meeting was apparently organised to discuss strategy rather than tell everyone what strategy had already been decided, it was perfectly reasonable for Mailer, Coxall and Levine to make their suggestions. What was not acceptable was the response they received - polite indifference shading to outright hostility.
As for press releases as a campaign method: well, it might work for Amnesty but not for ORG. Most journalists don’t know much about tech issues and will avoid them at all costs - even geek-literate hacks tend to avoid any topic which they cannot explain simply for “the unhosed masses”. The same problem blights popular science journalism.
Someone might be able to download music and burn a DVD, but they may not be able to appreciate complex legal issues surrounding copyright or the technology that underpins DRM. These are the people ORG needs to reach. The same applies to MPs - they’re ordinary people too, and famously illiterate when it comes to IT.
And don’t get me started on the elderly blog masquerading as a campaign website. I will not take ORG seriously until I see a serious website.
December 6th, 2005 at 9:57 pm
Tom, I think it would be fair to say that the terrorist internment policy didn’t have huge corporations backing the policy. Also the issues are quite simple for most people to understand, i.e. how many days can a person be held without charge for. The public and the MPs ‘got it’. The same cannot be said for intricate details to do with copyright, DRM, etc.
December 7th, 2005 at 9:50 am
In my view what ORG should do is: 1) events 2) lobbying 3) make a bloody work-plan
3) would give it a structure, something to work towards. The Commission recently published its work-plan for 2006, ORG should think about structuring its own work programme around that; picking out issues that could negatively impact upon ‘digital rights’ etc. It should look at other digital rights groups and learn from them - EDRi’s biweekly newsletter is a superb news resource and Im sure that presenting 60,000 signatures to MEPs on data retention will have at least some impact, Statewatch’s links into the EU are beyond belief sometimes, obtaining Council+Commission documents that are normally jealously guarded by small-minded civil servants. The vague mission statement is pretty reflective of the organisation itself - if it is receiving ?5000/month then it really needs a level of proffesionalism to reflect its income!
however its all about profile raising, knowledge sharing and actually producing some outputs. Targetted towards a specific issue, perhaps now something related to the APIG DRM enquiry or the Chancellor’s IP review?
2) is horribly complicated and its all about relationships. MPs/MEPs receive 100s of pieces of material everyday from all sorts of people and organisations. ORG needs a specific angle to be able to stand out slightly from the rest. It also needs to make itself known among these people. people questioned earlier what influence MPs might have over legislation - perhaps a good example is the current data retention debate where our UK MPs (and civil servants) are prodding the EP into doing exactly what they want. MEPs do have more say now, particularly with co-decision - ORG needs to plan what committees will be looking at what Directives, who the shadow rapporteurs will be and which MEPs might be regarded as being ‘allies’ to such an organisation.
1) is the worst (imo), because its bloody knackering
My two cents…
December 8th, 2005 at 10:53 pm
These are all good points. I think I’d mainly disagree with the "all MPs are in league with the devil" POV. I’ve seen many politicians turn when presented with the facts, and honestly politicians in both the UK and EU are beholden to far more complex relationships than simply big business. To give an example, I still put down our victory there in better defining the groups able to use RIP surveillance powers to Blunkett’s son being a game-player who saw the furore online, sat down and explained what the hell he was walking into in words even a Home Secretary could understand.
I’ve already had copies of letters sent to me where MPs have been alerted to the copyright extension plans and more-or-less verbatim said "no, this looks ridiculous. I’ll see what i can do to stop it."
Now, one Road-to-Damascus transformation does not a roll-back make, but this kindo f incrementalism does have an effect. An important step that I want to pursue more (and I hope ORG can help out with this), is to enourage more young IP lawyers to consider these issues. The IP legal world is, by default, pro-IP extension, but it doesn’t have to be that way. One of the key roles people like Eben and Lessig have played is to present role models to smart, up-and-coming lawyers that show them that they intelligent critques of IP can take place within the legal system.
But do remember that ORG isn’t necessarily the place to do all or any of these. ORG isn’t supposed to be *the* digital rights organisation. It’s initial function is to act in a support role for all the other rights organisations. There are broad questions of strategy (which was what the meeting was about), but for ORG perhaps the question shouldn’t be "what should a digital rights group do" but "what should a digital rights group funded by 1000 people do."? That provides certain freedoms, and certain constraints.
Oh, and Mrs Trellis - don’t view the noise as the signal. Nick has a fine line in good-points-dressed-up-in-personal-abuse, and I flame as good as I can get, but more quietly, I’ve been talking to him on email about more substantive issues. You mustn’t let strong words of people on open comment forums get you all offended. If you and Martin would like to talk to me more about the stuff you bring up, I’m on danny@spesh.com (I’ll mail you a phone number too). I can’t really respond every time you cut and paste your comments onto slashdot or the main blog, but I’m happy to talk about things in a less dramatical style.
December 10th, 2005 at 1:27 am
For your edutainment…
The brown paper and white card photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/suw/sets/1533191/
The update:
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2005/12/09/slowly-the-pieces-of-the-jigsaw-fall-into-place/
The wiki:
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/orgwiki/index.php/Main_Page
January 8th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Danny, I wasn’t offended, nor was I trying to defend anyone - Nick is well able to look after himself. The whole episode was the most amusing fortnight I’ve had for a long time.