Does David Coburn know about copyright?

On 25th May, David Coburn, now UKIP’s London-based MEP for Scotland, tweeted this:

Cagney and Lacey: at last

Finally finally finally – Barney Rosenzweig announces on his blog, we’re to have the complete Cagney and Lacey on DVD.

First time ever or anywhere audio version of my book (Cagney & Lacey…. and Me) narrated by the author, a featurette made by MGM some five years ago and previously seen by those of you who bought their limited DVD release of “True Beginnings,” the British Film Institute tribute taped last November in London, a personally autographed photo of Tyne and Sharon signed by each of them, as well as archival interviews with Tyne, Sharon, series creator Barbara Corday as well as yours truly. There is also a booklet authored by me and it all comes in a very handsome box at less than half what many of you said you would pay for such a bonanza..for the price of $139.00 plus shipping.

Olympic spending 2012

David Edgar wrote five years ago:

Take care. In reading this article, you may be in receipt of stolen goods. In fact, the organising committee for a certain upcoming sporting event has decided it would be “disproportionate” to prosecute the author of a book called Olympic Mind Games for breach of copy-right. But, under no less than two acts of parliament, it could if it wanted to.

When it discovered that Robert Ronson’s children’s science-fiction novel was to be published, the organising committee for the previously mentioned happening sent him an email asking that he should use neither the O-word nor the expressions “London 2012, or 2012 etc” in the title. The committee was able to do so under statutes passed in 1995 and 2006, which in effect turn all the elements of its title into a trademark.

As Fleet Street Fox reminded us last week, back in 2005 the Olympics was going to cost us £2bn.

wo years later it was upped to about £9bn and a year after that the bottom fell out of the world financial markets.

This was of course no reason to scale back, and today the costs are around £12bn with a strong likelihood that with police, security and transport costs the final total will be nearer £24bn.

To put that into perspective that’s 800million trips to the local leisure centre for a £3 swim. It’s 240 hospitals, roughly, or 20m nurses on a starting salary of £12,000.

This Thursday, according to the ancient traditions of a bygone regime

Ten years ago, I owned 5 CDs

I am not kidding or exaggerating. I never thought of myself as a very music-orientated person. There were singers and bands I’d liked when I was the age to listen to TOTP, and when I bought a DVD player cheap to make my new home in a strange city a little bit more welcoming, I went down to HMV, looked along the shelves, and bought five names I recognised.

Two or three years later, I had gradually acquired about five more.

And then I discovered you could listen to music online.

And now I’m really not sure how many CDs I have. Lots.

#SOPA and #Indyref: Why the Tories are going to fight foul

Tomorrow, 18th January, Reddit and English Wikipedia and quite a lot of WordPress and various other online communities, big and small, will be blacked-out from 5am, British time, to 5 again the next morning (midnight to midnight, Eastern Standard Time, or the hours Washington DC keeps). This is a protest against the SOPA and PIPA legislation: more links here. This is not actually a post directly about SOPA and PIPA, which none of us outside the US can actually do anything about anyway aside from note what this legislation is, why the US government is doing it, and, if you’re a geek with a talent for explaining stuff to politicians, writing to your MP and asking to meet with them to explain why threatening a website owner with five years in jail for the 21st-century equivalent of recording a film on your VCR with the intention of watching it over and over again is stupid.

There, I said I wasn’t going to talk about it. Excuse me. I’ll move on.

Why will the Tories fight foul? What does this have to do with US Congress legislating on the Internet?

On ZDNet Government, David Gewirtz writes: 5 reasons why SOPA, PROTECT-IP and other legislative idiocy will never die:

• You can’t really compete against consumer behavior.
• Fear sells.
• There’s a lot of money to be made from fear.
• Politicians need lobbyists.
• Lobbyists have a disproportionate influence on politicians.

First of all, let’s consider: assuming that the Tories want the Union to be preserved, what’s their best means of going about it?