Archive for July, 2010

On Saturday I spoke at the first Open Rights Group conference. Admittedly the title – ORGCON  – made it sound like a  1980’s Dr Who villain, but what can you do?

I was part of the first panel of the day; the topic of the panel was “Thriving in the Real Digital Economy”; and (for a Saturday morning) it was early – so I’m not quite sure how much sense I made. But here is what I tried to say:

There are many kinds of art where there is obviously an ‘original’ whenever you create a work. I’m using the word ‘original’ in a technical sense, to mean an  instance of the work, either produced by or on behalf of  the artist, and which has some attributes which aren’t preserved if the work is copied.

With a painting for example, the painting itself is obviously the original. While it’s certainly possible to copy it in various ways, none of them capture the whole experience of the original. So for example you can capture the colours of a painting under one set of lighting conditions by taking a photo. But change the lighting around the painting, and the colours often change in interesting ways due to the thickness of the paint, the properties of the pigments used, and the way light diffuses through the materials. None of this is reflected in the photo.

Other properties of a painting are even less likely to be captured by a copy, such as the construction of the canvas; its weight, feel and smell; and the change in its colours with age.

So while a photo of a painting is certainly better than nothing, the original is much better, and so more valuable.

Equally, many artworks don’t have an original. Most obviously, anything created digitally doesn’t, because a digital copy of it is in all respects identical to it.

Most recorded music is created digitally.  It is created on computers and then copied verbatim onto media such as CDs, so if you have an uncompressed version of a song, your string of 1’s and 0’s are identical to those in the mastered version of the song produced by the artist. There is therefore no sense in which the artist’s version is any better or more valuable than yours

But the problem for an artist is that having an original allows him or her to control copying, and so make a living. Without an original, the amount of copying is only limited by its cost, and the cost of making a digital copy is now virtually zero. So musicians are now being forced to find other ways to create originals.

The most obvious sign of this is the resurgence of live music. A recording of a concert is a poor second to actually being there, so artists can charge a premium for the experience.

There has also been an explosion in the number of box sets and greatest hits releases, which have tried to add back in some of the qualities of an original with special packaging and other non-music features. But of course there is a limit to the number of times you can sell the same music in a different box.

The music industry in recent years has been publicly obsessed with finding ways to limit digital copying, but they admit in private that they are on a hiding to nothing.

So the question that I think makes more sense to address is, how can the concept of an original evolve in the digital age, so that artists can continue to make a living?

I didn’t get any suggestions from the audience, but then, it was early…

I’ve been feeling a bit uncomfortable with myself over the last couple of days.

It’s to do with Wednesday’s Gabby Logan programme on which I was a guest. It was a good-natured show, and for the most part I really enjoyed it. However, when the topic changed to Peter Mandelson’s memoirs, fellow guest and Spectator editor Fraser Nelson referred to the former Business Secretary as ‘Mandy’.

It is well-known that Peter Mandelson is gay. Calling him ‘Mandy’ is a homophobic put-down in the oldest tradition. It’s like calling him a Sissy, or a Jessie. The implication is that, because he is a homosexual, he is not a man.

It is disgraceful, but not surprising, that the editor of a major national magazine should stoop to these kinds of anti-gay slurs. But to my discredit, I didn’t jump in and put him straight.

I’d like to apologise to anyone who feels let down by that.

In yet another vindication of my decision to train as a lawyer, it turns out that in 2008 the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) paid their lawyers more than $16 million to sue alleged filesharers, but only recovered $391,000.

The numbers in 2007 were even more extreme – $21 million was spent to recover just $455,000.

As Henry Brougham, the founder of the Central Criminal Court said

A lawyer is a learned gentleman who rescues your estate from your enemies and keeps it himself

Six- one to hold the bulb, and five to drink until the room spins.

Well, maybe that was true once upon a time, but these days if I get together with another five drummers, it can only mean one thing – the Sense Drumathon!

Sense are a charity supporting and campaigning for children and adults who are deafblind. Obviously being both deaf and blind presents enormous problems with communication, but as Sense explained, drumming is great way of reaching out. Even the profoundly deaf can feel the rhythms, quite literally, as the sound vibrations in the air ripple against their skin.

Sense gathered together a group of drummers a couple of weeks ago for a morning of music, and I was lucky enough to be asked to take part. One of my drumming heroes, Steve White, was also invited, as were an extraordinarily talented group of four teachers from Drumtech.

Drumming is a social activity; it’s a really dull thing to do on your own, but with 60 of us we had a great time. It was exciting to see how the deafblind students took to the instruments, and interesting to see how they adapted the rhythms based on what they felt.

Here’s a picture of the cast:

And here’s Steve and I working with one of the students.

Of course these photographs were posed, but the actual event was wonderfully chaotic, and the sight of  60 musicians wandering the stage, bashing things as loudly as possible and howling with laughter might have looked a little odd…

This was the first of what I hope will become an annual event. What a privilege to be asked to take part!

We can’t afford to get the choice of party leader wrong. As the Tories discovered after 1997, leaders without vision, experience, and popular appeal can throw their parties on the electoral scrap heap for a generation.

It seems to me that David Miliband’s vision for the country is grounded in the fight against inequality, which is at the heart of what drives the Labour Party. It’s arguably the reason for the creation of the party in the first place.

I think there was a public perception over the last 13 years that the Government had stopped seeing their job in those terms, and that the focus had narrowed just to economic and public service management.

But David Miliband has now put tackling inequality back at the centre in his leadership campaign.

He is fighting for equality of opportunity, with proposals to transform education in this country, giving all children an equal opportunity to succeed.

He is fighting income inequality with a vision to rebuild the economy with a return to full employment, a  living wage, a High Commission to look at top pay in the private sector, and the creation of hundreds of thousands of new green jobs

And he is fighting for equality of outcome with a progressive taxation system, and a strong welfare state.

David has the experience to lead the party, and the country. In his 9 years as an MP, he spent 5 as a minister. He was behind the ‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme, which rebuilt or refurbished every school in the country, he secured the Climate Change Act, and was a major contributor to the 1997 manifesto.

Finally, David is popular with the electorate. He is well known and liked all over the country, and in a Newsnight focus group of undecided voters, the entire panel judged that David was the best of the leadership candidates.

I think it’s essential that we elect David Miliband as the next leader of the party. He is the candidate with the vision, experience and popular appeal to lead Labour to victory.