Via
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
BBC explains 'All your Twitter pics are belong to us' gaffe
Analysis There are some subjects on which giant media companies need to be ultra tippy-toe cautious. When, say, the majority owner of a satellite broadcaster uses its newspapers to lobby for a change the law, we should remember it is not a disinterested party. It may have an agenda. Similarly when the BBC covers copyright, or "net neutrality", it is not a disinterested party either; it is in the BBC's interests to seek changes that lower its costs, and add to its convenience, at the expense of other groups in society. These are political issues in which the BBC is a major player. Corporate responsibility demands that its coverage be squeaky clean.
Well, last week the riots prompted media companies to engage in some looting of their own: taking photographs without permission – in breach of several international conventions, as well as the Copyright Designs and Patents Act. This they do every day, and social media has become a cheap import channel. We dinged the Daily Mail recently for its bit of grab-and-run, where the paper attributed a photograph it used without permission to "The Internet".
This is exactly the view you hear from armchair warriors on the cranky fringes of the internet, for whom any assertion of intellectual property rights is theft, a social crime. Ubiquitous message board spammer Crosbie Fitch makes this case: (See Quotes of the Year 2009), the argument being that because something is left in public view, it becomes public property. If only all ownership worked this way, I would have an enviable collection of very expensive sports cars by now...
Well, last week the riots prompted media companies to engage in some looting of their own: taking photographs without permission – in breach of several international conventions, as well as the Copyright Designs and Patents Act. This they do every day, and social media has become a cheap import channel. We dinged the Daily Mail recently for its bit of grab-and-run, where the paper attributed a photograph it used without permission to "The Internet".
Another offender was the BBC, which simply pasted images found on Twitter, and like the Mail, falsely attributed them. This prompted a complaint, which seven days later produced this extraordinary "official response".
"I understand you were unhappy that pictures from Twitter are used on BBC programmes as you feel it may be a breach of copyright," the response began. "Twitter is a social network platform which is available to most people who have a computer and therefore any content on it is not subject to the same copyright laws as it is already in the public domain," it continued. [Our emphasis]This is exactly the view you hear from armchair warriors on the cranky fringes of the internet, for whom any assertion of intellectual property rights is theft, a social crime. Ubiquitous message board spammer Crosbie Fitch makes this case: (See Quotes of the Year 2009), the argument being that because something is left in public view, it becomes public property. If only all ownership worked this way, I would have an enviable collection of very expensive sports cars by now...
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Andrew Orlowski @'The Register'
simon_price01 Simon Price
I really, really want to live in some alternate universe where Lieutenant Columbo gets to question James Murdoch.
Australia: Don’t Seize David Hicks’ Assets
The Australian prosecutor’s office should drop the asset-seizing case against former Guantanamo detainee David Hicks for money he earned from a book he wrote about his six years in US custody at Guantanamo Bay, Human Rights Watch said today.
Australian David Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and transferred to Guantanamo Bay in January 2002. He was charged in a military commission under a system created by then-President George W. Bush that was later deemed to be unlawful by the US Supreme Court.
Following the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Hicks was charged with providing material support for terrorism and faced a possible life sentence. In exchange for a guilty plea, he was offered a sentence of seven years, only nine months of which he would have to actually serve. Hicks pleaded guilty in April 2007.
“A conviction in an unfair and illegitimate system should not be considered proof of a crime,” said Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. “David Hicks alleges years of mistreatment and abuse by US forces and the failure of the Australian government to protect him. He should not be punished for telling that story.”
Hicks’ account of his six years in US custody was published in Guantanamo, My Journey, in late 2010. Proceeds from that publication are the subject of the prosecutor’s seizure and forfeiture action under the Commonwealth Proceeds of Crime Act. The prosecutor is relying on Hicks’ guilty plea, as well as the statement of facts signed by him in connection with the plea, as evidence that he committed an offense under the law of another country.
After his plea, Hicks was returned to his native Australia where he served out the remaining seven months of his sentence in Yatala prison. He was released in December 2007. Included in his plea agreement was a one-year gag rule prohibiting him from discussing his treatment or capture and from profiting from the sale of his story. Following the election of US President Barack Obama, Congress again substantially revised the 2006 Military Commissions Act under which Hicks was prosecuted.
Throughout his detention, Hicks told his lawyers he had been mistreated by US forces in both Afghanistan and Guantanamo by being beaten, made to endure prolonged sleep deprivation, and being forced to take unidentified medication. Former military commissions chief prosecutor Morris Davis testified in other court proceedings that Hicks’ plea agreement was negotiated without his knowledge, suggesting political forces were involved in the agreement.
On August 3, 2011, the New South Wales Supreme Court issued a restraining order on the use of assets derived from the sale of Hicks’ book. The case was adjourned until August 16 to allow the prosecutor to obtain additional evidence, at which time they are expected to ask for seizure of the assets obtained from the publication of the book.
“Although Hicks has alleged years of unlawful and abusive detention, neither the US nor Australia has ever offered him compensation or an apology,” Prasow said. “The prosecutor’s action would just compound that abuse.”
@'Human Rights Watch'
Australian David Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and transferred to Guantanamo Bay in January 2002. He was charged in a military commission under a system created by then-President George W. Bush that was later deemed to be unlawful by the US Supreme Court.
Following the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Hicks was charged with providing material support for terrorism and faced a possible life sentence. In exchange for a guilty plea, he was offered a sentence of seven years, only nine months of which he would have to actually serve. Hicks pleaded guilty in April 2007.
“A conviction in an unfair and illegitimate system should not be considered proof of a crime,” said Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. “David Hicks alleges years of mistreatment and abuse by US forces and the failure of the Australian government to protect him. He should not be punished for telling that story.”
Hicks’ account of his six years in US custody was published in Guantanamo, My Journey, in late 2010. Proceeds from that publication are the subject of the prosecutor’s seizure and forfeiture action under the Commonwealth Proceeds of Crime Act. The prosecutor is relying on Hicks’ guilty plea, as well as the statement of facts signed by him in connection with the plea, as evidence that he committed an offense under the law of another country.
After his plea, Hicks was returned to his native Australia where he served out the remaining seven months of his sentence in Yatala prison. He was released in December 2007. Included in his plea agreement was a one-year gag rule prohibiting him from discussing his treatment or capture and from profiting from the sale of his story. Following the election of US President Barack Obama, Congress again substantially revised the 2006 Military Commissions Act under which Hicks was prosecuted.
Throughout his detention, Hicks told his lawyers he had been mistreated by US forces in both Afghanistan and Guantanamo by being beaten, made to endure prolonged sleep deprivation, and being forced to take unidentified medication. Former military commissions chief prosecutor Morris Davis testified in other court proceedings that Hicks’ plea agreement was negotiated without his knowledge, suggesting political forces were involved in the agreement.
On August 3, 2011, the New South Wales Supreme Court issued a restraining order on the use of assets derived from the sale of Hicks’ book. The case was adjourned until August 16 to allow the prosecutor to obtain additional evidence, at which time they are expected to ask for seizure of the assets obtained from the publication of the book.
“Although Hicks has alleged years of unlawful and abusive detention, neither the US nor Australia has ever offered him compensation or an apology,” Prasow said. “The prosecutor’s action would just compound that abuse.”
@'Human Rights Watch'
You Might Be A Conservative If…
2: You’re happy with your 40 hour work week, paid vacations and company-provided healthcare, but you’re strongly anti-union, because those commies haven’t done anything for you lately.
3: You strongly support the First Amendment and it’s guarantee of religious freedom to all, but you don’t think Muslims have a right to build an Islamic Community Center in Manhattan.
4: You believe Ronald Reagan was a devout Christian, even though he he hated going to church, but any president who spends twenty years going to the same Trinity United Church in Chicago must be a Muslim.
5: You believe when a Republican governor creates a healthcare package with an individual mandate for everyone in his state, that’s a good idea. But when a Democratic president does it, suddenly it’s unconstitutional.
6: You’re so enthused about demonstrating your Second Amendment rights, you can think of no finer place to brandish your pistol in public than at a presidential rally.
7: You believe Bill Clinton was responsible for Osama bin Laden’s escape ten years ago, but thankfully George W. Bush caught up with him and killed him in Pakistan.
8: You believe in putting American jobs first, except when president Obama rescued 1.5 million GM and Chrysler autoworkers, because that was socialism...
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Bonus:
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Commons Select Committee publishes further written evidence on phone-hacking
- Committee news: Committee publishes correspondence relating to News International session
- Committee news: Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks questioned by MPs
Read the correspondence
- Letter from Chairman to James Murdoch, 29 July (
PDF 725 KB)
- Letter from James Murdoch to Chairman, 11 August (
- Letter from James Murdoch to Chairman, 11 August (part 1)
- Letter from James Murdoch to Chairman, 11 August (part 2)
- Letter from James Murdoch to Chairman, 11 August (part 3)
- Letter from James Murdoch to Chairman, 11 August (part 4)
- Letter from James Murdoch to Chairman, 11 August (part 5)
- Letter from James Murdoch to Chairman, 11 August (part 6)
- Letter from Chairman to Rebekah Brooks, 29 July (
- Letter from Rebekah Brooks to Chairman, 8 August (
- Letter from Chairman to Jonathan Chapman, 29 July (
- Letter from Jonathan Chapman to Chairman, 11 August (
- Letter from Chairman to Colin Myler, 29 July (
- Letter from Colin Myler to Chairman, 10 August (
- Letter from Chairman to Tom Crone, 29 July (
- Letter from Tom Crone to Chairman, 6 August (
- Letter from Chairman to Harbottle and Lewis, 29 July (
- Covering letter from Harbottle and Lewis to Chairman, 11 August (
- Attachment from Harbottle and Lewis, 11 August (
- Letter from Baroness Buscombe to Chairman, 26 July (
- Letter from Mark Lewis to Chairman, 11 August (
- Letter from John Turnbull to Committee, 15 August (
Phone hacking: News of the World reporter's letter reveals cover-up
The News of the World's former royal correpsondent, Clive Goodman, who was jailed over phone hacking. A letter from him claims phone hacking was widely discussed at the paper. Photograph: Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty Images
Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and their former editor Andy Coulson all face embarrassing new allegations of dishonesty and cover-up after the publication of an explosive letter written by the News of the World's disgraced royal correspondent, Clive Goodman.
In the letter, which was written four years ago but published only on Tuesday, Goodman claims that phone hacking was "widely discussed" at editorial meetings at the paper until Coulson himself banned further references to it; that Coulson offered to let him keep his job if he agreed not to implicate the paper in hacking when he came to court; and that his own hacking was carried out with "the full knowledge and support" of other senior journalists, whom he named.
The claims are acutely troubling for the prime minister, David Cameron, who hired Coulson as his media adviser on the basis that he knew nothing about phone hacking. And they confront Rupert and James Murdoch with the humiliating prospect of being recalled to parliament to justify the evidence which they gave last month on the aftermath of Goodman's allegations. In a separate letter, one of the Murdochs' own law firms claim that parts of that evidence were variously "hard to credit", "self-serving" and "inaccurate and misleading".
Goodman's claims also raise serious questions about Rupert Murdoch's close friend and adviser, Les Hinton, who was sent a copy of the letter but failed to pass it to police and who then led a cast of senior Murdoch personnel in telling parliament that they believed Coulson knew nothing about the interception of the voicemail of public figures and that Goodman was the only journalist involved.
The letters from Goodman and from the London law firm Harbottle & Lewis are among a cache of paperwork published by the Commons culture, media and sport select committee. One committee member, the Labour MP Tom Watson, said Goodman's letter was "absolutely devastating". He said: "Clive Goodman's letter is the most significant piece of evidence that has been revealed so far. It completely removes News International's defence. This is one of the largest cover-ups I have seen in my lifetime."
Goodman's letter is dated 2 March 2007, soon after he was released from a four-month prison sentence. It is addressed to News International's director of human resources, Daniel Cloke, and registers his appeal against the decision of Hinton, the company's then chairman, to sack him for gross misconduct after he admitted intercepting the voicemail of three members of the royal household. Goodman lists five grounds for his appeal.
He argues that the decision is perverse because he acted "with the full knowledge and support" of named senior journalists and that payments for the private investigator who assisted him, Glenn Mulcaire, were arranged by another senior journalist. The names of the journalists have been redacted from the published letter at the request of Scotland Yard, who are investigating the affair.
Goodman then claims that other members of staff at the News of the World were also hacking phones. Crucially, he adds: "This practice was widely discussed in the daily editorial conference, until explicit reference to it was banned by the editor." He reveals that the paper continued to consult him on stories even though they knew he was going to plead guilty to phone hacking and that the paper's then lawyer, Tom Crone, knew all the details of the case against him.
In a particularly embarrassing allegation, he adds: "Tom Crone and the editor promised on many occasions that I could come back to a job at the newspaper if I did not implicate the paper or any of its staff in my mitigation plea. I did not, and I expect the paper to honour its promise to me." In the event, Goodman lost his appeal. But the claim that the paper induced him to mislead the court is one that may cause further problems for News International.
Two versions of his letter were provided to the committee. One which was supplied by Harbottle & Lewis has been redacted to remove the names of journalists, at the request of police. The other, which was supplied by News International, has been redacted to remove not only the names but also all references to hacking being discussed in Coulson's editorial meetings and to Coulson's offer to keep Goodman on staff if he agreed not to implicate the paper...
In the letter, which was written four years ago but published only on Tuesday, Goodman claims that phone hacking was "widely discussed" at editorial meetings at the paper until Coulson himself banned further references to it; that Coulson offered to let him keep his job if he agreed not to implicate the paper in hacking when he came to court; and that his own hacking was carried out with "the full knowledge and support" of other senior journalists, whom he named.
The claims are acutely troubling for the prime minister, David Cameron, who hired Coulson as his media adviser on the basis that he knew nothing about phone hacking. And they confront Rupert and James Murdoch with the humiliating prospect of being recalled to parliament to justify the evidence which they gave last month on the aftermath of Goodman's allegations. In a separate letter, one of the Murdochs' own law firms claim that parts of that evidence were variously "hard to credit", "self-serving" and "inaccurate and misleading".
Goodman's claims also raise serious questions about Rupert Murdoch's close friend and adviser, Les Hinton, who was sent a copy of the letter but failed to pass it to police and who then led a cast of senior Murdoch personnel in telling parliament that they believed Coulson knew nothing about the interception of the voicemail of public figures and that Goodman was the only journalist involved.
The letters from Goodman and from the London law firm Harbottle & Lewis are among a cache of paperwork published by the Commons culture, media and sport select committee. One committee member, the Labour MP Tom Watson, said Goodman's letter was "absolutely devastating". He said: "Clive Goodman's letter is the most significant piece of evidence that has been revealed so far. It completely removes News International's defence. This is one of the largest cover-ups I have seen in my lifetime."
Goodman's letter is dated 2 March 2007, soon after he was released from a four-month prison sentence. It is addressed to News International's director of human resources, Daniel Cloke, and registers his appeal against the decision of Hinton, the company's then chairman, to sack him for gross misconduct after he admitted intercepting the voicemail of three members of the royal household. Goodman lists five grounds for his appeal.
He argues that the decision is perverse because he acted "with the full knowledge and support" of named senior journalists and that payments for the private investigator who assisted him, Glenn Mulcaire, were arranged by another senior journalist. The names of the journalists have been redacted from the published letter at the request of Scotland Yard, who are investigating the affair.
Goodman then claims that other members of staff at the News of the World were also hacking phones. Crucially, he adds: "This practice was widely discussed in the daily editorial conference, until explicit reference to it was banned by the editor." He reveals that the paper continued to consult him on stories even though they knew he was going to plead guilty to phone hacking and that the paper's then lawyer, Tom Crone, knew all the details of the case against him.
In a particularly embarrassing allegation, he adds: "Tom Crone and the editor promised on many occasions that I could come back to a job at the newspaper if I did not implicate the paper or any of its staff in my mitigation plea. I did not, and I expect the paper to honour its promise to me." In the event, Goodman lost his appeal. But the claim that the paper induced him to mislead the court is one that may cause further problems for News International.
Two versions of his letter were provided to the committee. One which was supplied by Harbottle & Lewis has been redacted to remove the names of journalists, at the request of police. The other, which was supplied by News International, has been redacted to remove not only the names but also all references to hacking being discussed in Coulson's editorial meetings and to Coulson's offer to keep Goodman on staff if he agreed not to implicate the paper...
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Nick Davies @'The Guardian'
Real-time image search from all connected phones
Through user studies, measurement studies, and field studies, we show that Theia reduces the cost per relevant photo by an average of 59%. It reduces the energy consumption of search by up to 55% and 81% compared to alternative strategies of executing entirely locally or entirely in the cloud. Search results from smartphones are obtained in seconds.The research paper details the process, but in a nutshell, Theia can remotely search both the metadata (time and location) and the content of photos on cellphones that are registered with the Theia service. To speed up the process and ensure smartphones don’t waste too many CPU cycles searching for content, Theia uses a partitioned search approach: Photos that match certain search parameters initially are uploaded to Theia servers, where the offloaded data can be further searched in real time using more powerful cloud computing servers.
I can see some interesting and practical uses for this, but of course, privacy is a concern. The research team suggests mitigating that by allowing users to specify which photo folder on a smartphone is searchable through Theia. Essentially, users would opt-in by registering their phones with the service, then designating which photo gallery could be scanned.
Although it doesn’t offer a distributed search feature, the photo upload feature of Theia reminds me of the Google Plus Android app, which already has an Instant Upload function. Every picture taken is immediately uploaded to a user’s Google Plus account, but isn’t shared by default. Instead, a user can decide to share it with the public or a specific group post-upload. Since the pics are already on Google’s servers, it could be easy to one day search through them, provided users allowed for that to happen.
Kevin C. Tofel @'GIGACOM'
Be afraid! Be VERY afraid...
Bynickdavies Nick Davies
Stand by for new phone-hacking bombshells. Should be on the Guardian website around one o'clock.
Guardian Live Blog
Labour MP Tom Watson has already promised that the evidence is "dynamite".
Guardian Live Blog
Labour MP Tom Watson has already promised that the evidence is "dynamite".
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