The cover of the forthcoming book

I love stories. My children do also. Some time ago we were making up stories (which in this case is not a euphemism for “telling lies”). I came up with one about a ty robot that comes to life and escapes from his owner. The kids were fascinated and asked me to write a longer story based on this. I did and – further fuelled by their enthusiasm – it is turning into a book.

Sugar the Robot and the race to save the Earth

Yes that’s the name. You can find out more about it at the book’s website: crimperbooks.co.uk. You can also follow @crimperbooks or on the Facebook page.

Freedom

As you know I’m a believer in freedom and supporter of Creative Commons so as well as being able to buy this book as a paperback or for Kindle you will also be able to download it in a variety of ebook formats under a Creative Commons By-SA Licence. That means you can get it for free, share it and copy it without penalty. There’s a few reasons behind that decision but I’ll talk about that more on the book website at a later date.

For me one of the best things about this project is that it will include drawings by my kids. I’m also going to open the site up somewhat to encourage others to contribute their own ideas of what the scenes from the book look like and even what if any future adventures the characters should get up to.

If you want to reproduce the KJV text in the UK you have to ask the Queen.

I’ve probably written a lot on the subject of freedom in licencing already but a recent “news” story and the reaction to it has made me pick up my keyboard again.

Recent reports suggested the actor Bruce Willis was unhappy about the fact that he could not bequeath his iTunes collection. The Apple licencing agreement (that you agree to when you create an iTunes account) says that the content you “buy” and “download” is (in the words of one commentator) “simply loaned” to you. That is you do not own it.

It’s not your music collection

Firstly let’s get one thing out of the way, with few exceptions you have never owned any recorded music or video that you have “bought”. Most of those CDs, DVDs, videos and records that you have on your shelves or in your loft are not yours. Well they are. You own the media (the disc) and the paper the artwork is printed on, you own the plastic case and the ink used in printing. You do not own the music or film on the disc or video. You do not own the images on the paper or the words printed with the ink. You licence those things. This is the way it has been ever since copyright law was created.

You have never legally been able to take a DVD of, say, Die Hard 2, copy it, remix the film and give it to your friends. Actually in some jurisdictions that might be legal but here in the UK we don’t have a “fair usage” definition. Of course this has not stopped people doing such things – witness the rise of music sampling in the 70s and 80s. But don’t kid yourself that you have ever owned the music on those CDs. Remember those lovely “Hope taping is killing live music” stickers on cars in the 1980s? If you owned the music on the records in your record box that campaign would have had no backing (regardless of its lack of merit).

WTF?

Okay you may not have used those exact words but you get the idea. Many people react with shock when they find out they do not own the music they bought in Our Price in 1987 (yes I know I’m showing my age) but in truth you don’t. The person who wrote the songs probably doesn’t own it either, nor the one who recorded it. Chances are it is “owned” by a media company which has acquired the “rights” to the music you listen to.

Myth-busting

One of the articles I have read on this matter (I won’t link to it because I am not trying to attack anyone here – just debunk a few myths) went on to make these statements:

“Apple apparently have the right to freeze an iTunes account if someone has died and they believe someone else is accessing their files”

No they do not have the “right” – as in a legal statute, they have an agreement which you (the user) agreed to and which gives them permission to do that.

“I think if we pay for music or books – and they are not insubstantially priced – we should have the right to pass these on. It seems no different than leaving a loved one the keys to our house, if we own it.”

I’ve explained above that you don’t own the music. Whilst you can pass on physical CDs (because you own the media), you agreed not to do this for your digital content when you opened an iTunes account.

“I can’t physically carry lots of heavy books or stacks of CDs with me. So digital is the route I have to take.”

Yes it is but that doesn’t mean you have to buy restricted digital content. There is a wealth of digital content out there under free[dom] licences. Try some of that. Also you could try buying a CD and ripping it. That’s a while new legal grey area but most commentators say that it would be difficult to prosecute you unless you were distributing digital copies of your CD rather than listening to a single copy in place of the CD on your shelf.

Finally a question appeared on the same piece which asked:

“Does the reality that we only ‘loan’ in our digital ownership, make pirate file sharing more likely?”

As said I am not trying to have a go a anyone, rather debunk some myths. The myth here is that the alternative to “buying digital content” is piracy. It’s a myth the content owners love to perpetuate as it guilt-trips the consumer into paying up when they don’t have to. The realistic alternative of iTunes et al is NOT “piracy”, it’s freedom. Creative Commons and others have long led the way when it comes to freedom in creative works. The problem is not Apple’s licence agreement – others such as Amazon offer greater freedom in theirs. The problem is the illusion they perpetuate that you own what you buy from them. Even if Apple said you were permitted to bequeath your digital music collection to your grandkids the real problem would still be there.

That is the problem of what you can and cannot do with the works you have on your device. You cannot make additional copies for example. You cannot play the tune or video in your church without paying a (some might say protection racket) fee to CCLI first. You cannot print that poem in your church newsletter without breaking the law. You cannot give copies of the music to your worship band to help them learn it without first obtaining a different CCLI licence.

But, but, but

If you are now thinking “But how else would musicians and writers earn their crust” because of the last few remarks I’ve made, I would respond with the fact that the very same argument is used to defend the Apple iTunes agreement which says your kids have to buy their own copies.

The answer

The answer is, as you might expect me to say, to release creative works from the restrictive shackles of the copyright “industry”. Copyright, patents and “Intellectual property” all sound a wonderful way for the poor musician to get paid for their work. The reality is that it is an ever tightening web of restrictions which, if allowed to continue unchecked, will choke the life out of the very creativity and innovation it claims to protect.

If the music Bruce Willis had bought was released under licencing with freedom built in (Creative Commons for example), Apple would most certainly have no right to tell him who he could give copies to – even before his death.

I’ve hesitated over writing this post because – quite frankly – I feel underqualified to do so. Yesterday at 3:40pm the seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea was rocked by the shooting of two people, one of whom was a police officer and who was killed. Clacton has been a regular haunt of mine over the years and just recently both my children have been on school trips to the town. The idea that someone would be shot and killed in the middle of the day somewhere like Clacton is shocking and tragic.

The police officer, PC Ian Dibell apparently was “off-duty”, which I know really means “not on shift”. Police officers do not have the luxury of being off-duty. Early reports and coments from Essex police describe him intervening after the other person (a member of the public) was shot in the leg. PC Dibell – according to his superiors – was well aware of the danger he was putting himself into but chose to do so anyway. Whilst I don’t know the exact circumstances I’d say that if PC Dibell intervened to prevent further injury and possible death to the other victim – he succeeded. Tragically he did this at the loss of his own life.

The reason I feel underqualified to comment here is because I did not know PC Dibell and I have not served as a police officer (I do know some though).

We bandy words like “hero” around a great deal. I have no doubt in my mind that PC Dibell is one. He paid the ultimate price to do the “job” that he wasn’t even on shift to do. Would you do that for your job? Would you step into the path of a man with a gun? It seems now that the gunman has since killed himself. It is tragic beyond words that two lives have been lost over an argument.

Rest in peace Pc Dibell. My prayers are with your family and loved ones.

Image Copyright (c) 2012 Ryan P Cartwright - released into Public Domain

Some of you will know I’m a bit of a freedom advocate – particularly when it comes to using the Internet/WWW. I’ve already explained why censorship and blocking are non-starters when it comes to the web and spoken out about Internet censorship. During the last governments reign I joined those campaigning against the monitoring of private Internet usage on a national scale. In short we won – the proposed bill to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to keep records of all their customers communications was dropped.

Well now the current government is looking to resurrect that bill as the Communications Data Bill (CDB). This bill would require ISPs to:

• keep a year’s worth of complete records of all the websites you have visited as well as when and how frequently you visit them
• keep a year’s worth of every eMail you send and receive
• keep a year’s worth of every phone call you make to or through them (e.g. through Internet telephony like Skype)
• keep a year’s worth of every letter and fax communication between you and them or sent through them (not sure why an ISP would have records of letters I have sent but this proves the bill is worded as a catch-all).

Of course the Home Secretary says this is for prevention of crime and advocates of the bill are already dropping the key terms “terrorist” and “paedophile” into conversations about this proposed act as often as they can.

But this bill is yet another poorly thought out that attempt to monitor what everybody is doing and thus keep an eye on all of us – innocent or not. “That’s fine” you think, “I’m not breaking any laws. If the government wants a record of my visits to http://www.cakewrecks.com that’s fine with me . This bill won’t affect me.” Except it will.

• ISPs queued up to decry the last bill saying how much overhead storing all this data would add to their business costs. Those costs will be passed onto the customers. That affects you.
• There are and should always be concerns over the security of this data. These records will contain every eMail you send, every visit to your bank’s website, your shopping habits, your credit card details used when you shopped. That is a very tempting target to a lot of people. That affects you.
• Mobile providers are also ISPs now so this new law covers them. All you rmobile phone calls and mobile web browsing kept on record. That affects you.
• The records will also contain details of anything you may have said or did – even in innocence – which could be deemed in breach of somebody’s copyright. That music file you sent to your friend so they could tell if they wanted to buy the album? That clip from Youtube you downloaded and used in a presentation without getting a licence? Imagine if a media firm suspected you of “stealing” their intellectual property. How far a leap is it to imagine that they would ask/demand the ISP hand over your browsing habits regardless of whether there is any proof? An innocent eMail becomes evidence in a private lawsuit. That affects you.
• The records could be used to filter out any dissent against the government and highlight those who disagree with government policy. They could use this to censor things they disagree with. This affects you.

Woah stop. Did I just say the government could use this data to highlight those who oppose it? Surely that kind of censorship wouldn’t happen in a democratic country like the UK?

Except it does.

Enter the neverseconds blog debacle

You’ve heard this one right?

• A 9 year old girl blogs about her school dinners, including photos and rates them for health and nutrition.
• The site proves successful gaining over 2 million visits and “celebrity endorsement”.
• The site also raises thousands of pounds for a charity that aims to feed children in poorer nations.
• The local authority (Argyll & Bute) hear about it and don’t like the fact that this blog occasionally paints a somewhat negative image of the schools meals.
• The local authority instruct the school to stop the girl from blogging or taking photos of her meals saying it puts their staff “at risk”(?).
• There’s a public outcry and show of support for the blog.
• The local authority issue a statement to say they are standing by their actions regardless.

Update: As I published this post the BBC were reporting that Argyll & Bute have climbed down and are no longer banning the neverseconds blog. But they did try to censor and only changed their mind when it went public.

Censorship (or attempted censorship anyway) here in the UK. Yeah I know it seems daft to jump from a local council in a tizzy about slating school meals (funny how nobody stopped Jamie Oliver – who funnily enough supported this blog) to a national goverment sifting through eMails to find incriminating data on someone they want out of the way. The problem is that Argyll & Bute’s actions show that politicians often act in an ill-informed way which is harmful to the people they are meant to serve. Yes there are a lot of politicians but honestly I have never heard of one who genuinely seems to understand the Internet and associated technologies. Once these records are being kept, broadband costs will rise and it will open the door for the next phase which will be to open this data up to other interested parties.

This is fine if you are happy with the government (or anyone they deem fit) sifting through your communications. But if you are ok with it, can I ask a question: do you use envelopes or do you send everything on a postcard? I’ll presume you use envelopes so then ask your self why? It’s not illegal stuff you are sending. It’s just a birthday card to you best friend. But you use an envelope because 1. you don’t want you friend to see it until their birthday and 2. it’s nobody else’s business what is in that envelope.

I appreciate there will be some purported legitimate reasons for wanting to monitor certain people for particular reasons but there’s a pretty decent chance that anyone who is using the Internet for criminal activity (and copyright infringement is not a crime) will already work around the bits where they leave a trace. You know those “hacking” groups like Anonymous and LolSec? Ever wonder why they rarely get caught? They’re good at hiding. ISP records would not catch them. In fact there’s a good chance they’ll hijack somebody else’s wireless and put the blame on an innocent person.

Write to your MP today

The CDB is not in the public interest, it is poorly conceived and bad for the country. It does affect each of us and if we sit and wait it will be too late for us to stop it. The openrights group have an excellent page which enables you to eMail your MP about this. It takes a few seconds to do and could make a big difference. If you live in the UK I urge you to do so as soon as possible. Let’s stop this before it begins.

Below is a guest post by a friend and colleague at Free Software Magazine – Terry Hancock.

Like me, Terry is interested in the subjects of free (as in freedom) software and free culture. With regards the latter (and unlike me) he has got off his backside and started to do something. This post describes Terry’s project to produce a science fiction “TV” series and release it under Creative Commons licences. This is both ambitious and encouraging. As you know I have focussed [my own attempts](http://www.crimperman.org/tag/freedom/] at free culture onto the church and the way “worship” resources are locked down and restricted by archaic copyright and “intellectual property” laws. One obstacle I have come across is that if resource producers do not release the material under free licences then any attempt to bring freedom back into our media and other cultural elements will fail. Terry has encountered this and “Lunatics” is an admirable response.

Right now the issue – as ever – is financial. This project is – by nature – on a much smaller budget than mainstream productions but – like the Blender open movie projects before it – it still requires some cash to get started. Also like the Blender open movies, backers get rewarded for their donation.

You may not like science fiction, you may not like the concept of Lunatics but you may know people who do. If you like the idea of free culture and are fed up with the ever-increasing tide of restrictive actions by media companies – try supporting one of the good guys.

Update

The target funding has now been reached. This is exciting news as it means there is support for such a great venture. You can still find out about the project and catch up with the latest news at the project website lunatics.tv.

Guest post – Terry Hancock

Lunatics - somebody's got to be crazy enough to go first!

Support this project

Lunatics is a story about the first permanent settlement on the Moon. Politics are inevitable, physics is implacable, and the colonists are indomitable fanatics. After all, normal people don’t really colonize new worlds, do they?

“Lunatics” itself is largely based on character comedy, but we take the science and technology very seriously. Much of the technology in planned Lunatics scripts is not only real and relatively new, but also largely ignored in prior science fiction. Perhaps the greatest realism, though, is in the way the characters are presented.

The series and all the original source material will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, and it will be created using (mainly) the free software Blender 3D application on GNU/Linux workstations. It is a free-culture production from end-to-end. We are taking advantage of the massive body of existing free-culture work (music, sound effect, graphics, and so on) to help make all of this possible. And once we get our series up and running (we plan to do 18 episodes a year, of about 30 minutes length each) we will be one of the biggest free culture film projects going!

What makes this possible is a fan-financed business model which has been pioneered by only a handful of free-culture projects. But it’s enough to show that it can be done.

This project will require a lot of innovation on everything from merchandising business models to real-time animation techniques.

Right now, we are trying to raise $2400 through a Kickstarter project to support pre-production work — especially paying artist Daniel Fu a commission for creating character design drawings which will be used to create the 3D characters for the series.

Backers at any level will get early access, and for those who pay just $15 or more, we have a variety of “rewards” — ranging from character art posters to the complete “Character Art Book and Writer’s Guide”.

We also have corporate sponsorship levels if you know someone who’d be interested — for $400, you can get your company logo printed prominently on our pre-production materials, and featured on the website. Needless to say, a couple of such sponsorships would go a long way towards meeting our goal (these are limited to just 4 slots to make sure we have room for your logo).

Like all projects, we have to start small and work our way up. I don’t have a fan-base of thousands to draw on yet, because Lunatics doesn’t exist… yet. But with your help, we can get there!

Thanks!

Regular readers of this blog (if there exists such a beast) will know I am quite passionate about the ideas of freedom in church. To be more specific I really dislike the idea of restricting people through draconian copyright from worshipping and journeying with God. Recently I’ve noticed some a increase in some quarters at releasing some of the restrictions usually associated with copyright symbols. Music and other resource books are increasingly appearing with “photocopy permissions”. At face value this sounds wonderful and you’d be forgiven for believing it is generous on the part of the publisher. I’m sure the author/publisher/editor thinks they are being generous too – except they aren’t really. They’re just being confusing.

As an example let’s take a recent resource book I bought. “Free Photocopying included!” shouts the red splash logo on the front cover. “Great!” you think and you begin copying to use in your church. You do this because nobody usually reads the small print when the big print is so unambiguous. The problem here is that the standard copyright terms inside the front cover include the words..

“All rights reserved. It is illegal to reproduce or transmit in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, any part of this copyrighted file without permission in writing from the author” (emphasis mine)

Note that it says “including photocopying” there but hang-on the front cover says I can copy it. The introduction tries to clarify things by mentioning that “This book includes a licence which permits you to photocopy it but – for obvious reasons – for use within your group only”. So that’s clear then. There’s is your permission in writing.

Except it’s still not clear. What is my group, how often can I copy this and what if I am responsible for several “groups”? I know it sounds like I’m being pedantic here but believe me an “Intellectual Property” Lawyer would be even more so. Suppose I use this book for ten years. During that time I need to give copies to several people in two groups. Over time copies get lost, fade or people leave the group. Do I have to get the copies back off the people who leave? How many times can I copy it? If the people I give it to copy their copies am I responsible for them? How big does the author think a “group” has to be before they expect me to buy a new book?

“Oh you’re being silly Ryan” I hear you say. “Nobody is really going to care about such trivial details – least of all a Christian author.” Except we’ve had cases where Christian organisations sue other ones because they have similar sounding names. We have Christian CDs with copy protection on them and we’ve had situations where Churches receive threatening letters for putting something they believed to be public domain in their newsletter. Sadly the fact is that if you were not prepared to sue and you didn’t really care then you wouldn’t include the copying restriction text in the first place. A Christian (or any) Author may not intend to sue a copyright infringement but you can bet the publisher will. The publishing industry has even popularised it as a “crime” (it’s not it’s a civil not a legal infringement). And again to my eye it looks more like the Church is intent on copying (if you’ll pardon the pun) the way the rest of the world does this kind of stuff.

A Better way

I know there’ll be arguments of “People have to be paid” and “You can’t get everything for free” coming about now. I’ve heard them and I’ve answered them before. I won’t bother doing so again here but there is a better way to give people the freedom to photocopy without leaving all these legal holes for them to fall into. How about putting a specific licence on the work. One which might say: “You can copy this and pass those copies around. You cannot sell it and you have to say where you got the original”. That’s the essence of the Creative Commons licences. Specifically it’s a Attribution-Non-Commercial one. Some people familiar with CC will balk at my use of NC in there but in this context it works. You can add bits like “It has to be copied unaltered” (No-derivatives) and “You can’t restrict the way anybody uses the copies” (Share-alike) but these licences are specific. They tell you what you can and can’t do and they do so in plain English (or whatever language you prefer). Suddenly all my questions above are answered:

What is my group? group size and number is irrelevant, make as any copes as you need
How often can I copy this? As often as you like – just don’t sell the copies and say where you got it.
What if I am responsible for several “groups”? doesn’t matter
Do I have to get the copies back off the people who leave? no
How many times can I copy it? As many times as you need
If the people I give it to, copy their copies am I responsible or them? no, it’s fine
How big does the author expect a group to be before they expect me to buy a new book? doesn’t matter

Right now I imagine any authors reading this (if they have got this far) will be shaking their heads and dismissing me and mad. How can I possibly suggest removing their income like this. But I’m not. I can’t think of a Christian book I have read in the last twenty or thirty years that was written or compiled by somebody whose sole job was an author. Most of the authors are involved in some kind of ministry or job which gives their writing on that subject a certain weight. In short they are already receiving an income, the royalties from books (which is but a small percentage of the price you and I pay) are on top of their salary. But they have expenses? Which can probably be met by the sales of the book anyway quite early on – particularly how many books are pushed at conferences and festivals anyway. It’s common to presume that what I am suggesting here will result in fewer book sales because everyone will copy the one book. That’s not borne out by evidence elsewhere. Some authors have seen their book sales increase when they released the text elsewhere under Creative Commons and as I said if the book is pushed at a Christian event I imagine people will still buy copies rather than wait for a photocopy when they get home. The thing is this happens now. People photocopy some pages from a book, the recipient likes it and then buys the book. Nobody in their right mind would copy and entire book. Most people would copy a few pages and those who need the full book – buy it or borrow it. Some people prefer to buy physical books as well. Yes the profit from sales may drop but not as much as you think and mostly that will hit the publishing company not the author.

Nothing will happen

That sounds a bit defeatist but I am not expecting anything much to happen immediately following this post. Firstly I’m not that popular so I doubt many people will read it. Secondly people are not generally inclined to share these days. That’s funny because we all tell our kids too and our faith is based on free gifts that must be shared with others. One day maybe the Church will get this. Certainly a small pocket of it does now but right now, sadly, the Church seems to be quite merrily following the example set by the selfish and greedy parts of the world around us.

If you want to read more on this subject here are some of my blog posts on it:

• Authorised (KJ) version – not so free then
• Christians and copyright: why can’t we share?
• m108, document freedom and the church
• Announcing m108: the next step on freeing the Church
• Taking risks and freeingup worship
• Christianity that doesn’t spread straight from the fridge
• Human rights vs Human responsibility

If you want to reproduce the KJV text in the UK you have to ask the Queen.

This year, Christians are celebrating the 400th anniversary of the first publication of the Authorised or King James version of the Bible. As an example the popular Spring Harvest festival has rightly chosen the Bible as it’s theme for this year’s event. It’s not just Christians either. Certainly here in the UK I have seen and heard of a lot of events and media productions based around the importance of the publication of one of the most popular translations of the Bible. Part of the enduring popularity is down to tradition, part of it will be down to the fact that a lot of Christians consider this to be the “only” version of the Bible and part of it – especially in recent times – will be because it is one of the few recognised translations outside of copyright control. Hey it was published in 1611 so any copyright on it must have expired by now – right?

Freedom in the UK

Not in the UK it seems. I hadn’t realised this before and I am indebted to an identica/twitter friend @artsyhonker for highlighting it. The King James version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer are under Crown copyright in the UK. So far so good, the 1988 act brought Crown copyright into line with other copyright holders but both these publications are covered by Royal perogative. This peculiarity means that publishing of these texts in the UK can only occur under licence from the Queen’s Printer. Here’s an extract from the Wikipedia page on the BCP (emphasis mine):

In the United Kingdom, the British Crown holds the rights to the Book of Common Prayer. The rights fall outside the scope of copyright as defined in statute law. Instead, they fall under the purview of the royal prerogative and as such, they are perpetual in subsistence. Publishers are licensed to reproduce the Book of Common Prayer under letters patent. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the letters patent are held by the Queen’s Printer, and in Scotland by the Scottish Bible Board. The office of Queen’s Printer has been associated with the right to reproduce the Bible for many years, with the earliest known reference coming in 1577. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the Queen’s Printer is Cambridge University Press. CUP inherited the right of being Queen’s Printer when they took over the firm of Eyre & Spottiswoode in the late 20th century. Eyre & Spottiswoode had been Queen’s Printer since 1901. Other letters patent of similar antiquity grant Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press the right to produce the Book of Common Prayer independently of the Queen’s Printer.

The terms of the letters patent prohibit those other than the holders, or those authorized by the holders from printing, publishing or importing the Book of Common Prayer into the United Kingdom. The protection that the Book of Common Prayer, and the Authorized version, enjoy is the last remnant of the time when the Crown held a monopoly over all printing and publishing in the United Kingdom.

This protection should not be confused with Crown copyright, or copyright in works of the United Kingdom’s government; that is part of modern UK copyright law. Like other copyrights, Crown copyright is time-limited and potentially enforceable worldwide. The non-copyright Royal Prerogative is perpetual, but applies only to the UK; though many other Royal Prerogatives apply to the other Commonwealth realms, this one does not.

I’d imagine there is – as ever – a grey area with regards what constitutes “publication” and I’m guessing the legislation doesn’t allow for such things as the web but what this means is that in the UK where the King James version was first published, we cannot legally reproduce any of the text without letters patent (a licence).

Freedom

Those who read this blog (both of you) will know that I am particularly fond of writing about freedom, particularly when it comes to resources for Christians to use in worshipping God – and by worship I mean all its forms including just living. It seems I now have to correct something I said a few years ago whereby I referred to the KJV as public domain. Restrictive licencing on any Christian resource saddens me – more so when that resource is the Bible which is intended to free people.

You might be thinking that the Royal prerogative thing is a bit superfluous as the Crown is unlikely to prosecute an individual UK blogger (say) for reproducing ten verses of the KJV on a website. You might be thinking that anybody worth their salt would probably read a more modern translation (with the copyright issues surrounding that). You might be thinking that you can just get a copy from another country (any importer must be licenced also). In short: it’s easy for us to think this doesn’t matter. Except it does matter and it should matter. It should matter to all UK Christians that 400 years after publication such an important text remains under tight publication controls. It should matter that while almost every other government and Crown text will eventually enter the public domain – for all to freely enjoy – two texts intended to bring people into closer fellowship with God will always have restrictions upon them. If a UK church wishes to publish some verses from the KJV in it’s bulletin, it should be able to do so without fear of breaking the law. Being in a situation where “it’s okay because they won’t prosecute” is unhelpful. If nobody will be prosecuted then the law is irrelevant. If we are reserving the law for cases where somebody may print off ten thousand copies then the law is pointless. Copyright exists to create a monopoly for the author (or copyright holder) of the work. If somebody prints 10,000 bibles and sells them who exactly is missing out here? After 400 years won’t the Crown (not the government in this case) have made enough money off the KJV in the past 400 years?

This year – of all years – the Royal prerogative on the KJV and the BCP should be surrendered. Place these texts in the public domain where they should be!

Do you see people who speak too quickly? There is more hope for a foolish person than for them. ^{Prov. 29:20 NCV}

In what seems to be an effort to show that we can be just as daft as the rest of the world (if not more so) there have been two very good recent examples of Christians not paying attention to the above scripture. The first concerns author and speaker Rob Bell. Apparently he has a new book coming out soon and it may or may not be a bit controversial. What has caused the controversy is quite frankly irrelevant because as yet only a handful of people have read the book (it is yet to be published after all). Now the cynic in me says that the publishers are quite happy with controversy and the associated furore as it will probably lead to more sales but like others it galls me to see so much vitriol directed towards Mr Bell (and even those who share his name) from so many who call themselves Christian and yet have somehow forgotten to think before speaking or acting – let alone actually consider showing any grace at all. This kind of behaviour reminds me of the mess with the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand phone call “scandal” where thousands of people who hadn’t heard a radio show, read that they might have been offended if they had heard it and so duly complained without actually hearing it! I posted a link to a very apt video a while back which might be useful for some of us to see.

Image by Tom Page CC:By-SA

The second example is the much-publicised case of the Johns. This Christian couple were reported as being banned from fostering because of their views on homosexuality. Except as the ever trusty Church Mouse reported (with credit to Peter Ould and Gavin Drake it never happened. The Johns were not banned. No Christian couple is banned from fostering and there wasn’t even a fostering case at the centre of this. The Johns were asking a Judge to rule against the possibility that their Local Authority might try to prevent them fostering on the grounds of their “traditional view of marriage and sexual ethics”. Yet again the Christian knee-jerk machine went into action and the “We are offended” placards were picked up and because we are in a connected world, the “fight” soon crossed to other countries. Again though is this a case of Christians taking an “offended” stance without checking if we actually should be? In fairness the popular media has clambered all over this story and mis-reported it so it really boils down to not believing everything you read in the papers at face value.

There is a worrying trend in the UK (at least) where Christians seem all too keen to presume that the world is out to get us and that we are being “persecuted”. The basis for this seems to be that because some people voice opinions opposing our own (and let’s be honest that happens enough within the Church) we are being persecuted. So we have mass band-wagon jumping whenever cases like these occur. The danger as I see it here is that the rhetoric used to defend Christians is remarkably close to the supporters of extremist political groups and we end up fuelling our own fears with talk of victimisation and persecution. But to date, in the UK: I have not heard of anyone imprisoned for saying “Jesus is Lord” in a public place; I have yet to hear of somebody being physically attacked for being a Christian and nobody has ordered a church closed down simply for being a church. Let’s stop jumping the gun here and pay attention to the scripture above. Okay, sure sometimes people might say or act towards Christians in an unkind, unfair and prejudicial manner but as the first of the examples above shows, the perpetrator is just as likely to be a Christian as well.

image (c) Ryan Cartwright CC:By-SA

As you probably know I can be found on Twitter – actually I have multiple accounts on there for personal, work and church reasons. I also have an Android-based phone and to help me manage those multiple accounts I use a Twitter client/app called Twidroyd. It’s very nice and does what I need it to. On Friday however it stopped being able to do anything on Twitter because Twitter blocked it – along with other clients made by the same company. Apparently these applications had violated Twitter’s policies. I have no real qualms with Twitter taking action if somebody violates their policy – it’s their policy after all. What worries me though is the apparent lack of notice given to Twidroyd users and the oh-so-coincidental appearance of a advert for Twitter’s Android client in the stream for Twidroyd users.

It’s not illegal or even immoral really but something sticks in my throat about the fact that the ability to cut people off from such a useful service rests with a handful of business folk. I know, I know we don’t have to use it and yes it is indeed Twitter’s service so they can do what they want but still when something gets this popular it moves beyond a mere business-arrangement type service and becomes something bigger. But what can we do eh? We use Twitter for lots of reasons but one of the most common will be because people we know/want to follow are on there. It’s the same catch-22 as Facebook to be honest and it comes down to security/privacy being overruled by convenience.

There are alternatives to Twitter, one of the most popular probably being Identica. I wrote an article on it for Free Software Magazine a while back but in brief this is micro-blogging with freedom. I can’t say that StatusNet (the people behind Identi.ca) would not block some app which breaks their policy but I can be pretty sure they wouldn’t act in the way Twitter has here. Identi.ca is designed around freedom. The software it (the server) runs on is free software and you can (and some companies do) download and run your own version of it. Most of us won’t have to and can use Identi.ca often with the same apps we use now. Twidroyd certainly has Identi.ca support and throughout this debacle it kept happily updating my timeline with Dents from Identi.ca.

In brief: Identi.ca is micro-blogging with freedom

You use Identi.ca exactly as you would Twitter and it has some extra features like groups (which predates and is better than Twitter’s lists) and In context (conversations) on the standard web interface (which is much better than new Twitter) – see my Free Software Magazine article for more. I’ve used it for work for nearly two years now and it’s really good. It also bridges to Twitter, you can find your Twitter friends on Identi.ca and set up a cross denting feature which will see your dents posted to your Twitter account. I’ve got a personal Identi.ca account but mostly it’s a place-holder.

Privacy

There is one caveat here though: Identi.ca doesn’t have a protected mode (where people have to request to follow you). For some, I know this will be a privacy issue for others not so much. The thing is that Identi.ca is about freedom and that means not restricting access to content. For this reason all Identi.ca users agree that their posts will be published under a Creative Commons Attribution licence. Once you take that into account there’s really no requirement for a “protect my dents” feature. In the end it means you shouldn’t post something you wouldn’t shout through a megaphone. Is this less private that Twitter? I’m not so sure. I started protecting my tweets a while back and then noticed people were RTing them anyway (some asked first which was polite – thanks). By the way the Press Complaints Commission recently ruled even protected tweets can be considered public domain because your followers may RT them.

So it would seem prudent to consider all your tweets as being broadcasted regardless of your privacy issues. If you are going to do that why protect them at all? So we come to Identi.ca’s stance of make them public but make sure they are attributed if they get repeated. Once you know that something you say has the potential to go public you change what you say. Many people tweet “Child1″ or “Son/Daughter” in reference to the child on Twitter but will use the child’s name on Facebook because they consider Facebook to be more private and yet we keep reading story after story of how Facebook has neglected user’s privacy and where supposed “private” status updates end up in the media. In the end privacy on the web is like car security – all you can really do is make your stuff less attractive to get and hope they go for the least path of resistance.

Using Identi.ca

So I’m going to start using Identi.ca in a personal capacity more now. Of course I will have to refer back to Twitter to keep up with people who are not on Identi.ca. So here’s what I’m going to try:

• new dents/tweets will be posted on Identi.ca and cross posted to Twitter
• replies will be made on whichever service I received the original
• replies will not be cross-posted

Of course to manage this I need some software which will make it easier. Fortunately Twidroyd has multiple accounts and support for both Identi.ca and Twitter and will show both streams as a single feed with smart-replying. On the desktop I use Choqok on KDE (more free software) and that also supports multiple accounts and both Twitter and Identi.ca. Of course I could find myself alone but if Twitter has annoyed you lately why not give this a try too? Signing up is about as easy as it can get and you can register using your Twitter account and Identi.ca will create an account with the same name (if it’s available) and create the bridge for you.

You can (or will be able to)¹ find me on Identi.ca at http://identi.ca/crimperman but right now there’s nothing there because I’ve not been using it and I can’t log in (I’ve forgotten my password and the password reminder system is being fixed as I speak). Watch this space though. In a professional capacity you’ll find me at http://identic.ca/equitas

¹ Update 22 Feb 2011 07:56 – the password reminder issue was fixed shortly after this was posted