TechWire

Ireland Offline calls for Net neutrality, but no chance

Ireland Offline is getting fairly perturbed about this whole Irma v ISPs thing. It's just sent out a press release calling for 'Net neutrality'. In a nutshell, this means that internet users would have the right to go anywhere they want on the web, as long as they didn't engage in illegality. It makes sense to me.

Apparently, the Norwegians use this approach. (Link via Ireland Offline.)

Unfortunately, it has zero chance of being adopted in Ireland. We're way too backward and 'pro-business' to consider this.

Meteor's mobile broadband to be launched on March 4th

But it'll be limited coverage at the beginning.

O2's Irish results: revenue down, broadband up

O2's results are out. It's the same old story: its average revenue per user (Arpu) continues to slide (but only marginally -- €42.60, down from €45.70 for the same period last year).

But its mobile broadband figures are interesting. It now has 98,000 of them in Ireland. And those customer now make up 8.3 per cent of O2's overall service revenue here.

ISPs "could block" access to music labels' websites

I like this one. There are now rumblings among some Irish ISPs of revenge against the music industry, should it succeed in its current quest to have music-sharing websites blocked from ISPs' customers.

Such sweet revenge would take the form of blocking access to the websites of EMI, Sony, Universal,  Warner and Irma, among others. Their approach: you piss on our turf, we'll piss on yours.

It's unlikely to happen, as Eircom certainly wouldn't play ball and it is by far the largest ISP. Still, that fact that it's being discussed shows a bit of creativity among the ISPs.

Boxer's DTT codology

Last August, this blog predicted that Boxer's January (2009) launch date was pie-in-the-sky spoofery.

That deadline has come and gone. And we're still no closer.

Now, Boxer, controlled by Denis O'Brien's Communicorp, says that September 2009 is its new launch date. Nope. That won't happen either. Just look at today's piece in the Indo by Laura Noonan.

The fact is that Boxer won this licence for cosmetic reasons -- it put on a good show at the presentation stage and RTE, which was far better placed to run this digital television switchover, did not.

And now Boxer can't deliver.

Fianna Fail's new website

is still crap. Basically trying to shine up a few press releases and videos. It's unbelievable that they're actually comparing themselves with Barack Obama's campaign site.

It could be really good. But no-one senior in Irish politics party actually takes the web seriously.

Fair use? Or copyright theft?

Via Photographers.ie, this is an interesting debate. When does a photo (or another form of work) become fair use material for anyone who wants to use it?

The specific case in point is about an artist called Shepard Fairey who used an AP photograph to create his (now famous) 'Hope' poster of Obama. The question is, should he be allowed to use another's photo for this as 'fair use'?

There's a lot of muddled thinking and double-standards throughout this debate. For example, those who think it's absolutely okay to copy, swap and download copyrighted music react with outrage if something they have created (a photo, an article, a blog post) is used elsewhere without attribution or compensation.

Personally, I think that some form of compensation is due to the AP for this, mainly because of the success of the poster: Shepard needed this shot to base his work on, and AP deserves something for that. But perhaps they're not due a huge level of compensation. The end product is, actually, something slightly different. I'd suggest $20,000 or something similar.

On a broader level, I think that artists, journalists, authors and musicians do have to accept that a certain amount of copying and leeching is part of life. That's why I think that the music industry is a being too heavy-handed on its current quest to compel ISPs into censoring websites. Copying and ripping off music has always existed: it always will.

And it's why most journalists don't overreact when other newspapers (or bloggers) rip their material off (unlike the other way around, when it comes to bloggers).

It's simply part of life, part of putting your work out there. The majority won't actually rip you off. But a small minority will. We have to just live with it.

How to avoid superfluousness in press releases

I've blogged before about how to get more coverage in a newspaper through proper photos, how to write usable press releases and how to approach interviews.

Adding to the press release issue, I'd like to point out a minor crime that many companies commit: hyperbole and superfluous cliche.

To explain what I'm talking about, here's a press release that came in this morning. It's about a British company that has appointed a new Irish CEO. But it uses tired hyperbolic cliche that means nothing. (I've added parentheses to make the point.)

New CEO commented: "It's an exciting [as opposed to a boring] time to be joining [this company] in the UK and to be given the opportunity to lead our next stage of development. While the overall current business environment is tough [because it was so easy before], our exceptional [and not dull, ordinary] and innovative services are focused on supporting UK businesses [as opposed to denigrating them] through this challenging and uncertain [as opposed to unchallenging and blithely predictable] period. Our market leading practical [and not impractical] and customisable solutions are already supporting thousands of UK businesses to make better and more informed decisions [and definitely not worse ones]. I am proud [as opposed to ashamed or mortified] of the strong partnerships we have with our clients and this is something I want to build on [rather than destroy]. "

New CEO's board boss commented: "I'm delighted [as opposed to appalled] to have someone of CEO's caliber on board. He is an accomplished business leader, is entrepreneurial in attitude and will bring great strength and experience to compliment the existing management team [because they didn't have great strength and experience before]."

To whoever wrote this release, I would urge you to monitor the press coverage (if any) that this gets to see how many of these cliches and hyperbole get into the article text. I'll wager it's zero.

Irish tech stores: the outlook looks gloomy

Something has got to give. For weeks I've been checking on electronics stores around Dublin and none of them are doing good business. In fact, some of them are positively empty, even on a Saturday afternoon. Even in Grafton Street, Henry Street and suburban shopping centres.

3G Stores, Harvey Norman, Currys, PC World, Peats, DID, Power City, Sony Centre outlets, The Laptop Shop -- they're all under a lot of strain right now.

The question now is not which one will have to shut branches, but which ones can remain intact as a going concern. It's that serious.

There's some background here, in a feature piece I wrote last Sunday for the SBP.

Irma/ISPs: why we're about to sell ourselves out

The settlement between the Irish Recorded Music Assocation (Irma) and Eircom has gotten a lot of attention. But most of it has been about the disconnection of copyright abusers and the three-strikes approach.

A far more serious issue for civil liberties was confirmed in a legal letter sent out to all of the country's ISPs by Irma this week.

It states: "Eircom has agreed that it will not oppose any application our client may make seeking the blocking of access from their network to the Pirate Bay or similar websites".

In other words, Irma is drawing up a list of websites it doesn't like and Eircom will block them to all of its customers. And Irma is demanding that other ISPs do likewise, on pain of being sued.

Eircom says that it will only block a website if a court order requests it to. But it has undertaken not to oppose any application to a court, meaning the order is automatically granted. It's a technical way of getting out of taking responsibility for it.

"We're not offering to block Pirate Bay," a spokesman for Eircom told me on Tuesday. "But if Irma goes and gets a court order seeking the blocking go Pirate Bay, we will comply with the court order. And we have agreed not to oppose that application in court."

In other words, it's happy hunting time for the big music labels. Bear in mind that Eircom over two-thrids of the residential broadband market in Ireland. That's a lot of internet censorship.

And the other ISPs? BT, UPC, Vodafone, 3? They're taking counsel at the moment and conferring among themselves. They're not small enough to be easily bullied by the music industry. But they may also take the view that it's less hassle just to comply with the scheme Eircom has signed up to. This will especially be so if people do not kick up a stink. If the public appears not to care about this, as I think is likely to be the case, it will be more tempting to save money on the legal costs involved.

This is a very serious development for freedom of speech and internet access in this country, whether the public care or not.

In a nutshell, if this sails through, other industries will line up to have their own nemesis websites blocked. For example, the publishing industry has long since had it in for Google's Book Search project. It alleges massive copyright infringement. What's to stop Penguin, Harper Collins and the rest from demanding that Irish ISPs stop allowing access to that site? Even Wikipedia could come under threat.

If this continues, Ireland will have proven itself to be a soft touch for censorship.

The question is: will anybody care?

EDIT: On the above point relating to how Irma's application gets through the courts, Eircom has asked me to point out that Irma still needs some standard of proof to show the court. This is true, but Irma has a couple of legislative provisions (mostly section 40(4) of the Copyright Act) to argue in court. Our judicial system is an adversarial one: it depends on someone opposing the action for a judge to come to a conclusion. If the opposing party enters no opposition, a basic standard of proof will be enough to satisfy the court.

Why we, the people, are a bunch of simpletons

This banking stuff isn't just exposing the golden circle. It's exposing us, the people, in an increasingly embarrassing way.

In what is, by far, the biggest scandal to hit this country in 30 years -- the systematic theft of public money through a corrupt banking system -- we have little to say except to ask for a few heads to roll and to blame a few politicians. Beyond that, it's all a bit complicated for us.

Where are the marches? Where are the handcuffs? Where are the public pressure organisations to demand accountabiltity and an overhaul of the financial system? Where is the political party which has decided to put this at the head of its political agenda, ahead of health, education and social welfare?

They're not there because we, the Irish people, don't understand what's going on and absolve ourselves of responsibility. We're not sophisticated enough. We're simpletons, two generations away from poverty and blaming everything on Britain.

We actually don't understand the damage that has been done. When the direct consequence of a soaring jobless toll, drastic cuts in health, education and social welfare, result, we'll actually blame the politicians for implementing those cuts. Incredible. Infantile. 

Right now we're asking politicians to take "tough decisions" but hammering them if they try to do just that. Make public servants contribute towards their own pensions? "Unjust! Imbalanced! Letting the rich away with it!" Cut health-card entitlements for rich people? "No way! We worked all our lives for this perk!" Talk of cutting the soaring health budget or recusing education or social welfare?

"How dare you! It's inhuman!"

And yet, the worst the people can muster about the calumnous turn of events with the banking crooks -- and the pathetic legislation in place to oversee them -- is a few cynical letters to the Irish Times. No marches about that, oh no.

And somehow we think we're sophisticated?

In the US, in Germany, even in Britain, these would be public accountability issues. Jailtime. Complete overhaul of the legislatative environment. Elections won and lost on the issue. In Ireland, nope -- it's somehow the affairs of some political and business elite. Not us.

At what point does the notion sink in to us that we are responsible for the behaviour and legal environment that our banks operate in? That we have to take this into account when we elect people? That a banking scandal is partly our fault?

Not for a long time yet, I suspect. We're nowhere near sophisticated enough.

Ryanair's in-flight mobile service proves airlines/regulators were lying the whole time

As is known to the dogs in the street, leaving mobile phones on during a flight does not pose a risk to airline navigation safety. That was finally acknowledged with the launch of Ryanair's in-flight mobile service today. Still, ask an Aer Lingus flight attendant -- or the Irish regulator -- and they will tell you that it's "too risky" to allow mobiles to be left on. They said the same about iPods and laptops for years. What a bunch of luddite idiots.

Roctel: Ireland back on track in 16 months

Just had lunch with Roctel, a Dublin-based company that seems to have a good telecoms business going in Ireland, with over 1,000 clients. Its director, Melanie Hunter, quoted Cisco research which claimed that Ireland would rebound stronger than any other economy in Europe. But not for 16 months.

However, Hunter said that Roctel itself is expecting a "good year" in 2009.

Where we go from here: risk versus caution

We're all familiar with the scraps over who's to blame for our economic demise, dodgy bankers and the rest. But when it comes to how to move forward with an economic plan, other than giving the banks money, nobody is offering any answers. What it appears to come to is a fundamental question: should we engage in risk or caution now?

Arguably, most people favour caution. They're not spending much money, for one thing. And they're expecting further falls in the economy. Against that scenario, they reckon it's smart to shut up shop and wait til it all blows over before getting back in the game.

There are a minority who say that this is the time to engage in risk. Invest in startups and high tech sectors now to reap economic rewards down the line, they say. (Joe Drumgoole has espoused a variation of this view on Twitter.)

My initial reaction to this idea is scepticism. Who would have the magic key to the investment funds? What would they invest in? Why are high-tech startups more inherently deserving of investment than low-tech businesses? And even if a few of them did take off, what's to stop them simply outsourcing to cheaper countries once they reach the kind of scale that we need them to reach to deliver a return on (our) investment?

On the other hand, the risk agenda has merits. Because simply sitting back and doing nothing, with our heads in the sand, is arguably the worst thing to do. That guarantees an ever-declining level of industrial activity. That approach will arguably lead to even worse job losses and exchequer deficits than trying something out.

In a nutshell, is it better to try something and fail, than calculate you might fail and not try in the first place? The American answer is: yes. Enterprise is built on endeavour, initiative and hard work. Failure is part of all that.

But the Irish answer is: maybe not. Companies that fail in Ireland still, for some reason, have a stigma of shame attached to them. And in a culture that values buying a house in one's 20s and settling down early, risking it on an enterprise that might fail is frowned upon.

Porn on Twitter!

That didn't take long, did it? Check out some of the characters that this guy is following.