I object to Copyright Law, Trademark Law or any other “proprietory” laws being used as an excuse to stifle public debate. I agree with your comment that Parliament exists to server the public not to bludgeon it.
Do you think it would be better if documents which were produced by government were (with a few exceptions to prevent misrepresentation) automatically in the public domain, as is the case with – for example – US federal government documents?
it’s scary to see just how many requests are over due, waiting for some overdue requests from my own council it’s worrying that the government isn’t being accountable for the simple things let alone anything they may actually fear the public getting their eyes on!!
freedom of information? Pfft! The information commission isnt much better, launch a complaint, get an apology…but still don’t get the info you requested.
After all the posted requests, phonecalls, waiting, meetings and still not getting the requested info you realise it certainly isn’t free!!!
[...] of Cabinet Office IT minister Tom Watson (himself an FOI requester when a backbench MP), who comments ‘Oh good grief’. Is it safe to assume that it is the stance of the Commons which is the [...]
Everyone who has been involved in this decision should be sent to prison, and those that passed it on should be summarily dismissed. There is a clear duty to either fulfil the request or provide reasons for rejecting it. As those lovely folk in Rother found out, you can’t shirk off responsibility by simply stalling in the middle ground until the requester goes away.
My feeling is that the issue here is not that they don’t want to release the information, but that by sending it to an address that they know will automatically publish the document it is the sender of the information that would be responsible for the breach of copyright and NOT the website or the requester.
Would you break the law just to satisfy someone else’s demands? I wouldn’t.
I really don’t think the House is helping itself though by not explaining this to Mr Irving. It probably was told this by a lawyer and feels that it’s subject to LPP. :-/
Yet more crap-trap nonsense from the paper-pushing idiots who have forgotten who they’re working for and who pays their wages.
Copyright! Schmoppyrite. This information should not be subject to copyright. Its our parliament, its our information, its our ink, its our bits of paper: Its our copyright. Publish the information as requested by our people.
I’m a researcher interested in medieval manuscripts — handwritten copies of ancient texts that are fundamental to our knowledge of those texts. Most researchers would like to see images of the pages online. Most of these manuscripts are in state-owned collections; few have ever been photographed, and almost none are online.
I have found that state-owned collections of these, such as the British Library, routinely use “copyright” as an excuse to forbid images of the pages being placed online. Indeed they have created a little industry, whereby they charge exaggerated prices to snap a page, all under cover of ‘copyright’. But surely, if these things belong to the public, they belong to the public?!
Can we do something about this abuse of copyright by state bodies to deny access? It’s widespread. It’s one reason why all sorts of things are online in the US (where such things are unlawful), while nothing much is online here, and even less in the EU.
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Hand wringing will not suffice.
I object to Copyright Law, Trademark Law or any other “proprietory” laws being used as an excuse to stifle public debate. I agree with your comment that Parliament exists to server the public not to bludgeon it.
Tom,
Do you think it would be better if documents which were produced by government were (with a few exceptions to prevent misrepresentation) automatically in the public domain, as is the case with – for example – US federal government documents?
it’s scary to see just how many requests are over due, waiting for some overdue requests from my own council it’s worrying that the government isn’t being accountable for the simple things let alone anything they may actually fear the public getting their eyes on!!
freedom of information? Pfft! The information commission isnt much better, launch a complaint, get an apology…but still don’t get the info you requested.
After all the posted requests, phonecalls, waiting, meetings and still not getting the requested info you realise it certainly isn’t free!!!
I’m trying to get my head around this Crown Copyright stuff, though it’s not in the brief for the day job.
[...] of Cabinet Office IT minister Tom Watson (himself an FOI requester when a backbench MP), who comments ‘Oh good grief’. Is it safe to assume that it is the stance of the Commons which is the [...]
Everyone who has been involved in this decision should be sent to prison, and those that passed it on should be summarily dismissed. There is a clear duty to either fulfil the request or provide reasons for rejecting it. As those lovely folk in Rother found out, you can’t shirk off responsibility by simply stalling in the middle ground until the requester goes away.
My feeling is that the issue here is not that they don’t want to release the information, but that by sending it to an address that they know will automatically publish the document it is the sender of the information that would be responsible for the breach of copyright and NOT the website or the requester.
Would you break the law just to satisfy someone else’s demands? I wouldn’t.
I really don’t think the House is helping itself though by not explaining this to Mr Irving. It probably was told this by a lawyer and feels that it’s subject to LPP. :-/
My guess is that a lot of people miss the distinction between the copyright, and the licenses copyright holders grant.
Arguably, there’s a grant of licence to copy implicit in the legislation.
This might just be a lawyer getting silly, but I can imagine situations where this sort of automatic republication could be a real problem.
And this is hardly a new problem. Haven’t these guys ever typed “I want to f??k you” into the wrong telnet window?
Yet more crap-trap nonsense from the paper-pushing idiots who have forgotten who they’re working for and who pays their wages.
Copyright! Schmoppyrite. This information should not be subject to copyright. Its our parliament, its our information, its our ink, its our bits of paper: Its our copyright. Publish the information as requested by our people.
I’m a researcher interested in medieval manuscripts — handwritten copies of ancient texts that are fundamental to our knowledge of those texts. Most researchers would like to see images of the pages online. Most of these manuscripts are in state-owned collections; few have ever been photographed, and almost none are online.
I have found that state-owned collections of these, such as the British Library, routinely use “copyright” as an excuse to forbid images of the pages being placed online. Indeed they have created a little industry, whereby they charge exaggerated prices to snap a page, all under cover of ‘copyright’. But surely, if these things belong to the public, they belong to the public?!
Can we do something about this abuse of copyright by state bodies to deny access? It’s widespread. It’s one reason why all sorts of things are online in the US (where such things are unlawful), while nothing much is online here, and even less in the EU.
Copyright? Medieval manuscripts? So the author only died within the past 70 years?
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