Another on-the-button column by John Naughton this morning, describing the magical list of hex that renders a BluRay DVD copyable by all, and what happened when Digg tried to stop its users from posting it. The Observer coyly only prints 09F9 - but a Google Search for that reveals the lot, including the rather splendid 09f9.com - in over 2.6 million web pages. (The US’s DMCA appears to make this number illegal to post, since it could be used to illegally gain access to copyrighted material).

My own internal jury’s still out on DRM. One part of me hates it - if I buy music, then that’s mine to use personally however I wish. One part of me accepts it as a sad reality of life online today, given the undoubtedly large amount of Napster/BitTorrent-esque stealing/sharing that goes on from morally bankrupt users. One part of me defends DRM as “if companies want to do silly things like that, fine, but respect their decision and don’t steal/share their work without their permission”. One part of me might use ‘illegal’ services to get albums that the record companies have withdrawn from their catalogue, thus leaving me no other way to get the music I would have legally bought had the record company not made this impossible.

But, no matter. I’ve edited some of the hex codes out in my header, even though I’m not even sure whether the part of the DMCA that stops US citizens posting this seemingly innocuous code applies to us in the European Union [yet]. I don’t fully appreciate whether I am now liable (by UK law) since I’ve linked to the full code on this web page (but if so, Google’s clearly 2.5 million times more liable than I am). This shows legal absurdity on a massive scale, and a really obvious and clear demonstration of how many legal people Just Don’t Get It.

—update— There’s a good legal viewpoint on EFF’s website, for US law. An equivalent for UK law would be good.

—update2— The clever Wil Harris has posted a good background primer on what 09-f9 is - and apparently, it’s now useless anyway…

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On the legal-purchase point, I was wondering last week about something, so, given it’s related, perhaps someone might be able to help me with the below:

I want to buy a (quite old) CD album.
- I can buy it new from Amazon, for £12. Some of this money therefore goes back to the record company.
- I can buy it used from Amazon/eBay, for £3. None of this money goes to the record company. £3 goes to the person who currently owns the CD.
- I can download it for free using BitTorrent. No money changes hands.

Presumably, #2 is legal, otherwise Amazon/eBay wouldn’t be able to do it. But how does the difference between #2 and #3 square with the “giving money to the artist” argument that the record companies talk about? In #2, since a third party is benefiting in financial terms from re-selling this CD, am I actually doing better if I download it instead?

My own past experience is that I downloaded an album from the Eels via Napster years ago, listened to it, and liked it. I’ve now bought at least three Eels albums, other Eels downloads, and went to see an Eels concert last year (rather misguidedly, it ought to be said, it was a bit miserable). Have the Eels benefitted from that initial illegal download? I’d think so.

John Naughton posts this nice picture of me at work (CC licenced) - thank you, John, that makes me look incredibly popular, and misses the empty rows at the front!

Amazing building, the Open University. And the sound in this hall was impeccably good; making virtually every radio conference I’ve been to appear poor by comparison. (Two notable exceptions: the BBC Audio and Music Festival, and the Radio Academy’s “Radio at the Edge” conference last year). Good after-speech chat, too, with some really very bright minds.

(Hello, too, to you if this is your first time reading this blog. I predict a stampede from one organisation today; remember that I’m perfectly entitled to change these views to the, harrumph, right ones. Do also note that this is not my idea of a great-looking website, and really one day I ought to make it look a little less bobbins.)

Photo: Ian Grove-Stephensen | Creative Commons licenced

At a conference today in Cambridge, I was struck by the thoughts of one of the audience members (which consisted of mostly ‘creative types’ - designers or artists).

I was on the panel, discussing what Virgin Radio has been doing in the user-generated-content space. A lady probably in her late 40s was concerned at what she called the ‘fad’ of user-generated-content. She described herself as a creative, and was concerned that “we were allowing” people with no creative talent to post their own work online. “Surely you have a duty to sift through”, was her argument, “to make sure that the work you promote has some artistic merit?”

She warmed to the theme. “You’re conning us all,” she said. “Do you even care what goes onto your website? It’s a totally cynical ploy to earn money out of people.”

My efforts to persuade her that the quality rises to the top wasn’t totally successful - probably because I wasn’t instantly able to show her Flickr’s automated “best of” collection, which they call ‘interestingness’.

Someone else started talking about ‘amateurs’ on the web posting content. My hackles rose; but thankfully the excellent, considerate, handsome, intelligent, erudite, and man-who-reads-this-blog, John Naughton, called time.

Michael Mullane’s blog recently featured a similar thought, describing an editor, who he calls Prendergast:

Prendergast was losing sleep over moves to embrace user-generated content. “We are pouring more and more editorial resources into sifting through pictures of kittens playing with balls of wool.”

He said that it was turning his company into the editorial equivalent of a skinny model with a disproportionately large head. “Even if we come to our senses, I’m scared that we will have irrevocably damaged our health.”

After the panel session, while talking to her along with a chap from Sky, I was struck by a thought.

You see - in many cases, quality does rise to the top - whether from popularity or from the type of algorithm that Flickr uses. (Indeed, I once wrote a similar algorithm for Media UK, which used all manner of interesting things to work out whether a particular forum thread was ‘worth reading’ or not.)

But in many cases, quality doesn’t. BBC News produces a most popular page, showing news stories which most people are emailing to their friends or reading. As of now, “Stephen Hawking In Space” is the most popular, with a story about Bob Woolmer second, and a Hugh Grant arrest in third place. Meanwhile, the US Congress has just approved a pull-out of Iraq, which the BBC bills as second-most important, but appears as the tenth-most popular story. (There’s a website somewhere which compares these two weightings side-by-side, but I can’t find it). Indeed, the second-most emailed story right now on the BBC News website is Sudan man forced to ‘marry’ goat, a story (predictably involving human/goat relations that go rather too far) which is now well over 13 months old. There’s an algorithm that needs changing.

I’ve managed to post this drivel quite successfully without anyone else checking over it for any redeeming quality - and I’m guided, predominantly, by Google Analytics (having made a conscious decision not to splatter ads all over it, otherwise I’d find myself blogging about credit cards) - so perhaps I’ve also fallen for ‘popularity is good’.

We’re drowning in content. My Google Reader is permanently full of more stuff to read. I need someone, or something, to rate that content for me - in the same way that Flickr successfully does it.

Our questioner doesn’t use the internet much, so she’ll never find this (particularly since my email address was spelt wrong in the programme, not that it would take anyone two minutes to work out what it should be). But I wonder, and whisper this, whether she might have a point after all.

UPDATE: John Naughton speaks about the panel session (MP3)