I don’t normally blog about these things, preferring to leave them in the ‘recent links’ categories, but there are 2 campaigns going at the moment that I think are vital in 21st Century Britain:
1. A petition to allow for the copying for personal use to be legalised. ie, that I should be allowed to copy CDs that I have purchased onto my personal media player, or my computer. At the moment, despite what you may have heard, this is actually illegal, or at least in a very funny legal grey area (some people believe it is covered under ‘backups’, but given the shift in media format that it requires, this may not be defensible in court)
Sign up at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/privatecopy/ for this one.
2. The other campaign, weirdly, comes from The Gadget Show. They are campaign for the government to provide free wireless access in public places in major towns and cities across the nation. This is a wonderful idea, and will be great for business and tourism, as well as for geeks. I urge you to add your name to the list – they may be a minor show in some respects, but they are mainstream, and this could have some impact.
Add your name at http://gadgetshow.five.tv/campaign/wifi/.
mrBen
I’m with you on the first one, but I’m less convinced about the second. While it would be *nice* to have wifi everywhere, the cost implications of this would be rather high, would they not?
The implication from their article, which I partially agree with, was that improved wifi access would be a boost for local businesses and tourism.
I would like to hear more about the trials in Norwich and Bristol, and what the impact there has been.
I’m for #1, but I’m not too keen on the government paying for free wifi. I think it would suck just as bad as all other government IT projects, and would obviously be paid for by tax payers.
It would surely have competitive impact on phone/broadband providers, and would it cover e.g. rural areas?
And, I’ve not even started on the privacy implications (packet sniffing, government knowing what webpages I visit etc.).
No thanks.