Monthly Archives: March 2012

[Elsewhere] Encouraging Scots to fight for their digital rights

In this space, a newly-independent Scotland would have an unprecedented opportunity to set itself up for the 21st century. A comprehensive digital rights policy can establish Scotland as a state whose institutions value transparency and accountability, civil rights, freedom of speech, creativity and innovation, and an appropriate balance between the interests of businesses, the state and the citizen.
Read more at the Scottish Times.

[Elsewhere] Secrecy by default – the issues with the NHS risk register

The Health & Social Care Bill has finally made it through Parliament. Despite vociferous campaigns from both the general public and medical professionals, the huge top-down reorganisation of the NHS has already begun.
Regardless of what you think of the need to restructure the NHS in general or these reforms in particular, there is one big issue with the way the decision was made in the first place.
Read more at ORGzine.

[ORGcon] Let’s talk about fanfiction

I’ve a confession to make. Every once in a while, I write fanfiction. No, I’m not going to link to it.
For the uninitiated, fanfiction is basically taking an existing universe (a book or TV show, say) and using the setting and characters to write new stories. It’s a great way of engaging with a work you love. It’s a great way of learning to write fiction as it eliminates some of the variables: if you don’t have to worry about world building and (to an extent) characterisation, you can focus, for instance, on plot and pacing. There are many different types of fanfiction. You didn’t like the ending of that book? Write a different one. Really liked that minor character and want to know what happened to them? Make it up! In the interests of full disclosure, I should also admit that a substantial proportion of fanfiction is of an erotic nature, often involving same-sex couples. Generally male same-sex couples. And it’s predominantly written by women. Go figure. (Yes, this is the type I write.)
Anyway, fanfiction is one of the dark secrets of the internet. Fans write it and read it and lovingly curate archives of the stuff. Yet no one talks about it. Each piece is tagged with a huge disclaimer about not owning the universe, or the characters, or making any money from them.
Creators and rights-holders – it is worth remembering that those are different groups – have an ambiguous relationship with the concept. The studio behind the Twilight films clearly doesn’t want anyone engaging with their work ever. Computer game makers Bioware actually run fanfiction competitions. Some writers quietly tolerate what the fans do to their creations, others threaten to sue. If you hang around fandom long enough, you learn who’s who. George R. R. Martin apparently really loathes fanfiction which is why all the places to find stuff based on his works are locked. Marion Zimmer Bradley used to actively encourage it and publish anthologies of fans’ works set in her Darkover universe – until she decided to lock it down completely as a result of a disagreement with a fan over a story idea. Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski, a pioneer of online fan engagement, tolerated fanfiction but steered well clear of it after he had to shelve an episode idea for several years because a fan had had a similar idea. Estates like the Tolkien Estate tend to be particularly precious about their property.
I don’t have the data, but I would be willing to bet good money that fandom is the major source of derivative and remixed creative works. Yet digital rights campaigners tend to steer well clear of the subject – even those of us who have a foot in each camp. We will happily wax lyrical over the right to parody or a general framework for remixing stuff, but we don’t touch fanfiction with a barge pole. This leaves fans in a perpetual state of uncertainty and dread that a creator or rights-holder will come after them one of these days.
Now, I must admit my knowledge of the legal framework that limits fanfiction is shaky. I had always assumed it was copyright – largely because of aforementioned disclaimers – but a discussion at ORGcon quickly clarified that in the vast majority of cases it probably isn’t. Copyright protects “expression”, not ideas, settings or characters. US law has a concept of derivative works which covers things like film adaptations and translations but is at best murky on transformative works. I don’t know if UK law has an equivalent. In most cases it is more likely to be infringement of trademarks rather than copyright that is the sticking point. An informed legal opinion on the matter would be appreciated.
I suspect until digital rights campaigners – or a brave fan – take on the case, we will remain in a legal grey area. This will not stop fanfiction – nothing stops fanfiction. But I suspect it would be nice for fans to know that their labour of love isn’t going to land them in huge trouble one day. Anyone fancy a test case?
[A huge thank-you to @drcabl3 for organising the Unconference session at ORGcon which prompted this post.]

So, Mr Lansley, what would you like to do to my uterus today?

One in five abortion clinics breaks the law, screams the Telegraph today. The Health Secretary declares himself “shocked” and promptly announces further inspections of abortion clinics. For a thorough debunking of the hype I’ll point you at @stavvers who does a great job of asking difficult questions and trying to get back to the primary source only to find there isn’t actually a published report from the Care Quality Commission on this subject. I, in the meantime, would like to ask some other questions.
How, exactly, is the current UK law on abortion fit for purpose? Why do two doctors have to certify that I will go nuts if I don’t have an abortion, in order for me to be able to access medical care? And when are the women of Northern Ireland going to stop being treated as second-class citizens? The question we should be asking is not why are doctors pre-signing forms, but why are women and their physicians made to jump through hoops to access and provide basic and essential medical care?
Let’s get one thing straight. What this government, and the Conservative Party in particular, is trying to do is limit access to abortion. From Nadine Dorries’ mandatory “independent” counselling proposals to Andrew Lansley’s additional inspections of abortion clinics, these are measures designed to chip away if not at the right to an abortion then at the practical access to one. We have seen where this road leads. It leads to women whose foetus has been diagnosed with severe abnormalities being forced to listen to a doctor describe it. It leads to 42 US states having more than 50% of counties with no abortion provider, and 26 states having abortion providers in less than 10% of counties. It leads to state-mandated rape.
Let’s also not forget where we are right now, right here. Let’s not forget that the 800,000 women of Northern Ireland currently have no access to abortion except in a few very specific circumstances. A brief look at The Abortion Support Networks’s newsletter will give you an immediate insight into the suffering this causes to women and their families. These are some of the women ASN hears from:

A young woman who, before she contacted us, had researched the cheapest possible travel options for the appointment she’d booked. This included her flying to Liverpool, taking the train to Birmingham, having the procedure in Birmingham and then taking the (5.30 am!!) train the next morning to Manchester to fly back.
A single mother and student just back on her feet. Only just realised she was pregnant after a rape that occurred in September. She immediately knew that an abortion was her only option, but then saw the price for abortion at her gestation and panicked. Was unable to tell her family or anyone else because she lives in a very small and very conservative town. Due to her location (nowhere near an airport) and gestation (almost at the legal limit), the most difficult obstacle was finding a way to get her to England and back.
The mother of a teenage girl so upset about the pregnancy that she became suicidal.

Finally, let’s also not forget that restricting access to abortion doesn’t lead to fewer abortions. Making women wait longer and jump through hoops before they can have an abortion doesn’t lead to fewer abortions. What these things lead to are medical complications and, ultimately, dead women.
So when the Health Secretary is shocked and outraged that doctors provide basic medical care to women, let’s make sure he understands we’re outraged too. We’re outraged that we are not trusted to make our own decisions about our own bodies. We’re outraged that, instead of bringing UK abortion law into the 21st century, he and his party are looking to put more obstacles in the way of women seeking an abortion. And we’re outraged that the lives of the women of Northern Ireland continue to be put at risk as they are denied access to basic medical care.

Marriage: We’re doing it wrong

It’s been a good few weeks for a game of homophobia bingo. With this week’s launch of the government consultation on same-sex marriage (finally!), every cliché you can think of has been rolled out: from the “slippery slope” argument (great example here from Cristina Odone asking why gay couples should get special treatment when paedophiles don’t – classy!) to the Thought for the Day segment taking the “marriage is a sacrament” and “separate but equal” approach. In between all the talk of sacraments, ancient institutions, and life-long commitment, I’d like to propose a different idea: let’s do away with marriage as we know it.
Let’s first of all recognise that marriage is – above all else – a legal an financial contract. Forget the twue wuv and meringue dresses; as David Allen Green points out, for any other contract of a similar value you’d have the solicitors crawling all over it. The economic realities of marriage become fairly self-evident after even a brief look at the history of the institution. Every time the economic situation changes, this alleged ancient sacrament changes with it. And let’s face it, economic circumstances have changed spectacularly over the last century or so. Besides, why is it the state’s business anyway who I choose to sleep, or be romantically involved, or share large chunks of my life with? Why aren’t all of the “small state” conservatives out there up in arms about this state intrusion into private life and individual choice?
Now, I’ll concede that there are certain advantages to be gained from being able to enter into a marriage-like contract with someone. You can settle rights and responsibilities like custody of children, next-of-kin privileges, some property arrangements. Why, however, we should have a one-size-fits-all contract for these is beyond me. No two relationships are the same, so why is the legal framework that governs them all the same? And why do so many of us blindly enter into this huge legal framework, covering everything from inheritance tax to the revoking of existing wills upon marriage, without being fully aware of what it is we’re letting ourselves in for? Perhaps if we knew a bit more about marriage, we wouldn’t have a 50% divorce rate.
Here’s what I propose to tackle both of these problems: Pick’n’mix Marriage. Let’s list out all of the rights and obligations and other legal perks and mine fields that go with the current marriage contract: taxes, benefits, next-of-kin issues, the lot. Let’s also think of some of the other things that might be useful to include in there while we’re redefining the whole thing. Then let everyone entering into a relationship negotiate and choose which parts of this they want to apply to their relationship. Maybe we’d want to make some of them conditional on others: if you want the inheritance tax allowance, you have to agree to be treated jointly for benefits purposes. Maybe we’d want to implement some of them in a non-reciprocal way: you may be your partner’s next of kin but they aren’t yours – as long as you both agree. Of course with this arrangement it doesn’t matter whether your partner happens to be of the same gender as you or a different one. Nor does it, technically speaking, matter how many partners you have – you may choose to share certain rights and responsibilities with one of your partners and another set with another. As your relationship changes, so does the contract.
Is this approach shocking? Immoral? Arbitrary? No more so that calling marriage a “sacrament”, than having a two-tier system which discriminates against same-sex couples, than making transgender people get divorced if they want to obtain legal recognition of their gender. It’s a more honest, more transparent and more flexible system. And you can still have the big party and the meringue dress if you really want to.

[Elsewhere] Written by Kafka

He sang. In his song, he told them all exactly what he planned to do under the boardwalk, and it mostly involved making love.
This is a quote from Neil Gaiman’s book Anansi Boys. The first thing you need to know about it is that me putting it up there, without intending to review it or criticise it, is illegal. The second thing you need to know is that it references – but does not quote – a popular song. The reason it doesn’t directly quote the song is that the music publisher demanded $800 for seven words. This is actually the only case I can think of where copyright shenanigans have enriched a creative work. The way Neil Gaiman circumvented the need for permission to quote the song makes for much better writing. (Phew, now that I’ve said something that might be construed as a review, we’re safely back on the right side of the law!)
Read more at ORGZine.

[Trigger warning] Indiana Jones is a child rapist

“I was a child! I was in love! It was wrong and you knew it!”
Replace the “I was in love!” bit with “I had trusted you my entire childhood!”, and these are words I have nightmares about hurling at the uncle who sexually abused me when I was 15.
Now guess which character says these words, to whom, in which movie. Here’s a hint: the person they’re said to is described by the story writer of the film as “a role model for little kids”.
The speaker is Marion Ravenwood, and she is speaking to Henry Jones, Jr., better known as Indiana, in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The story writer is George Lucas. The director Steven Spielberg. The screen writer is Lawrence Kasdan.
Picture this. The year is 1978. It’s about four months since Roman Polanski has fled the United States to avoid sentencing for “unlawful sexual intercourse” – something he pleaded guilty to in order to avoid a trial for, basically, raping a child.
So in June 1978, Messrs Lucas, Spielberg and Kasdan got together for a story conference on their next blockbuster, Raiders of the Lost Ark. This is allegedly a 126-page transcript of the whole 5-day thing. The file seems to have been making the rounds for about three years, and while I have yet to find anyone actually vouching for its authenticity, it would be a damn elaborate hoax if it was one.
This early quote from Spielberg (page 3), talking about Indy’s use of his bullwhip, may give you an indication of how the three gentlemen viewed women:

S — At some point in the movie he must use it to get a girl back who’s walking out of the room. Wrap her up and she twirls as he pulls her back. She spins into his arms. You have to use it for more things than just saving himself.

It gets worse. Much worse. Here’s an exchange the three had over those five days. (Page 36-37, G – George, S – Steven, L – Lawrence, emphasis and comments in parentheses mine.)

G — I was thinking that this old guy could have been his mentor. He could have known this little girl when she was just a kid. Had an affair with her when she was eleven.
L — And he was forty-two.
G — He hasn’t seen her in twelve years. Now she’s twenty-two. It’s a real strange relationship. (You don’t say, George.)
S — She had better be older than twenty-two. (Thank you, Steven.)
G — He’s thirty-five, and he knew her ten years ago when he was twenty-five and she was only twelve. It would be amusing to make her slightly young at the time. (Amusing is not the word I would have picked, but hey, you’re the professional writer, George!)
S — And promiscuous. She came onto him. (Ah, Steven’s getting going.)
G — Fifteen is right on the edge. (I was fifteen when I was abused. Good to know you think that was almost okay.) I know it’s an outrageous idea (You don’t say, George.), but it is interesting. Once she’s sixteen or seventeen it’s not interesting anymore. But if she was fifteen and he was twenty-five and they actually had an affair the last time they met. And she was madly in love with him and he…
S — She has pictures of him. (Thank you, Steven, for interrupting that train of thought.)

Mystery Man on Film, an anonymous film blogger, thinks this a great lesson on screen writing – “a racy backstory can keep a plot moving”.
Well, Mystery Man, well Messrs Lucas, Spielberg and Kasdan, let me educate you.
An eleven-year-old girl can’t have an “affair” with a 42-year-old man. It isn’t even “a real strange relationship”. She is a child who can be raped by him. “Amusing” and “interesting” are really not words I would choose to describe this situation.
A twelve-year-old girl is not “promiscuous”; she doesn’t “come onto” anyone. Let me repeat this for you. She is a child. Pretty much the only country in the world where she’d be legal at twelve is the Vatican.
A fifteen-year-old girl in US law is still incapable of consent. Yes, George, what you just said is that if the main character slept with a woman who is actually capable of consenting, that would make your story less “interesting”. I might give you that if you were tying to portray a child rapist. But in your own words (page 60), you’re “doing a role model for little kids”.
Let me tell you what it would have felt like to that fifteen-year-old, this “affair” you’re describing. There’s this friend of the family. He’s really cool, everyone calls him Indy. He spends time with your dad in the library, he brings you sweets, sometimes he takes you to the museum and shows you things your dad never has time to explain.
He tickles you, and you get goosebumps. He raises an eyebrow at you. One day, after a trip to the museum, he’s dropping you off at home. You’re waiting for your dad to open the door when out of the blue he bends down and kisses you on the lips. Before you have time to react, the door opens and you hurry inside.
The next time you see Indy, there is more kissing, and then the kissing becomes touching. You have no idea how to react to this. There is no one you can tell – they would probably tell you you made it all up. You tell him you don’t want this, you try to threaten him, but he only laughs; says if you really don’t want it you should slap him and he’ll stop. You’ve never slapped anyone in your life. So the touching continues. He undresses you; he pushes your legs apart; he makes you touch him. I’ll let your imagination take over from there.
Have I just turned Indiana Jones into a child rapist? No, it was Lucas, Spielberg and Kasdan who did that. Unless of course the whole 126-page meeting transcript is a very sick hoax.
So here’s the challenge, Messrs Lucas, Spielberg and Kasdan. Either disprove the authenticity of the document. Or stand up, explain yourselves and apologise. Explain to young girls that you don’t think they are promiscuous sluts asking to be raped just by existing; explain to young boys and grown men alike what consent means. Explain that you were wrong. Until one of those two things happens, Indiana Jones remains a child rapist.

The revolution will be… privatised

Neoliberalism – the idea that the market is the most efficient and therefore best way to organise every aspect of our lives – has won. Education – both higher and basic – is being privatised. The NHS is being privatised. The police is being privatised. And if that’s not enough to convince you that neoliberalism has won, then let’s look at how we have started measuring the value of people.

When former Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said that increasing the motorway speed limit might cause more deaths but would also generate huge economic benefits and it was all about finding the right balance, that probably came as a shock to no one. (Though that the same man should only a few weeks later be found fit to be Defence Secretary was, I must admit, a surprise.) After all, you expect neoliberals to measure everything – including the value of human life – in economic terms. But when that same argument is made by every sandal-wearing, Guardian-reading leftie, we have a problem.

Let’s start with me. One of the topics I write passionately about is immigration. This is because I am an immigrant, and every time someone mutters about the foreigners stealing our jobs and our women it’s personal to me. Yet more often than not when someone attacks immigrants, the first words out of my mouth are “higher rate taxpayer”; as if that is the only way to justify my own existence and presence in this country. When Gillian Duffy cried “flocking Eastern Europeans”, I cried “I pay more into the tax system than I get out of it”. When David Cameron cried “good immigration, not mass immigration”, I cried “Look at the economic contribution immigrants make to British society!” It’s a compulsion: whenever somebody questions why I’m here, the first thing that comes to my mind is the economic argument.

I am, of course, far from alone in this. Look at Stonewall, the white, middle class face of LGB(T) rights campaigning. One of their biggest campaigns is convincing UK employers that being nice to LGB(T) people is okay because there’s a business case for it. Employees working in a supportive and inclusive environment where they can be themselves, the argument goes, are 30-40% more productive. The value of the “Pink Pound” – the disposable income of LGB people in the UK – is about £5-6 billion. Not only that, but LGB people tend to be better educated, have more disposable income than straight people, are very brand-aware and extremely brand-loyal to companies that specifically market to them. If you’re nice to LGB people, you too, dear company, can have a slice of that pie. Of course this argument works very well – you show someone where the free money is and they’ll go for it. One wonders, though, how one is supposed to campaign for the rights of people with lower-than-average disposable incomes.

My friend Rho, after describing in excruciating, harrowing detail the impact constant transphobic abuse has had on her life, then proceeded to explain the economic benefits of being nicer to transgender people. It’s a good, logically solid argument that even the most patriarchal of neoliberals should understand.

The disability rights campaigners behind the Spartacus Report on the proposed reform and cuts to Disiability Living Allowance felt compelled to point out the high cost of implementing the reforms.

Campaigners for women’s rights in developing countries point out how empowering women will lead to economic growth.

Our vocabulary for expressing the value of people has been reduced to three words: “consumers”, “workers”, “taxpayers”. This is indicative of a seismic social change that has crept in so slowly, so quietly, that none of us noticed before it was too late. Neoliberalism has not only won – it has redefined the game. We find ourselves in a world where respect, human life and human dignity count for nothing unless you can monetise them; where the only acceptable argument is the economic argument.

We need to take that world back. I am not a consumer. I am not a taxpayer. I am not a worker. I am a woman. I am bisexual. I am an immigrant. I am human. That is what entitles me to dignity and respect, not my higher-than-average disposable income or net contribution to HMRC. Repeat after me:

I am not a consumer.

I am not a taxpayer.

I am not a worker.

I am human.