NeverSeconds is a blog by a 9-year old primary school student, Martha Payne, photographing and blogging about the school lunches she's served daily. The blog, which only started on April 30th, apparently got a small bit of news coverage... leading the local regional council to issue a ban on the blog, because "media coverage of the blog had led catering staff to fear for their jobs." Except... then the internet exploded in protest, and the council (after one weak attempt to defend its position) changed its mind and issued a statement which "supersedes all other council statements on this matter already issued." In the statement, from the head of the council, it is said that the ban should be lifted (not that it has been) and that "there is no place for censorship in this Council."

That said, the statement still seems upset about the news reporting on the school lunches:

But we all must also accept that there is absolutely no place for the type of inaccurate and abusive attack on our catering and dining hall staff, such as we saw in one newspaper yesterday which considerably inflamed the situation. That, of course, was not the fault of the blog, but of the paper.

We need to find a united way forward so I am going to bring together our catering staff, the pupils, councillors and council officials - to ensure that the council continues to provide healthy, nutrious and attractive school meals. That "School Meals Summit" will take place later this summer.

Either way, the end result is a hell of a lot more people are aware of Martha's blog (and the kind of meals her school serves). The BBC says that in the past couple days, she's received over 3 million visits to the site. The BBC even put up a separate article explaining how the case is a perfect example of the Streisand Effect, and how attempts to censor content backfire. And... just as in the case with The Oatmeal v. Funnyjunk, this Streisand Effect is being used to turn an attempt at censorship into a way to raise money for charity. Martha put up a crowdfunding page to try to raise £7,000 for a charity and it's already made over £48,000.

Michael Scott points us to the news that, via some oddities within Scottish laws, the Scottish Law Commission is realizing that its current regulations may actually mean that there's a "use-it-or-lose-it" provision that applies to copyright law. I don't quite understand all the details (so feel free to chime in if you're familiar with Scottish law), but it sounds like the folks in Scotland are realizing that a law they have on the books concerning property does not clearly state that it does not apply to things like copyright -- and that law includes a 20 year use-it-or-lose-it rule. Thus, by not exempting copyright, it may automatically be included. This seems to be upsetting to some, but I find it rather amusing that the only reason why copyright is even considered "property" is because those who wanted to pretend copyright was something more than a limited government granted monopoly started calling it property. Yet, now, they may be getting upset that they might have to abide by similar rules concerning property. Of course, the Scottish discussion focuses on how to "fix" this -- and there's a problem there, since apparently, the Scottish Parliament does not have authority over copyright issues in Scotland.

Back in May we wrote about how Louisiana was the latest state to try to pass overly broad anti-"cyberbullying" legislation, that would make it illegal to say anything online that might "embarrass" anyone under 17. With a few modifications that law has now been passed. They (thankfully) removed the "embarrass or cause emotional distress" part, but still left in that it's illegal to communicate "with intent to torment or intimidate" which seems pretty broad. No more trash talking on IM, kids.

Meanwhile, Glyn Moody points us to a new law in Scotland that outlaws "indecent communication" online. The law says you can't say anything sexually related to someone without first getting consent. While, the intentions are good, the reality is that this will almost certainly lead to problems:

In our culture, it is not normal to ask people for permission to say something sexual during the course of a facebook chat or a conversation in a bar. "Do you mind if I deploy an innuendo" just wouldn't sound right. And quite frankly it shouldn't.

Whether people get off with each other in bars, or engage in mundane msn conversations that degenerate into bad internet sex, people frequently make the transition from polite conversation into something more erotic. And this very often necessitates somebody saying something on a whim, somebody communicating some sexual feeling in the hope that it will be reciprocated. And sometimes that means saying something under circumstances that don't quite match up to a "reasonable belief in consent".

The more and more governments try to regulate how people talk to each other online, the more and more ridiculous it's going to look.

Forget "just say no," and say hello to "just say buy." Copycense points out that some Scottish schools seem to think that unauthorized sharing of music and movies is analogous to using drugs, and deserves a similar sort of education plan. Of course, the entertainment industry would be more than happy to provide any one of its numerous propaganda educational curricula for the task. The problem, of course, is that if you are at all familiar with the subject, you would realize that unauthorized file sharing is not a societal problem like "drug use," but is a business model issue. Of course, given how (un)successful the "war on drugs" has been, perhaps it's silly to worry about an equally ridiculous "war on piracy."

Peter writes in to alert us to the latest example of copyright madness. It seems that over in Scotland, an amateur football (soccer, to us Americans) club, Buckie Thistle, would get a small group of about 500 fans attending each game, and one of them, a 16-year-old kid named David Smith would sit in the back of the stands and film the action. He would then post 10-minute clips to YouTube so those who missed the games could catch up. It built up a small, but decent, following. And that's when the trouble began. The league's secretary claims that Smith is violating the league's copyright and has issued him a £5,000 fine:

"I was made aware that edited footage of games involving Buckie Thistle was being shown on YouTube without the prior approval of the league. Over the last three months, attempts were made to establish who was responsible, but I was advised that the person's name was unknown.

"On meeting Mr Smith at Deveronvale, I asked him if he had permission to video this game, as it was the copyright of the league and no permission had been sought nor given. After brief discussion, he was advised by me that he may have to pay for the royalties for all videos taken and the sum could amount to £5,000."

Now, there are all sorts of issues here, so let's go through them one by one:

1. The secretary of an amateur sporting league has no authority to issue any kind of fine, let alone a £5,000 one.
2. As the article details, the league secretary is very confused if he thinks that the action on the field is copyright to the league. As a media lawyer notes in the article:

   THIS is not a question of copyright. The SFA does not own copyright on a football game. Copyright only applies to something such as a book, film, play etc that has been created as an act of labour by an individual or group of individuals. Men running around chasing a ball is not something that has been created.

3. If there is any copyright here, it should be owned by David Smith. Again, as noted in the article:

   The irony is that David Smith owns the copyright to his own piece of film; he has put the effort into filming and editing it and when he puts it on YouTube, he is tacitly allowing people to watch it and even download it on to their computer. But if those individuals then attempted to sell it for commercial gain then he would be well within his rights to stop them as they would be breaching his copyright.

4. This isn't a question of competing with broadcasting rights. No one else is filming the games. It's just the kid. Doing it as a labor of love to help promote the team he loves.
5. The club itself is thrilled with Smith filming the games, and is upset that the league is trying to fine him.

The whole thing is yet another example of what happens when people hear about copyright and "ownership" all the time and assume that it gives them control over all sorts of things it does not.

Mockingbird writes "I've posted the full text of Lord Kames's opinion in the important Scottish Sessions case of Hinton v. Donaldson from 1773. This was the case that rejected for Scotland, by a vote of 11-to-1, the theory of "common law copyright", that authors (meaning, in practice, publishers) had a perpetual copyright, at common law, of their writings. It was followed a few months later by the English House of Lords's decision in Donaldson v. Beckett, in which the English Lords rejected just as forcefully the claim that authors had perpetual copyright under the common law of England.

Of the twelve Sessions Lords who decided the case, ten issued opinions. Lord Kames's is one of the longer ones, and one of the most famous. Kames builds his case on principles of common law, property law, and commercial law, and finds the claim of "common law copyright" to be inconsistent with the principles of all these areas of law:

this claim, far from being founded on property, is inconsistent with it. The privilege an author has by statute, is known to all the world. But I purchase a book not entered in Stationer's hall; does it not become my property? I see a curious machine, the fire engine, for example. I carry it away in my memory, and construct another by it. Is not that machine, the work of my own hand, my property? I buy a curious picture, is there any thing to bar me from giving copies without end? It is a rule in all laws, that the commerce of moveables ought to be free; and yet, according to the pursuer's doctrine, the property of moveables may be subjected to endless limitations and restrictions that hitherto have not been thought of, and would render the commerce of moveables extremely hazardous. At any rate, the author of avery wise or witty saying, uttered even in conversation, has a monopoly of it; and no man is at liberty to repeat it.

Lastly, I shall consider a perpetual monopoly in a commercial view. The act of Queen Anne is contrived with great judgement, not only for the benefit of authors, but for the benefit of learning in general. It excites men of genius to exert their talents for composition; and it multiplies books both of instruction and amusement. And when, upon expiration of the monopoly, the commerce of these books is laid open to all, their cheapness, from a concurrence of many editors, is singularly beneficial to the public. Attend, on the other hand, to the consequences of a perpetual monopoly. Like all other monopolies, it will unavoidably raise the price of good books beyond the reach of ordinary readers. They will be sold like so many valuable pictures..... [the] booksellers, by grasping too much, would lose their trade altogether; and men of genius would be quite discouraged from writing, as no price can be afforded for an unfashionable commodity. In a word, I have no difficulty to maintain that a perpetual monopoly of books would prove more destructive to learning, and even to authors, than a second irruption of Goths and Vandals. "

Apparently, a Scottish airline, Flyglobespan, has threatened to sue an online betting site because it was taking bets on what airline would be the next to go out of business, and had odds on Flyglobespan. The site did stop taking bets, but says it was due to a lack of interest, rather than the threat of a lawsuit. However, it's not clear what law it would be breaking to offer such a bet. You can understand that the company is concerned that potential passengers might think the airline is at risk, but it's not clear that's enough to stop any such bets.

It appears some Scottish politicians are putting forth a bill that could put people in jail for up to 10 years for sending a text or email with "sexual content." The goal of the bill is to discourage sexual harassment over email or text messaging -- but it appears to be worded quite broadly. The bill defines the crime as "committed if someone sends an unsolicited text message to someone else which a court finds was designed to give the sender sexual gratification or to humiliate, distress or alarm the receiver." How the court determines what gives the sender "sexual gratification" isn't entirely clear. Does a flirty email count? You can also run afoul of the law by "causing a person to see or hear an indecent communication." Forgot that NSFW tag? You might be in trouble. While you can understand the desire to cut down on harassing messages, this law seems problematic as worded.

We've seen this before, of course. There are teachers and professors out there who blame Wikipedia for mistakes students make, and even those who demand that the entire Wikipedia be blocked in schools. However, there are those who are a lot more reasonable about it, recognizing that Wikipedia is just one source among many, and there's value in embracing Wikipedia: teaching kids what it is and how to use it reliably. That seems likely to be a lot more effective and useful for training kids how to critically judge the reliability of information out in the real world. Blocking, banning or blaming Wikipedia seems only designed to put one's head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist. That's not preparing anyone for the real world.

Techdirt reader cram writes in to point out two contrasting articles that show this dichotomy of thought in action. First is a report out of Scotland last week blaming Wikipedia for kids getting failing grades. This, of course, seems ridiculous. What it really means is that teachers have failed to actually teach kids how to use Wikipedia properly. It's not the fault of Wikipedia -- which is merely an information source. It's a failure of teachers to teach kids how to properly use it. That's why it's nice to see the corresponding article, where students in Australia are now going to have a course available on how to use Wikipedia. That seems a lot smarter than just blaming Wikipedia.

As some of you know, we've done a few "Techdirt Greenhouse" events over the past few years with tremendously positive feedback. These idea workshops were the basis for our Insight Community offering -- bringing together a group of smart, knowledgeable experts, as well as companies that are facing specific challenges. Participating companies present their challenges in short presentations, followed by breakout sessions where the attendees would help brainstorm solutions and ideas.

I'm heading over to the University of Edinburgh School of Informatics next week to give a series of talks on entrepreneurship, economics and business models. While there, we'll be holding the first Greenhouse of 2008 on Friday, January 25th, as a part of the Edinburgh-Stanford Link. If you're in the area and would like to attend, it's a great chance to meet with other smart folks and entrepreneurs, to network with them, to understand some of the challenges they face and to share your expertise. It's taking place at the Alba Innovation Center and all of the details are here. And, when you do attend, be sure to come over and introduce yourself!