Unsurprisingly, the proposal is being backed by big names in the music world such as Sir Cliff Richard, whose first recording will go out of copyright next year, and Sir Paul McCartney, with the Beatles’ first recordings currently set to enter the public domain in 2013.

It’s important to understand that this proposal concerns recordings, and not the copyright on original compositions or lyrics. Copyright on those lasts for life plus 70 years, in recognition of the creativity put into producing an original work. This is quite different from simply performing someone else’s work. A singer who is talented enough to write his own songs should be less concerned about the copyright on the recordings as he (or his estate) will continue to receive royalties from the work itself.

An actor on stage, whether in Stratford or the West End, will be paid for the performance, then that’s it. The same is true of a musician performing live. There is no further income after the performance has finished. When an architect designs a new building, he is paid a fee for the work. Neither he, nor the engineers and building contractors who actually build it, will receive royalties every time someone looks at the building, or from the people who use it.

This is just an attempt by the music industry, and from a few big-name artists, to grab even more money when they have made enough already. If the so-called stars want a pension, they should make sure they put aside some of their income to provide for them in old age, just as everyone else has to, instead of spending it on an extravagant lifestyle. I can’t imagine either Sir Cliff or Sir Paul is living on the poverty line. And as for the argument that they are doing this on behalf of all the small-time artists and backstage staff, the fact is that most of these had to sign away their rights to royalties to the record company in order to receive the modest session fee they were paid at the time.

Copyright has historically been a balance between the rights of those producing the works and the public, allowing artists to have a chance to profit from their work, while ensuring it can still be enjoyed and built upon in the way it historically always has been. The greed of those calling for the change in the law can not be allowed to destroy this principle. The new law would mean people could no longer share or enjoy old recordings that have long since been deleted from record companies’ catalogues, be they of rock and roll, or classical performances by long-dead conductors.

The proposal still has to be agreed by the Council of Ministers and European Parliament, and the latter in particular has been known to listen to the people on similar issues such as software patents. To help defeat the extension of copyright, please sign the petition against it.

A couple of weeks ago, the question came up of whether Ken Pounds was the first chief executive of PPARC. I couldn’t remember, but knew the answer would be in his Wikipedia article. I was quite surprised to find the article had been deleted. I checked the log for the article, and found it had been deleted by a Wikipedia administrator called Refdoc with the comment that is was a “blatant copyright violation”, and giving a link to a report by the Irish Higher Education Authority entitled Research Infrastructure in Ireland - Building for Tomorrow.

Initially, I suspected someone might have pasted a load of text into the article from the report, but wondered why Refdoc couldn’t have reverted to an older version of the article. However, when I checked the Irish HEA’s report, I discovered that they had actually copied the Wikipedia article word for word and used it as a biography for Prof Pounds, who is on the steering committee that produced the report. Thus the biography in the report uses my words to explain that it’s a “rare distinction” to be awarded an honorary degree by the institution one works at (or at least I think they’re my words – it seems the University have also been reading Wikipedia, re-worded in their case, for material promoting the Alumni Association Lecture 2008). The report also contains the slightly obscure statement that someone added to Wikipedia, that “one of [Ken's] many discoveries is that Black holes are common in the Universe.”

I know I wrote the article in summer 2006, shortly after I was contacted by the other user. I checked the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, and indeed, it had archived the article in September 2006. From this archived version, it is clear that the text is identical to that in the HEA report. Yet the report was only published in December 2006! While I personally already knew the text was originally from Wikipedia, I thought the evidence I’d found would surely convince anyone else. Yet Refdoc refused the re-instate the article, accusing me of being a user with “poor respect for copyrights” and saying he had little reason to believe me. He clearly hadn’t looked at the internet archive version. That comes as no surprise, as a little investigation before he deleted the article in the first place would have revealed that the Wikipedia article existed before the HEA report. The Wikipedia edit history would also have shown that it was written and improved over a number of edits by different people, rather than copied wholesale from anywhere else. Therefore Refdoc is clearly not a particularly thorough administrator on Wikipedia.

I have now initiated Wikipedia’s Deletion review process, and at the time of writing there is a consensus that the article was wrongly deleted. Hopefully the article will be reinstated by next week.

This episode brings up an interesting point about Wikipedia. They have a strict policy when it comes to copyright, where copying directly from another source is not allowed. But as more and more documents copy text from Wikipedia, it’s going to become harder to tell which was the original source. I think the Irish HEA’s report probably violates the GFDL, as they are supposed to credit Wikipedia, and also to license any document that builds upon a GFDL’d document under the same licence. They haven’t done so, and while I’m sure that I and the other contributors don’t object to our work being used, failure to include an acknowledgement has ultimately resulted in it being us who were accused of breaching copyright.

As for Wikipedia administrators, candidates for that role will have to be prepared to put in a lot of work to investigate suspected copyright violations, as more and more will be false alarms. Anyone who isn’t prepared to do that isn’t fit to be an administrator. In the future it’s going to be more important to check the history of an article, and look for any other evidence to determine who has copied whom.

Now, I wonder how many of my other contributions to Wikipedia have been deleted while I wasn’t looking…

Update: the article on Ken Pounds was reinstated the same day.

The error has now been corrected. I apologise for any inconvenience. If anyone did send a message at any time from February onwards, please get in contact again.

I’m glad the government have seen sense, and are rectifying their mistake in this way, rather than introducing some new, complex system of benefits or credits. They are also adjusting the 40% tax band so that higher-rate taxpayers won’t receive extra money. However, they aren’t going to lower the threshold so as so bring enough people into the band to pay for the tax cut at the lower rate. Instead, the tax cut is going to cost £2.7 billion.

Ominously, the BBC report that people will gain £120 this year. We should be under no illusions that this will be a permanent tax cut. Next year, the personal allowance won’t increase nearly as much as it would have done, and over time, further reduced increases in the allowance will mean that the £2.7 billion is eventually clawed back. But as no-one can know what the increases would have been without today’s announcement, they won’t be able to complain about losing out. The amount of tax collected will be the same in the end, but I suppose at least low earners won’t be hit with a big increase in tax all at once.

Unfortunately for the Labour Party – and Brown and Darling in particular – I don’t think this measure will do anything for their electability. They are already badly damaged by the original policy error. Maybe a change in leadership is needed before the next election.

It’s difficult to see how the government could have thought it a good idea to change taxes so that everyone gains except those who earn £15,000 or less a year, who will lose out by anything up to £150. This is obviously very unfair, and hits those people for whom £100–150 is a lot of money.

The desire to simplify the taxation system is a worthy one. However, removing one band of income tax wasn’t really the best place to start. What makes the tax system too complex is the system of tax credits, which is supposed to compensate people who have been failed by the system in the first place. Surely it would be far better to have a fairer base system of taxation, rather than having tax credits as corrections – which are so difficult to understand that millions of pounds go unclaimed each year. Unfortunately, the “compensation” which the government has promised people who have lost out following the abolition of the 10p rate will undoubtedly be yet another type of tax credit (if it materialises at all).

Perhaps a better solution would be to raise everyone’s tax-free personal allowance by £750. That would mean everyone would gain £150 that would otherwise have been paid in tax at the 20p rate. To recoup the loss in revenue, the government could lower the threshold at which the higher rate of tax is paid – the actuaries will have to figure out that one, as it requires knowledge of the distribution of salaries across the whole population. This solution would result in an equally simple system of tax thresholds (0, 20p, 40p) but be fairer in that those on the lowest incomes would pay a little less, and high-earners a little more.

Monthly bank charges would hit low earners

Also in the news this week was that UK banks have lost the first stage of the case against account penalty charges. The judge has ruled that the Office of Fair Trading can decide on the fairness of charges. As I have said before, if penalty charges are outlawed completely, the banks might respond by introducing monthly account charges, which would be bad for all customers.

As has been reported in the last week, people on low incomes would be hit hard by the abolition of the 10p starting rate of income tax. For those people, the loss of £100 or so per year is highly significant. Therefore, if they suddenly had to pay £10 per month simply for having a bank account, that would hit them just as hard. Yet that could be the result of the “crusade” against penalty charges. The result could be that people will be forced to close their bank accounts, dividing the population into two classes: those who can afford bank accounts, and those who can not. That seems far from fair.

It simply isn’t the case that people on low incomes currently pay penalty charges and those on higher incomes don’t. Many people on low incomes manage their money extremely carefully and avoid going overdrawn, just as their grandparents did before living off credit seemed the norm. It isn’t fair to penalise people just because others have been careless enough to incur account fees.

I still hope that a ruling against penalty charges by the Office of Fair Trading will not result in monthly account charges for everyone. However, if it does, we could see people on low incomes being hit just has hard as they have been by the abolition of the 10p income tax rate.

They have credited the photo to “http://jonathan.rawle.org/gallery/using/”, which is actually my page of terms and conditions for using my photos. At least they have included an acknowledgement, and the Graduates’ Review counts as a non-commercial publication, so I’m happy for them to use the image. I only wish they’d asked me for a higher-resolution version, as it’s quite pixellated if you look closely.

Despite its historical significance in the UK, it is now almost impossible to buy a card that says, “Happy Mothering Sunday”. Almost all cards now say, “Happy Mother’s Day”. This is at least partly because people are looking for a celebration that is the exact equivalent to the entirely American-invented Father’s Day, but also reflects the general trend to pick up American words and phrases to displace our own, which is then compounded by the media using the same expressions.

This erosion of our culture is unfortunate, particularly as it’s happening without people realising. Most people don’t realise the term they are using is American. While many people in the UK are not religious and don’t consider themselves Christians, even the famous athiest Richard Dawkins has said that Christian traditions form an important part of our nation’s heritage. Almost everyone celebrates Christmas, but few go to church, and many people are non-believers. Christmas is an important festival during which families get together and people show seasonal goodwill towards other, even if it has little or no religious significance to most people. Anyway attempts to rename Christmas have quite rightly been subjected to ridicule. So why should we rename Mothering Sunday? If people prefer to celebrate the American holiday, they can do so in May. But changing the name of Mothering Sunday to its American counterpart is the equivalent of British people deciding to celebrate Thanksgiving on 25 December. Using the name Mothering Sunday is in keeping with the British tradition of retaining historical dates from the Church calender, but giving the festivals a modern, secular meaning that’s inclusive for everyone.

Another good reason for avoiding “Mother’s Day” is that it removes the dilemma of where to put the apostrophe. I have seen all three possibilities this year: Mother’s Day, Mothers Day and Mothers’ Day. The first is by far the most common, yet it could actually be argued that any one of them is correct. Unfortunately, many people won’t even think about what the apostrophe means, which is probably why it’s generally put before the “s”, where they think an apostrophe is automatic. It’s far better to use a name for the day that doesn’t require an apostrophe at all.

The irony is, I have an American-made calendar on my wall, and it manages to correctly identify today as Mothering Sunday. It shows Mother’s Day as being 11 May. The Americans themselves appear to have no problem accepting different countries’ conventions and culture, it’s just that the British seem to have no idea about their own.

Nationwide have apologised for the error, and have, quite rightly, said that if anyone goes overdrawn as a result, they will not be charged. Yet some people still aren’t happy, and have complained that it’s too much money to take from their accounts at once. Yet if they don’t have the money still in their accounts, it’s money they’ve spent twice over, which rightly belongs to the bank.

Why didn’t people notice that the money hadn’t been taken from their accounts? If people are in real hardship because Nationwide are claiming their money, the amount in question must be a significant sum to them. So why weren’t they suspicious when they suddenly had that extra money to spend? If on the other hand, the cash withdrawn is only a small amount to a particular customer so that they didn’t notice, it’s also too small an amount to make a fuss over when it has to be repaid.

This had been going on for more than three months, yet it seems none of the customers affected reported it to Nationwide for a long time. Surely they will all have received at least two monthly statements during that time, so should have noticed the discrepancy? Some of them must have been hoping the bank wouldn’t find out, and they’d get to keep the extra money. As for the rest, they probably don’t even look at their statements. People should really get into the habit of checking their bank statements – after all, next time around, it could be that the bank has debited the withdrawals twice. It’s in the customer’s interest to check that all the transactions are correct.

In the week, I’m only really able to listen to the station in the evening. Changes at this time of day include the scrapping of the 6:30pm Classic Newsnight programme. While this was not the best news programme imaginable, it was the only news bulletin I could catch after work, having usually missed most of Radio 4’s news. Instead, Smooth Classics at Seven has been extended by an hour, becoming Smooth Classics at Six. Smooth Classics, presented by John Brunning, was always one of my favourite programmes. Unfortunately, they have now pushed John out in favour of Margherita Taylor, who apparently used to present a programme called Easy Jazz at Six on theJazz. I’m afraid I am so far unable to get used to Ms Taylor’s voice. I don’t know if she’s supposed to be a celebrity because she’s been on TV; I’m not interested in celebrities. I liked John Brunning’s smooth voice presenting this programme. Margherita Taylor appears to have a “trendy” voice with an end-of-sentence intonation I don’t appreciate.

In turn, John Brunning has displaced Nick Bailey as the presenter of the Evening Concert programme, which has been renamed The Full Works. For around five years, Nick has presented the programme live, enabling him to read out listeners’ e-mailed comments as he received them (including several of mine over the years!) This gave the programme a much more personal touch, and meant it was better company for anyone listening alone. Early indications are that The Full Works is no longer presented live. Nick Bailey has now been pushed into the overnight slot, starting from 2am, displacing Mark Griffiths who has now left the station. I’m quite certain Nick isn’t happy about losing the Concert and having to present overnight.

One aspect of the new schedule that has proved most controversial is the introduction of two hours of jazz each night, starting at midnight. The programme is presented by Helen Mayhew, who is also a refugee from theJazz. Lisa Duncombe, the young violinist who was given a job after complaining that the station didn’t promote young artists enough, has also been given the axe. Classic FM used to promote itself as the country’s only 100% classical station, as opposed to rival BBC Radio 3, which has always played jazz. That distinction has now been lost. I should probably go to bed at midnight anyway, but I have to say that, despite my reservations, the jazz programme is the change I mind the least. The music is still quite relaxing, and at that time of night the music is only background to reading or whatever, rather than being for serious listening.

The station has responded to complaints about the introduction of jazz by claiming:

Radio stations periodically change their programming line-ups and our research shows that there is a very strong cross-over between listeners to classical music and jazz.

That is implying that they introduced the new schedule as a result of careful audience research. I would contend that they have done no such thing. The new schedule was introduced in a hurry after GCap decided to pull out of DAB. The evidence for this is clear. In the past, new schedules on Classic FM have been the subject of much fanfare and promotion for weeks beforehand. Now they are calling this the biggest change in 15 years, yet there was no mention of the new schedule until just before it started this week. In the just-released April issue of the Classic FM magazine, they have just managed to get the new schedule in there. But there is a detailed listing of the music that will be played on the Evening Concert in March, with an accompanying article by Nick Bailey who it says, “presents the Classic FM Evening Concert every weekday night from 9pm”. That shows these changes to the schedule weren’t carefully planned as the result of audience research. They were rushed through for commercial and contractual reasons as a result of theJazz closing, after much of the magazine had already been produced.

The jingle that accompanies the new programmes can only be described as naff. I don’t believe it was created by David Arnold, the composer of the famous Classic FM jingle, and of the many arrangements that are heard on the station. It was no doubt recorded in a hurry, again because the schedule change wasn’t planned very far in advance. And what on Earth is the slogan “We raise you up” supposed to mean?!

It seems GCap needed to find a job for Margherita Taylor as a matter or urgency. Perhaps she had some sort of contract that would have been expensive for GCap to terminate – more expensive than sacking Mark Griffiths anyway. Perhaps the contract also specified that Ms Taylor’s programme should be at a time when decent numbers of people are listening, not in the middle of the night. So to make way for her, they have shunted along two long-standing presenters on the station who had presented their respective programmes for many years extremely successfully. The same may be said for Helen Mayhew replacing Lisa Duncombe, although there the motivation is probably also an attempt to appease jazz fans: they can still listen to jazz, as long as they don’t mind staying up until 2am!

I am quite unimpressed with the changes to Classic FM’s schedule. Because of what are ultimately business decisions by the owners, they have spoilt my favourite station quite a bit. Now I can’t listen to the news, I can’t hear “Mr Smooth” present his classics, and I can’t enjoy listening to the concert with Nick Bailey. I hope some of these changes can be reversed when theJazz’s former presenters’ contracts expire. I know that other listeners are unhappy, particularly with the jazz programme. Yet they are unlikely to abandon the station as there aren’t many alternatives. Unless, that is, GCap’s own internet broadcasting strategy turns out to be the way forward, in which case people may well discover that there are many good classical music stations around the world (from countries without draconian copyright laws) and so they can consider abandoning the station that puts business before its listeners.

I think this is a great idea, and is actually something that had occurred to me before. Such a licence would also help to prevent sale of tobacco to under-18s, as shopkeepers would have to check the licence, so would not have to guess young people’s ages. It would also mean that smokers’ permits could be revoked if they were found to be deliberately disobeying no smoking laws, or even as punishment if they were convicted of other public order offences (e.g. fighting outside the pub).

The licences need only have a photograph of the holder and a minimum of details, so they needn’t be seen as a breach of someone’s privacy. The holder’s name needn’t even be printed on the it. However, I wouldn’t have any objections to the database of smokers’ names being available to insurance companies, to weed out a few cheats who falsely claim to be non-smokers.

I have to say, though, that I don’t think the £10 charge is necessary. A modest rise in tobacco duty would cover the costs of the scheme. As the health board’s chairman, Julian Le Grand, has said, it’s the form-filling that will put smokers off, not the fee – I don’t imagine £10 per year is going to deter many people, given the fortune they must already be spending on cigarettes. If the permits were available for free on completion of the application form, it would prevent pro-smoking groups being able to complain it was simply “an extra form of taxation” on smokers. If they continued to oppose the permits, one could draw the conclusion that they support sale of cigarettes to under-age people, or that the tobacco manufacturers intend to keep people hooked on smoking who really would like to give up.

Of course, there are people who are saying, “Now it’s tobacco, next it’ll be alcohol.” I actually think a similar sort of permit for buying alcohol (but not necessarily renewable every year) would be a good idea. It would prevent sale of alcohol to under-age people. It could also end the ridiculous situation where a middle-aged person is buying a bottle of wine from the supermarket, but the young checkout operator isn’t old enough to approve the sale to them, even though the customer is clearly over 40, sometimes resulting in the whole queue of people at the checkout being held up for a couple of minutes. The ability to revoke alcohol permits from people would also be a very useful tool in tackling anti-social behaviour. Anyone who’d had their alcohol licence taken off them for a few weeks would no doubt be the subject of ridicule by their peers, the thought of which would be a big deterrent to drunken bad behaviour in the first place.

I do hope the tobacco permit idea is adopted, but think they should reconsider the admin fee. This is an important public health measure, so I hope the government doesn’t simply intend to use it as an opportunity for another stealth tax – or at least, make it look that way to other people.