Judge Chin gave his verdict, and the GBS lost.

The GBS Amended Settlement Agreement has been rejected, and it feels weirdly anti-climactic. The Judge – no fool he – limited the scope of his judgment, restricting himself to the aspects which were absolutely necessary to making a decision. Specifically, he said that the attempt by the parties to grant Google a licence for future use based on a case which was supposed to be about past infringements was a greater stretch than the law allowed. On other issues, he was broadly with the objectors – privacy was an issue, copyright too, and so on – but stopped short of making definitive statements which could readily be used as precedents in other cases. It was, as far as I can see with my untrained eye, a conservative, solid, sensible bit of work. Unlike the settlement itself, it stayed within the exact bounds of what was required.

Perhaps because in the UK we’re used to government inquiries and suchlike being heralded with great fanfares and speculation and this judgment was just there from one moment to the next (or maybe I missed the build-up because I don’t follow the New York legal scene closely), it feels rather sudden. After months of worry, it comes down to this, and we won. Huh. Okay. Cool. But what happens now?

Well, there may be ongoing litigation. The National Writers Union statement (Seriously, guys: no apostrophe? Are we grammar pedants or are we not? :) in the US certainly seems to suggest that there will. I can see the argument: Google’s digitisation of copyright works could be seen as an infringement in and of itself, and never mind the whole ‘snippets’/Fair Use argument. And another question: if Google is scanning books in order to create better natural language search software for commercial purposes, should that software be considered a derivative work? (No, probably – but courts have made more unlikely decisions.) Clarity would be good for everyone. I just can’t really muster much enthusiasm for it: my beef was with the GBS quite specifically, for the reasons I’ve given in the past.

However…

I do have some concerns specifically related to the UK. British governments tend to hammer the creative industries when they want to make the point that they’re being frightfully tough on frivolous spending. Gordon Brown’s administration partway-massacred the UK film landscape in 2004 on the basis that those pill-popping monsters in Soho House were evading their tax responsibilities. The Film Council was one of the first victims of the Coalition’s axe. Authors’ averaging tax relief is in the Office for Tax Simplification’s sights – despite George Osborne’s assertion in the budget yesterday that a March of the Makers will save the British economy – and so on and on and on. Government does not like wafty creative types, and particularly does not want to acknowledge that without them, enormous segments of the British economy grind to a halt. It’s much easier to make breaks for ‘enterprise’ than ‘creativity’ – or rather, it’s more politically rewarding to talk about breaks for companies and the notional generation of jobs than about the bedrock of publishing, film, television, advertising, software, and music: creative people.

All of which is preamble to my present worry: the Hargreaves Review. Set up by David Cameron, the purpose of the review is essentially to see what can be done to make the IP framework more friendly to companies like Google. Cameron loves Google. In and of itself, I have no problem with that. I’d much rather he loved Google than British American Tobacco. But restyling the IP landscape to suit Google should please no one. One of the great promises of the internet was the broadening of access to distribution for creative work: the rise of a new meritocratic system where books, music, movies and so on could be made in garages and put online, creating a profitstream which would support artisan creators. A world where big media was increasingly playing catch-up, and raw human endeavour – content – was king. Instead of my going to a big publisher, I’d outsource editing to a freelancer, do the same with publicity and marketing, and take a much larger share of the profits from my work.

It’s an incredibly attractive notion to many. But it hinges – much as many are loathe to admit it – on robust IP law. If you create, say, an amazing short movie and put it on your site free of charge, you are looking for one of two things: massive traffic, so that you can sell ad space, or a contract to make a long-form movie. (You may, if you have Cory Doctorow‘s golden touch, be able to persuade people to buy a download of the movie. Cory’s amazing ability form a rock-solid relationship with his enormous readership, a relationship which feels personal and carries a sense of obligation and collegial respect, is not something anyone I know of has yet duplicated. It’s a tribute to the man, not the model. At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, not everyone is Cory Doctorow.) If Google or another site can simply lift your film and place it on their own site, they will get the ad revenue you might otherwise have seen. If the movie industry is feeling tight because their profit margin is down because the law now allows filesharing, your chances of getting a deal to make your movie are reduced. (Yes, the movie industry is grossly overpaid and flabby. That changes nothing.)

The point is that while it’s possible to open IP up to make life easier for new services, it has to be done with incredible discretion and caution to avoid simply handing the content industry to a new set of large corporate masters who are not even vested in the notion that content is their primary revenue stream. And how does that profit creators? Not at all.In fact, it just puts us in hock to a culture with a history of refusing to negotiate with artists. Google has recently expressed frustration at the slow and tangled nature of music and TV licensing. Their solution? Legislation (or quasi-legislation like the GBS) and possible compulsory licensing – the same response as they had with the book trade over GBS. During the entire time that the GBS debate was running, I received exactly no communications from Google directly. Everything was broadcast-style, with no possibility of discussion. There was no point of contact with my world, no possibility of negotiating terms. It was: we’re doing this with your stuff. You will either get on board, or you won’t. If you do, we will give you the following (pretty awful, non-negotiable) deal. If you don’t, we may – but do not have to – stop using your material. Well, okay, I exercised my right to walk away from the table – the single most important right in any capitalist society, because without it, you can always be held to a lousy deal. And it is that right which compulsory licenses in their various forms take away.

The Hargreaves Review is not about overturning the Digital Economy Act. It’s not going to liberalise in favour of filesharing. It may recommend legalisation of format shifting of content, but that’s about it for the kind of copyright liberalisation people tend to think of when they hear those words. And while it does appear that Ian Hargreaves has a strong sense that IP as it stands is not suited to present needs, it also appears that he is aware of the complex nature of the discussion. Ultimately, though, the review will not make law; David Cameron’s coalition will do that, and if my experiences during the GBS debate is any guide, parliamentarians are more than a little bewildered by this sort of discussion and unsure why or whether it’s important. Worse, it’s hardly vote-winning stuff. So they tend to bend with the wind which blows from Number 10 unless given strong reasons not to.

So please, please: think about what you want the creative world to look like, and keep your eye on this discussion. Because it is crucial.

Eight years ago, there was a massive debate in the British media about whether or not we should invade Iraq.

The grounds were strikingly shaky: a tenuous assertion that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Osama; allegations about a WMD program which seemed then and even more so now to have been drawn from empty air (and if you recall things differently, you probably weren’t reading the estimable Scott Ritter, who debunked the WMD claim page by page and was ignored); a loud cry that we could not tolerate Saddam’s behaviour against his own people and the world despite having bankrolled it, supported and facilitated it for decades: Rumsfeld and Thatcher celebrated him. Saddam was our guy until suddenly he wasn’t.

All the same, the fervour to go in there and save the shit out of Iraq was mighty. Columns were written, interviews given, reputations staked.

So where the hell is all that just fury now?

I’m not saying we should go into Libya. It is, I suspect, too late to do that, and it would be a geopolitically thankless, expensive, and brutal job if we did it. There was probably a moment about two weeks ago when we could have made a relatively painless commitment and done some good. It’s gone. We deliberated until it was past.

But where have all those pundits gone? The people who couldn’t stand to stand by while a free people blah blah blah? Silent. Fatigued. Know better, maybe.

And here am I. I hated the idea of going into Iraq. I hated it because from everything I read and had been taught and understood, it was a total walking cockup in a shiny metal hat. I still think it was the wrong choice. I accepted the necessity of going to Afghanistan, and still do, though what we’re doing there now I have no idea. Making the point that we don’t quit? Quitting while making that point?

But it makes my gut churn that we’re watching Benghazi fall. That we will once again betray our own rhetorical promises to support freedom and democracy wherever they may raise their heads and cry out for blah blah blah. That we will be shown for what we are: inconstant, bad friends to the wider democratic world.

For a wonder, I’m not having to say I’m angry with David Cameron. I’m not. He made his bid. Together with France (oh-so-pusillanimous France, nation of surrender and compromise, remember?) our Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary did give it a shot. They failed, but they tried. But where, oh, where, was the loud press outrage, the thundering endorsement? Where are all the hawks? Turned to bloody ostriches, is where.

I’m a peacenik. I distrust armed action in any but the most blatant cases of self-defense. So why am I sitting here wishing we could have sent troops or guns or at least recognised the rebels as a legitimate national government, while all those loud bastards who said Iraq would be quick and clean and we’d be welcomed with open arms by virgin bellydancers and Baghdad would soon be the capital of a new secular arab renaissance… well. All those folks are quietly doing something else, and Benghazi, which may be the first legitimate moment for military humanitarian intervention in the affairs of another country since Bosnia, is about to be purged.

It just pisses me off. The more because sooner or later it had to happen. The Middle East dominos had to stop falling. I know they did. Great sweeping changes don’t end in fairytale moments when there are oil contracts and strategic imperatives. They just don’t. Will you think me cynical if I say that the fervour is missing because in the case of Iraq the oil had already stopped flowing, where here it was the change in the status quo which might mean someone missing out on their hit of petroleum products?

So now there will be a bloodbath instead. Sorry, Benghazi. You’re out of luck.

But I’m guessing you know that by now.

Yowch.

What can I tell you? It’s been too long since my last confession…

Basically, House of Harkaway is full of baby. The spare moments in which I blogged so often are rarer and mostly interrupted by little cries of “glagoo!” which can mean anything from “I’m bored” to “I have accidentally initiated a global financial crisis using only my baby gym and one of mum’s stray hairpins.”

The milestones in my day are feeds, the moments of profound joy are the one minute dialogues in which it’s possible to see the person inside the baby-shaped eating machine bent on hilarious, startling demolition.

Which is not to say that I am not working. I am working harder than I ever have before, I think. Partly that’s because maintaining focus while a single-instrument version of the Brandenburg Concerto plays on a triangular grey plastic object printed with coloured fish can be taxing. Partly it’s because there’s a lot on my plate…

The edit of my second book continues. No, I am not nit-picking through it and delaying it pointlessly. Sometimes the wheels of publishing grind slowly, sometimes monstrously fast. We are in the former place. I beg your indulgence.

I wrote a third book while I was waiting.

I’ve written a screenplay, something I swore I would never, ever do again – but sometimes you just do those things.

I’m working on a couple of new projects, too, which are under a sort of deadline.

As I say, it’s MADNESS in this place.

And meanwhile, out in the wider world, some dude thinks he’s found Atlantis.

Now, this happens from time to time. There was a moment, back in the 80s, when you couldn’t sit down with a newspaper and a glass of wine without someone explaining where Atlantis was and why everyone else was wrong. This guy, however, has apparently been using satellite imagery, which has been a really cool tool for people hunting buried sites, and hey, guess what: his Atlantis is actually where Atlantis is supposed to be, not in a subduction zone half way around the world.

But honestly, I did not really believe anyone would find it in a definitive way, and I’m not sure they have now. But seriously: how cool? Next up: tiny submarines voyaging through the bloodstream and fighting white blood cells and stuff.

Which leads me randomly (call it free association) to Take Life By The Throat Monday. (#tlbttm)

Here’s the plan: I’m going to get serious about managing my time here. I have a lot to do and no time to do it and the fragments of time when I occasionally drift are worth gold to me. I cannot fritter them away. I can do productive work daydreaming. That is allowed. But I will be ruthless about when it’s just fritter. I am ON FIRE, BABY!

And I thought, okay, everyone needs that feeling from time to time and it helps to share it. So. Not every Monday is Take Life By The Throat Monday. It’s only #tlbttm if someone nominates it so. The hashtag initiates 110% mode, emergency thrust, ye cannae take her unny fuster, Cap’n, the injins ur gooin’ flat oot us ut uz!

[EDIT] By the way, it’s been suggested that Take Life By The Throat is unduly violent. I can see where you’re coming from with that. I think sometimes one needs a bit of gung ho, but whatever the case, I would propose to you that it should be treated with mingled rock ‘n’ roll punchiness and faint erotic overtones. Growl at Monday. Seduce it with your eyes, then lure it over to the empty terrace and grasp it about the waist and kiss it soundly on the lips. Have a passionate affair with this ugly duckling of days and let it show you that yes, it too has passion, and yes, it cleans up nicely. It can be beautiful and handsome and strangely charming, and it has that expression of energy and expectation which drives the whole world mad with desire.

Just a thought. You could go with determined and Liam Neeson if you want.

…

All of which is great fun, but you can’t, you just cannot, blog in these days without mentioning Japan. One of the great nations of the world brought almost casually to its knees by a couple of moments of the Earth shifting. Scary as Hell, appallingly sad and staggeringly impressive as the country fights its way off the canvas and says: still here, fucker.

Japan, you rock.

That is all.