Dominic Young

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about

I’ve been around the news media and the internet since the beginning. I am interested in copyright as the basis for a thriving and balanced creative sector and society. Also interested in how the failure of copyright and other laws has led to terrible outcomes for the internet and everyone who uses it. I’ve done a lot of things around these issues.

Category: Copyright

  • Blocking the blockers is a waste of a good crisis

    Back when my day job involved worrying about such things, I didn’t much like the online advertising market. As a publisher, it’s quite hard to love. Advertising works for publishers when they can charge a premium price for their ads, establish and defend a meaningful market share, turn a larger audience into higher yields and…

  • Tis but a flesh wound

    Much has been written in the last week or two about the death of newspapers. The announcement that the Independent will cease its print edition has prompted this hand-wringing and outpouring. The Independent’s hobbyist owner, Evgeny Lebedev, has offered up his own wisdom about the situation. In an interview with the Guardian he claims his…

  • Walls and words – the importance of language

    YouTube put up a paywall. But they’re not calling it that. In various headlines culled from various search engines, YouTube Red is called “a subscription service”, an “ad-free music and video plan” and so on. Not a paywall. I used to think about paid services (and how to make them pay) when I worked in…

  • Google seeks licences from rightsholders, world still turning

    So, despite a campaign to prevent it, the Germans have changed their copyright law a little bit, raising the possibility that search engines might have to pay a fee for news content they access. Google has responded by changing the rules of Google News in Germany to make it “opt in”. In other words, before…

  • Unintended consequences

    The government is concerned. Bad things are happening. The internet is a corrupting and subversive influence, tipping bad people over the edge into depravity and evil deeds. Something must be done. So, ministers have summoned internet companies. A Code of Conduct is under consideration for ISPs. We need their help to stop the bad things.…

  • The IPO hits back

    AND SO BEHOLD, ladies and gentlemen, the hastily cobbled together rebuttal that the Intellectual Property Office has put forward to defend their orphan works legislation which became law last week. Andrew Orlowski has his own useful explainer here Since it is cobbled together and defensive, the IPO document is not very detailed and focuses mainly…

  • D-ERR. UK copyright owners no longer control the right to copy their work

    The UK abolished copyright today. At least, they abolished a large part of the “framework” which supports it by doing away with the requirement, in many cases, to have permission from the owner before you use someone’s work. Now, if you don’t know who the owner is, you don’t have to ask them.* The UK…

  • Who’d have thought China would be the defenders of copyright?

    When I was a nipper, trying to licence rights in various things, it was widely reckoned that it wasn’t worth trying to do business in China because they pretty much ignored copyright there. If they wanted to use something they just did, without asking first. Whether that was an unfair generalisation or not, the same…

  • Laurie Kaye on the Supreme Court’s weird NLA judgement

    The always-wise Laurie Kaye has some useful memories which concur with mine. His take on the Supreme Court’s recent judgement about the NLA is useful reading. Lord Sumption should give it a squizz. As I recall, the majority of the discussions around Article 5.1 concerned these kinds of temporary copies made by the Telcos’ networks and…

  • Strange things happen in courts

    This is odd. The Supreme Court has handed down its judgement in the endless NLA case, and it’s a little strange. They have also referred the case on to the European Court of Justice, to ensure that the agony is prolonged a little longer. Among the many oddities is that this judgement, weird though it…