Ordinary Gweilo

It's not big and it's not clever, it's just a Brit in Hong Kong writing (mainly) about Hong Kong

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  • Stopping piracy or stifling competition?

    I found this article in the New York Times interesting because it appeared to offer a counter-argument against the current copyright laws and all the fuss about people ‘stealing’ intellectual property:

    The entertainment industry’s pursuit of tough new laws to protect copyrighted materials from online piracy is bad for business and for the economy, according to a report being released today by the Committee for Economic Development, a Washington policy group that has its roots in the business world.

    Record companies and movie and television studios have fought copyright infringement on many fronts, hoping to find ways to prevent their products from being distributed free on the Internet. But critics warn that many of the new restrictions that the entertainment industry proposes – like enforcing technological requirements for digital television programming that would prevent it from being transmitted online – would upset the balance between the rights of the content creators and the rights of the public.

    [..]

    “The ideas of copy-left, or of a more liberal regime of copyright, are receiving wider and wider support,” said Debora L. Spar, a professor at Harvard Business School. “It’s no longer a wacky idea cloistered in the ivory tower; it’s become a more mainstream idea that we need a different kind of copyright regime to support the wide range of activities in cyberspace.”

    Susan Crawford, a professor at the Cardozo Law School of Yeshiva University and an author of the report said that a growing number of business leaders are worried that the trend toward “equating intellectual property with physical property” might be hampering innovation.

    “Bits are not the same as atoms,” she argued, contending that the distinction is being blurred by Hollywood. “We need to reframe the legal discussion to treat the differences of bits and atoms in a more thoughtful way.”

    However, having read the report itself (which you can download from here), I think they are actually trying to make a narrower point:

    Such enforcement, however, should not be designed to protect a specific technology or business model. The point is to protect the principles of copyright.

    [..]

    In some instances, such as automated business method patents, current intellectual property policy undermines the very thing it means to protect—the long-term flow of innovation and creative works. The issuance of patents for automated business methods has the potential to overstimulate unproductive
    “innovations.”

    I admit that I haven’t read the full report, but I have read enough of it to know that they aren’t being as radical as the NYT story appears to suggest.  They raise the valid point that consumers are entitled to make ‘fair use’ of the material that they have purchased, and quite rightly argue that over-zealous technical limitations will be counter-productive.  Don’t forget that video recorder was once seen as a threat to the film industry, as were DVD players (hence the crazy system of region codes just to show us consumers who is in charge).  Perhaps most importantly, they believe that eventually the market will find a solution that consumers will accept, and the problem will go away.

  • A lot of fuss about nothing

    The English Schools Foundation is still making headlines, this time over the election of a new Chairman and Vice-Chairman.  The new chairman is, gasp, a woman, an outsider (having had no previous connection with the ESF), and Chinese, but has considerable experience in the education sector.  Professor Felice Lieh-Mak was apparently approached after ESF parents concluded that they needed to find someone of stature from outside the organisation:

    “The dream candidate envisioned by the discussion would have to be Chinese, female, steeped in education, well-liked by the government but not beholden to it, and with a peerless reputation for probity.” [from The Standard, quoting an email from Nury Vittachi to Christine Houston]

    The professor was head of the University of Hong Kong’s department of psychiatry for nearly two decades before retiring in 2001. [from the SCMP]

    However, Christine Houston, one of the prime movers behind the campaign to prevent Mike Haynes being appointed as Chief Executive, feels that the decision was made by the “old boys” and that the members of the Foundation were not given the chance to choose their own candidate.  The problem seems to be that the chairman had to be an existing member of the Foundation, which should have ruled out Professor Lieh-Mak:

    Parents opposed to Haynes suggested other names for the chair, including Civic Exchange chief executive Christine Loh and former chief secretary for administration Anson Chan. But these names were dropped after parents learned the nominees had to be foundation members.

    However, this turned out not to be a major obstacle.  Professor Lieh-Mak was last week named the University of Hong Kong’s representative and thus became eligible to be a candidate.  What is not clear is whether it would have been possible for other candidates to be found a place on the Foundation in advance of Monday’s meeting (presumably this would only have been practical where the representative is appointed rather than elected). Nevertheless, I doubt whether Christine Loh or Anson Chan were really serious candidates.  At this time, surely it made sense to find a respected figure from the education world who would be able to give the role the attention it deserves.  Perhaps there were other equally eminent people who could have stood if more time was available, but Professor Leih-Mak seems like as good choice as any.

    The key point about Mike Haynes was that he was both the ultimate insider and not obviously well-qualified to be the Chief Executive of the ESF.  If he had not been an insider it is likely that his appointment would have been approved, or if he had been better qualified for the job the doubts about the way he got on to the short-list would not have been so much of an issue.  Needless to say, Professor Leih-Mak is both an outsider and well-qualified for the role, which explains why she was overwhelmingly elected.

    The next task is to find a new Chief Executive, and it seems that this time they will looking for someone with a strong background in education.  There’s a novel idea.

  • Not such a good idea

    Democracy is a good thing, and free markets are a good thing, so it stands to reason that every country should be moving as quickly as possible towards full democracy and a free market system. Obvious really?
    This is a very interesting piece, arguing against the conventional wisdom, and suggesting that we shouldn’t be in a mad rush to impose changes.

    Conditions in the developing world make the combination of markets and democracy much more volatile than when western nations embarked on their paths to market democracy. The poor are vastly more numerous, and poverty more entrenched, in the developing world today. In addition, universal suffrage is often implemented wholesale and abruptly, unlike the gradual enfranchisement seen during western democratisation.

    The other big change compared to earlier times is that people in poor countries are much more likely to be aware of the higher standard of living enjoyed overseas (notably in the United States). Is it any surprise that when the Americans start promising that life will get better, people get impatient.

    What is to be done? Retreating from democracy in Iraq is not an option. Democracy and market-generated growth, in some form, offer the best long-term hope for developing countries. But there are many different versions of free-market democracy and the US has been exporting the wrong version – a caricature. There is no western nation today with anything close to a laissez-faire system. Yet for the past two decades, the US, along with international institutions like the World Bank and IMF, has been pressing poor countries to adopt a bare-knuckle brand of capitalism – with virtually no safety nets or mechanisms for redistribution – that the US and Europe abandoned long ago.

    The Americans push for free-trade and then when they feel that their own interests are under threat they impose tarrifs or quotas, or try to persuade countries to revalue their currencies so that the prices of their exports will rise. One law for the rich, and another for the poor!

    It’s an interesting, well-argued piece, and not just a tirade against capitalism.

  • I didn’t know that

    I didn’t know this until I read about it in The Guardian, but apparently in France it is legal to marry someone who is dead. About 20 people do it each year, but you have to ask the President for permission. You can’t just choose to marry anyone – the authorities only allow it if a couple were planning to get married, and you need the agreement of your “parents-in-law”.

    I can’t make my mind up whether this is touching or barmy. I suppose that if it makes the bereaved partner feel better it can’t do any harm.

  • They’re watching us

    Hats off to BWG for noticing this amazing photograph of Hong Kong taken from space.  As he says, if you have a fast connection then you should certainly look at the high-resolution image.

  • People change their minds

    I hope I don’t regret this, but I have changed my mind about NTSCMP. Perhaps it was George’s holiday in Switzerland that did the trick, because he seems to have got over the compulsion to be rude to everyone and slimmed down the site somewhat. Even Blogwatch is a shadow of its former self, reduced to criticizing BWG for his tirade against coriander and Ron for publishing girlie pics. Yawn, yawn.

    There’s a new contributor creating photo montages, and both the technical quality and the humour content have improved as a result. The opinions I have read seem less vitriolic than in the early days, and George isn’t making an idiot of himself on IceRed.

    There’s a certain irony in the fact that the NTSCMP seems to have changed its mind about Spike, recognizing that it is really a serious magazine that is dabbling in satire, not a clone of Private Eye, and that it puts The Standard and the SCMP to shame. This is, of course, what I said several weeks ago.

    So if we go back to the RTHK radio show in November featuring Messrs Vines, Vittachi and Adams, what conclusion can we draw? At the time they were all trying to prove that they were more outspoken and “satirical” than each other, but actually this was about as meaningful as Hong Kong soccer teams arguing about who is the strongest. It hardly matters, because by international standards they are third division (at best). Nury is a nice guy who can write quite amusing stuff, Steve Vines understands how Hong Kong works and can write well about it, and, er, I’m sure if thought really hard I could find something nice to say about George.

    I think my real point is that there’s room for all of us (and I include bloggers as well), and even if we don’t agree on everything we probably do share a love for Hong Kong and a healthy level of cynicism about the ‘establishment’ in this city. So, from now on, rather than ignoring NTSCMP I will be rude about it (and link to it) as appropriate. And I think I will subscribe to Spike.

  • Current affairs or modern history

    One of the stranger features of our English language terrestrial TV channels (TVB Pearl and ATV World) is that they serve up current affairs programmes from the US and UK, but several weeks or months later.

    Last night, I caught part of “60 Minutes” on ATV World, and they had an interview with ‘Democratic front-runner Dr Howard Dean’. I don’t wish to sound churlish, but wasn’t he the guy who dropped out last week after consistently finishing 3rd or 4th in most of the contests? Obviously, before the start of the primaries he was indeed the front-runner, and that is presumably when the interview was filmed and shown on TV in the States. Now, several weeks later, it just looks silly!

    Slightly more topical was the BBC Panorama document about the Hutton inquiry, shown in the UK shortly before the judge delivered his report, and shown here some time after Gavyn Davies and Greg Dyke had resigned (following the criticism of the BBC in the published report). It was interesting and balanced programme, and TVB managed to find a primetime slot for it even though it was nearly two hours long. However, it would have been ever more interesting and topical if it had been broadcast in the week the report was published.

    I assume that with “60 Minutes” there is some deal whereby ATV is only entitled to show the programme a certain period of time after it has aired in the States, but I bet that if they paid a bit more they could show it sooner. Or is it just one of those token gestures that is supposed to demonstrate a commitment to serious programming, and no-one is actually expected to watch it?

    Coming soon on ATV World: “Financial Markets Two Weeks Ago” a round-up of what happened in the stockmarket a fortnight ago.

  • Is your teacher happy with your work, Daddy?

    When I came home from work the other day, my son asked me whether I work hard. “Yes, of course” I replied (and actually I do). “So is your teacher happy with your work?”

    I suppose it’s an entirely logical view of the world when all you know is school. It has obviously never occurred to him that when you get older you don’t have a teacher telling you what to do and whether you have done a good job or not.

    Of course, teachers occupy a very special place in the life of young children, and a few words of praise mean so much. As they get older, the relationship changes and teachers often struggle to stay in control, but that comes later.

    I don’t think anyone would really want a boss who was quite like my son’s teacher, but I have certainly come across some who seem to act more like a mother than a manager. But that’s a subject for another day.

  • Department of pointless gestures

    Typepad, who host this site, have apologized for the slowness and various problems over the last few days. As a pointless gesture they are giving me three free days of service. It just means that my next payment will be three days later than usual, not that I will actually pay them any less money.

    So, in the same spirit, let me apologize to any of my readers who have been inconvenienced, and offer you an extra six days of free service. Plus I promise not to say any more rude things about Hong Kong bloggers this month.

  • Lost jobs or lost opportunities?

    Simon mentioned this a week ago based on an article in The Economist, but here is another one that challenges the myth that outsourcing is bad for the American economy.

    Someone recommended a book to me a couple of years back which takes an even more radical view. It is “Living on the Fault Line” by Geoffrey A. Moore, and his basic thesis is that companies should outsource every activity that doesn’t give them a competitive advantage. Management waste their time worrying about things that don’t really matter, and which could be taken over by a third party who would do a better job and care much more about what they were doing. Plus the people doing the work would have a better career in a company that was actually focused on what they did.

    I still reckon that smart companies will outsource a lot more of what they do, whether to a specialist just down the road or one in India or China.