Mollet's memo, entitled "Digital Economy Bill weekly update 11 March 2010," appears to be a weekly status report on the DEB's progress. On the CC list are executives from major record labels, staff at IFPI (the international record industry lobby), PR agents from The Open Road, and others I don't recognise (if you can identify others on the CC list, please post to the comments).

In the memo, Mollet identifies Britain's top spies as being a stumbling block to the bill's passage -- worried, apparently, that creating a Great Firewall of Britain will make it harder for spies to spy on naughty sites (someone should tell MI5 about Ipredator, the excellent proxy service from the Pirate Bay; after all, that's the same proxy that everyone else in Britain is likely to use to get at the blocked sites if the BPI gets its way).

Mollet also implies that Britain's spy agencies might have paid for a Talk Talk survey in which 71% of 18-34 year olds said that they would simply evade the DEB and go on infringing.

Mollet claims that Britain's ISPs have already caved into their duties to spy on and censor network connections, claiming that there is a sense of "settled will" in the "ISP community."

On the other hand, he identifies Members of Parliament as being "resigned" to the fact that they will not be allowed to debate the bill or give it "detailed scrutiny" (heck of a job, MPs!). He cites an expert on legislation as saying that the bill will likely die if MPs insist on their right and responsibility to examine this legislation in detail before voting on it.

BPI Digital Economy Bill weekly minutes (PDF)

Mirror

Kaiser Kuo presented today at SXSW about Google in China. He spoke about how the Google situation will impact Chinese Internet users, other companies and the Chinese government.

In the presentation, Kuo (who also spoke to ReadWriteWeb a week ago) clarified how censorship in China works. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the Great Firewall that has the most impact in China - but something China calls "self-discipline." Kuo also discussed what the next moves will be from Google, since he believes that the ball is in Google's court and Beijing won't push the situation.

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Before getting down to the nitty gritty of the current Google-China standoff, Kaiser Kuo gave some valuable context to Google in China.

In 2005 Google started to hire aggressively in China, he said. Google's decision to enter China with a censored product immediately brought grief to Google, with some pundits describing it as a "black day for Internet freedom." Google defended its actions at that point by saying that not providing search to a fifth of the world's population would be a greater loss than having censored results.

At first Google had a notice on their search results stating that they were censored. Kuo also pointed out that Google only omitted results that users wouldn't have been able to view anyway had they clicked through (because the pages or sites were blocked). At that point, Google didn't host Gmail, personal search history, Blogger or other services that had personal information. Google in China also protected their employees, Kuo noted.

Google never had an easy time of it in China. For example, many Chinese users couldn't spell the word "Google." Regulators made it difficult for them, as did their Chinese competitors. Google did manage to make good revenues and market share, but never "moved the needle" against its Chinese search competitor Baidu. Kuo remarked that Google was not singled out for any special treatment by the Chinese government.

In 2009 Google got into trouble due to pornography in its search results, and it went dark for a short time as a result.

There has been a massive growth in Internet users in China in the four years since Google entered that market. There were 2-3 million Internet users in China when Google began operations there; now there are 384 million Internet users in China. Google has around 35% market share in China, which has not been matched by any other Western company. Its annual revenues in China is around $300-400 million in revenue, which is nothing to sneeze at.

In mid-December 2009 there was a hacker attack on Google, which in January Google claimed on its blog came from China. At that time Google also announced it would stop censoring search results on google.cn. Kuo doesn't believe this announcement was a cynical retreat from China due to its being defeated by Chinese competitors, which many pundits suggested at the time.

Kuo said that the challenge to Google's business model is around trust, for personal data in the cloud. So Google's blog post in China was appropriate, Kuo believes.

Some people have suggested that the Chinese government used the strategy known in China as "Using Quiescience to control action." The government has however unblocked Google Docs and Groups, and has not blocked any further Google services since January.

Currently Google is still hiring in China and is in the midst of negotiations with the Chinese government. Kuo believes there is deliberate confusion right now."It's impossible to grasp what Google is up against without having a better grasp of how censorship in China works."

There are two main types of Internet censorship in China, said Kuo.

The first is The Great Firewall of China, which has been nick-named "Iron Curtain 2.0." It's a system of filters at domain name or page level. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogger and other western sites have been blocked at this level. Kuo said that it's fairly simple for Chinese Internet users to "hop the firewall " using proxy services, free VPNs.

So The Great Firewall is more of an inconvenience. Kuo pays for a VPN that allows him to access Western websites.

The second form of censorship is "more pernicious and effective," according to Kuo. It is carried out by Internet companies, on instructions from Chinese government. All Internet sites in China have to practice what is termed "self-discipline."

Failing to adhere to this form of censorship means having your website or service shut down. There are some 30,000 "Internet police." Two cartoon avatars are wont to show up if a Chinese user visits pages with content offensive to the Chinese government.

Most Internet users in China don't come across the Great Firewall, because most Chinese Internet users don't use Western services like Twitter and Facebook. But, Kuo said, "Google is different." It has become "a real part of the Internet culture in China."

Kuo then talked about how Chinese censorship nowadays is almost all social media sites, such as social networks and microblogging sites.

Kuo mentioned that the Chinese Internet is more "entertainment superhighway" than "information superhighway." Online gaming is big in China. Most Chinese Internet users, Kuo said, enjoy the Internet that they have - rather than worry about the one that Western pundits think they should have.

The Internet has also emerged as a de-facto public sphere in China. As long as you don't overstep certain boundaries (political activism and so forth), then the "will of the masses" is often expressed on the Internet through the likes of bulletin boards or social networks.

Regularly, Chinese netizens are exposing public officials. However Kuo warns that there are "very very serious limits" to what is emerging in the public sphere. For example, anonymity leads to a lot of trolling. It's ad-hoc, reactive and informal - however it is a "squeaky wheel that is regularly getting grease." Also, a minority are pro-democracy - most of the netizens in the public sphere are pro-Chinese government.

Kuo said that the Chinese government will wait for Google to make the next move. It realises it has nothing to gain by pushing Google or being openly hostile. The ball is in Google's court and it will probably keep to its word that it will stop censorship in China. It may still shut down operations in China, which in practice means closing google.cn. But this has a lot of problematic scenarios - including the difficulty of having translations done for Google.com and staffing issues of closing down.

The pros of pulling out of China include saving face and appeasing western users. But the cons are significant. They include a backlash from tech-savvy, urban Google users, a setback to scientific research, a global black eye for their image, and ceding the virtual monopoly in search in China to Baidu.

The moderate scenario is that Google.cn is shut down, but continues to work with its mobile partners in China, R&D and sales continue to operate in China, and Google services will be unblocked.

The best case scenario, Kuo believes, would be if Google stopped censoring google.cn - but the service stays online.

This is a pretty insane project put together by my pal Vince B. from San Francisco a few years back. As the title indicates, this is a homemade 12 x CD-R (!) compilation of punk bands fronted by female vocalists from 1977 to 1989. More like a giant mixtape than a compilation, as he only made 36 copies which he sent to friends and people who submitted material. You may notice that some of the bands didn't have a steady female vocalist (The Lewd, etc.) but he still included songs that were sung by another member of the band. This is as international as it gets, with stuff ranging from world famous Blondie or Crass to the most obscure Eastern European cassette compilation veterans. The boxset came packaged in a handnumbered fancy translucent lunchbox enclosing all 12 CD-Rs, a stack of full-colored cards featuring comprehensive tracklist and artwork/info, as well as a manga pin-up figure! Talk about a labor of love.

Since this is such a massive compilation that takes time to listen to and digest, I'm gonna split it in 3 posts. Here are discs 1-4, make sure you stay tuned for the rest.

(Feb. 24th update: part 2 and part 3 are now available)

DISC 1: Download link

1. Blutsturz - Schweigen (Demo) (Germany, 198?)
2. Penetration - Money Talks (England, 1977)
3. Pyhäkoulu - Painajainen (Finland, 1986)
4. VulpeSS - Me Gusta Ser Una Zorra (Spain, 1983)
5. The Comes - Panic (Japan, 1984)
6. Suicide Squad - New Kids Army (Australia, 1980)
7. Rivolta Dell'Odio - Altari Del Terrore (Italy, 1984)
8. Sick Things - Anti-Social Disease (England, 1977)
9. Accident (a.k.a Accidents) - True Detective (USA, 1979)
10. Dishrags - I Don't Love You (Canada, 1979)
11. Último Resorte - Hogar, Dulce Hogar (Demo) (Spain, 1981)
12. The Fastbacks - Someone Else's Room (USA, 1981)
13. Anorexia - Rapist In The Park (England, 1980)
14. Phobia - Pretend You're Not Crazy (USA, 1978)
15. Androids Of Mu - Bored Housewives (England, 1981)
16. Sort Sol (With Lydia Lunch) - Boy-Girl (Denmark/USA, 1983)
17. Tappi Tikarrass - Skrid (Iceland, 1984)
18. Flowers - After Dark (Scotland, 1979)
19. The Rentals - I Got A Crush On You (USA, 1979)
20. Pariapunk - Double Face (France, 1987)
21. Amsterdamned - Traditie Amme Balle (Netherlands, 1982)
22. Dr. Zeke - Vild I Skogen (Sweden, 1979)
23. The Lewd - Magnetic Heart (USA, 1982)
24. Au Pairs - Kerb Crawler (England, 1980)
25. Mo-Dettes - White Mice (USA/Switzerland/England, 1979)
26. Stripes - Weekend Love (Germany, 1980)
27. Violators - The Fugitive (England, 1980)


DISC 2: Download link

1. Schund - Schund (Austria, 1982)
2. Wunderbach - Raya (France, 1982)
3. Total Muzak - Någonstans I Sta'n (Sweden, 1980)
4. Liliput - Hitch-Hike (Switzerland, 1980)
5. NJF - Sitting!! Pretty (Canada, 1984)
6. S.I.B. - Listless (Italy, 1981)
7. Manisch Depressiv - Zeitmaschine 1 (Switzerland, 1983)
8. Sheena & The Rokkets - Omae Ga Hoshii (One More Time) (Japan, 1979)
9. Rezillos - Flying Saucer Attack (Scotland, 1978)
10. Sado-Nation - Messed Up Mixed Up (USA, 1982)
11. Lucrate Milk - Fucking Pacifist (France, 1983)
12. Dan - Lust Is Greed (England, 1987)
13. Nasty Facts - Drive My Car (USA, 1981)
14. Life Cycle - Indifference (Wales, 1988)
15. Livin' Sacrifice - Mentalsjuk (Sweden, 1981)
16. The Brat - Attitudes (USA, 1980)
17. Non Band - Ducan Dancin' (Japan, 1982)
18. Bizkids - VIPs (Netherlands, 1980)
19. Minus Cway - Gdje Me Vjetar Odnese (Yugolsavia, 1982-88)
20. The Rats - Broken Wire Telephone (USA, 1983)
21. Anouschka & Les Privés - Contrôle (France, 1980)
22. Slits - Vindictive (England, 1977)
23. ICA - Untitled (Netherlands, 1981)
24. Trash - Peace Of What (USA, 1984)
25. Boys Boys - Monley Monkey (Japan, 1980)
26. Honey Bane - Girl On The Run (England, 1979)
27. TNT - Razzia (Switzerland, 1981)
28. Nuns - Wild (USA, 1980)
29. Electric Deads - 30 Years (Denmark, 1982)
30. Conflict - Who Will (USA, 1984)
31. Atims - Women (Netherlands, 1982)


DISC 3: Download link

1. Hans-A-Plast - Polizeiknüppel (Germany, 1979)
2. Usch - LTO (Sweden, 1979)
3. Desechables - El Asesino (Spain, 1984)
4. Ici Paris - Le Centre Du Monde (France, 1980)
5. Action Pact - Suicide Bag (England, 1982)
6. Invaders - Backstreet Romeo (England, 1980)
7. Lepers - Flipout (USA, 1979)
8. Franti - Vento Rosso (Italy, 1983)
9. Out On Blue 6 - Examples (England, 1981)
10. Mr. Kite - Exit B9 (Japan, 1978)
11. De Zweetkutten - Atoomgeweld (Netherlands, 1981)
12. Ideal - Berlin (Germany, 1980)
13. Holly And The Italians - I Wanna Go Home (USA, 1981)
14. Modesty - Kad Srce Radi Bi Bam (Yugoslavia, 1982-88)
15. Delta 5 - Anticipation (England, 1980)
16. Beex - He Obliterates Me (USA, 1981)
17. Kaltwetterfront - Revolverheld (Germany, 1982)
18. Hydra - Ombre (Italy, 1985)
19. Vacum - Är Ungdomar Människor? (Sweden, 1980)
20. Nixe - Man Under My Bed (Netherlands, 1981)
21. Alternative - Seen Through Tear-Filled Eyes (Scotland, 1984)
22. Schematix - Nothing Special (USA, 1980)
23. Eyes - Don't Talk To Me (USA, 1978)
24. Russians - Anything She Wants (England, 1980)
25. Kontrola W. - Manekiny (Poland, 1982/1998)


DISC 4: Download link

1. Kizza Ping - Den Nya (Sweden, 1982)
2. Strapaze - Tage (Germany, 1983)
3. Glueams - 365 (Switzerland, 1979)
4. Kleenex Aktiv - Hilfe (Germany, 1985)
5. XL Capris - My City Of Sydney (Australia, 1980)
6. Josie Cotton - Johnny, Are You Queer? (USA, 1981)
7. Rakketax - Van Agt (Netherlands, 1980)
8. A-Heads - No Rule (England, 1982)
9. Drustvo Prisjecavalaca Boljih Dana - Sexualna Ovisnost (Yugoslavia, 1982-88)
10. Pink Champagne - Söndagsskolehyckel (Sweden, 1980)
11. Curse - Killer Bees (Canada, 1978)
12. Flirt - Don't Push Me (USA, 1978)
13. Mizutama Shouboudan - Shinkuu Pakku Toraberu (Japan, 1981)
14. Bizon Kidz - Godsdienstwaanzin (Netherlands, 1981)
15. X-Ray Spex - I Live Off You (England, 1978)
16. Reactors - World War Four (USA, 1980)
17. Klasse Kriminale - Construito In Italia (Italy, 1988)
18. Debils - Maso (Switzerland, 1981)
19. Plastix - Geschlechtsverkehr (Austria, 1981)
20. Avengers - Teenage Rebel (USA, 1978)
21. Hagar The Womb - Idolization (England, 1983)
22. Blitzkrieg - Szene (Germany, 1989)
23. DIRT - Hiroshima (England, 1981)
24. Disturbers - KZ Syndroom (Netherlands, 1980)
25. Andreas Dorau Und Die Marinas - Fred Vom Jupiter (Germany, 1981)
26. Pandoras - That's Your Way Out (USA, 1984)
27. Lost Cherrees - Living In A Coffin (England, 1982)
28. Learned Helplessness - Vegis (USA, 1982)
29. A-Gen-53 - Stalingrad-Stumpfsinn (Austria, 1981)

On 7 March 2010, we published an article by Zoe Margolis. In part of the first edition of the newspaper and online, this article carried the headline, “I was a hooker who became an agony aunt”. This was written by the newspaper not Ms Margolis. We accept that Ms Margolis is not and never has been “a hooker” or otherwise involved in the sex industry. The wording of the headline was a mistake and seriously defamatory of Ms Margolis. We offer our sincere apologies to Ms Margolis for the damage to her reputation and the distress and embarrassment which she has suffered.

* Zoe Margolis: I'm a good-time girl who became an agony aunt

1. You can use different characters to bring out aspects of the protagonist you want to emphasize to the reader.

Minor characters who have been involved with the protagonist for a long time are carriers of their own history with and memories of the protagonist. Minor characters can reference the past in handy ways that serve the development of the story. They can make observations about the protagonist’s character or predictions about her future.

Because minor characters are fully realized people in their own right, they have their own biases and inner conflicts that color their perceptions of the protagonist. As a result they’ll all have their own individual attitudes towards your central character, and how they act and what they say should reflect this. These differing perspectives can add depth and complexity to the protagonist and flesh out her life so that it seems to extend beyond the pages of the story.

2. You can use minor characters to represent exaggerated aspects of the protagonist’s own character.

Minor characters can serve as symbols of the protagonist’s own shortcomings that she must overcome in order to achieve the story’s goal.

Likewise, you can use minor characters in a way that represents the protagonist’s own potential – characters that the protagonist looks up to or wishes to emulate in some way.

3. You can use minor characters to benchmark the protagonist’s growth.

The protagonist starts out in her “ordinary world”. As she travels through the course of the story, he or she begins to change – but the ordinary world stays the same. The protagonist’s changing perspective on minor characters who populate the ordinary world can demonstrate how the protagonist herself is changing.

Minor characters can also represent the “new world” – or the changed state of being that the protagonist is moving toward. In this case it’s their changing attitudes toward the protagonist that reflects the protagonist’s growth. For example, they might initially resist the protagonist in some way, but then slowly or grudgingly come to accept her and perhaps even start to admire her.

4. You can use minor characters to represent different sides of a choice the protagonist must make.

The protagonist can be caught between different characters who embody opposing value systems. This is a way you can flesh out the theme or premise of your story: by showing whom the protagonist ends up aligning herself with (or against).

5. You can use minor characters as a ‘mirror’ of the protagonist.

A minor character can double the protagonist in some way: they start out in a similar situation, pursuing a similar fate….but then the minor character veers off in a different direction, usually negative, that serves to emphasize just what’s at stake for the protagonist or how she, too, could end up if she’s unable to overcome the challenges she must confront.

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Hunch, a buzzy startup that answers questions using crowd-sourced recommendations, has resolved one query of its own: Who’s going to fund our B round?

Sources tell me that Khosla Ventures is leading a new round that will add another $10 million to $12 million to the startup’s bank account. General Catalyst Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Ron Conway, who put $2 million into the company a year ago, are reinvesting.

I’m told that Gideon Yu, the former CFO of both Facebook and YouTube, is steering the investment for Khosla.

Hunch is cofounded by Caterina Fake, who previously founded Flickr and sold it to Yahoo (YHOO) in 2005, and Chris Dixon, who built SiteAdvisor  and sold it to McAfee (MFE) in 2006.

Hunch is still a modest-sized site — its own internal numbers put it at 1.2 million unique visitors — but Fake and Dixon are well-regarded entrepreneurs. And while they don’t like to be compared to Aardvark, which has a vaguely similar concept, the linkage has some upside, too: Last month Google bought that site  for $50 million.

I’ve asked Fake, Dixon and Yu for comment. Until then, you can read up on Hunch in Kara Swisher’s story from last month. Or you can watch this interview.

On Friday, Netflix announced on its corporate blog that it has settled a lawsuit related to its Netflix Prize, a $1 million contest that challenged machine learning experts to use Netflix's data to produce better recommendations than the movie giant could serve up themselves.

The lawsuit called attention to academic research that suggests that Netflix indirectly exposed the movie preferences of its users by publishing anonymized customer data. In the suit, plaintiff Paul Navarro and others sought an injunction preventing Netflix from going through the so-called "Netflix Prize II," a follow-up challenge that Netflix promised would offer up even more personal data such as genders and zipcodes.

"Netflix is not going to pursue a sequel to the Netflix Prize," says spokesman Steve Swasey. "We looked at this, we heard some dissension and so we've settled it, resolved the issues and are moving on."

Netflix's decision to forestall the so-called "Netflix Prize II" was part of the settlement agreement, says Scott Kamber, the plaintiff's attorney. Also part of the settlement and per industry norms, Netflix is not admitting any wrongdoing.

According to the company's blog post, Netflix has also settled an until now-unknown negotiation with the Federal Trade Commission.

The financial terms--if any--remain undisclosed, but Kamber has been involved in multi-million dollar privacy suits before, including the $10 million Facebook Beacon settlement.

The movie rental company captured the world's attention when it announced the Netflix Prize in October 2006, offering a reward to anyone who could improve upon Netflix's personalized movie recommendations by a 10% margin. That mandate wasn't achieved for close to three years and, at one point, was generally thought to be impossible.

Several competing teams ended up joining forces and the contest quickly became so close that nobody knew which of two amalgamated teams would end up on top. It was a mashup of three competing teams, dubbed "BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos," that ended up taking home the check from Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings last September.

The Netflix Prize's great draw--and ultimate flaw-- was capturing the world's imagination and some of its greatest minds. Like the folkloric John Henry and the steam engine, the contest drew machine learning experts from leading academic and private research firms and the attention of publications like The New York Times and Forbes.

James Bennett, then vice president of recommendations at Netflix, issued the initial proclamation at a highly specialized industry conference in Spain. In the end, 50,000 contestants wound up participating.

"We thought that it would generated some big interest among a couple hundred machine learning experts," says Swasey. "It became a news-making machine."

The surprise popularity of the contest, however, came with the unintended consequence of also gaining attention from privacy researchers like Arvind Narayanan and Vitaly Shmatikov, who showed that a second set of information such as comments on the popular Internet Movie Database could help third parties triangulate the identity of the "anonymous" Netflix customers.

Kamber, who brought the suit, says that it was in part the massive attention to the Netflix prize that brought clients to him and compelled some of them to seek an injunction against the announced follow-up. He argues that his clients don't want to prevent the kind of technological and academic innovation that Netflix was trying to encourage, but rather just want to make sure Netflix's customers' privacy is protected.

"My clients specifically expressed an interest in making sure that those opportunities were not foreclosed," says Kamber. "The resolution allows Netfix to potentially tap into that community in the future, but do so in a way that makes customers confident that their information is going to be safeguard."

Interestingly, privacy expert Larry Ponemon says that Netflix could have likely avoided the matter altogether by using a technique called "data masking" that would have randomized its data set while still keeping the data relevant to developers.

A spokesperson for Dataguise, a data masking company, says that it would have cost the company around $50,000 for a license.