Friday, October 16, 2009

Click On interview

I did a recorded discussion today, on the politics of intellectual property, with Simon Cox of the BBC's Click On programme, his resident technology expert and editor at ZDNet UK, Rupert Goodwins, and Andrew Robinson of the UK Pirate Party. Not having been involved in a Radio 4 interview before it's difficult to judge but I think we avoided the usual "'The nasty corporate behemoths are the baddies' 'No the dirty rotten thieving pirates are the baddies'" format that such public discussions too often take.

I fear I failed to articulate the complex nature of  the issues and the need to balance the range of interests of the various stakeholders - creators, commercial agents (using "agent" in the economic sense to include all the relevant industries, collecting societies etc) and the public - if we're to make any real progress.  You can judge for yourself when the programme goes out on Monday afternoon at 4.30pm.

Apologies also to Andrew Robinson, who at one point in the proceedings I carelessly called 'Andrew Anderson'. Monday's a packed day for me so I suspect I'll listen into the podcast or iPlayer version later in the evening or perhaps it would be better if I avoided it altogether!

No comments: