h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Change 'home page' to h2g2 'personal space'.

The bit about 'BBC's standards or UK law' pretty much ensures the same thing as we've already got doesn't it?

The bit about reintroducing images - for the most offsite image hosting results in 'bandwidth theft'.
Also, I suspect with the BBC's rather stringent rules for copyrighted material, only original artwork would be allowed - animated gifs from places like the Animation Factory would probably still be prohibited.

I fully appreciate the more moderate tone to this petition, but I'm still not sure we shouldn't rely on Mark, Peta and the gang to represent our position to the BBC. I think they're serious when they say they are working on getting things changed (look at what happened with song lyrics - we went from none to limited, reasonable use).

Good luck with this. I just hope it helps...

I just wanted to say that bandwidth theft isn't the BBC's problem, generally speaking.

For example, I pay a web hosting company some piddling amount per month. For this, I get an extensive web space and can post images from my hosting space anywhere I like, as long as I don't go over certain preset limits. If I do go over these limits, my account might be terminated. But this is between them and me, and has nothing to do with h2g2.

There is no way for online companies like h2g2 to tell the difference between such authorized use of images and bandwidth theft. Only the individual user and his hosting company will know what policies they are confined to. Since it is very easy for hosting companies to track bandwidth theft, and also easy for hosting companies to put anti-theft measures in place for some or all images, it makes more sense for them to take responsibility for theft of their services.

Basically, it is the user's responsibility to check the hosting service's terms of service and make sure they can comply with them. It is the hosting company's responsibility to check for and/or prevent bandwidth theft if it is a concern of theirs. It is not h2g2 or BBC's place to worry about bandwidth theft, as it is all but impossible to do and also not legally necessary.

> "The bit about 'BBC's standards or UK law' pretty much ensures the same thing as we've already got doesn't it?"

Well.... no.

Neither the BBC's standards, nor UK law, prohibit people using foreign languages, mentioning suitable URLs, showing pictures, amongst other stuff. In other words, the stuff that h2g2 would allow us to do now, were it feasable to do it with moderation. By reducing the role of moderation, and relying more on self-policing, they could allow us to do these things.

> "the BBC's rather stringent rules for copyrighted material"

Well... those aren't the BBC's rules: that's the Law. Breaking copyright is grossly illegal, and hugely unfair on the person who put the energy into creating an original piece of work, by photographing or drawing or whatever. Anyway, I'm not bothered with thieves who are too incompetent to create their own - they can go rot in geocities. Or hell, whichever has the most banner ads.

I think this'll help - Peta's been very positive about it, and I reckon that not all of that is because it's such a marked change from previous movements. "supplied with the tools for change" she said, though that might have been overoptimistic...

Thanks for your wishes Jimi - will you be signing it yourself?

Ottox found a very interesting link: visit
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/lzone/lang_spring.shtml
and look for 'eyl2001', which (among others) yields:

"2001 has been declared the European Year of Languages by the European Union and the Council of Europe. UNESCO also supports the initiative."

Ottox >> Shouldn't BBC do something more than putting a link on their webpage!? <<

my comment: To use the image of the European Song Contest: BBC - zero points