(Note that “U.S.,” for the IIPA (iInternational Intellectual Property Alliance) is an entirely North American affair, which could not give two figs for the copyrights of Europeans or Asians. In other words, the first word in its very name is a lie. This is indicative)

The Special 301 groups “offending” countries in a “Watch List” of 25 and a “Priority Watch” list of 13 (Argentina, Brunei, Canada (yes, Canada!), Chile, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, the People’s Republic of China, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, and Thailand). The Watch List includes much of Western Europe, including Spain,

The Special 301 is breathtaking in its distorsion of language and truth. Its basic premise is that copyright breach is theft, which is nonsense, or piracy, which is at least more in line with popular language use. It uses words like “illegal,” with a totally cynical disregard for the law, and the phrase “unauthorized download” (unauthorized by whom?) as though it were on the same level as paedophilia. Indeed it actually says “criminal revenue in 2004 for IPR theft was $512 billion, while for drug trafficking it was $322 billion,” with the evident implication that copyright offences are more dastardly than drug smuggling.

The IIPA has this to say about Spain, specifically:

“In 2009, IIPA recommends that Spain stay on the Watch List, and that USTR conduct an out-of-cycle review in summer 2009. See http://www.iipa.com/rbc/2009/2009SPEC301SPAIN.pdf. Spain first appeared on USTR’s Special 301 Watch List from 1989 through 1994. In IIPA’s 1994 Special 301 filing, the business software industry hoped that Spain’s implementation of the EU Software Directive would improve enforcement efforts. After some initial success in obtaining raids on end-users after that legislation was enacted, action by the courts had slowed to the point where it became clear that renewed attention to the problem was required. In 1998, IIPA recommended that Spain be placed on the Special 301 Watch List, primarily due to continuing high levels of piracy and losses experienced by the software industries. On May 1, 1998, Ambassador Barshefsky placed Spain on the Special 301 list of Other Observations. While noting the high levels of business software piracy in Spain, the Ambassador added, “The United States is concerned that judicial proceedings are frequently delayed and that penalties assessed against infringers are inadequate to serve as a deterrent against piracy.” However, in 1999 IIPA recommended that Spain be placed on the Special 301 Watch List due to one of the highest levels of piracy of business software in Europe. USTR agreed and elevated Spain to the Watch List for the first time since 1994. In 2000, IIPA again recommended that Spain remain on the Watch List for one of the highest levels of piracy for business software in the
European Union. USTR agreed, and kept Spain on the Watch List in 2000. Though IIPA did not make any formal recommendation for Spain in 2002, it did note certain copyright issues in its Special 301 cover letter to USTR that year. In 2004, IIPA recommended that Spain be returned to the Watch List, citing the country’s high piracy rates and the dominance of pirated material in street markets. In both 2005 and 2006, IIPA highlighted copyright concerns in Spain in the Special Mention section of its Special 301 Report. In 2007, IIPA recommended that Spain be added to the Special 301 Watch List but USTR chose not to do so. In 2008, IIPA recommended that Spain be added to the Special 301 Watch List; USTR placed Spain on the Watch List in April 2008.”

If that you think that sounds like the IIPA has it in for Spain, you’re probably right. The “action by the courts” which slowed did so precisely because no Spanish legislation prohibits copyright infringement – p2p, for example, is entirely legal in Spain. This may change, and profiting from someone else’s copyright is quite a different kettle of fish (but even that is not a “crime” just because a US pressure group says it is). But in Spain, many police forces have given up on chasing street sellers with “pirate” CDs, because they are unable to prosecute successfully. This is simply the state of the law.

It is to be hoped that Spain will not allow itself to be buillied by this kind of thuggishness, but I am afraid the IIPA will get its way in time. But from me – bog off, IIPA.

You’ll find the original on Girleffect.org. The idea is that investing in education of, specifically, girls rather than boys is the best way to improve the economies of developing countries (and so make the world a better place all round).

I don’t doubt the underlying idea, I just can’t see that it would continue to work as effectively once it had got started. Some sort of limiting effect would come into play, surely? I mean, what happens when a large number of these girls decide they are entitled to a better deal and start dropping out or rioting? Just because they don’t doesn’t mean they won’t.

The video’s effectiveness, as so often, comes largely from its simplicity – entirely animated text. Cool.

Even Linux is much the same, at least at the outset. The Asus eeeeeeeee (there aren’t that many e’s, I just never remember if it’s three or four) comes with its own custom Linux set-up, with pretty well all you need to get by – the OpenOffice package, Firefox… Where it does become quite a lot more DIY is when you want to add software, which is not generally commercially available for Linux. This means you have to get the OpenSource version from somewhere and, even more radically, you need to use terminal access to the computer and install from the command line – this might frighten the young folks, but it’s easy-peasy if you have ever worked with DOS or other antediluvian operating systems.

So I just don’t feel myself pushed into any of the OS supporters’ groups and I especially don’t understand the denigration of the alternatives that seems to be entailed. Mac users are always running PCs down for their frequent crashes and general clumsiness, while PC users scoff at Mac users as image-obsessed and computer-disadvantaged. wimps I am prepared to believe that the Mac is less vulnerable to viruses and other malware than Windows, but have seen no evidence that that is intrinsic to the OS rather than due to the greater popularity of Windows. I don’t accept that the Mac is less versatile and that it is harder to get to grips with its inner workings – I simply haven’t found that. It may or may not be more stable, I just find it newer and more efficient, as is to be expected.

Linux does, of course, have the advantage of being Open Source, i.e. free, though for an extra 20-something euros, I could have had the Asus with Windows installed, hardly enough to make a difference. And I suspect that when the moment does come to upgrade the OS, that will not be all that big an advantage, if any – you have to find a Linux package that suits you, which may not be free either, and the installations I have looked at before have seemed time-consumingly complicated.

The state of play so far, then, is a three-way draw. Except for two things: the Mac is gorgeous, a beautiful 26″ iMac of breath-taking sexiness. It may be superficial of me, but it definitely adds something to the user experience (though I find I tend to stick to my homely old PC even when the Mac is free, which may say something about me).

And though this is not intrinsic to the OS but to the format of the computer, the Asus pulls women – they think it’s cute. Now, I’ve never had a sports car or a dog or a baby in a pushchair or any of the other appendages that traditionally make girls say “Aaaah (or wow!), isn’t he/it lovely/fabulous/sweet?” and stop and allow themselves to be chatted up. So it’s been a nice surprise that the Asus is an authentic babe magnet. I suspect that it won’t be in a few months, though, when they are a more common sight.

So this is the current score: iMac – 2; Asus – 2; PC – 1. Sorry, Microsoft.