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After Riga: From Computing to Convergence

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humanITy Paper

Date: 13/06/2006

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Article

General

1. There will be no major political upheaval if citizen access to computing resources continues to be unequal; but the deprivation of television after digital switch-over (DSO) will be political dynamite. The Granada region will undertake switch-over in 2009, possibly just before a General Election.
2. In terms of non work access to ICTs for most people, access to broadcasting and telecommunications ranks above computing (Ofcom 2006). One of the major faults of the Riga Declaration is that it concentrates almost entirely on computer-based ICTs. Access to broadcasting and telecommunications are an integral part of living in an information society. Further, the effectiveness of broadcasting regulation on accessibility in the next five years will have a substantial impact on multimedia access when broadcasting migrates from spectrum to a wireless-enabled broad band internet.
3. The Declaration focuses almost entirely on content consumption and processing rather than on creation and contribution.
4. Although the Declaration is helpful on the subject of rights of access in a general way, it falls far short of calling for an actual legal right of access. Such a right, in an economic context, must be contestable rather than absolute so that intellectual property rights can be protected and so that any assertion of the right is proportionate. Any such right will need to be generic, platform independent so that new regulations are not needed every time a new platform is developed.
5. Intellectual property rights are still grounded in an analogue framework. We need to think of digital content as provisional material rather than finished product. This is a massive step but we will need to take it, particularly in Europe where translation is a critical issue. We will need to see what the Gower’s Commission says but I broadly favour rights owners being responsible for their own copyright protection, i.e., the more valuable the property, the more owners will spend on protecting it.

Detailed comments

All references are to the paragraph numbers of the Riga Declaration:

1. re: Para 6. Diversity: the key is to view digital content as material not as a finished product so that translation is allowed without resort to copyright law
2. re Para 7. Motivation: depends upon better input/output cost/benefit ratios not public sector chiding; unlike most commercial phenomena, there has never been a marketing campaign to tell people why the internet is good for them; on balance, for about 1/3, there is no evidence that it is good for them.
3. re: Para 9. Interoperability: is a matter of procurement standards not allowing the industry to dictate. It also requires public sector forms simplification; if there is cost saving from eGovernment it should be used to 'round up' the rough justice of simplification.
4. re Para 10. Innovation: is vital; there has been little development in the decade since Tim Berners-Lee set up the www. Training is a cost transfer from the producer to the consumer; Whoever heard of VCR or mobile phone training courses! This is another instance where user requirements should inform procurement.
5. re Para 12. There has been slow progress on voluntary surveillance to lengthen home occupancy; this would also produce huge public sector saving. The focus on LBS services and other mobile applications is important for access to communications networks; this should replace the regulatory framework on access to land line telephone kiosks
6. re Para 13. There is a serious problem with the accessibility of terminal equipment and we may need to finesse the 1999 Terminals Directive, particularly when the let-out for television is made redundant by internet television.
7. re Para 15. See comment above on terminals.
8. re Para 16. There are some big issues here:
   1. A generic right of access to information
   2. Coherence on user interfaces
   I would, of course, be happy to work with the proposed Group.
9. re Para 17. Public procurement is vital in changing standards for accessibility but only has limited application in PC/Apple and some mobile applications; so we also need to look at a more general provision about accessibility that is generic/platform independent
10. 1re Para 18. In practical terms European standards are possible but standardisation of software and hardware is not; by the time you get agreement the technology is redundant; even in the area of standards this is difficult.
11. re Para 19. "accessible digital content on all platforms". History shows that this can only be produced through regulation, i.e. broadcasting. You can't really mainstream audio description and graphic description (text) on a universal basis nor impose sub-titling (text) for all audio; the rule that all multi media should be multi modal is handy but not enforceable without cost
12. re Para 20-22. Digital literacy here seems to be confined to consuming and processing other people's information; the Ofcom definition includes creativity
13. re Para 23. The key is the development of automated translation systems and simplified law for translating.
14. re Para 25. Brilliant that W3C should have made such strides but this is of very limited application; you can be compliant and still have an awful site. Essentially, accessibility/usability can be reduced to three simple rules:
    1. Enable customisation, including simplification
    2. Enable choice of user interface
    3. Create multimodal multimedia.
15. re Para 28. We need to develop the idea of a public domain document, tested by the author using simplifying tools, capable of automated simplification, using publicly declared rules.
16. re Para 43. The EU is very strong in disability representation but needs to encourage Member States to follow; as far as I know, I am the only disabled person who represents a member state on these issues.

Priorities

Based on all the above, major priorities should be:

1. Digital Switchover. There is still a serious hardware problem with accessibility because the public sector cannot opt for a monopoly supplier as this would breach competition law; but a pluralist solution will simply be another example of market failure. This is extremely urgent.
2. Mobile phone accessibility will be increasingly important as new socio/technological norms are established; the Terminals Directive will need some tweaking
3. Although it is a much longer term problem we cannot continue with analogue copyright in a digital world
4. Another longer term aim must be a generic right of access to digital data. The EU Copyright Directive simply allowing Members States to make provision for access has had very limited success. 
5. If we are to continue to be an economic power in an information age, we need much more emphasis on production rather than simply on consumption.

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