City Council Seized, Crushed Resident's Legally-Parked BMW While He Was In The Hospital

from the BECAUSE-WE-CAN?!? dept

We're used to stories about asset forfeiture being abused to seize vehicles from citizens here in the US, with the vehicle/sales proceeds going directly to the bottom line of the agency seizing them. That encourages all sorts of abuse performed in the name of Drug Warring but, in reality, just creating a somewhat sustainable revenue source for the government.

At least in this context, seizures of vehicles make sense. Perverted incentives have created a demand for assets drug cartels just can't deliver, so it's up to average Americans -- many of them not at all involved in international drug trade -- to make up the difference. But what can you even make of this atrocity, performed by the Flintshire, Wales government? (via Jalopnik)

After having surgery, the car owner discovered Flintshire council had incorrectly classified his BMW 323 as abandoned and had it crushed.

An ombudsman report said there was no evidence the council tried to identify the owner, while the man whose car it was called it "utter ineptitude".

The council must pay him £2,750 for his car and the time taken to resolve this.

A man, whose vehicle is worth at least seven times the amount offered by the council, left his vehicle parked in front of his residence while he went in for surgery. The vehicle was parked at the address it was registered to. Nonetheless, the government declared it abandoned and destroyed it. This all happened during the three days he was incapacitated.

The man reported his missing car to the police, who then uncovered the rest of the debacle. A council officer claimed a search of a vehicle registration database prior to the seizure/destruction came up empty-handed. As was pointed out by the ombudsman report noted above, there was no record of this search taking place. The car's owner was also never given notice the vehicle was targeted by the council for removal. This was the conclusion drawn from the investigation:

Public Services Ombudsman for Wales Nick Bennett said: "This is as classic a case of maladministration as I have witnessed in four years of office."

Which it is. But it's more than that. It's a government moving with impunity because no one will stop it. It's a pointless display of power that resulted in the destruction of a citizen's property. And beyond everything else, it's a demonstration governments are willing to make mistakes but not amends. The amount offered to the car's owner doesn't cover the loss and this offer only appeared because the council shit the bed so thoroughly its insurer refused to cover the self-inflicted loss.

What message does this send to residents? Never park your vehicle anywhere for any length of time? Try not get hospitalized? The government has far more potential to harm than to help? The last one might be worth learning, but it's not really a confidence builder. And it puts government incompetence at the same level as "acts of God" -- unpredictable and unforeseeable but always painful for the victims.

Filed Under: asset forfeiture, drug war, flintshire, wales

Welsh Radio Station Forced To Play Classical Music, English Songs After Royalty Talks Stall

from the trading-away-reputation-for-$$$ dept

Another battle between artists' representatives and an outlet for these same artists to be heard has resulted in... one less place for these artists to be heard. Radio Cymru, the Welsh arm of BBC Radio, has cut its broadcast day by two hours and drastically altered its playlist after losing its right to use a catalog of 30,000 Welsh songs.

Classical music and hymns are replacing rock and pop on BBC Radio Cymru as the deadline for a rights deal with leading Welsh-language musicians passes.

The right to broadcast the songs of 331 Welsh-language musicians and music publishers rests with Eos - the Welsh word for nightingale - from today.

The BBC said Eos had rejected a substantial offer to settle the dispute shortly before Christmas. As no agreement was reached, Radio Cymru has implemented changes to its broadcasting hours and programme content.

BBC Cymru Wales said in a statement on Monday it was "very disappointed" an agreement had not been reached and confirmed Radio Cymru programmes would be affected.

"Radio Cymru's commitment to support and develop Welsh music is a longstanding one - and we have listened carefully to the concerns of Welsh-language composers and artists during this dispute," the statement said.

Once again, the desire to make a cash grab has overwhelmed the desire to be heard. And it always seems to be "representatives" of the artists that keep cutting ahead in line to get their hands out first, often at the expense of the very artists they "serve."

Unsurprisingly, the pernicious acts of another performance rights group is behind Eos' search for a "fair price." Having been screwed by an old Techdirt favorite, Eos is now attempting to force the BBC make up for PRS' actions.

The musicians broke away from the Performing Rights Society (PRS) to join a new agency, claiming they were being short-changed for their work. The dispute arose from a change by the PRS in 2007 which many Welsh language artists claim cut their royalty payments by as much as 85%.

Rather than attempt to get PRS to pay this "fair share," Eos has decided to go after the broadcasters who had nothing to do with the severe slashing of royalty payments, which fell from £1.6m in 2007 to £260,000 in 2009. Eos is acting on the recommendation of research paper published in 2009 that presented a way to generate (or at least ask for) nearly 10 times the going rate per minute of broadcast time.

The report says artists who broadcast on BBC Radio Cymru receive 49p for every minute of airtime, collected by PRS. However, it says Radio Cymru is treated like an English local radio station, rather than a national broadcaster

The report argues that if the station was available on the UK DAB network of digital stations, artists would earn £4.71 per minute, nearly ten times as much. It said a Welsh-based royalties agency would be aiming to bring back in something more like the larger DAB royalties fees.

"Welsh language repertoire - Radio Cymru relies on that for its broadcasting," pointed out the report's joint author, Deian ap Rhisiart. "If the whole composers and publishers en block declare they are terminating their membership with the PRS, then the BBC haven't got any choice but to deal with them - that's the scenario."

At that point, a spokesman for BBC Wales (quite logically) claimed that this was a dispute between PRS and its Welsh members, and that these two entities should attempt to solve it on their own. Unfortunately, Welsh artists decided it would be better to set up their own organization and tangle with the BBC directly. The end result? An outcome that overreaching rights organizations all over the world are familiar with: no additional income and the loss of an outlet.

So, in a quest for "more," Welsh artists have ended up with less (at least temporarily) exposure and the very real potential of finding themselves vilified by the same listeners who used to consider themselves fans. Rather than go after PRS for screwing Welsh artists, Eos decided to pass the screwing along to Radio Cymru, pricing itself out of the market and depriving itself of a useful promotional tool.

Filed Under: music, radio, royalties, uk, wales
Companies: bbc, eos, prs

Wikia's Search Strategy Heavy On Buzzwords And FUD

from the like-a-broken-record dept

Wikia, Jimmy Wales' for-profit venture, has been talking for awhile about taking on Google in the search space. The company believes it can do better by augmenting traditional algorithm-based search with wiki-like collaboration and human editors. So far, the company doesn't have anything to show for its efforts, but it recently announced the purchase of the open source web crawler Grub from LookSmart (remember them?). As part of the company's PR efforts, Wales has tried to make the case that existing search tools are "broken" and that another party needs to come along and fix it. This same line, that Google is broken for whatever reasons, gets repeated by every fledgling search startup out there. While Google has its share of problems (spam, etc.), it's unlikely that most users would see things as being so bad. In the end, neither FUD nor buzzwords, like "wiki", "open source" or "semantic web" will be enough to dethrone Google if the underlying product isn't clearly superior.

Filed Under: search, wales, wiki
Companies: google, wikia