Copyright Infringement

This is in fact my Economics essay for the Barnett Prize. The person who marked it thought it was a terrible essay (fair enough), but I still think it’s interesting to discuss. So here it is, however horrific an essay, after being cut down to exactly 1500 words, and with a less bellicose attitude towards the RIAA than normal (for the sake of being PC). It’s entitled “Steal this Essay”. This is also an experiment to see how well WordPress’ ‘import from Word’ feature works. I have to say, I’m impressed by how it deals with footnotes and citations/bibliographies.

Using a specific microeconomic case study from either the UK or abroad, assess how governments can deal with market failure.

Copyright infringement is a growing concern in the music and film industry. Despite the best efforts of governments, private firms, law-enforcement agencies and cyber-police, the amount of music and film in illegal circulation over the internet has grown at an exponential rate since the conception of Napster, the first peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing service to hit the internet. According to Ars Technica (1), usage of Bittorrent, a popular tool used by file sharers, grew 24% in five months, and Bittorrent is apparently responsible for 80% of the world’s traffic. Global music sales dropped from $38bn in 1999 to $32bn in 2003 and American studios reported $2.3bn in losses to film piracy in 2005 alone (2). Free market forces are failing: talent starved of adequate funding will fail to flourish and music, entertainment and culture may be eroded as a result. Without consumers willing to pay for goods produced by talented artists, such artists will be unable to invest profits in creating more music (they may opt to record fewer CDs), and supply of the product decreases, increasing its cost which in this case further exacerbates losses leading to a vicious cycle. With revenue from their music falling, artists may choose to switch careers, discontinuing their contributions to music: the labour supply decreases, as does the pool of musical talent. Culturally, the negative externalities of this are highly significant, resulting in a shallower music culture.

In my opinion, the primary reason for file sharing is simply convenience. The internet allows even very large amounts of data to be transferred at zero cost and supersonic speeds; the temptation to cheat the system becomes irresistible: the opportunity cost of buying a CD from a local store, which involves both monetary as well as time sacrifices, is far greater than the single mouse click it takes to download the entire album. Pirated media can be seen as a substitute good for which consumers pay with risk of getting caught rather than with conventional currency; industry is losing out to this illegal competition.

Existent government measures have proven ineffectual at best. For a while law enforcement worked: the RIAA[1] and MPAA[2] succeeded in intimidating file sharers into accepting monetary settlements out of court, thereby recouping losses and deterring potential copyright criminals. However when exonerated file sharers began to sue the RIAA back (3), subsequent copyright lawsuits became somewhat anathematised and digital rights organisations procured an increasingly unpopular and disrespected reputation for aggressive methods (as illustrated). One of the primary difficulties is the issue of evidence: piracy is exceedingly difficult to detect with ever-advancing encryption technology. Taking the current trial of The Pirate Bay[3] as an example of ineffectuality, on the second day of the trial half the charges have already been dropped (4) (at the time of writing this). To make things worse, the music industry’s attempts to cover itself from piracy only punish the law-abiding: employment of digital rights management on music by online retailers such as Apple renders the files unusable with anything but iTunes and iPods, causing frustration, heavily discouraging the buying of music.

The government has attempted to enforce the law through Internet Service Providers (ISPs): since they provide the means to perform illegal activities, perhaps it should be their responsibility to police their networks. In 2008, the UK’s largest six[4] ISPs[5] agreed (5) to a code laid out by the government: if an ISP has reasonable evidence upon which to suspect a customer of illegally downloading music, it will throttle his download speeds significantly. This appears promising: a large proportion of the country is now under surveillance by ISPs and users have an incentive to stop file sharing; Virgin Media even sent out warning letters to several hundred of its file sharing customers. However the government is pitting itself directly against the free market forces: as pointed out by the Wired article (5), it is far more probable that they were merely taking measures against losing customers: firms appreciate the revenue from them. In addition, ISPs abiding by this code are likely to lose business owing to a pervasive sense of intrusion from being constantly monitored. Besides, imposing regulations on businesses raises supply costs (employing a monitoring team for example), shifting the supply curve leftwards, resulting in a more expensive, and less abundant, good or service:

[Insert bog standard Economics AS/AD diagram]

One suggestion was for the government to accept the fact that internet users will share files, and rather than fight this unwinnable war, to tax broadband usage and return tax revenue to industry, thus compensating for the market failure. Unsurprisingly this has been met with much fury: not only does this demonstrate great cynicism and mistrust on the government’s part, but it may actually exacerbate the problem: consumers might decide that since they have paid for their illegal downloads they are entitled to download copyrighted material.

Alternatively, similarly to using disturbing television advertisements about lacking TV licences, the government could attempt to threaten the population into submission. There is good evidence that advertising works with anti-smoking campaigns, so there appears to be a high probability of success with this measure. Again the government is no longer working against the free market: it is rather injecting information into the market and allowing consumers to make a better-informed decision. Unlike regulation, such measures preserve human rights and can be highly effective in combination with other measures. Unfortunately, unlike the case of smoking and even TV licences, a savvy file sharer knows he can hide his activities indefinitely: threatening advertisements do not work for such people (who also tend to be the heaviest sharers). Education may eventually curb the problem through generations of law-abiding citizens, but such slow-acting measures may not be sufficiently effective in the short run to avert cultural erosion.

In September 2007, it was discovered that a large (needless to say illegal) cyber-offensive was being planned (6) against The Pirate Bay by MediaDefender[6] in an attempt to halt file sharing activity. Although it was discovered and averted, perhaps such measures are the only ones that will work: aggressive attacks on the central hive of activity; this is after all what governments are accustomed to doing when dealing with terrorists and criminals. However, despite a worldwide offensive on terrorism, ever since September 2001, little, if not negative, progress has been made against it; what guarantees the success of an offensive against a worldwide network of highly intelligent anonymous criminals?

Perhaps to understand fully the nature of this market failure, one should reconsider the extent and type of damage done by file sharing, and also take into account its positive aspects. According to US District Judge James P. Jones (7), ’17,000 illegal downloads don’t equal 17,000 lost sales’. If a customer wants some music but is not prepared to pay the price quoted on Amazon (indicating he is not willing and able to pay for it), he would not be in the market in the first place, so the music industry should be indifferent to whether he downloads that music illegally in the end. Of course this line of reasoning cannot be extended too far, but the point is that not every illegal download harms industry. In fact there was a study (8) (English synopsis (9)) commissioned by the Dutch government which concluded that in fact file sharing contributes €100m per year to the Dutch economy. Apparently much downloaded content becomes treated as sample content to be bought later, and downloaders tend to buy more games than non-downloaders (possibly an effect of exposure to online marketing). In addition, the positive externalities of file sharing include broader cultural wealth. By annihilating file sharing, the government would lose out on positive externalities as well as negative ones. The report concludes that most losses can be attributed to things other than piracy, including competition with other forms of entertainment. Notably in The Netherlands, downloading media for personal use is legal. Perhaps an unconventional solution to the market failure is to legalise file sharing, thus maximising the social benefits and accepting the (minimal) social costs. Besides, surveys show that 80% of British people would be in favour of this measure (10).

In conclusion, business has taken a radical new direction since the concept of ‘free goods’ first appeared. Google provides millions with enormously powerful search facilities for free and receives its revenue largely from advertising. According to Wikinomics (11), ‘free and collaborative’ (complete with externalities) is the future, whether we like it or not. I believe governments should embrace this future and work with the market, rather than fight it. Whatever the solution to the problem of copyright infringement eventually turns out to be, I suspect, and hope, that the RIAA and MPAA will not be closely involved, that free market tools will be capitalised upon, and that the positive externalities of change will be fully appreciated.

Bibliography

1. Bangeman, Eric. BitTorrent use soars as MPAA fights on against P2P sites. ars technica. [Online] 17 04 2008. http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/04/bittorrent-use-soars-as-mpaa-fights-on-against-p2p-sites.ars.

2. File sharing. Wikipedia. [Online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing.

3. Oregon RIAA Victim Fights Back. Recording Industry vs The People. [Online] http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2005/10/oregon-riaa-victim-fights-back-sues.html.

4. enigmax. 50% of Charges Against Pirate Bay Dropped. TorrentFreak. [Online] 17 02 2009. http://torrentfreak.com/50-of-charges-against-pirate-bay-dropped-090217/.

5. Buskirk, Eliot Van. British ISPs Agree To Curb File Sharers’ Internet Access. Wired. [Online] 23 07 2008. http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/07/uk-could-announ.html.

6. Leyden, John. Pirate Bay sues media giants for ‘sabotage’. The Register. [Online] 24 09 2007. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/24/pirate_bay_counterstrike/.

7. Cheng, Jacqui. Judge: 17,000 illegal downloads don’t equal 17,000 lost sales. ars technica. [Online] 19 01 2009. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/01/judge-17000-illegal-downloads-dont-equal-17000-lost-sales.ars.

8. Ups and downs – Economische en culturele gevolgen van file sharing voor muziek, film en games. TNO. [Online] 2009. http://tno.nl/content.cfm?context=markten&content=publicatie&laag1=182&laag2=1&item_id=473.

9. Ernesto. Economy Profits From File-Sharing, Report Concludes. TorrentFreak. [Online] 19 01 2009. http://torrentfreak.com/economy-profits-from-file-sharing-report-concludes-090119/.

10. Orlowski, Andrew. 80% want legal P2P – survey. The Register. [Online] 16 06 2008. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/16/bmr_music_survey/.

11. Tapscott, Don and Williams, Anthony D. Wikinomics. London : Atlantic Books, 2007. ISBN 978-1-84354-637-5.

12. P2P Survey Results. In HIIT. [Online] 2007. http://inhiit.blogspot.com/2007/09/p2p-survey-results.html.

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[1] Recording Industry Association of America

[2] Moving Pictures Association of America

[3] A large Bittorrent tracker and hub of illegal piracy

[4] Virgin Media, Sky, Carphone Warehouse, BT, Orange and Tiscali

[5] Internet Service Providers

[6] Anti-piracy company

Brent Roos: A Short but Amusing Story

I suppose when you create a blog you’re signing up to being exposed to the blogosphere in all its glory, including the bloggers who really don’t deserve to be heard. Unfortunately there are some of us, me included, who find some of the stuff people say irresistibly funny; I hope you share my sense of humour :).

Brent's Avatar

Many of you reading this may be acquainted, at least in passing and/or by word of mouth, with the story of a certain extreme nationalist American blogger by the name of Brent Roos who has recently attempted to lay comment-waste to this blog. So I reckon he deserves a post of his own for his efforts. His online presence took the form of a curious persona who seems extremely religious (Christian), extremely right-wing (neither of the US candidates were good enough for him. Neither was my – apparently insufficient – distaste of Communism in China, for that matter) and notoriously rude. As it turns out, it all made for quite a good laugh. Perhaps I should start from the beginning…

Some time ago I wrote a blog post on global warming. I thought it would end up passing by the blogosphere with little comment. My expectations were, I thought, confirmed until fairly recently when I was in China and had just blogged about the whole experience. The first thing I noticed when I next logged on was that this apparently crazy person had written a few quite aggressive comments.

Brent on Shanghai:

So, how’s the communism there? Funny how you mention magnificent things that put you in awe, but seem to forget to ever mention the horrific human atrocities by the communists there who have killed tens of millions of people — whose only crimes were wishing freedom.
Personally, I would never step foot in China. But then again, I loathe the communist.

Brent on global warming:

Blah, blah, blah…. 2008 is the coldest year in a decade. This is nothing more than alarmism and fear-mongering. 30 years ago it was global cooling.
As far as oil is concerned, if not for the fearmongering, we would be drilling for much more oil here in the states. We are the only country on the planet which has restricted itself from it’s own natural resources to the extent that we have.
What is taking place here is not unlike many of the other institutions that the government has seized over the last several months and years. They have seized the media, the banking/mortgage industry, now the auto industry, etc. The energy industry is more global so they cannot just simply seize that. So instead, they reinvent it, claiming that the current system IS GOING TO KILL US ALL!!!!! In other words, this is a takeover…wake up! We are becoming a socialist country right before our eyes. Granted, there are many who want this, because it is far easier to let the government take responsibility for your life, than to do it yourself. If you do it yourself, the only one you can blame when you fail is yourself, however, without failure, there comes no success.
All of the fancy words are crap when you finally get to the point. Global warming/cooling/climate change/enter fearmongering buzzword here/ is total crapola. Don’t believe the hype sheeple…

I attempted to be civilised while smiling to myself:

Brent,
I, and pretty much all scientists, still think the evidence points towards a long-term upwards trend in temperatures. The point I’m trying to press though is that the solution should no longer lie in this religious instinct of humans to make themselves suffer through deprivation and force others to do likewise. As Steven E Landsberg quite aptly put in his book The Armchair Economist, eco warriors are nothing more than irrational idiots who will do all sorts of unspeakable things just to get a few energy-saving bulbs into a house while completely ignoring the fact that the production of the wretched things is (supposedly, according to their own models of carbon dioxide and warming) far more detrimental than the gases emitted in the production of the electricity required to run the average 150W bulb. Children are growing up feeding on this propaganda, learning that electricity = oil = global warming = bad. Eco warriors are literally putting words in children’s mouths from birth, preventing them from making their own informed decisions on such hugely important matters. Fundamentally, I disagree with the eco-warrior doctrine: ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. I disagree with them. But what I disagree with even more (believe it or not) is outright cynicism. I like to think of myself as a sceptic, someone who follows the doctrine that through doubt the truth may be obtained. I don’t think much truth may be obtained from simply assuming everything the media says must be false (although I would probably be surprised if I actually tested that).
Is it a safe bet that you supported McCain? I think in that case that you and I will just have to agree to disagree on a load of things. Drill baby drill is not going to cut it. However irrelevant the oil situation is to the environment, I still believe abusing it remains a bad idea (for reasons outlined in the post).

At which point Brent became even more manic:

I’m not a Republican if that’s what you have assumed, nor am I a Democrat (Republicrat/Demlican). There were other candiates (good ones who care about America and the Constitution) you know.

It’s hilarious to me that you *think* that there is a shred of difference between Clinton/Bush/McCain/Obama despite the fact that most of their policies are identical on paper and are bought and paid for by many of the same corporate lobbyists. You have been duped!

It’s also hilarious to me that you think that you are so much smarter than I. I’m above your black vs. white mentality. I see everything through a crystal clear lens, while you observe things through the clouds of emotion. I’m really glad you feel good about what you’re doing. Unfortunately, it is a bit sad that you are totally wasting your life on bunk science.

This is a takeover, and you are on board whether you know it or not. By the way, it is completely untrue to say that ALL scientists agree. It is only the ones who like working, as the honest ones are being blacklisted by the rest of the Marxists who intend to carry out the New World Order –Clinton/Bush/McCain/Obama are all involved. Wake up!

Unsure of what to do (whether to laugh out loud or feel vaguely offended) I sent the link to a friend who, rather to my surprise, posted a prompt riposte:

Heh, thats what I love about the internet, the sheer comedy of the right wing nutters who comment on blogs. Ok, lets give this a quick look through:
Blah, blah, blah[his riposte begins to shatter Bryant’s article from the first 3 words, giving an example of the incisive wit]…. 2008 is the coldest year in a decade. [not true, especially in the ice caps] This is nothing more than alarmism and fear-mongering.[what a ridiculous oversimplification, at least respect the majority of the world’s scientists enough to give their theorems serious consideration] 30 years ago it was global cooling. [what’s your point? You give no evidence to discredit cooling, it just shows that the earth’s temperature is very fragile and volatile, and that human’s can effect it]
As far as oil is concerned, if not for the fearmongering [that’s two words], we would be drilling for much more oil here in the states. [try telling that to Alaskan inhabitants who do everything they can to prevent it] We are the only country on the planet which has restricted itself from it’s own natural resources to the extent that we have. [Britain has huge coal and sizable oil reserves, but doesn’t use them because secondary and tertiary industries are more profitable and less destructive, America is well advised to do so also]
What is taking place here is not unlike many of the other institutions that the government has seized over the last several months and years.[is the earth’s climate an institution?] They have seized the media [the same media that is constantly attacking the Bush administration?], the banking/mortgage industry[you mean giving it 700 billion dollars to help it out? Would you rather they let it rot?], now the auto industry, etc. [that is collapsing on its own accord] The energy industry is more global so they cannot just simply seize that. So instead, they [is the US government the only body claiming that global warming is happening? Until recently they were one of the only major powers to deny it!] reinvent it, claiming that the current system IS GOING TO KILL US ALL!!!!! In other words, this is a takeover…wake up! [you are obviously not clouded by emotion...] We are becoming a socialist country right before our eyes. [mm, if everybody would just see sense and spend all their money on fuel until they become impoverished, Capitalism would flourish, right?] Granted, there are many who want this [ooh, nice move, lets blame the communists to deflect the focus on the fault of the average american], because it is far easier to let the government take responsibility for your life, than to do it yourself. [how did we get here from climate change?] If you do it yourself, the only one you can blame when you fail is yourself, [is the Government banning people from polluting? No! Is it trying hard to look at alternate energy sources? Yes, how is this an attack on liberalism?] however, without failure, there comes no success. [that’s nice...]
All of the fancy words [that you don’t understand] are crap when you finally get to the point. Global warming/cooling/climate change/enter fearmongering buzzword here/ is total crapola. [in your learned and well researched opinion that flies in the face of the 95% certainty by the UN’s IPCC that climate change is anthropogenic Where did you get your PhD again?] Don’t believe the hype sheeple[witty play on words mixing sheep with people?]…

After a torrent of e-hostility from Brent and the substantial mirth that brought me and my friends, a couple of us decided to actually visit his site and discovered he really was as crackpot as we thought. He supported Israel’s invasion of Palestine on the grounds of, of all things, religion. He classified Linux-users as Communists. He decided the world isn’t overpopulated and that anyone who thinks it is ought to be banished to Siberia (well, something to that effect). Anthony began posting sarcastic comments on his site under the alias “Bryant Dory”, to which Brent replied seemingly incognisant that they really were meant to be sarcastic:

It’s almost as if your comment is satirical … [insert accusation of being communist]

Unfortunately I can’t remember any of these comments and they are unavailable to me to [Ctrl+C] [Ctrl+V] as, seemingly after he realised how stupid he’s been, Brent finally locked down his site with a password.

I think his online existence was met with some hostility, as a Google search for his name yielded these two results on the first page of results:
# Who in the hell is Brent Roos
# Brent Roos Barked at Me and I Barked Back
Someone even called him an ‘arsehat’…

So in conclusion, seriously, if you’re reading this, thank you Brent for supplying us with such entertainment. It’s been a great laugh and I hope you regain enough courage to the internet at some point in the future. xx

Brent's locked down site

Surviving China

Communist China

I’m leaving for the Lake District on Thursday on the school Winter Walking trip, after which I’ll be travelling to China with my family. Being the cynic that I am, I suspect China will be more Ray Mears-esque in terms of tough survival than the potentially freezing/hail-ey/flooded conditions of the Lake District in Winter, and being the masochist that I am, I’ll love both trips. Being the pragmatist that I’d like to think I am, I’ve already started thinking about how to survive the desperately corrupt, totalitarian and uncompromising system of law, justice, police and politics.

Internet: Tor

The ‘Probrem’
Accessing the internet is crucial to me, even at home. My main form of communication with the outside world when I’m not out is through the internet. I rarely make phone calls when email and IM suffice and writing letters is almost out of the question. In China, it will be my only point of communication with the outside world, since I’ll be separated from everyone I know by thousands of miles. Unfortunately China’s internet is segregated from the outside world by the Great Firewall of China which means any data obtained from the censored network of ‘information’ available from inside China is very probably erroneous, especially if it has anything vaguely to do with politics. Most blogs (wordpress for example) are also banned.

TOR: The Onion Router

The Solution
TOR (The Onion Router) is basically an open source software which links thousands of computers around the world in a huge relay network for the purpose of providing what is essentially a very secure proxy. This means anonymity for anyone who uses it, as well as a method for getting round internet censorship in certain authoritarian schools and institutions and, more importantly, China. I shall be bringing with me a portable version to grant me the ability to keep track of and avoid the growing list of poisonous Chinese foodstuffs.

I’d also encourage anyone who reads this to consider running a Tor router and generally helping the cause. There’s a Facebook page and group and a volunteer section in the site. You’ll probably route some of my traffic if you set it up quickly enough!

Internet: Remote Desktop

The ‘Probrem’
There is still a problem. Although I’ll be able now to surf without hindrance (albeit slowly – Tor is rather slow), I might need to access some files on my home computer which are stored on encrypted hard drives. I’d be worried about taking a HDD on a plane trip which, after being bombarded with X-rays then being shaken about a bit, might be rather shaken up. I obviously can’t just use remote desktop normally – China will get the password to my home computer and will probably keylog everything that goes through which would grant Hu Jintao the key to all my data: precisely the opposite of what I want. Remote desktop through Tor is also painfully slow.

Remote Desktop

The Solution
Remote desktop’s security needs to be pimped up. For some, a windows product juxtaposed with the word ‘security’ is almost oxymoronic, but I’m not *that* cynical. Some time ago I found a fantastic guide to Remote Desktop which focuses on security. Here are a few good ideas which I took:

1. Lockout Policy

Run >> secpol.msc
Security Settings\Account Policies\Account Lockout Policy
It’s always a good idea to set this if you’re going to allow remote desktop connections to your machine in case Mr Brute Force comes along.

Security Policy

2. Use SSL

Run >> gpedit.msc
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Terminal Services\Encryption
This speaks for itself really – encryption is a necessity if anyone’s going to get round the Great Firewall of China

Group Policy Window

3. Change Port

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp\PortNumber
If a hacker finds your IP he might immediately try the default Remote Desktop port. Change it to something random like 156 to baffle him. If you’re concerned about choosing a port number, here‘s a list of port numbers. Happy reading :)

Food

The ‘Probrem’
Need I say more?

Everyone knows about China's tainted milk scandal

The Solution
We’re bringing rations from good old Tesco – I can look forward to a holiday of canned food. In addition, there are some food items which are probably not poisonous. Food which has to be imported and can’t be made/grown in China for example. I can’t think of anything immediately… Vegetables should also be fairly safe provided they are properly washed to cleanse them of excessive pesticides and have thick skins. Hopefully they aren’t full of Arsenic like the rice.

Though I hate to say it, China is still fundamentally a third world country, despite her phenomenal economic growth. There are real problems which she faces. I suspect, owing to the way China seems very good at under-stating problems (e.g. SARS some years back) that the economic situation over there is far worse than it seems and I’m genuinely concerned that possible ensuing riots might cause the government to change fairly more violently than I hope. Meanwhile however, I’m really looking forward to being plunged into such exotic territory and actually almost excited about the potential danger – what doesn’t kill me will make me stronger, right?

I hope these ideas help someone – this research should in theory help me. I’m still not sure whether I’m over-preparing and/or being melodramatic about China’s perilous nature. If you think there’s something important I’m forgetting, please point it out to me! I’m making it a new policy to attempt to abide by some of Ben’s rules (an excellent compilation of blogging policy I think), particularly rule three about actively welcoming critical comments. In this case in particular, my holiday (or, if you’re as worried as me, my life) might depend on it, so if you have any advice for me or anyone travelling Communist-Eastwards this Christmas, I’d be very keen to hear from you. TIA

Big site on my server

Now my über-powerful </sarcasm> Compaq machine is running Debian, a proper server distro of Linux. It’s very efficient and much easier to use as a server than Ubuntu, especially when combined with my new-found favourite server software, XAMPP, which sorts out all the apache / SQL / PHP headache for me, without even the need to install: the simple ‘tar xvfz’ command and the 5 minutes of reading a magazine as it ran was all it took, and was far less hassle than the hours of waiting for apache to compile and install and the head-bashing as mod_ssl refused *yet again* to work alongside apache.

Now that my Compaq has all the functionality of a proper server, I’m venturing into scripting and application territory and have taken the plunge to install WordPress. The site I’ll be hosting (temporarily at least) is my friends’ one: The Beautiful Game. The URL of my wordpress installation is: http://gedanken.we.bs/wordpress/.

The blog (originally here) gets several hundred hits per day and has over 30 writers. It is jointly managed by four of my peers, and in essence, is pretty big. The reason for my hosting it is to provide better functionality from an admin point of view, and also the possibility of displaying Google ads as a source of revenue.

The site isn’t yet finished as yet – there’s lots of work to be done on design, and the import was a bit dodgy. But once everything is fixed, this little lump of whirring metal sitting next to me will be spitting HTML into the Interweb like a real server. Watch this space…