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As he points out, this was a profoundly stupid mistake made when privatising Royal Mail. It would have been trivially easy to do at that point, but now it's a l

As he points out, this was a profoundly stupid mistake made when privatising Royal Mail. It would have been trivially easy to do at that point, but now it's a lot harder. If the government decided that it does want to do this, it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail. That's quite apart from the ongoing costs of maintaining the data. At a time of cuts of budgets this would be a hard sell.

knallfrosch 2y ago
> If the government decided that it does want to do this, it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail. You can pass the law, get sued and pay whatever the PAF is worth. But that's just.. fair? The govnerment spent 5 mio just for a survey concluding that it's impossible to recreate the PAF. So hundreds of millions sounds like a good deal.
- scott_w 2y ago
  Just to be clear: UK Parliament is sovereign. If it passes a law forcibly legalising it, the privatised Royal Mail can sue the government but would need to find an international treaty obligation to win. Even then, if Parliament flagged it and said "we're ignoring this treaty in this case" then the courts are bound to the law, not treaty obligations. If it has knock-on impacts in other areas, it's hard to say, but that's separate to the law.
  - ascorbic 2y ago
    Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the ECHR covers exactly this, so the Supreme Court (and ECtHR if it came to that) would probably find in favour of Royal Mail if this were to be done without compensation.
    - jjmarr 2y ago
      The court would make a "declaration of incompatibility" with the ECHR which leaves it up to Parliament to change the law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_incompatibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_incompatibility
    - scott_w 2y ago
      If it were done by an Act of Parliament, no they wouldn’t. If that Act explicitly overrides external concerns, the Supreme Court must find in favour of the Act and the ECHR would have to find against it, which the UK Parliament is free to ignore, if it so chooses. As I point out, this isn’t “free” because it can invite consequences from other parties. But that’s a different domain to law.
  - spacebanana7 2y ago
    International courts - especially US ones - have de facto overrides on UK sovereignty in many domains. If Royal Mail put the asset into a US subsidiary then US courts must protect it. Regardless of what the UK domestic authorities say, very few entities would be willing to risk violating US copyright laws.
    - scott_w 2y ago
      They can try to protect it but anything inside the UK is subject to UK law and no other law. As I said, there may be practical concerns (read, consequences) for a course of action but this is separate to the domain of law. Inside the UK, if a law explicitly counteracts, say, an international treaty, the British courts MUST find in favour of British law.
      - spacebanana7 2y ago
        > anything inside the UK is subject to UK law and no other law This is true in theory but not in practice. If you’ve been sanctioned by the US then you won’t by able to get a bank account in the UK. Even if you’ve not violated any UK law. The Americans can give a British bank an ultimatum between dealing in US dollars and dealing with a particular individual. Every bank will always choose the former. Similarly anything with US assets is subject to the US court system any its interpretation of copyright. Naturally this means US companies need to obey its rules. But also given the reach of copyright law, so do foreign companies that interact with US ones. Visa, Mastercard, Google, FedEx, and Stripe can’t do business with someone who openly violates US copyright. So perhaps a local council using self hosted services could use nationalised data but that’s about it.
        scott_w 2y ago
        The examples you gave are nothing to do with Parliament creating a law, they’re all based on individual actions. And in any case, my disclaimer already covered the bases you’re discussing: > If it has knock-on impacts in other areas, it's hard to say, but that's separate to the law. I’d hoped it was clear that I was referring to UK law but perhaps not.
keyringlight 2y ago
Another part to this is that there's a certain amount of cooperation between Royal Mail and councils street numbering and naming. Councils are the first authority over new streets/locations, changes like a property being split or merged (i.e. landlords converting to a property of multiple occupation and not telling them for various reasons, and then residents have issues getting post), residential/commercial, etc, and then that gets passed onto Royal Mail to update the PAF. If there's an issue with an address you've got to check with the council first, so there would be some good fit for centralization there.
- pjc50 2y ago
  Obvious solution is for the councils to start charging extremely high fees to Royal Mail for such cooperation.
pkw2017 2y ago
"without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail" < the Royal Mail makes about £3m/year in profits from selling the data. It would cost a lot less than hundreds of millions to bring it back into govt
- ascorbic 2y ago
  They made about £18m in revenue though. It depends who'd be taking on the costs. If they still need to maintain the PAF (they need it themselves), then it's the revenue that would need replacing. The best solution would probably be to say that the OS will take over the maintenance (presumably funded by central government if it's going to be open data), and then Royal Mail will have access to the data and can be paid a lot less in compensation.
pbhjpbhj 2y ago
Why can't it be taken for free? The system and data was created by a publicly owned body, surely Crown copyright.
- ascorbic 2y ago
  It was (stupidly) included in the assets when Royal Mail was privatised, so it's no longer publicly owned.
  - extraduder_ire 2y ago
    Can they at least release the last version from before it was privatised? Would make a decent starting point.
- bluGill 2y ago
  I have no idea what UK law is. In the US the data itself is public domain, but the compilation is of data is copyright. Maps commonly would intentionally have errors in to detect copying - the error is creative work and so a copyright violation to copy so if someone copies your map you can sue them for copyright violation for not just the errors but also that compilation. If you take someone else's map and then use that to create own map off of (thus finding and fixing the errors) it is legal, but that is as much work as just creating a map from scratch.
  - nimish 2y ago
    > compilation is of data is copyright Not by default, at least in the US. The database has to actually be more than just a compilation. It's not a high bar to clear, but it's there. Europe and the UK have the "sweat of the brow" doctrine however.
  - pbhjpbhj 2y ago
    We have a database right in the UK, originally derived from EU legislation. That would apply to postcodes AFAICT, but government can legislate in favour of the demos and against a private corporation.
  - 2y ago
ascorbic 2y ago
So it turns out that James O'Malley has written a post that addresses all the details of this already (of course), including several options for how it could be done affordably. https://takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/heres-the-plan-to-actually-liberate https://takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/heres-the-plan-to-actuall...
InsomniacL 2y ago
> profoundly stupid mistake Surely the PAF formed part of the sale price when privatising Royal Mail? So if you removed it before selling (at a lower price), or you buy it outright after, is there really that much difference making it a profoundly stupid mistake?
- willyt 2y ago
  I doubt they thought about it at that level of detail. I think it was just sold off on the cheap through a share offering with an initial offering[0] of underpriced shares? There was some kind of scheme where a private individual could buy a small number of shares before they went on general sale. Could be wrong though.
- scott_w 2y ago
  To never have given would have simply required the government to say "this is not part of the sale." To take it would likely require either lengthy court battles or legislation. Given the priorities of the Labour Party, the latter isn't likely to happen within the next 5 years (when they'd have to add it to their manifesto).
- ascorbic 2y ago
  Privatisations, like most IPOs, are deliberately under-priced, and I'd very much doubt that the valuation of Royal Mail would have been affected by adding "The universal service provider must maintain the postcode address file and make it available under the Open Government Licence" to the Act
  - InsomniacL 2y ago
    > very much doubt that the valuation of Royal Mail would have been affected To include a postcode lookup on your website costs nearly £7000 per year. Given how popular that is I don't see how it couldn't have formed part of the price.
petesergeant 2y ago
> it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail Parliament absolutely can, legally. The issue is that it’ll set a bad precedent that’ll get brought up by the buyer the next time the government want to privatise something.
- aylons 2y ago
  > Parliament absolutely can, legally. The issue is that it’ll set a bad precedent that’ll get brought up by the buyer the next time the government want to privatise something. Great, maybe they'll be more wary of taking advantage of this kind of blunder if they can get corrected.
pxeger1 2y ago
> it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail Why not? Parliament has the ability to make whatever laws it wants, no?
- sowbug 2y ago
  In the US, the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution says the government cannot take private property for public use without providing just compensation. I don't know whether any similar right exists in the UK.
  - ascorbic 2y ago
    Yes, it's in the European Convention on Human Rights, which despite the name also covers companies' rights.
    - jameshart 2y ago
      I think it mainly covers the rights of the people who own companies, which amounts to the same thing.
  - fmajid 2y ago
    The U.K. does not have a proper written constitution, nor a real bill of rights. It does have the European Convention on Human Rights, but that was passed by an Act of Parliament and can be withdrawn by another Act of Parliament, and in fact the Conservative Party keeps proposing just that. There are no limits on parliamentary sovereignty, which is what the US Founding Fathers fixed with the US Constitution, but even that was the second attempt, after the failure of the Articles of Confederation, and the Bill of Rights came after the Constitution itself, which is why it is formed of amendments.
psd1 2y ago
No mistake; Hanlon's Razor does not apply; the current situation is a desired outcome.
- ascorbic 2y ago
  No, I'm pretty sure this one was incompetence. It came at the same time that the government was going all-in with open data in other areas, and this was a really stupid omission.
cibyr 2y ago
Privatising Royal Mail was itself a profoundly stupid mistake.

knallfrosch 2y ago

> If the government decided that it does want to do this, it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail. You can pass the law, get sued and pay whatever the PAF is worth. But that's just.. fair? The govnerment spent 5 mio just for a survey concluding that it's impossible to recreate the PAF. So hundreds of millions sounds like a good deal.

scott_w 2y ago
Just to be clear: UK Parliament is sovereign. If it passes a law forcibly legalising it, the privatised Royal Mail can sue the government but would need to find an international treaty obligation to win. Even then, if Parliament flagged it and said "we're ignoring this treaty in this case" then the courts are bound to the law, not treaty obligations. If it has knock-on impacts in other areas, it's hard to say, but that's separate to the law.
- ascorbic 2y ago
  Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the ECHR covers exactly this, so the Supreme Court (and ECtHR if it came to that) would probably find in favour of Royal Mail if this were to be done without compensation.
  - jjmarr 2y ago
    The court would make a "declaration of incompatibility" with the ECHR which leaves it up to Parliament to change the law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_incompatibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_incompatibility
  - scott_w 2y ago
    If it were done by an Act of Parliament, no they wouldn’t. If that Act explicitly overrides external concerns, the Supreme Court must find in favour of the Act and the ECHR would have to find against it, which the UK Parliament is free to ignore, if it so chooses. As I point out, this isn’t “free” because it can invite consequences from other parties. But that’s a different domain to law.
- spacebanana7 2y ago
  International courts - especially US ones - have de facto overrides on UK sovereignty in many domains. If Royal Mail put the asset into a US subsidiary then US courts must protect it. Regardless of what the UK domestic authorities say, very few entities would be willing to risk violating US copyright laws.
  - scott_w 2y ago
    They can try to protect it but anything inside the UK is subject to UK law and no other law. As I said, there may be practical concerns (read, consequences) for a course of action but this is separate to the domain of law. Inside the UK, if a law explicitly counteracts, say, an international treaty, the British courts MUST find in favour of British law.
    - spacebanana7 2y ago
      > anything inside the UK is subject to UK law and no other law This is true in theory but not in practice. If you’ve been sanctioned by the US then you won’t by able to get a bank account in the UK. Even if you’ve not violated any UK law. The Americans can give a British bank an ultimatum between dealing in US dollars and dealing with a particular individual. Every bank will always choose the former. Similarly anything with US assets is subject to the US court system any its interpretation of copyright. Naturally this means US companies need to obey its rules. But also given the reach of copyright law, so do foreign companies that interact with US ones. Visa, Mastercard, Google, FedEx, and Stripe can’t do business with someone who openly violates US copyright. So perhaps a local council using self hosted services could use nationalised data but that’s about it.
      - scott_w 2y ago
        The examples you gave are nothing to do with Parliament creating a law, they’re all based on individual actions. And in any case, my disclaimer already covered the bases you’re discussing: > If it has knock-on impacts in other areas, it's hard to say, but that's separate to the law. I’d hoped it was clear that I was referring to UK law but perhaps not.

keyringlight 2y ago

Another part to this is that there's a certain amount of cooperation between Royal Mail and councils street numbering and naming. Councils are the first authority over new streets/locations, changes like a property being split or merged (i.e. landlords converting to a property of multiple occupation and not telling them for various reasons, and then residents have issues getting post), residential/commercial, etc, and then that gets passed onto Royal Mail to update the PAF. If there's an issue with an address you've got to check with the council first, so there would be some good fit for centralization there.

pjc50 2y ago
Obvious solution is for the councils to start charging extremely high fees to Royal Mail for such cooperation.

pkw2017 2y ago

"without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail" < the Royal Mail makes about £3m/year in profits from selling the data. It would cost a lot less than hundreds of millions to bring it back into govt

ascorbic 2y ago
They made about £18m in revenue though. It depends who'd be taking on the costs. If they still need to maintain the PAF (they need it themselves), then it's the revenue that would need replacing. The best solution would probably be to say that the OS will take over the maintenance (presumably funded by central government if it's going to be open data), and then Royal Mail will have access to the data and can be paid a lot less in compensation.

pbhjpbhj 2y ago

Why can't it be taken for free? The system and data was created by a publicly owned body, surely Crown copyright.

ascorbic 2y ago
It was (stupidly) included in the assets when Royal Mail was privatised, so it's no longer publicly owned.
- extraduder_ire 2y ago
  Can they at least release the last version from before it was privatised? Would make a decent starting point.
bluGill 2y ago
I have no idea what UK law is. In the US the data itself is public domain, but the compilation is of data is copyright. Maps commonly would intentionally have errors in to detect copying - the error is creative work and so a copyright violation to copy so if someone copies your map you can sue them for copyright violation for not just the errors but also that compilation. If you take someone else's map and then use that to create own map off of (thus finding and fixing the errors) it is legal, but that is as much work as just creating a map from scratch.
- nimish 2y ago
  > compilation is of data is copyright Not by default, at least in the US. The database has to actually be more than just a compilation. It's not a high bar to clear, but it's there. Europe and the UK have the "sweat of the brow" doctrine however.
- pbhjpbhj 2y ago
  We have a database right in the UK, originally derived from EU legislation. That would apply to postcodes AFAICT, but government can legislate in favour of the demos and against a private corporation.
- 2y ago

ascorbic 2y ago

So it turns out that James O'Malley has written a post that addresses all the details of this already (of course), including several options for how it could be done affordably. https://takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/heres-the-plan-to-actually-liberate https://takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/heres-the-plan-to-actuall...

InsomniacL 2y ago

> profoundly stupid mistake Surely the PAF formed part of the sale price when privatising Royal Mail? So if you removed it before selling (at a lower price), or you buy it outright after, is there really that much difference making it a profoundly stupid mistake?

willyt 2y ago
I doubt they thought about it at that level of detail. I think it was just sold off on the cheap through a share offering with an initial offering[0] of underpriced shares? There was some kind of scheme where a private individual could buy a small number of shares before they went on general sale. Could be wrong though.
scott_w 2y ago
To never have given would have simply required the government to say "this is not part of the sale." To take it would likely require either lengthy court battles or legislation. Given the priorities of the Labour Party, the latter isn't likely to happen within the next 5 years (when they'd have to add it to their manifesto).
ascorbic 2y ago
Privatisations, like most IPOs, are deliberately under-priced, and I'd very much doubt that the valuation of Royal Mail would have been affected by adding "The universal service provider must maintain the postcode address file and make it available under the Open Government Licence" to the Act
- InsomniacL 2y ago
  > very much doubt that the valuation of Royal Mail would have been affected To include a postcode lookup on your website costs nearly £7000 per year. Given how popular that is I don't see how it couldn't have formed part of the price.

petesergeant 2y ago

> it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail Parliament absolutely can, legally. The issue is that it’ll set a bad precedent that’ll get brought up by the buyer the next time the government want to privatise something.

aylons 2y ago
> Parliament absolutely can, legally. The issue is that it’ll set a bad precedent that’ll get brought up by the buyer the next time the government want to privatise something. Great, maybe they'll be more wary of taking advantage of this kind of blunder if they can get corrected.

pxeger1 2y ago

> it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail Why not? Parliament has the ability to make whatever laws it wants, no?

sowbug 2y ago
In the US, the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution says the government cannot take private property for public use without providing just compensation. I don't know whether any similar right exists in the UK.
- ascorbic 2y ago
  Yes, it's in the European Convention on Human Rights, which despite the name also covers companies' rights.
  - jameshart 2y ago
    I think it mainly covers the rights of the people who own companies, which amounts to the same thing.
- fmajid 2y ago
  The U.K. does not have a proper written constitution, nor a real bill of rights. It does have the European Convention on Human Rights, but that was passed by an Act of Parliament and can be withdrawn by another Act of Parliament, and in fact the Conservative Party keeps proposing just that. There are no limits on parliamentary sovereignty, which is what the US Founding Fathers fixed with the US Constitution, but even that was the second attempt, after the failure of the Articles of Confederation, and the Bill of Rights came after the Constitution itself, which is why it is formed of amendments.

psd1 2y ago

No mistake; Hanlon's Razor does not apply; the current situation is a desired outcome.

ascorbic 2y ago
No, I'm pretty sure this one was incompetence. It came at the same time that the government was going all-in with open data in other areas, and this was a really stupid omission.

cibyr 2y ago

Privatising Royal Mail was itself a profoundly stupid mistake.