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Fair Use and Public Domain days

Published January 7th, 2010 in copyright, information commons, public domain | No Comments »

Every January 1st is Public Domain day, where copyright expires for thousands of works across the world — except in the United States, where decades of copyright extensions have eliminated public domain day for many years to come. Notable authors whose works will be in the public domain in Canada (where copyright is life + 50 years) and other countries (where copyright is life + 70 years) include author, singer, and songwriter Boris Vian, Canadian doctor Norman Bethune, Canadian inventor of basketball, James Naismith, and former Québec Premier Maurice Duplessis, one of Canada’s most repressive politicians, especially when it came to freedom of expression.

Connected to Public Domain day is a new celebration created, by Public Knowledge, called World’s Fair Use Day (WFUD). It will be a day of free talks in Washington, D.C. on such things as ACTA, emerging media, and participatory culture.

Art, Access and Legislation in the Digital Age

Published March 18th, 2009 in copyright | No Comments »

Making it work: Art, Access and Legislation in the Digital Age

A public forum on how to build a vibrant online Canadian arts presence while ensuring fairness for both artists and users.

Hosted By:
Olivia Chow, MP (Trinity-Spadina)

Panel experts on digital copyright law, arts, industry, public interest and policy:

  • Charlie Angus NDP Digital Affairs Critic
  • Michael Geist Canada Research Chair in Internet And E-Commerce Law, University of Ottawa
  • Don Quarles Executive Director, Songwriters Association of Canada
  • Stephen Waddell National Executive Director, ACTRA
  • Victoria Owen Canadian Library Association representative

Free, open to the public. Dicussion encouraged.

Streamed live from ustream.tv

Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Time: 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: Health Sciences Building, U of T
Street: 155 College St
City/Town: Toronto, ON

Geist at Concordia

Published September 23rd, 2008 in copyright | No Comments »

Michael Geist was speaking at Concordia University last week. His “Why Copyright?” speech covered the history and fallout of bill c-61. It also gives an overview of why copyright has become such a huge issue for a many Canadians in 2008.

ACTA and copyright crimes

Published July 15th, 2008 in ACTA, copyright | No Comments »

The NewScientist has pubished a great article on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). According to Wikileaks, ACTA is:

a multi-lateral trade agreement of strict enforcement of intellectual property rights related to Internet activity and trade in information-based goods hiding behind the issue of false trademarks. If adopted, a treaty of this form would impose a strong, top-down enforcement regime, with new cooperation requirements upon internet service providers, including perfunctionary disclosure of customer information. The proposal also bans “anti-circumvention” measures which may affect online anonymity systems and would likely outlaw multi-region CD/DVD players.

Michael Geist has written abundantly on the topic, and the CLA has written an in depth brief to the Government of Canada on the topic back in April.

Here are a couple of quotes from the NewScientist article:

ACTA aims to make it easier to penalise and prosecute people running websites or networks that aid and abet the sharing of copyrighted content, including music, movies, TV shows and books. While copyright infringement is already illegal, policing it across multiple borders has been difficult (…)

So swift and secretive have deliberations been that ACTA might easily have slipped under the radar altogether had it not been for a discussion paper that leaked from a source close to the Canadian government this May. ACTA is ostensibly designed to create a global coalition against the counterfeiting of goods - ranging from medicines to aircraft spares and designer underpants - all currently covered by a confusing array of international laws.

ACTA would make it illegal not just to share copyrighted material, but to operate websites that index the locations of such material that people can download. It would also outlaw systems like BitTorrent or Gnutella that help users find files on “peer-to-peer” (P2P) networks of computers.

The Seoul Declaration on the Future of the Internet Economy

Published June 30th, 2008 in A2K, copyright, freedom of expression, internet rights, net neutrality, open access, open data, privacy | 1 Comment »

In June, the OECD had a Ministerial Conference on the Future of the Internet Economy. They published a report which is intended to help countries shape policies concerning the Internet economy. The themes that are addressed are the following:

  • Making Internet access available to everyone and everywhere.
  • Promoting Internet-based innovation, competition and user choice.
  • Securing critical information infrastructures and responding to new threats.
  • Ensuring the protection of personal information, respect for intellectual property rights, and more generally a trusted Internet-based environment which offers protection to individuals, especially minors and other vulnerable groups.
  • Promoting secure and responsible use of the Internet; and,
  • Creating an environment that encourages infrastructure investment, higher levels of connectivity and innovative services and applications.

There were some positive policy suggestions that were made, such as:

  • Promote a culture of openness and sharing of research data among public research communities.
  • Raise awareness of the potential costs and benefits of restrictions and limitations on access to and sharing of research data from public funding.

The OECD Civil Society Forum, comprised of the OECD Civil Society Reference Group and the The Trade Union Advisory Committee, produced a paper (and their own conference) intended to bring to the attention of the OECD Ministers assembled and the OECD member countries the concerns of those not represented at the Ministerial conference.

Their paper highlights the following:

The policy goals for the Future Internet Economy should be considered within the broader framework of protection of human rights, the promotion of democratic institutions, access to information, and the provision of affordable and non-discriminatory access to advanced communication networks and services.

Their recommendations cover

  • Freedom of expression
  • Protection of Privacy and Transparency
  • Consumer Protection
  • Promotion of Access to Knowledge
  • Internet Governance
  • Promotion of Open Standards and Net Neutrality
  • Balanced Intellectual Property Policies
  • Support for Pluralistic Media

CLA tool to support copyright reform

Published February 26th, 2008 in advocacy, copyright, social responsibilities | No Comments »

Kudos to the CLA for their continued work to support librarians in advocating for copyright reform in Canada. The CLA’s Copyright Information Centre has put together a grassroots toolkit and draft letter to send to your local media and MP — let’s get it out there!

Courtesy of the CLA digest:

The Canadian Library Association/Association canadienne des bibliothèques has launched a new tool to help librarians increase public awareness of copyright reform.

A draft article suitable for a community newspaper’s letter to the editor or opinion page is available from CLA’s copyright webpage, www.cla.ca/copyright.

Alana Fontaine of CLA’s government relations firm Impact Public Affairs is available by e-mail or telephone to provide advice on how to use the article. It is part of CLA’s extensive advocacy effort leading up to the introduction of new copyright legislation, which is expected at any time.

For further information on this draft article, please contact Ms. Fontaine at Alana@impactcanada.com or 613-233-8906. For more information on CLA’s copyright advocacy plan, contact CLA Executive Director Don Butcher at dbutcher@cla.ca or 613-232-9625; or the chair of CLA’s Copyright Working Group, Rob Tiessen, University of Calgary, Tiessen@ucalgary.ca.

In addition to the immediate action support, the Copyright Information Centre is a Canadian librarian’s best friend for resources on copyright in Canada. Do check it out.

This is one of those moments when librarians can rock it out and make an impact.

-PC-

Sidestepping DRM with free software

Published February 20th, 2008 in Digital Rights Management, copyright, information commons | No Comments »

My draft post on why librarians should boycott DRM may already be outdated.

This tip on subverting the DRM posse is thanks to Scott Douglas at Speak Quietly and Dispatches from a Public Librarian (McSweeneys), which should be checked out, if only for this entry on one librarian’s journey to a library conference, and back.

Release your fear of being enslaved to your digital music players. A Norwegian chap once famous for decrypting DVDs has created free software to decrypt the DRM from your music files. Still using FB? (speaking as one who is weening myself off) DoubleTwist has a FB app that enables you to share audio and video from your desktop with your friends … given that FB does not permit the posting of copyrighted images to decorate user created groups, etc. I wonder how they will respond to this app.

As I have not tried it out I make no endorsements. Reportedly the quality is the same as burning a CD. I will say that as an mp3 player owner, iTunes should be thanking the Norwegian bloke (AKA “DVD Jon“) who threw this one together. But they’ll probably sue. Myself, I’ll be more likely to pay for iTunes or other music if I know I can have more control over what I do with it and not be tied to a device.

I love Scandinavia.

-PC-

Gilberto Gil on Rights and digital culture

Published February 13th, 2008 in conference, copyright, internet rights | No Comments »

Thanks to a colleage at Culture Libre for letting me know about a free conference in Montréal by Brazil’s culture minister, and musician, Gilberto Gil. The conference, entitled Digital Culture: Re-inventing America’s New World Dream, will:

explore innovative policies and practices at the cutting edge of issues like copyright, digital culture and Internet rights. (…) Gil recently hosted the United Nations Internet Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro (November 2007) where he called for the establishment of an international Internet Bill of Rights. ‘As a creator of music, he is widely known as a central player in the search for more flexible forms of distributing artistic works, Internet rights, free and open source software, and digital culture,’ (…)

.

Friday, 15 February, at 6 p.m. at the Hotel Omni Mt-Royal (map).

Librarians, Open Access, and Student Engagement

Published February 9th, 2008 in Digital Rights Management, advocacy, copyright, information commons, open access, public domain | No Comments »

Library Journal interviews student advocate (and new contributor to Open Access News) Gavin Baker about SPARC’s student engagement Right to Research campaign.

-PC-

Friday Fun Link - Google Takes on Wikipedia (Dec 14, 2007)

Published December 14th, 2007 in Friday Fun Link, copyright, culture, information commons, open access, public domain | No Comments »

Google will soon be releasing their own take on a Wikipedia-style of information resource - Google Knols (screenshot).

Some of the significant differences will be: named authors (who can choose to receive a portion of ad revenue for the “knol” pages they write) instead of Wikipedia’s anonymous author model. The site will allow multiple “knols” on a single topic (each will be written by a single author) with the community voting for the best one and suggesting changes in a separate area instead of the collaborative style of composing articles used on Wikipedia.

(via MetaFilter)

On a completely unrelated note, this will be the last Friday Fun Link I post on LibrarianActivist. After some recent discussions with the other two librarians I took on this project with about the future of the site, it was felt that we need to re-focus on the serious side of activism. We also discussed some other potential changes and improvements to the site. Hopefully more details about these items will be forthcoming in the weeks and months to come.

I am happy to remain involved with LA as a contributor but for anyone who’s enjoyed this recurring feature, I will continue to post the Friday Fun Links on my personal blog.

- JH

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