LibrarianActivist.org

I don’t know if it is because Digital Rights Management is just such a non-issue (really: what CAN’T be cracked?!) or if I’m just so behind the curve it passed me by, but this news release sure seems under reported right now. Of course, Apple has been calling for an end to music DRM for some time now…..but!

Apparently EMI, one of the biggest music companies (the beatles? pink floyd? coldplay?) has agreed with Apple to end nonsensical DRM and have struck a deal to sell music on iTunes. Now obviously this has been done for purely sound business reasons, and Apple has an enormous interest in unlocking things for iTunes, and the non-DRM songs will cost more, but it certainly seems like a step in the right direction away from privatizing information and towards a more sane way of distributing information, though the implications are yet to be seen. I feel too optimistic about this though…maybe someone should offer a more cynical view.

DJ

EMI and Apple in DRM deal

Graeme Wearden
Monday April 2, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

In a major change of policy for a record label, EMI announced today that it will begin selling songs without copy protection through Apple’s iTunes music store.

The announcement was made at an event in London this lunchtime attended by Apple’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, and Eric Nicoli, his counterpart at EMI.

They announced that from May EMI’s entire music and video catalogue will be available without the anti-piracy technology that currently restricts how people can copy and listen to their digital music tracks.

“It’s clear to us that interoperability is important to music buyers and is a key to unlocking and energizing the digital business,” said Mr Nicoli.

Mr Jobs explained said the songs will cost 99p, compared with the 79p charged for DRM-protected versions. They will be encoded at 256kbps, making them better quality instead of 128kbps used for the standard songs.

In February Mr Jobs called on the music labels to stop using this technology, called Digital Rights Management (DRM), saying that he wanted iTunes to only sell DRM-free music.

EMI is the first label to heed Mr Jobs’s call.

DRM is controversial because it restricts how a song that has been legally purchased can be played. For example, a track bought on iTunes and encoded with Apple’s FairPlay DRM will work on an iPod but not on rival digital music players.

News of EMI’s press conference sparked speculation that music by the Beatles may finally be available online. Unlike almost all other major acts, the Beatles have so far declined to offer their songs for sale on the web. However, this position does not appear to have changed.

This news from the MISt email list @ the FIS, UofT.

EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann is a key note speaker.
__________________________________________________

Join the Center for Intellectual Property, your peers and colleagues as
they convene for the Seventh Annual Symposium on copyright and
information use.

COPYRIGHT UTOPIA: Alternative Visions, Methods & Policies
May 21-23, 2007
Marriott Inn & Conference Center
www.umuc.edu/cip/symposium
Adelphi, Maryland

What would copyright utopia look like? Do you envision an island
paradise surrounded by oceans of free content lapping at your feet? Is
every piece of data or content freely and fully available–no
restrictions, no fees, and no questions asked? Or is everything under
lock and key with access granted only to a privileged membership? Or do
you wish to live somewhere in between? As colleges and universities
continue to make decisions managing third party copyrighted works, let’s
pause and ask difficult questions of our legal structure and human
needs. What methods and policies would best serve students, faculty,
publishers, and the academic enterprise?

Some confirmed speakers and panelists include:

*William Fisher, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law;

*Fred von Lohmann, Electronic Frontier Foundation;
*Donna Ferullo, Purdue University;
*Kenneth Crews, Indian University-Purdue University Indianapolis;
*Patricia Aufderheide, Center for Social Media;
**And many more…

Visit www.umuc.edu/cip/symposium for registration details and specials
from our travel partners. The CIP is one of the leading centers
providing training and solutions on the copyright issues that affect
scholars and industry.
===========
Marvin Stewart
Event Specialist
Center for Intellectual Property
University of Maryland University College
3501 University Boulevard East
Adelphi,MD 20783
T: 240.582.2966
mdstewart@umuc.edu

-PC

An article in Le Devoir today has prompted quick reflex in the wild world of copyright. The article was written by prominent Quebec publishers and challenges federal government’s proposed educational exceptions for a copyright bill they plan to introduce this fall. The article’s authors believe the educational exception is too broad, and that people in educational institutions should have to pay for access to online content. But they also do something good — they call for consultations on the education exceptions. Howard Knopf wrote an article calling for the same thing earlier this week. As part of his analysis, he describes the two major problems with the intended bill:

The most obviously contentious problem would be excessive anti-user digital rights management and technical protection measures (DRM + TPM). These could serve to strangle much new technology and threaten basic access, the public domain, fair dealing and other users’ rights. This will particularly please the multinational recording industry, which also wants to have American-style mass litigation with high statutory minimum damages against ordinary Canadians for ordinary Internet activity involving music. All of this would be to preserve a dying music industry business model. Contrary to repeated and wrong assertions by lobbyists and even the Department of Canadian Heritage, Canada has no current international obligation whatsoever to enact such proposals or to implement, much less ratify, the controversial 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization treaties. Among the G-8, only the U.S.A. and Japan have so far ratified these treaties.

The other major misstep will likely consist of a superficially user-friendly special educational exception for use of publicly available material (”PAM”) on the internet. This unnecessary and misguided initiative would be a dangerous solution to a non-existent problem and could end up costing Canadians outside of academic institutions millions of dollars a year in short order–because the amended law would imply […] that everyone outside the educational tent is indeed liable for everyday use of the Internet that was previously free. The payments would likely go to the collective that calls itself Access Copyright and fall on internet service providers (Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Telus, etc.), who would naturally pass them along to their customers. Only in Canada–pity.

Michael Geist discusses the political implications of the Le Devoir op-ed on his blog, and concludes:

Rather, the Le Devoir op-ed points in the right direction by noting that the government has not consulted on the education issue. Instead of hurriedly introducing a bill that will leave everyone unhappy, the Conservatives would do far better to launch a consultation or commission (as Howard Knopf suggested this week) on copyright. There may be value in looking decisive, but facing criticism from all three opposition parties in committee, in the House of Commons, and in the media will do little to help the Conservatives chances at a majority government.

Howard Knopf also responded to the article which called for a judicial copyright commission.

Olivier Charbonneau has submitted to Le Devoir (with the support of ASTED) an article in response to this morning’s piece; we’ll let you know when and where it’s available.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out both politically, and for copyright. Maybe some people (like Heritage Minister Bev Oda) should start receiving letters that request consultation prior to the passing of any new copyright legislation. We’ll keep you posted.

-SIO

In light of the reaction of many librarians at the recent CLA conference about Captain Copyright and the general disgust I think everyone feels at Access Copyright for their Captain Copyright campaign, (bravo CLA for issuing a statement about advertising to children. It is important to keep in mind that when the fall session begins in Ottawa, copyright is going to be a major issue and even more Digital Rights Management. It seems to me that in both my professional and private life there is often a lot of confusion about what the heck copyright is and does, and how and who it affects or what is being planned or proposed.

With this in mind Michael Geist’s Wiki on DRM is becoming more and more interesting and essential as he looks at some of the major problems and issues with the DRM aspects of copyright law.

I don’t agree with everything he says, but I think it’s great that he’s highlighting some of the big pitfalls in store for us. As he says on the wiki, “We should be working on a positive copyright agenda that includes an expanded fair dealing provision, reform to the statutory damages provision, the elimination of crown copyright, and protection from DRM. Instead, given the strength of the copyright lobby, we may need protection from the next copyright bill”.

Cheers,

D

Spacing Wire is one of my favourite blogs. It’s all about public space and partly about Toronto but mostly about public space. Back on April 15, they had a post about the transforming properties of architecture and cited Lisa Rochon who said:

These days, in the city of Toronto, architecture is understood as a major transformer. At times, large-scale urban design has taken on a spectacular dimension, delivered as a jaw-dropping provocation, an object to behold, the latest, stupefying commodity. But public architecture also resides more quietly, enduringly, within the deep folds of a city’s fabric, in that zone of the glorious in-between. It is found in life-sustaining libraries and in community centres that invite openness and tolerance and a just society.

That’s right: life-sustaining libraries. Thank-you Lisa Rochon. If you want to read the full text of her article go here. You’ll see that you can’t actually get to the full-text, which brings me to the point I was intending to make in the first place.

One thing I keep going back to the Spacing blog for is their link to Bug Me Not. BMN is where you can go and borrow other folks’ usernames and passwords to get onto password-protected mass media sites (including, for example, the New York Times, and, of course, the Globe). So go grab that username/password and check out Lisa Rochon’s article.

The BMN is a great resource: a sly nudge around the system. So if you have usernames and passwords, please share. Consider it your contribution to the information commons. Hip hip huzzah!

-S.