LibrarianActivist.org

My draft post on why librarians should boycott DRM may already be outdated.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

Hi Everybody,

As I’m sure most have you have heard, the Canadian Government is planning on pushing through some new copyright legislation to conform with the WIPO treaties that is going to be supposedly stricter than the DMCA. There are some really serious issues about this legislation that is likely to affect all of us as students, researchers, librarians and journalists, and as citizens in terms of fair use, circumvention, parody, downloading, digital rights management, and so on.

Three things bother me specifically about this. The first is the Government’s general refusal to answer questions clearly about what the legislation is going to entail, and its refusal to consult the public adequately.

The second involves the industry and trading partners push that is the supposed reason behind this sudden eagerness to table new copyright legislation. Intense lobbying by the Canadian Recording Industry Association which represents the “big four” record labels (sony, universal, emi, and warner) who make up 75% of the global music industry, US ambassador David Wilkins, are all supposedly the big players pushing for reform.

Third, the DMCA is strict enough, as are the WIPO provisions, yet the government is planning to implement a copyright act that goes well beyond the requirements set out by WIPO itself. Why is this? Canada has a pretty strict and fairly sensible copyright legislation already.

The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada is opposed to reform as it stands.

http://www.aucc.ca/_pdf/english/reports/2007/copyright_12_04_e.pdf

The Canadian Association of University Teachers is questioning whether or not this is the right way to go. Check out Excess Copyright as well:

http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2007/12/caut-copyright-position.html

Canadian musicians are opposed to this version of copyright:

http://www.musiccreators.ca/wp/

I believe quite strongly that when multinational corporations begin to make Canadian legislation there is something seriously wrong with how things are being done. I also believe that when the public is shut out of the process of law making by the government we are setting a dangerous precedent.

I urge you to take action and let the government know that this is not acceptable for copyright reform and not acceptable for good governance.
Links to sample and form letters, MP addresses, and other important government contacts can be found here:

http://www.digital-copyright.ca/letters

A really great breakdown at what is at stake by Wayne Macphail can be found here:

http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?x=65169

Michael Geist’s excellent blog that will keep you up to date on these issues like no other is here:

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/blogsection/0/126/

Canadian Library Associations page on Copyright (though I can’t seem to find a position on the proposed legislation. Let me know if you have it:

http://tinyurl.com/yrr2ln

Finally, if I haven’t convinced you, maybe Brian the Frog will:

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/14247

Feel free to forward this, create your own, and spread the word around as far and as wide as possible. Also forward any links you know of or articles and we will post them here.

_DJ_

The author of the popular Freakonomics book looks at the question, “If public libraries didn’t exist, could you start one today?”

“But here’s the point I’m (finally) getting to: if there was no such thing today as the public library and someone like Bill Gates proposed to establish them in cities and towns across the U.S. (much like Andrew Carnegie once did), what would happen?

I am guessing there would be a huge pushback from book publishers. Given the current state of debate about intellectual property, can you imagine modern publishers being willing to sell one copy of a book and then have the owner let an unlimited number of strangers borrow it? I don’t think so.”

He doesn’t bring it up but I wonder if an analogy could be made to bit torrent sites today? One person buys a legitimate copy and then others are able to obtain a free copy. The only difference is that instead of dozens of uses as for popular library items, bit torrent allows thousands of copies to be downloaded. The other big difference is that bit torrent tends to focus on movies, music and TV shows that don’t have the history of “free” borrowing like books in a library do. And of course, you don’t have to “return” a digital copy.

It’s not a perfect analogy but the similarities are there.

(via Reddit)

Oh, and in a semi-related story, a PhD candidate in economics contends that the optimal length of copyright in today’s digital age is…fourteen years. (via Boing Boing)

- JH

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.

Pretty harsh review of Windows Vista’s faults, focusing on its emphasis on DRM over everything else including usability and user satisfaction.

(via Reddit)

- JH