[d@DCC] Discussing Copyright on other BLOGs.

From: Russell McOrmond <russell _-at-_ flora.ca>
To: "General Copyright Discussions (questions, organizing, etc)" <discuss (at) list.digital-copyright.ca>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 08:28:59 -0500

   As people may already know, the "Creators' Copyright Coalition" has 
released their platform  http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/4508.

   Some of the discussion of this platform is happening on John Degen's 
BLOG.  John is the executive director at PWAC (Professional Writers 
Association of Canada), and he was one of the people sitting around the 
table authoring the CCC platform.  He is one of the participants at the 
CCC who has been very open with talking with other creators not part of 
the CCC.


   While we disagree on a lot of the policy, I am very thankful that he 
and a few others have been willing to have dialog. I truly believe his 
heart is in the right place, even if we have extremely different 
interpretations of the effect of policy changes.  It is very unfortunate 
I need to oppose groups like this in order to protect the interests of 
fellow creators.

   Here is an example of something I posted this morning as a comment to 
one of his BLOG posts.


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[johndegen.com] New comment on what's that now?.
Date: 	Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:46:14 -0800 (PST)
From: 	Russell McOrmond <noreply-comment@blogger.com>
To: 	russellmcormond@gmail.com



Russell McOrmond <http://www.blogger.com/profile/07186398284667525036>
has left a new comment on the post "what's that now?
<http://johndegen.blogspot.com/2008/01/whats-that-now.html?ext-ref=comm-sub-email>": 



Your two paragraphs at the end are entirely my point. You want things
negotiated within the copyright act which have nothing to do with copyright.

The copyright act needs to become more generic and easier to understand,
not more like a union negotiated contract that spells out every possible
inter-personal relationship of creators. Those environment-specific
power dynamics should be dealt with in other legislation such that they
don't have the massive "unintended" (uncaring, depending on who you will
talk to) consequences that placing them in the Copyright Act will cause.


You don't like that it costs copyright holders some resources to defend
their own copyright, so you want to pass that on to someone else to
fight your battles for you. The issue isn't that existing copyright
doesn't offer you protection (as it does), but that you want someone
else to pay all the bills. This is someone you have declared as more
rich than you are, without asking people who are actually in the
industry about how it works.

You thinking that all ISPs are rich is like me looking at Disney and
declaring all Copyright holders as rich, pretending that you simply
don't exist. And you want us to believe this is "fair"?

Yes, there are power imbalances, and people should not be forced to do
things which they don't want to do. But you have defined people like
yourself as being the lesser power in the struggle, and have declared
granting you more leverage against everyone else as "fair".

While the two of us make much of our money as "literary authors"
according to the copyright act, we don't make our money the same way.

I don't want the government, based on your request, to deny me the
ability to effectively participate in peer production. This production
model necessitates that everyone involved think of themselves as peers
and we all need to know that nobody will ever individually exert a right
of integrity against other peers based on individual contributions.
Clearly the government is more powerful than I am, and if the government
says Canadians can't waive my right of integrity, the ability of
Canadians to participate will be revoked/reduced. The only negotiation
power I have is during the legislative process, and I will be up against
powerful opponent groups like the CCC.

"Discard them at will." that means having the right to waive them, while
the CCC clearly stated they want the government to revoke that right.



I also don't want to try to compete in a marketplace where my
competitors software is already "bought and paid for" by all my
potential customers, meaning there is no money for me to be paid my
one-time fee. This is the effect of extending the private copying levy
to software and other literary works that would otherwise see growth in
peer production and peer distribution (such as non-fiction educational
material, as well as scientific and medical knowledge).

Yes, there is a power imbalance, and while you feel you are the weaker
player, here I am having to go to parliament to fight against a
politically powerful group you represent in order to allow my method of
production, distribution and funding to survive.


The CCC has accomplished something else with the platform. They have
demonstrated to people like myself that as bad as DRM is at attacking
the rights of technology owners (which includes most creators) and
software creators, things could be far worse. And we have to add that to
the fact that the CCC is in favor of anti-circumvention legislation itself.


Thanks, however, for admitting in the document that the CCC doesn't
represent software authors. I suspect this was from your personal
influence on the document.


-- 
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
  rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
  http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/

  "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
   manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or
   portable media player from my cold dead hands!"
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