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CMPDA/MPAA

Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association (CMPDA), Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Motion Picture Association (MPA)

Falling off the edge of a flat world?

Professor Birgitte Andersen has posted a very interesting response to old-economy industry association critique of studies she has authored.

While focused on copyright, I found the section talking about evidence based policy making vs "intuition" to be useful for all political discussions.

Of course intuition has its place, e.g. for short-cuts or if we do not have concrete evidence to rely on. However, if we are unable or unwilling to free our minds, ‘intuition’ can also imprison our thought and lead to prejudice and ignorance.

For example, although the world seems to be flat (by pure intuition), then falling off the edge of a flat world is not among my fears! Similarly, although it seems that the sun rotates around the Earth (by pure intuition), then research has proven that it is the other way around. However, we shall not forget that after Galileo announced these research results, which were counter-intuitive for the general public and the belief of the Catholic Church, he was forced to retire as a scientist and live in house arrest.

Why do some people claim that Canadian copyright is "weak"?

In a series of postings over the years, lawyer Howard Knopf has detailed how Canadian Copyright law is strong (protects incumbent copyright holders), including many ways that Canadian law is stronger than that of the USA (See: 21 Reasons Why Canadian Copyright Law is Already Stronger Than USA's, 22nd Example of How Canadian Copyright Law is Stronger than US - and Another Possible US Treaty Violation)

I had a recent twitter conversation with lawyer Barry Sookman, who has clients in the recording, motion picture and proprietary software industries. As a response to his tweet, "Canada again named to USTR’s Priority Watch List for weak IP laws", I said "Canada being on the USTR priority watch list for having strong Copyright (stronger than US in many ways) only makes list a joke". He then claimed I was wrong, pointing me his submission to the summer 2009 copyright consultation.

His submission didn't provide me with what I was looking for, which was something as detailed as what Mr. Knopf has authored.

Read full article on IT World Canada's blog >>>

IIPA would rather people "pirate" than switch to legal competitors

The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) tipped their hand a bit in this years submission to the “Special 301" report process. While they again attacked Canada for having strong copyright law that is different than the USA, the most telling was their opposition to policies encouraging legally free of charge Open Source in their submissions for Brazil, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Encouraging legally free software is by far the best policy instrument to reduce software copyright infringement for the less financially rich countries and individuals of the world. For the vast majority of the worlds population the only viable options are to infringe royalty-based software or switch to royalty-free alternatives. The fact the IIPA is encouraging countries to have policies which increase infringement rather than have people switch to competing software is telling about their actual goals.

This is consistent with what past Microsoft business group president Jeff Raikes previously stated, "If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else".

When Creativity Goes Digital

The Mark has published my op-ed which replies to the "sky is falling" claims in the article by Barry Sookman and Steven Stohn in the August 6 National Post.

Shortform: I disagree ;-)

Why won't the movie and television studios accept my money?

I would gladly pay a hefty monthly fee for this wonderful service—if someone would take my money. In reality, I pay nothing because no company sells such a plan.

This quote is from a Slate article by Farhad Manjoo. While my personal choice is to simply not watch the movies/shows that are not offered to me rather than accessing them for free, I totally understand this situation. It is frustrating that these companies spend so much money on lobbying incorrectly claiming that infringement is the top reason for downturns in revenue.

Predictable positions from subset of stakeholders at Brussels telecommunication/copyright event.

Michael Geist has posted an article "The Battle Over Internet Filtering" where he discusses a seminar in Brussels on the "telecoms package" currently before the European Parliament. He listed out some of the views of the stakeholders on issues like DRM, "three strikes and you're out" policies ("graduated response") , "technical mandates", ISP filtering/blocking of infringing content, and stronger cross-border enforcement initiatives (ACTA).

Read the rest of this entry »

Where is that "buy me now" button for Copyright?

Much of the copyright debate reads like fiction. People supposedly find content on the Internet which has a "buy me now" button and a "take without paying" button, and they choose the latter. The non-fiction version of this story is very different. For the vast majority of content which people can acquire illegally on the Internet, there is no way to purchase the same thing legally. It is very hard to share the "moral outrage" that some entertainment industry lobbiests have been exhibiting, especially since they made deliberate business choices which caused their problems to be far worse.

Read the rest of this entry on IT World Canada »

51'st State: It's US vs U.S. in the battle for Canadian Sovereignty

Gordon Duggan at Appropriation Art has published a comic (PDF) about Canadian Copyright revision. It is a classic battle of good vs. evil of comic proportions where the "Evil Emissaries of American Interests try to suppress the Fantastic Freedom of Expression Fighters".

The cast of characters is somehow familiar.

Evil Emissaries (Or just misinformed?): Harper, Bush, Prentice, Henderson, McTeague, Wilkins, Feinstein / Cronyn, Schwarzenegger, Glickman, Frith, Oda

Fantastic Freedom Fighters: Angus, Doctorow, Geist, Knopf, Murray, Page, McOrmond

RCMP helps mis-named Anti-Counterfeiting Network in propaganda campaign

Please see the Government of Canada press release: A Cross-Canada Educational Initiative to Raise Awareness and Combat Product Counterfeiting and Copyright Piracy.

The Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network (CACN) is a lobby group with an extremely biased special interest opinion on this area of policy. The entertainment lobby (entertainment software, movies, music) are carrying out a misinformation campaign trying to equate non-profit illegal knowledge sharing by citizens, commercial copyright infringement (piracy) and counterfeiting -- policy areas that are quite distinct, and cannot be rationally merged. Given this, they will be incapable of carrying out an educational roll, as necessary as we all agree this education is.

Copyright lobby to IT sector: It’s all your fault! In some cases it is.

In todays contribution to IT World Canada's BLOG I discuss that while copyright holders already have the legal tools to sue people in Canada infringing copyright, statements made this week by a relatively large number of organizations from the Copyright lobby have named their real target: the IT sector. They are lobbying to make changes to Canadian law to make the providers of IT products and services more liable for the activities of their customers.

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