Even Sith lords have rough nights:
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
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Month: June 2008
My thanks to the folks at Yahoo! for loaning me part of their “Code Monkey” costume.
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The “Right” in “Copyright”
Welcome to Ignatz & Copyright, the first in a series of articles in which I, along with you the readers, will explore the debate over copyright, Canada’s Bill C-61, the American DMCA and related matters. If you want to find the inspiration behind this series, read the entry title Ignatz Zayats and the Copyright Debate, as well as the comments.
I thought I’d start by providing a quick definition of “copyright”, just to make sure that we’re all talking about the same thing. Copyright is a compound word, and in this entry, I’m going to look at the “right” in “copyright”.
First, the “Right”…
The “right” in “copyright” refers to the set of exclusive legal rights granted to creators over their works for a limited period of time. These rights boil down to:
- The right to copy the work
- The right to recognition for creating the work
- The right to distribute (or say who can distribute) copies of the work to the public by selling, renting or lending it
- The right to perform, display or transmit (or say who can perform, display or transmit) the work in public
- The right to prepare derivative works (or say who can prepare derivative works) based upon the work
Copyright’s intent, to borrow the words of the “Copyright Clause” in the U.S. Constitution, is to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”. By creating a legal mechanism for creators to be compensated, creators can make a living, and are given an incentive to continue creating works.
As I mentioned earlier, copyright is granted for a limited period of time. Once this period of time passes, the work enters the public domain, at which point it can be freely used and adapted by anyone.
Links
[This article was also posted on Global Nerdy.]
Fredrick Marckini.
I’m sitting in the press room of the Search Engine Strategies 2008 Toronto conference as I write this. I’m here on a press pass arranged for me by Byron Gordon of SEO-PR and in exchange, I’ll be publishing blog entries from the conference over the next couple of days.
Fredrick Marckini’s Opening Keynote
The opening keynote by Fredrick Marckini, Chief Global Search Officer of Isobar, was quite good. For a guy like me — I’ve been more concerned about application development and technical evangelism than search engine marketing — it was a pretty good introduction to the search engine marketing and trends to watch for. Not only did Marckini present a lot of useful information (especially to an SEM newbie like me), but he presented with style and humor and kept the audience engaged — not an easy thing first thing in the morning.
I took copious notes and once I’ve formatted them, I’ll post them here.
The Best Thing in the Goodie Bag
It’s not a tech conference unless there’s a goodie bag, and this one is no exception. I always find uses for them, and the ones for this conference are pretty decent:
The goodie bag at SES Toronto.
They’re trying to make this conference a little more green, so they’ve kept the paper contents of the goodie bag quite lean, limited to the conference agenda magazine, a few sheets of administrivial paper and the best thing, the book Meatball Sundae, written by my favourite marketing guru, Seth Godin:
The best thing in the goodie bag: Meatball Sundae, by Seth Godin.
I’m looking forward to reading it.
My Asshole Lawyer Friend Ignatz
Artist’s rendition of Ignatz Zayats.
Pictured above is an artist’s rendition of Ignatz Zayats, asshole and occasional commenter on this blog. He’s a lawyer with a practice somewhere in the Greater Accordion City area; he got his law degree from the U of Zero.
About half of the comments that Ignatz posts never see the light of day because they’re generally dickish enough to merit deletion. From the rest of his comments, you might be tempted to conclude that he is a douchebag. I beg to differ; if you can get past the first impression, you will find that he is, in fact, more of a colostomy bag.
Oh, I kid. I kid because I love.
Ignatz — and yes, it’s a pseudonym — is an old friend of mine. We go back all the way to 1979, where we spent a terrifying sixth grade under the tutelage of Brother D., who had no compunctions about smacking his students Ike Turner-style. For reasons that neither of us can quite explain, we chose to stay there not just through middle school, but high school as well, where among other things, we played in a band (there’s at least one funny story there), ran some dances, cut some classes, had a falling out or two and generally hung out. I continue to count him among my friends for a couple of reasons:
1. To borrow a Henry Kissinger line, he may be an asshole, but he’s our asshole.
2. If there is a Hell, he will likely go there when he dies, whereupon he will end up climbing the ranks and become part of the administration. I like having connections in as many places as possible.
Everyone should have at least one Eric Cartman-esque pal like Ignatz, even if only to develop some coping-with-assholes skills. Every blogger needs a small stable of Ignatz-style readers for the same reason — and also because it never hurts to occasionally be called out, even if you’re right.
The Copyright Debate
So far, Ignatz is the only one who’s written to me either in the comments or email who’s been in support of Bill C-61, often referred to as “Canada’s DMCA”, the proposed copyright bill that seems to have been custom-written to the specifications of the American entertainment industry lobby.
In response to the article “Canada’s DMCA”, a.k.a. Bill C-61, Wasn’t Written for You and Me, he wrote:
If I was a professional musician & I spent all of my hours writing music so that I can make a measely $0.10 in royalties every now & then just to pay my rent & put food on my table, then Joe Public who downloads my music for free is stealing from me.
You have to protect the intellectual property that the writer owns to give them income & an incentive to create more music. Otherwise, why should they make the effort to begin with? After all, which of you here would go to work tomorrow if you knew you weren’t going to get paid for YOUR efforts?
It’s really no different than computer programs & books, generally-speaking. Lend a book out to friends so they can read it. But if you’re making thousands of copies for friends, then the writer only made royalties from the sale of your 1 book while the copies you made enriched 1000s of your friends, for free.
Tell me how that is fair to the writer.
Geez, you would think that some of youwould advocate that file sharing/free downloads of computer programs like MS Office, etc. should be allowed. After all, in principle what’s the difference between my file of MS Office or David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ other theat the complexities & size of the file itself? If it’s obviously wrong to freely share computer programs without the author’s consent, then the same should apply to music files.
Someone spent time & effort to create something. Stop being cheap and pay them $0.99 for the bloody download instead of looking for the freebie. What’s the matter? Can’t spare the loonie?
and, later on:
Professor Geist’s position is that that the Copyright Act traditionally (& explicitly) allows for copying of protected materials for private use, research, private study, criticism, and news reporting. He posits that Bill C-61 denies you that opportunity if you unlock the digital codes. And while he may be right, the issue is that this is the dictum from Parliament itself. (Side note: He teaches at the school that gave me one of my degrees. A lot of the minds there are all a ‘little’ off the centre line. In fact, IMHO, I can’t think of one true centrist or conservative full prof at that institution, except for the tax guru there. I think it’s the lead in the Ottawa municipal drinking water.)
My God, how many copies do you need for personal use or private study? Or even to teach? Isn’t 1 enough?
That’s the same Parliament that made it easy for your illegal downloaders not to get charged for royalties by your ISP providers because it enacted s. 2.4(1)(b) of the Copyright Act specifically exempting that collection (and upheld by the Supreme Court in the case – Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada v. Canadian Assn. of Internet Providers, [2004] 2 S.C.R. 427, 2004 SCC 45) So you’re happy with one decision of Parliament & upset with another. Hey, you can’t have your cake & eat it too. Go bitch to your MP. See if those Conservative chowderheads will listen at all. (Personally, I can’t stand them myself.)
You’re right in your first line. C-61 was not written for you & me. It was written to protect intellectual property owners. You know, those people who invested time & money to create that masterpiece, ‘Harold & Kumar Go to Rexdale’. Whether it’s a book, a DVD or a song, it’s all copyrighted material & one isn’t different from another (the Court in the SOCAN case made this point when it referenced the prior Supreme Court case of CCH Canadian Ltd. v. Law Society of Upper Canada, [2004] 1 S.C.R. 339, 2004 SCC 13 which dealt with alleged copying of lawbooks in the law library).
And while you can make infinite copies of a book for personal or education use, you can’t do it for digital files IF you break the code. Isn’t that more, or less, the same rules for IT programs? (ie. I can copy my MS Office onto X computers, but if I do it on more, then I need a license. Otherwise, I’m breakin’ the law.). So why should it be any different for my Harold & Kumar DVD? If I need more copies, I should get (sorry, pay for) a license from the copyright holder. Right?
If you read the preamble to Bill C-61, it rightfully states that:
“Whereas in the current digital era copyright protection is enhanced when countries adopt coordinated approaches, based on internationally recognized norms;Whereas such norms are reflected in the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty and the World Intellectual Property Organization Performances and Phonograms Treaty, adopted in Geneva in 1996;
Whereas such norms are not wholly reflected in the Copyright Act;”
the proposed measures in C-61 reflect that Canada has been behind the rest of the world in this domain. Your statement above was that “the law refuses to go forward.” I think instituting standards that are already reflected in other WIPOC countries is moving forward.
The practical reality if this Bill is proclaimed into law is that:
“It’s not like entertainment companies are about to go sue people,” he said. “It’s about people who are making libraries of massive infringement and making them available to their friends that they have over the Internet.” http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=583125So don’t worry, your multiple copies of Harold & Kumar will go unnoticed by the Copyright Gestapo & you’ll bicycle off into the sunset with a smirk on your face ’cause you just got one over on The Man.
And while Terence Corcoran may have raised your bile level, he wasn’t too far off the mark when he said that this probably won’t make it to law if there’s a fall election. (I don’t have too much time for him either.)
The bottom line is that you need to protect the author & the copyright. Why? Because it’s someone’s property. You’re just buying a license to use it for a limited purpose. If you don’t protect it, the ownership & authorship of this type of property is diminshed & worthless.
If you think so little of intellectual property rights & the need to protect them, let me know so I can start printing up “The Accordion Guy” T-Shirts & Mugs with direct excerpts from this website & copies of your artistic cartoon doodles in my old high school yearbooks, sell them at a premium & keep all of the money to myself. Or how about I get someone to hack the code at your company’s webpages & pass the programs off as my own scripts on a new website. That’s not fair? Exactly.
So please tell me where I’m “wrong, wrong wrong.” And while you’re doing that, please let me know how you would protect the work, sweat and $$ of copyright holders. I’m always open to reasonable suggestions.
With love always,
I.Z.PS. Don’t people read books anymore?
See what I mean about him being more colostomy bag than douchebag?
Ignatz’ arguments are pretty much aligned with those put forth by the American entertainment lobby. I thought they presented an interesting opportunity to explore the copyright debate, such as the meaning of copyright in the age of digital networks and the effects of laws like the DMCA. For the next little while, I’ll be regularly posting articles exploring copyright issues, as well as Ignatz’ arguments.
You can participate. My readership — I don’t know how many readers I have, but I do know they make for at least 100,000 pageviews per month — is collectively smarter and better-versed in the issues that just me alone. If you have anything to contribute to the debate, whether in the form of a comment or even just a link to relevant article, whether you agree with me or not, please feel free to have your say in the comments!
One of the items in this list: the difference between photos of food on packaging and the actual food that comes from those packages.
In order to bung up your productivity for the week, here are some links to interesting things I found on the web (or that readers found and emailed to me):
Everybody kills Hitler on their first trip: Wikihistory is a short story that takes place in an online discussion forum for time travelling history buffs.
Deep fried cheeseburger. Do I have to say any more?
Don’t food photos always set your expecations too high? The site pundo3000.com has a section titled “werbung gegen realität” that compares the photos on food packages with photos of what actually comes out of them.
Fake Plastic Rock is Jeff “Coding Horror” Atwood’s blog devoted to music games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero.
Salawikain is a collection of Filipino proverbs. One of my favourites in their list is Walang ligaya sa lupa na hindi dinilig ng luha, which translates as “There is no earthly bliss not watered by tears.”
Marry Him! is an article from the March 2008 edition of The Atlantic whose thesis is that at some point, you have to stop looking to marry Mr. Perfect and “settle” for Mr. Good Enough.
The Eligible-Bachelor Paradox might make good follow-up reader for Marry Him! (see above): its subtitle is “How economics and game theory explain the shortage of available, appealing men.”
These older versions of Monopoly “Community Chest” and “Chance” cards predate the use of the moustachioed “rich uncle” we see in current versions.
This episode of the animated series Terrifying Kyochan should probably not be viewed at work and will make you wonder if the Japanese take courses in advanced weirdness in what little spare time they have. (Warning: phalluses and a urine-soaked ending.)
If you could have conversations with your younger self, what would you say? Kate Beaton turned this idea into a series of interesting comics.
Darque Dungeon: A parody in which a Jack Chick tract warning about the dangers of playing Dungeons and Dragons gets turned into a warning about turning into…a goth! The bit with the lyrics to Front 242’s Headhunter 3.0 made me laugh out loud.
The Cat Stationmaster: Not only is “Tama”, the stationmaster of Japan’s Wakayama Electric Railway’s Kishi Station a cat, she’s also the only female in a managerial position.
A “Get Out of Sex and the City” Free Card. Yeah, I’m a little late with this one, but I’m glad that someone made such a thing.
The so-called “Terrorist Fist Bump”, debunked with pictures. Includes photos of George H.W. Bush and Joe Lieberman making the OMG ITS A TERRIST gesture.
Read It and Lacrimate. It’s really about how PR people love to use overly complex words when simple ones would’ve sufficed, but what got me reading it were its first lines: “From time to time, I am cruelly slandered by members of the public relations industry, who accuse me of writing unfairly about their profession. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love PR professionals. They’re a hoot, because they are such pathetic, desperate dillweeds.”
This guide to Accordion City patios could come in handy.
How does The Daily Show always dig up those file videos of someone saying the exact opposite of what they’re now saying? Credit goes to Adam Chodikoff, “the go-to researcher for the then-and-now footage that lends satirical punch” to Jon Stewart’s “fake news show”.
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DemoCamp Ticket Status
Here’s a quick update on tickets for the upcoming DemoCamp 18, Accordion City’s grassroots show-and-tell-and-network gathering of high-techies. As I write this:
- 49 Community Supporter tickets remain ($5.00 each)
- 15 Community All-Star tickets are left ($10.00 each)
- 100 General tickets will be made available on June 24th (they’re free)
If you want to get your paws on a ticket, please visit the DemoCamp ticket site now!