Category: In the News

[via Michael Geist] The Conservatives have an ad titled Even Liberals (it’s on their site) that features a clip of (Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister) Paul Martin at a town hall meeting televised on the CBC. In the clip — barely a couple of seconds long — Martin makes the embarassing admission that he approved an “attack ad” that even some members of the Liberal party didn’t like.

The Liberals claim that in using the clip, the Conservatives are infringing on the CBC’s copyright. I agree with Michael Geist — I think that the Conservatives can easily argue that use of the clip is fair use since it’s short, is being used in a critique and is news reporting (for more on what fair use is, see this entry). This is just another example of copyright being misused as a stick — this time to beat legitimate political speech into silence rather than beat cash out of customers.

I’m going to talk a little bit more about copyright and Big Content this week. By “Big Content”, I am referring to the corporations that produce movies, televisions, records,

books and even web sites. I thought I’d start by

introducing something that “copyfighters” (those who fight for better

copyright laws and against bad business practices that use copyright as a stick to beat more money out of customers) often talk about: business models. You will often hear a copyfighter

refer to how a Big Content company or cartel will often use copyright

as a means of protecting an outdated business model. Before I talk

about Big Content’s outdated business models, let’s look at a business

model that’s already extinct as a result of technological improvements: Big Ice.

I’ll let one of my role models (especially given my line of work), former Apple evangelist Guy Kawaski do the talking for this one. Years ago, he made a high school commencement address titled Hindsight, a “top ten list” of

advice to the graduating class. Item number eight was “Challenge the known and embrace the

unknown”. It went like this:

One of

the biggest mistakes you can make in life is to accept the known and resist the

unknown. You should, in fact, do exactly the opposite: challenge the known and

embrace the unknown.

Let me tell you a short story about ice. In the late

1800s there was a thriving ice industry in the Northeast. Companies would cut

blocks of ice from frozen lakes and ponds and sell them around the world. The

largest single shipment was 200 tons that was shipped to India. 100 tons got

there unmelted, but this was enough to make a profit.

These ice harvesters,

however, were put out of business by companies that invented mechanical ice

makers. It was no longer necessary to cut and ship ice because companies could

make it in any city during any season. These ice makers, however, were put out

of business by refrigerator companies. If it was convenient to make ice at a

manufacturing plant, imagine how much better it was to make ice and create cold

storage in everyone’s home.

You would think that the ice harvesters would

see the advantages of ice making and adopt this technology. However, all they

could think about was the known: better saws, better storage, better

transportation. Then you would think that the ice makers would see the

advantages of refrigerators and adopt this technology. The truth is that the ice

harvesters couldn’t embrace the unknown and jump their curve to the next curve.

Challenge the known and embrace the unknown, or you’ll be like the ice

harvester and ice makers.

Can

you imagine what things would be like today if the ice harvesters

managed to lobby the government into restricting the activities of the

icebox manufacturers and later on, the refrigerator manufacturers?

That’s exactly what Big Content would like to do to the high-tech

industry.

More on this topic later.

It’s Martin Luther King Day, a holiday in the United States. To all my American readers  (especially my mother- and father-in-law, who took advantage of the long weekend to visit Wendy and me), Happly MLK Day!

The story goes that Dr. Martin Luther King was going to go with a short, formal, pre-written speech when gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, sitting in the front row, yelled out “Tell them about your dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream!” Some people in the audience joined in, and in response, Dr. King extemporized the famous speech above, which I shall repeat below:

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Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”