As someone who was involved in the House of Commons’ Finance Committee’s pre-budget consultations for several years, the leak of the committee’s draft recommendations by a, shall we say, opportunistic, Conservative staffer couldn’t help but catch my eye. While reports are focusing on the effect of the leaks on the political parties, let’s not forget the researchers who actually wrote the report.
The whole pre-budget consultations process is pretty intense. In the space of three months or less, the committee, aided by their tireless researchers and a committee clerk, hears from hundreds of witnesses in Ottawa and on the road. Researchers then have to take these hundred of submissions about every conceivable topic (seriously: we heard about every conceivable issue to which a dollar sign could conceivably be attached) and write a big honkin’ report that has to be translated, submitted to the committee for approval, edited and revised to reflect the will of the committee.
Writing the report and attending the meetings was actually a lot of fun, like getting your own personal annual update on the state of the Canadian economy. And I think that the reports did (and do) a fair job of accurately representing Canadians’ main economic concerns, which is what I think the Finance Committee always sets out to do.
But let’s not overstate the importance of the process. Far from being a crucial input into the making of the federal budget as the Globe and Mail’s breathless reporting suggests, the Finance Committee’s pre-budget consultations report is exactly as effective in influencing government policy as any other parliamentary committee report.* Which is: hardly at all.
For starters, the committee’s report is not binding on the government. There’s also the fact that the Finance Department and Finance Minister have been conducting their own pre-budget exercises for years (dating back to the Liberals, I believe). Between this duplication and the current government’s incessant appetite for polls (different in degree, not in kind, from its predecessors), I’d be surprised if the government learned anything new from the committee’s work. I’m also fairly certain that the overall thrust of the budget is not determined by the Finance Committee.
Oh, and then there’s the fact that when there’s a majority government, the government effectively controls the committee, so it’s not like anything embarrassing to the government would get into report anyway.
The report can be useful as a way for MPs to signal to the government what they feel are important issues, and specific recommendations may not be 100% in line with the government’s agenda, but I’d be very surprised if something that the government (read: Prime Minister) of the day really didn’t like would ever get into a pre-budget report. (I should say here that as a non-partisan staffer I was never privy to intra-party discussions. We simply followed the will of the chair and the committee.)
That such a potentially valuable annual exercise doesn’t contribute more to the federal budget is a sad reminder of the growing irrelevance of Parliament, and it’s something that Canadians should be concerned about. I also feel for the researchers who’ve been working 12-hour days for the past month only to see their work trashed by the inexcusable and offensive actions of a political staffer. But as far as any effect on the way that the budget is currently made, the cancellation of this year’s Finance Committee’s pre-budget report will hardly matter at all.
* The Globe article, as the Globe's Parliament Hill coverage tends to do, focuses exclusively on the horse race aspects of the report. From that perspective, sure, the cancellation of the budget robs parties of the chance to score political points based on the differences between the committee report and the eventual budget. Me, I'm more concerned with more boring stuff, like what's actually in the budget. Even if you care about the political horse race, based on what I wrote above I don't see how the report can really tie the Finance Minister's hands. The Conservatives control their own MPs and could easily dismiss any annoying opposition recommendations.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
The Wikileaks dump: Kind of a big deal
Four quick points about the Wikileaks document dump.
1. I think it’s a mistake to simply shrug off the leaks, as my good friend Erin at Media Souffle and many others have done. The conventional wisdom that’s emerged about the leaks – that they don’t tell us anything we don’t already know – misses the most interesting thing about the whole situation. Which is: even without access to insider views, academics and journalists (when they're speaking truth to power) have been providing us with a pretty good picture of how the political world works.
This is huge. I live in Ottawa, so I’ve had my share of conversations with people with security clearances who attempt to trump every argument with an infuriating, “If you only knew what I knew…” (infuriating military corollary: “If you’d seen what I’ve seen…”). Well, these releases actually prove that in 99 cases out of 100, we do know what you know. There’s a tendency, particularly in some parts of government, to fetishize “secret” information, merely because it’s classified, and to denigrate open-source information sources. These leaks are actually a good argument in favour of open-source research.
For us academics, most of whom don’t have access to this deep kind of insider information, this is fantastic news: it means that our theoretical models and information-gathering methods are actually providing us with a reasonably accurate picture of the way that the political world works.
And, of course, there is the one case out of 100 that actually does tell us something new. I, for one, had no idea that every country in the Middle East is pressuring the U.S. to attack Iran. I’d also argue that having proof that United States is spying at the United Nations, breaking formal international obligations, is a big deal. Saying that this isn’t a big surprise says more about our lowered expectations for the rule of law and what we consider appropriate behaviour than it does about the leaks themselves.
2. One of the reasons that these leaks didn’t tell us much that we couldn’t have inferred from paying attention to the world is that they came from the United States. One thing that stood out in my dissertation field work was how open U.S. government sources and lobbyists were in presenting their positions. Sure, they know that you might disagree with them, but they are more than willing to share their perspectives with you. With some notable exceptions, the Canadian government was much harder to deal with (Exhibit A: Three years and counting for the documents I requested under the 30-day Access to Information process).
I wonder if a document dump of Canadian cables would have been as shrug-worthy as the ones from the more-open U.S. government. Just sayin’.
3. I can't wait until the cables from the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa are released. It looks like some of them deal with Canadian copyright reform. Given the nightmarish experience I’ve had at the hands of the Canadian Access to Information process, I’m viewing this release as a form of karmic balancing. I may have to adjust my dissertation’s argument to account for this new information, but probably not (see point #1).
4. Does anyone else find all the angst about the loss of face in the international community bizarre? For all the advances of the past several hundred years (a United Nations, democratic countries around the world), our diplomacy hasn’t left the 18th century. It’s the 21st century, and everyone is acting like the United States is Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons (or, for the more camp-inclined among us, Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions). Which would make Julian Assange either John Malkovich or Ryan Phillippe:
1. I think it’s a mistake to simply shrug off the leaks, as my good friend Erin at Media Souffle and many others have done. The conventional wisdom that’s emerged about the leaks – that they don’t tell us anything we don’t already know – misses the most interesting thing about the whole situation. Which is: even without access to insider views, academics and journalists (when they're speaking truth to power) have been providing us with a pretty good picture of how the political world works.
This is huge. I live in Ottawa, so I’ve had my share of conversations with people with security clearances who attempt to trump every argument with an infuriating, “If you only knew what I knew…” (infuriating military corollary: “If you’d seen what I’ve seen…”). Well, these releases actually prove that in 99 cases out of 100, we do know what you know. There’s a tendency, particularly in some parts of government, to fetishize “secret” information, merely because it’s classified, and to denigrate open-source information sources. These leaks are actually a good argument in favour of open-source research.
For us academics, most of whom don’t have access to this deep kind of insider information, this is fantastic news: it means that our theoretical models and information-gathering methods are actually providing us with a reasonably accurate picture of the way that the political world works.
And, of course, there is the one case out of 100 that actually does tell us something new. I, for one, had no idea that every country in the Middle East is pressuring the U.S. to attack Iran. I’d also argue that having proof that United States is spying at the United Nations, breaking formal international obligations, is a big deal. Saying that this isn’t a big surprise says more about our lowered expectations for the rule of law and what we consider appropriate behaviour than it does about the leaks themselves.
2. One of the reasons that these leaks didn’t tell us much that we couldn’t have inferred from paying attention to the world is that they came from the United States. One thing that stood out in my dissertation field work was how open U.S. government sources and lobbyists were in presenting their positions. Sure, they know that you might disagree with them, but they are more than willing to share their perspectives with you. With some notable exceptions, the Canadian government was much harder to deal with (Exhibit A: Three years and counting for the documents I requested under the 30-day Access to Information process).
I wonder if a document dump of Canadian cables would have been as shrug-worthy as the ones from the more-open U.S. government. Just sayin’.
3. I can't wait until the cables from the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa are released. It looks like some of them deal with Canadian copyright reform. Given the nightmarish experience I’ve had at the hands of the Canadian Access to Information process, I’m viewing this release as a form of karmic balancing. I may have to adjust my dissertation’s argument to account for this new information, but probably not (see point #1).
4. Does anyone else find all the angst about the loss of face in the international community bizarre? For all the advances of the past several hundred years (a United Nations, democratic countries around the world), our diplomacy hasn’t left the 18th century. It’s the 21st century, and everyone is acting like the United States is Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons (or, for the more camp-inclined among us, Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions). Which would make Julian Assange either John Malkovich or Ryan Phillippe:
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Read it now! "From 'Radical Extremism' to 'Balanced Copyright': Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda"
In what has to be some kind of land-speed record, From 'Radical Extremism' to 'Balanced Copyright': Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda is now available in a print edition ($65) and online (free, under a Creative Commons license). Did I mention that the entire thing came together in just over four months? And that all the chapters were refereed?
My contribution, "North American Digital Copyright, Regional Governance, and the Potential for Variation," is also available for download. It's all very exciting: there's nothing like having your first refereed contribution come out just as you're finishing the entire dissertation.
I haven't had a chance to read the other chapters yet, but if they come anywhere close to approaching the quality of the presentations made by several contributors at the book launch last Thursday, the whole book is going to be a vital contribution to the immediate political debate over Bill C-32 and the long-run academic debate over Canadian copyright.
Enjoy!
My contribution, "North American Digital Copyright, Regional Governance, and the Potential for Variation," is also available for download. It's all very exciting: there's nothing like having your first refereed contribution come out just as you're finishing the entire dissertation.
I haven't had a chance to read the other chapters yet, but if they come anywhere close to approaching the quality of the presentations made by several contributors at the book launch last Thursday, the whole book is going to be a vital contribution to the immediate political debate over Bill C-32 and the long-run academic debate over Canadian copyright.
Enjoy!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Book launch! From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright": Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda
I've been quiet on the blog lately, distracted by paying work (not related to copyright), finishing up the dissertation and applying for postdocs and the like, but I couldn't let this pass without notice. Michael Geist has put together a ridiculously well-timed edited collection of essays on Canadian digital copyright, From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright": Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda, and yours truly has a chapter in it.
In it, I examine the potential for Canada, Mexico and the United States to implement autonomous copyright policies (specifically those related to the WIPO Internet treaties and the legal protection of technological protection measures). In a nutshell, I conclude that these countries' decisions around whether and how to implement are shaped mainly by domestic political, economic and institutional imperatives (e.g., which groups are invited to the negotiating table). In other words, even decisions to implement U.S.-style copyright laws in Canada or Mexico are rooted in domestic considerations.
My alternate pitch, to family and friends: It's basically my dissertation boiled down to 20 pages. So if you want to know how I've spent the past five-plus years but don't want to slog through the 300 closely argued pages of my dissertation, check it out!
This chapter is particularly exciting for me, as it represents my first substantial contribution to the academic literature. I've seen my name in print many times over the past 15 years, but seeing it in a book, surrounded by contributions from so many fantastically smart people, will be a highlight.
Even better: there's going to be a book launch, this Thursday afternoon (October 14) at 3:30 p.m. at the University of Ottawa (Room 12102, Desmarais Building, 55 Laurier Avenue East). I'll be on a panel, along with Michael Geist, Elizabeth Judge, Ian Kerr, David Lametti and Teresa Scassa, discussing our chapters. And there'll be a reception afterward! Feel free to stop by and say hi.
In it, I examine the potential for Canada, Mexico and the United States to implement autonomous copyright policies (specifically those related to the WIPO Internet treaties and the legal protection of technological protection measures). In a nutshell, I conclude that these countries' decisions around whether and how to implement are shaped mainly by domestic political, economic and institutional imperatives (e.g., which groups are invited to the negotiating table). In other words, even decisions to implement U.S.-style copyright laws in Canada or Mexico are rooted in domestic considerations.
My alternate pitch, to family and friends: It's basically my dissertation boiled down to 20 pages. So if you want to know how I've spent the past five-plus years but don't want to slog through the 300 closely argued pages of my dissertation, check it out!
This chapter is particularly exciting for me, as it represents my first substantial contribution to the academic literature. I've seen my name in print many times over the past 15 years, but seeing it in a book, surrounded by contributions from so many fantastically smart people, will be a highlight.
Even better: there's going to be a book launch, this Thursday afternoon (October 14) at 3:30 p.m. at the University of Ottawa (Room 12102, Desmarais Building, 55 Laurier Avenue East). I'll be on a panel, along with Michael Geist, Elizabeth Judge, Ian Kerr, David Lametti and Teresa Scassa, discussing our chapters. And there'll be a reception afterward! Feel free to stop by and say hi.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Access to Information by the Numbers (II)
More success! Last week, after waiting almost three years, I finally received a response to my Access to Information request from Foreign Affairs and International Trade. A bit beyond the 30 calendar days that the request is supposed to take? Um, yeah.
Funny story, though. I made this request at the very beginning of my PhD research. So I guess it’s only fitting that it should show up in my mailbox – wait for it – the day before I completed a first draft of my entire dissertation.
The symmetry is enough to bring a tear to one’s eye, or a palm to one’s face.
It gets better! In the time it took me, a lowly PhD student, to travel to two countries, interview scores of people, and put together a three-hundred-page (sorry, dissertation committee: I know that’s a lot of reading) dissertation, they couldn’t even complete the entire request:
Quick update: For some reason, while reading through DFAIT's Access to Information response, this Simpsons moment sprang to mind. I have no idea why.
Funny story, though. I made this request at the very beginning of my PhD research. So I guess it’s only fitting that it should show up in my mailbox – wait for it – the day before I completed a first draft of my entire dissertation.
The symmetry is enough to bring a tear to one’s eye, or a palm to one’s face.
It gets better! In the time it took me, a lowly PhD student, to travel to two countries, interview scores of people, and put together a three-hundred-page (sorry, dissertation committee: I know that’s a lot of reading) dissertation, they couldn’t even complete the entire request:
“We wish to advise you that we are presently undergoing consultations with other government institutions. Once the consultation process has been concluded, we will advise you accordingly.”Really, they should just repeal the Access to Information Act: it would save taxpayers a bit of coin, and it would be more honest than the system they’re running now.
Quick update: For some reason, while reading through DFAIT's Access to Information response, this Simpsons moment sprang to mind. I have no idea why.
Friday, July 30, 2010
The Great Canadian Census Debate: The Economists Call It
It looks like we can call it a day on the Great Canadian Mandatory Long-Form Census Debate: the economists have weighed in, and they think the government's wrong, wrong, wrong!
Today’s Globe and Mail reports that 76 percent of economists surveyed by the Canadian Association for Business Economics say that it’s a bad idea to scrap the long-form census. Out of 252 economists surveyed, only 14 thought that it was a good policy. Of course one of these 14 was the Fraser Institute’s Niels Veldhuis, who has demonstrated a less-than-encouraging understanding of statistical analysis in his creative defence of the government’s position (Check out Stephen Gordon's merciless takedown of the Fraser Institute).
Does this mean we can tentatively conclude that about five percent of economists don’t understand statistics? Or, as Gordon might put it, that they are not part of "the community of evidence-based policy analysts"?
But the truly bizarre finding from this poll? That 30 economists surveyed didn’t know whether or not scrapping the mandatory long-form census was a good idea.
Really? In a field that worships numbers and statistical analyses, in a debate that has galvanized the Canadian research community, 30 economists didn’t know whether scrapping the long-form census is a good idea or not? That’s 30 economists who either haven’t been paying attention to the policy-wonk equivalent of a monthlong Lollapalooza festival, or who can’t be bothered to recall their first-year stats training.
Can anyone explain this? Are we witnessing the birth of a new subfield of economics that rejects the possibility of knowledge through statistical analysis? (I hope so; a postmodern turn in economics would be great fun.) Were these 30 economists actually sociologists in disguise? Enquiring minds, etc., etc.
Today’s Globe and Mail reports that 76 percent of economists surveyed by the Canadian Association for Business Economics say that it’s a bad idea to scrap the long-form census. Out of 252 economists surveyed, only 14 thought that it was a good policy. Of course one of these 14 was the Fraser Institute’s Niels Veldhuis, who has demonstrated a less-than-encouraging understanding of statistical analysis in his creative defence of the government’s position (Check out Stephen Gordon's merciless takedown of the Fraser Institute).
Does this mean we can tentatively conclude that about five percent of economists don’t understand statistics? Or, as Gordon might put it, that they are not part of "the community of evidence-based policy analysts"?
But the truly bizarre finding from this poll? That 30 economists surveyed didn’t know whether or not scrapping the mandatory long-form census was a good idea.
Really? In a field that worships numbers and statistical analyses, in a debate that has galvanized the Canadian research community, 30 economists didn’t know whether scrapping the long-form census is a good idea or not? That’s 30 economists who either haven’t been paying attention to the policy-wonk equivalent of a monthlong Lollapalooza festival, or who can’t be bothered to recall their first-year stats training.
Can anyone explain this? Are we witnessing the birth of a new subfield of economics that rejects the possibility of knowledge through statistical analysis? (I hope so; a postmodern turn in economics would be great fun.) Were these 30 economists actually sociologists in disguise? Enquiring minds, etc., etc.
Friday, July 23, 2010
What the Census debacle can tell us about governmental accountability
Jeffrey Simpson nails it today when he notes that the scrapping of the mandatory long-form census is a “temporary triumph over ideology.” (Well, one can hope that any such triumph would be temporary, but I’m feeling pessimistic today.)
This whole census mess raises another point that I haven’t seen discussed much. Namely, we’re about to find out what, if anything, can convince a Canadian government to change its mind on something.
Not just this government. The Harper Conservatives may be pushing the limits as to what is possible in our Parliamentary system (Exhibit A: choosing prorogation, rather than face a vote of confidence in the House), but they’re not breaking any laws. The powers that they’re using are available to any government, doubly so for a majority government. Custom and tradition are no match for someone with the ability and will to ruthlessly use the rules to their advantage.
On most issues, you can find reputable people supporting one side or the other (yes, even in copyright, despite the rhetoric). This census debate is different because of the nearly unprecedented diversity of voices opposing the decision: business groups and NGOs, provinces and territories, all statisticians, pretty much every economist and social scientist I can think of, Statistics Canada itself. All serious think tanks with even a basic understanding or respect for statistics and facts (which would exclude the Fraser Institute, based on the comment reported here, which would have gotten a failing grade in any introductory statistics course) are against the decision.
On the other side, you have Stephen Harper.
So, what might cause Harper to change his mind, especially if, as Simpson writes, this decision is based on ideology and not facts?
I can think of three things that could convince a government that prefers ideological arguments to rational, fact-based ones. (Hint: facts won’t do it.) The first is that the opposition could tie up any changes in committees, which are controlled by the opposition because they have the majority of seats in Parliament. Of course, all you have to do is introduce changes via regulation to get by that one, and that’s what we’ve seen here.
The second is a worry that the issue would hurt them in an general election. In theory, minority governments are susceptible to this type of pressure, but a vote of no confidence is like a nuclear bomb: the opposition can’t deploy it to thwart every thing they don’t like, and there’s always the possibility that that bomb might (pardon the pun) blow up in their faces if they lose the election. However, if all this unpleasantness rubs enough voters the wrong way, then the government might back down.
The third reason they might back down is if the party’s financial backers threaten to withdraw funding. However, I understand that the Conservative party’s funding now largely comes from individual donors. As a result, I think that any collapse in party revenues would be related to a drop in Conservative support.
Unlike the U.S. political system, which was designed to avoid concentrating excessive power in the hands of one person, the Canadian system has no such checks and balances. Previously, an independent public service was seen as a check on the government, as was the Governor General. But that’s tradition, not a hard and fast rule. At the end of the day, the only thing holding any Canadian government in check is fears about an upcoming election. If you’re the government, no fears = no worries.
What should give supporters of all parties pause is that these constraints will be much, much weaker for a majority government of any party: Liberals and New Democrats are no more or less virtuous than Conservatives. The farther you are from an election, the freer you are to do whatever you want, evidence and opposition be damned.
As someone who’s kind of a fan of popular control of one’s government, I find that even more worrying than the scrapping of the mandatory long-form census.
Post-script: As I write this, Donald Savoie is talking about this very issue on The Current (available here soonish). I’ll have to pick up his latest book when I finish my dissertation’s first draft.
This whole census mess raises another point that I haven’t seen discussed much. Namely, we’re about to find out what, if anything, can convince a Canadian government to change its mind on something.
Not just this government. The Harper Conservatives may be pushing the limits as to what is possible in our Parliamentary system (Exhibit A: choosing prorogation, rather than face a vote of confidence in the House), but they’re not breaking any laws. The powers that they’re using are available to any government, doubly so for a majority government. Custom and tradition are no match for someone with the ability and will to ruthlessly use the rules to their advantage.
On most issues, you can find reputable people supporting one side or the other (yes, even in copyright, despite the rhetoric). This census debate is different because of the nearly unprecedented diversity of voices opposing the decision: business groups and NGOs, provinces and territories, all statisticians, pretty much every economist and social scientist I can think of, Statistics Canada itself. All serious think tanks with even a basic understanding or respect for statistics and facts (which would exclude the Fraser Institute, based on the comment reported here, which would have gotten a failing grade in any introductory statistics course) are against the decision.
On the other side, you have Stephen Harper.
So, what might cause Harper to change his mind, especially if, as Simpson writes, this decision is based on ideology and not facts?
I can think of three things that could convince a government that prefers ideological arguments to rational, fact-based ones. (Hint: facts won’t do it.) The first is that the opposition could tie up any changes in committees, which are controlled by the opposition because they have the majority of seats in Parliament. Of course, all you have to do is introduce changes via regulation to get by that one, and that’s what we’ve seen here.
The second is a worry that the issue would hurt them in an general election. In theory, minority governments are susceptible to this type of pressure, but a vote of no confidence is like a nuclear bomb: the opposition can’t deploy it to thwart every thing they don’t like, and there’s always the possibility that that bomb might (pardon the pun) blow up in their faces if they lose the election. However, if all this unpleasantness rubs enough voters the wrong way, then the government might back down.
The third reason they might back down is if the party’s financial backers threaten to withdraw funding. However, I understand that the Conservative party’s funding now largely comes from individual donors. As a result, I think that any collapse in party revenues would be related to a drop in Conservative support.
Unlike the U.S. political system, which was designed to avoid concentrating excessive power in the hands of one person, the Canadian system has no such checks and balances. Previously, an independent public service was seen as a check on the government, as was the Governor General. But that’s tradition, not a hard and fast rule. At the end of the day, the only thing holding any Canadian government in check is fears about an upcoming election. If you’re the government, no fears = no worries.
What should give supporters of all parties pause is that these constraints will be much, much weaker for a majority government of any party: Liberals and New Democrats are no more or less virtuous than Conservatives. The farther you are from an election, the freer you are to do whatever you want, evidence and opposition be damned.
As someone who’s kind of a fan of popular control of one’s government, I find that even more worrying than the scrapping of the mandatory long-form census.
Post-script: As I write this, Donald Savoie is talking about this very issue on The Current (available here soonish). I’ll have to pick up his latest book when I finish my dissertation’s first draft.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
What lobbyists do
In addition to copyright, my academic work focuses on how policy is made in Canada, the United States and Mexico. Which is why I found this account of how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce operates, by James Verini in the Washington Monthly, so fascinating. It's a must-read for anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of how issues are lobbied, and worth thinking about when considering the Canadian Chamber of Commerce's work on copyright and intellectual property (anyone know of a similar story on the Canadian Chamber of Commerce?).
There's a lot in here, but check out the following:
There's a lot in here, but check out the following:
I asked Donohue what, exactly, the Chamber does. “Two fundamental things,” he replied. “We’re advocates. Sure we do studies, sure we do events, sure we do meetings, sure we have all kinds of stuff, but we’re advocates.” And then he surprised me again with his candor. “The second thing we do is really more interesting,” he said. “We’re the reinsurance industry for individual industry associations and state chambers of commerce and people of that nature.” An example, said Donohue, was when Wall Street found itself on the defensive in opposing new banking regulations. “They can’t move forward, they can’t move back, or maybe they’re being overrun, and they’ll come to us and say, ‘Can we collect our reinsurance?’” he explained. “And then we build coalitions and go out and help them.”h/t talkingpointsmemo.
Loreena McKennitt's argument from authority
I’m in the home stretch of finishing a first draft of my dissertation – today I have to cut half of my closely argued, heavily cited justification for using historical institutionalism to theorize regional integration – so I don’t have a lot of time to spend on this. But I feel the need to weigh in on the Loreena McKennitt’s pro-copyright-reform op-ed that’s doing the rounds.
Geist and McOrmond have already addressed the substance of McKennitt’s argument. But what’s surprising is that there is so little to address. We have McKennitt, an accomplished musician, arguing that the Internet has made it harder for musicians to make a living, that the Internet is hurting industries that are dependent on the music industry, and that therefore we need copyright reform.
I’ve always been struck by the degree to which the copyright debate is driven by polemics, rather than empiricism, and McKennitt’s article does little to break this trend. The big hint that this is a polemic comes at the end, where McKennitt says that she welcomes “copyright reform legislation” without even talking about what, exactly, in Bill C-32 – the actual copyright reform legislation before Parliament – would support a “thriving creative environment where artists are paid and the communities where they live and work reap the rewards” (which sounds good to me).
No matter where you stand on copyright, it should be obvious to anyone that not all copyright laws are created equal. There is a difference between “copyright reform legislation” and “good copyright reform legislation,” even if “good” is in the eye of the beholder.
Yet McKennitt doesn’t tell the reader why (or even if) she likes this particular bill. Rather than engaging with critics on its substance, she relies exclusively on an argument from authority to dismiss “activists and academics” as using “crafted language” to attack artists with “so-called ‘user rights’.” Shades of James Moore’s “radical extremists” comment, and equally as helpful for Canadians wanting a substantive policy debate.
It also doesn’t help that McKennitt seems to be asking of copyright more than it can give. Copyright is supposed to maximize a) the creation; and b) the distribution of creative works. Because creative works are made from already-existing creative works, we have to ensure that copyright is not so restrictive as to limit future production. That’s it.
Justifying stronger copyright based on the wellbeing of popcorn sellers, HMV employees, “parts of the touring industry” and even artists’ quality of life (ask a garbage collector if their salary or hours are fair) serves only to confuse the issue. These activities matter to copyright only to the extent that they fulfill the end of maximizing the creation and distribution of creative works. If they do, then tell us why copyright is the best way to ensure that, say, sound engineers, get paid.
If these activities can be replaced without hindering creation or distribution (seriously: popcorn vendors?), then tell us why we should care. If they are valued for other reasons, then we can lobby our government to provide other means of support. The cultural industries are supported by much, much more than just copyright law.
I have no doubt that Ms. McKennitt is sincere in her views on the importance of copyright to both her livelihood and music production. But she’s not doing anyone, especially herself, any favours by not discussing the particulars of copyright law. As I’ve said before, make your case for particular changes. Show us how particular reforms will help improve the creation and distribution of creative works. Tell us why you think specific critiques of the bill are wrong.
But, please, don’t engage in ad hominem attacks while refusing to engage on the substance of the issue. As my favourite blogger, Ta-Nehisi Coates, put it yesterday:
Geist and McOrmond have already addressed the substance of McKennitt’s argument. But what’s surprising is that there is so little to address. We have McKennitt, an accomplished musician, arguing that the Internet has made it harder for musicians to make a living, that the Internet is hurting industries that are dependent on the music industry, and that therefore we need copyright reform.
I’ve always been struck by the degree to which the copyright debate is driven by polemics, rather than empiricism, and McKennitt’s article does little to break this trend. The big hint that this is a polemic comes at the end, where McKennitt says that she welcomes “copyright reform legislation” without even talking about what, exactly, in Bill C-32 – the actual copyright reform legislation before Parliament – would support a “thriving creative environment where artists are paid and the communities where they live and work reap the rewards” (which sounds good to me).
No matter where you stand on copyright, it should be obvious to anyone that not all copyright laws are created equal. There is a difference between “copyright reform legislation” and “good copyright reform legislation,” even if “good” is in the eye of the beholder.
Yet McKennitt doesn’t tell the reader why (or even if) she likes this particular bill. Rather than engaging with critics on its substance, she relies exclusively on an argument from authority to dismiss “activists and academics” as using “crafted language” to attack artists with “so-called ‘user rights’.” Shades of James Moore’s “radical extremists” comment, and equally as helpful for Canadians wanting a substantive policy debate.
It also doesn’t help that McKennitt seems to be asking of copyright more than it can give. Copyright is supposed to maximize a) the creation; and b) the distribution of creative works. Because creative works are made from already-existing creative works, we have to ensure that copyright is not so restrictive as to limit future production. That’s it.
Justifying stronger copyright based on the wellbeing of popcorn sellers, HMV employees, “parts of the touring industry” and even artists’ quality of life (ask a garbage collector if their salary or hours are fair) serves only to confuse the issue. These activities matter to copyright only to the extent that they fulfill the end of maximizing the creation and distribution of creative works. If they do, then tell us why copyright is the best way to ensure that, say, sound engineers, get paid.
If these activities can be replaced without hindering creation or distribution (seriously: popcorn vendors?), then tell us why we should care. If they are valued for other reasons, then we can lobby our government to provide other means of support. The cultural industries are supported by much, much more than just copyright law.
I have no doubt that Ms. McKennitt is sincere in her views on the importance of copyright to both her livelihood and music production. But she’s not doing anyone, especially herself, any favours by not discussing the particulars of copyright law. As I’ve said before, make your case for particular changes. Show us how particular reforms will help improve the creation and distribution of creative works. Tell us why you think specific critiques of the bill are wrong.
But, please, don’t engage in ad hominem attacks while refusing to engage on the substance of the issue. As my favourite blogger, Ta-Nehisi Coates, put it yesterday:
Overheated invective offers your adversaries a way out. You may have the superior argument, but a string of ad hominem allows your opponents to change the subject, and reduces you in his or her eyes, and in the eyes of your unswayed audience.This style of argument betrays a disrespect for people (including other musicians!) who happen to disagree with you, while giving your critics an excuse to dismiss your arguments entirely. If would be nice if the copyright debate could move beyond it.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Confessions of an agent of foreign influence
I couldn’t agree more with beleagured Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) director Richard Fadden’s warning that agents of foreign influence walk among us.
We certainly must be vigilant that Canadians don’t betray their country by coming under the influence of a foreign power. Canadian decisions must be made by Canadians, for Canadians. The influence of foreigners must be avoided at all costs.
We have to clean house, and the best way to do so is to identify all those Canadians who have accepted money, goods or services from foreign powers. Hey, gift grabbers: those trips and cheques don’t come for free. Fadden's saying that foreign powers want something in exchange for their largesse, and he should know: he’s the highly respected head of a highly respected spy agency.
So, in the spirit of patriotism and to prove my loyalty to our Beloved Country, I welcome the opportunity to confess my sins.
I am an agent of foreign influence.
Over the past year, I have accepted money – thousands of pesos! – from the Government of Mexico to “study” in that foreign country. While there, I met with government and business officials who discussed with me how Foreign copyright works in Mexico. I now have in my head their thoughts about what copyright law should look like; I fear I will never again be able to think pure, Canadian thoughts about copyright.
And they didn’t just give me money. The Government of this Foreign Power provided me not just with a plane ticket (on Mexicana!) to get to Mexico, but paid for my return ticket to ease my re-entry into Canadian society. They even let me fly Air Canada, undoubtedly so as not to arouse suspicion.
If that weren’t enough, they also provided me with free access to their health-care system. And, as the capper to their plot to turn me against my Country, somehow the Mexican Government managed to structure my time there to make me think that Mexicans are a great bunch of folks who live in a fascinating country with a climate that will certainly tempt me to defect when the temperature in Ottawa (which I love with all my heart) hits -40 Celsius this February.
It gets worse.
I’m not working only for Mexico. I’ve also accepted gifts from the most powerful country in the world, the United States of America. Tempted by a professor who is doubtlessly a double agent for this most powerful of Foreign Powers, I applied for and won a U.S. scholarship to study in Washington, D.C., for a summer.
Even though my loyalty is for sale to anyone who can help me finish my dissertation, I was shocked by the brazenness of this program, which goes by the innocuous title of The Washington Center, and brings together students from across the U.S. and (horrors!) around the world! In thinly veiled indoctrination sessions featuring U.S. Administration officials, congressional representatives and other luminaries, these propaganda-mouthing Foreign Influences baldly claimed that the whole purpose of the Washington Center was to “build understanding” among “Americans” and “our friends from other countries.”
It was terrible. The Washington Center actually places students at the heart of the U.S. political system (they placed me at the very centre of power, the Library of Congress), where they “learn about U.S. democracy” (read: are infected with Foreign Ideas) and make contacts (read: meet their handlers for when they return home). One American woman claimed publicly – where was her shame? – that these internships created links between the U.S. and other countries. If, down the road, a U.S. representative had a problem with Canada, for example, she could contact her Canadian ex-intern, who would likely be in a position of influence, to get a better read on the Canadian situation.
Incitement to treason? Or definitely incitement to treason?
A reasonable, if unpatriotic, person might argue that these lines of communication work both ways, but let’s be honest: Canadians aren’t the type of people who try to influence other countries. It’s the outside world of Foreign Influences that is trying to influence us away from our True Canadian Way.
Copping to my treasonous ways isn’t enough. Richard Fadden didn’t have the stones to do more than cast suspicion on all B.C. provincial and municipal politicians in a way that makes it impossible to clear their names (though I’m betting that if your skin burns easily, Fadden wasn’t talking about you).
But have no doubt about the size of my stones. I’m not afraid to name names.
The rot of Foreign Influence runs deep in the Canadian government, and the name of the treasonous government organization at the heart of the conspiracy to turn decent, pure Canadians into Agents of Foreign Influence is a little-known government agency called…
International Scholarships.
Administered by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (hey guys: you’re not fooling anyone by sticking “Canada” at the end of your name), International Scholarships’ Foreign Governments Awards Program puts unsuspecting Canadians under the thrall of such Foreign Countries as Russia and Norway!
It’s disgusting. For God’s sake, their website shamelessly boasts that they will put Canadians in touch with Foreign Governments offering Foreign Money to go to their Foreign Country and learn about their Foreign Ways. Oh, sure, International Scholarships also offer money to foreign students to come study in Canada, but that’s just so foreigners will be able to experience our character-building freezing winters and guileless ways. There’s nothing sinister about that.
Thank you, Richard Fadden, for helping me recognize the error of my ways. From this day forward, I will no longer accept money from Foreign Governments and will think only Canadian thoughts. I renounce my treasonous past and undertake to act only in the best interests of Canada, standing on guard against Foreign Influence, real and imagined, in defence of theLand of the Brave and Home of the Free True North Strong and Free.
We certainly must be vigilant that Canadians don’t betray their country by coming under the influence of a foreign power. Canadian decisions must be made by Canadians, for Canadians. The influence of foreigners must be avoided at all costs.
We have to clean house, and the best way to do so is to identify all those Canadians who have accepted money, goods or services from foreign powers. Hey, gift grabbers: those trips and cheques don’t come for free. Fadden's saying that foreign powers want something in exchange for their largesse, and he should know: he’s the highly respected head of a highly respected spy agency.
So, in the spirit of patriotism and to prove my loyalty to our Beloved Country, I welcome the opportunity to confess my sins.
I am an agent of foreign influence.
Over the past year, I have accepted money – thousands of pesos! – from the Government of Mexico to “study” in that foreign country. While there, I met with government and business officials who discussed with me how Foreign copyright works in Mexico. I now have in my head their thoughts about what copyright law should look like; I fear I will never again be able to think pure, Canadian thoughts about copyright.
And they didn’t just give me money. The Government of this Foreign Power provided me not just with a plane ticket (on Mexicana!) to get to Mexico, but paid for my return ticket to ease my re-entry into Canadian society. They even let me fly Air Canada, undoubtedly so as not to arouse suspicion.
If that weren’t enough, they also provided me with free access to their health-care system. And, as the capper to their plot to turn me against my Country, somehow the Mexican Government managed to structure my time there to make me think that Mexicans are a great bunch of folks who live in a fascinating country with a climate that will certainly tempt me to defect when the temperature in Ottawa (which I love with all my heart) hits -40 Celsius this February.
It gets worse.
I’m not working only for Mexico. I’ve also accepted gifts from the most powerful country in the world, the United States of America. Tempted by a professor who is doubtlessly a double agent for this most powerful of Foreign Powers, I applied for and won a U.S. scholarship to study in Washington, D.C., for a summer.
Even though my loyalty is for sale to anyone who can help me finish my dissertation, I was shocked by the brazenness of this program, which goes by the innocuous title of The Washington Center, and brings together students from across the U.S. and (horrors!) around the world! In thinly veiled indoctrination sessions featuring U.S. Administration officials, congressional representatives and other luminaries, these propaganda-mouthing Foreign Influences baldly claimed that the whole purpose of the Washington Center was to “build understanding” among “Americans” and “our friends from other countries.”
It was terrible. The Washington Center actually places students at the heart of the U.S. political system (they placed me at the very centre of power, the Library of Congress), where they “learn about U.S. democracy” (read: are infected with Foreign Ideas) and make contacts (read: meet their handlers for when they return home). One American woman claimed publicly – where was her shame? – that these internships created links between the U.S. and other countries. If, down the road, a U.S. representative had a problem with Canada, for example, she could contact her Canadian ex-intern, who would likely be in a position of influence, to get a better read on the Canadian situation.
Incitement to treason? Or definitely incitement to treason?
A reasonable, if unpatriotic, person might argue that these lines of communication work both ways, but let’s be honest: Canadians aren’t the type of people who try to influence other countries. It’s the outside world of Foreign Influences that is trying to influence us away from our True Canadian Way.
Copping to my treasonous ways isn’t enough. Richard Fadden didn’t have the stones to do more than cast suspicion on all B.C. provincial and municipal politicians in a way that makes it impossible to clear their names (though I’m betting that if your skin burns easily, Fadden wasn’t talking about you).
But have no doubt about the size of my stones. I’m not afraid to name names.
The rot of Foreign Influence runs deep in the Canadian government, and the name of the treasonous government organization at the heart of the conspiracy to turn decent, pure Canadians into Agents of Foreign Influence is a little-known government agency called…
International Scholarships.
Administered by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (hey guys: you’re not fooling anyone by sticking “Canada” at the end of your name), International Scholarships’ Foreign Governments Awards Program puts unsuspecting Canadians under the thrall of such Foreign Countries as Russia and Norway!
It’s disgusting. For God’s sake, their website shamelessly boasts that they will put Canadians in touch with Foreign Governments offering Foreign Money to go to their Foreign Country and learn about their Foreign Ways. Oh, sure, International Scholarships also offer money to foreign students to come study in Canada, but that’s just so foreigners will be able to experience our character-building freezing winters and guileless ways. There’s nothing sinister about that.
Thank you, Richard Fadden, for helping me recognize the error of my ways. From this day forward, I will no longer accept money from Foreign Governments and will think only Canadian thoughts. I renounce my treasonous past and undertake to act only in the best interests of Canada, standing on guard against Foreign Influence, real and imagined, in defence of the
Monday, June 28, 2010
Copyright as an instrument of industrial policy
As Russell McOrmond says, "A great post by David Eaves about the myth that Bill C-32 supports market forces." I'd go farther: Eaves is actually pointing out that copyright itself doesn't support market forces:
Digressing from the debate over C-32 to look at the bigger picture:
One of the overlooked realities of this debate is that copyright (or, rather, the regulation of the creative marketplace) is the last bastion of respectable industrial policy. In a world in which governments have given up trying to "pick winners" and shape the marketplace, this is the one area in which governments continue explicitly to shape the market to favour certain businesses and business models over others.
(Why this is so is a topic for another time; in my dissertation, I'm focusing largely on the role of path dependence in the development of copyright.)
To a surprising extent, the copyright debate isn't even about ends or means; it's a debate that has focused on one particular means. When we talk, we talk about copyright (a tool) rather than the creative marketplace (the thing that the tool is regulating). Instead of having a debate over the best way to improve the production and dissemination of creative works, we have a debate over whether people are pro- or anti-copyright. Debating copyright is kind of like construction workers debating whether they're pro- or anti-hammer, when they should be talking about the best way to build a house.
In my more policy-wonk-y moments, I wonder how the copyright debate would unfold if copyright were treated as a form of commercial regulation, and as as one possible means to an end, rather than as an end (the end?) unto itself.
I too believe that consumers should choose what they want. But if the Minister were a true free market advocate he wouldn't believe in copyright reform. Indeed, he wouldn't believe in copyright at all. In a true free market, there'd be no copyright legislation because the market would decide how to deal with intellectual property.Eaves correctly points out that: "Copyright law exists in order to regulate and shape a market because we don't think market forces work. In short, the Minister's legislation is creating the marketplace."
Digressing from the debate over C-32 to look at the bigger picture:
One of the overlooked realities of this debate is that copyright (or, rather, the regulation of the creative marketplace) is the last bastion of respectable industrial policy. In a world in which governments have given up trying to "pick winners" and shape the marketplace, this is the one area in which governments continue explicitly to shape the market to favour certain businesses and business models over others.
(Why this is so is a topic for another time; in my dissertation, I'm focusing largely on the role of path dependence in the development of copyright.)
To a surprising extent, the copyright debate isn't even about ends or means; it's a debate that has focused on one particular means. When we talk, we talk about copyright (a tool) rather than the creative marketplace (the thing that the tool is regulating). Instead of having a debate over the best way to improve the production and dissemination of creative works, we have a debate over whether people are pro- or anti-copyright. Debating copyright is kind of like construction workers debating whether they're pro- or anti-hammer, when they should be talking about the best way to build a house.
In my more policy-wonk-y moments, I wonder how the copyright debate would unfold if copyright were treated as a form of commercial regulation, and as as one possible means to an end, rather than as an end (the end?) unto itself.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
"Radical extremists" and the smearing of Michael Geist
Note: I actually wrote most of this early last week, but never got around to posting it, what with the dissertation and all. Too bad, since in light of Heritage Minister James Moore’s recent comments about the opponents of Bill C-32, it’s pretty timely.
Onward!
True story: Back when I was deciding on a dissertation topic, I settled on digital copyright policy as a way to try to understand North American regional governance because I thought it would be a technical issue of little interest to most people.
Finished laughing yet?
But seriously: Over the past four years, I’ve learned differently, but I have to say, as someone who came to the issue from the outside, so to speak, I am routinely shocked by the vitriol and personal attacks that characterize parts of the copyright debate.
As a political scientist, it’s particularly interesting (if dispiriting) to observe the misleading, highly personal, borderline-unprofessional attacks that have been launched against Michael Geist. Russell McOrmond has a few other examples on hand.
(Disclosure: I interviewed Geist for my dissertation – it would be pretty hard to write about the politics of Canadian copyright without doing so – and one of his colleagues at the University of Ottawa is on my dissertation committee. I may also be contributing to a Geist-edited volume. In keeping with the spirit of this posting, though, I hope you'll critique my argument, not my affiliations.)
They’ve been nasty. In some circles, he has been referred to as “he who shall not be named” and worse. This fellow's colourful tale of an Industry Canada-Michael Geist-Pamela Samuelson (an American law professor) conspiracy to strip authors of their human rights, complete with an org chart describing the conspiracy is unhinged, to say the least. Throw in the Freemasons and you’d have a fair-to-middling Dan Brown novel.
(For anyone interested in an actual study of Canadian copyright-related decision making, check out Simon Doyle’s Prey to Thievery. It’s based on Access to Information requests and interviews with many of the principals involved in the run-up to Bill C-60, the Liberal’s 2005 attempt to implement Canada’s treaty obligations. Turns out that the civil servants at both Industry and Canadian Heritage had serious misgivings about adopting DMCA-style copyright amendments in 2005. The conspiracy widens!)
And now we have Canadian Heritage Minister’s James Moore’s thinly veiled ad hominem attack on Geist.
These denigrating attacks are noteworthy because, as a fair reading of Geist’s work demonstrates, he’s not exactly a radical. I understand radicals; being in university, I know radicals, and Geist ain’t one. A radical would be someone who calls for the elimination of copyright and Canada’s withdrawal from the Berne Convention and TRIPS (though even this position is theoretically and empirically defensible). They’re not the type of person who calls for public consultations, proposes amendments to legislation and works with the bureaucracy and government officials to promote his views.
If his methods don’t scream radical, neither do his actual policy positions.
Far from calling for the impoverishment of authors, the need to balance the legitimate interests of the many groups involved in copyright reform is a common theme throughout Geist’s voluminous writings. Geist argues that this balance has been tipped too far in favour of copyright owners (who are primarily publishers and distributors, not creators) at the expense of those who use creative works, either as an end product, or as an input to the creation of future creative works.
In a way, the anti-Geist vitriol is a tribute to the rising strength of this new copyright interest group: individual Canadians. Copyright is a high-stakes game, and people don’t waste their time attacking people and views that don’t matter.
The upshot of all this is that Geist has become a convenient lightening rod for those interested in dismissing critics’ views without engaging them. It’s a high-risk strategy. If voters buy the vilification of all those opposed to Bill C-32 as "radical extremists," then Geist’s critics can win the debate. But there's also the possibility that voters may ask if the bill's proponents are engaging in character assassination rather than rational policy debate because the proponents' actual arguments aren't that convincing.
Onward!
True story: Back when I was deciding on a dissertation topic, I settled on digital copyright policy as a way to try to understand North American regional governance because I thought it would be a technical issue of little interest to most people.
Finished laughing yet?
But seriously: Over the past four years, I’ve learned differently, but I have to say, as someone who came to the issue from the outside, so to speak, I am routinely shocked by the vitriol and personal attacks that characterize parts of the copyright debate.
As a political scientist, it’s particularly interesting (if dispiriting) to observe the misleading, highly personal, borderline-unprofessional attacks that have been launched against Michael Geist. Russell McOrmond has a few other examples on hand.
(Disclosure: I interviewed Geist for my dissertation – it would be pretty hard to write about the politics of Canadian copyright without doing so – and one of his colleagues at the University of Ottawa is on my dissertation committee. I may also be contributing to a Geist-edited volume. In keeping with the spirit of this posting, though, I hope you'll critique my argument, not my affiliations.)
They’ve been nasty. In some circles, he has been referred to as “he who shall not be named” and worse. This fellow's colourful tale of an Industry Canada-Michael Geist-Pamela Samuelson (an American law professor) conspiracy to strip authors of their human rights, complete with an org chart describing the conspiracy is unhinged, to say the least. Throw in the Freemasons and you’d have a fair-to-middling Dan Brown novel.
(For anyone interested in an actual study of Canadian copyright-related decision making, check out Simon Doyle’s Prey to Thievery. It’s based on Access to Information requests and interviews with many of the principals involved in the run-up to Bill C-60, the Liberal’s 2005 attempt to implement Canada’s treaty obligations. Turns out that the civil servants at both Industry and Canadian Heritage had serious misgivings about adopting DMCA-style copyright amendments in 2005. The conspiracy widens!)
And now we have Canadian Heritage Minister’s James Moore’s thinly veiled ad hominem attack on Geist.
These denigrating attacks are noteworthy because, as a fair reading of Geist’s work demonstrates, he’s not exactly a radical. I understand radicals; being in university, I know radicals, and Geist ain’t one. A radical would be someone who calls for the elimination of copyright and Canada’s withdrawal from the Berne Convention and TRIPS (though even this position is theoretically and empirically defensible). They’re not the type of person who calls for public consultations, proposes amendments to legislation and works with the bureaucracy and government officials to promote his views.
If his methods don’t scream radical, neither do his actual policy positions.
Far from calling for the impoverishment of authors, the need to balance the legitimate interests of the many groups involved in copyright reform is a common theme throughout Geist’s voluminous writings. Geist argues that this balance has been tipped too far in favour of copyright owners (who are primarily publishers and distributors, not creators) at the expense of those who use creative works, either as an end product, or as an input to the creation of future creative works.
Those who claim to know what Geist really believes, evidence be damned, as Moore claims to in his speech, might want to recall how well all that soul-sensing worked out for George Dubya.
Geist's views are exactly as radical as the 1971 Economic Council of Canada report into copyright and intellectual property, which everybody interested in copyright should read, if only to mourn the extent to which the debate has deteriorated in the intervening four decades (annoyingly, it's not available online). The Economic Council argued that incentives to produce copyrightable works should not encourage either overproduction or overprotection.
Geist's views are exactly as radical as the 1971 Economic Council of Canada report into copyright and intellectual property, which everybody interested in copyright should read, if only to mourn the extent to which the debate has deteriorated in the intervening four decades (annoyingly, it's not available online). The Economic Council argued that incentives to produce copyrightable works should not encourage either overproduction or overprotection.
That’s an economic-y way of saying pretty much the same thing as Geist: a good copyright law should provide incentives to create without tilting the playing field too much in favour of any one interest group.
Unsurprisingly, some copyright interests refuse to concede the point of Geist – and of the Economic Council of Canada, and of every copyright law that’s ever been written – that users’ rights are an intrinsic part of copyright law, not an addition. Copyright is about dissemination, not just protection. At some point, too much protection will hinder dissemination and access. Currently, protection (so goes Geist’s argument, and he’s not alone) is hindering dissemination and access. Simple as that.
So, if Geist isn’t a fire-breathing radical, why the hate? Two reasons, I’d argue:
1. It’s all about money, and it’s nothing new. Every time a technological change creates a new interest group, these new groups inevitably come into conflict with the entrenched interests that had previously divided the copyright money jar amongst themselves. A new player in town means another group whose interests will conflict with the material interests of the old-boys club. As you can imagine, this political fight can get rough. Previously, it was VCR manufacturers horning in on the action. Before that, photocopiers. Before that, the recording and motion picture industries. And before them, the makers of piano rolls.
You get the idea.
This time around, individuals as a group are one of the main threats to the status quo. Digital technology and the Internet have lowered the cost of production and distribution, making individuals competitive with the industrial giants that previously were essential to getting creative works to the masses. Despite the fact that copyright has always affected individuals, individual users previously had not been represented in the debate.
In Canada, Geist has emerged as this interest group’s most effective spokesperson.Thanks to social-network technology and some canny positioning by Geist, users are now at the table, and their (legitimate) interests unsurprisingly clash with those of some creators and publishers/distributors. Quick example: If users have the right to control what they do with their legally purchased digital works, then obviously the copyright owner doesn’t.
2. Geist is effective. If Geist just stuck to writing his Toronto Star column or took the traditional academic route of publishing in obscure journals, established copyright interests wouldn’t spare him more than a letter to the editor. Instead, he not only knows his topic, he has proven himself a canny political operative. He was the first person in Canada to use effectively social-networking sites like Facebook for political purposes. He also clearly is interested in achieving what's possible: unlike true radicals, he’s interested in compromise. Michael Geist is no Maude Barlow.
Unsurprisingly, some copyright interests refuse to concede the point of Geist – and of the Economic Council of Canada, and of every copyright law that’s ever been written – that users’ rights are an intrinsic part of copyright law, not an addition. Copyright is about dissemination, not just protection. At some point, too much protection will hinder dissemination and access. Currently, protection (so goes Geist’s argument, and he’s not alone) is hindering dissemination and access. Simple as that.
So, if Geist isn’t a fire-breathing radical, why the hate? Two reasons, I’d argue:
1. It’s all about money, and it’s nothing new. Every time a technological change creates a new interest group, these new groups inevitably come into conflict with the entrenched interests that had previously divided the copyright money jar amongst themselves. A new player in town means another group whose interests will conflict with the material interests of the old-boys club. As you can imagine, this political fight can get rough. Previously, it was VCR manufacturers horning in on the action. Before that, photocopiers. Before that, the recording and motion picture industries. And before them, the makers of piano rolls.
You get the idea.
This time around, individuals as a group are one of the main threats to the status quo. Digital technology and the Internet have lowered the cost of production and distribution, making individuals competitive with the industrial giants that previously were essential to getting creative works to the masses. Despite the fact that copyright has always affected individuals, individual users previously had not been represented in the debate.
In Canada, Geist has emerged as this interest group’s most effective spokesperson.Thanks to social-network technology and some canny positioning by Geist, users are now at the table, and their (legitimate) interests unsurprisingly clash with those of some creators and publishers/distributors. Quick example: If users have the right to control what they do with their legally purchased digital works, then obviously the copyright owner doesn’t.
2. Geist is effective. If Geist just stuck to writing his Toronto Star column or took the traditional academic route of publishing in obscure journals, established copyright interests wouldn’t spare him more than a letter to the editor. Instead, he not only knows his topic, he has proven himself a canny political operative. He was the first person in Canada to use effectively social-networking sites like Facebook for political purposes. He also clearly is interested in achieving what's possible: unlike true radicals, he’s interested in compromise. Michael Geist is no Maude Barlow.
In a way, the anti-Geist vitriol is a tribute to the rising strength of this new copyright interest group: individual Canadians. Copyright is a high-stakes game, and people don’t waste their time attacking people and views that don’t matter.
The upshot of all this is that Geist has become a convenient lightening rod for those interested in dismissing critics’ views without engaging them. It’s a high-risk strategy. If voters buy the vilification of all those opposed to Bill C-32 as "radical extremists," then Geist’s critics can win the debate. But there's also the possibility that voters may ask if the bill's proponents are engaging in character assassination rather than rational policy debate because the proponents' actual arguments aren't that convincing.
Bill C-32: Copyright debate turns ugly. Again.
And here I was hoping that we could debate Bill C-32 rationally, if not calmly. Instead, we have our Minister of Canadian Heritage characterizing critics of Bill C-32 as: “Those absolutists out there, who are babyish in their approach to copyright legislation,” and who really want to see copyright destroyed. Who calls on people to “Make sure that those voices who try to find technical, non-sensical, fear-mongering reasons to oppose copyright reform are confronted every step of the way and they are defeated.”
Let’s leave aside the fact that if there are technical problems with C-32, we should hope that Parliament would fix them. Let's be clear: Minister Moore's attempted framing of the copyright debate as a battle between those who believe in copyright and those who don't is absolute nonsense. Copyright legislation always involves reaching a compromise among very disparate groups. What we're seeing right now is a debate between these groups, all of which have much to win and lose.
It’s not as simple as users v. creators. Copyright has never been about only making sure creators get paid. More often than not, it’s been about ensuring publishers have an incentive to distribute creators’ works, a means to the end of ensuring that books, movies, music and so on get produced and distributed .
In addition to creators, distributors and publishers, who still play an important role in helping creators be heard, must get their due: your record companies, Hollywood, ISPs, book publishers, Apple, and so forth.
A good bill would also take into account the creators of tomorrow, who depend on easy access to existing works to create their own books and music. It would minimize the roadblocks to the creation of professors’ lesson plans, and make it as easy as possible for researchers and authors to get the books they need to conduct their research.
It would also ensure that no existing industry is protected from competition by a future, more efficient business model.
Of course, it must also take into account those individuals who listen to music, read books, use computer programs and watch movies. This is more than mere consumption: it is the very way in which we advance ourselves as a society. Anything that needlessly limits our access to information presents a fundamental problem for our society.
And, contrary to what Heritage Minister Moore suggests, it’s not as if there’s a whole lot of evidence that stronger copyright protection even encourages production. I hesitate to say this, because doing so is a one-way ticket out of the respectable policy debate, but it is a completely defensible position, both empirically and theoretically, that we’d be better off with no copyright, or a drastically different copyright regime. Opponents of this view have to (or should have to, I guess) address it through reasoned debate, not polemical assertions.
Given all these interests and legitimate conflicts, is it surprising that certain groups object to what’s in Bill C-32? Bill C-32 creates winners and losers. While I, as a creator and citizen, might object to the way Bill C-32 would override the limitations and exceptions that are integral to any copyright law by giving the final say on rights to whoever owns the digital lock on a work or device, I also know that there is a policy argument to be made for this view.
(The argument for the strong legal protection of Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) is as follows:
I would hope that we, as Canadians, expect better from our government. If Moore believes in his legislation (and, as I indicated, there is a legitimate policy argument to be made for it), then he should have the confidence to defend it on its own terms. Explain to us why you think that Bill C-32’s approach to TPMs is better than the bill proposed by the Liberal government in 2005 (which would have made it a crime to break a lock only for the purposes of violating the underlying copyright).
Make the case. But, please, dial down the rhetoric, and start treating all your constituents with respect.
Let’s leave aside the fact that if there are technical problems with C-32, we should hope that Parliament would fix them. Let's be clear: Minister Moore's attempted framing of the copyright debate as a battle between those who believe in copyright and those who don't is absolute nonsense. Copyright legislation always involves reaching a compromise among very disparate groups. What we're seeing right now is a debate between these groups, all of which have much to win and lose.
It’s not as simple as users v. creators. Copyright has never been about only making sure creators get paid. More often than not, it’s been about ensuring publishers have an incentive to distribute creators’ works, a means to the end of ensuring that books, movies, music and so on get produced and distributed .
In addition to creators, distributors and publishers, who still play an important role in helping creators be heard, must get their due: your record companies, Hollywood, ISPs, book publishers, Apple, and so forth.
A good bill would also take into account the creators of tomorrow, who depend on easy access to existing works to create their own books and music. It would minimize the roadblocks to the creation of professors’ lesson plans, and make it as easy as possible for researchers and authors to get the books they need to conduct their research.
It would also ensure that no existing industry is protected from competition by a future, more efficient business model.
Of course, it must also take into account those individuals who listen to music, read books, use computer programs and watch movies. This is more than mere consumption: it is the very way in which we advance ourselves as a society. Anything that needlessly limits our access to information presents a fundamental problem for our society.
And, contrary to what Heritage Minister Moore suggests, it’s not as if there’s a whole lot of evidence that stronger copyright protection even encourages production. I hesitate to say this, because doing so is a one-way ticket out of the respectable policy debate, but it is a completely defensible position, both empirically and theoretically, that we’d be better off with no copyright, or a drastically different copyright regime. Opponents of this view have to (or should have to, I guess) address it through reasoned debate, not polemical assertions.
Given all these interests and legitimate conflicts, is it surprising that certain groups object to what’s in Bill C-32? Bill C-32 creates winners and losers. While I, as a creator and citizen, might object to the way Bill C-32 would override the limitations and exceptions that are integral to any copyright law by giving the final say on rights to whoever owns the digital lock on a work or device, I also know that there is a policy argument to be made for this view.
(The argument for the strong legal protection of Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) is as follows:
- Canada’s treaty obligations require the imposition of “adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies” for the protection of TPMs.
- These TPMs are needed in order to encourage the wide digital distribution of creative works: movies, music, video games, books.
- Without this protection, Canada will enjoy a suboptimal level of digital production and distribution.
- Since TPMs can be broken, often quite easily, we have to outlaw all tools that can break TPMs (adequate legal protection).
- Finally, crucially, the social benefit from doing all this outweighs the social costs, such as the restriction of existing rights and allowing the owners of these digital locks, rather than copyright law, to set the terms on which people can access and use even works they have legally purchased.)
I would hope that we, as Canadians, expect better from our government. If Moore believes in his legislation (and, as I indicated, there is a legitimate policy argument to be made for it), then he should have the confidence to defend it on its own terms. Explain to us why you think that Bill C-32’s approach to TPMs is better than the bill proposed by the Liberal government in 2005 (which would have made it a crime to break a lock only for the purposes of violating the underlying copyright).
Make the case. But, please, dial down the rhetoric, and start treating all your constituents with respect.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Access to Information by the Numbers
Following up on a previous post:
Number of copyright bills that have been introduced since my initial request: 2
Number of pages finally received: 76
Number of pages completely redacted for reasons of international relations, federal-provincial affairs, government operations, solicitor-client privilege, and/or personal information: 27
Number of pages excluded because they were deemed not relevant: 8
Total number of pages with some kind of copyright-related information on them: 41
Total number of pages consisting mainly of articles that you could get in a couple of hours surfing the net: 21 (fully half of the non-redacted pages)
Total number of forwarded emails included in this package that contained only a (publicly available) media or newswire article: 3 (7 pages)
Total number of pages taken up by a 1995 statement by the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, that is freely available on the Web: 14
Total number of pages of emails scheduling a 2007 Deputy Minister-level copyright meeting: 2
Number of pages included from a 2005 Media Analysis Report on the introduction of Bill C-60: 10
Of the seven journalists named in this Report as having written more than one article on copyright between April 16 and August 11, 2005, number whose names were not redacted (because doing so would reveal “personal information” – even though the articles are generally available): 0
Number of memos included in the package: 6
Number of memos whose subject line was not redacted: 0
Total amount by which the PCO’s work on this Access to Information request will improve Canadians’ understanding of how their government works, and what decisions are being taken in Canadians’ names: 0
Amount of time, in seconds, that I would recommend a PhD student spend on Access to Information requests, unless they have access to a ringer who does this kind of thing professionally: 0
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
No good deed goes unpunished
Personally, if someone explained to me that they were late in replying to an offer of admission to a Masters program because, "I'm in rural Tanzania teaching kids to read and my Internet access is a bit spotty," I'd give them a scholarship, not put them on a waiting list.
But that's just me.
But that's just me.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Canadian copyright: Room to maneuver?
As I mentioned in my previous post, on Thursday I presented a paper – essentially my dissertation’s argument compressed into 25 pages – at the Canadian Political Science Association's annual conference. Great, insightful comments from our discussant, York University Professor Ricardo Grinspun. I was especially gratified by the interest in my paper from the audience. I still remember getting only one pity question (about Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want In Rainbows experiment) at my first-every conference presentation, three or four years ago to the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States. The lack of questions, I think, said more about my unfocused paper (one of my professors at Carleton believes that PhD students shouldn’t present anything until the end of their dissertation, and it’s not too hard to see why), but even negative feedback is better than indifference.
Prof. Grinspun’s main comment about my paper was about my conclusion – that Canada, Mexico and the U.S. retain significant policy autonomy with respect to copyright policy. Typically, the U.S. offers countries better access to its market in exchange for those countries implementing U.S.-style copyright reforms. Thing is, the NAFTA already guarantees Canada and Mexico this access. As a result, it’s harder for the U.S. to link copyright reform to anything, and so domestic factors become relatively more important than global or regional factors.
Grinspun correctly pointed out that regardless of this domestic autonomy, the reality is that the United States has defined (through its influence on the WIPO treaty process) the parameters of what we think of as digital-copyright reform (e.g., to include legal protection for digital locks and making available provisions). He suggested (and I’m paraphrasing quite a lot here) that the evidence seems to indicate that Canada and Mexico are moving toward a U.S.-style copyright regime, only at different speeds.
Certainly, Bill C-32, as it stands, gives the U.S. and the content industries pretty much everything they were looking for with respect to to the legal protection of technological protection measures (TPMs), although, interestingly, there is no “notice-and-takedown” regime for ISP liability in the bill. I think my response to Prof. Grinspun’s comments would emphasize the process, not the outcome. There is certainly a push toward U.S.-style copyright policy, from the U.S. itself as well as the content industries more generally. But there is no one-way street toward harmonization. Canada and Mexico have a choice in the matter.
If I had to boil down the paper to three points, it would be these:
In Canada, if my reading of the situation is correct, Bill C-61’s DMCA-like TPM provisions was at least partly the result of a political calculation that the United States need to be (or should be) satisfied by Canadian actions on this issue. In 2005, with Bill C-60, the Liberal government came to a different conclusion. (Domestic factors also matter here, as well: Bill C-32 wasn’t unveiled in the Montreal offices of U.S. multinational Electronic Arts for nothing: this bill is a huge win for the video-game industry.)
So, what does this mean for the debate over Bill C-32? First, it would be kind of silly to argue that the United States has had nothing to do with the TPM provisions in C-32; I hope nobody does. But (and I don’t think I’m talking semantics here) more important is the government perception of what the bill means for Canada-U.S. relations, and for specific sectors of Canadian industry.
Second, and related to the first point, Canadian governments have a lot of room to maneuver on the issue of TPMs, should they choose to use it. And there's room for lots of legitimate policy disagreement on whether or not Canada should have followed the U.S. lead on this issue.
Prof. Grinspun’s main comment about my paper was about my conclusion – that Canada, Mexico and the U.S. retain significant policy autonomy with respect to copyright policy. Typically, the U.S. offers countries better access to its market in exchange for those countries implementing U.S.-style copyright reforms. Thing is, the NAFTA already guarantees Canada and Mexico this access. As a result, it’s harder for the U.S. to link copyright reform to anything, and so domestic factors become relatively more important than global or regional factors.
Grinspun correctly pointed out that regardless of this domestic autonomy, the reality is that the United States has defined (through its influence on the WIPO treaty process) the parameters of what we think of as digital-copyright reform (e.g., to include legal protection for digital locks and making available provisions). He suggested (and I’m paraphrasing quite a lot here) that the evidence seems to indicate that Canada and Mexico are moving toward a U.S.-style copyright regime, only at different speeds.
Certainly, Bill C-32, as it stands, gives the U.S. and the content industries pretty much everything they were looking for with respect to to the legal protection of technological protection measures (TPMs), although, interestingly, there is no “notice-and-takedown” regime for ISP liability in the bill. I think my response to Prof. Grinspun’s comments would emphasize the process, not the outcome. There is certainly a push toward U.S.-style copyright policy, from the U.S. itself as well as the content industries more generally. But there is no one-way street toward harmonization. Canada and Mexico have a choice in the matter.
If I had to boil down the paper to three points, it would be these:
- The United States has set the parameters of what is considered to be legitimate debate when we talk about copyright reform. That was the point of the WIPO Internet treaties.
- But: In the absence of strong regional governance of copyright and the ability of the United States to credibly link copyright reform with something the other two countries want*, Canada and Mexico retain significant policy autonomy. Whether they choose to exercise it is, of course, another question.
- The decision to follow the U.S. lead or not is influenced significantly by domestic factors.
In Canada, if my reading of the situation is correct, Bill C-61’s DMCA-like TPM provisions was at least partly the result of a political calculation that the United States need to be (or should be) satisfied by Canadian actions on this issue. In 2005, with Bill C-60, the Liberal government came to a different conclusion. (Domestic factors also matter here, as well: Bill C-32 wasn’t unveiled in the Montreal offices of U.S. multinational Electronic Arts for nothing: this bill is a huge win for the video-game industry.)
So, what does this mean for the debate over Bill C-32? First, it would be kind of silly to argue that the United States has had nothing to do with the TPM provisions in C-32; I hope nobody does. But (and I don’t think I’m talking semantics here) more important is the government perception of what the bill means for Canada-U.S. relations, and for specific sectors of Canadian industry.
Second, and related to the first point, Canadian governments have a lot of room to maneuver on the issue of TPMs, should they choose to use it. And there's room for lots of legitimate policy disagreement on whether or not Canada should have followed the U.S. lead on this issue.
* The U.S. isn't the only country that plays the copyright linkage game: In the ongoing Canada-EU trade negotiations, the EU is pushing for Canada to reform its copyright laws to make them more to the EU's liking; they seem to be quite happy with C-32. As always, the most effective pressure for Canadian copyright reform comes from abroad.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Shameless self-promotion and the future of journalism
As you may have heard, yesterday I presented a paper on North American digital copyright policy at the Canadian Political Science Association annual conference. It's nice to be noticed, but boo to the NDP: the quote about the Americans deals with the Conservatives' 2008 bill, not the current bill. That kind of changes things, doesn't it? (It's almost as if the NDP researchers didn't read the paper, not even the section the quote comes from. If that's the case, I'm really, really hurt.)
I don't mind my research being used for partisan purposes, but at least get your facts straight, kids.
The NDP's sloppiness aside, I think the quote (taken in context, please) and paper speak for themselves (if they don't, feel free to ask: orangespaceb-at-gmail dot com), so the only thing I’ll say is that it’s great to see journalists like David Akin paying attention to what’s going on in academia. Off the top of my head, the Star’s Susan Delacourt and Macleans’ Paul Wells also deserve kudos in this area.
All you other journalists and newspapers: there’s gold in them thar academic papers! Many are based on in-depth primary research (i.e., interviews and document analyses) on issues of current interest (in Political Science, anyway; can’t speak to English Lit). With the ever-declining number of foreign correspondents and investigative journalists, it would be great to see Canadian newspapers start to pay more (i.e., any) attention to PhD students and recent grads. They’re experts in their subject area, and many are either conducting, or just returned from, field research all over the world. Done right, a smart newspaper could get some high-quality foreign reporting/investigative journalism on the cheap.
The NDP's sloppiness aside, I think the quote (taken in context, please) and paper speak for themselves (if they don't, feel free to ask: orangespaceb-at-gmail dot com), so the only thing I’ll say is that it’s great to see journalists like David Akin paying attention to what’s going on in academia. Off the top of my head, the Star’s Susan Delacourt and Macleans’ Paul Wells also deserve kudos in this area.
All you other journalists and newspapers: there’s gold in them thar academic papers! Many are based on in-depth primary research (i.e., interviews and document analyses) on issues of current interest (in Political Science, anyway; can’t speak to English Lit). With the ever-declining number of foreign correspondents and investigative journalists, it would be great to see Canadian newspapers start to pay more (i.e., any) attention to PhD students and recent grads. They’re experts in their subject area, and many are either conducting, or just returned from, field research all over the world. Done right, a smart newspaper could get some high-quality foreign reporting/investigative journalism on the cheap.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Getting ready to debate Canadian copyright: Things to keep in mind
So Canada is going to be getting a new copyright bill, sooner rather than later. The cynic in me says that this only means that a federal election is also going be happening sooner rather than later. (My inner cynic also believes that the government is timing the release of the bill to cause as much havoc as possible with my dissertation.)
Still, I’ve been thinking about how to evaluate the bill if/when it gets to Parliament, particularly regarding the treatment of technological protection measures and ISP liability, which I’ve been focusing on in my dissertation work. There’s likely to be much more heat than light created once the bill hits the fan. After all, you have high financial stakes, and powerful, well-funded lobbies out to portray self-interest as the national interest. (In fairness, in some cases, this equivalence may hold. In some cases.)
There’s also the reality that copyright hits the emotional hot buttons of property and culture, with an assist to fears of American domination. Oh, and there’s the fact that journalists in general are lost at sea with such a needlessly complex topic.
So, to help my own thinking, I’ve come up with three issues and three questions that I hope will help me keep my eye on the ball while ignoring the self-serving and emotional rhetoric we’re going to be hearing a lot of over the coming months. If you find them useful, all the better.
1. Clarity: Are the provisions that directly affect consumers clear and easy to understand?
Copyright laws are notoriously complicated and contradictory. That was okay when it was a commercial law that mainly governed intra-industry disputes among businesses that could afford to throw money away on copyright lawyers. But now that copyright rules directly affect individuals, individual Canadians should be able to understand what they are allowed and not allowed to do. If the rules are too complex, that’ll be a huge strike against the bill. We need a consumer-friendly Copyright Act. If it exempts non-commercial activities, so much the better.
Here’s a quick test: After reading the legislation, are the conditions under which you can and cannot upload a song to a personal blog clear? (Right now, they’re not.)
2. Debate: Don’t listen to anyone who uses the word “pirate”
The state places limits on all forms of property because while well-defined property rights are socially useful for the construction of free markets, which themselves are socially useful, society is not served by absolute property rights. Absolute property rights themselves can lead to abuses, like being able to get away with the murder of your neighbour. Rather, limits on property rights themselves serve a socially useful purpose. For a less dramatic example, consider health regulations that limit what can be put in our food. The question becomes: where to draw the line? More property rights are not necessarily better.
As with physical property, so with intellectual property and copyright. Copyright is a temporary (typically life of the author plus 50 years) and limited (exceptions for educational purposes, for example) because without these limits, copyright would be socially destructive. To take an easy example, all creators (of songs, books, films or class lectures) stand on the shoulders of those who came before. It is not in society’s interest to give past creators or copyright owners (most economically important copyrights are controlled by non-creators) a veto over the production of future creators. Clearly, rights in creative works, if we believe them to serve a socially useful purpose, should be something less than absolute: the question is, how much less?
So, by all means, let’s discuss the actual benefits and harms that come from unauthorized downloading of songs, movies and books. Let’s talk about what rights consumers should have to do with the things that they purchase. (Interestingly, proponents of strong copyright rarely note that a fundamental cornerstone of property rights is that the seller typically has no rights over how a legitimate buyer uses “their” product.) But let's keep in mind the substantial benefits that come from a robust set of exceptions and limitations to copyright.
It actually turns out that the evidence, both empirical and theoretical, of the effects of copyright on cultural production and dissemination is much more ambiguous than slurs like “pirates!” and “piracy!” would lead one to believe. Furthermore, a recent study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, casts doubt on the reliability of studies claiming losses due to counterfeiting and copyright violations. Moral of the story: always look at the study’s underlying assumptions, and who is funding the study.
The same rhetoric rule can be applied to anyone who asserts that they have a “right” to something. “Artists have a right to be paid for their work.” Sure, but how? And should the starving artist be treated the same as the global superstar? Empirically, only the biggest musical acts, for example, realize any significant income directly from copyright. As a heartless economist, I’d also point out that it’s socially inefficient to pay someone for something that they would have produced for free. Such as this blog posting, for example. And yet it’s covered by copyright, too.
Rights-talk doesn’t get us very far when trying to formulate public policy that affects many different interests. It just leads to a pissing match over which group has the bigger rights (creators? corporations? consumers? citizens?). Better to look at actual outcomes and try to satisfy as many people as possible.
Oh, and copyright? So not a left-right issue: both sides, at least in economics (which has much more to say about copyright than you’d think, given its relative absence from the debate), are equally hostile to it. On the left, certainly, you have the Marxist view that sees property itself as socially damaging. However, on the right, you’re just as likely to find those who see copyright as a government-enforced monopoly that restricts the marketplace, interferes with individual choice and gives far too much power to monopolistic corporate interests. In the middle, the honest, evidence-based debate is (or should be) over where to draw the lines; characterizing this line-drawing a left-right issue is just a cheap way to score rhetorical points.
3. Remember: Copyright is a means to an end, not an end in itself
At the end of the day, copyright is simply the means by which the government regulates the commercial market for creative works. While it has had the effect of privileging certain business models (hierarchical, top-down corporations whose existence depends on the artificial scarcity in copies created by copyright law) over others, the purpose of copyright is not to maintain these businesses.
Conservatives especially should see industry appeals for changes to copyright to protect specific businesses as appeals to protectionism that have nothing to do with the underlying purposes of copyright. So long as music, stories and essays continue to be created and distributed, in whatever form, it should not matter, from a creative, economic or societal perspective, if the record, publishing or movie industries as we know them change beyond recognition, all other things being equal.
Still, I’ve been thinking about how to evaluate the bill if/when it gets to Parliament, particularly regarding the treatment of technological protection measures and ISP liability, which I’ve been focusing on in my dissertation work. There’s likely to be much more heat than light created once the bill hits the fan. After all, you have high financial stakes, and powerful, well-funded lobbies out to portray self-interest as the national interest. (In fairness, in some cases, this equivalence may hold. In some cases.)
There’s also the reality that copyright hits the emotional hot buttons of property and culture, with an assist to fears of American domination. Oh, and there’s the fact that journalists in general are lost at sea with such a needlessly complex topic.
So, to help my own thinking, I’ve come up with three issues and three questions that I hope will help me keep my eye on the ball while ignoring the self-serving and emotional rhetoric we’re going to be hearing a lot of over the coming months. If you find them useful, all the better.
1. Clarity: Are the provisions that directly affect consumers clear and easy to understand?
Copyright laws are notoriously complicated and contradictory. That was okay when it was a commercial law that mainly governed intra-industry disputes among businesses that could afford to throw money away on copyright lawyers. But now that copyright rules directly affect individuals, individual Canadians should be able to understand what they are allowed and not allowed to do. If the rules are too complex, that’ll be a huge strike against the bill. We need a consumer-friendly Copyright Act. If it exempts non-commercial activities, so much the better.
Here’s a quick test: After reading the legislation, are the conditions under which you can and cannot upload a song to a personal blog clear? (Right now, they’re not.)
2. Debate: Don’t listen to anyone who uses the word “pirate”
Rhetoric tends to muddy the waters of copyright debate. Most disturbing, for its tendency to shut down rational debate, is the accusation that someone is a "pirate" or that some activity is "piracy."
If you see or hear the word “pirate” or “piracy” in an article or interview about copyright, run away. Deployed by journalists and politicians, it demonstrates either laziness and a lack of understanding of what copyright is, and/or an unexplored bias in favour of a particular form of copyright.
If you hear it from a pundit or lobbyist, it demonstrates the same bias, an attempt to bypass rational discussion of the limits and utility of specific copyright rules by appealing to gut feelings about “property.” (And usually in support of a particular interest.) The implication is always the same. If you’re doing something I don’t like, you’re stealing something from me; or you don’t believe in property, so you must be a lefty pinko. Regardless, it’s a sure sign that the speaker or writer isn’t interested in a rational debate over the most socially useful construction of copyright.
Copyright law is about setting the lines that determine how and by whom creative works can be accessed and used. In other words, it's about how the state defines the specific property rules related to creative works. Except for the intangible nature of creative works, this is no different from how the state acts when creating any other property right.
If you hear it from a pundit or lobbyist, it demonstrates the same bias, an attempt to bypass rational discussion of the limits and utility of specific copyright rules by appealing to gut feelings about “property.” (And usually in support of a particular interest.) The implication is always the same. If you’re doing something I don’t like, you’re stealing something from me; or you don’t believe in property, so you must be a lefty pinko. Regardless, it’s a sure sign that the speaker or writer isn’t interested in a rational debate over the most socially useful construction of copyright.
Copyright law is about setting the lines that determine how and by whom creative works can be accessed and used. In other words, it's about how the state defines the specific property rules related to creative works. Except for the intangible nature of creative works, this is no different from how the state acts when creating any other property right.
Different people have different views about where these lines should be set. At the maximalist end, proponents of strong copyright argue that copyright ownership should resemble ownership of physical goods, like a house, providing a great deal of control to the copyright owner.
However, maximalist copyright control is not always best for society as a whole. All property rights are always set by the state and always contain limits. You may be allowed to own a gun (or maybe not), but you are not allowed to shoot your neighbour with it. And if you do shoot your neighbour, police can obtain a search warrant to enter your premises to look for the gun.
The state places limits on all forms of property because while well-defined property rights are socially useful for the construction of free markets, which themselves are socially useful, society is not served by absolute property rights. Absolute property rights themselves can lead to abuses, like being able to get away with the murder of your neighbour. Rather, limits on property rights themselves serve a socially useful purpose. For a less dramatic example, consider health regulations that limit what can be put in our food. The question becomes: where to draw the line? More property rights are not necessarily better.
As with physical property, so with intellectual property and copyright. Copyright is a temporary (typically life of the author plus 50 years) and limited (exceptions for educational purposes, for example) because without these limits, copyright would be socially destructive. To take an easy example, all creators (of songs, books, films or class lectures) stand on the shoulders of those who came before. It is not in society’s interest to give past creators or copyright owners (most economically important copyrights are controlled by non-creators) a veto over the production of future creators. Clearly, rights in creative works, if we believe them to serve a socially useful purpose, should be something less than absolute: the question is, how much less?
So, by all means, let’s discuss the actual benefits and harms that come from unauthorized downloading of songs, movies and books. Let’s talk about what rights consumers should have to do with the things that they purchase. (Interestingly, proponents of strong copyright rarely note that a fundamental cornerstone of property rights is that the seller typically has no rights over how a legitimate buyer uses “their” product.) But let's keep in mind the substantial benefits that come from a robust set of exceptions and limitations to copyright.
It actually turns out that the evidence, both empirical and theoretical, of the effects of copyright on cultural production and dissemination is much more ambiguous than slurs like “pirates!” and “piracy!” would lead one to believe. Furthermore, a recent study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, casts doubt on the reliability of studies claiming losses due to counterfeiting and copyright violations. Moral of the story: always look at the study’s underlying assumptions, and who is funding the study.
The same rhetoric rule can be applied to anyone who asserts that they have a “right” to something. “Artists have a right to be paid for their work.” Sure, but how? And should the starving artist be treated the same as the global superstar? Empirically, only the biggest musical acts, for example, realize any significant income directly from copyright. As a heartless economist, I’d also point out that it’s socially inefficient to pay someone for something that they would have produced for free. Such as this blog posting, for example. And yet it’s covered by copyright, too.
Rights-talk doesn’t get us very far when trying to formulate public policy that affects many different interests. It just leads to a pissing match over which group has the bigger rights (creators? corporations? consumers? citizens?). Better to look at actual outcomes and try to satisfy as many people as possible.
Oh, and copyright? So not a left-right issue: both sides, at least in economics (which has much more to say about copyright than you’d think, given its relative absence from the debate), are equally hostile to it. On the left, certainly, you have the Marxist view that sees property itself as socially damaging. However, on the right, you’re just as likely to find those who see copyright as a government-enforced monopoly that restricts the marketplace, interferes with individual choice and gives far too much power to monopolistic corporate interests. In the middle, the honest, evidence-based debate is (or should be) over where to draw the lines; characterizing this line-drawing a left-right issue is just a cheap way to score rhetorical points.
3. Remember: Copyright is a means to an end, not an end in itself
At the end of the day, copyright is simply the means by which the government regulates the commercial market for creative works. While it has had the effect of privileging certain business models (hierarchical, top-down corporations whose existence depends on the artificial scarcity in copies created by copyright law) over others, the purpose of copyright is not to maintain these businesses.
Conservatives especially should see industry appeals for changes to copyright to protect specific businesses as appeals to protectionism that have nothing to do with the underlying purposes of copyright. So long as music, stories and essays continue to be created and distributed, in whatever form, it should not matter, from a creative, economic or societal perspective, if the record, publishing or movie industries as we know them change beyond recognition, all other things being equal.
Similarly, if stronger copyright law can be shown to provide society with a net benefit, it should not be opposed on narrow ideological grounds.
Three questions
When I'm evaluating whatever the government proposes, I'll be asking myself the following three questions:
The coming debate over copyright is going to be filled with slurs, name-calling, emotionally charged rhetoric, and questionable evidence. This is par for the course, but it doesn’t have to be this way. It is possible to have a respectful, fact-based debate over copyright.
The cynic in me, however, says otherwise. It would be nice if, in the coming months, Canadians proved him wrong.
- How will these changes to the Copyright Act affect the creation and distribution of creative works?
- How will these changes affect Canadians’ ability to innovate?
- How will these changes affect Canadians’ existing rights to use and access creative works?
The coming debate over copyright is going to be filled with slurs, name-calling, emotionally charged rhetoric, and questionable evidence. This is par for the course, but it doesn’t have to be this way. It is possible to have a respectful, fact-based debate over copyright.
The cynic in me, however, says otherwise. It would be nice if, in the coming months, Canadians proved him wrong.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Canada's Access to Information Act leaves grad students out in the cold
When I get back to Ottawa in a few weeks, I have waiting for me a package of documents I requested from the Privy Council Office (PCO) about Canada's attempts to implement the 1996 WIPO Internet treaties. I asked for them through Canada's Access to Information process at least two years ago (if I recall correctly; it's been so long that I figured that I wouldn't be getting anything from them before I graduated).
Why the delay? According to the Globe and Mail, reporting on a report from the Access to Information Commissioner:
Why the delay? According to the Globe and Mail, reporting on a report from the Access to Information Commissioner:
The PCO receives a “D” ranking for posting some of the longest completion times in government. The council is also causing delays for access response times in other departments, which must seek PCO's advice on whether certain matters should be exempt as cabinet confidences.
This bottleneck is partly due to the fact that only four staff are assigned at PCO to manage the entire workload of deciding what is or is not a cabinet confidence.
At least I'm not alone.
Four staffers. It's almost as if the government and bureaucracy don't want to release any information. But that would be crazy talk.
As for what my wait got me, I'm not optimistic: My last information requests (they're all back in Ottawa, so I can't remember which departments were involved) got me a whole slew of press clippings and documents freely available on the government's websites.
There's a talent to filling out access requests to ensure that you get actual information in a timely(ish) manner. Simon Doyle got a fantastic book on the 2005 attempt to implement the WIPO Internet treaties out of his requests (I've used some of the files he received under the Access to Information Act, and his reporting will likely figure prominently in my Canadian case study), Michael Geist regularly finds some nice info, and Ken Rubin has made a career out of making access requests.
Each of these fellows, however, have one thing in common: they've been doing this for a long time. Doyle (whose book was based on his M.A. journalism thesis) was working as a reporter for the Hill Times, Geist has been following copyright and digital policy for over a decade as a professor at the University of Ottawa, and Rubin's name has been showing up in newspapers for as long as I can remember.
Graduate and doctoral students (a.k.a. the people who are supposed to be producing Canada's cutting-edge research) aren't so lucky. Not only are they new to the research game, the time-limited nature of their research (one-to-two years for a Master's student, three-to-four years for a PhD student) means that any information that they do get could easily show up after they've completed their degree.
And God forbid the researcher's request isn't sufficiently specific and has to re-file a request for the correct information. When a researcher has short timelines and a lot of balls in the air, the Access to Information process can be a one-shot proposition.
Either way, the government will have effectively waited out the scholar, making Access to Information requests an unreliable, if not completely useless, source for graduate and doctoral students. At least that's been my experience.
That the very people who think about how government does and should run are stymied and often kept completely from the information they need for sound analyses should concern anyone who likes intelligent policy and accountable government. There's something very wrong with Canada's Access to Information regime when finding out basic information about your democratically elected and accountable government is a talent and not a right.
Students and researchers: How useful has Canada's Access to Information regime been for your research? Have you found it as frustrating as me, or has it been a valuable source of information? Feel free to weigh in below.
Update, April 13, 2:26 p.m.: Ouch. I missed this chart, providing information-access grades for various government departments. None of the ones I've dealt with came off very well, except Industry (B, or "above average"): Privy Council Office (D, "below average"), Canadian Heritage (F, "unsatisfactory") and Foreign Affairs, which apparently broke their grading scheme (off chart, "red alert").
It looks like my big mistake was deciding to study something that touched on foreign affairs and the PCO, rather than, say Justice, and Citizenship and Immigration issues (both rated A, or "outstanding": congratulations to those responsible for doing a hard job so well). Of course, given the centralization of power in the hands of the prime minister, is there any federal-political subject of any importance that doesn't involve the PCO?
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Mexico copyright reform: Well, that was quick
Way back in November I blogged about the Coalición por el Acceso Legal a la Cultura (Coalition for Legal Access to Culture), which brought together industry and artists’ groups (actually, collection societies representing artists and various unions), the two big groups in Mexican copyright policy, to push for stronger copyright laws. I argued that this was a big deal, akin to labour and business groups getting together to argue joint positions on economic policy. While such cooperation and agreement among groups is not unusual in other countries, I was surprised by the extent to which the two sides, representing both foreign and domestic interests, seem to have fused their positions. With Mexican copyright’s two main stakeholders agreeing to try to agree, it seemed like stronger Mexican copyright laws were a good bet.
The coalition’s big demand was for authorities to be granted ex officio authority, that is, the right to make copyright-related arrests without waiting for a complaint from the party who’s copyright has been alleged to be violated. This, of course, would make it much easier and less expensive (that is, for the copyright owner) to actually enforce copyright.
Well, Alejandro at Bitácora de Darkness passes along the news that the Mexican Congress has approved amendments to Mexican copyright and intellectual property laws, as well as the Mexican penal code, to do just that, as well as increasing the fines for which violators are liable (El Universal story here). The reforms also (this is interesting) target consumers who knowingly buy bootlegged goods.
Five quick thoughts:
1. It’ll be interesting to see if the government actually uses these new powers. As anyone who’s ever been to Mexico knows, informal markets selling bootlegged goods are everywhere. Cracking down on them has the potential to create social unrest because: a) they employ a not-insignificant number of people in a country that doesn’t have the greatest track record of producing jobs; b) market runners, thanks to political and police corruption, have some pull in how laws get enforced, and can thus cause trouble; and c) in a country where almost half of the population lives below the official poverty line, authorized CDs and DVDs are unaffordable for your average consumer.
The coalition’s big demand was for authorities to be granted ex officio authority, that is, the right to make copyright-related arrests without waiting for a complaint from the party who’s copyright has been alleged to be violated. This, of course, would make it much easier and less expensive (that is, for the copyright owner) to actually enforce copyright.
Well, Alejandro at Bitácora de Darkness passes along the news that the Mexican Congress has approved amendments to Mexican copyright and intellectual property laws, as well as the Mexican penal code, to do just that, as well as increasing the fines for which violators are liable (El Universal story here). The reforms also (this is interesting) target consumers who knowingly buy bootlegged goods.
Five quick thoughts:
1. It’ll be interesting to see if the government actually uses these new powers. As anyone who’s ever been to Mexico knows, informal markets selling bootlegged goods are everywhere. Cracking down on them has the potential to create social unrest because: a) they employ a not-insignificant number of people in a country that doesn’t have the greatest track record of producing jobs; b) market runners, thanks to political and police corruption, have some pull in how laws get enforced, and can thus cause trouble; and c) in a country where almost half of the population lives below the official poverty line, authorized CDs and DVDs are unaffordable for your average consumer.
There's also the tiny problem of where the money is going to come from to enforce these laws: last I checked, the Mexican government had its hands full dealing with a drug war and the fallout from the global economic crisis.
2. These amendments support my contention (which will feature prominently in my dissertation) that copyright has yet to become a political issue in Mexico. Or, at the very least, consumer and user groups continue to have little or no influence on the making of Mexican copyright policy.
3. The copyright industries and allied groups seem to have had the field to themselves, as it were, on this one. It will be interesting to see what will happen when Mexico gets around to implementing rules on ISP liability, which will involve them dealing with Mexico's telecommunications industry and, therefore, the richest man in the world. That’ll be quite the heavyweight fight. (I'll also be watching to see the extent to which academics and civil society groups get involved.)
2. These amendments support my contention (which will feature prominently in my dissertation) that copyright has yet to become a political issue in Mexico. Or, at the very least, consumer and user groups continue to have little or no influence on the making of Mexican copyright policy.
3. The copyright industries and allied groups seem to have had the field to themselves, as it were, on this one. It will be interesting to see what will happen when Mexico gets around to implementing rules on ISP liability, which will involve them dealing with Mexico's telecommunications industry and, therefore, the richest man in the world. That’ll be quite the heavyweight fight. (I'll also be watching to see the extent to which academics and civil society groups get involved.)
4. On a related note, these reforms seem to be more concerned with today's problem -- physical bootlegging -- than with the online future (I'm not really sure how the amendments will affect things like peer-to-peer, for example, where the suppliers are as likely to be in Sweden as Tepito). That's another reason it'll be fascinating to see how Mexico decides to deal with ISP liability and other digital issues. In the long run, that's where the copyright action will be.
5. At the rate the situation is developing in Mexico, my Mexican dissertation case study will probably be out of date before I defend the damn thing. When it comes to copyright reform, obviously no one ever thinks of the lowly researcher.
5. At the rate the situation is developing in Mexico, my Mexican dissertation case study will probably be out of date before I defend the damn thing. When it comes to copyright reform, obviously no one ever thinks of the lowly researcher.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Get you ACTA text, right here!
I'm editing one of my dissertation case studies so I don't have time to look at it right now, but, for your reading pleasure, here's a leaked copy of the text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), dated January 18 (h/t Geist).
Personally, I'm looking forward to never again writing the words "may contain" when talking about the ACTA.
Enjoy!
Monday, March 15, 2010
Everyone’s a Keynesian during a snowfall
From the Globe and Mail’s Mark MacKinnon, visual evidence of how China is applying at least part of John Maynard Keynes’ advice about using government spending to stimulate the economy in a recession.
Says Keynes in the General Theory:
“To dig holes in the ground,” paid for out of savings, will increase, not only employment, but the real national dividend of useful goods and services. It is not reasonable, however, that a sensible community should be content to remain dependent on such fortuitous and often wasteful mitigations when once we understand the influences upon which effective demand depends.Says Mark:
Because you wouldn't believe me if I said 10 people were shovelling a small play structure (it's snowing again in Beijing)
Globe and Mail: Almost understanding teh Interwebs (progress!)
Credit where credit is due: After complaining a few weeks ago about Michael Valpy’s confusing story in the Globe and Mail on the political effects of Facebook, it’s nice to see Ivor Tossell’s spot-on critique of why Prime Minister Stephen Harper answering a few questions on YouTube is “not the future of democratic engagement” or “the evolution of social media,” no matter what the PMO says.
Too bad it’s paired with Roy MacGregor’s column, which is hugely enjoyable for its remarkable lack of self-awareness. His big concern is that, online:
Too bad it’s paired with Roy MacGregor’s column, which is hugely enjoyable for its remarkable lack of self-awareness. His big concern is that, online:
what has come to matter more than anything else is the number of hits a certain story receives. The more hits means, in most cases, the larger the audience, and while reaching more readers and viewers is a good thing on one level, it is also a concern for those who believe journalism is about content and information more than reaction.The potential result? A zero-sum, dystopian world in which quality journalism is strangled by the hobgoblins of celebrity gossip and partisan opinion masquerading as news. Because there's no way that both can exist together online.
He singles out the tendency of online writers to use “hot button” words in headlines or far up in the story (maybe in the first paragraph!) in order to attract readers.
Imagine that: publishers, editors and writers choosing stories, many of dubious social value, in which they think people are interested, and then packaging those stories and writing headlines in such a way as to grab potential readers’ attention.
Readers are invited to explain how this is any different from, I don't know, the workings of any general-interest newspaper ever.
Imagine that: publishers, editors and writers choosing stories, many of dubious social value, in which they think people are interested, and then packaging those stories and writing headlines in such a way as to grab potential readers’ attention.
Readers are invited to explain how this is any different from, I don't know, the workings of any general-interest newspaper ever.
(h/t: Susan Delacourt for pointing out the two columns.)
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
ACTA: History repeating itself?
So the European Parliament has voted 663-13 against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) (h/t BoingBoing). Could this be a turning point in the negotiations? The whole situation does seem to have some similarities to the French reticence that sunk the Multilateral Agreement on Investment over a decade ago. It’s interesting to note, however, that rather than calling for the cessation of negotiations, the European Parliament is calling for the agreement to respect existing EU law. Which means that we’ll probably end up with an ACTA, though (if the vote is effective in putting pressure on EU negotiators) one that's more modest and balanced than what U.S.-based interests have been hoping for.
Here’s a question I’ve been wondering about: if, as I’ve suggested previously, powerful interests will have to be served regardless of what’s in the final text, will ACTA's excessive secrecy have helped or hindered the interests of those countries and interests seeking much stronger copyright laws and enforcement?
On the upside, if you can pull it off, you have an agreement that proponents can use to legitimize changes in domestic law and regulations. And even if you can’t keep it completely secret, the process may put opponents at a disadvantage when it comes to negotiation and implementation.
On the downside, excessive secrecy allows opponents to question its legitimacy while letting people’s imaginations run wild about what could be in the treaty and whip up anti-ACTA support. One would imagine that this would be a not-insignificant political problem, even in the case of executive agreements (like ACTA) that do not require parliamentary approval and some of whose requirements may be implemented via regulation, not legislation. And, of course, there’s the whole democratic-governments-should-act-transparently-in-the-interests-of-their-voters thing and the nobody-likes-to-think-they're-being-played thing.
Just some thoughts. It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. To say the least.
Here’s a question I’ve been wondering about: if, as I’ve suggested previously, powerful interests will have to be served regardless of what’s in the final text, will ACTA's excessive secrecy have helped or hindered the interests of those countries and interests seeking much stronger copyright laws and enforcement?
On the upside, if you can pull it off, you have an agreement that proponents can use to legitimize changes in domestic law and regulations. And even if you can’t keep it completely secret, the process may put opponents at a disadvantage when it comes to negotiation and implementation.
On the downside, excessive secrecy allows opponents to question its legitimacy while letting people’s imaginations run wild about what could be in the treaty and whip up anti-ACTA support. One would imagine that this would be a not-insignificant political problem, even in the case of executive agreements (like ACTA) that do not require parliamentary approval and some of whose requirements may be implemented via regulation, not legislation. And, of course, there’s the whole democratic-governments-should-act-transparently-in-the-interests-of-their-voters thing and the nobody-likes-to-think-they're-being-played thing.
Just some thoughts. It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. To say the least.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
ACTA: All Global Treaties are Local
A nice reminder, courtesy of Michael Geist , that the battle over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is going to get messier the more that groups directly affected by but excluded from the talks are heard and, most importantly, are listened to.
From Mexico: President of the Senate Commission on Science and Technology, Senator Francisco Javier Castellón Fonseca, is calling for increased transparency in ACTA talks in order to understand their potential impact on digital copyright issues generally and Internet Service Providers specifically.
This is important for three reasons.
1. Politically, Senator Castellón Fonseca, represents the left-leaning PRD, which can be expected to champion individuals’ user rights. The PRD has 127 out of 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 26 out of 129 Senate seats. In Mexico currently there are no organized consumer or users’ groups dealing with copyright issues; with a political champion, this could change, making ACTA implementation (to say nothing of other copyright reforms) more difficult.
2. Mexico may also be starting to consider the economic and technological effects of copyright, rather than simply its cultural aspects. The same Senator made remarks to this effect in 2008.
3. The Senate Commission on Science and Technology is responsible for ISP-related issues, and ISPs have a lot of clout in Mexican politics: Telmex has a virtual monopoly on Mexican Internet access and is owned by Carlos Slim, the third-richest man in the world, according to Forbes.
Simply put, so far as Internet access issues are concerned, all roads to Mexican copyright reform and ACTA implementation run through Telmex. That Mexican ISPs and the content businesses and groups have been trying unsuccessfully for a couple of years now to come to an agreement on ISP liability (Mexico currently has no laws dealing with this issue) tells me that Telmex’s interests do not align directly with those of the copyright owners that have been behind the treaty.
In a sense, it might not matter much for Mexico what the ACTA requires: if it doesn’t make Telmex happy, then implementation will be a long, long time coming. Negotiating a treaty in secret may help get something signed, but if powerful interests are not listened to, they will, in the end, make themselves heard.
From Mexico: President of the Senate Commission on Science and Technology, Senator Francisco Javier Castellón Fonseca, is calling for increased transparency in ACTA talks in order to understand their potential impact on digital copyright issues generally and Internet Service Providers specifically.
This is important for three reasons.
1. Politically, Senator Castellón Fonseca, represents the left-leaning PRD, which can be expected to champion individuals’ user rights. The PRD has 127 out of 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 26 out of 129 Senate seats. In Mexico currently there are no organized consumer or users’ groups dealing with copyright issues; with a political champion, this could change, making ACTA implementation (to say nothing of other copyright reforms) more difficult.
2. Mexico may also be starting to consider the economic and technological effects of copyright, rather than simply its cultural aspects. The same Senator made remarks to this effect in 2008.
3. The Senate Commission on Science and Technology is responsible for ISP-related issues, and ISPs have a lot of clout in Mexican politics: Telmex has a virtual monopoly on Mexican Internet access and is owned by Carlos Slim, the third-richest man in the world, according to Forbes.
Simply put, so far as Internet access issues are concerned, all roads to Mexican copyright reform and ACTA implementation run through Telmex. That Mexican ISPs and the content businesses and groups have been trying unsuccessfully for a couple of years now to come to an agreement on ISP liability (Mexico currently has no laws dealing with this issue) tells me that Telmex’s interests do not align directly with those of the copyright owners that have been behind the treaty.
In a sense, it might not matter much for Mexico what the ACTA requires: if it doesn’t make Telmex happy, then implementation will be a long, long time coming. Negotiating a treaty in secret may help get something signed, but if powerful interests are not listened to, they will, in the end, make themselves heard.
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Thursday, December 16, 2010
Why the leak of the Pre-Budget Consultations report doesn't matter, except to the committee's researchers
As someone who was involved in the House of Commons’ Finance Committee’s pre-budget consultations for several years, the leak of the committee’s draft recommendations by a, shall we say, opportunistic, Conservative staffer couldn’t help but catch my eye. While reports are focusing on the effect of the leaks on the political parties, let’s not forget the researchers who actually wrote the report.
The whole pre-budget consultations process is pretty intense. In the space of three months or less, the committee, aided by their tireless researchers and a committee clerk, hears from hundreds of witnesses in Ottawa and on the road. Researchers then have to take these hundred of submissions about every conceivable topic (seriously: we heard about every conceivable issue to which a dollar sign could conceivably be attached) and write a big honkin’ report that has to be translated, submitted to the committee for approval, edited and revised to reflect the will of the committee.
Writing the report and attending the meetings was actually a lot of fun, like getting your own personal annual update on the state of the Canadian economy. And I think that the reports did (and do) a fair job of accurately representing Canadians’ main economic concerns, which is what I think the Finance Committee always sets out to do.
But let’s not overstate the importance of the process. Far from being a crucial input into the making of the federal budget as the Globe and Mail’s breathless reporting suggests, the Finance Committee’s pre-budget consultations report is exactly as effective in influencing government policy as any other parliamentary committee report.* Which is: hardly at all.
For starters, the committee’s report is not binding on the government. There’s also the fact that the Finance Department and Finance Minister have been conducting their own pre-budget exercises for years (dating back to the Liberals, I believe). Between this duplication and the current government’s incessant appetite for polls (different in degree, not in kind, from its predecessors), I’d be surprised if the government learned anything new from the committee’s work. I’m also fairly certain that the overall thrust of the budget is not determined by the Finance Committee.
Oh, and then there’s the fact that when there’s a majority government, the government effectively controls the committee, so it’s not like anything embarrassing to the government would get into report anyway.
The report can be useful as a way for MPs to signal to the government what they feel are important issues, and specific recommendations may not be 100% in line with the government’s agenda, but I’d be very surprised if something that the government (read: Prime Minister) of the day really didn’t like would ever get into a pre-budget report. (I should say here that as a non-partisan staffer I was never privy to intra-party discussions. We simply followed the will of the chair and the committee.)
That such a potentially valuable annual exercise doesn’t contribute more to the federal budget is a sad reminder of the growing irrelevance of Parliament, and it’s something that Canadians should be concerned about. I also feel for the researchers who’ve been working 12-hour days for the past month only to see their work trashed by the inexcusable and offensive actions of a political staffer. But as far as any effect on the way that the budget is currently made, the cancellation of this year’s Finance Committee’s pre-budget report will hardly matter at all.
* The Globe article, as the Globe's Parliament Hill coverage tends to do, focuses exclusively on the horse race aspects of the report. From that perspective, sure, the cancellation of the budget robs parties of the chance to score political points based on the differences between the committee report and the eventual budget. Me, I'm more concerned with more boring stuff, like what's actually in the budget. Even if you care about the political horse race, based on what I wrote above I don't see how the report can really tie the Finance Minister's hands. The Conservatives control their own MPs and could easily dismiss any annoying opposition recommendations.
The whole pre-budget consultations process is pretty intense. In the space of three months or less, the committee, aided by their tireless researchers and a committee clerk, hears from hundreds of witnesses in Ottawa and on the road. Researchers then have to take these hundred of submissions about every conceivable topic (seriously: we heard about every conceivable issue to which a dollar sign could conceivably be attached) and write a big honkin’ report that has to be translated, submitted to the committee for approval, edited and revised to reflect the will of the committee.
Writing the report and attending the meetings was actually a lot of fun, like getting your own personal annual update on the state of the Canadian economy. And I think that the reports did (and do) a fair job of accurately representing Canadians’ main economic concerns, which is what I think the Finance Committee always sets out to do.
But let’s not overstate the importance of the process. Far from being a crucial input into the making of the federal budget as the Globe and Mail’s breathless reporting suggests, the Finance Committee’s pre-budget consultations report is exactly as effective in influencing government policy as any other parliamentary committee report.* Which is: hardly at all.
For starters, the committee’s report is not binding on the government. There’s also the fact that the Finance Department and Finance Minister have been conducting their own pre-budget exercises for years (dating back to the Liberals, I believe). Between this duplication and the current government’s incessant appetite for polls (different in degree, not in kind, from its predecessors), I’d be surprised if the government learned anything new from the committee’s work. I’m also fairly certain that the overall thrust of the budget is not determined by the Finance Committee.
Oh, and then there’s the fact that when there’s a majority government, the government effectively controls the committee, so it’s not like anything embarrassing to the government would get into report anyway.
The report can be useful as a way for MPs to signal to the government what they feel are important issues, and specific recommendations may not be 100% in line with the government’s agenda, but I’d be very surprised if something that the government (read: Prime Minister) of the day really didn’t like would ever get into a pre-budget report. (I should say here that as a non-partisan staffer I was never privy to intra-party discussions. We simply followed the will of the chair and the committee.)
That such a potentially valuable annual exercise doesn’t contribute more to the federal budget is a sad reminder of the growing irrelevance of Parliament, and it’s something that Canadians should be concerned about. I also feel for the researchers who’ve been working 12-hour days for the past month only to see their work trashed by the inexcusable and offensive actions of a political staffer. But as far as any effect on the way that the budget is currently made, the cancellation of this year’s Finance Committee’s pre-budget report will hardly matter at all.
* The Globe article, as the Globe's Parliament Hill coverage tends to do, focuses exclusively on the horse race aspects of the report. From that perspective, sure, the cancellation of the budget robs parties of the chance to score political points based on the differences between the committee report and the eventual budget. Me, I'm more concerned with more boring stuff, like what's actually in the budget. Even if you care about the political horse race, based on what I wrote above I don't see how the report can really tie the Finance Minister's hands. The Conservatives control their own MPs and could easily dismiss any annoying opposition recommendations.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
The Wikileaks dump: Kind of a big deal
Four quick points about the Wikileaks document dump.
1. I think it’s a mistake to simply shrug off the leaks, as my good friend Erin at Media Souffle and many others have done. The conventional wisdom that’s emerged about the leaks – that they don’t tell us anything we don’t already know – misses the most interesting thing about the whole situation. Which is: even without access to insider views, academics and journalists (when they're speaking truth to power) have been providing us with a pretty good picture of how the political world works.
This is huge. I live in Ottawa, so I’ve had my share of conversations with people with security clearances who attempt to trump every argument with an infuriating, “If you only knew what I knew…” (infuriating military corollary: “If you’d seen what I’ve seen…”). Well, these releases actually prove that in 99 cases out of 100, we do know what you know. There’s a tendency, particularly in some parts of government, to fetishize “secret” information, merely because it’s classified, and to denigrate open-source information sources. These leaks are actually a good argument in favour of open-source research.
For us academics, most of whom don’t have access to this deep kind of insider information, this is fantastic news: it means that our theoretical models and information-gathering methods are actually providing us with a reasonably accurate picture of the way that the political world works.
And, of course, there is the one case out of 100 that actually does tell us something new. I, for one, had no idea that every country in the Middle East is pressuring the U.S. to attack Iran. I’d also argue that having proof that United States is spying at the United Nations, breaking formal international obligations, is a big deal. Saying that this isn’t a big surprise says more about our lowered expectations for the rule of law and what we consider appropriate behaviour than it does about the leaks themselves.
2. One of the reasons that these leaks didn’t tell us much that we couldn’t have inferred from paying attention to the world is that they came from the United States. One thing that stood out in my dissertation field work was how open U.S. government sources and lobbyists were in presenting their positions. Sure, they know that you might disagree with them, but they are more than willing to share their perspectives with you. With some notable exceptions, the Canadian government was much harder to deal with (Exhibit A: Three years and counting for the documents I requested under the 30-day Access to Information process).
I wonder if a document dump of Canadian cables would have been as shrug-worthy as the ones from the more-open U.S. government. Just sayin’.
3. I can't wait until the cables from the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa are released. It looks like some of them deal with Canadian copyright reform. Given the nightmarish experience I’ve had at the hands of the Canadian Access to Information process, I’m viewing this release as a form of karmic balancing. I may have to adjust my dissertation’s argument to account for this new information, but probably not (see point #1).
4. Does anyone else find all the angst about the loss of face in the international community bizarre? For all the advances of the past several hundred years (a United Nations, democratic countries around the world), our diplomacy hasn’t left the 18th century. It’s the 21st century, and everyone is acting like the United States is Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons (or, for the more camp-inclined among us, Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions). Which would make Julian Assange either John Malkovich or Ryan Phillippe:
1. I think it’s a mistake to simply shrug off the leaks, as my good friend Erin at Media Souffle and many others have done. The conventional wisdom that’s emerged about the leaks – that they don’t tell us anything we don’t already know – misses the most interesting thing about the whole situation. Which is: even without access to insider views, academics and journalists (when they're speaking truth to power) have been providing us with a pretty good picture of how the political world works.
This is huge. I live in Ottawa, so I’ve had my share of conversations with people with security clearances who attempt to trump every argument with an infuriating, “If you only knew what I knew…” (infuriating military corollary: “If you’d seen what I’ve seen…”). Well, these releases actually prove that in 99 cases out of 100, we do know what you know. There’s a tendency, particularly in some parts of government, to fetishize “secret” information, merely because it’s classified, and to denigrate open-source information sources. These leaks are actually a good argument in favour of open-source research.
For us academics, most of whom don’t have access to this deep kind of insider information, this is fantastic news: it means that our theoretical models and information-gathering methods are actually providing us with a reasonably accurate picture of the way that the political world works.
And, of course, there is the one case out of 100 that actually does tell us something new. I, for one, had no idea that every country in the Middle East is pressuring the U.S. to attack Iran. I’d also argue that having proof that United States is spying at the United Nations, breaking formal international obligations, is a big deal. Saying that this isn’t a big surprise says more about our lowered expectations for the rule of law and what we consider appropriate behaviour than it does about the leaks themselves.
2. One of the reasons that these leaks didn’t tell us much that we couldn’t have inferred from paying attention to the world is that they came from the United States. One thing that stood out in my dissertation field work was how open U.S. government sources and lobbyists were in presenting their positions. Sure, they know that you might disagree with them, but they are more than willing to share their perspectives with you. With some notable exceptions, the Canadian government was much harder to deal with (Exhibit A: Three years and counting for the documents I requested under the 30-day Access to Information process).
I wonder if a document dump of Canadian cables would have been as shrug-worthy as the ones from the more-open U.S. government. Just sayin’.
3. I can't wait until the cables from the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa are released. It looks like some of them deal with Canadian copyright reform. Given the nightmarish experience I’ve had at the hands of the Canadian Access to Information process, I’m viewing this release as a form of karmic balancing. I may have to adjust my dissertation’s argument to account for this new information, but probably not (see point #1).
4. Does anyone else find all the angst about the loss of face in the international community bizarre? For all the advances of the past several hundred years (a United Nations, democratic countries around the world), our diplomacy hasn’t left the 18th century. It’s the 21st century, and everyone is acting like the United States is Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons (or, for the more camp-inclined among us, Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions). Which would make Julian Assange either John Malkovich or Ryan Phillippe:
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Read it now! "From 'Radical Extremism' to 'Balanced Copyright': Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda"
In what has to be some kind of land-speed record, From 'Radical Extremism' to 'Balanced Copyright': Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda is now available in a print edition ($65) and online (free, under a Creative Commons license). Did I mention that the entire thing came together in just over four months? And that all the chapters were refereed?
My contribution, "North American Digital Copyright, Regional Governance, and the Potential for Variation," is also available for download. It's all very exciting: there's nothing like having your first refereed contribution come out just as you're finishing the entire dissertation.
I haven't had a chance to read the other chapters yet, but if they come anywhere close to approaching the quality of the presentations made by several contributors at the book launch last Thursday, the whole book is going to be a vital contribution to the immediate political debate over Bill C-32 and the long-run academic debate over Canadian copyright.
Enjoy!
My contribution, "North American Digital Copyright, Regional Governance, and the Potential for Variation," is also available for download. It's all very exciting: there's nothing like having your first refereed contribution come out just as you're finishing the entire dissertation.
I haven't had a chance to read the other chapters yet, but if they come anywhere close to approaching the quality of the presentations made by several contributors at the book launch last Thursday, the whole book is going to be a vital contribution to the immediate political debate over Bill C-32 and the long-run academic debate over Canadian copyright.
Enjoy!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Book launch! From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright": Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda
I've been quiet on the blog lately, distracted by paying work (not related to copyright), finishing up the dissertation and applying for postdocs and the like, but I couldn't let this pass without notice. Michael Geist has put together a ridiculously well-timed edited collection of essays on Canadian digital copyright, From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright": Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda, and yours truly has a chapter in it.
In it, I examine the potential for Canada, Mexico and the United States to implement autonomous copyright policies (specifically those related to the WIPO Internet treaties and the legal protection of technological protection measures). In a nutshell, I conclude that these countries' decisions around whether and how to implement are shaped mainly by domestic political, economic and institutional imperatives (e.g., which groups are invited to the negotiating table). In other words, even decisions to implement U.S.-style copyright laws in Canada or Mexico are rooted in domestic considerations.
My alternate pitch, to family and friends: It's basically my dissertation boiled down to 20 pages. So if you want to know how I've spent the past five-plus years but don't want to slog through the 300 closely argued pages of my dissertation, check it out!
This chapter is particularly exciting for me, as it represents my first substantial contribution to the academic literature. I've seen my name in print many times over the past 15 years, but seeing it in a book, surrounded by contributions from so many fantastically smart people, will be a highlight.
Even better: there's going to be a book launch, this Thursday afternoon (October 14) at 3:30 p.m. at the University of Ottawa (Room 12102, Desmarais Building, 55 Laurier Avenue East). I'll be on a panel, along with Michael Geist, Elizabeth Judge, Ian Kerr, David Lametti and Teresa Scassa, discussing our chapters. And there'll be a reception afterward! Feel free to stop by and say hi.
In it, I examine the potential for Canada, Mexico and the United States to implement autonomous copyright policies (specifically those related to the WIPO Internet treaties and the legal protection of technological protection measures). In a nutshell, I conclude that these countries' decisions around whether and how to implement are shaped mainly by domestic political, economic and institutional imperatives (e.g., which groups are invited to the negotiating table). In other words, even decisions to implement U.S.-style copyright laws in Canada or Mexico are rooted in domestic considerations.
My alternate pitch, to family and friends: It's basically my dissertation boiled down to 20 pages. So if you want to know how I've spent the past five-plus years but don't want to slog through the 300 closely argued pages of my dissertation, check it out!
This chapter is particularly exciting for me, as it represents my first substantial contribution to the academic literature. I've seen my name in print many times over the past 15 years, but seeing it in a book, surrounded by contributions from so many fantastically smart people, will be a highlight.
Even better: there's going to be a book launch, this Thursday afternoon (October 14) at 3:30 p.m. at the University of Ottawa (Room 12102, Desmarais Building, 55 Laurier Avenue East). I'll be on a panel, along with Michael Geist, Elizabeth Judge, Ian Kerr, David Lametti and Teresa Scassa, discussing our chapters. And there'll be a reception afterward! Feel free to stop by and say hi.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Access to Information by the Numbers (II)
More success! Last week, after waiting almost three years, I finally received a response to my Access to Information request from Foreign Affairs and International Trade. A bit beyond the 30 calendar days that the request is supposed to take? Um, yeah.
Funny story, though. I made this request at the very beginning of my PhD research. So I guess it’s only fitting that it should show up in my mailbox – wait for it – the day before I completed a first draft of my entire dissertation.
The symmetry is enough to bring a tear to one’s eye, or a palm to one’s face.
It gets better! In the time it took me, a lowly PhD student, to travel to two countries, interview scores of people, and put together a three-hundred-page (sorry, dissertation committee: I know that’s a lot of reading) dissertation, they couldn’t even complete the entire request:
Quick update: For some reason, while reading through DFAIT's Access to Information response, this Simpsons moment sprang to mind. I have no idea why.
Funny story, though. I made this request at the very beginning of my PhD research. So I guess it’s only fitting that it should show up in my mailbox – wait for it – the day before I completed a first draft of my entire dissertation.
The symmetry is enough to bring a tear to one’s eye, or a palm to one’s face.
It gets better! In the time it took me, a lowly PhD student, to travel to two countries, interview scores of people, and put together a three-hundred-page (sorry, dissertation committee: I know that’s a lot of reading) dissertation, they couldn’t even complete the entire request:
“We wish to advise you that we are presently undergoing consultations with other government institutions. Once the consultation process has been concluded, we will advise you accordingly.”Really, they should just repeal the Access to Information Act: it would save taxpayers a bit of coin, and it would be more honest than the system they’re running now.
Quick update: For some reason, while reading through DFAIT's Access to Information response, this Simpsons moment sprang to mind. I have no idea why.
Friday, July 30, 2010
The Great Canadian Census Debate: The Economists Call It
It looks like we can call it a day on the Great Canadian Mandatory Long-Form Census Debate: the economists have weighed in, and they think the government's wrong, wrong, wrong!
Today’s Globe and Mail reports that 76 percent of economists surveyed by the Canadian Association for Business Economics say that it’s a bad idea to scrap the long-form census. Out of 252 economists surveyed, only 14 thought that it was a good policy. Of course one of these 14 was the Fraser Institute’s Niels Veldhuis, who has demonstrated a less-than-encouraging understanding of statistical analysis in his creative defence of the government’s position (Check out Stephen Gordon's merciless takedown of the Fraser Institute).
Does this mean we can tentatively conclude that about five percent of economists don’t understand statistics? Or, as Gordon might put it, that they are not part of "the community of evidence-based policy analysts"?
But the truly bizarre finding from this poll? That 30 economists surveyed didn’t know whether or not scrapping the mandatory long-form census was a good idea.
Really? In a field that worships numbers and statistical analyses, in a debate that has galvanized the Canadian research community, 30 economists didn’t know whether scrapping the long-form census is a good idea or not? That’s 30 economists who either haven’t been paying attention to the policy-wonk equivalent of a monthlong Lollapalooza festival, or who can’t be bothered to recall their first-year stats training.
Can anyone explain this? Are we witnessing the birth of a new subfield of economics that rejects the possibility of knowledge through statistical analysis? (I hope so; a postmodern turn in economics would be great fun.) Were these 30 economists actually sociologists in disguise? Enquiring minds, etc., etc.
Today’s Globe and Mail reports that 76 percent of economists surveyed by the Canadian Association for Business Economics say that it’s a bad idea to scrap the long-form census. Out of 252 economists surveyed, only 14 thought that it was a good policy. Of course one of these 14 was the Fraser Institute’s Niels Veldhuis, who has demonstrated a less-than-encouraging understanding of statistical analysis in his creative defence of the government’s position (Check out Stephen Gordon's merciless takedown of the Fraser Institute).
Does this mean we can tentatively conclude that about five percent of economists don’t understand statistics? Or, as Gordon might put it, that they are not part of "the community of evidence-based policy analysts"?
But the truly bizarre finding from this poll? That 30 economists surveyed didn’t know whether or not scrapping the mandatory long-form census was a good idea.
Really? In a field that worships numbers and statistical analyses, in a debate that has galvanized the Canadian research community, 30 economists didn’t know whether scrapping the long-form census is a good idea or not? That’s 30 economists who either haven’t been paying attention to the policy-wonk equivalent of a monthlong Lollapalooza festival, or who can’t be bothered to recall their first-year stats training.
Can anyone explain this? Are we witnessing the birth of a new subfield of economics that rejects the possibility of knowledge through statistical analysis? (I hope so; a postmodern turn in economics would be great fun.) Were these 30 economists actually sociologists in disguise? Enquiring minds, etc., etc.
Friday, July 23, 2010
What the Census debacle can tell us about governmental accountability
Jeffrey Simpson nails it today when he notes that the scrapping of the mandatory long-form census is a “temporary triumph over ideology.” (Well, one can hope that any such triumph would be temporary, but I’m feeling pessimistic today.)
This whole census mess raises another point that I haven’t seen discussed much. Namely, we’re about to find out what, if anything, can convince a Canadian government to change its mind on something.
Not just this government. The Harper Conservatives may be pushing the limits as to what is possible in our Parliamentary system (Exhibit A: choosing prorogation, rather than face a vote of confidence in the House), but they’re not breaking any laws. The powers that they’re using are available to any government, doubly so for a majority government. Custom and tradition are no match for someone with the ability and will to ruthlessly use the rules to their advantage.
On most issues, you can find reputable people supporting one side or the other (yes, even in copyright, despite the rhetoric). This census debate is different because of the nearly unprecedented diversity of voices opposing the decision: business groups and NGOs, provinces and territories, all statisticians, pretty much every economist and social scientist I can think of, Statistics Canada itself. All serious think tanks with even a basic understanding or respect for statistics and facts (which would exclude the Fraser Institute, based on the comment reported here, which would have gotten a failing grade in any introductory statistics course) are against the decision.
On the other side, you have Stephen Harper.
So, what might cause Harper to change his mind, especially if, as Simpson writes, this decision is based on ideology and not facts?
I can think of three things that could convince a government that prefers ideological arguments to rational, fact-based ones. (Hint: facts won’t do it.) The first is that the opposition could tie up any changes in committees, which are controlled by the opposition because they have the majority of seats in Parliament. Of course, all you have to do is introduce changes via regulation to get by that one, and that’s what we’ve seen here.
The second is a worry that the issue would hurt them in an general election. In theory, minority governments are susceptible to this type of pressure, but a vote of no confidence is like a nuclear bomb: the opposition can’t deploy it to thwart every thing they don’t like, and there’s always the possibility that that bomb might (pardon the pun) blow up in their faces if they lose the election. However, if all this unpleasantness rubs enough voters the wrong way, then the government might back down.
The third reason they might back down is if the party’s financial backers threaten to withdraw funding. However, I understand that the Conservative party’s funding now largely comes from individual donors. As a result, I think that any collapse in party revenues would be related to a drop in Conservative support.
Unlike the U.S. political system, which was designed to avoid concentrating excessive power in the hands of one person, the Canadian system has no such checks and balances. Previously, an independent public service was seen as a check on the government, as was the Governor General. But that’s tradition, not a hard and fast rule. At the end of the day, the only thing holding any Canadian government in check is fears about an upcoming election. If you’re the government, no fears = no worries.
What should give supporters of all parties pause is that these constraints will be much, much weaker for a majority government of any party: Liberals and New Democrats are no more or less virtuous than Conservatives. The farther you are from an election, the freer you are to do whatever you want, evidence and opposition be damned.
As someone who’s kind of a fan of popular control of one’s government, I find that even more worrying than the scrapping of the mandatory long-form census.
Post-script: As I write this, Donald Savoie is talking about this very issue on The Current (available here soonish). I’ll have to pick up his latest book when I finish my dissertation’s first draft.
This whole census mess raises another point that I haven’t seen discussed much. Namely, we’re about to find out what, if anything, can convince a Canadian government to change its mind on something.
Not just this government. The Harper Conservatives may be pushing the limits as to what is possible in our Parliamentary system (Exhibit A: choosing prorogation, rather than face a vote of confidence in the House), but they’re not breaking any laws. The powers that they’re using are available to any government, doubly so for a majority government. Custom and tradition are no match for someone with the ability and will to ruthlessly use the rules to their advantage.
On most issues, you can find reputable people supporting one side or the other (yes, even in copyright, despite the rhetoric). This census debate is different because of the nearly unprecedented diversity of voices opposing the decision: business groups and NGOs, provinces and territories, all statisticians, pretty much every economist and social scientist I can think of, Statistics Canada itself. All serious think tanks with even a basic understanding or respect for statistics and facts (which would exclude the Fraser Institute, based on the comment reported here, which would have gotten a failing grade in any introductory statistics course) are against the decision.
On the other side, you have Stephen Harper.
So, what might cause Harper to change his mind, especially if, as Simpson writes, this decision is based on ideology and not facts?
I can think of three things that could convince a government that prefers ideological arguments to rational, fact-based ones. (Hint: facts won’t do it.) The first is that the opposition could tie up any changes in committees, which are controlled by the opposition because they have the majority of seats in Parliament. Of course, all you have to do is introduce changes via regulation to get by that one, and that’s what we’ve seen here.
The second is a worry that the issue would hurt them in an general election. In theory, minority governments are susceptible to this type of pressure, but a vote of no confidence is like a nuclear bomb: the opposition can’t deploy it to thwart every thing they don’t like, and there’s always the possibility that that bomb might (pardon the pun) blow up in their faces if they lose the election. However, if all this unpleasantness rubs enough voters the wrong way, then the government might back down.
The third reason they might back down is if the party’s financial backers threaten to withdraw funding. However, I understand that the Conservative party’s funding now largely comes from individual donors. As a result, I think that any collapse in party revenues would be related to a drop in Conservative support.
Unlike the U.S. political system, which was designed to avoid concentrating excessive power in the hands of one person, the Canadian system has no such checks and balances. Previously, an independent public service was seen as a check on the government, as was the Governor General. But that’s tradition, not a hard and fast rule. At the end of the day, the only thing holding any Canadian government in check is fears about an upcoming election. If you’re the government, no fears = no worries.
What should give supporters of all parties pause is that these constraints will be much, much weaker for a majority government of any party: Liberals and New Democrats are no more or less virtuous than Conservatives. The farther you are from an election, the freer you are to do whatever you want, evidence and opposition be damned.
As someone who’s kind of a fan of popular control of one’s government, I find that even more worrying than the scrapping of the mandatory long-form census.
Post-script: As I write this, Donald Savoie is talking about this very issue on The Current (available here soonish). I’ll have to pick up his latest book when I finish my dissertation’s first draft.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
What lobbyists do
In addition to copyright, my academic work focuses on how policy is made in Canada, the United States and Mexico. Which is why I found this account of how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce operates, by James Verini in the Washington Monthly, so fascinating. It's a must-read for anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of how issues are lobbied, and worth thinking about when considering the Canadian Chamber of Commerce's work on copyright and intellectual property (anyone know of a similar story on the Canadian Chamber of Commerce?).
There's a lot in here, but check out the following:
There's a lot in here, but check out the following:
I asked Donohue what, exactly, the Chamber does. “Two fundamental things,” he replied. “We’re advocates. Sure we do studies, sure we do events, sure we do meetings, sure we have all kinds of stuff, but we’re advocates.” And then he surprised me again with his candor. “The second thing we do is really more interesting,” he said. “We’re the reinsurance industry for individual industry associations and state chambers of commerce and people of that nature.” An example, said Donohue, was when Wall Street found itself on the defensive in opposing new banking regulations. “They can’t move forward, they can’t move back, or maybe they’re being overrun, and they’ll come to us and say, ‘Can we collect our reinsurance?’” he explained. “And then we build coalitions and go out and help them.”h/t talkingpointsmemo.
Loreena McKennitt's argument from authority
I’m in the home stretch of finishing a first draft of my dissertation – today I have to cut half of my closely argued, heavily cited justification for using historical institutionalism to theorize regional integration – so I don’t have a lot of time to spend on this. But I feel the need to weigh in on the Loreena McKennitt’s pro-copyright-reform op-ed that’s doing the rounds.
Geist and McOrmond have already addressed the substance of McKennitt’s argument. But what’s surprising is that there is so little to address. We have McKennitt, an accomplished musician, arguing that the Internet has made it harder for musicians to make a living, that the Internet is hurting industries that are dependent on the music industry, and that therefore we need copyright reform.
I’ve always been struck by the degree to which the copyright debate is driven by polemics, rather than empiricism, and McKennitt’s article does little to break this trend. The big hint that this is a polemic comes at the end, where McKennitt says that she welcomes “copyright reform legislation” without even talking about what, exactly, in Bill C-32 – the actual copyright reform legislation before Parliament – would support a “thriving creative environment where artists are paid and the communities where they live and work reap the rewards” (which sounds good to me).
No matter where you stand on copyright, it should be obvious to anyone that not all copyright laws are created equal. There is a difference between “copyright reform legislation” and “good copyright reform legislation,” even if “good” is in the eye of the beholder.
Yet McKennitt doesn’t tell the reader why (or even if) she likes this particular bill. Rather than engaging with critics on its substance, she relies exclusively on an argument from authority to dismiss “activists and academics” as using “crafted language” to attack artists with “so-called ‘user rights’.” Shades of James Moore’s “radical extremists” comment, and equally as helpful for Canadians wanting a substantive policy debate.
It also doesn’t help that McKennitt seems to be asking of copyright more than it can give. Copyright is supposed to maximize a) the creation; and b) the distribution of creative works. Because creative works are made from already-existing creative works, we have to ensure that copyright is not so restrictive as to limit future production. That’s it.
Justifying stronger copyright based on the wellbeing of popcorn sellers, HMV employees, “parts of the touring industry” and even artists’ quality of life (ask a garbage collector if their salary or hours are fair) serves only to confuse the issue. These activities matter to copyright only to the extent that they fulfill the end of maximizing the creation and distribution of creative works. If they do, then tell us why copyright is the best way to ensure that, say, sound engineers, get paid.
If these activities can be replaced without hindering creation or distribution (seriously: popcorn vendors?), then tell us why we should care. If they are valued for other reasons, then we can lobby our government to provide other means of support. The cultural industries are supported by much, much more than just copyright law.
I have no doubt that Ms. McKennitt is sincere in her views on the importance of copyright to both her livelihood and music production. But she’s not doing anyone, especially herself, any favours by not discussing the particulars of copyright law. As I’ve said before, make your case for particular changes. Show us how particular reforms will help improve the creation and distribution of creative works. Tell us why you think specific critiques of the bill are wrong.
But, please, don’t engage in ad hominem attacks while refusing to engage on the substance of the issue. As my favourite blogger, Ta-Nehisi Coates, put it yesterday:
Geist and McOrmond have already addressed the substance of McKennitt’s argument. But what’s surprising is that there is so little to address. We have McKennitt, an accomplished musician, arguing that the Internet has made it harder for musicians to make a living, that the Internet is hurting industries that are dependent on the music industry, and that therefore we need copyright reform.
I’ve always been struck by the degree to which the copyright debate is driven by polemics, rather than empiricism, and McKennitt’s article does little to break this trend. The big hint that this is a polemic comes at the end, where McKennitt says that she welcomes “copyright reform legislation” without even talking about what, exactly, in Bill C-32 – the actual copyright reform legislation before Parliament – would support a “thriving creative environment where artists are paid and the communities where they live and work reap the rewards” (which sounds good to me).
No matter where you stand on copyright, it should be obvious to anyone that not all copyright laws are created equal. There is a difference between “copyright reform legislation” and “good copyright reform legislation,” even if “good” is in the eye of the beholder.
Yet McKennitt doesn’t tell the reader why (or even if) she likes this particular bill. Rather than engaging with critics on its substance, she relies exclusively on an argument from authority to dismiss “activists and academics” as using “crafted language” to attack artists with “so-called ‘user rights’.” Shades of James Moore’s “radical extremists” comment, and equally as helpful for Canadians wanting a substantive policy debate.
It also doesn’t help that McKennitt seems to be asking of copyright more than it can give. Copyright is supposed to maximize a) the creation; and b) the distribution of creative works. Because creative works are made from already-existing creative works, we have to ensure that copyright is not so restrictive as to limit future production. That’s it.
Justifying stronger copyright based on the wellbeing of popcorn sellers, HMV employees, “parts of the touring industry” and even artists’ quality of life (ask a garbage collector if their salary or hours are fair) serves only to confuse the issue. These activities matter to copyright only to the extent that they fulfill the end of maximizing the creation and distribution of creative works. If they do, then tell us why copyright is the best way to ensure that, say, sound engineers, get paid.
If these activities can be replaced without hindering creation or distribution (seriously: popcorn vendors?), then tell us why we should care. If they are valued for other reasons, then we can lobby our government to provide other means of support. The cultural industries are supported by much, much more than just copyright law.
I have no doubt that Ms. McKennitt is sincere in her views on the importance of copyright to both her livelihood and music production. But she’s not doing anyone, especially herself, any favours by not discussing the particulars of copyright law. As I’ve said before, make your case for particular changes. Show us how particular reforms will help improve the creation and distribution of creative works. Tell us why you think specific critiques of the bill are wrong.
But, please, don’t engage in ad hominem attacks while refusing to engage on the substance of the issue. As my favourite blogger, Ta-Nehisi Coates, put it yesterday:
Overheated invective offers your adversaries a way out. You may have the superior argument, but a string of ad hominem allows your opponents to change the subject, and reduces you in his or her eyes, and in the eyes of your unswayed audience.This style of argument betrays a disrespect for people (including other musicians!) who happen to disagree with you, while giving your critics an excuse to dismiss your arguments entirely. If would be nice if the copyright debate could move beyond it.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Confessions of an agent of foreign influence
I couldn’t agree more with beleagured Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) director Richard Fadden’s warning that agents of foreign influence walk among us.
We certainly must be vigilant that Canadians don’t betray their country by coming under the influence of a foreign power. Canadian decisions must be made by Canadians, for Canadians. The influence of foreigners must be avoided at all costs.
We have to clean house, and the best way to do so is to identify all those Canadians who have accepted money, goods or services from foreign powers. Hey, gift grabbers: those trips and cheques don’t come for free. Fadden's saying that foreign powers want something in exchange for their largesse, and he should know: he’s the highly respected head of a highly respected spy agency.
So, in the spirit of patriotism and to prove my loyalty to our Beloved Country, I welcome the opportunity to confess my sins.
I am an agent of foreign influence.
Over the past year, I have accepted money – thousands of pesos! – from the Government of Mexico to “study” in that foreign country. While there, I met with government and business officials who discussed with me how Foreign copyright works in Mexico. I now have in my head their thoughts about what copyright law should look like; I fear I will never again be able to think pure, Canadian thoughts about copyright.
And they didn’t just give me money. The Government of this Foreign Power provided me not just with a plane ticket (on Mexicana!) to get to Mexico, but paid for my return ticket to ease my re-entry into Canadian society. They even let me fly Air Canada, undoubtedly so as not to arouse suspicion.
If that weren’t enough, they also provided me with free access to their health-care system. And, as the capper to their plot to turn me against my Country, somehow the Mexican Government managed to structure my time there to make me think that Mexicans are a great bunch of folks who live in a fascinating country with a climate that will certainly tempt me to defect when the temperature in Ottawa (which I love with all my heart) hits -40 Celsius this February.
It gets worse.
I’m not working only for Mexico. I’ve also accepted gifts from the most powerful country in the world, the United States of America. Tempted by a professor who is doubtlessly a double agent for this most powerful of Foreign Powers, I applied for and won a U.S. scholarship to study in Washington, D.C., for a summer.
Even though my loyalty is for sale to anyone who can help me finish my dissertation, I was shocked by the brazenness of this program, which goes by the innocuous title of The Washington Center, and brings together students from across the U.S. and (horrors!) around the world! In thinly veiled indoctrination sessions featuring U.S. Administration officials, congressional representatives and other luminaries, these propaganda-mouthing Foreign Influences baldly claimed that the whole purpose of the Washington Center was to “build understanding” among “Americans” and “our friends from other countries.”
It was terrible. The Washington Center actually places students at the heart of the U.S. political system (they placed me at the very centre of power, the Library of Congress), where they “learn about U.S. democracy” (read: are infected with Foreign Ideas) and make contacts (read: meet their handlers for when they return home). One American woman claimed publicly – where was her shame? – that these internships created links between the U.S. and other countries. If, down the road, a U.S. representative had a problem with Canada, for example, she could contact her Canadian ex-intern, who would likely be in a position of influence, to get a better read on the Canadian situation.
Incitement to treason? Or definitely incitement to treason?
A reasonable, if unpatriotic, person might argue that these lines of communication work both ways, but let’s be honest: Canadians aren’t the type of people who try to influence other countries. It’s the outside world of Foreign Influences that is trying to influence us away from our True Canadian Way.
Copping to my treasonous ways isn’t enough. Richard Fadden didn’t have the stones to do more than cast suspicion on all B.C. provincial and municipal politicians in a way that makes it impossible to clear their names (though I’m betting that if your skin burns easily, Fadden wasn’t talking about you).
But have no doubt about the size of my stones. I’m not afraid to name names.
The rot of Foreign Influence runs deep in the Canadian government, and the name of the treasonous government organization at the heart of the conspiracy to turn decent, pure Canadians into Agents of Foreign Influence is a little-known government agency called…
International Scholarships.
Administered by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (hey guys: you’re not fooling anyone by sticking “Canada” at the end of your name), International Scholarships’ Foreign Governments Awards Program puts unsuspecting Canadians under the thrall of such Foreign Countries as Russia and Norway!
It’s disgusting. For God’s sake, their website shamelessly boasts that they will put Canadians in touch with Foreign Governments offering Foreign Money to go to their Foreign Country and learn about their Foreign Ways. Oh, sure, International Scholarships also offer money to foreign students to come study in Canada, but that’s just so foreigners will be able to experience our character-building freezing winters and guileless ways. There’s nothing sinister about that.
Thank you, Richard Fadden, for helping me recognize the error of my ways. From this day forward, I will no longer accept money from Foreign Governments and will think only Canadian thoughts. I renounce my treasonous past and undertake to act only in the best interests of Canada, standing on guard against Foreign Influence, real and imagined, in defence of theLand of the Brave and Home of the Free True North Strong and Free.
We certainly must be vigilant that Canadians don’t betray their country by coming under the influence of a foreign power. Canadian decisions must be made by Canadians, for Canadians. The influence of foreigners must be avoided at all costs.
We have to clean house, and the best way to do so is to identify all those Canadians who have accepted money, goods or services from foreign powers. Hey, gift grabbers: those trips and cheques don’t come for free. Fadden's saying that foreign powers want something in exchange for their largesse, and he should know: he’s the highly respected head of a highly respected spy agency.
So, in the spirit of patriotism and to prove my loyalty to our Beloved Country, I welcome the opportunity to confess my sins.
I am an agent of foreign influence.
Over the past year, I have accepted money – thousands of pesos! – from the Government of Mexico to “study” in that foreign country. While there, I met with government and business officials who discussed with me how Foreign copyright works in Mexico. I now have in my head their thoughts about what copyright law should look like; I fear I will never again be able to think pure, Canadian thoughts about copyright.
And they didn’t just give me money. The Government of this Foreign Power provided me not just with a plane ticket (on Mexicana!) to get to Mexico, but paid for my return ticket to ease my re-entry into Canadian society. They even let me fly Air Canada, undoubtedly so as not to arouse suspicion.
If that weren’t enough, they also provided me with free access to their health-care system. And, as the capper to their plot to turn me against my Country, somehow the Mexican Government managed to structure my time there to make me think that Mexicans are a great bunch of folks who live in a fascinating country with a climate that will certainly tempt me to defect when the temperature in Ottawa (which I love with all my heart) hits -40 Celsius this February.
It gets worse.
I’m not working only for Mexico. I’ve also accepted gifts from the most powerful country in the world, the United States of America. Tempted by a professor who is doubtlessly a double agent for this most powerful of Foreign Powers, I applied for and won a U.S. scholarship to study in Washington, D.C., for a summer.
Even though my loyalty is for sale to anyone who can help me finish my dissertation, I was shocked by the brazenness of this program, which goes by the innocuous title of The Washington Center, and brings together students from across the U.S. and (horrors!) around the world! In thinly veiled indoctrination sessions featuring U.S. Administration officials, congressional representatives and other luminaries, these propaganda-mouthing Foreign Influences baldly claimed that the whole purpose of the Washington Center was to “build understanding” among “Americans” and “our friends from other countries.”
It was terrible. The Washington Center actually places students at the heart of the U.S. political system (they placed me at the very centre of power, the Library of Congress), where they “learn about U.S. democracy” (read: are infected with Foreign Ideas) and make contacts (read: meet their handlers for when they return home). One American woman claimed publicly – where was her shame? – that these internships created links between the U.S. and other countries. If, down the road, a U.S. representative had a problem with Canada, for example, she could contact her Canadian ex-intern, who would likely be in a position of influence, to get a better read on the Canadian situation.
Incitement to treason? Or definitely incitement to treason?
A reasonable, if unpatriotic, person might argue that these lines of communication work both ways, but let’s be honest: Canadians aren’t the type of people who try to influence other countries. It’s the outside world of Foreign Influences that is trying to influence us away from our True Canadian Way.
Copping to my treasonous ways isn’t enough. Richard Fadden didn’t have the stones to do more than cast suspicion on all B.C. provincial and municipal politicians in a way that makes it impossible to clear their names (though I’m betting that if your skin burns easily, Fadden wasn’t talking about you).
But have no doubt about the size of my stones. I’m not afraid to name names.
The rot of Foreign Influence runs deep in the Canadian government, and the name of the treasonous government organization at the heart of the conspiracy to turn decent, pure Canadians into Agents of Foreign Influence is a little-known government agency called…
International Scholarships.
Administered by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (hey guys: you’re not fooling anyone by sticking “Canada” at the end of your name), International Scholarships’ Foreign Governments Awards Program puts unsuspecting Canadians under the thrall of such Foreign Countries as Russia and Norway!
It’s disgusting. For God’s sake, their website shamelessly boasts that they will put Canadians in touch with Foreign Governments offering Foreign Money to go to their Foreign Country and learn about their Foreign Ways. Oh, sure, International Scholarships also offer money to foreign students to come study in Canada, but that’s just so foreigners will be able to experience our character-building freezing winters and guileless ways. There’s nothing sinister about that.
Thank you, Richard Fadden, for helping me recognize the error of my ways. From this day forward, I will no longer accept money from Foreign Governments and will think only Canadian thoughts. I renounce my treasonous past and undertake to act only in the best interests of Canada, standing on guard against Foreign Influence, real and imagined, in defence of the
Monday, June 28, 2010
Copyright as an instrument of industrial policy
As Russell McOrmond says, "A great post by David Eaves about the myth that Bill C-32 supports market forces." I'd go farther: Eaves is actually pointing out that copyright itself doesn't support market forces:
Digressing from the debate over C-32 to look at the bigger picture:
One of the overlooked realities of this debate is that copyright (or, rather, the regulation of the creative marketplace) is the last bastion of respectable industrial policy. In a world in which governments have given up trying to "pick winners" and shape the marketplace, this is the one area in which governments continue explicitly to shape the market to favour certain businesses and business models over others.
(Why this is so is a topic for another time; in my dissertation, I'm focusing largely on the role of path dependence in the development of copyright.)
To a surprising extent, the copyright debate isn't even about ends or means; it's a debate that has focused on one particular means. When we talk, we talk about copyright (a tool) rather than the creative marketplace (the thing that the tool is regulating). Instead of having a debate over the best way to improve the production and dissemination of creative works, we have a debate over whether people are pro- or anti-copyright. Debating copyright is kind of like construction workers debating whether they're pro- or anti-hammer, when they should be talking about the best way to build a house.
In my more policy-wonk-y moments, I wonder how the copyright debate would unfold if copyright were treated as a form of commercial regulation, and as as one possible means to an end, rather than as an end (the end?) unto itself.
I too believe that consumers should choose what they want. But if the Minister were a true free market advocate he wouldn't believe in copyright reform. Indeed, he wouldn't believe in copyright at all. In a true free market, there'd be no copyright legislation because the market would decide how to deal with intellectual property.Eaves correctly points out that: "Copyright law exists in order to regulate and shape a market because we don't think market forces work. In short, the Minister's legislation is creating the marketplace."
Digressing from the debate over C-32 to look at the bigger picture:
One of the overlooked realities of this debate is that copyright (or, rather, the regulation of the creative marketplace) is the last bastion of respectable industrial policy. In a world in which governments have given up trying to "pick winners" and shape the marketplace, this is the one area in which governments continue explicitly to shape the market to favour certain businesses and business models over others.
(Why this is so is a topic for another time; in my dissertation, I'm focusing largely on the role of path dependence in the development of copyright.)
To a surprising extent, the copyright debate isn't even about ends or means; it's a debate that has focused on one particular means. When we talk, we talk about copyright (a tool) rather than the creative marketplace (the thing that the tool is regulating). Instead of having a debate over the best way to improve the production and dissemination of creative works, we have a debate over whether people are pro- or anti-copyright. Debating copyright is kind of like construction workers debating whether they're pro- or anti-hammer, when they should be talking about the best way to build a house.
In my more policy-wonk-y moments, I wonder how the copyright debate would unfold if copyright were treated as a form of commercial regulation, and as as one possible means to an end, rather than as an end (the end?) unto itself.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
"Radical extremists" and the smearing of Michael Geist
Note: I actually wrote most of this early last week, but never got around to posting it, what with the dissertation and all. Too bad, since in light of Heritage Minister James Moore’s recent comments about the opponents of Bill C-32, it’s pretty timely.
Onward!
True story: Back when I was deciding on a dissertation topic, I settled on digital copyright policy as a way to try to understand North American regional governance because I thought it would be a technical issue of little interest to most people.
Finished laughing yet?
But seriously: Over the past four years, I’ve learned differently, but I have to say, as someone who came to the issue from the outside, so to speak, I am routinely shocked by the vitriol and personal attacks that characterize parts of the copyright debate.
As a political scientist, it’s particularly interesting (if dispiriting) to observe the misleading, highly personal, borderline-unprofessional attacks that have been launched against Michael Geist. Russell McOrmond has a few other examples on hand.
(Disclosure: I interviewed Geist for my dissertation – it would be pretty hard to write about the politics of Canadian copyright without doing so – and one of his colleagues at the University of Ottawa is on my dissertation committee. I may also be contributing to a Geist-edited volume. In keeping with the spirit of this posting, though, I hope you'll critique my argument, not my affiliations.)
They’ve been nasty. In some circles, he has been referred to as “he who shall not be named” and worse. This fellow's colourful tale of an Industry Canada-Michael Geist-Pamela Samuelson (an American law professor) conspiracy to strip authors of their human rights, complete with an org chart describing the conspiracy is unhinged, to say the least. Throw in the Freemasons and you’d have a fair-to-middling Dan Brown novel.
(For anyone interested in an actual study of Canadian copyright-related decision making, check out Simon Doyle’s Prey to Thievery. It’s based on Access to Information requests and interviews with many of the principals involved in the run-up to Bill C-60, the Liberal’s 2005 attempt to implement Canada’s treaty obligations. Turns out that the civil servants at both Industry and Canadian Heritage had serious misgivings about adopting DMCA-style copyright amendments in 2005. The conspiracy widens!)
And now we have Canadian Heritage Minister’s James Moore’s thinly veiled ad hominem attack on Geist.
These denigrating attacks are noteworthy because, as a fair reading of Geist’s work demonstrates, he’s not exactly a radical. I understand radicals; being in university, I know radicals, and Geist ain’t one. A radical would be someone who calls for the elimination of copyright and Canada’s withdrawal from the Berne Convention and TRIPS (though even this position is theoretically and empirically defensible). They’re not the type of person who calls for public consultations, proposes amendments to legislation and works with the bureaucracy and government officials to promote his views.
If his methods don’t scream radical, neither do his actual policy positions.
Far from calling for the impoverishment of authors, the need to balance the legitimate interests of the many groups involved in copyright reform is a common theme throughout Geist’s voluminous writings. Geist argues that this balance has been tipped too far in favour of copyright owners (who are primarily publishers and distributors, not creators) at the expense of those who use creative works, either as an end product, or as an input to the creation of future creative works.
In a way, the anti-Geist vitriol is a tribute to the rising strength of this new copyright interest group: individual Canadians. Copyright is a high-stakes game, and people don’t waste their time attacking people and views that don’t matter.
The upshot of all this is that Geist has become a convenient lightening rod for those interested in dismissing critics’ views without engaging them. It’s a high-risk strategy. If voters buy the vilification of all those opposed to Bill C-32 as "radical extremists," then Geist’s critics can win the debate. But there's also the possibility that voters may ask if the bill's proponents are engaging in character assassination rather than rational policy debate because the proponents' actual arguments aren't that convincing.
Onward!
True story: Back when I was deciding on a dissertation topic, I settled on digital copyright policy as a way to try to understand North American regional governance because I thought it would be a technical issue of little interest to most people.
Finished laughing yet?
But seriously: Over the past four years, I’ve learned differently, but I have to say, as someone who came to the issue from the outside, so to speak, I am routinely shocked by the vitriol and personal attacks that characterize parts of the copyright debate.
As a political scientist, it’s particularly interesting (if dispiriting) to observe the misleading, highly personal, borderline-unprofessional attacks that have been launched against Michael Geist. Russell McOrmond has a few other examples on hand.
(Disclosure: I interviewed Geist for my dissertation – it would be pretty hard to write about the politics of Canadian copyright without doing so – and one of his colleagues at the University of Ottawa is on my dissertation committee. I may also be contributing to a Geist-edited volume. In keeping with the spirit of this posting, though, I hope you'll critique my argument, not my affiliations.)
They’ve been nasty. In some circles, he has been referred to as “he who shall not be named” and worse. This fellow's colourful tale of an Industry Canada-Michael Geist-Pamela Samuelson (an American law professor) conspiracy to strip authors of their human rights, complete with an org chart describing the conspiracy is unhinged, to say the least. Throw in the Freemasons and you’d have a fair-to-middling Dan Brown novel.
(For anyone interested in an actual study of Canadian copyright-related decision making, check out Simon Doyle’s Prey to Thievery. It’s based on Access to Information requests and interviews with many of the principals involved in the run-up to Bill C-60, the Liberal’s 2005 attempt to implement Canada’s treaty obligations. Turns out that the civil servants at both Industry and Canadian Heritage had serious misgivings about adopting DMCA-style copyright amendments in 2005. The conspiracy widens!)
And now we have Canadian Heritage Minister’s James Moore’s thinly veiled ad hominem attack on Geist.
These denigrating attacks are noteworthy because, as a fair reading of Geist’s work demonstrates, he’s not exactly a radical. I understand radicals; being in university, I know radicals, and Geist ain’t one. A radical would be someone who calls for the elimination of copyright and Canada’s withdrawal from the Berne Convention and TRIPS (though even this position is theoretically and empirically defensible). They’re not the type of person who calls for public consultations, proposes amendments to legislation and works with the bureaucracy and government officials to promote his views.
If his methods don’t scream radical, neither do his actual policy positions.
Far from calling for the impoverishment of authors, the need to balance the legitimate interests of the many groups involved in copyright reform is a common theme throughout Geist’s voluminous writings. Geist argues that this balance has been tipped too far in favour of copyright owners (who are primarily publishers and distributors, not creators) at the expense of those who use creative works, either as an end product, or as an input to the creation of future creative works.
Those who claim to know what Geist really believes, evidence be damned, as Moore claims to in his speech, might want to recall how well all that soul-sensing worked out for George Dubya.
Geist's views are exactly as radical as the 1971 Economic Council of Canada report into copyright and intellectual property, which everybody interested in copyright should read, if only to mourn the extent to which the debate has deteriorated in the intervening four decades (annoyingly, it's not available online). The Economic Council argued that incentives to produce copyrightable works should not encourage either overproduction or overprotection.
Geist's views are exactly as radical as the 1971 Economic Council of Canada report into copyright and intellectual property, which everybody interested in copyright should read, if only to mourn the extent to which the debate has deteriorated in the intervening four decades (annoyingly, it's not available online). The Economic Council argued that incentives to produce copyrightable works should not encourage either overproduction or overprotection.
That’s an economic-y way of saying pretty much the same thing as Geist: a good copyright law should provide incentives to create without tilting the playing field too much in favour of any one interest group.
Unsurprisingly, some copyright interests refuse to concede the point of Geist – and of the Economic Council of Canada, and of every copyright law that’s ever been written – that users’ rights are an intrinsic part of copyright law, not an addition. Copyright is about dissemination, not just protection. At some point, too much protection will hinder dissemination and access. Currently, protection (so goes Geist’s argument, and he’s not alone) is hindering dissemination and access. Simple as that.
So, if Geist isn’t a fire-breathing radical, why the hate? Two reasons, I’d argue:
1. It’s all about money, and it’s nothing new. Every time a technological change creates a new interest group, these new groups inevitably come into conflict with the entrenched interests that had previously divided the copyright money jar amongst themselves. A new player in town means another group whose interests will conflict with the material interests of the old-boys club. As you can imagine, this political fight can get rough. Previously, it was VCR manufacturers horning in on the action. Before that, photocopiers. Before that, the recording and motion picture industries. And before them, the makers of piano rolls.
You get the idea.
This time around, individuals as a group are one of the main threats to the status quo. Digital technology and the Internet have lowered the cost of production and distribution, making individuals competitive with the industrial giants that previously were essential to getting creative works to the masses. Despite the fact that copyright has always affected individuals, individual users previously had not been represented in the debate.
In Canada, Geist has emerged as this interest group’s most effective spokesperson.Thanks to social-network technology and some canny positioning by Geist, users are now at the table, and their (legitimate) interests unsurprisingly clash with those of some creators and publishers/distributors. Quick example: If users have the right to control what they do with their legally purchased digital works, then obviously the copyright owner doesn’t.
2. Geist is effective. If Geist just stuck to writing his Toronto Star column or took the traditional academic route of publishing in obscure journals, established copyright interests wouldn’t spare him more than a letter to the editor. Instead, he not only knows his topic, he has proven himself a canny political operative. He was the first person in Canada to use effectively social-networking sites like Facebook for political purposes. He also clearly is interested in achieving what's possible: unlike true radicals, he’s interested in compromise. Michael Geist is no Maude Barlow.
Unsurprisingly, some copyright interests refuse to concede the point of Geist – and of the Economic Council of Canada, and of every copyright law that’s ever been written – that users’ rights are an intrinsic part of copyright law, not an addition. Copyright is about dissemination, not just protection. At some point, too much protection will hinder dissemination and access. Currently, protection (so goes Geist’s argument, and he’s not alone) is hindering dissemination and access. Simple as that.
So, if Geist isn’t a fire-breathing radical, why the hate? Two reasons, I’d argue:
1. It’s all about money, and it’s nothing new. Every time a technological change creates a new interest group, these new groups inevitably come into conflict with the entrenched interests that had previously divided the copyright money jar amongst themselves. A new player in town means another group whose interests will conflict with the material interests of the old-boys club. As you can imagine, this political fight can get rough. Previously, it was VCR manufacturers horning in on the action. Before that, photocopiers. Before that, the recording and motion picture industries. And before them, the makers of piano rolls.
You get the idea.
This time around, individuals as a group are one of the main threats to the status quo. Digital technology and the Internet have lowered the cost of production and distribution, making individuals competitive with the industrial giants that previously were essential to getting creative works to the masses. Despite the fact that copyright has always affected individuals, individual users previously had not been represented in the debate.
In Canada, Geist has emerged as this interest group’s most effective spokesperson.Thanks to social-network technology and some canny positioning by Geist, users are now at the table, and their (legitimate) interests unsurprisingly clash with those of some creators and publishers/distributors. Quick example: If users have the right to control what they do with their legally purchased digital works, then obviously the copyright owner doesn’t.
2. Geist is effective. If Geist just stuck to writing his Toronto Star column or took the traditional academic route of publishing in obscure journals, established copyright interests wouldn’t spare him more than a letter to the editor. Instead, he not only knows his topic, he has proven himself a canny political operative. He was the first person in Canada to use effectively social-networking sites like Facebook for political purposes. He also clearly is interested in achieving what's possible: unlike true radicals, he’s interested in compromise. Michael Geist is no Maude Barlow.
In a way, the anti-Geist vitriol is a tribute to the rising strength of this new copyright interest group: individual Canadians. Copyright is a high-stakes game, and people don’t waste their time attacking people and views that don’t matter.
The upshot of all this is that Geist has become a convenient lightening rod for those interested in dismissing critics’ views without engaging them. It’s a high-risk strategy. If voters buy the vilification of all those opposed to Bill C-32 as "radical extremists," then Geist’s critics can win the debate. But there's also the possibility that voters may ask if the bill's proponents are engaging in character assassination rather than rational policy debate because the proponents' actual arguments aren't that convincing.
Bill C-32: Copyright debate turns ugly. Again.
And here I was hoping that we could debate Bill C-32 rationally, if not calmly. Instead, we have our Minister of Canadian Heritage characterizing critics of Bill C-32 as: “Those absolutists out there, who are babyish in their approach to copyright legislation,” and who really want to see copyright destroyed. Who calls on people to “Make sure that those voices who try to find technical, non-sensical, fear-mongering reasons to oppose copyright reform are confronted every step of the way and they are defeated.”
Let’s leave aside the fact that if there are technical problems with C-32, we should hope that Parliament would fix them. Let's be clear: Minister Moore's attempted framing of the copyright debate as a battle between those who believe in copyright and those who don't is absolute nonsense. Copyright legislation always involves reaching a compromise among very disparate groups. What we're seeing right now is a debate between these groups, all of which have much to win and lose.
It’s not as simple as users v. creators. Copyright has never been about only making sure creators get paid. More often than not, it’s been about ensuring publishers have an incentive to distribute creators’ works, a means to the end of ensuring that books, movies, music and so on get produced and distributed .
In addition to creators, distributors and publishers, who still play an important role in helping creators be heard, must get their due: your record companies, Hollywood, ISPs, book publishers, Apple, and so forth.
A good bill would also take into account the creators of tomorrow, who depend on easy access to existing works to create their own books and music. It would minimize the roadblocks to the creation of professors’ lesson plans, and make it as easy as possible for researchers and authors to get the books they need to conduct their research.
It would also ensure that no existing industry is protected from competition by a future, more efficient business model.
Of course, it must also take into account those individuals who listen to music, read books, use computer programs and watch movies. This is more than mere consumption: it is the very way in which we advance ourselves as a society. Anything that needlessly limits our access to information presents a fundamental problem for our society.
And, contrary to what Heritage Minister Moore suggests, it’s not as if there’s a whole lot of evidence that stronger copyright protection even encourages production. I hesitate to say this, because doing so is a one-way ticket out of the respectable policy debate, but it is a completely defensible position, both empirically and theoretically, that we’d be better off with no copyright, or a drastically different copyright regime. Opponents of this view have to (or should have to, I guess) address it through reasoned debate, not polemical assertions.
Given all these interests and legitimate conflicts, is it surprising that certain groups object to what’s in Bill C-32? Bill C-32 creates winners and losers. While I, as a creator and citizen, might object to the way Bill C-32 would override the limitations and exceptions that are integral to any copyright law by giving the final say on rights to whoever owns the digital lock on a work or device, I also know that there is a policy argument to be made for this view.
(The argument for the strong legal protection of Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) is as follows:
I would hope that we, as Canadians, expect better from our government. If Moore believes in his legislation (and, as I indicated, there is a legitimate policy argument to be made for it), then he should have the confidence to defend it on its own terms. Explain to us why you think that Bill C-32’s approach to TPMs is better than the bill proposed by the Liberal government in 2005 (which would have made it a crime to break a lock only for the purposes of violating the underlying copyright).
Make the case. But, please, dial down the rhetoric, and start treating all your constituents with respect.
Let’s leave aside the fact that if there are technical problems with C-32, we should hope that Parliament would fix them. Let's be clear: Minister Moore's attempted framing of the copyright debate as a battle between those who believe in copyright and those who don't is absolute nonsense. Copyright legislation always involves reaching a compromise among very disparate groups. What we're seeing right now is a debate between these groups, all of which have much to win and lose.
It’s not as simple as users v. creators. Copyright has never been about only making sure creators get paid. More often than not, it’s been about ensuring publishers have an incentive to distribute creators’ works, a means to the end of ensuring that books, movies, music and so on get produced and distributed .
In addition to creators, distributors and publishers, who still play an important role in helping creators be heard, must get their due: your record companies, Hollywood, ISPs, book publishers, Apple, and so forth.
A good bill would also take into account the creators of tomorrow, who depend on easy access to existing works to create their own books and music. It would minimize the roadblocks to the creation of professors’ lesson plans, and make it as easy as possible for researchers and authors to get the books they need to conduct their research.
It would also ensure that no existing industry is protected from competition by a future, more efficient business model.
Of course, it must also take into account those individuals who listen to music, read books, use computer programs and watch movies. This is more than mere consumption: it is the very way in which we advance ourselves as a society. Anything that needlessly limits our access to information presents a fundamental problem for our society.
And, contrary to what Heritage Minister Moore suggests, it’s not as if there’s a whole lot of evidence that stronger copyright protection even encourages production. I hesitate to say this, because doing so is a one-way ticket out of the respectable policy debate, but it is a completely defensible position, both empirically and theoretically, that we’d be better off with no copyright, or a drastically different copyright regime. Opponents of this view have to (or should have to, I guess) address it through reasoned debate, not polemical assertions.
Given all these interests and legitimate conflicts, is it surprising that certain groups object to what’s in Bill C-32? Bill C-32 creates winners and losers. While I, as a creator and citizen, might object to the way Bill C-32 would override the limitations and exceptions that are integral to any copyright law by giving the final say on rights to whoever owns the digital lock on a work or device, I also know that there is a policy argument to be made for this view.
(The argument for the strong legal protection of Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) is as follows:
- Canada’s treaty obligations require the imposition of “adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies” for the protection of TPMs.
- These TPMs are needed in order to encourage the wide digital distribution of creative works: movies, music, video games, books.
- Without this protection, Canada will enjoy a suboptimal level of digital production and distribution.
- Since TPMs can be broken, often quite easily, we have to outlaw all tools that can break TPMs (adequate legal protection).
- Finally, crucially, the social benefit from doing all this outweighs the social costs, such as the restriction of existing rights and allowing the owners of these digital locks, rather than copyright law, to set the terms on which people can access and use even works they have legally purchased.)
I would hope that we, as Canadians, expect better from our government. If Moore believes in his legislation (and, as I indicated, there is a legitimate policy argument to be made for it), then he should have the confidence to defend it on its own terms. Explain to us why you think that Bill C-32’s approach to TPMs is better than the bill proposed by the Liberal government in 2005 (which would have made it a crime to break a lock only for the purposes of violating the underlying copyright).
Make the case. But, please, dial down the rhetoric, and start treating all your constituents with respect.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Access to Information by the Numbers
Following up on a previous post:
Number of copyright bills that have been introduced since my initial request: 2
Number of pages finally received: 76
Number of pages completely redacted for reasons of international relations, federal-provincial affairs, government operations, solicitor-client privilege, and/or personal information: 27
Number of pages excluded because they were deemed not relevant: 8
Total number of pages with some kind of copyright-related information on them: 41
Total number of pages consisting mainly of articles that you could get in a couple of hours surfing the net: 21 (fully half of the non-redacted pages)
Total number of forwarded emails included in this package that contained only a (publicly available) media or newswire article: 3 (7 pages)
Total number of pages taken up by a 1995 statement by the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, that is freely available on the Web: 14
Total number of pages of emails scheduling a 2007 Deputy Minister-level copyright meeting: 2
Number of pages included from a 2005 Media Analysis Report on the introduction of Bill C-60: 10
Of the seven journalists named in this Report as having written more than one article on copyright between April 16 and August 11, 2005, number whose names were not redacted (because doing so would reveal “personal information” – even though the articles are generally available): 0
Number of memos included in the package: 6
Number of memos whose subject line was not redacted: 0
Total amount by which the PCO’s work on this Access to Information request will improve Canadians’ understanding of how their government works, and what decisions are being taken in Canadians’ names: 0
Amount of time, in seconds, that I would recommend a PhD student spend on Access to Information requests, unless they have access to a ringer who does this kind of thing professionally: 0
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
No good deed goes unpunished
Personally, if someone explained to me that they were late in replying to an offer of admission to a Masters program because, "I'm in rural Tanzania teaching kids to read and my Internet access is a bit spotty," I'd give them a scholarship, not put them on a waiting list.
But that's just me.
But that's just me.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Canadian copyright: Room to maneuver?
As I mentioned in my previous post, on Thursday I presented a paper – essentially my dissertation’s argument compressed into 25 pages – at the Canadian Political Science Association's annual conference. Great, insightful comments from our discussant, York University Professor Ricardo Grinspun. I was especially gratified by the interest in my paper from the audience. I still remember getting only one pity question (about Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want In Rainbows experiment) at my first-every conference presentation, three or four years ago to the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States. The lack of questions, I think, said more about my unfocused paper (one of my professors at Carleton believes that PhD students shouldn’t present anything until the end of their dissertation, and it’s not too hard to see why), but even negative feedback is better than indifference.
Prof. Grinspun’s main comment about my paper was about my conclusion – that Canada, Mexico and the U.S. retain significant policy autonomy with respect to copyright policy. Typically, the U.S. offers countries better access to its market in exchange for those countries implementing U.S.-style copyright reforms. Thing is, the NAFTA already guarantees Canada and Mexico this access. As a result, it’s harder for the U.S. to link copyright reform to anything, and so domestic factors become relatively more important than global or regional factors.
Grinspun correctly pointed out that regardless of this domestic autonomy, the reality is that the United States has defined (through its influence on the WIPO treaty process) the parameters of what we think of as digital-copyright reform (e.g., to include legal protection for digital locks and making available provisions). He suggested (and I’m paraphrasing quite a lot here) that the evidence seems to indicate that Canada and Mexico are moving toward a U.S.-style copyright regime, only at different speeds.
Certainly, Bill C-32, as it stands, gives the U.S. and the content industries pretty much everything they were looking for with respect to to the legal protection of technological protection measures (TPMs), although, interestingly, there is no “notice-and-takedown” regime for ISP liability in the bill. I think my response to Prof. Grinspun’s comments would emphasize the process, not the outcome. There is certainly a push toward U.S.-style copyright policy, from the U.S. itself as well as the content industries more generally. But there is no one-way street toward harmonization. Canada and Mexico have a choice in the matter.
If I had to boil down the paper to three points, it would be these:
In Canada, if my reading of the situation is correct, Bill C-61’s DMCA-like TPM provisions was at least partly the result of a political calculation that the United States need to be (or should be) satisfied by Canadian actions on this issue. In 2005, with Bill C-60, the Liberal government came to a different conclusion. (Domestic factors also matter here, as well: Bill C-32 wasn’t unveiled in the Montreal offices of U.S. multinational Electronic Arts for nothing: this bill is a huge win for the video-game industry.)
So, what does this mean for the debate over Bill C-32? First, it would be kind of silly to argue that the United States has had nothing to do with the TPM provisions in C-32; I hope nobody does. But (and I don’t think I’m talking semantics here) more important is the government perception of what the bill means for Canada-U.S. relations, and for specific sectors of Canadian industry.
Second, and related to the first point, Canadian governments have a lot of room to maneuver on the issue of TPMs, should they choose to use it. And there's room for lots of legitimate policy disagreement on whether or not Canada should have followed the U.S. lead on this issue.
Prof. Grinspun’s main comment about my paper was about my conclusion – that Canada, Mexico and the U.S. retain significant policy autonomy with respect to copyright policy. Typically, the U.S. offers countries better access to its market in exchange for those countries implementing U.S.-style copyright reforms. Thing is, the NAFTA already guarantees Canada and Mexico this access. As a result, it’s harder for the U.S. to link copyright reform to anything, and so domestic factors become relatively more important than global or regional factors.
Grinspun correctly pointed out that regardless of this domestic autonomy, the reality is that the United States has defined (through its influence on the WIPO treaty process) the parameters of what we think of as digital-copyright reform (e.g., to include legal protection for digital locks and making available provisions). He suggested (and I’m paraphrasing quite a lot here) that the evidence seems to indicate that Canada and Mexico are moving toward a U.S.-style copyright regime, only at different speeds.
Certainly, Bill C-32, as it stands, gives the U.S. and the content industries pretty much everything they were looking for with respect to to the legal protection of technological protection measures (TPMs), although, interestingly, there is no “notice-and-takedown” regime for ISP liability in the bill. I think my response to Prof. Grinspun’s comments would emphasize the process, not the outcome. There is certainly a push toward U.S.-style copyright policy, from the U.S. itself as well as the content industries more generally. But there is no one-way street toward harmonization. Canada and Mexico have a choice in the matter.
If I had to boil down the paper to three points, it would be these:
- The United States has set the parameters of what is considered to be legitimate debate when we talk about copyright reform. That was the point of the WIPO Internet treaties.
- But: In the absence of strong regional governance of copyright and the ability of the United States to credibly link copyright reform with something the other two countries want*, Canada and Mexico retain significant policy autonomy. Whether they choose to exercise it is, of course, another question.
- The decision to follow the U.S. lead or not is influenced significantly by domestic factors.
In Canada, if my reading of the situation is correct, Bill C-61’s DMCA-like TPM provisions was at least partly the result of a political calculation that the United States need to be (or should be) satisfied by Canadian actions on this issue. In 2005, with Bill C-60, the Liberal government came to a different conclusion. (Domestic factors also matter here, as well: Bill C-32 wasn’t unveiled in the Montreal offices of U.S. multinational Electronic Arts for nothing: this bill is a huge win for the video-game industry.)
So, what does this mean for the debate over Bill C-32? First, it would be kind of silly to argue that the United States has had nothing to do with the TPM provisions in C-32; I hope nobody does. But (and I don’t think I’m talking semantics here) more important is the government perception of what the bill means for Canada-U.S. relations, and for specific sectors of Canadian industry.
Second, and related to the first point, Canadian governments have a lot of room to maneuver on the issue of TPMs, should they choose to use it. And there's room for lots of legitimate policy disagreement on whether or not Canada should have followed the U.S. lead on this issue.
* The U.S. isn't the only country that plays the copyright linkage game: In the ongoing Canada-EU trade negotiations, the EU is pushing for Canada to reform its copyright laws to make them more to the EU's liking; they seem to be quite happy with C-32. As always, the most effective pressure for Canadian copyright reform comes from abroad.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Shameless self-promotion and the future of journalism
As you may have heard, yesterday I presented a paper on North American digital copyright policy at the Canadian Political Science Association annual conference. It's nice to be noticed, but boo to the NDP: the quote about the Americans deals with the Conservatives' 2008 bill, not the current bill. That kind of changes things, doesn't it? (It's almost as if the NDP researchers didn't read the paper, not even the section the quote comes from. If that's the case, I'm really, really hurt.)
I don't mind my research being used for partisan purposes, but at least get your facts straight, kids.
The NDP's sloppiness aside, I think the quote (taken in context, please) and paper speak for themselves (if they don't, feel free to ask: orangespaceb-at-gmail dot com), so the only thing I’ll say is that it’s great to see journalists like David Akin paying attention to what’s going on in academia. Off the top of my head, the Star’s Susan Delacourt and Macleans’ Paul Wells also deserve kudos in this area.
All you other journalists and newspapers: there’s gold in them thar academic papers! Many are based on in-depth primary research (i.e., interviews and document analyses) on issues of current interest (in Political Science, anyway; can’t speak to English Lit). With the ever-declining number of foreign correspondents and investigative journalists, it would be great to see Canadian newspapers start to pay more (i.e., any) attention to PhD students and recent grads. They’re experts in their subject area, and many are either conducting, or just returned from, field research all over the world. Done right, a smart newspaper could get some high-quality foreign reporting/investigative journalism on the cheap.
The NDP's sloppiness aside, I think the quote (taken in context, please) and paper speak for themselves (if they don't, feel free to ask: orangespaceb-at-gmail dot com), so the only thing I’ll say is that it’s great to see journalists like David Akin paying attention to what’s going on in academia. Off the top of my head, the Star’s Susan Delacourt and Macleans’ Paul Wells also deserve kudos in this area.
All you other journalists and newspapers: there’s gold in them thar academic papers! Many are based on in-depth primary research (i.e., interviews and document analyses) on issues of current interest (in Political Science, anyway; can’t speak to English Lit). With the ever-declining number of foreign correspondents and investigative journalists, it would be great to see Canadian newspapers start to pay more (i.e., any) attention to PhD students and recent grads. They’re experts in their subject area, and many are either conducting, or just returned from, field research all over the world. Done right, a smart newspaper could get some high-quality foreign reporting/investigative journalism on the cheap.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Getting ready to debate Canadian copyright: Things to keep in mind
So Canada is going to be getting a new copyright bill, sooner rather than later. The cynic in me says that this only means that a federal election is also going be happening sooner rather than later. (My inner cynic also believes that the government is timing the release of the bill to cause as much havoc as possible with my dissertation.)
Still, I’ve been thinking about how to evaluate the bill if/when it gets to Parliament, particularly regarding the treatment of technological protection measures and ISP liability, which I’ve been focusing on in my dissertation work. There’s likely to be much more heat than light created once the bill hits the fan. After all, you have high financial stakes, and powerful, well-funded lobbies out to portray self-interest as the national interest. (In fairness, in some cases, this equivalence may hold. In some cases.)
There’s also the reality that copyright hits the emotional hot buttons of property and culture, with an assist to fears of American domination. Oh, and there’s the fact that journalists in general are lost at sea with such a needlessly complex topic.
So, to help my own thinking, I’ve come up with three issues and three questions that I hope will help me keep my eye on the ball while ignoring the self-serving and emotional rhetoric we’re going to be hearing a lot of over the coming months. If you find them useful, all the better.
1. Clarity: Are the provisions that directly affect consumers clear and easy to understand?
Copyright laws are notoriously complicated and contradictory. That was okay when it was a commercial law that mainly governed intra-industry disputes among businesses that could afford to throw money away on copyright lawyers. But now that copyright rules directly affect individuals, individual Canadians should be able to understand what they are allowed and not allowed to do. If the rules are too complex, that’ll be a huge strike against the bill. We need a consumer-friendly Copyright Act. If it exempts non-commercial activities, so much the better.
Here’s a quick test: After reading the legislation, are the conditions under which you can and cannot upload a song to a personal blog clear? (Right now, they’re not.)
2. Debate: Don’t listen to anyone who uses the word “pirate”
The state places limits on all forms of property because while well-defined property rights are socially useful for the construction of free markets, which themselves are socially useful, society is not served by absolute property rights. Absolute property rights themselves can lead to abuses, like being able to get away with the murder of your neighbour. Rather, limits on property rights themselves serve a socially useful purpose. For a less dramatic example, consider health regulations that limit what can be put in our food. The question becomes: where to draw the line? More property rights are not necessarily better.
As with physical property, so with intellectual property and copyright. Copyright is a temporary (typically life of the author plus 50 years) and limited (exceptions for educational purposes, for example) because without these limits, copyright would be socially destructive. To take an easy example, all creators (of songs, books, films or class lectures) stand on the shoulders of those who came before. It is not in society’s interest to give past creators or copyright owners (most economically important copyrights are controlled by non-creators) a veto over the production of future creators. Clearly, rights in creative works, if we believe them to serve a socially useful purpose, should be something less than absolute: the question is, how much less?
So, by all means, let’s discuss the actual benefits and harms that come from unauthorized downloading of songs, movies and books. Let’s talk about what rights consumers should have to do with the things that they purchase. (Interestingly, proponents of strong copyright rarely note that a fundamental cornerstone of property rights is that the seller typically has no rights over how a legitimate buyer uses “their” product.) But let's keep in mind the substantial benefits that come from a robust set of exceptions and limitations to copyright.
It actually turns out that the evidence, both empirical and theoretical, of the effects of copyright on cultural production and dissemination is much more ambiguous than slurs like “pirates!” and “piracy!” would lead one to believe. Furthermore, a recent study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, casts doubt on the reliability of studies claiming losses due to counterfeiting and copyright violations. Moral of the story: always look at the study’s underlying assumptions, and who is funding the study.
The same rhetoric rule can be applied to anyone who asserts that they have a “right” to something. “Artists have a right to be paid for their work.” Sure, but how? And should the starving artist be treated the same as the global superstar? Empirically, only the biggest musical acts, for example, realize any significant income directly from copyright. As a heartless economist, I’d also point out that it’s socially inefficient to pay someone for something that they would have produced for free. Such as this blog posting, for example. And yet it’s covered by copyright, too.
Rights-talk doesn’t get us very far when trying to formulate public policy that affects many different interests. It just leads to a pissing match over which group has the bigger rights (creators? corporations? consumers? citizens?). Better to look at actual outcomes and try to satisfy as many people as possible.
Oh, and copyright? So not a left-right issue: both sides, at least in economics (which has much more to say about copyright than you’d think, given its relative absence from the debate), are equally hostile to it. On the left, certainly, you have the Marxist view that sees property itself as socially damaging. However, on the right, you’re just as likely to find those who see copyright as a government-enforced monopoly that restricts the marketplace, interferes with individual choice and gives far too much power to monopolistic corporate interests. In the middle, the honest, evidence-based debate is (or should be) over where to draw the lines; characterizing this line-drawing a left-right issue is just a cheap way to score rhetorical points.
3. Remember: Copyright is a means to an end, not an end in itself
At the end of the day, copyright is simply the means by which the government regulates the commercial market for creative works. While it has had the effect of privileging certain business models (hierarchical, top-down corporations whose existence depends on the artificial scarcity in copies created by copyright law) over others, the purpose of copyright is not to maintain these businesses.
Conservatives especially should see industry appeals for changes to copyright to protect specific businesses as appeals to protectionism that have nothing to do with the underlying purposes of copyright. So long as music, stories and essays continue to be created and distributed, in whatever form, it should not matter, from a creative, economic or societal perspective, if the record, publishing or movie industries as we know them change beyond recognition, all other things being equal.
Still, I’ve been thinking about how to evaluate the bill if/when it gets to Parliament, particularly regarding the treatment of technological protection measures and ISP liability, which I’ve been focusing on in my dissertation work. There’s likely to be much more heat than light created once the bill hits the fan. After all, you have high financial stakes, and powerful, well-funded lobbies out to portray self-interest as the national interest. (In fairness, in some cases, this equivalence may hold. In some cases.)
There’s also the reality that copyright hits the emotional hot buttons of property and culture, with an assist to fears of American domination. Oh, and there’s the fact that journalists in general are lost at sea with such a needlessly complex topic.
So, to help my own thinking, I’ve come up with three issues and three questions that I hope will help me keep my eye on the ball while ignoring the self-serving and emotional rhetoric we’re going to be hearing a lot of over the coming months. If you find them useful, all the better.
1. Clarity: Are the provisions that directly affect consumers clear and easy to understand?
Copyright laws are notoriously complicated and contradictory. That was okay when it was a commercial law that mainly governed intra-industry disputes among businesses that could afford to throw money away on copyright lawyers. But now that copyright rules directly affect individuals, individual Canadians should be able to understand what they are allowed and not allowed to do. If the rules are too complex, that’ll be a huge strike against the bill. We need a consumer-friendly Copyright Act. If it exempts non-commercial activities, so much the better.
Here’s a quick test: After reading the legislation, are the conditions under which you can and cannot upload a song to a personal blog clear? (Right now, they’re not.)
2. Debate: Don’t listen to anyone who uses the word “pirate”
Rhetoric tends to muddy the waters of copyright debate. Most disturbing, for its tendency to shut down rational debate, is the accusation that someone is a "pirate" or that some activity is "piracy."
If you see or hear the word “pirate” or “piracy” in an article or interview about copyright, run away. Deployed by journalists and politicians, it demonstrates either laziness and a lack of understanding of what copyright is, and/or an unexplored bias in favour of a particular form of copyright.
If you hear it from a pundit or lobbyist, it demonstrates the same bias, an attempt to bypass rational discussion of the limits and utility of specific copyright rules by appealing to gut feelings about “property.” (And usually in support of a particular interest.) The implication is always the same. If you’re doing something I don’t like, you’re stealing something from me; or you don’t believe in property, so you must be a lefty pinko. Regardless, it’s a sure sign that the speaker or writer isn’t interested in a rational debate over the most socially useful construction of copyright.
Copyright law is about setting the lines that determine how and by whom creative works can be accessed and used. In other words, it's about how the state defines the specific property rules related to creative works. Except for the intangible nature of creative works, this is no different from how the state acts when creating any other property right.
If you hear it from a pundit or lobbyist, it demonstrates the same bias, an attempt to bypass rational discussion of the limits and utility of specific copyright rules by appealing to gut feelings about “property.” (And usually in support of a particular interest.) The implication is always the same. If you’re doing something I don’t like, you’re stealing something from me; or you don’t believe in property, so you must be a lefty pinko. Regardless, it’s a sure sign that the speaker or writer isn’t interested in a rational debate over the most socially useful construction of copyright.
Copyright law is about setting the lines that determine how and by whom creative works can be accessed and used. In other words, it's about how the state defines the specific property rules related to creative works. Except for the intangible nature of creative works, this is no different from how the state acts when creating any other property right.
Different people have different views about where these lines should be set. At the maximalist end, proponents of strong copyright argue that copyright ownership should resemble ownership of physical goods, like a house, providing a great deal of control to the copyright owner.
However, maximalist copyright control is not always best for society as a whole. All property rights are always set by the state and always contain limits. You may be allowed to own a gun (or maybe not), but you are not allowed to shoot your neighbour with it. And if you do shoot your neighbour, police can obtain a search warrant to enter your premises to look for the gun.
The state places limits on all forms of property because while well-defined property rights are socially useful for the construction of free markets, which themselves are socially useful, society is not served by absolute property rights. Absolute property rights themselves can lead to abuses, like being able to get away with the murder of your neighbour. Rather, limits on property rights themselves serve a socially useful purpose. For a less dramatic example, consider health regulations that limit what can be put in our food. The question becomes: where to draw the line? More property rights are not necessarily better.
As with physical property, so with intellectual property and copyright. Copyright is a temporary (typically life of the author plus 50 years) and limited (exceptions for educational purposes, for example) because without these limits, copyright would be socially destructive. To take an easy example, all creators (of songs, books, films or class lectures) stand on the shoulders of those who came before. It is not in society’s interest to give past creators or copyright owners (most economically important copyrights are controlled by non-creators) a veto over the production of future creators. Clearly, rights in creative works, if we believe them to serve a socially useful purpose, should be something less than absolute: the question is, how much less?
So, by all means, let’s discuss the actual benefits and harms that come from unauthorized downloading of songs, movies and books. Let’s talk about what rights consumers should have to do with the things that they purchase. (Interestingly, proponents of strong copyright rarely note that a fundamental cornerstone of property rights is that the seller typically has no rights over how a legitimate buyer uses “their” product.) But let's keep in mind the substantial benefits that come from a robust set of exceptions and limitations to copyright.
It actually turns out that the evidence, both empirical and theoretical, of the effects of copyright on cultural production and dissemination is much more ambiguous than slurs like “pirates!” and “piracy!” would lead one to believe. Furthermore, a recent study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, casts doubt on the reliability of studies claiming losses due to counterfeiting and copyright violations. Moral of the story: always look at the study’s underlying assumptions, and who is funding the study.
The same rhetoric rule can be applied to anyone who asserts that they have a “right” to something. “Artists have a right to be paid for their work.” Sure, but how? And should the starving artist be treated the same as the global superstar? Empirically, only the biggest musical acts, for example, realize any significant income directly from copyright. As a heartless economist, I’d also point out that it’s socially inefficient to pay someone for something that they would have produced for free. Such as this blog posting, for example. And yet it’s covered by copyright, too.
Rights-talk doesn’t get us very far when trying to formulate public policy that affects many different interests. It just leads to a pissing match over which group has the bigger rights (creators? corporations? consumers? citizens?). Better to look at actual outcomes and try to satisfy as many people as possible.
Oh, and copyright? So not a left-right issue: both sides, at least in economics (which has much more to say about copyright than you’d think, given its relative absence from the debate), are equally hostile to it. On the left, certainly, you have the Marxist view that sees property itself as socially damaging. However, on the right, you’re just as likely to find those who see copyright as a government-enforced monopoly that restricts the marketplace, interferes with individual choice and gives far too much power to monopolistic corporate interests. In the middle, the honest, evidence-based debate is (or should be) over where to draw the lines; characterizing this line-drawing a left-right issue is just a cheap way to score rhetorical points.
3. Remember: Copyright is a means to an end, not an end in itself
At the end of the day, copyright is simply the means by which the government regulates the commercial market for creative works. While it has had the effect of privileging certain business models (hierarchical, top-down corporations whose existence depends on the artificial scarcity in copies created by copyright law) over others, the purpose of copyright is not to maintain these businesses.
Conservatives especially should see industry appeals for changes to copyright to protect specific businesses as appeals to protectionism that have nothing to do with the underlying purposes of copyright. So long as music, stories and essays continue to be created and distributed, in whatever form, it should not matter, from a creative, economic or societal perspective, if the record, publishing or movie industries as we know them change beyond recognition, all other things being equal.
Similarly, if stronger copyright law can be shown to provide society with a net benefit, it should not be opposed on narrow ideological grounds.
Three questions
When I'm evaluating whatever the government proposes, I'll be asking myself the following three questions:
The coming debate over copyright is going to be filled with slurs, name-calling, emotionally charged rhetoric, and questionable evidence. This is par for the course, but it doesn’t have to be this way. It is possible to have a respectful, fact-based debate over copyright.
The cynic in me, however, says otherwise. It would be nice if, in the coming months, Canadians proved him wrong.
- How will these changes to the Copyright Act affect the creation and distribution of creative works?
- How will these changes affect Canadians’ ability to innovate?
- How will these changes affect Canadians’ existing rights to use and access creative works?
The coming debate over copyright is going to be filled with slurs, name-calling, emotionally charged rhetoric, and questionable evidence. This is par for the course, but it doesn’t have to be this way. It is possible to have a respectful, fact-based debate over copyright.
The cynic in me, however, says otherwise. It would be nice if, in the coming months, Canadians proved him wrong.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Canada's Access to Information Act leaves grad students out in the cold
When I get back to Ottawa in a few weeks, I have waiting for me a package of documents I requested from the Privy Council Office (PCO) about Canada's attempts to implement the 1996 WIPO Internet treaties. I asked for them through Canada's Access to Information process at least two years ago (if I recall correctly; it's been so long that I figured that I wouldn't be getting anything from them before I graduated).
Why the delay? According to the Globe and Mail, reporting on a report from the Access to Information Commissioner:
Why the delay? According to the Globe and Mail, reporting on a report from the Access to Information Commissioner:
The PCO receives a “D” ranking for posting some of the longest completion times in government. The council is also causing delays for access response times in other departments, which must seek PCO's advice on whether certain matters should be exempt as cabinet confidences.
This bottleneck is partly due to the fact that only four staff are assigned at PCO to manage the entire workload of deciding what is or is not a cabinet confidence.
At least I'm not alone.
Four staffers. It's almost as if the government and bureaucracy don't want to release any information. But that would be crazy talk.
As for what my wait got me, I'm not optimistic: My last information requests (they're all back in Ottawa, so I can't remember which departments were involved) got me a whole slew of press clippings and documents freely available on the government's websites.
There's a talent to filling out access requests to ensure that you get actual information in a timely(ish) manner. Simon Doyle got a fantastic book on the 2005 attempt to implement the WIPO Internet treaties out of his requests (I've used some of the files he received under the Access to Information Act, and his reporting will likely figure prominently in my Canadian case study), Michael Geist regularly finds some nice info, and Ken Rubin has made a career out of making access requests.
Each of these fellows, however, have one thing in common: they've been doing this for a long time. Doyle (whose book was based on his M.A. journalism thesis) was working as a reporter for the Hill Times, Geist has been following copyright and digital policy for over a decade as a professor at the University of Ottawa, and Rubin's name has been showing up in newspapers for as long as I can remember.
Graduate and doctoral students (a.k.a. the people who are supposed to be producing Canada's cutting-edge research) aren't so lucky. Not only are they new to the research game, the time-limited nature of their research (one-to-two years for a Master's student, three-to-four years for a PhD student) means that any information that they do get could easily show up after they've completed their degree.
And God forbid the researcher's request isn't sufficiently specific and has to re-file a request for the correct information. When a researcher has short timelines and a lot of balls in the air, the Access to Information process can be a one-shot proposition.
Either way, the government will have effectively waited out the scholar, making Access to Information requests an unreliable, if not completely useless, source for graduate and doctoral students. At least that's been my experience.
That the very people who think about how government does and should run are stymied and often kept completely from the information they need for sound analyses should concern anyone who likes intelligent policy and accountable government. There's something very wrong with Canada's Access to Information regime when finding out basic information about your democratically elected and accountable government is a talent and not a right.
Students and researchers: How useful has Canada's Access to Information regime been for your research? Have you found it as frustrating as me, or has it been a valuable source of information? Feel free to weigh in below.
Update, April 13, 2:26 p.m.: Ouch. I missed this chart, providing information-access grades for various government departments. None of the ones I've dealt with came off very well, except Industry (B, or "above average"): Privy Council Office (D, "below average"), Canadian Heritage (F, "unsatisfactory") and Foreign Affairs, which apparently broke their grading scheme (off chart, "red alert").
It looks like my big mistake was deciding to study something that touched on foreign affairs and the PCO, rather than, say Justice, and Citizenship and Immigration issues (both rated A, or "outstanding": congratulations to those responsible for doing a hard job so well). Of course, given the centralization of power in the hands of the prime minister, is there any federal-political subject of any importance that doesn't involve the PCO?
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Mexico copyright reform: Well, that was quick
Way back in November I blogged about the Coalición por el Acceso Legal a la Cultura (Coalition for Legal Access to Culture), which brought together industry and artists’ groups (actually, collection societies representing artists and various unions), the two big groups in Mexican copyright policy, to push for stronger copyright laws. I argued that this was a big deal, akin to labour and business groups getting together to argue joint positions on economic policy. While such cooperation and agreement among groups is not unusual in other countries, I was surprised by the extent to which the two sides, representing both foreign and domestic interests, seem to have fused their positions. With Mexican copyright’s two main stakeholders agreeing to try to agree, it seemed like stronger Mexican copyright laws were a good bet.
The coalition’s big demand was for authorities to be granted ex officio authority, that is, the right to make copyright-related arrests without waiting for a complaint from the party who’s copyright has been alleged to be violated. This, of course, would make it much easier and less expensive (that is, for the copyright owner) to actually enforce copyright.
Well, Alejandro at Bitácora de Darkness passes along the news that the Mexican Congress has approved amendments to Mexican copyright and intellectual property laws, as well as the Mexican penal code, to do just that, as well as increasing the fines for which violators are liable (El Universal story here). The reforms also (this is interesting) target consumers who knowingly buy bootlegged goods.
Five quick thoughts:
1. It’ll be interesting to see if the government actually uses these new powers. As anyone who’s ever been to Mexico knows, informal markets selling bootlegged goods are everywhere. Cracking down on them has the potential to create social unrest because: a) they employ a not-insignificant number of people in a country that doesn’t have the greatest track record of producing jobs; b) market runners, thanks to political and police corruption, have some pull in how laws get enforced, and can thus cause trouble; and c) in a country where almost half of the population lives below the official poverty line, authorized CDs and DVDs are unaffordable for your average consumer.
The coalition’s big demand was for authorities to be granted ex officio authority, that is, the right to make copyright-related arrests without waiting for a complaint from the party who’s copyright has been alleged to be violated. This, of course, would make it much easier and less expensive (that is, for the copyright owner) to actually enforce copyright.
Well, Alejandro at Bitácora de Darkness passes along the news that the Mexican Congress has approved amendments to Mexican copyright and intellectual property laws, as well as the Mexican penal code, to do just that, as well as increasing the fines for which violators are liable (El Universal story here). The reforms also (this is interesting) target consumers who knowingly buy bootlegged goods.
Five quick thoughts:
1. It’ll be interesting to see if the government actually uses these new powers. As anyone who’s ever been to Mexico knows, informal markets selling bootlegged goods are everywhere. Cracking down on them has the potential to create social unrest because: a) they employ a not-insignificant number of people in a country that doesn’t have the greatest track record of producing jobs; b) market runners, thanks to political and police corruption, have some pull in how laws get enforced, and can thus cause trouble; and c) in a country where almost half of the population lives below the official poverty line, authorized CDs and DVDs are unaffordable for your average consumer.
There's also the tiny problem of where the money is going to come from to enforce these laws: last I checked, the Mexican government had its hands full dealing with a drug war and the fallout from the global economic crisis.
2. These amendments support my contention (which will feature prominently in my dissertation) that copyright has yet to become a political issue in Mexico. Or, at the very least, consumer and user groups continue to have little or no influence on the making of Mexican copyright policy.
3. The copyright industries and allied groups seem to have had the field to themselves, as it were, on this one. It will be interesting to see what will happen when Mexico gets around to implementing rules on ISP liability, which will involve them dealing with Mexico's telecommunications industry and, therefore, the richest man in the world. That’ll be quite the heavyweight fight. (I'll also be watching to see the extent to which academics and civil society groups get involved.)
2. These amendments support my contention (which will feature prominently in my dissertation) that copyright has yet to become a political issue in Mexico. Or, at the very least, consumer and user groups continue to have little or no influence on the making of Mexican copyright policy.
3. The copyright industries and allied groups seem to have had the field to themselves, as it were, on this one. It will be interesting to see what will happen when Mexico gets around to implementing rules on ISP liability, which will involve them dealing with Mexico's telecommunications industry and, therefore, the richest man in the world. That’ll be quite the heavyweight fight. (I'll also be watching to see the extent to which academics and civil society groups get involved.)
4. On a related note, these reforms seem to be more concerned with today's problem -- physical bootlegging -- than with the online future (I'm not really sure how the amendments will affect things like peer-to-peer, for example, where the suppliers are as likely to be in Sweden as Tepito). That's another reason it'll be fascinating to see how Mexico decides to deal with ISP liability and other digital issues. In the long run, that's where the copyright action will be.
5. At the rate the situation is developing in Mexico, my Mexican dissertation case study will probably be out of date before I defend the damn thing. When it comes to copyright reform, obviously no one ever thinks of the lowly researcher.
5. At the rate the situation is developing in Mexico, my Mexican dissertation case study will probably be out of date before I defend the damn thing. When it comes to copyright reform, obviously no one ever thinks of the lowly researcher.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Get you ACTA text, right here!
I'm editing one of my dissertation case studies so I don't have time to look at it right now, but, for your reading pleasure, here's a leaked copy of the text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), dated January 18 (h/t Geist).
Personally, I'm looking forward to never again writing the words "may contain" when talking about the ACTA.
Enjoy!
Monday, March 15, 2010
Everyone’s a Keynesian during a snowfall
From the Globe and Mail’s Mark MacKinnon, visual evidence of how China is applying at least part of John Maynard Keynes’ advice about using government spending to stimulate the economy in a recession.
Says Keynes in the General Theory:
“To dig holes in the ground,” paid for out of savings, will increase, not only employment, but the real national dividend of useful goods and services. It is not reasonable, however, that a sensible community should be content to remain dependent on such fortuitous and often wasteful mitigations when once we understand the influences upon which effective demand depends.Says Mark:
Because you wouldn't believe me if I said 10 people were shovelling a small play structure (it's snowing again in Beijing)
Globe and Mail: Almost understanding teh Interwebs (progress!)
Credit where credit is due: After complaining a few weeks ago about Michael Valpy’s confusing story in the Globe and Mail on the political effects of Facebook, it’s nice to see Ivor Tossell’s spot-on critique of why Prime Minister Stephen Harper answering a few questions on YouTube is “not the future of democratic engagement” or “the evolution of social media,” no matter what the PMO says.
Too bad it’s paired with Roy MacGregor’s column, which is hugely enjoyable for its remarkable lack of self-awareness. His big concern is that, online:
Too bad it’s paired with Roy MacGregor’s column, which is hugely enjoyable for its remarkable lack of self-awareness. His big concern is that, online:
what has come to matter more than anything else is the number of hits a certain story receives. The more hits means, in most cases, the larger the audience, and while reaching more readers and viewers is a good thing on one level, it is also a concern for those who believe journalism is about content and information more than reaction.The potential result? A zero-sum, dystopian world in which quality journalism is strangled by the hobgoblins of celebrity gossip and partisan opinion masquerading as news. Because there's no way that both can exist together online.
He singles out the tendency of online writers to use “hot button” words in headlines or far up in the story (maybe in the first paragraph!) in order to attract readers.
Imagine that: publishers, editors and writers choosing stories, many of dubious social value, in which they think people are interested, and then packaging those stories and writing headlines in such a way as to grab potential readers’ attention.
Readers are invited to explain how this is any different from, I don't know, the workings of any general-interest newspaper ever.
Imagine that: publishers, editors and writers choosing stories, many of dubious social value, in which they think people are interested, and then packaging those stories and writing headlines in such a way as to grab potential readers’ attention.
Readers are invited to explain how this is any different from, I don't know, the workings of any general-interest newspaper ever.
(h/t: Susan Delacourt for pointing out the two columns.)
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
ACTA: History repeating itself?
So the European Parliament has voted 663-13 against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) (h/t BoingBoing). Could this be a turning point in the negotiations? The whole situation does seem to have some similarities to the French reticence that sunk the Multilateral Agreement on Investment over a decade ago. It’s interesting to note, however, that rather than calling for the cessation of negotiations, the European Parliament is calling for the agreement to respect existing EU law. Which means that we’ll probably end up with an ACTA, though (if the vote is effective in putting pressure on EU negotiators) one that's more modest and balanced than what U.S.-based interests have been hoping for.
Here’s a question I’ve been wondering about: if, as I’ve suggested previously, powerful interests will have to be served regardless of what’s in the final text, will ACTA's excessive secrecy have helped or hindered the interests of those countries and interests seeking much stronger copyright laws and enforcement?
On the upside, if you can pull it off, you have an agreement that proponents can use to legitimize changes in domestic law and regulations. And even if you can’t keep it completely secret, the process may put opponents at a disadvantage when it comes to negotiation and implementation.
On the downside, excessive secrecy allows opponents to question its legitimacy while letting people’s imaginations run wild about what could be in the treaty and whip up anti-ACTA support. One would imagine that this would be a not-insignificant political problem, even in the case of executive agreements (like ACTA) that do not require parliamentary approval and some of whose requirements may be implemented via regulation, not legislation. And, of course, there’s the whole democratic-governments-should-act-transparently-in-the-interests-of-their-voters thing and the nobody-likes-to-think-they're-being-played thing.
Just some thoughts. It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. To say the least.
Here’s a question I’ve been wondering about: if, as I’ve suggested previously, powerful interests will have to be served regardless of what’s in the final text, will ACTA's excessive secrecy have helped or hindered the interests of those countries and interests seeking much stronger copyright laws and enforcement?
On the upside, if you can pull it off, you have an agreement that proponents can use to legitimize changes in domestic law and regulations. And even if you can’t keep it completely secret, the process may put opponents at a disadvantage when it comes to negotiation and implementation.
On the downside, excessive secrecy allows opponents to question its legitimacy while letting people’s imaginations run wild about what could be in the treaty and whip up anti-ACTA support. One would imagine that this would be a not-insignificant political problem, even in the case of executive agreements (like ACTA) that do not require parliamentary approval and some of whose requirements may be implemented via regulation, not legislation. And, of course, there’s the whole democratic-governments-should-act-transparently-in-the-interests-of-their-voters thing and the nobody-likes-to-think-they're-being-played thing.
Just some thoughts. It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. To say the least.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
ACTA: All Global Treaties are Local
A nice reminder, courtesy of Michael Geist , that the battle over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is going to get messier the more that groups directly affected by but excluded from the talks are heard and, most importantly, are listened to.
From Mexico: President of the Senate Commission on Science and Technology, Senator Francisco Javier Castellón Fonseca, is calling for increased transparency in ACTA talks in order to understand their potential impact on digital copyright issues generally and Internet Service Providers specifically.
This is important for three reasons.
1. Politically, Senator Castellón Fonseca, represents the left-leaning PRD, which can be expected to champion individuals’ user rights. The PRD has 127 out of 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 26 out of 129 Senate seats. In Mexico currently there are no organized consumer or users’ groups dealing with copyright issues; with a political champion, this could change, making ACTA implementation (to say nothing of other copyright reforms) more difficult.
2. Mexico may also be starting to consider the economic and technological effects of copyright, rather than simply its cultural aspects. The same Senator made remarks to this effect in 2008.
3. The Senate Commission on Science and Technology is responsible for ISP-related issues, and ISPs have a lot of clout in Mexican politics: Telmex has a virtual monopoly on Mexican Internet access and is owned by Carlos Slim, the third-richest man in the world, according to Forbes.
Simply put, so far as Internet access issues are concerned, all roads to Mexican copyright reform and ACTA implementation run through Telmex. That Mexican ISPs and the content businesses and groups have been trying unsuccessfully for a couple of years now to come to an agreement on ISP liability (Mexico currently has no laws dealing with this issue) tells me that Telmex’s interests do not align directly with those of the copyright owners that have been behind the treaty.
In a sense, it might not matter much for Mexico what the ACTA requires: if it doesn’t make Telmex happy, then implementation will be a long, long time coming. Negotiating a treaty in secret may help get something signed, but if powerful interests are not listened to, they will, in the end, make themselves heard.
From Mexico: President of the Senate Commission on Science and Technology, Senator Francisco Javier Castellón Fonseca, is calling for increased transparency in ACTA talks in order to understand their potential impact on digital copyright issues generally and Internet Service Providers specifically.
This is important for three reasons.
1. Politically, Senator Castellón Fonseca, represents the left-leaning PRD, which can be expected to champion individuals’ user rights. The PRD has 127 out of 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 26 out of 129 Senate seats. In Mexico currently there are no organized consumer or users’ groups dealing with copyright issues; with a political champion, this could change, making ACTA implementation (to say nothing of other copyright reforms) more difficult.
2. Mexico may also be starting to consider the economic and technological effects of copyright, rather than simply its cultural aspects. The same Senator made remarks to this effect in 2008.
3. The Senate Commission on Science and Technology is responsible for ISP-related issues, and ISPs have a lot of clout in Mexican politics: Telmex has a virtual monopoly on Mexican Internet access and is owned by Carlos Slim, the third-richest man in the world, according to Forbes.
Simply put, so far as Internet access issues are concerned, all roads to Mexican copyright reform and ACTA implementation run through Telmex. That Mexican ISPs and the content businesses and groups have been trying unsuccessfully for a couple of years now to come to an agreement on ISP liability (Mexico currently has no laws dealing with this issue) tells me that Telmex’s interests do not align directly with those of the copyright owners that have been behind the treaty.
In a sense, it might not matter much for Mexico what the ACTA requires: if it doesn’t make Telmex happy, then implementation will be a long, long time coming. Negotiating a treaty in secret may help get something signed, but if powerful interests are not listened to, they will, in the end, make themselves heard.
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