Yesterday I received a reply to my letter to my local MP, Randy Kamp (Conservative, Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission)

My original letter, along with other items, included much of what is presented in my previous article on this topic - what MUST be done if we are saddled with TPM without the ability to crack it for "legal" purposes. Too few people have addressed this possibility and what should be our fall-back position if the government fails to heed our wishes and open up the TPM portion to allow fair dealing exceptions.

"Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana

I don't think he ever conceived of the possibility that future generations would not be able to learn because the sources of their potential to learn from history simply were not available to them; not available because they'd been locked up behind Digital Rights Management systems that did not dissolve and fade away after a few years, but rather persisted forever simply because they could, and the government had made it illegal to circumvent them for any reason, including the fact that the information they "protected" was in the public domain.

Such is the potential for the coming DMCA-style copyright legislation to be introduced by the Conservative minority government here in Canada.

The (minority) Conservative government has again introduced a copyright bill, C-32. 

All in all, I'm not averse to what they've put in it with one exception, enshrining Technical Protection Measures (TPM or DRM) in the bill in such a way that its use trumps otherwise legal use of copyright materials.

I fear that, if this bill gets passed (and their's no guarantee that it will - the previous 2 have not) then we'll be saddled with TPM. In that case I want the following changes made to protect us from TPM's potentially devastating aspects:

According to this, publishers could be losing out on billions of dollars due to online book piracy. Do you really think so?

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" - Mark Twain, Benjamin Disraeli and me.

What would happen to the economy of the US (where this study focuses mainly) if book publishers suddenly got an extra $3 Billion in sales every year - and of course that $3 Billion was not spent in other sectors of the economy? If it wasn't spent on junk food, text messaging, cell phones, luxury cars, coffee what would happen to those industries? This is "discretionary cash" - and it would still be spent on other stuff than books most likely - or maybe some of it actually did get spent on books but this study didn't take that into account.

Would the people who downloaded these books have purchased them if they were not available for download? Some, maybe, but more likely they'd just wait until they could go to a bookstore and thumb through a copy - or read the sample chapter at Amazon - or borrow a copy, or buy something else.

Did the people who downloaded these books read them front to back? Probably not - they read enough to know they either liked it or didn't. If they liked it there is an excellent chance they went out and purchased a copy so a sale was gained. If they didn't then there really wasn't a lost sale now was there?

Did any of the people who downloaded these books subsequently go and purchase their own copy? Or tell others that they should do so?

Eric Flint, an author who publishes through Baen Books, has been offering his and other authors' books freely online since 2000 and he's convinced (and so are Jim Baen and the other authors who participate in the Baen Free Library) that these freely offered books online have lead to sales more than enough to justify continuing the site, now into its 10th year.

Government has balanced copyright by allowing for physical libraries and their lending practices as well as the doctrine of First Sale which allows you to lend a book you've purchased to a friend. In fact there's been a "study" of the impact of this and it's estimated at $100 Billion/year (laugh)

Publishers give away books to get publicity. Authors find that word of mouth makes sales. Somewhere in all this there is a lesson to be learned and it has to do with the reality of the marketplace that the publishers are now trying to lock down and change completely.

Think about it - the same principle applies to music and video downloads.

Yes, there are some people who will download but NEVER purchase these items, just as there are some people (likely some of the same ones) who would shoplift a copy instead of purchasing it - but that is NOT the majority of people and the fact that media sales are even continuing today shows this is so. The average person today is honest - and they want to support those who entertain them.

On the other hand, like me, many people will not purchase items that annoy them in the process of purporting to entertain them. DRM probably causes more people to download than it stops.

richard

Copyright has outlived its usefulness.

There, it's been said in public. All the Copyright law in the world is archaic in the face of digital technology.

Copying is a part of the fact of digital use of anything that is distributed electronically today. It happens in the background, inside the software and hardware systems that are used to access the content and distribute it. If today's Copyright laws were really enforced, the digital age simply could not exist - it would be far too expensive because we'd end up paying a premium every single time that digital data moved from storage to memory on the server, to the memory on network routers, to memory in the PC, and finally to digital storage on the consumer's system. We'd then have to pay again for the copy moved from storage to memory during playing each and every time it was played.

If this were applied to the traditional book or vinyl record, it would be akin to paying each time I pulled a book from the shelf and opened it to read it, or removed a record from its cover to put it on my turntable to play it. Of course these concepts in the physical world are seen as absurd. The question is, why should we put up with them in the digital world?

My reading of the whole background to why Copyright law exists tells me that it was conceived as a balance between the need for the public's ability to learn from and build upon the ideas and concepts of today to build a better and more diverse and rich culture while allowing and encouraging creators of that culture and diversity to benefit from their works.

It was conceived and developed in an era of scarce and expensive copying facility - the printing press, record press, etc. The output of these scarce and expensive devices was and is, if taken to its most reasonable base result was to allow the purchaser of a copy to "Use" or "Enjoy" the content of the copy at any time, in any place, without further interaction with the vendor of the copy and/or creator of the original, "forever".

The most recent "leak"(pdf) of the ACTA (Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement) negotiation papers has a point from the Japanese that would make ISPs liable for damages if there is even the possibility that they could (presumably through monitoring all traffic) know that an infringement "is occurring".

Back when I was working for the local phone company (many, many moons ago, before the telco was computerized) it was technically possible for me to "jack in" to any of the many switches in the switch room (I carried a "butt-in" with the requisite plug) and listen in on the conversation the switch carried. It was TECHNICALLY POSSIBLE - but it was not allowed unless I was specifically checking for a problem. 

Today it is technically possible for the various network switches to monitor for almost anything... TECHNICALLY POSSIBLE - not mandatory.

I AM NOT A LAWYER (IANAL) but... it seems to me that if an ISP makes the attempt to look for anything - including what the Japanese are talking about - "illegal" music/video copying - then they make themselves liable for EVERYTHING - including the email from ex-lover to lover about murder, kiddy porn, and any/all mayhem that might be dropped into their legal lap.

This is an example of why I think ISPs should be considered Common Carriers. They should NOT be required or expected to look at the contents of the traffic they carry. They, as with anyone, should be required only to report any illegalities they come across in the normal course of their business - and the normal course of an ISP's business is not looking at the content of the traffic they carry.

Sometimes you just have to push back against those who don't get it. The publishing business is in general decline. Self-publishing is rising and society is moving away from following the publisher and toward following the individual writer. Some publishers still have terms of service that are 19th Century style and onerous - give up all your rights and those of your first-born too, etc.

I don't give in to this kind of thing and you probably should not either. The musicians and other performers are pushing back and it's time the general public did too.

I sent in a piece to the Province newspaper and got the following as a reply:

The following was sent to the Province Newspaper and Ros Guggi, Deputy Editor, in reply...

Cameron McMaster has just posted an excellent in-depth article on how the CBC (yes, your taxpayer-funded national broadcaster) is now using an American company (iCopyright) to attempt to extort huge amounts of money from me and other web authors, bloggers and commentators for use of anything from their site. 

Not only are they trying to double dip in this - they are trying to enforce American Copyright law on a Canadian regarding content created and published in Canada!

And we're not just talking pennies here either! They want a monthly fee of $250! (annual $500) just for one article!!!!

Even if you think you're going to post "part" of an article - they want you to pay as if you were posting the whole article - so "Fair Dealing" is no more (Fair Dealing allows abstract for commentary and reporting in Canada) as far as CBC is concerned.

The Nose of the Camel is not just poking into the tent of radical copyright changes - it's damned near all the way in the tent in this case.

Personally I think CBC should be removed from the public tit and made to stand on its own, especially if it is doing things like this.

OK - I think we should seriously consider boycotting CBC. I'll stop listening to Radio 2, watching Hockey Night in Canada and reading anything they have on their website.

I'll also send a note to my MP and tell them why.

How about you?

European Union Commissioner-designate for the Internal Market, Michel Barnier, has set a new EU priority policy goal: the 'eradication of online piracy' according to an article in IPTEGRITY.COM.

Along the way, via ACTA and other publisher-driven governmental initiatives, they'll forever change the nature of the internet and put such a damper on technology and creativity that I fear it will never recover. They'll make virtually everyone who does anything that might include a snippet of music or a view of a movie on a monitor in the background or almost any of a myriad of accidental inclusions of "protected content" into a criminal liable for non-judicial penalty by their ISP and civil penalties in the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars (or Euros) plus complete loss of access to the internet; all for transgressions of less real importance than a druggy breaking into a home to steal your family heirlooms - and that druggy might get a small fine and/or a few days in jail.

The imbalance of what is proposed is literally incredible - in the sense of "not credible" in today's society.

There has to be a better way - and I'm here to propose it.