Tag Archives: copyfight

Bill C-32: The Latest Attempt to Amend the Copyright Act

There’s a new copyright bill that was tabled yesterday in Parliament.  It’s been in the papers, online news sources, etc.  It can be found at http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=4580265&Language=e&Mode=1 Activities that are commonplace and have been legal in the U.S. for about 3 … Continue reading

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Library Manifesto

the risk of common cultural property becoming the puppet, through digital means, of copyright holders rather than the protectorate of library gatekeepers Continue reading

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Richard Stallman came to Vancouver, and I upset him

Richard Stallman was in Vancouver two weeks ago. He performed, if I may describe his lectures like that, three times; I caught the first. I asked Stallman a question after it was over, and thoroughly annoyed him. I know that I annoyed him because he grew flustered, stamped his feet, turned away from me to the rest of the crowd and yelled at me. Continue reading

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EU suggests reason and logic behind ACTA

According to the EU, ACTA will ignore “infringing goods [that] are not part of large scale traffic.” ACTA will also not force already taxed enforcement officers “to look for a couple of pirated songs on an i-Pod music player…” Continue reading

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Are there benefits to “piracy”?

The pro-copyright lobby groups would have you believe that all unauthorized reproduction (and distribution), colloquially known (inaccurately) as piracy, is horrid for the industries concerned, and is destroying them. Many say that unauthorized copying actually benefits the concerned industries. Do you think this is true? If so, which industry benefits the most? I’ve created a poll and I would like you to let me know what you think. Feel free to comment to this post. Continue reading

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Alternatives to C-61, part II

Here’s the rest of that post: GOALS The goal of any legislation is to balance concerns of interested but competing parties, and to approach this balance, as much as possible, with a public interest bias. The concerns were these:

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Alternatives to C-61: Statutory concerns for the protection and encouragement of creative works

I want to suggest an alternative paradigm to the statutory regime for creative works as intellectual property, a.k.a. copyright.  I’m not going to get into detailed explanations of the existing Copyleft and other alternative paradigms to copyright.  But I’m going … Continue reading

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Hedy Fry’s Copyright Balance

Honourable Member of Parliament Dr. Hedy Fry responded to Bill C-61 in a letter to constituent Chuck LeDuc Diaz, which he published on his blog. I respond to Dr. Fry’s letter. She is correct on certain critiques of the Bill, but misses a crucial point in her statement about balanced rights between creator and consumer. Continue reading

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The “Deliverance” of C-61 Begins

Costin’s Analysis of C-61 begins: This bill is not a brave surge forward into the 21st century for Canada, embracing the Information Age and showing the world that we lead in promoting innovation and civil liberties, that we have the wisdom to strike balance where others are stricken with fear, and that we anticipate rather than kowtow.
This bill is instead sycophantic obsequiousness to groups that should be politically and legally notwithstood according to any definition of Canadian sovereignty or democracy. Continue reading

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RIAA and MPAA hijack the border (or someone like them)

Cyberion, at Tazzu, posted a link to the Vancouver Province story on the threatened border checks (ACTA) on the legitimacy of electronic media. (Cyberion’s post) I had some rather strong feelings, and ranted the following: This is one of the … Continue reading

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