David Fewer - Copyright Law, Friday 10:15 a.m. - NOTES
In advance of today's panel on copyright, here are my notes from David Fewer's presentation yesterday. Notes for the actual panel will be posted shortly.
DF: Blogging is the big news, wide use of template designs, everything is publicly posted. I even have one for a class I teach at the U of Ottawa... all content driven from the students. Wikipedia is a huge example, an encyclopedia online, all content provided by users. Not a professional organization but the information is spot on. flickr is another one... YouTube for sharing video... and of course P2P may not be user generated content but it is a sharing network with huge volume... e.g. is BitTorrent...
The point is that there is unprecedented sharing of content.
Talking about user-driven content, iTunes invites people to share mixes, playlists, reviews... not copyrighted content.
Txome, Canadian site, encouraging sharing... limited participation of artists in the sharing equation is a problem they are attempting to address, will be interesting to see how it develops.
Creative Commons addresses the issue that copyright is so black and white, either you have permission or you don't. What it does it give you a machine readable optional contracts that parcel up the available rights and give the author control over what rights they want to give... very accessible permissions system, one click to get an explanation of the different rights and permissions. CreativeCommons.ca is the Cdn. version.
Creative Archive Licence Group is the licensor for the BBC and is using CC licensing as is Cory Doctorow, serialized and available for free online, also reads his books and podcasts them... his view is that copying is not his enemy, obscurity is.
eBay; amazon.com... these are great resources whether you buy anything or not.
Indexing is a key component of the Internet... availability and permissions mean not much unless you can find stuff, which is what Google and others like Yahoo do.
Google is putting indexing in new places, e.g. blog index, news index, and... books.
Technorati is another, mostly for blogs
You won't find all of a book in Google Book Search, but a couple of pages. It's a bit like browsing in a bookstore.
All of this is happening because of the Internet, which is an open platform, nobody controls it, no gatekeeper end-to-end.
The other thing that makes this possible is copyright. Sounds funny, but the limitations inherent in copyright make things possible. Copyright is an imperfect tool.. also it is open, fair dealing (fair use)... e.g. the act of reading is not something that can be controlled by copyright
But there are efforts to strengthen copyright and its enforcement on the net:
net neutrality, the pipe holders don't control content, the content controllers are at the margins of the network, tho' that is changing somewhat
Break your devices - things that don't let you connect, move content from device to device:
a) through agreements between companies
b) through law that make sharing between devices illegal
c) through technology that bars sharing and requiring that tech to be implemented
The issue is not copying but distribution
the history of the VCR is indicative... Hollywood was incomprehending that something could be shown without knowing how many people might be seeing it
it's all about restricting consumer choices
WIPO Broadcast Treaty... trying to create a web-casting right - would be a new tier of rights; they argue the need the right to create incentives to create content, but there is no lack of people creating content for free on the net
Expand copyright... browsing, the exclusive right to read, e.g. at a library or bookstore, some court decisions say that an electroic copy made for browsing is a copyright infringement. Public interest advocates like myself disagree
Grokster decision, p2p outlawed
not a good thing from a public interest perspective
Other cases now against GoogleBook and BitTorrent, both of which are indexers
Para-copyright... WIDO Internet Treaties; DMCA; Anti-circumvention laws
DRM Digital rights management... tools that discard copyright, prohibiting access to the content
Anti-circumvention laws don't care what the copyright is, they just prevent copying
which displaces user rights, access rights
this is about enforcing license terms; absolute, not negotiable
But copyright is public policy, predicated on balance, looking after rights holders and users both. PTMs are driven by private concerns, seeking perfect control.
But the danger is stymying innovation
can't reverse engineer
hinders interoperability
conflicts with privacy protections
public domain includes a lot of content
competition - this about segmenting markets and milking consumers
educational use
justification - the incentive argument is not substantiated, tho' there was some of this at the beginning...
the real justification is control
and this comes at considerable cost
The goal is to find things that are compatible with copyright
e.g. DRM is unlikely to become enforced in Canada given the US experience
should be harmonizing, use US model of fair use, which allows parody reverse engineering and interoperability
What about alternative compensation schemes?
Despite efforts to curtail it and produce revenue, file sharing continues to grow... and we are seeing innovative new models all the time... and the problem is still that a lot of copyright owners are not getting compensated...
Greater restriction will not eliminate the problem, it will just tighten it up into more concentrated enclaves (dark nets)
the routine activities of Canadians should not be made illegal
e.g. radio, mandatory licensing, no one can prevent play so long as radio pays
Crown copyright... content generated by public dollars should be public.. have this in the US, but not UK or Canada
Public domain... you need to have boundaries in real estate, where ownership begins and leaves off... so we need to firm up
Net neutrality... we have been well-served by this and should be resisting the Broadcast Flag
Webcasting right
A2K (access to knowledge) - protections
Copyright is imperfect because we wanted it to be imperfect or because we just didn't have the tools or the situations of today didn't exist
- privacy is not a priviledge that we "enjoy"... but a right and we should resist spyware. Sony had a bad experience with this when it tried shipping CDs that had enforcement software packed into them. There was no notice, it operated poorly...
(my note: If copyright enforcers argue that without protection, incentive to create is weakened, isn't it the same kind of argument to say that with too much protection, innovation is stymied?)
questions:
As a producer I always have to get permissions to record people whereas public broadcasters don't seem to have to... why is that?
DF: it is driven by insurers, downloading the cost of potential litigation onto content producers. It is not clear that all releases are necessary.
Q What about shots of people used on websites
Qyou can be guided by celebrity rights... and privacy law
individuals have right to control images of themselves and you are not allowed to capitalize on some one else's fame
DF: Perhaps the question is whether the person is featured of if it's a mob shot. permanent link
DF: Blogging is the big news, wide use of template designs, everything is publicly posted. I even have one for a class I teach at the U of Ottawa... all content driven from the students. Wikipedia is a huge example, an encyclopedia online, all content provided by users. Not a professional organization but the information is spot on. flickr is another one... YouTube for sharing video... and of course P2P may not be user generated content but it is a sharing network with huge volume... e.g. is BitTorrent...
The point is that there is unprecedented sharing of content.
Talking about user-driven content, iTunes invites people to share mixes, playlists, reviews... not copyrighted content.
Txome, Canadian site, encouraging sharing... limited participation of artists in the sharing equation is a problem they are attempting to address, will be interesting to see how it develops.
Creative Commons addresses the issue that copyright is so black and white, either you have permission or you don't. What it does it give you a machine readable optional contracts that parcel up the available rights and give the author control over what rights they want to give... very accessible permissions system, one click to get an explanation of the different rights and permissions. CreativeCommons.ca is the Cdn. version.
Creative Archive Licence Group is the licensor for the BBC and is using CC licensing as is Cory Doctorow, serialized and available for free online, also reads his books and podcasts them... his view is that copying is not his enemy, obscurity is.
eBay; amazon.com... these are great resources whether you buy anything or not.
Indexing is a key component of the Internet... availability and permissions mean not much unless you can find stuff, which is what Google and others like Yahoo do.
Google is putting indexing in new places, e.g. blog index, news index, and... books.
Technorati is another, mostly for blogs
You won't find all of a book in Google Book Search, but a couple of pages. It's a bit like browsing in a bookstore.
All of this is happening because of the Internet, which is an open platform, nobody controls it, no gatekeeper end-to-end.
The other thing that makes this possible is copyright. Sounds funny, but the limitations inherent in copyright make things possible. Copyright is an imperfect tool.. also it is open, fair dealing (fair use)... e.g. the act of reading is not something that can be controlled by copyright
But there are efforts to strengthen copyright and its enforcement on the net:
net neutrality, the pipe holders don't control content, the content controllers are at the margins of the network, tho' that is changing somewhat
Break your devices - things that don't let you connect, move content from device to device:
a) through agreements between companies
b) through law that make sharing between devices illegal
c) through technology that bars sharing and requiring that tech to be implemented
The issue is not copying but distribution
the history of the VCR is indicative... Hollywood was incomprehending that something could be shown without knowing how many people might be seeing it
it's all about restricting consumer choices
WIPO Broadcast Treaty... trying to create a web-casting right - would be a new tier of rights; they argue the need the right to create incentives to create content, but there is no lack of people creating content for free on the net
Expand copyright... browsing, the exclusive right to read, e.g. at a library or bookstore, some court decisions say that an electroic copy made for browsing is a copyright infringement. Public interest advocates like myself disagree
Grokster decision, p2p outlawed
not a good thing from a public interest perspective
Other cases now against GoogleBook and BitTorrent, both of which are indexers
Para-copyright... WIDO Internet Treaties; DMCA; Anti-circumvention laws
DRM Digital rights management... tools that discard copyright, prohibiting access to the content
Anti-circumvention laws don't care what the copyright is, they just prevent copying
which displaces user rights, access rights
this is about enforcing license terms; absolute, not negotiable
But copyright is public policy, predicated on balance, looking after rights holders and users both. PTMs are driven by private concerns, seeking perfect control.
But the danger is stymying innovation
can't reverse engineer
hinders interoperability
conflicts with privacy protections
public domain includes a lot of content
competition - this about segmenting markets and milking consumers
educational use
justification - the incentive argument is not substantiated, tho' there was some of this at the beginning...
the real justification is control
and this comes at considerable cost
The goal is to find things that are compatible with copyright
e.g. DRM is unlikely to become enforced in Canada given the US experience
should be harmonizing, use US model of fair use, which allows parody reverse engineering and interoperability
What about alternative compensation schemes?
Despite efforts to curtail it and produce revenue, file sharing continues to grow... and we are seeing innovative new models all the time... and the problem is still that a lot of copyright owners are not getting compensated...
Greater restriction will not eliminate the problem, it will just tighten it up into more concentrated enclaves (dark nets)
the routine activities of Canadians should not be made illegal
e.g. radio, mandatory licensing, no one can prevent play so long as radio pays
Crown copyright... content generated by public dollars should be public.. have this in the US, but not UK or Canada
Public domain... you need to have boundaries in real estate, where ownership begins and leaves off... so we need to firm up
Net neutrality... we have been well-served by this and should be resisting the Broadcast Flag
Webcasting right
A2K (access to knowledge) - protections
Copyright is imperfect because we wanted it to be imperfect or because we just didn't have the tools or the situations of today didn't exist
- privacy is not a priviledge that we "enjoy"... but a right and we should resist spyware. Sony had a bad experience with this when it tried shipping CDs that had enforcement software packed into them. There was no notice, it operated poorly...
(my note: If copyright enforcers argue that without protection, incentive to create is weakened, isn't it the same kind of argument to say that with too much protection, innovation is stymied?)
questions:
As a producer I always have to get permissions to record people whereas public broadcasters don't seem to have to... why is that?
DF: it is driven by insurers, downloading the cost of potential litigation onto content producers. It is not clear that all releases are necessary.
Q What about shots of people used on websites
Qyou can be guided by celebrity rights... and privacy law
individuals have right to control images of themselves and you are not allowed to capitalize on some one else's fame
DF: Perhaps the question is whether the person is featured of if it's a mob shot. permanent link
Posted by howboy at 10:26 AM.
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