Brief thoughts on C-61
I’ve been quiet on this blog for a while because I’ve been returning my focus to the production of new work. After selling all but one of the sculptures I completed last year, and one of the two I completed since, I need to replenish my supply of sculptures so that I can take care of the traditional tasks of compiling a portfolio and seeking representation and/or shows.
I have also moved all of my feeds from Akregator (which was randomly marking new feed items as read) to Google Reader so I can better control the amount of time I’m spending on trying to maintain something resembling a pristine inbox.
This break from the online conversation about copyright, technology and the other things that strike my interest was what I needed to be able to read C-61 with a fresh mind. I have not yet read any of the responses by the usual suspects, although I can imagine what they are. I doubt that any of my online peers are happy with C-61, and I’m mostly upset at myself for believing that it could be anything less than distasteful.
C-61 is obviously meant to help corporate rights-holders, and not consumers or the artists themselves. It reads more like a supplementary user guide for how you can technically use works than a set of guiding principles on the rights relating to acceptable usage of works. If the revisions in C-61 are made as they stand now, the Copyright Act will become more obscure and quickly obsolete than it is already. It shows a fundamental failure to understand either what the creators and consumers want and, more importantly, what is needed from a document which governs the rights relating to the use of works.
I’m not going to bother with an in-depth analysis of C-61, because I’m sure the blogosphere is already overflowing with those. Mostly, I am balking at how overly specific the wording is and that the legislators don’t understand technology, internet culture, creators, users or the creative arts industries.
Tags: arts administration, c-61, copyright, legislation, politicsRelated posts
By Julianna Yau
On June 18, 2008
At 8:05 am
Comments :
Print This Post
I would be interested in the reasons you are now condemning this Bill? I would also be interested in what you think this means for artists, in particular your thoughts on how Bill C61 (as it stands) affects artists who practice appropriation.
I wish you good luck with your art practice and hope we will hear more.
I now have some thoughts on the Bill because there is finally a Bill which is available to be read and analyzed
The Bill is heavily pro-TPM, which is quite obviously not appropriation-friendly. Even for artists who don’t practice appropriation, I’m struggling to see how the provisions will be useful. The TPM clauses may serve corporate rights holders, but do little to help the individual artists who actually need whatever income they can gather from uses of their work which fall outside of fair dealing.
Personally, I find that TPMs aren’t worth their cost in money or effort to protect my work. Assuming that someone might take images of my sculptures and sell it on mugs or something, I still wouldn’t want to bother with trying to lock down my images in any way. The TPM could be circumvented by anyone who cared enough to do so, and also make it difficult for the images to be used within the fair dealing regime (such as fans of my working sharing those images with others).
If my work is taken and used unjustly, I should be paid for the use of that workâcompensation shouldn’t have anything to do with how my work is accessed or notice that I own the copyright. What I would like to see is legislators looking at the idea of what is fair and what isn’t, rather than giving us a list of dos and don’ts which may be obsolete by the time the Bill passes.
I would argue that is true for artists working in all media, whether they appropriate or not. We should not be solving problems of educating the public on the value of art, increasing accessibility of creative works, simplifying the administrative process of copyright administration or increasing funding in education and the arts by legislating exemptions and allowances surrounding works protected by TPMs.
To be honest, I stopped reading the Bill carefully about halfway through and just skimmed through the text. But from what I saw, the Bill was not really meant to be geared towards visual artists, except for the overdue change in photographers’ copyright.