Last night, TVO’s The Agenda had a panel discussion on copyright. As always (and as mentioned by David Basskin and Robert Thompson), the discussion had a strong music focus (i.e. there was little to no discussion about movies, visual art, literature or software).
Michael Geist was invited to start the discussion, and said that “…tens of thousands of Canadians engaged in a national conversation on copyright…”. Thompson challenged the activity, asking how many of those Canadians actually vote, while Matthew Ingram argued that participation in something like a Facebook group counts as a vote in kind (I’m going to call that a “click vote”).
I would like to challenge just how valuable these discussions, click votes and resulting letters to Parliament are. I started a personal study of copyright a few years ago when Bill C-60 was introduced, have since been following issues of copyright and IP from various sources and have more recently been attending many of the Innovation Law & Theory Workshops at the UofT Law campus (since I found out about them). With all of that, I am comfortable having an informed position when engaged in a discussion on copyright, but still acknowledge that I have much to learn about not merely copyright, but policy and the actual administration and practise which happens hand-in-hand with copyright law. Of the 20,000+ members of the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group, how many have an understanding of copyright law? How many know much more than the alarmist information being fed to them? How many of them actually agree with Geist’s position (I’m a member of that group, and I certainly don’t agree with much he has to say)? How many of them recognize that creators and distributors are not always the same entity? How many of them have even read the Copyright Act?
Basskin seems to have concerns similar to mine, which I have transcribed from the program:
First of all, let me say that it’s great that so many people are interested in copyright law. I’m a copyright lawyer; I’ve been in this business for a long time. It’s a subject that usually makes people just of nod off. So the fact that people are interested is great. I question, though, whether they are interested in going along with the crowd… engaging in some kind of imaginary Robin Hood fight, or whether they in fact know anything at all about copyright. It’s a complex subject. Let me reduce it down to a little thought experiment. This is a piece of manuscript paper. And you’ll observe…there’s nothing on here. Just some lines, staves and treble and bass clefs. I’m going to leave it here with a pencil for the duration of our chat and see if at the end, a song has appeared. And, because there are some people who would have you believe that they just write themselves. And, well, we’ll see.
Geist was asked to respond, and provided comments which followed Basskin’s, but failed to truly respond to them:
…there’s an awful lot of creativity that’s taking place in this country, and you’re seeing some of it on that Facebook group that…isn’t dependent upon copyright law, and this has little to do with free, and frankly has little to do with party politics.
Creativity and a sustainable living from creative work are not the same thing. Obviously, the existence of creativity did not come after the creation of copyright law. But copyright law exists to give creators the first right to copy and protects their ability to recover the costs of their creation.
Basskin, again, seems to have the same perspective I do, stating:
Michael would have us believe that this is a… new thing. It’s certainly [that] the use of technologies like Facebook are new. But the government signed these treaties in 1996, ‘97, indicating a willingness to modify our laws to comply with these international standards for the purpose of protecting the rights of creators and ensuring their rights to get paid for what they do. Now…the reason why these laws have not made it into these statute books is because these pressures, these…these conflicts, these stresses, have always been with us. …It’s a difficult subject for government to deal with.
After this point, there was much talking over each other, where everyone wanted to get their two cents in. Geist was repeatedly asked what exactly he is concerned about and how he felt that a change to the Copyright Act would facilitate it, and although he talked a lot about consumer rights and the user’s right to access and copy work, he was unable to clearly and specifically indicate the root of his concerns and how his concerns might possibly happen.
Basskin reinforced the fact that it should be the creator’s choice to give away something for free as part of their marketing strategy, but that it’s the creators’ right to be able to have right to first copy. He also said, quite well, that:
What we are troubled by, as are most people in the music business, is the rampant distribution of music without compensation, without permission. We are the only people in the mix who are being told “you work for free; everyone else gets paid”.
It was tiring to hear all of Geist’s assumptions. Near the end, I found him putting words into the mouths of creators on both “sides” of the issue, and sliding more into copyright doomsday talk. Earlier in the show, Geist had been challenged by both Thompson and the host, Steve Paikin, of whether he has actually seen the legislation…and had to confirm that he indeed has not. Thompson had challenged Geist about what the actual issue it is he’s trying to push (Geist, again, failed to deliver a clear response) and said that “…we’re sort of debating ether at this point”. And that’s exactly how I’m feeling now.
How about we allow a bill to be made public so that we have something concrete to be reviewed and discussed?
Tags:
Canada,
copyright,
david basskin,
legislation,
matthew ingram,
michael geist,
robert thompson,
tvo
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