p2p special / p2pnet: Rarely do Canadians get to hear from federal politicians on copyright issues. And when they do speak, their words are usually carefully constructed to give the appearance of substance when in fact, they’re empty devices with little or no real meaning.

p2pnet asked NDP heritage critic Charlie Angus for his views. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Feds Face Digital Crossroads
By Charlie Angus

The debate over copyright is now a major news story - thanks to the appearance on Parliament Hill of representatives of some of Canada’s most cutting edge bands. Up until now, the issue had been more or less defined by corporate lobbyists working the corridors of Parliament. Those on the other side of the debate - a loose coalition of librarians, educators, software innovators and cyber activists - had been less successful in getting a decent hearing in Ottawa.

The CMCC (Canadian Music Creators Coalition), however, secured meetings with Industry Minister Maxime Bernier and Heritage Minister Bev Oda. They delivered a clear message - that it is simply bad business to use legislation as a stick to beat a new generation of fans back into a 20th model of music purchasing.

Suddenly the discussion of P2P and copyright moved from the blog pages to the editorial pages of Canada’s major papers.

The NDP welcomes the intervention of the CMCC. They have fundamentally changed the nature of the copyright debate in Canada. Put simply, the CMCC has provided a badly needed wake up call to politicians. Their ability to get the issue into the media spotlight makes it possible for other stakeholders to further expand the scope of the debate. After all, this is not simply an issue about whether we should allow the large U.S. majors to sue kids who trade Avril Lavigne files in the schoolyard. Proposed copyright legislation could have profound implications for a broad spectrum of society including educators, students, software developers and those who believe keenly in the potential of digital culture.

Copyright has always been a difficult balancing act between the rights of the artist for financial recompense and the rights of the consumer to the fair use of cultural products. Do we need to update the rules around copyright? Certainly. Do we need to give enforcement agencies the power to go after commercially driven pirates operations that are trading in knock-off DVDs, software and music?

Certainly. Do we need to find ways to ensure that writers and musicians have a means to benefit from the open trade in ideas on the Internet? Most definitely.

But what we shouldn’t be doing is acting as a rubber-stamp for a wish list drawn up by corporate lobbyists. Their push for restrictive legislation is centred on Canada ratifying the 1996 WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) treaty. WIPO, which was drawn up when the fax machine was cutting edge technology, proved out of date and counter-productive soon after it was drawn up. The treaty provides for all kinds of hidden booby prizes for consumers - imagine, for example, an internationa treaty that allows an automatic garage door company to squash no-name brand competition. All in the name of intellectual property rights.

The difficulty in devising new legislation in the face of rapidly changing technologies is that legislators are about the furthest you can get from the cutting edge. Politicians are often dependent on those who have the organizational and financial resources to maintain an active lobby on Parliament Hill. Hence the initial success of the WIPO advocates.

For example, during one of the first meetings I had on copyright I was informed by a lobbyist for CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) that the Internet was primarily a “highway of stolen goods and child pornography that goes into the bedroom of every kid in this country.”

In this world-view the Internet is a threat to be constrained, managed or at least fitted with the appropriate tollbooths and bar codes. Otherwise, it seems chaos and lawlessness will win out. In the language of the lobbyists, Canada is a wild-west bandit country where hapless artists are routinely mugged for their wares.

This spin of urgency and fear has certainly left its mark on the political discussion about copyright.

Former Heritage Minister Hélène Chalifour Scherrer provided this perspective on digital culture: “There is no doubt we must modernize the copyright act as soon as possible. The emergence of the Internet and digital technology has shaken entire sectors of our society. I am thinking in particular of the protection of the intellectual property of our creative people.”

Listening to her you’d think the Internet was some kind of dreadful cultural tsunami necessitating emergency federal legislation. This fear of the big bad internet led the former Liberal government to consider a whole array of restrictive measures including; shutting down ISP providers simply on the claim of potential copyright infringements; placing financial tollbooths for students and educators who use the public internet; limiting the rights of librarians and distance education courses to access digital materials; providing legal protection for the imposition of digital locks on music and other products.

Providing total legal sanction for digital locks is a major focus of WIPO and an equally important line in the sand for the lobbyists. And yet, digital locks, also known as TPMs (Technological Protection Measures) or DRMs (Digital Rights Management), do not protect copyright — they radically rewrite the whole principle of copyright. Digital locks allow corporate interests to extend their claims into the very homes of consumers.

When a consumer legally purchases a CD they should not have to worry whether the disc is infected with spy ware that worms its way into their computer. Neither should the consumer worry that a company like Sony has the power to decide whether or not your favourite song can be played on an iPod, a hard drive or a non-Sony CD player. It is our job as Parliamentarians to protect consumers from the unchecked use of digital locks.

And when it comes to assessing the “threats” or “benefits” from P2P, politicians need to be very wary about proscribing emerging technologies simply because it is upsetting existing business models. When high quality FM radio signals were invented in the 1930s, the U.S. regulatory agencies did everything they could to shut this technology down because it posed a competitive threat to large AM radio interests. Thus the public put up with crappy AM signals for 30 years because politicians didn’t want to inconvenience big corporate players like RCA.

Politicians were a little wiser during the 1980s when Hollywood tried to wage war against the emerging VHS technology. VHS tapes were denounced in the same kind of apocalyptic language as P2P is being described today. Hollywood lobbyists called VHS as the “Boston Strangler” of the film industry. Jack Valenti described it as “millions of tapeworms eating away at the every essence of copyright.” Valenti was wrong and because VHS technology was allowed to grow, Hollywood has reaped the benefits from the explosive sale of VHS and DVD.

Likewise Canada’s musicians are looking to Ottawa to allow the new digital markets and technologies the chance to grow. This is not a case of some bands that simply want to “give their music away.” Rather, Canadian bands are looking to work with their fans in exploring the markets being created by P2P and digital download technologies.

As a musician and writer who depended for 24 years on copyright royalties, I am very partial to the need to find ways to fairly compensate for their work. But I also remember the bad old days of when musicians were completely dependent on record companies, distribution agencies and chain stores for the marketing of their product. Talk about being robbed of your livelihood.

The Internet has opened up countless possibilities in terms of self-distribution, promotion and direct reimbursement of bands willing to travel the DIY (do it yourself) route. The emerging digital markets are providing artists with a level of independence and financial reward that was unthinkable a decade ago.

The 20th century distribution system is dead and no amount of restrictive legislation will bring it back.

Canada is in a unique position to develop legislation that will make it possible for the digital revolution to continue to grow. For example, last year, the Honourable Laurier Lapierre, the Chairman of the National Advisory Board of Canadian Culture Online, released his report, A Charter for the Cultural Citizen Online. The report outlines a broad vision for fostering online culture in the 21st century. Among the recommendations is the creation of an online cultural agency, similar to the CBC, to promote and fund the development of online culture. Lapierre is asking for a level of funding to place digital culture on a similar level as film and television.

Lapierre admits that the response from then Liberal Heritage Minister Liza Frulla was “noncommittal”. He also laments the fact that Canada’s present commitment to online culture, like its commitment to other cultural mediums, is “woefully short, putting at risk progress achieved and public investment in infrastructure already made.” Whether Conservative Minister Bev Oda recognizes the potential of Lapierre’s recommendations remains to be seen.

The most powerful element of the Lapierre Report, however, is his attempt to reframe the language around the discussion of online culture. Lapierre treats the users of digital culture, not as consumers (or thieves) but as citizens. Each citizen has a claim on the “public commons” of the Internet. This claim comes with certain rights as laid out in the “Charter for the Online Cultural Citizen”.

Those rights include the ability to exercise choice in content. This free and unfettered choice will foster a sense of democratic ownership of virtual public spaces.

Championing the rights of the online citizen could lay the groundwork for a political/social/cultural dialogue with the generations coming of age online. It certainly stands as a powerful bulwark against those who, through digital locks or electronic tollbooths, are essentially arguing for the pay-per-use privatization of knowledge.

As legislators we need to work on the premise that new copyright laws must look forward and confidently into the 21st century. There is nothing to be gained by peering frightfully back to a world that is no more.

Angus is the Heritage Critic for the New Democratic Party. He represents the riding of Timmins James-Bay. He began his musical career in 1980 with Canadian DIY pioneers L’Etranger. He was lead singer of the twice Juno-nominated band Grievous Angels. For ten years he operated the digital web site for HighGrader Magazine and has published four books. He is presently finishing a fifth book - a photo documentary on hardprock mining culture with photographer Louie Palu.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 15th, 2006 at 12:23 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

HOME

Viewed 5269 times