On history and reverence

I had planned to write a post questioning the wisdom of removing the statue of General Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville, Virginia. While I thought I understood the motives behind it, the whole enterprise struck me as wrong-headed; the energy could be better spent, was to be my sentiment. (Plus, I'd loved the Dukes of Hazzard as a kid!)

I've had a change of heart.

But a few hours' research has shown this latest effort by Charlottesville's City Council to be but one part of a groundswell across the American South, over many years, against all symbols of the Confederacy. I'd remembered that there was a lot of controversy around the Confederate flag about two years ago, but it was the many retailers' bans that stuck with me; and that, as erring on the safe side, for sales. What I didn't take in, at all, was the public sentiment against the flag, particularly amongst black, and more educated white, Americans in the South.¹ And now reading about locals avoiding, not only the vicinity of these monuments, but also parks bearing the prominent names²... It strikes a chord.

The Mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, was quoted referencing the decision to remove their statue of Lee:³

It's not good to continue to revere... [to] put the Confederacy on a pedestal... [And if critics of the removal don't believe that,] the people of New Orleans believe it and we don't want these statues in places of reverence, they need to be in places of remembrance.

Even if I had the hubris to rail against the wishes of the people who must live in the shadows of these monuments, that distinction -- history versus reverence -- has undone the last of my conviction. It isn't about sanitizing [America's] history,⁴ as Condoleeza Rice has been quoted, speaking against the removals and renamings in general: it's about acknowledgement and reconciliation, which Lee himself was a proponent of in the wake of the Civil War. In 1866, he was called to testify before the Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction:⁵

... [E]very one with whom I associate expresses kind feelings towards the freedmen. They wish to see them get on in the world, and particularly to take up some occupation for a living, and to turn their hands to some work.

It sounds to me like these communities need this.

---

1. Poll: Majority sees Confederate flag as Southern pride symbol, not racist, CNN, 02/07/2015.
2. People Show Support for, Opposition to Lee Statue in Charlottesville, NBC 29 WVIR, 22/03/2016.
3. New Orleans removes its final Confederate-era statue, The Guardian, 20/05/2017.
4. Condoleezza Rice on Removing Civil War Monuments: 'Sanitizing History to Make You Feel Better Is a Bad Thing', Independent Journal Review, 05/2017.
5. The Making of Robert E. Lee, Michael Fellman, 2000.

---

EDIT (28/08/2017): CBC published an analysis by Aaron Wherry a few days ago entitled, ANALYSIS: Should John A. Macdonald's name be removed from schools? It is at least a question worth asking: Confronting the good and the bad of Canada's first prime minister.

Initially, I'd planned to draw parallels to the situation in Canada in this post; these sentiments were similarly uninformed, unsurprisingly. I'd actually thought, while reading about what was happening to everything bearing Lee's name and image, that, by that rationale, Sir John A.'s got to go then, for what his government did to Riel alone, never mind those awful schools. It was a sarcastic thought.

In this too, I've had a change of heart.

Quoted by Wherry, Isadore Day, Regional Chief of Ontario, actually hit a note similar to Landrieu's when he questioned the wisdom of [e]levating people to that stature. And National Chief Perry Bellegarde, quoted in an article linked in the piece, really drives the point home, for me:

How would you feel if you were a young First Nations person going to that school, knowing full well that Sir John A. Macdonald was one of the architects behind the residential school system? ... You wouldn't want to feel good about attending that school, would you? Because I wouldn't.

Be sure to teach what both the government of the day, and its official opposition, advocated regarding the Indigenous population. But leave it off the outside of the building where it's done.

Canada and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) Agreement

Some shouting on Tumblr caught my eye this morning. It was the first I'd read about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) -- I know, I'm living under a rock (on the other side of the pond, in a land that hasn't signed up to it, to be fair). Free trade agreements are great polarizers -- I sought out rocks to live under as a kid, yet well remember the Chicken Littles of NAFTA -- and this one is no exception: unsurprisingly, there are Intellectual Property issues; we've been dealing with U.S. pressure in this arena for most of my adult life, it seems. Apparently, there are also farming concerns. (In Japan, farmers have been protesting for years against their country's inclusion in the TTP, which was just ratified this summer.)

(The cartoon is by Greg Perry, and courtesy of The Tyee.)

One of the many things I missed regarding the TTP was the public consultations. Geist says IP/copyright was the hot topic. As others have stated, the biggest concern for me is all the secrecy that surrounds the agreement. Yes, as CBC reporter, Curt Petrovich, raises, the negotiations themselves require it, but surely any fruitful consultation would've required information on our conditions for entry, the associated cost-benefit analyses, etc. Otherwise, statements like this sound more like platitudes:

Gerald Keddy, the parliamentary secretary to the trade minister, insisted that Canada's marketing boards will be protected.

"Let's be clear, we've signed free trade agreements with nine countries around the world and we've been able to look after supply side management in every single one of those," he said.

Particularly in the light of this sort of reporting:

For two years, Canada has been lobbying heavily to get into the talks. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade balked at the onerous demands coming from Washington, but in the final days the file was taken over by the PM's chief of staff who was dispatched to Washington to secure Canada's entry, apparently at any cost.

Sight unseen, the government of Canada has agreed to accept any negotiating text on which the nine current members have already reached consensus. According to the USTR, this includes all agreed ("unbracketed") text within chapters that are still open, not just completed chapters. To date, only one chapter has been completed.

Still, I'm coming to the party late, and I'd be lying if I said that securing trade with the Asian market at any cost sounds completely wrong-headed.

The Best Canadian Comics or Humans just keep on creating

In typical fashion, I've spent the morning crawling in and out of the rabbit holes of my mind. (I'm not well today, by the way, so this may get weird.) It started with The Best American Comics 2010, which arrived in the mail last week; the inside cover art, specifically, which is called the endpaper, apparently. I never knew that. Don't know whether I like the name, to be honest, since it's also inside the front cover. Anyway, I found Theo's blog, then was looking up a few of the other artists, like James Kochalka -- yes, I'm sure I've read his stuff before, but the ones that Gaiman picked out for BAC 2010 had me falling in love all over again -- when I thought, why isn't there a Best Canadian Comics? (I'd just read Rebecca Kraatz's Snaps and thought it deserved to be in such a 2011 anthology, at the very least.)

Well, it didn't take me long to find the Doug Wright Awards -- again, holy embarrassing that that took so long, but at least I know all about winners like Seth and Michel; oh, and Rebecca won their Best Emerging Talent award in 2007! Nothing else that big really jumped out at me, so I decided to write them then and there. We'll see what they say, but it wasn't long after that that I realized that BAC actually accepts North American submissions, and that publications like The Devil's Artisan and publishers like Drawn & Quarterly and Conundrum Press already do a pretty good job of promoting Canadian talent. (Check out the former's whopper of a Year In Review post, for example; not limited to Canadian pubs, granted, but still awesome.) Still, an anthology couldn't hurt, right?

Then, as always happens when I dive in the pool that is my stack of to-read comics, I get completely overwhelmed with all the cool stuff I've been missing while reading sci-fi, travelogues, etc.; particularly when I find their blogs and follow a dozen recommendations down the interwebs. And that's when I realize that that old monkey I'm still afraid of, but need, to spur me on, Mr. Well Read, is growing. And he isn't sticking with the soapbox favourites like:

• You say you love Golding, but you still haven't read The Spire;
• There's more to Shakespeare than you studied in school, you know; and,
• Really? You still haven't picked up that lovely edition of Moby Dick?

No, every year now, there are a few more must-reads; soon to be 'Classics', whatever that means these days, in their own right.

This isn't a lament, by the way. Like I said, I need the monkey to egg me on, the slow, easily distracted reader that I am. No, if anything, it's a blessed time to be alive. Doubly so if you love comics.

Quebecorsaurus and the CBC

A provocative tweet pointed me to the latest media battle back home, between the CBC and those who all seem to fall under the umbrella that is Quebecor Media Inc. (QMI): the former's record re ATIP requests, bleeding out to the familiar ground of their funding and how they use it.

I've always had mixed feelings about the CBC: on one hand, I really enjoy some of their programming -- I'm thinking of their radio programs in particular now, including Quirks and Quarks and lots of Radio 3 stuff -- but, as a corporation beholden us (read Canadians writ large) -- they're operating loss before government funding, etc. in 2010 exceeded $1.2 billion (before taxes), according to their latest financial statements -- they've never struck me as humble enough, silly as that sounds (to me, anyway).

So, to be frank, that Ezra rant about the newspaper ad struck a chord with me. As did this, from Peter Worthington (also published in the Toronto Sun):

Peladeau complains that CBC's budget for celebrating its 75th anniversary should be public knowledge. Of course it should... Why is the CBC allowed to keep secret the number of vehicles in its fleet? Or how much it spends on entertainment? Or what it pays Peter Mansbridge?

As Worthington points out, there is an argument for keeping some information close -- what the CBC cited as "documents for... journalistic, creative and programming activity" in response to a motion from the Commons Access To Information Committee last month -- but surely that doesn't extend to simple facts and figures. Now, Worthington writes for "QMI Agency," according to his byline, but I think on this -- amongst his many sports analogies and QMI love -- he has a point.

Because I can't resist it, I'll include one example of the fencing that's going on between these two: on one side we have QMI's claims about the CBC's inefficiencies re ATIP requests; on the other:

[Information Commissioner] Legault said that between 2008-9, 90 per cent of all access requests launched with the CBC were made by six individuals representing business interests. Although their identities have not been revealed, the courts have heard that one law clerk working on behalf of Quebecor's Sun Media newspaper chain submitted nearly 400 requests in late 2007.

I'll be the first to admit that I need to do more research on this, but there's something to be said for clear and concise disclosure; what the kids today would call transparency, I guess. For example, after listening to Ezra rant, I wondered whether it would really be that hard to find out what the CBC spends on marketing. Turns out that it's pretty hard, as far as I can tell: they lump it under Television, radio and new media services costs (emphasis mine):

Television, radio and new media services costs include all costs related to the production of programs, including direct out-of-pocket expenditures, departmental and administration expenses and the cost of activities related to technical labour and facilities. A portion of the costs of operational support provided by services such as human resources, finance and administration, building management and other shared services are also included in the related costs. Television, radio and new media services costs also include programming-related activities such as marketing and sales, merchandising and communications.

From the BBC's annual report for the subject year

It's almost like they're trying to hide it in one of their biggest pots. Now, compare that with how the BBC approach this same sort of accountability (right). It's a concise table in the annual report, with marketing costs clearly broken out; note how the content costs dwarf them, as you'd expect. They've even broken out the digital switchover stuff separately, something I wouldn't have thought to go looking for, but certainly find interesting. (They market that little robot like nobody's business.)

Again, in all this, it's that hint of humility that I'm looking for. I can't put my finger on why exactly, but the BBC definitely has it, where the CBC doesn't.

Elections Canada on Internet voting

Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand recently published his report on the 41st General Election, held earlier this year. It includes one reference to Internet voting:

Elections Canada has been examining Internet voting as a complementary and convenient way to cast a ballot. The Chief Electoral Officer is committed to seeking approval for a test of Internet voting in a by-election held after 2013.

The CBC headlined their article on the report with it: Elections Canada lobbies for test of online voting. Clearly the topic has gone mainstream. Overall, I see reasons for optimism: first, note that the press is making the distinction between electronic voting and online voting; an old lament of mine. Second, they've highlighted the proper implementation of the secret ballot as one of the concerns about voting online. And, finally, Elections Canada isn't racing ahead on this -- note that the statement I quoted doesn't include a deadline. They are also eliciting informed opinions, and remaining far more technology agnostic than most folks would expect them to be, I would imagine:

Strategic initiatives
Our key strategies to support [the Accessibility] objective in the next five years are to:
... with the prior approval of Parliament, test a secure voting process during a by-election that allows electors to vote by telephone or Internet

Strategic Plan 2008-2013 (the emphasis is mine)

It isn't perfect, of course: that workshop made but one reference to the risk of coerced voting, as far as I could tell. Also, the public discourse -- well, such as it is in comments on press articles, and the questions raised at that workshop -- hasn't adequately quashed that old argument celebrating online banking (and tax filing, I've seen recently) as proof that the nut of Internet security has been cracked. As I've stated previously, that argument is based on a false premise. Still, I'm hopeful that these trials to come will be well run, their results thoroughly examined, before any Internet facilitated process débuts in an election on our national stage.

So close...

Struggling for some positives after last night. Think I've got a few:

• Recchi is one of the last, if not the last, players from my "big fan" hockey days. I remember watching him cut it up with Jagr and Stevens. They were deadly. (All you Newfs out there heard that one right.) It's great to see him win one last Cup.
• Nothing beats hearing our anthem belted from 18000 throats, except maybe seeing almost ten times that number in the streets of Vancouver, in celebration. They said it in the coverage, and it's true: when's the last time you saw streets like that? Bet they weren't happy, and things were about to turn nasty.
  

These past two years have seen Canada host a couple of amazing sporting events. Nothing brings our vast country together like them, and the more I see of the world, the more I realize that we're in good company: national unity is elusive; particularly in the twenty-first century.

But I'll tell ya what: in 60+ minute chunks over this playoffs, I've felt like my home is just out that front door, Atlantic Ocean be damned. And I loved it.

MPs' expenses: a sober second look

The row over MPs' expenses in the United Kingdom was big news. The story broke in the lead up to the general election, and no political party got off clean. However, before Canadians head down the same path, demanding an audit of Canadian MPs' expenses, I think a sober second look is in order.

First, these expenses are audited, by KPMG. Second, those audits, along with all the OAG audits, are paid for by the taxpayer. The OAG paid KPMG over $250000 last year for "accounting and audit services" in 2009-2010. In that same year, the OAG's fourth quarter expenses for accounting and auditing contracts approached $900000. Even if we say that that was an expensive quarter, you're still looking at more than $3 million a year for audits. That's a lot of money. And while the annual spending of the House of Commons and the Senate is more than $500 million, I think we should ask ourselves when demanding another audit is throwing good money after bad, so to speak.

It isn't like the government hasn't had its share of embarrassments related to its expenses. I think we would be kidding ourselves to imagine that excesses like Radwanski's haven't led to changes. Still, I would like to see the results of those KPMG audits made public. I think the OAG's website is an excellent example of the openness that could defuse this sort of storm in a tea cup.

Update 27/05/10: looks like the audit will happen anyway.

21st century vote

Michael Geist linked to a Sun story about Alberta considering on-line/Internet voting for the province at some point in the future, using the term e-voting in the title of the post. This muddying of terms really worries me; it has huge implications for this issue, I maintain: while e-voting machines may one day be a viable option for elections in Canada, I have serious doubts about the same ever being true of on-line/Internet voting.

This quote from Alberta's Chief Electoral Officer highlights a few of my concerns:

I can do my banking online, but I can’t do my voting online... Once it has been proven to be effective, that the votes can be certified, all that security stuff can be looked after, I certainly see that as something that’s coming. Anything that we can do to make the process more accessible to electors is obviously a good thing.

First, the security requirements associated with on-line banking differ significantly from those associated with any Internet voting system. I would also suggest that they are much more complex: consider that, under the current system, a voter cannot be directly linked with his or her specific vote and is therefore free from being coerced to vote a certain way. Similarly, banks accept a certain level of fraud (including on-line fraud) as the price of doing business; I don't think the same can be said of any voting system we would consider using to determine the leadership of the country.

This brings me to my second point: there are complexities in this that shouldn't be passed on to other trials, be they in the EU, the US, or wherever. When officials in power use phrases like "security stuff" and imply that other smart people are doing things, so why aren't we, well, again, I get nervous. He uses the term certified. What does that mean to him, or the people conducting the trial? Again, if part of it includes proving that a particular user cast a particular vote -- certainly part of a plausible definition -- that would obviously have enormous privacy implications (as it is completely unnecessary, and just asking for problems, however careful the government is with that information).

Finally, in addition to confusing e-voting machines with Internet voting -- I'm sure someone in power thinks trials of one have some bearing on the suitability of the other -- voter turn-out, or the lack thereof in recent years, always seems to come up in these discussions. And while I'll be the first to admit that it's an important issue, it's for that very reason that it should be divorced from any discussion about the voting systems to be used. Otherwise, the implication is that advent of one-click Internet voting will bring the young voters in droves. On this point, I like the provincial NDP leader's comment (i.e., look at mandatory voting, as they have in Australia); while one could question the merit of the suggestion, the idea that voter engagement need not be synonymous with Internet voting is spot on.

Update: Geist on why thoughts of using Internet voting in provincial and federal elections are premature.

Canada in Afghanistan: Mixed Messages

"This is antithetical to our mission in Afghanistan," Harper said in an interview with CBC News... "Making progress on human rights for women is a significant component of the international engagement in Afghanistan. It's a significant change we want to see from the bad old days of the Taliban," he said.

The Canadian government has been making these sorts of statements since we first committed soldiers to the NATO mission in Afghanistan. It makes sense, at first blush: even the pacifists have difficulty arguing that improving the lives of young girls isn't a worthy cause. However, returning to this simple message too often runs the risk of pushing the primary purpose of the mission -- that is, the destruction of al-Qaeda's safe havens in the region, and the regime that tacitly supported them -- out of the public discourse. And while this may be of little consequence initially -- in terms of public support -- should the simple, secondary (or even tertiary) purpose ever noticeably diverge from that primary purpose, serious problems can arise.

And that's what Harper was dealing with today: a relatively small change in Afghan politics gave rise to existential questions about our mission in that country. Don't misunderstand me: I support the notion of fundamental human rights, and I think the details that I've read about this new law violate some of them; however, Afghanistan is hardly the only country to enact such laws, and it isn't close to being the worst.

Add to this the clear indication of how Harper's interview might have gone, had his government stayed on the AQ-busting message:

"It is probably more likely that al-Qaeda would be able to launch a serious terrorist attack in Europe than in the United States because of proximity," Obama said. "This is not an American mission, this is a NATO mission. This is an international mission."

Now, Obama's message may not have brought the promises of extra soldiers that he'd hoped for, but he needn't worry about the cries from human-rights groups (or worse still, from grieving families who feel misled) derailing him. Nor need he fear his statements haunting him later: he's correct, and will be seen as consistent as he continues to push his administration's new strategy for the region.

Letter to my MP: Concerns and Suggested Changes to Bill C-61

Mr. Poilievre:

As discussed in our meeting last week, I have a number of concerns with the proposed amendments to the Copyright Act in Bill C-61. The lack of public consultation (to date) on this bill also concerns me, and in lieu of such a process I ask that the suggested changes to C-61 herein be sent to the Minister of Industry and those responsible for chairing its parliamentary committee (once it is convened).

Concerns with Bill C-61

First, I will elaborate on three of my concerns specifically to give my suggested changes some context:

1. Playing legitimately-purchased DVDs on a Linux computer will constitute copyright infringement, according to the definitions of technological measure and circumvent in Bill C-61 (section 41.1);

2. Backing up legitimately-purchased digital media (e.g., movies on DVD, music on CDs, music from on-line music stores) will constitute copyright infringement, according to a number of sections of C-61, including, but not limited to, section 29.22 (1) (d), and in some cases, 29.22 (1) (c); and

3. Playing movies from legitimately-purchased DVDs on a video iPod will constitute copyright infringement, according to a number of sections in C-61.

Playing DVDs on Linux

Software called DeCSS is required to play the majority of commercially-produced DVDs on the Linux operating system; this software decrypts the Content Scrambling System (CSS) – an encryption and authentication scheme designed to prevent the direct copying of video files off of the discs themselves – on these DVDs. CCS is administered by the DVD Copy Control Association, which excludes Linux from the licensing it requires of the manufacturers of all DVD-related equipment (including DVD players, for example).

By defining a technological measure as “any effective technology, device or component that... controls access to a work...” – as opposed to focusing on those that control the right to reproduce the work (i.e., copy-protection measures), which is all that is required by the WIPO Internet Treaties – Bill C-61, section 41.1 prohibits the use of DeCSS, thereby prohibiting the playback of legitimately-purchased DVDs on any computer running the Linux operating system.

Backing up digital media

By the same reasoning, making a backup copy of the movies on legitimately-purchased DVDs – in case the original is scratched or otherwise rendered unreadable – is also prohibited by Bill C-61. Section 29.22 (1) (c) also prohibits making a backup copy of the music on legitimately-purchased CDs that include any sort of digital rights management software, as well as the music in files legitimately purchased from on-line music stores such as Apple's iTunes store – again, in case the original is scratched (in the case of CDs), corrupted (in the case of music files), or otherwise rendered unreadable.

However, Section 29.22 (1) (d) is even more troubling, as it prohibits both of the methods I currently use for backing up all of my music (including the music on legitimately-purchased CDs without any sort of DRM software): 1) making backup copies to blank DVDs; and 2) Carbonite's on-line backup service. The latter is a service that, for a fee, allows the user to designate certain files on their computer(s) for backup to the company's servers.

By using either of these methods, I am making more copies of this music than I have devices to play it; however, given the money I have invested in this music, and the time I have invested in making it available on my computers and iPods (likely the equivalent of many weeks at least, given my collection of approximately 700 CDs), I think that I am justified in wanting to back it up.

Playing DVD movies on an iPod

Making a copy of a movie on a legitimately-purchased DVD for the purpose of playing it on my video iPod is also prohibited by Section 41.1.

Suggested changes to Bill C-61

In the light of my stated concerns with Bill C-61, I present two options to address them:

1. The Private Use option:

   1. Retain the Copying for Private Use section of the Copyright Act (i.e., C-42, Section 80); and

   2. Amend it to cover digital media in general, including, but not limited to, music, movies and video games; and

   3. Amend the definition of technological measure in C-61, Section 41 to focus on controlling the right to reproduce a work (i.e., copy-protection measures); OR

2. The Backup Exemption option:

   1. Retain the Computer Programs section of the Copyright Act (i.e., C-42, Section 30.6); and

   2. Amend it to cover digital media in general (as outlined above); and

   3. Amend the definition of technological measure in C-61, Section 41, as outlined above; and

   4. Replace the reference to “videocassette” in C-61, Section 29.21 (1) with a more general term that could refer to any number of video formats we might have in the future; and

   5. Remove C-61, Sections 29.21 (1) (c) and 29.22 (1) (c).

Rationale for suggested changes to Bill C-61

In addition to the reasoning I provided as part of outlining my concerns with Bill C-61, I would like to highlight some examples of international law that support the changes I have suggested to Bill C-61.

Regarding the definition of technological measures

New Zealand's Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Bill¹ includes the following definition:

TPM or technological protection measure—

(a) means any process, treatment, mechanism, device, or system that in the normal course of its operation prevents or inhibits the infringement of copyright in a TPM work; but

(b) for the avoidance of doubt, does not include a process, treatment, mechanism, device, or system to the extent that, in the normal course of operation, it only controls any access to a work for non-infringing purposes (for example, it does not include a process, treatment, mechanism, device, or system to the extent that it controls geographic market segmentation by preventing the playback in New Zealand of a non-infringing copy of a work)²

The Lithuanian Law No. IX-1355 of March 5, 2003, Amending the Law on Copyright and Related Rights³ includes the following article:

Article 75. Limitations for Application of Technological Measures

1. When technological measures applied by owners of copyright, related rights and sui generis rights prevent the users of such rights from benefiting from the limitations of copyright, related rights and sui generis rights, provided for in paragraph 1 of Article 20, subparagraphs 1 and 2 of paragraph 1 of Article 22, paragraph 1 of Article 23, Article 27, subparagraph 2 of paragraph 1 of Article 29, subparagraphs 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of paragraph 1 of Article 58, and paragraph 1 of Article 63 of this Law, the users of the rights must be provided with conditions or adequate means (i.e. decoding devices and other) enabling to use legitimately accessible objects of copyright, related rights or sui generis rights to the extent necessary for the users of the rights to benefit from the limitations of copyright, related rights and sui generis rights provided for their interests.

I would point out that Lithuania has acceded both treaties that make up the WIPO Internet Treaties.⁴

Finally, the Norwegian Copyright Act⁵ includes the following section:

§ 53a. It is prohibited to circumvent effective technological protection measures that the rightholder or others he has given permission employs to control the copying or making available to the public of a protected work.

...

The provisions of this section shall not hinder research into cryptology. Nor shall the provision in the first paragraph hinder private users in gaining access to legally acquired works on that which is generally understood as relevant playback equipment.

Regarding Personal or Private Use

New Zealand's Copyright Amendment Bill also includes the following section on personal use:

81A Copying sound recording for personal use

(1) Copyright in a sound recording and in a literary or musical work contained in it is not infringed by copying the sound recording, if the following conditions are met:

(aa) the sound recording is not a communication work or part of a communication work; and

(a) the copy is made from a sound recording that is not an infringing copy; and

(b) the sound recording is not borrowed or hired; and

(c) the copy is made by the owner of the sound recording; and

(d) that owner acquired the sound recording legitimately; and

(e) the copy is used only for that owner’s personal use or the personal use of a member of the household in which the owner lives or both; and

(f) no more than 1 copy is made for each device for playing sound recordings that is owned by the owner of the sound recording; and

(g) the owner of the sound recording retains the ownership of both the sound recording and of any copy that is made under this section.

(2) For the avoidance of doubt, subsection (1) does not apply if the owner of the sound recording is bound by a contract that specifies the circumstances in which the sound recording may be copied.

Lithuanian Law No. IX-1355 also includes the following article on personal use:

Article 20. Reproduction of Works for Personal Use

1. It shall be permitted for a natural person, without the authorisation of the author or any other owner of copyright, to reproduce, exclusively for his individual use, not for direct or indirect commercial advantage, in a single copy a work published or communicated to the public in any other mode, where the reproduction is a single-action.

Regarding backup copies

Finally, in the following article, Lithuanian Law No. IX-1355 also discusses the idea of multiple backup copies for use in the event that the original is unusable (as I discussed in my concerns above):

Article 30. Making of a Back-up Copies and Reproduction for Adaptation of Computer Programmes

1. A person who has a right to use a computer programme, shall, without the authorisation of the author or other owner of copyright, have the right to make back-up copies of the computer programme or to adapt the computer programme, provided that such copies or adaptation of the programme are necessary:

1) for the use of the computer program in accordance with its intended purpose, including for error correction;

2) for the use of a back-up copy of the lawfully acquired computer programme, in the event the computer programme is lost, destroyed or becomes unfit for use.

Sincerely,

John Jarvis

1http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Legislation/Bills/b/2/a/00DBHOH_BILL7735_1-Copyright-New-Technologies-Amendment-Bill.htm

2http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2006/0102-3/latest/096be8ed801aae8a.pdf

3http://www.wipo.int/clea/en/details.jsp?id=2890

4http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/Remarks.jsp?cnty_id=1071C and http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/Remarks.jsp?cnty_id=1264C

5http://www.kopinor.org/opphavsrett/norwegian_copyright_act

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Nepean-Carleton page on a Fair Copyright for Canada wiki

I'm maintaining the Nepean-Carleton page on the Fair Copyright for Canada, Ottawa Chapter wiki and I'll be including the latest information on my efforts to talk with Mr. Poilievre there.

Conversation with Pierre Poilievre's Constituency Office

I called Pierre Poilievre's constituency office today and was told that I wouldn't be able to meet with Mr. Poilievre until the next "Constituents' Day" at the end of the month or early next month. I was told that Mr. Poilievre had recently had such a day, and that a number of people had used the opportunity to express their displeasure with Bill C-61. (The person I was talking with added that the office hadn't received any positive feedback on the bill to date, that we -- i.e., those opposed to the bill -- were doing the right thing in getting our message to our MP, and, on a more personal note, that he had to admit that the product of bureaucrats could sometimes leave you shaking your head.)

I left my name, phone number, and community of residence with this person, who told me that he would call me when the next Constituents' Day was scheduled (again, likely near the end of July or early in August).

I'm planning to call Mr. Poilievre's parliamentary office tomorrow to see whether I get the same message.

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Planning to meet with Pierre Poilievre in the next week or so re Bill C-61

As per the subject, if you live in the riding of Nepean-Carleton and are interested in meeting with Pierre Poilievre to discuss your concerns regarding Bill C-61, send me an e-mail. I'm not thinking about anything fancy; just a few points on how I want to be able to watch DVDs on my video iPod, etc. I'll post more details on what I plan to say shortly -- and the date and time of the appointment too, of course, once I've booked it (sometime in the next few days).

Also, if you're on Facebook, consider joining the Ottawa Chapter of Fair Copyright for Canada.

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Poilievre on assessing constituent participation

I was recently provided with a summary of a meeting with my MP, Pierre Poilievre, on Bill C-61. There were many points of interest to me, but one that stood out was Mr. Poilievre's ranking of constituents' participation in the debate: specifically, e-mail form letters, even a lot of them, are not considered important, but that someone who sends a brief in is taken very seriously. I assume this also means that original letters, regardless of their method of delivery, rank above form letters, as Mr. Poilievre emphasized the importance of implicit evidence of the constituent's time and thought.

Much of this is intuitive, but there are nuances that I wonder about:

• Where do petitions fit in? I suspect it depends entirely on how they're used, but again, even the most organized and articulate presenters would be able to make a more compelling case with real examples of conversations on constituents' doorsteps, I would think;
• Are all messages from constituents dealt with similarly? Or, is the post better than e-mail, and delivery by hand better than both? I suspect the answer to both is yes.

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The system sucks

The Lower (formerly No) Impact Man, Colin Beavan, has succinctly expressed my current opinion on the environment in a recent post (that I also shared with you, incidentally): the system sucks. By that, he means that the ruts in the road that we normally follow throughout our lives are not designed with the environment in mind; it's the backdrop, and it's taking a beating, according a body of knowledge (including last year's IPCC report).

The example that's the centrepiece of his post is air travel, and it's also the one that forced me to look long and hard at my life. I realized that for many of the previous years, my lifestyle didn't reflect my opinions; there are all sorts of examples I could list, but by far the most damaging to the environment was my annual air travel.

Colin writes about the incentives to vacation once a year versus, say, going on longer sojourns, much of which could be done over land, and I certainly live in that world. (While he also makes some valid points about business travel, that isn't the world I live in right now.) I would eventually lose my vacation allotment were I to attempt such a drastic change in my lifestyle, so I will go a step farther and say that the system punishes that sort of behaviour.

I love traveling. And while I love the breadth of settings my country offers me - and there are still many parts of it that I have yet to explore - I love traveling far away. I have only just begun to travel the world. I can envision a time when my wife and I will be traveling somewhere warm every year, as we do now, and taking another trip to a far-off locale, in addition to our annual trip 'down East' in the summer (by car). Yes, some years that extra trip will probably be closer to home (e.g., the birthday celebrations in Québec City this year), but I certainly don't want to feel obligated to do that.

That may be selfish, but at this point in my life, I'm O.K. with that. I will use cloth grocery bags, I will buy fair-trade coffee (and drink it out 'n' about if it's served, in my travel mug if I have it, or out of a paper cup if that's the only option), I will take the stairs, I will drive a smaller car, but I will not feel bad when our annual flight down South blows all the carbon dioxide emissions I've managed to save during the previous 364 days; not for one minute.

Some of the examples I've raised bring me to my final point: Colin's right; the system can be changed. I like my analogy of ruts in the road because it communicates how deeply ingrained some of this stuff is, while indicating that it isn't immutable. On the plastic grocery bags, complaining about that in the 80s would've got you some funny looks - acid rain was the only problem in our part of the world back then, in case you weren't aware - and even just a few years ago our mayor lamented the cost of sending our plastic bags to the Far East(!) for recycling when he canned the program. Now most of the grocery stores around my house take them back, and they all sell their own cloth bags. My favourite movie theatre, the Bytowne, sells fair-trade coffee (in disposable cups), and Bridgeheads are popping up all over the place.

The key is to identify the worst behaviours encouraged by the system and make some noise about them. In the time it takes you to put your thoughts down in a forum like this, you could have a strong, personal message for your MP or MPP. (I'm not a big fan of form letters, but that may be because I don't understand the system; there's that word again.) But another key is to identify those more malleable behaviours - the shallow ruts, if you will - that could be influenced by local campaigns and, likely, local spending habits. Even if those changes don't reduce carbon dioxide emissions, I think, in the aggregate, they show people the potential for real rewards from their efforts, and I think that's a message we don't hear enough these days.

Problems with proportional representation

Some time ago, a friend and I discussed some alternatives to the first-past-the-post electoral system. With the referendum on "mixed-member proportional" representation in Ontario coming up this month, these sorts of discussions are in the news again: in particular, David Warren's column in the Citizen this morning detailed how much of what I highlighted as advantages of proportional representation could be abused.

I think he goes too far in characterizing it as a potential "disaster," but he certainly gives us food for thought.

Rory Stewart to speak in Ottawa

I've spoken briefly about Rory Stewart in the past. This is an excellent opportunity; while it is free, seating is limited so register early.

Facebook news?

The CBC is now keeping me apprised of where Canada ranks in Facebook. I hope this isn't the extent of their plan for engaging the "Facebook generation".

Godwin's Law

I hadn't heard of Godwin's Law before reading today's xkcd strip, and while the law specifies on-line discussions, a follow-on point attributed to Godwin got me thinking. First, the law:

As an on-line discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued, that overuse of the Nazi/Hitler comparison should be avoided, as it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.

I'm going to make another leap and say that the same logic applies to Neville Chamberlain comparisons. And I know I'm a bit late on this one, but, even after the public disaster, I don't think Elizabeth May gets that. Yes, she was sorry the day before, but, ooo, ooo! They did it too!

I'm sorry, if she couldn't do without the glass-houses comment, at least reiterate that it was a mistake. And I did laugh at the CBC radio news bit that played Layton's "I would never..." followed by his very own - deeply disgusted, I might add - Chamberlain reference in parliament a few years ago. So, no, I'm not claiming that no one should've pointed out this double standard. I just get this... smugness from the Green party site that seems to miss the point.

Conservatives propose to extend voting period

Two thoughts come to mind: 1) Has the government determined that a significant portion of the people who aren't voting cite polling booth hours when asked why they don't? And 2) Have they considered how this will change the polling booth security environment?

On the first point, I believe government employees are guaranteed a break to vote if their shift spans the polling booth hours. Can anyone confirm this? Or shed light on any private-sector policies?

On the second point, the longer they have to ensure the integrity of those ballot boxes, the greater their vulnerability.

Finally, if the answer to the first question is no, then the government could be wasting a lot of money, in areas related to the second question and beyond.