quoting the smart

(image courtesy Random House)

"...certain puritanically destructive transformations of old things into new things seem to excite people - otherwise polite, educated, law-abiding people - and it's up to other normally polite people to try to stop them."

It's been a while since I've shared a quote. Unfortunately, so much of my reading these days doesn't fit all the criteria for the "quoting the smart" feature, but this book most certainly does:

Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, by Nicholson Baker (of the New Yorker)

Why have I not jumped aboard the free-culture, why-bother-with-copyright?, open-everything bandwagon? After all, it is a very attractive bandwagon, and all sorts of cool and fun-loving types are already happily riding it.

I haven't jumped aboard because for the time being it looks to me that in order to do so, one has to happily discard or seriously weaken certain individual rights I hold dear.

In his book, Nicholson Baker wonders why there has to be a decision between preserving newspapers as paper artifacts and microfilming them to increase access. Why not do both?

I feel the same way about copyright reform.

Why should we choose between having valuable individual creative rights under copyright and increasing access to creative content and our shared culture. Why can't we have both?

Until more people (especially those charged with this reform) start asking for both, I'm happy to keep walking behind the bandwagon with all my rights intact.


Not entirely unrelated:

Will the Book Survive Generation Text? is not your typical death-of-the-book nostalgia piece. Published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Carlin Romano's elegy to textual wholeness asks some pertinent questions about how digital expediencies might be changing education for the worse. It's also a little bit funny.

"Plagiarism, having evolved, with the help of Stanley Fish, from mortal academic sin to mere "breach of disciplinary decorum," will be an elective track, on a par with fiction and poetry, within the creative-writing major."

lessons in headline writing

Earlier in the month, a coalition of writer groups in Canada wrote a joint letter to federal Ministers Moore and Clement (Heritage and Industry, respectively) requesting "clear legislative guidance" on a proposed amendment to the Copyright Act that appears in Bill C-32 , the much-talked-about Act to Amend the Copyright Act.

The letter opens with praise:

On behalf of all professional writers in Canada we want to thank you for beginning the process of amending our copyright legislation for the digital environment. We recognize this process as an absolute necessity if Canada is to fulfill her role as a leader in the context of the growing global knowledge economy.

It continues with a request for clarity and an offer to open dialogue around the inclusion of the word "education" in the the fair dealing section of the Act. The intent is to make sure C-32 provides "clear, predictable and fair rules," which is one of the stated aims of the Bill.

The letter closes with gratitude:

"We thank you for your express willingness to amend C-32 and we will be presenting a comprehensive position that includes specific measures we hope will receive the support of your government."

It is signed by elected representatives of:

The Canadian Authors Association;
The League of Canadian Poets;
The Literary Translators' Association of Canada;
The Playwrights Guild of Canada;
The Professional Writers Association of Canada; and
The Writers' Union of Canada

All told, these groups represent over 4,600 working creative professionals in Canada, all of whom have chosen to join their industry associations and participate in the grassroots democratic processes that lead to policy statements such as this letter.

The tone of the letter is considered and reasonable; and it is absent any panic or dire warnings. It's surprising, then, that this is the same letter consumer advocate Michael Geist blasts as "fear mongering" on his blog, under the headline:

"Writers Groups Attack Fair Dealing Reform in Copyright Bill"

Geist criticizes the letter for inaccuracy and chides the creator groups involved for seeing uncertainty in the new amendment where there is none. He concludes with this remarkable back-handed accusation:

"If the writers groups are against fairness and balance in copyright, they should say so, rather than trumpeting misleading claims about the effects of the fair dealing reforms."

4,600 concerned Canadian writers against fairness and balance in copyright? Because they ask for "clear legislative guidance"?

What an astounding and nakedly biased charge from the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, whose stated research goal is "seeking to reach a better understanding of how the various stakeholders can effectively co-exist and how a traditional governance system of checks and balances can be replicated in the on-line environment."

If you've read Dr. Geist's blog for as long as I have, you might be a bit less surprised by all of this. Another recent headline is just as provocative:

"Access Copyright's 1300% Tariff Increase - Deadline to Object is August 11, 2010"

... and just as misleading. Subsequent discussion of the tariff referred to in that posting has revealed claims of a 1300% increase are wildly inaccurate, yet that headline and all related claims remain uncorrected.

Geist's sensational jab at thousands of Canadian writers is all very confusing, since encouraging Canadian citizens to express their opinions on copyright specifics has seemingly been the professor's full-time job for the last five years. I guess some opinions are to be encouraged more than others.

In related news:

Harry Potter Books Spark Rise in Satanism Among Children!

Martians Land in Grover's Mill, New Jersey!

Law Professor Opposed to Clear Legislative Guidance!

those pesky bills

Last month, the University of Ottawa Press announced that it was making 36 of its backlist titles available for free as Open Access licensed downloads.

The news release announcing the launch describes it as "part of the University of Ottawa’s open access program, which includes a commitment to make research easier to consult through its institutional repository, to provide funds to researchers aiming to publish their work in open access journals, and to award grants for research on the open access movement."

As a former student at the University of Ottawa (1984-86, go Gee Gees!, Tabaret tabernac), I'm proud of UOP for their dedication to the backlist authors who will undoubtedly benefit from a wider audience after this move. I am also pleased to note that UOP worked very hard to clear the rights with those authors before launching this online venture.

That said, I'm not just a former student; I'm also an independent professional author with ongoing interests in protection for creators under copyright, new business models for established and emerging publishers and the economic survival of independent professional content creation. My admiration for UOP extends, then, to cover the realism and pragmatism with which they have approached this project.

Open Access advocate Russell McOrmond has today published an interesting essay on what he calls Peer Production in the post secondary educational context. I have many disagreements with Russell, beginning with who is doing all the whining in the copyright debate, but I have no problem following him on his theoretical journey to the land of an all-Open Access educational curriculum. No problem, that is, as long as we recognize that it is theoretical.

Earlier this week, consumer advocate Michael Geist (coincidentally, a professor at the University of Ottawa) bristled publicly at my suggestion that prematurely adopting a policy of Open Access-only curriculum, even on a class by class basis, was shockingly arbitrary and irresponsible. Dr. Geist went to great pains to prove it is indeed possible to teach classes (at law school) without any collectively licensed materials.

And I'm glad it's possible. But possible and practical are two different things. The freeness of Open Access is possible because the authors of the works being freely accessed are compensated in ways other than traditional pay-per-use or royalty structures. Often their research grants are expected to also cover the traditional compensation a writer might expect for writing.

The Wikipedia link on Open Access above also tells us that many of the traditional costs of publishing work (the selection, editing, proofing, etc.) are covered with fees paid by the authors themselves toward the publication of the work. Presumably, the fee the author pays to be published in OA is somehow made up for through the up front compensation she has already received prior to writing.

As complicated as all that sounds, one thing should be clear... Open Access does not involve the sudden cessation of money changing hands. Providing research and published writing for free is an expensive venture. Since professor salaries are negotiated in part on the amount and value of research and publishing done by the professor, we can expect any large-scale adoption of Open Access or peer production to include a transfer of traditional royalty, advance and licensing costs into the salary line of university budgets. Where the revenue will come from for that increase is a bit of a mystery, but students hoping for cheaper education in a world of Open Access might not want to get their hopes up.

Why not? Because even in Open Access, there is no free lunch.

Commenting to Quill & Quire on the occasion of the University of Ottawa Press Open Access experiment, Rebecca Ross (UOP's e-book coordinator) dropped an inevitable caveat:

However, the press has no plans to make its most popular academic textbooks available for free. “If a book is still really popular for courses, it’s not going to go Open Access at this stage,” Ross says. “We’re not yet an Open Access press.... We still have to pay the bills and make revenue from what we’re publishing.”

I hear you, UOP. I hear you.

just another brick in the wall

(image courtesy www.grungetextures.com on flickr)

Not all that long ago, every student in a course at university was expected to buy the same textbook. Educational publishers specialized in creating these textbooks, hired scholars and writers to produce them, and regularly updated them.

Enter the photocopier, and many professors decided their students didn't need entire textbooks -- a bit here and there from a number of books would do. The coursepack, an ugly, often horribly photocopied brick of reading was born, and students everywhere bought new glasses.

To compensate educational publishers for the fact that only portions of their books were now being used, universities signed collective license agreements with Access Copyright, a collective of publishers, writers and visual artists. Revenues from the licenses flowed back to the collective and were distributed to the publisher and creator affiliates. Every effort was made to ensure the price paid was fair and the money went to those who deserved it.

Enter the Internet, and educational practice has changed again. Professors now either scan works to create easily transferable digital files, or they simply find articles online and have their students access them that way. Yet the meat of the activity has not changed - Canadian creators and publishers continue to produce excellent materials for use in classrooms; professors continue to use those works; and students continue to learn from them.

Keeping with the times, Access Copyright has recently proposed a tariff covering all uses, photocopied and digital for a simple per-student fee. The tariff is currently before Canada's Copyright Board and will be adjudicated in due time. Unfortunately for Canada's hardworking cultural creators and publishers, not everyone in the education system is keen to do digital business with Access Copyright.

Prominent copyright critic and University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist objects to the tariff. He makes a number of sensational accusations about the proposal -- that it ignores fair dealing, that it requires onerous reporting, but mostly that it costs too much.

Of course, one of the functions of the Copyright Board is to decide fair pricing. Think of the Copyright Board as a slightly less exciting version of baseball arbitration. Access Copyright is saying they are a great pitcher (of established educational content), while critics like Geist say AC’s arm is not worth the money. The arbitrator hears both sides and makes a decision on price that both parties should honour.

Except, Professor Geist has decided to unilaterally forgo arbitration and is instead proposing that education ignore the Copyright Board. Geist recently blogged that it might just be time for Canadian education to “walk away” from Access Copyright’s educational repertoire.

Much of the panic around the cost of the tariff is based on the assumption that students themselves will have to pay the bill. The numbers tell a different story. The cost to provide copyright coverage to all of Canada’s 1.5 million post-sec students has been calculated by critics at $60 million. Yet just one representative Canadian university -- say, the University of Ottawa -- could reasonably pay the fee for all of their full-time students with a tiny 0.2% of their budget. It would be entirely unnecessary for them to pass the cost on to students.

Despite the indisputable affordability, Geist is advocating a walk out. He suggests "with the prospect of such a dramatic increase in costs, education must self-assess to determine whether it actually needs these licences.” He then proudly claims that only open access materials are used in his classroom. What this means, presumably, is that students of Internet law at the University of Ottawa learn only from what Geist can provide for them through licenses that require no compensation to the original creator of the work. In other words, if Geist didn’t write it himself, or it’s not free, he won’t teach it.

This seems a shockingly arbitrary and irresponsible policy that will only place artificial (and highly political) limits on education. Students pay good money for their education. Shouldn’t they get the best for that money, rather than the cheapest and most-aligned to the prof's political leanings?

Geist’s walk-out is a version of the brinkmanship one often finds at the baseball arbitration table. Why pay for proven major league quality when a minor leaguer will come cheap? Yet, how many World Series have been won with minor-league pitching?

Canadian writers and publishers produce educational assets proven through decades of continuous use. If Canada is really focused on leading the knowledge economy, we walk away from such assets at our peril.

Tear down that wall

The Toronto Star has published a strong call for amending Bill C-32 (The Act to Amend the Copyright Act) as it pertains to copyright and educational use. The paper states "in one notable respect the initiative is flawed: the government, lobbied by provincial ministers of education, has included “education” in the bill’s “fair dealing” section of the bill, which allows copying within certain limits." The Star calls for Parliament to "rethink and take a hard look at the fair dealing section when Parliament resumes sitting in the fall and Bill C-32 goes to committee."

I have asked for the same rethink at the committee. Responding to my request for more discussion about a broad educational exception, Heritage Minister James Moore seems open to talking. Just another example of how open and consultative this latest round of copyright reform has been.

one (more) artist's opinion

(image courtesy Ladies of the Canyon, and Kindling Music)

Montreal singer, songwriter and member of the band Ladies of the Canyon, Maia Davies, has published an op-ed in the Montreal Gazette, expressing her passion for working as an artist, and her disappointment over illegal downloading.

You can see the full op-ed here, and here are some key quotes:

"I am an artist by choice, just as others choose to follow other careers. Whatever one does for a living, we're all expected to follow the economic and political norms that define our society, and to obey the law. Particularly in a social-minded nation like Canada, we also respect the greater good along with individual rights. One of these rights is for workers and employers to be compensated for the goods and services they sell."

"The government of Canada took an important step to correct this situation when it introduced Bill C-32. Some people have raised objections. If those objections are based on a desire for better consumer access to creative works, count me in. But that isn't really what we are talking about here. This discussion really comes down to Canadian workers' rights to fair compensation for services rendered."

Well said, Ms. Davies.

These days, speaking your mind publicly about a working artist's right to protect their copyright can feel a lot like extending your head through that comfy little neck rest on a guillotine.

As I have documented a number of times, artists and other professional creators are regularly attacked as elite, out-of-touch, and greedy if they dare to express concern about the popular and widespread copyright infringements of the day. Browse through the comments section of any Boing Boing anti-copyright posting and you'll get a sense of the enmity and anger with which artists are greeted when they speak out about their rights.

Which is why I so admire the artists who do speak out. No one I know is in the art-biz in order to alienate and anger potential fans; and everyone I know in the art-biz just groaned a bit when I used the term "art-biz." The primary driver for entering a career in the arts is almost never economic. In fact, it's often quite uncomfortable for the artists I know to talk about money, since a) that's not what their art is really about, and b) there isn't a whole lot of money to talk about anyway.

Ms. Davies can now count on being aggressively (and often rudely) confronted on her personal views by anti-copyright activists who really, really just want to explain to her how she is wrong to feel the way she feels and how her views on C-32, digital locks, music and art belong to the last century and simply don't fit with where the world is going. She can expect to be pestered on Twitter and Facebook, and almost certainly yelled at while she's on stage at her next concert. That is, sadly, the atmosphere in which principled, concerned artists in Canada are now expected to work -- one of perpetual defensive justification. I tell you, from experience, it can be pretty hard on the art part of one's life.

I intend to pester Ms. Davies in my own way, to thank her for the courageous op-ed and for her concerns about Canadian art. I will pester her to take my money, as I (legally) download the debut Ladies of the Canyon album (and maybe buy me one of them attractive LOTC t-shirts). If I ever have the pleasure of meeting her, she can also count on being pestered for an autograph.

I leave you with this. Happy weekend everyone: