They’re at it again
I understood and fully supported the anger and outrage over CARP and the DMCA in the U.S.
Yet, if I’m honest, I should confess that it was hard for me to get quite as animated as perhaps I should have in my contempt for these two corrupt, ill-conceived initiatives, given that the government involved was that shambling consortium of praetorian halfwits known as the United States congress.
In other words, like crashing in a rented Lincoln, all the damage was happening somewhere “out there” at the furthest edge of my attention with little direct and immediate impact on me personally.
Now, however, this particular venal disease seems to have spread north of the 49th and re-infected a uniquely Canadian collection of bumbling nits.
And it’s not just venal singular, but venal squared, I’m afraid:
Venal Disease #1:
Apparently oblivious to the colossal public outcry in the U.S. that ultimately led to CARP’s humiliating rout – SOCAN (the Canadian music industry analog of the U.S.'s RIAA) is attempting to pass Tariff 22 into law for 2003.
SOCAN (the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) has been lobbying away with Tariff 22 since 1996. SOCAN currently administers all kinds of tariffs for the performance or communication of copyrighted music. Existing tariffs cover TV, radio, bars, clubs, dancing schools – anywhere their button men can reach. Tariff 22 sets its sights on the Internet as a means of transmission.
The Canadian Copyright Board, smartly, threw a spanner in their plans the last time they tried this one back in 1999. In a refreshing and almost unprecedented outbreak of government sanity, the Board’s negative response to SOCAN’s proposal was notable for a number of reasons...
I’m certainly not a lawyer, and I’ll freely confess that both the weasel-wordiness of SOCAN’s proposal and the comparatively plain English response from the Copyright Board, have my head spinning within a few pages.
But here’s a good indicator of which organization appears to have a more clueful view:
SOCAN wants to make people pay for using the Internet as a music distribution service, effectively killing non-profit Internet-only radio stations by forcing them to pay tariffs for the music they promote (often, incidentally, music from unsigned, unheard-of artists with little hope of ever seeing any of the money SOCAN collects “on their behalf”).
Key concept here: the Internet.
SOCAN’s submission, the snappily-titled “Statement of Proposed Royalties to Be Collected by SOCAN for the Public Performance or the Communication to the Public by Telecommunication, in Canada, of Musical or Dramatico-Musical Works for the Year 2003” manages to avoid using the word “Internet” even once in its entire 35 pages.
The Copyright Board of Canada, on the other hand, in their 64-page decision document, lead off with the fact of the Internet in the title of section 1A, page 3. They go on to intelligently dissect the game-changing nature of the Internet phenomenon at considerable length, using the “I word” well in excess of 100 times before they’re done.
It’s almost as if SOCAN couldn’t bring themselves to utter the beastly word and the Board are gleefully rubbing their faces in it.
So SOCAN got squished the last time out, but they’ve not given up.
They’re trying again for 2003 – this time aiming to ride the paranoid waves of misinformation arising from the Napster, Morpheus, Gnutella and Kazaa stories - and hoping to slide Tariff 22 in under the radar.
Here’s the pertinent weasel-idge in full, just to set your teeth on edge:
“For a licence to communicate to the public by telecommunication, in Canada, musical works forming part of SOCAN’s repertoire, by a telecommunications service to subscribers by means of one or more computer(s) or other device that is connected to a telecommunications network where the transmission of those works can be accessed by each subscriber independently of any other person having access to the service, the licensee shall pay a monthly fee calculated as follows:
(a) in the case of those telecommunications services that do not earn revenue from advertisements on the service, $0.25 per subscriber.
(b) in the case of those telecommunications services that earn revenue from advertisements on the service, 10 per cent of gross revenues, with a minimum fee of $0.25 per subscriber.
“Telecommunications service” includes a service known as a computer on-line service, an electronic bulletin board service (BBS), a Web site, a network server or a service provider or similar operation that provides for or authorizes the digital encoding, random access and/or storage of musical works or portions of musical works in a digitally encoded form for the transmission of those musical works in digital form via a telecommunications network or that provides access to such a telecommunications network to a subscriber’s computer or other device that allows the transmission of material to be accessed by each subscriber independently of any other person having access to the service. “Telecommunications service” shall not include a “music supplier” covered under Tariff 16 or a “transmitter” covered under Tariff 17.
“Subscriber” means a person who accesses or is contractually entitled to access the service or content provided by the telecommunication service in a given month.”
That’s you and me they’re talking about, you know. We're all mere subscribers in the minds of SOCAN.
So can it. If public outcry in the U.S. can kill CARP, then SOCAN WE.
James O’Brien, station manager of RantRadio one of the longest-established Internet radio stations, is rallying support to fight Tariff 22 at his site, here.
Here’s his call to action:
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP STOP TARIFF 22:
1) Write to Claude Majeau (Secretary General of the Canadian Copyright Bureau) and let your (well thought out and non-threatening) opinion be heard. If you can snailmail a letter, all the better, if not, please e-mail Claude at least and help keep RantRadio free for everybody!
2) Use this banner to spread the word and link to James' site at: http://www.rantradio.com/tariff22.php3
3) Post this story to all the online news publications you know of to spread the word of what's happening.
We have until July 10, 2002 to make our response heard on this issue.
Contact info for Claude Majeau:
CLAUDE MAJEAU
Secretary General
56 Sparks Street, Suite 800
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0C9
(613) 952-8621 (Telephone)
(613) 952-8630 (Facsimile)
majeau.claude@cb-cda.gc.ca
There’s also a short, easily-digested summary of the issues from Jason Young posted at the excellent flora.org site, here.
Which brings me on to...
Venal Disease #2:
Flora.org is also one of the places to go for information about the Canadian government’s plans to reform copyright legislation and introduce DMCA-like provisions in support of content protection technologies.
There’s a superb commentary and response to these plans from Roaring Penguin’s David Skoll here.
Also, Rachel Ross at the Toronto Star did her usual excellent job of carving through the weaselry, back in September of last year.
The relevant Government of Canada site is here.
Perhaps the best commentary on this complex tangle, however, is from the talented and insightful Jason Young, again. In this paper he manages to inform, entertain, and persuade with considerable grace. Here’s just a tiny part of his cogent and well-researched analysis:
“Our transactions in cyberspace -- commercial and otherwise -- are mediated more by private code than public law or by public laws giving legal force to private law. If copyright is a bargain -- a relationship between equal stakeholders -- then the subsuming of accountability in the relationship is a betrayal of that relationship. When individuals feel betrayed in relationships, they often begin to act outside of them; we see this manifesting in the widespread piracy on the Internet.”
But don’t hang around here expecting more in this vein. I’ve kept you long enough.
Get yerself off to Jason’s site and study the rest of his paper.
Then head over to Flora.org’s DMCA Opponents forum for all the latest on beating this bogus bill before it gets passed into law.
Don’t let it happen here.
I understood and fully supported the anger and outrage over CARP and the DMCA in the U.S.
Yet, if I’m honest, I should confess that it was hard for me to get quite as animated as perhaps I should have in my contempt for these two corrupt, ill-conceived initiatives, given that the government involved was that shambling consortium of praetorian halfwits known as the United States congress.
In other words, like crashing in a rented Lincoln, all the damage was happening somewhere “out there” at the furthest edge of my attention with little direct and immediate impact on me personally.
Now, however, this particular venal disease seems to have spread north of the 49th and re-infected a uniquely Canadian collection of bumbling nits.
And it’s not just venal singular, but venal squared, I’m afraid:
Venal Disease #1:
Apparently oblivious to the colossal public outcry in the U.S. that ultimately led to CARP’s humiliating rout – SOCAN (the Canadian music industry analog of the U.S.'s RIAA) is attempting to pass Tariff 22 into law for 2003.
SOCAN (the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) has been lobbying away with Tariff 22 since 1996. SOCAN currently administers all kinds of tariffs for the performance or communication of copyrighted music. Existing tariffs cover TV, radio, bars, clubs, dancing schools – anywhere their button men can reach. Tariff 22 sets its sights on the Internet as a means of transmission.
The Canadian Copyright Board, smartly, threw a spanner in their plans the last time they tried this one back in 1999. In a refreshing and almost unprecedented outbreak of government sanity, the Board’s negative response to SOCAN’s proposal was notable for a number of reasons...
I’m certainly not a lawyer, and I’ll freely confess that both the weasel-wordiness of SOCAN’s proposal and the comparatively plain English response from the Copyright Board, have my head spinning within a few pages.
But here’s a good indicator of which organization appears to have a more clueful view:
SOCAN wants to make people pay for using the Internet as a music distribution service, effectively killing non-profit Internet-only radio stations by forcing them to pay tariffs for the music they promote (often, incidentally, music from unsigned, unheard-of artists with little hope of ever seeing any of the money SOCAN collects “on their behalf”).
Key concept here: the Internet.
SOCAN’s submission, the snappily-titled “Statement of Proposed Royalties to Be Collected by SOCAN for the Public Performance or the Communication to the Public by Telecommunication, in Canada, of Musical or Dramatico-Musical Works for the Year 2003” manages to avoid using the word “Internet” even once in its entire 35 pages.
The Copyright Board of Canada, on the other hand, in their 64-page decision document, lead off with the fact of the Internet in the title of section 1A, page 3. They go on to intelligently dissect the game-changing nature of the Internet phenomenon at considerable length, using the “I word” well in excess of 100 times before they’re done.
It’s almost as if SOCAN couldn’t bring themselves to utter the beastly word and the Board are gleefully rubbing their faces in it.
So SOCAN got squished the last time out, but they’ve not given up.
They’re trying again for 2003 – this time aiming to ride the paranoid waves of misinformation arising from the Napster, Morpheus, Gnutella and Kazaa stories - and hoping to slide Tariff 22 in under the radar.
Here’s the pertinent weasel-idge in full, just to set your teeth on edge:
“For a licence to communicate to the public by telecommunication, in Canada, musical works forming part of SOCAN’s repertoire, by a telecommunications service to subscribers by means of one or more computer(s) or other device that is connected to a telecommunications network where the transmission of those works can be accessed by each subscriber independently of any other person having access to the service, the licensee shall pay a monthly fee calculated as follows:
(a) in the case of those telecommunications services that do not earn revenue from advertisements on the service, $0.25 per subscriber.
(b) in the case of those telecommunications services that earn revenue from advertisements on the service, 10 per cent of gross revenues, with a minimum fee of $0.25 per subscriber.
“Telecommunications service” includes a service known as a computer on-line service, an electronic bulletin board service (BBS), a Web site, a network server or a service provider or similar operation that provides for or authorizes the digital encoding, random access and/or storage of musical works or portions of musical works in a digitally encoded form for the transmission of those musical works in digital form via a telecommunications network or that provides access to such a telecommunications network to a subscriber’s computer or other device that allows the transmission of material to be accessed by each subscriber independently of any other person having access to the service. “Telecommunications service” shall not include a “music supplier” covered under Tariff 16 or a “transmitter” covered under Tariff 17.
“Subscriber” means a person who accesses or is contractually entitled to access the service or content provided by the telecommunication service in a given month.”
That’s you and me they’re talking about, you know. We're all mere subscribers in the minds of SOCAN.
So can it. If public outcry in the U.S. can kill CARP, then SOCAN WE.
James O’Brien, station manager of RantRadio one of the longest-established Internet radio stations, is rallying support to fight Tariff 22 at his site, here.
Here’s his call to action:
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP STOP TARIFF 22:
1) Write to Claude Majeau (Secretary General of the Canadian Copyright Bureau) and let your (well thought out and non-threatening) opinion be heard. If you can snailmail a letter, all the better, if not, please e-mail Claude at least and help keep RantRadio free for everybody!
2) Use this banner to spread the word and link to James' site at: http://www.rantradio.com/tariff22.php3
3) Post this story to all the online news publications you know of to spread the word of what's happening.
We have until July 10, 2002 to make our response heard on this issue.
Contact info for Claude Majeau:
CLAUDE MAJEAU
Secretary General
56 Sparks Street, Suite 800
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0C9
(613) 952-8621 (Telephone)
(613) 952-8630 (Facsimile)
majeau.claude@cb-cda.gc.ca
There’s also a short, easily-digested summary of the issues from Jason Young posted at the excellent flora.org site, here.
Which brings me on to...
Venal Disease #2:
Flora.org is also one of the places to go for information about the Canadian government’s plans to reform copyright legislation and introduce DMCA-like provisions in support of content protection technologies.
There’s a superb commentary and response to these plans from Roaring Penguin’s David Skoll here.
Also, Rachel Ross at the Toronto Star did her usual excellent job of carving through the weaselry, back in September of last year.
The relevant Government of Canada site is here.
Perhaps the best commentary on this complex tangle, however, is from the talented and insightful Jason Young, again. In this paper he manages to inform, entertain, and persuade with considerable grace. Here’s just a tiny part of his cogent and well-researched analysis:
“Our transactions in cyberspace -- commercial and otherwise -- are mediated more by private code than public law or by public laws giving legal force to private law. If copyright is a bargain -- a relationship between equal stakeholders -- then the subsuming of accountability in the relationship is a betrayal of that relationship. When individuals feel betrayed in relationships, they often begin to act outside of them; we see this manifesting in the widespread piracy on the Internet.”
But don’t hang around here expecting more in this vein. I’ve kept you long enough.
Get yerself off to Jason’s site and study the rest of his paper.
Then head over to Flora.org’s DMCA Opponents forum for all the latest on beating this bogus bill before it gets passed into law.
Don’t let it happen here.
