Too Many Lawyers

Was there a sudden increase in the number lawyers during the 2000s?

These days it seems that lawyers have overrun the corporate world to the point where companies are spending more time suing each other, rather than competing via innovation. Copyright, patents, and intellectual property are the domain of lawyers, not entrepreneurs. Patent and copyright trolling is a business model that only lawyers would create.

It is curious that the only economy that is growing (perhaps even overheating) in these uncertain times, has very little of this lawyering going on. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Internet Access Is A Human Right

The United Nations released a report (PDF) which recognizes that Internet access has become an essential component for freedom of speech and should be considered a human right. The report is critical of ACTA, notice-and-take-down laws that are easily abused, and three strikes laws which cut off Internet access over mere accusations of copyright infringement.

While a U.N. report is not going to sway politicians in the countries where such laws already exist, it is important that the U.N. recognises that these are actually human rights violations. It is completely ridiculous that basic rights are being eroded for the sake of protecting intellectual property.

More in depth analysis can be found here, here, and here.

Wikileaks Canada

This week Wikileaks released many diplomatic cables concerning Canada. It seemed like perfect timing with only three days to the election. So what did the Canadian mainstream media have to say about the cables?

The CBC had decent coverage of the entire release. The Globe and Mail picked a cable with an unfavourable view of Ignatieff. This choice is not surprising. The Toronto Star focused on one cable about Laura Harper. Yeah, they went for the really important stuff.

Outside the mainstream, Micheal Geist examined the copyright and intellectual property comments in a few of the cables. There is little doubt that the US is influencing the IP debate in Canada. And as an indication of Geist's importance in that debate, there's even a cable about him. ^^

Lawyers Or Engineers

These days it seems that businesses spend more time in court fighting over "intellectual property" than they do creating innovative products. This would a great opportunity for small companies to fill the product gap but then they risk being sued too. No matter what anyone says, nothing will convince me that "intellectual property" promotes innovation. It is just a tool to suppress competition.

All of this makes me wonder: is it cheaper to sue or to create a new product? Who costs more: lawyers or engineers?

Copyright Levies

Copyright collectives love levies (taxes). Here in Canada, we pay a small but significant amount on blank audio tape and recordable CDs. Of course, who buys blank audio tape and and recordable CDs any more? As such, these collectives naturally want to extend the levies (taxes) to other media and devices. To show how ridiculous copyright levies (taxes) could become, read this article. I wish this were a joke. Are the people behind these levies (taxes) insane?

The Industry Minister Clement and Heritage Minister Moore rightly oppose such outrageous levies (taxes). But, before we heap any praise on those two, remember that they are behind equally outrageous Bill C-32, with its strict protection for digital locks. How can they get it right and wrong at the same time? Basically the collectives don't have as much influence as the U.S. government.

Long Hard War

The U.S. continues the long slide down the slippery slope as the Department of Homeland Security "seized" several domains (full list) for alleged copyright violations. Apart from the obvious question of what does copyright have to with U.S. security, what does the DHS think they've actually "seized"?

A domain is just an address in a database, nothing more. It costs a few dollars the register another one. Guess what? Most of the owners of the seized domains probably already have new domains. Once again the people at the top demonstrate that they have little understanding of how the Internet works.

And that my friends is why we will win in the end. However, make no mistake: it's going to be a long hard war. What's next? Wikileaks?

About Face

After being the most vocal in its doubts about the ACTA negotiations, the EU parliament suddenly supports the treaty now. That's quite an about face. Bloody politicians. Time to start sharpening those guillotines. OK, so it's not that bad yet. It's only a resolution that permits the process to continue, but it was their first opportunity to shut down ACTA in Europe, so why not take it?

Copyright Is A Contradiction

As these articles point out, ACTA may have the completely unintended consequence of actually weakening copyright law, because it was a back room treaty. It's hard for anyone to respect intellectual property laws when compared to criminal laws. The latter clearly benefit everybody by ensuring a just and civil society. IP laws only serve corporate interests.

Some may point out that open source licences are the exception. However, if copyright did not exist, you wouldn't need an open source license, because everything you publish is automatically in the public domain. Everyone is free to use your work as they please. The only way to prevent that would be to keep it private. Copyright law allows you to publish but exert control over the work as if you had kept it private. Copyright is a contradiction.

Free Speech Costs Exactly $105

Welcome to the latest copyright scam in the U.S. In order to be protected under the DMCA safe harbour law, a web site must register with the U.S Copyright Office. Not all web site owners are even aware that they have to register to be protected. A copyright troll called Righthaven is already taking advantage of this ignorance. Well, at least now we know that free speech costs exactly $105.

This is just so unbelievably broken. Why is there a requirement to register anything in the first place? Apparently, this was done so that the rights holder can find the contact information of the person who handles DMCA requests without too much work. This could have been satisfied a far simpler solution: require that the contact information to be available on a well know URL (e.g. /dmca-contact) for the site to be compliant. But of course, the lawyers making the laws would have no idea that would even be technically possible.

This kind of stupidity just increases my belief that copyright is hopelessly broken and cannot be fixed.

C-32 Now Tougher Than ACTA

Micheal Geist notes that the U.S. is caving on several areas of ACTA and goes so far as to call it ACTA Ultra-Lite. The downside is that it becomes much more likely that an agreement will be reached. The Europeans are still not very happy with anything about ACTA but is it enough to skuttle the deal?

As Geist points out, Bill C-32, Canada's copyright "modernization" bill, is now tougher than ACTA in some areas. Now, unless C-32 is amended to align with ACTA, it would be easy to conclude that C-32 is the result of some back room dealing between Canada and the U.S. Perhaps ACTA was just a bit of misdirection while the real negotiations happened out of the public eye.

If you think I'm being paranoid, consider that France now has the HADOPI law and the U.K. has the Digital Economy Act, both of which are far, far stronger than the latest ACTA draft release. While C-32 doesn't propose any three strikes laws, it is very tough on things like circumventing digital locks.

Remember, just because you are paranoid does not mean that someone isn't out to get you.

Sharing

This article makes excellent points about the importance of file sharing to a healthy culture. Unfortunately the law makers are so thoroughly brain washed by the content industry's lobbyists, that I fear it may very well take a hundred years before the copyright laws recognise the legitimacy of non-commercial file sharing. In the meantime the laws will become even more draconian, if ACTA represents the future.

Contradiction

Tim Westergren of Pandora squarely blames the exorbitant royalty rates in Canada as the reason Pandora and similar services are reluctant to enter the Canadian market. Graham Henderson of the Canadian Recording Industry Association blames piracy. Wow! With such a stark contradiction, whom should you believe?

I know who I believe. Hint: it's not the guy representing a greedy industry clinging to old business models.

UK ISPs On The Hook

UK ISPs are on the hook for 25% of the cost of chasing after their file sharing customers. Effectively, the ISP is spending its own money on a process that will cost them a customer no matter what happens, just to satisfy the rights holders.

And let us not forget that those rights holders are billion dollar companies. Show me an ISP that earns that kind money.

Of course, the ISPs can pass the cost on to all their customers. That is even less fair. Why should the average Internet user support these billion dollar corporations?

And it's all a complete waste of money as this won't stop users from downloading. It might stop them from using peer-to-peer file sharing, but there are plenty of other options available. And that's not including new methods that haven't even been invented yet.

In the downloading arms race, the rights holders have already lost. They are just too blind (or stupid) to realized it yet.

Owning Ideas

The recent spate of intellectual property law suits reminds me of a Goon Show episode in which one of the characters copyrights the word help. As usual, the classic "He's fallen in the water!" happens. When he shouts for for help, the copyright holder graciously pulls the victim out, charges him for using the word help, and promptly throws the sucker back! Of course, the victim shouts for help again, and the whole gag repeats. If that sounds like it was completely insane, it's no more insane than the possibility of someone owning an idea.

Now, if only I could remember in which episode that happened...

You Needed A Study?

So another study shows that most of the stuff shared on BitTorrent, is illegal. Well, duh! You needed a study to know that? Of course, studies are important when you are demanding "three strikes" and other draconian legislation to solve this problem. Sorry guys but a few studies won't help you put the file sharing genie back in the bottle. Instead of stomping on Napster, if you'd looked upon this new distribution model as an opportunity, you'd be making money from file sharing by now. But you lost your chance and it's too late to do anything about it.

Canada And ACTA

The latest draft of the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was leaked last week. One of Micheal Geist's students analysed Canada's position in the negotiations. For the most part Canada has tried to get more balance into the agreement, which can be seen as a positive thing. However, in my opinion, Canada should not be participating at all. No amount of rewording can turn ACTA into a good agreement for ordinary Canadians.

Copyright Vs Privacy

OK, this is just ridiculous. Micheal Geist reports that The Canadian Publishers Council is complaining that privacy laws make it too difficult to pursue copyright infringers. Um, guess what guys. Privacy is a natural right. Copyright is a granted privilege. Natural rights must always trump granted privileges. If that ever changed, we would no longer be living in a free society. Copyright advocates need to get a reality check.

Bill C-32

Bill C-32 is the latest attempt to change Canadian copyright law. The U.S. copyright lobbyists should be mighty pleased with the result since it gives them everything they could ever want. The Bill makes breaking a digital lock illegal and that provision trumps everything else in proposed legislation. What good is expanded fair dealing if a digital lock prevents you from exercising your rights.

The Bill distinguishes between commercial and non-commercial infringement but only to the extent that the penalties are greatly reduced for non-commercial infringement. I wonder whether this encourage or discourage suites against file sharers in Canada. It could go either way, since the difference between the minimum and maximum penalty is quite large ($100-5000). It seems tailor made for outfits like the US Copyright Group who have turned copyright law suits into a business model.

The Bill may make web sites like isoHunt illegal if they are deemed to have no other purpose other than to facilitate infringement. Note how this conveniently lets mainstream search engines off the hook. I smell a rat.

Bill C-32 is bad. Michael Geist thinks it can be fixed if we make enough noise. The problem is, we made lots of noise during the copyright consultation last year, and if C-32 is any indication, we were completely ignored.

A Copyright Holder's Wishlist

If copyright holders could wish for a perfect world, what would it look like? Well, unsurprisingly, they do have a wishlist which the EFF have analyzed. In a nut shell, the rights' holders want Orwell's 1984, complete with pervasive surveillance on every computer and network, scanning for copyright infringement. And of course, they always want others to do the enforcement on their behalf.

And while it is a pie-in-the-sky wishlist, the rights' holders are already getting their way in France, Britain, and now Ireland, so it is possible that some their wishes will come true.

ACTA Draft To Be Public

So next week the the ACTA draft document will be made public at long last. We should be happy, right? Well, not really. First, there's been enough leaks that the document won't contain many new surprises. Second, it's a little late now! Releasing a draft document must mean that the U.S. considers most of the negotiations closed, so there's little chance that public input can affect the agreement now.

The only chance we have is convincing our governments not to enact laws to support the treaty. However, the negotiating positions of the various parties will not be disclosed, which means we won't know what our government's actually agreed with behind close doors. Which is why this IP agreement was disguised as a trade agreement in the first place.