From russellmcormond at gmail.com Sun Feb 6 14:08:18 2011 From: russellmcormond at gmail.com (Russell McOrmond) Date: Sun Feb 6 14:05:31 2011 Subject: [discuss] Technology policy update + How many people does CLUE represent? Message-ID: <4D4EF1A2.6000508@gmail.com> Interesting week for telecommunications policy, whether you are following Usage Based Billing (#UBB) or wireless competition with the WIND/Globalive decision. Hopefully the government will quickly table legislation to deal with the competition issues behind these two issues. In the case of UBB my problem (and I suspect many CLUE members) is not with UBB per-se, but with the government-granted monopoly provider of the "last mile" connections to our homes being able to impose a business model on competitors. In the case of the Globalive decision, I suspect the technical community can separate the need for appropriate regulation in this sector from ownership issues, given it seems antiquated to worry about the nationality of executives in this century. I wrote about both these issues in more detail at http://BillC32.ca/5281 My focus as policy coordinator remains with Copyright given Bill C-32 is currently having hearings, and is a place where there is actual legislation to discuss. I have been attending (and live tweeting http://twitter.com/russellmcormond) most of the meetings since they started, and posting my thoughts after each http://BillC32.ca/com . A group of backers of collective societies released a Joint statement http://c32jointstatement.ca/ on Thursday claiming that it was "Supported by nearly 90 organizations representing more than 600,000 creators and copyright owners". I know for a fact that they haven't polled their members as many of us are in contact with (or overlap with) people who are members of these groups who they claim to speak on behalf of. This begs the question: How many people can CLUE claim to represent? Using their logic, since CLUE is the Canadian Association for Open Source, we can list any developer or user of Open Source as supporters. Given any computer user has some Open Source on their computer (whether they are aware of it or not), or they use online sites built upon Open Source (Google, Amazon, nearly all of .gc.ca, whatever), we can claim nearly all Canadians. No need to poll any of them: their use of any Open Source can be defined to mean agreement to CLUE's policy statements http://Cluecan.ca/policy All joking aside, since I don't think it is useful to try to beat them at their game by using their rules, what would people consider to be a more realistic number of Canadians that CLUE represents. At http://cluecan.ca/policy/copyright I document that CLUE's executive endorsed both the "Petition for Users Rights (in Copyright)" and the "Petition to protect Information Technology property rights" as organised by the Digital Copyright Canada forum. http://digital-copyright.ca The Petition for Users Rights has seen nearly 3K signatures, and the Petition for IT property rights has seen almost 400 signatures. These are people who personally endorsed very specific policy positions, so is much stronger than the joint statement where we only really know less than 100 people (The often overlapping executives of the 90 associations) were in some sort of agreement. Other thoughts? Can we increase these numbers? Do we set up some way for Canadians to specifically endorse our policy statements, or do we just continue to use the existing petitions? Additional notes: If you are not sure what I mean by "backers of collective societies" when discussing the joint statement, I can fill in some details. Copyright is a series of activities which need permission from the copyright holder. There are two broad types of exceptions from that requirement for permission: those that require payment (called compulsory licensing) and those that don't require payment (called Fair Use in the USA, and a much limited form called Fair Dealings in Canada). Far more activities require permission in Canada than in the USA, and of those that don't need permission far more need payment in Canada than the USA. The claim that Canadian copyright law is "weaker" than US law is simply incorrect. The joint statement was largely in opposition to fair dealings reform, and the idea that Copyright should have any uses which don't need payment. Notice I said payment, as these same groups are strong supporters of compulsory licenses (AKA: levies, or what the Conservatives call the iPod tax in the case of music) where payment flows into collective societies, and then a portion flows to copyright holders in an unaccountable and largely non-transparent way. The joint statement lists collective societies as a solution for any situation where permission is complex/etc. Collective societies should be seen as similar to banks. They provide a valuable financial service to those who choose their services, one that many people couldn't live without. They should never be allowed to claim to represent politically or otherwise the diverse interests of those who chose their services. The idea of mandating that someone use a specific service or specific brand of service should be seen as an extreme situation, and never thought of lightly -- with expanding current compulsory licensing and adding new ones being what the primaries behind the joint statement have been asking for. Collective societies are excessively politically powerful in Canada and have convinced many of the executives of creator groups that what is good for collectives is good for them. They have created a rhetoric where exceptions to copyright in the form of compulsory licenses are good, but exceptions to copyright in the form of fair dealings is bad -- even abusing words such as theft and expropriation in many cases. For more reading see: Analyzing when copyright levies are a good idea, and when they are a very bad idea. http://BillC32.ca/4515 Bill C-32 FAQ question: Should the Private Copying Regime be expanded to all works covered by the copyright act? http://billc32.ca/faq#allcpc -- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition! http://fix.billc32.ca/petition/ict/ "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or portable media player from my cold dead hands!" From bjonkman at sobac.com Mon Feb 7 13:32:54 2011 From: bjonkman at sobac.com (Bob Jonkman) Date: Mon Feb 7 13:30:59 2011 Subject: [discuss] Technology policy update + How many people does CLUE represent? In-Reply-To: <4D4EF1A2.6000508@gmail.com> References: <4D4EF1A2.6000508@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4D503AD6.9000004@sobac.com> Hi Russell: The UBB decision(s) are not about the last mile, but the Gateway Access Service. This is the backhaul channel between the DSLAM at the local exchange office and the peering exchange, which Bell was mandated to make available to third-party providers. ISPs that provide their own backhaul (eg. Yak [1] or Eyesurf [2] which use Fibretech for the backhaul) are not affected by the UBB tariffs, even though they still use the Bell last mile wiring. The whole thing looks something like this for Bell's backhaul: You -> DSL Modem -> Bell last mile copper -> DSLAM -> Gateway Access Service -> Peering Point -> Independent ISP -> Internet backbone whereas Yak and Eyesurf's connectivity is like You -> DSL Modem -> Bell last mile copper -> DSLAM -> Fibretech -> Peering Point -> Yak/Eyesurf -> Internet backbone However, I agree with you that the last mile monopolies by Bell and the cablecos are problematic, and that regulation over this will cause future grief. Anon I shall read your material with greater depth, so as to actually be able to answer your questions :-) --Bob. [1] http://yak.ca/high-speed-internet [2] http://www.eyesurf.net/ Bob Jonkman http://sobac.com/sobac/ SOBAC Microcomputer Services Voice: +1-519-669-0388 6 James Street, Elmira ON Canada N3B 1L5 Cel: +1-519-635-9413 Software --- Office& Business Automation --- Consulting On 11-02-06 02:08 PM, Russell McOrmond wrote: > > Interesting week for telecommunications policy, whether you are > following Usage Based Billing (#UBB) or wireless competition with the > WIND/Globalive decision. > > Hopefully the government will quickly table legislation to deal with the > competition issues behind these two issues. In the case of UBB my > problem (and I suspect many CLUE members) is not with UBB per-se, but > with the government-granted monopoly provider of the "last mile" > connections to our homes being able to impose a business model on > competitors. In the case of the Globalive decision, I suspect the > technical community can separate the need for appropriate regulation in > this sector from ownership issues, given it seems antiquated to worry > about the nationality of executives in this century. > > I wrote about both these issues in more detail at http://BillC32.ca/5281 > > > My focus as policy coordinator remains with Copyright given Bill C-32 is > currently having hearings, and is a place where there is actual > legislation to discuss. I have been attending (and live tweeting > http://twitter.com/russellmcormond) most of the meetings since they > started, and posting my thoughts after each http://BillC32.ca/com . > > > > A group of backers of collective societies released a Joint statement > http://c32jointstatement.ca/ on Thursday claiming that it was "Supported > by nearly 90 organizations representing more than 600,000 creators and > copyright owners". I know for a fact that they haven't polled their > members as many of us are in contact with (or overlap with) people who > are members of these groups who they claim to speak on behalf of. > > This begs the question: How many people can CLUE claim to represent? > > Using their logic, since CLUE is the Canadian Association for Open > Source, we can list any developer or user of Open Source as supporters. > Given any computer user has some Open Source on their computer (whether > they are aware of it or not), or they use online sites built upon Open > Source (Google, Amazon, nearly all of .gc.ca, whatever), we can claim > nearly all Canadians. No need to poll any of them: their use of any Open > Source can be defined to mean agreement to CLUE's policy statements > http://Cluecan.ca/policy > > > > All joking aside, since I don't think it is useful to try to beat them > at their game by using their rules, what would people consider to be a > more realistic number of Canadians that CLUE represents. > > > At http://cluecan.ca/policy/copyright I document that CLUE's executive > endorsed both the "Petition for Users Rights (in Copyright)" and the > "Petition to protect Information Technology property rights" as > organised by the Digital Copyright Canada forum. > http://digital-copyright.ca > > The Petition for Users Rights has seen nearly 3K signatures, and the > Petition for IT property rights has seen almost 400 signatures. These > are people who personally endorsed very specific policy positions, so is > much stronger than the joint statement where we only really know less > than 100 people (The often overlapping executives of the 90 > associations) were in some sort of agreement. > > Other thoughts? Can we increase these numbers? Do we set up some way for > Canadians to specifically endorse our policy statements, or do we just > continue to use the existing petitions? > > > > > > Additional notes: > > If you are not sure what I mean by "backers of collective societies" > when discussing the joint statement, I can fill in some details. > > Copyright is a series of activities which need permission from the > copyright holder. There are two broad types of exceptions from that > requirement for permission: those that require payment (called > compulsory licensing) and those that don't require payment (called Fair > Use in the USA, and a much limited form called Fair Dealings in Canada). > > Far more activities require permission in Canada than in the USA, and of > those that don't need permission far more need payment in Canada than > the USA. The claim that Canadian copyright law is "weaker" than US law > is simply incorrect. > > The joint statement was largely in opposition to fair dealings reform, > and the idea that Copyright should have any uses which don't need payment. > > Notice I said payment, as these same groups are strong supporters of > compulsory licenses (AKA: levies, or what the Conservatives call the > iPod tax in the case of music) where payment flows into collective > societies, and then a portion flows to copyright holders in an > unaccountable and largely non-transparent way. The joint statement lists > collective societies as a solution for any situation where permission is > complex/etc. > > > Collective societies should be seen as similar to banks. They provide a > valuable financial service to those who choose their services, one that > many people couldn't live without. They should never be allowed to claim > to represent politically or otherwise the diverse interests of those who > chose their services. The idea of mandating that someone use a specific > service or specific brand of service should be seen as an extreme > situation, and never thought of lightly -- with expanding current > compulsory licensing and adding new ones being what the primaries behind > the joint statement have been asking for. > > Collective societies are excessively politically powerful in Canada and > have convinced many of the executives of creator groups that what is > good for collectives is good for them. They have created a rhetoric > where exceptions to copyright in the form of compulsory licenses are > good, but exceptions to copyright in the form of fair dealings is bad -- > even abusing words such as theft and expropriation in many cases. > > > > For more reading see: > Analyzing when copyright levies are a good idea, and when they are a > very bad idea. http://BillC32.ca/4515 > > Bill C-32 FAQ question: Should the Private Copying Regime be expanded to > all works covered by the copyright act? > http://billc32.ca/faq#allcpc > From russellmcormond at gmail.com Mon Feb 7 13:53:29 2011 From: russellmcormond at gmail.com (Russell McOrmond) Date: Mon Feb 7 13:50:37 2011 Subject: [discuss] Technology policy update + How many people does CLUE represent? In-Reply-To: <4D503AD6.9000004@sobac.com> References: <4D4EF1A2.6000508@gmail.com> <4D503AD6.9000004@sobac.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 1:32 PM, Bob Jonkman wrote: > Hi Russell: ?The UBB decision(s) are not about the last mile, but the > Gateway Access Service. All agreed, but for the purposes of discussing this with less technical people, or when it wasn't the focus of the letter, some shortcuts are needed. Most people are unaware that there are two parts of the network, leave alone questions of facilities based vs. GAS. They think this is about allowing UBB at all, which is separate. I'm not against UBB per-se, just against it being imposed on me by someone other than my ISP, and in an anti-competitive way. You'll likely also know that facilities based only works in some CO's, and Bell is claiming that they don't have the infrastructure to allow competing facilities based services everywhere. They can't have it both ways, and the push-back against allowing any competitors at all is a major problem. They are always looking for loopholes in the regulation -- recognizing the CRTC doesn't seem equipped to deal with the issues. ...But back to Copyright and C-32, the focus of my letter. Any thoughts? Do you have connections with a local LUG that might endorse our policy summary and coordinate getting more signatures to the petitions? We need to counter the executives of organizations who are trying to push legislation that is very harmful to us, and who love to claim they represent far more people than they actually do. From russellmcormond at gmail.com Fri Feb 18 12:23:02 2011 From: russellmcormond at gmail.com (Russell McOrmond) Date: Fri Feb 18 12:19:46 2011 Subject: [discuss] How's my driving? CLUE policy coordinator Message-ID: I sent something similar to the following to a few forums, hoping to open conversations about the policy summary we have for copyright as well as getting endorsements for that summary and for the petitions. If you are a member of a LUG, could you forward this into the general discussion list? ---cut--- Every once in a while I like to re-introduce myself to fellow Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) developers and users. I'm the policy coordinator for CLUE: Canada's association for Open Source http://cluecan.ca/policy/ The area of policy that I have been most active in is federal copyright law. I have been attending almost all of the Bill C-32 committee hearings in person, posting my thoughts about each meeting to http://billc32.ca/com I don't know when I will be invited to speak in front of the committee, but I want to ensure that I am representing FLOSS developers and users well when I do. If you haven't seen our copyright policy summary, it is at http://www.cluecan.ca/policy/copyright If you like it, consider trying to convince your local LUG or other FLOSS associated group to endorse it. There are also two petitions that CLUE has endorsed that you may consider having your association endorse, and possibly coordinate collecting signatures. If you want to talk about any of the policy in detail, including how Bill C-32 will impact FLOSS developers and users, the best place is likely the CLUE general discussion forum http://www.cluecan.ca/lists Thanks, and chat more later. Note: Please forward this to local LUG/etc groups. The more that are aware of our work in Ottawa, and the more feedback and discussion we receive, the better. -- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition! http://fix.billc32.ca/petition/ict/ "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware ?manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or ?portable media player from my cold dead hands!"