Time & Place

Wednesday, September 3, 2009

6:30pm – 9:30pm

SFU Harbour Centre, room 2245

555 W. Hastings St.

Vancouver, BC

Facebook event page

Getting There

If coming by Skytrain, get off at Waterfront Station. Exit onto Cordova St. Cross the street and walk uphill on Seymour for one block. The building on your left is Harbour Centre. Midway along the block is the entrance to SFU Harbour Centre.

A number of buses from elsewhere stop within a block along Hastings, the #135 (Hastings in Burnaby) and #160 (Coquitlam Centre).

If coming by car, you will need to find parking. There are some meters in the area, and a number of parking garages. My experience trying to park under Harbour Centre itself has not been good – I usually go to a place SE on Cordova near Homer (I think it has a large orange P sign).

The photo is by Richard Smith, available under a Creative Commons attribution license: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smith/228913502/

On March 8th RiP, a seriously entertaining and ground-breaking documentary, premieres in Vancouver. RiP: A remix manifesto is an edgy exploration of copyright law’s effect on the future of art and our daily activities in a world where watching YouTube and downloading music is the norm.

The film follows Girl Talk, a hip hop dj, acknowledged by many as a ‘lawsuit waiting to happen’ due to his famous mash-ups. His story demonstrates copyright law’s original purpose of artist protection and its dominant incarnation today as a money-making tool for corporations. RiP asks us to consider a balance between artistic inspiration, sharing within a community and copyright protection.

RiP: A remix manifesto is from local filmmaker and web activist Brett Gaylor. A founding instructor of the Gulf Islands Film and Television School, Gaylor founded opensourcecinema.org, a video remix community which allowed RiP to be the first open source documentary.

The film will be screened at the Vancity Theatre on Seymour St. at 7pm on Saturday, March 8. You can see full details and buy tickets on the DOXA site.

Anime Evolution

Jesse Betteridge and Kris Best conducted a copyright panel at Anime Evolution at UBC, which was a huge success with lots of participation. A recording of the panel (about an hour long) is available at http://www.zannen.ca/copyright_panel.mp3.

Student Clubs

We plan to start fair copyright clubs at SFU and UBC, and we’re looking for students of those institutions to join. Students at SFU should contact Chen Shen (chen|at|cshen|dot|ca), while at UBC Bruno Godin (godin|dot|bruno|at|gmail|dot|com) is setting things up.

Website

The main website has now been converted to WordPress. We are looking for a designer to re-design the website for usability and presentation. It does not have to be fancy, but should look nice.

Logo Making

We are looking at making t-shirts with our message to easily identify Fair Copyright members at events. In order to do this we need to have a logo which is simple (to be printed on the t-shirt), identifiable, and easily communicates our core message of fair copyright. Being able to draw it by hand is of course a bonus. Please post any ideas/sketches/etc on the mailing list or discussion board. A handy image host is http://imageshack.us/ if you need it.

The Second Issue – Two weeks since the first

Pamphlets

Kristine Best has prepared a C-61 pamphlet including an overview of the bill as well as what’s wrong with it. These are free to download for anyone wishing to hand them out at any events. She is currently working on a revision of the pamphlet.

• PDF
• Open Office File

BCCLA Position

The BCCLA has recently adopted VFC’s position against bill C-61 following a presentation by Greg McMullen and Chris Brand. The position covers multiple areas relating to freedom of expression and privacy.

• Position Paper

Redeye Interview

Redeye, a current affairs program on Vancouver Cooperative Radio, interviewed Geof Glass about C-61.

• Interview audio

Delta Town Hall Meeting

Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal MP for Newton-North Delta, held a fair copyright townhall on July 30. Approximately 30 people attended. Scott Cave, CEO of Langley Rook Interactive, and Geoffrey Glass, representing Vancouver Fair Copyright, gave presentations. Bill McGrath provided copies of his User Rights, circumvention examples, and Kris and Robert’s pamphlets to attendees. All of the citizens who spoke opposed the negative impacts of Bill C-61. Mr. Dhaliwal said that of all the current government’s initiatives, this is one of the top three that have attracted concern among his constituents.

• Geof’s speech
• User Rights Document

Meeting with Hedy Fry

Three VFC members from the Vancouver Centre riding met with their MP, Hedy Fry (Liberal), on July 30, along with two other constituents. Ms. Fry is skeptical of the bill, which she regards as a “20th-century solution to a 21st-century problem.” She asked whether we thought it could be amended or should be scrapped altogether, and was also interested in suggestions about alternative models such as licensing. The attendees stressed flaws in C-61’s anti-circumvention provisions and left her with a copy of VFC’s list of legitimate circumventions (as well as a copy of Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture).

• Circumvention Examples
• Free Culture

This is the first issue of This Week in Vancouver, the weekly newsletter of Vancouver Fair Copyright. This newsletter is intended for the general public, for other Fair Copyright chapters across Canada, as well as Vancouver Fair Copyright members. We will be discussing the most notable copyright-related happenings of the past week, as well as the progress of the fair copyright movement. Enjoy!

The First Issue – A summary of everything

Meeting with MPs

We are trying to meet with as many MPs as possible before their August caucuses. Several meetings have already been set up. Those who have met with MPs have found that many of them lack basic familiarity with the issues. Some have asked for everyday examples of how C-61 affects Canadians. If you wish to set up a meeting we will support you. Please see our meetings page for details. Community appearances are also a good opportunity to talk to MPs. Some of these are coming up and are listed in our calendar. Even if your MP will not meet with you, your effort sends a powerful signal to politicians that people really care about this issue.

• Meetings
• Calendar

Online

Vancouver Fair Copyright has a website which provides basic information on copyright and Bill C-61. We also have a Wiki for member collaboration and as a mailing list used both for collaboration and for keeping up with latest developments. We invite everyone to participate on the Wiki as well as the mailing list.

Other Fair Copyright chapters also have useful resources. Montreal and Ottawa both have Wikis which contain useful information, and Calgary has prepared an information sheet about C-61.

• Vancouver
  • Website
  • Wiki
  • Mailing List
• Montreal
• Ottawa
• Calgary Info Sheet

BC Civil Liberties Association presentation

Greg McMullen and Chris Brand presented recommendations to the BCCLA. The reception was most positive: the association agreed to accept the recommendations as their position on C-61, and said they would also be willing to speak to a parliamentary committee.

• Recommendations

User Rights

William McGrath has drafted a Canadian Declaration of User Rights, enumerating the values that fair copyright legislation should protect. It includes such things as private copying, professional uses, innovation, and interoperability.

• Canadian Declaration of User Rights

Marketing

We are developing plans and material for getting our message out. The copyright lobby uses deceptive slogans like “Downloading is theft!” These can have a big impact. To counteract them, we are developing slogans, scenarios of how the law would affect people in their everyday lives, and examinations of how to frame the issue. Have a look at the wiki, and contribute any catchy phrases or thoughts there or on the mailing list.

• Slogans
• Scenarios
• Framing

Approaches to Piracy

Several Vancouver Fair Copyright members recently met with Liberal MP Joyce Murray to discuss concerns about the anti-circumvention provisions of Bill C-61. She was focused on the protection of producer rights and preventing piracy. We must be prepared for this to be brought up during discussions. Two approaches were discussed by the group. One is to cite reliable sources which refute industry estimates that exaggerate the impact of piracy. The other is to re-frame the issue rather than getting caught up in debates over piracy: the bill will not stop piracy, but it will have tremendous negative impacts on the freedoms and rights of artists, innovators and consumers – we need to focus the debate on these things in order to win the argument.

Party Responses

NDP

The NDP has expressed its opposition to this bill. Several of their MPs and candidates have said they will make it an election issue.

Liberals

The position of the Liberals is more ambiguous. We have been told, however, that two of their MPs (including Scott Brison, their Industry critic) will be holding town hall meetings across the country on this topic. Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal MP for Newton-Delta, will be holding a copyright fairness townhall meeting on Wednesday July 30th. One of Mr. Dhaliwal’s staff met with us and told us that C-61 will likely pass second reading with help from the Bloc Québécois, but due to widespread opposition it is not likelyto pass committee in its current form. It was also noted that most MPs do not have the technical expertise to understand the bill, and that writing letters to caucuses may prove to be effective.

Conservatives

The Conservatives appear to be holding to the party line, though at least one (Mark Warawa in Langley) has said he would like to hear from constituents on the issue. We believe it is well worth pressuring Conservatives: if there is sufficient opposition, they may choose to let the bill die.

Bloc Québécois

The Bloc Québécois is currently supporting the Bill due to powerful industry lobbies in Quebec. While they are not in full agreement with the bill, they would like to see the penalty for infringement increased, as per the bill. Quebec media are largely in agreement. One possible reason for the Bloc’s support is their cultural protectionist tradition. We are trying to determine whether there is anything we can do to help in Quebec. Bill C-61 appears on the surface to better protect culture by providing more control to content producers. However it must be understood that C-61 actually achieves the exact opposite of cultural protection: it consolidates control by a few big corporations, which are often neither Quebecer nor Canadian, but rather from the United States. Even rights controlled by Quebec corporations are detrimental to the propagation of culture due to the limits C-61 places on creativity.