This winter, in my Computer Science 280 class, I was introduced to a very interesting website: Citizendium. Well...interesting isn't exactly how I would put it, seeing as the site is very empty and boring and soul-crushing. However the fact that it exists is interesting.
For the uninformed, Citizenidum is, on the surface, exactly like Wikipedia. They have very similar layouts for their home pages, they both use the same system for editing their articles, and they even share a similar mission statement:
Wikipedia: "The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."
Citizendium: "Citizendium is a collaborative effort to collect, structure, and update knowledge and to render it conveniently accessible to the public for free."
Seems fairly harmless, right? Aside from being an apparent duplicate of Wikipedia, Citizendium seems to be a perfectly okay website. However, it's really much more..."intellectual".
Citizendium was founded by Larry Sanger, who also co-founded Wikipedia and acted as its only paid editor from January 15, 2001 to March 1, 2002. He eventually left Wikipedia due to lack of funding and also criticizing the nature of the site, mainly the ability for anybody to edit any article, regardless of their credibility. This is the main thing that differentiates Citizendium from Wikipedia: in order to edit Citizendium, you must have an account with your real name, and it must be approved by the administrators. It requires a working email address. In order to be an administrator, you must have bachelor's degree and be at least 25 years of age.
Citizendium does state that it isn't an "expertpedia", but that doesn't mean that it comes off as one. The hoops that one must jump through in order to create an account easily scare off people who just want to edit something, or add a page about their favourite movie/book/chemical compound. It does help the site itself, who want to maintain an air of professionalism, but it prevents the project from actually becoming known to others. If you refer to my post on memes from a few weeks ago, you'll be able to relate to the fact that the best way to become known on the internet is through word of mouth; nobody is talking about Citizendium anywhere.
This has a domino effect on the website: nobody visits it, so nobody writes articles on it. Because nobody writes articles, nobody refers to the articles when trying to find a reference or quick snippet of information. Because nobody cares about the project, nobody funds it. As of writing this Citizendium only has enough money to keep the server run for "a few more months".
Another reason for Citizendium's lack of notoriety is that the site has a very haughty atmosphere. Sanger might think that Wikipedia has a "poisonous social and political atmosphere", but the truth is Citizendium is pretty bad. One look at its FAQ can tell you this. Citizendium strives to be a better Wikipedia, because apparently Wikipedia isn't trustworthy. This is preposterous. Wikipedia is easily as trustworthy as Citizendium claims itself to be, and this is because of the biggest rule Wikipedia has: Citations! Anything you put in a Wikipedia article must be cited, otherwise it will be removed simply by principle. By saying that Wikipedia isn't trustworthy, essentially they say that the concept of citing itself is not trustworthy. By saying this, Citizendium is saying that any article written, ever, cannot be considered trustworthy or academically acceptable unless reviewed by a select group of peers and administrators. The truly wallbanging part of this is that there is a large amount of Citizendium articles themselves that lack citations, or any proof that what is written there is genuine.
To put things simply, Citizendium is a hypocritical, ego-stroking website that strives to be something big and cool like Wikipedia, but lacks the resources or the common sense to gain said resources that would allow it to do so. The concept is inherently flawed, to the point that it is impossible to gain any ground back with the common masses.
Sunday 8 April 2012
Wednesday 14 March 2012
This post was going to have Over 9000 words, but then it took an arrow to the knee.
"The Cake is a Lie". "Welcome to the herd". "One does not simply walk into Mordor". Wander about the internet long enough and you'll find a plethora of recurring phrases, images, and jokes that seem to pop up everywhere. How do these things spread so quickly? Why are they so attractive to people? And what are they, anyway? Well the answer to the last one is simple: they're memes.
A meme is "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture." The term was coined by ethologist and author Richard Dawkins, who proposed that information can travel in society in a manner similar to that of genetics in biology, and survive in a manner similar to survival of the fittest. The scope of such a concept is much larger than just the internet, however. Let's say that I were to tell a few of my friends a really funny joke. They would like it and tell it to their friends, who would tell it to their friends, and so on and so forth. The joke would "reproduce" when somebody told it to another person, and "evolve" if a person were to think of a way to make the joke funnier, or thought of an equally funny version with a different punchline. The joke would compete with other jokes at parties and offices, with weaker jokes being used less or "going extinct" in favor of the new, stronger joke. It is entirely possible that a year after telling my friends that joke, somebody introducing themselves to me it tell it to me without even knowing where it originated from. This is the general concept of a meme.
The idea of memes have been attributed to any "trend" of sorts in culture, ranging from political ideas to the creation of fairy tales to the foundations for religions themselves. In pre-modern eras, the information generated and shared with people would take years to get from point A to point B, and in that time most of the memes would stay relatively the same because their was not enough input from the populace for major alterations to occur. Changes might be made based on where the story is told, but the core remains familiar. For example, Cinderella is commonly attributed to France, and spreading to Italy and Germany. Each of the stories have slightly different details, but are clearly the same. However the tale itself can be traced back further, with similar stories found in Vietnam, The Middle East, Japan, and even Ancient Greece! The story and its themes stayed relatively the same throughout it's travels in different cultures.
If the history of Cinderella is a testament to how a meme can remain unchanged for a long time, then the modern internet is a testament to their ability to transform and spawn other memes, and at a rapid pace; these are the memes more familiar to the public.
The first and most recognizable memes were more like concepts than actual pieces of information. Many people are familiar with LOLcats; image macros of cats with humorous and often misspelled captions. These were able to spread fairly simply because of their simplicity, and became truly popular thanks to the sheer volume of them posted. Many of the earliest memes were also image macros which spawned from 4chan, an imageboard of dubious reputation that even today still manages to create several memes. Another large source of memes, and the one more widely used today, is tumblr. This is mainly thanks to the fact that most people who use tumblr are part of communities that have a large number of memes associated with them, such as My Little Pony, Homestuck, Harry Potter, and Mean Girls. It also helps that Tumblr's system is mostly based on exchanging and passing on information in the form of reblogging. It's very easy for a single image to be seen by an entire fan base or two in a single day, or even a single hour. The best memes are the ones that can become "snow clones"; memes which can be easily altered to fit into different situations. For example, these images are very often replicated into a basic "X ALL of the Y!" format, with the original person occasionally being altered to fit the topic. This occurrence is the best allegory for a "mutation" of the meme.
Something becoming a meme can be very beneficial to the original source of the mutation. Some of the most notable successes would be stars of certain viral videos, such as Rebecca Black of "Friday" fame and Antoine Dodson, who's amusing interview concerning the attempted rape of his sister was auto tuned by the Gregory Brothers into the "Bed Intruder Song". it is interesting to note that the term "viral" is another term originating from a biological context and used to describe internet phenomena, and also fitting as these videos witnessed huge spikes in popularity shortly after their release.
Like a virus, their popularity rapidly increased and took over the internet in that period of time. The fame and money they garnered from the videos and ensuing song sales, whether deserved or not, have been very large. It should be noted that after that, they become less popular searches. Their meme status was not strong enough compared to other memes on the net, and they now face and extinction of sorts. Another interesting example can be found in regards to the "Three Wolf Moon" T-shirt. There is not anything especially interesting about the shirt itself, silly having a trio of wolves howling at a full moon. However the clothing article gained fame after a humorous review of it was submitted. Eventually the review became memetic, and by extent the shirt. This translated into a %2300 increase in sales, as reported by the manufacturing company.
What the constant creation, mutation, and extinction of memes, it is clear that information passes at a phenomenal rate on the internet. It also shows just how young the internet is. If the entirety of the online community were to donate just a bit more time to things such as spreading news or awareness for a good cause, those things too would became known to more and more people. It demonstrates the power that the internet can have if it were to focus all of it's resources on a common goal.
Sources
Meme. Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Dawkins, Richard (1989), The Selfish Gene (2 ed.), Oxford University Press, p. 192, ISBN 0-19-286092-5
Herodotus. The Histories. Retrieved 25 March 2010., book 2, chapters 134 and 135.
Aelian, "Various History", 13.33
Ulrich Marzolph, Richard van Leeuwen, Hassan Wassouf (2004). The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 4.
TvTropes: Memetic Mutation
Know Your Meme: Three Wolf Moon
Chicago Tribune –Three Wolf Moon
A meme is "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture." The term was coined by ethologist and author Richard Dawkins, who proposed that information can travel in society in a manner similar to that of genetics in biology, and survive in a manner similar to survival of the fittest. The scope of such a concept is much larger than just the internet, however. Let's say that I were to tell a few of my friends a really funny joke. They would like it and tell it to their friends, who would tell it to their friends, and so on and so forth. The joke would "reproduce" when somebody told it to another person, and "evolve" if a person were to think of a way to make the joke funnier, or thought of an equally funny version with a different punchline. The joke would compete with other jokes at parties and offices, with weaker jokes being used less or "going extinct" in favor of the new, stronger joke. It is entirely possible that a year after telling my friends that joke, somebody introducing themselves to me it tell it to me without even knowing where it originated from. This is the general concept of a meme.
The idea of memes have been attributed to any "trend" of sorts in culture, ranging from political ideas to the creation of fairy tales to the foundations for religions themselves. In pre-modern eras, the information generated and shared with people would take years to get from point A to point B, and in that time most of the memes would stay relatively the same because their was not enough input from the populace for major alterations to occur. Changes might be made based on where the story is told, but the core remains familiar. For example, Cinderella is commonly attributed to France, and spreading to Italy and Germany. Each of the stories have slightly different details, but are clearly the same. However the tale itself can be traced back further, with similar stories found in Vietnam, The Middle East, Japan, and even Ancient Greece! The story and its themes stayed relatively the same throughout it's travels in different cultures.
If the history of Cinderella is a testament to how a meme can remain unchanged for a long time, then the modern internet is a testament to their ability to transform and spawn other memes, and at a rapid pace; these are the memes more familiar to the public.
The first and most recognizable memes were more like concepts than actual pieces of information. Many people are familiar with LOLcats; image macros of cats with humorous and often misspelled captions. These were able to spread fairly simply because of their simplicity, and became truly popular thanks to the sheer volume of them posted. Many of the earliest memes were also image macros which spawned from 4chan, an imageboard of dubious reputation that even today still manages to create several memes. Another large source of memes, and the one more widely used today, is tumblr. This is mainly thanks to the fact that most people who use tumblr are part of communities that have a large number of memes associated with them, such as My Little Pony, Homestuck, Harry Potter, and Mean Girls. It also helps that Tumblr's system is mostly based on exchanging and passing on information in the form of reblogging. It's very easy for a single image to be seen by an entire fan base or two in a single day, or even a single hour. The best memes are the ones that can become "snow clones"; memes which can be easily altered to fit into different situations. For example, these images are very often replicated into a basic "X ALL of the Y!" format, with the original person occasionally being altered to fit the topic. This occurrence is the best allegory for a "mutation" of the meme.
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Something becoming a meme can be very beneficial to the original source of the mutation. Some of the most notable successes would be stars of certain viral videos, such as Rebecca Black of "Friday" fame and Antoine Dodson, who's amusing interview concerning the attempted rape of his sister was auto tuned by the Gregory Brothers into the "Bed Intruder Song". it is interesting to note that the term "viral" is another term originating from a biological context and used to describe internet phenomena, and also fitting as these videos witnessed huge spikes in popularity shortly after their release.
Like a virus, their popularity rapidly increased and took over the internet in that period of time. The fame and money they garnered from the videos and ensuing song sales, whether deserved or not, have been very large. It should be noted that after that, they become less popular searches. Their meme status was not strong enough compared to other memes on the net, and they now face and extinction of sorts. Another interesting example can be found in regards to the "Three Wolf Moon" T-shirt. There is not anything especially interesting about the shirt itself, silly having a trio of wolves howling at a full moon. However the clothing article gained fame after a humorous review of it was submitted. Eventually the review became memetic, and by extent the shirt. This translated into a %2300 increase in sales, as reported by the manufacturing company.
What the constant creation, mutation, and extinction of memes, it is clear that information passes at a phenomenal rate on the internet. It also shows just how young the internet is. If the entirety of the online community were to donate just a bit more time to things such as spreading news or awareness for a good cause, those things too would became known to more and more people. It demonstrates the power that the internet can have if it were to focus all of it's resources on a common goal.
Sources
Meme. Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Dawkins, Richard (1989), The Selfish Gene (2 ed.), Oxford University Press, p. 192, ISBN 0-19-286092-5
Herodotus. The Histories. Retrieved 25 March 2010., book 2, chapters 134 and 135.
Aelian, "Various History", 13.33
Ulrich Marzolph, Richard van Leeuwen, Hassan Wassouf (2004). The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 4.
TvTropes: Memetic Mutation
Know Your Meme: Three Wolf Moon
Chicago Tribune –Three Wolf Moon
Saturday 11 February 2012
Fair Dealing, Fair Use, and Clip Legality
If you've ever been on YouTube, you've probably noticed that most of the videos there contain clips from movies, or television shows, or video games. Not an entire film or episode though; usually it's just a clip that can be considered famous or memetic. Also extremely common are songvids, which are composed of clips from a television show, movie, or anime, set to music in order to evoke an emotional reaction for the purposes of comedy or drama.
Another thing on the rise are comedic reviewers, such as those found on That Guy With The Glasses. The idea behind them is that they review/critique a movie while making jokes about it. The quality can range anywhere from a blog with occasional clips to a professionally produced web show with clips form the subject at hand and other shows to emphasize the point.
Now the advent of SOPA brought a lot of panic in vidding and reviewing communities because it would make their work illegal. However, it wouldn't be the first time that the legality of such things was called in to question, whether by average viewers, creators, or the law itself.
The main policy for determining the legality of these works would be Fair Use, or the Canadian equivalent Fair Dealing.
Fair Use is essentially an exception to copyright law, meaning the users are allowed to utilize it without obtaining express permission from the holders. It applies to anything using the material for "transformative" purposes, such as news reporting, commentary, criticism, or parody. Other than that is it somewhat loosely defined. There is no specific limit to the length of the footage (or in the case of literature, the number of pages or words) that can be imposed, and many cases can be argued for or against the fairness of the work depending on it's purpose, nature, and potential market.
Fair Dealing has many similarities to Fair Use; the biggest exceptions are in terms of parody (using material from a copyrighted work to ridicule the aforementioned work) and education (Fair Dealing has been deemed in Canada to be not permitted for teaching).
So how do songivds and reviews fall into this?
When an songivd is specifically made for an anime (AMV, or Anime Music Video), the legality of the clips used is rarely called into question. Japanese authors enjoy it when fans create derivates and continuations of their work, and this attitude extends to the American distributors as well; the main reason being that these can serve as free advertising for the work being portrayed. Therefore even if the work technically falls outside of Fair Use or Fair Dealing, the distributors will rarely press charges. The problem occurs with the musical tracks used, since they are usually used in their entirety. The marketing power mentioned above, however, has eased this issue with the musicians themselves for most of the time, though not the record labels themselves.
The Reviewing community has an easier time, since the usual format switches between the reviewer and their subject several times between the video. Most clips will have voiceovers that cancel out any soundtrack being used, unless it is sufficiently awesome and/or ridiculous. Due to the global nature of this hobby, the main question comes from whether they count as parody or criticism. For example, The Nostalgia Critic did a video parodying the songs, plot, and style of Moulin Rouge!, while at the same time criticizing those same aspects. While it is perfectly viable under Fair Use in the US, if it were created in Canada he would probably have to argue the the purpose is criticism rather than parody.
The Nostalgia Critic (Doug Walker) has also faced legal charges of copyright infringement after he posted a review of The Room. While some elements of the review (elements which re present in a majority of his and other reviewer's videos) might fall outside of Fair Use/Dealing, the point remains that it was a) a transformative work (using the material to create something of a different artistic expression) and b) the issue that creator Tommy Wiseu had with the video was closer to defamation.
Another key point in whether determine if a work is transformative, and by extent can qualify as Fair Use, is the length of the clips used. Several challenges made to videos containing video and music clips have been thrown out because the length of the clip was negligible and clearly held no commercial value. This is a key point in the legality of AMVs and songvids, since they are composed of very brief, shrug together clips that do not replicate the cohesive whole of the show. MAny clips will be taken from different episodes and focus on only a single character or theme, which means the work is not recreating the show itself. This is a similar case with reviews. Most of the clips form the subject will either be brief or voiced over. There are many review shows that only show clips released as trailers or official previews; some do not use clips at all, instead relying on good descriptions, still images, or skits to illustrate the subject.
The legality of songivds and reviews such as these can be debated, but no more than any other derivative work that claims to be Fair Use or Fair Dealing. With most cases, however, they are usually deemed legal and un-infringeming due to their inherent transformative nature. The key point here is that any challenge made to them has to go through due process. Copyright holders do not reserve any right to order tone deletion of online content unless it can be legally proven that the product falls outside the scope of Fair Use/Fair Dealing. Because this is something that SOPA would disallow, it is unsurprising that the reviewing and bidding communities reacted the way they did while the bill was going through congress,and why they were (and still are) constantly on the front lines to spread the word about any copyright-altering documents being created.
References:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
http://library.concordia.ca/help/copyright/?guid=fdvsfu
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/20/MNU412FKRL.DTL
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/chicks-on-anime/2009-05-05
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/33417-nostalgia-critic-musical-review-moulin-rouge
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2010/07/22/the-nostalgia-critic-vs-tommy-wiseau-debacle/
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/20/MNU412FKRL.DTL
Another thing on the rise are comedic reviewers, such as those found on That Guy With The Glasses. The idea behind them is that they review/critique a movie while making jokes about it. The quality can range anywhere from a blog with occasional clips to a professionally produced web show with clips form the subject at hand and other shows to emphasize the point.
Now the advent of SOPA brought a lot of panic in vidding and reviewing communities because it would make their work illegal. However, it wouldn't be the first time that the legality of such things was called in to question, whether by average viewers, creators, or the law itself.
The main policy for determining the legality of these works would be Fair Use, or the Canadian equivalent Fair Dealing.
Fair Use is essentially an exception to copyright law, meaning the users are allowed to utilize it without obtaining express permission from the holders. It applies to anything using the material for "transformative" purposes, such as news reporting, commentary, criticism, or parody. Other than that is it somewhat loosely defined. There is no specific limit to the length of the footage (or in the case of literature, the number of pages or words) that can be imposed, and many cases can be argued for or against the fairness of the work depending on it's purpose, nature, and potential market.
Fair Dealing has many similarities to Fair Use; the biggest exceptions are in terms of parody (using material from a copyrighted work to ridicule the aforementioned work) and education (Fair Dealing has been deemed in Canada to be not permitted for teaching).
So how do songivds and reviews fall into this?
When an songivd is specifically made for an anime (AMV, or Anime Music Video), the legality of the clips used is rarely called into question. Japanese authors enjoy it when fans create derivates and continuations of their work, and this attitude extends to the American distributors as well; the main reason being that these can serve as free advertising for the work being portrayed. Therefore even if the work technically falls outside of Fair Use or Fair Dealing, the distributors will rarely press charges. The problem occurs with the musical tracks used, since they are usually used in their entirety. The marketing power mentioned above, however, has eased this issue with the musicians themselves for most of the time, though not the record labels themselves.
The Reviewing community has an easier time, since the usual format switches between the reviewer and their subject several times between the video. Most clips will have voiceovers that cancel out any soundtrack being used, unless it is sufficiently awesome and/or ridiculous. Due to the global nature of this hobby, the main question comes from whether they count as parody or criticism. For example, The Nostalgia Critic did a video parodying the songs, plot, and style of Moulin Rouge!, while at the same time criticizing those same aspects. While it is perfectly viable under Fair Use in the US, if it were created in Canada he would probably have to argue the the purpose is criticism rather than parody.
The Nostalgia Critic (Doug Walker) has also faced legal charges of copyright infringement after he posted a review of The Room. While some elements of the review (elements which re present in a majority of his and other reviewer's videos) might fall outside of Fair Use/Dealing, the point remains that it was a) a transformative work (using the material to create something of a different artistic expression) and b) the issue that creator Tommy Wiseu had with the video was closer to defamation.
Another key point in whether determine if a work is transformative, and by extent can qualify as Fair Use, is the length of the clips used. Several challenges made to videos containing video and music clips have been thrown out because the length of the clip was negligible and clearly held no commercial value. This is a key point in the legality of AMVs and songvids, since they are composed of very brief, shrug together clips that do not replicate the cohesive whole of the show. MAny clips will be taken from different episodes and focus on only a single character or theme, which means the work is not recreating the show itself. This is a similar case with reviews. Most of the clips form the subject will either be brief or voiced over. There are many review shows that only show clips released as trailers or official previews; some do not use clips at all, instead relying on good descriptions, still images, or skits to illustrate the subject.
The legality of songivds and reviews such as these can be debated, but no more than any other derivative work that claims to be Fair Use or Fair Dealing. With most cases, however, they are usually deemed legal and un-infringeming due to their inherent transformative nature. The key point here is that any challenge made to them has to go through due process. Copyright holders do not reserve any right to order tone deletion of online content unless it can be legally proven that the product falls outside the scope of Fair Use/Fair Dealing. Because this is something that SOPA would disallow, it is unsurprising that the reviewing and bidding communities reacted the way they did while the bill was going through congress,and why they were (and still are) constantly on the front lines to spread the word about any copyright-altering documents being created.
References:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
http://library.concordia.ca/help/copyright/?guid=fdvsfu
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/20/MNU412FKRL.DTL
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/chicks-on-anime/2009-05-05
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/33417-nostalgia-critic-musical-review-moulin-rouge
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2010/07/22/the-nostalgia-critic-vs-tommy-wiseau-debacle/
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/20/MNU412FKRL.DTL
Monday 30 January 2012
Bill C-11 and ACTA
Shortly after my previous blog post, SOPA and PIPA were tabled by congress until it could be determined how much they needed to be altered, or whether they should be passed at all. However it wasn't long until two other bills reared their heads: ACTA and Bill C-11.
Let's start with ACTA: the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. And unlike SOPA and PIPA, this is global. Unlike SOPA and PIPA, ACTA is an agreement that seeks to be signed by as many countries as possible. The main purposes is to normalize copyright agreements across all of the affected nations. One of the key points of criticism is the removal of clauses that keep internet service providers from being liable for their clients actions, which means they are legally required to comply with the provisions laid out. It would also allow trademark and copyright holders to claim that anybody suspected of infringement has violated it until proven otherwise, without due process. Very similar to SOPA, as you can see. It also stops ISPs from providing free content which could access copyrighted material, which includes a wide range of technologies; most of which fall under the modern umbrella of Web 2.0.
Canada has already signed ACTA, though it is not yet in motion.
In the meantime we have to deal with what is being called SOPA's Brother, Bill C-11 (formerly Bill C-32). Though this analogy doesn't hold up across the board (the bill is not as vague as SOPA, nor is it as inflexible), it essentially causes the same problems thanks to it's core effect: the inability to remove digital locks on copyrighted material. The biggest effect that most people would think of is the inability to unlock and rip material from a movie or video game onto one's computer; while some might see this as copyright infringement, it is actually perfectly legal under the current fair dealing laws in Canada so long as you do not redistribute a significant portion of the work, or redistribute it for means other than education, parody, or criticism. Furthermore, digital locks are far more prevalent than the average person might assume.
Cellphones are locked, and under Bill C-11 it would be illegal to obtain the tools to unlock them and transfer the data not hem to another device(including games, music, and images that came with the phone). eBooks are also locked, and Bill C-11 would prevent anybody from using them for research or private study purposes. Instead, new educational material distributed electronically and containing copyrighted material that would be perfectly legal would have to be destroyed because of the bill. Bill C-11 would also make the very concept of PVRs illegal, which is incredibly jarring as nearly everybody owns one in some form, and in this modern age it is rare for somebody to watch a television show live.
These by themselves are frightening, but the fact that this is a Canadian bill makes it simply bizarre. Canada is not exactly a huge pioneer of internet-based enterprises; big shots like Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Twitter are all based in the United States. This bill creates serious problems for Canada if this country wants to try and compete with these. Studies have shown that the threat of a website being shut down without warning or due process is a huge turn-off for potential investors, and there are many creative minds who are scared to put their work out into the world on the off chance that it might allow some kind of copyright infringement because of looming laws like this. Clearly it is a problem that occurs in any country with a SOPA-esque document in the works, but Canada tends to make a big deal about how products from here is overshadowed by American businesses; something that will certainly continue if C-11 were to pass.
There is an upside to all of this, however. The SOPA protests proved that the majority of the internet community is awake and on the lookout for anything that could threaten them like SOPA has. From massive media moguls to the most insignificant tumblr user, people are constantly getting the information out there and ensuring people have a way to fight back against these bills - while they still can, that is.
Let's start with ACTA: the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. And unlike SOPA and PIPA, this is global. Unlike SOPA and PIPA, ACTA is an agreement that seeks to be signed by as many countries as possible. The main purposes is to normalize copyright agreements across all of the affected nations. One of the key points of criticism is the removal of clauses that keep internet service providers from being liable for their clients actions, which means they are legally required to comply with the provisions laid out. It would also allow trademark and copyright holders to claim that anybody suspected of infringement has violated it until proven otherwise, without due process. Very similar to SOPA, as you can see. It also stops ISPs from providing free content which could access copyrighted material, which includes a wide range of technologies; most of which fall under the modern umbrella of Web 2.0.
Canada has already signed ACTA, though it is not yet in motion.
In the meantime we have to deal with what is being called SOPA's Brother, Bill C-11 (formerly Bill C-32). Though this analogy doesn't hold up across the board (the bill is not as vague as SOPA, nor is it as inflexible), it essentially causes the same problems thanks to it's core effect: the inability to remove digital locks on copyrighted material. The biggest effect that most people would think of is the inability to unlock and rip material from a movie or video game onto one's computer; while some might see this as copyright infringement, it is actually perfectly legal under the current fair dealing laws in Canada so long as you do not redistribute a significant portion of the work, or redistribute it for means other than education, parody, or criticism. Furthermore, digital locks are far more prevalent than the average person might assume.
Cellphones are locked, and under Bill C-11 it would be illegal to obtain the tools to unlock them and transfer the data not hem to another device(including games, music, and images that came with the phone). eBooks are also locked, and Bill C-11 would prevent anybody from using them for research or private study purposes. Instead, new educational material distributed electronically and containing copyrighted material that would be perfectly legal would have to be destroyed because of the bill. Bill C-11 would also make the very concept of PVRs illegal, which is incredibly jarring as nearly everybody owns one in some form, and in this modern age it is rare for somebody to watch a television show live.
These by themselves are frightening, but the fact that this is a Canadian bill makes it simply bizarre. Canada is not exactly a huge pioneer of internet-based enterprises; big shots like Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Twitter are all based in the United States. This bill creates serious problems for Canada if this country wants to try and compete with these. Studies have shown that the threat of a website being shut down without warning or due process is a huge turn-off for potential investors, and there are many creative minds who are scared to put their work out into the world on the off chance that it might allow some kind of copyright infringement because of looming laws like this. Clearly it is a problem that occurs in any country with a SOPA-esque document in the works, but Canada tends to make a big deal about how products from here is overshadowed by American businesses; something that will certainly continue if C-11 were to pass.
There is an upside to all of this, however. The SOPA protests proved that the majority of the internet community is awake and on the lookout for anything that could threaten them like SOPA has. From massive media moguls to the most insignificant tumblr user, people are constantly getting the information out there and ensuring people have a way to fight back against these bills - while they still can, that is.
Friday 20 January 2012
A Brief Internet Skirmish
A major issue going on these days which you have (hopefully) heard about are the controversial bills SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act). If passed these bills would essentially allow the US Government to take down any site suspected of hosting pirated content without due process. Sure it sounds nice, but the bills are worded so poorly that it means they could take down such major sites such as Google, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube; furthermore they could use it as a way to censor any website saying things they dislike.
This week the subject took a...war-like turn.
Part 1: Wikipedia (and at least 7000 other sites) blacked out or otherwise advertised the dangers of SOPA passing, in an attempt to spread the word to more common internet browsers. This was, ironically, called an "abuse of power" by those who support the bill. The thing is: It worked.
- http://www.thestar.com/iphone/news/world/article/1117925--sopa-protest-works-key
A huge amount of people called their representatives and encouraged to pull their support, and a very good number did.
- http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/
Part 2: The FBI raided and shut down Megaupload, a popular file-sharing website, and charged the founders with criminal copyright infringement. Now I'll be the first to say that Megaupload isn't exactly the bastian of human morality, and that there was a lot of pirated stuff on there, it was still a mostly-legitimate business that was shut down with very little due process. But regardless of the site's intentions, the timing of this shutdown is very suspicious indeed. Which leads to...
Part 3: Anonymous goes batshit.
- http://www.periscopepost.com/2012/01/megaupload-shut-down-anonymous-targets-government-and-entertainment-websites-in-revenge/
Oh Anonymous, those famous hacktivists with their Guy Fawkes masks and their Borg-like demeanor. It should be pointed out that there have been many times where they did a lot of good, and their demand for free speech and justice does outweigh all of the suspicious stuff that they do, but this rebuttal, which came hours after Megaupload's death, is being compared to the second shot in "the first cyber war". I wouldn't go that far, but it looks like things are going to be very interesting in the next few weeks as SOPA and PIPA make the rounds...
Wait, let's just make that SOPA making the rounds.
- http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/reid-shelves-protect-ip-act-in-response-to-recent-events.ars
This week the subject took a...war-like turn.
Part 1: Wikipedia (and at least 7000 other sites) blacked out or otherwise advertised the dangers of SOPA passing, in an attempt to spread the word to more common internet browsers. This was, ironically, called an "abuse of power" by those who support the bill. The thing is: It worked.
- http://www.thestar.com/iphone/news/world/article/1117925--sopa-protest-works-key
A huge amount of people called their representatives and encouraged to pull their support, and a very good number did.
- http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/
Part 2: The FBI raided and shut down Megaupload, a popular file-sharing website, and charged the founders with criminal copyright infringement. Now I'll be the first to say that Megaupload isn't exactly the bastian of human morality, and that there was a lot of pirated stuff on there, it was still a mostly-legitimate business that was shut down with very little due process. But regardless of the site's intentions, the timing of this shutdown is very suspicious indeed. Which leads to...
Part 3: Anonymous goes batshit.
- http://www.periscopepost.com/2012/01/megaupload-shut-down-anonymous-targets-government-and-entertainment-websites-in-revenge/
Oh Anonymous, those famous hacktivists with their Guy Fawkes masks and their Borg-like demeanor. It should be pointed out that there have been many times where they did a lot of good, and their demand for free speech and justice does outweigh all of the suspicious stuff that they do, but this rebuttal, which came hours after Megaupload's death, is being compared to the second shot in "the first cyber war". I wouldn't go that far, but it looks like things are going to be very interesting in the next few weeks as SOPA and PIPA make the rounds...
Wait, let's just make that SOPA making the rounds.
- http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/reid-shelves-protect-ip-act-in-response-to-recent-events.ars
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