Archive for the ‘copyright’ Category
The Third of May
Unesco‘s “World Press Freedom Day 2013” is promoting the idea that people need to be able to use social media for freedom of expression, whether it’s on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Vkontakte, Tencent, Identi.ca, or blogs. Many people don’t know that they should be free and safe to blog, to upload pictures, to watch online video., or that the freedom to receive & impart information & ideas through any media is promised by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
As the western free press buckles under the control and demands of powerful special interests, the Internet has made citizen journalism possible just when we need it most. Unfortunately, sometimes people engaging in social media are targeted by repressive regimes.
In Canada, Byron Sonne’s Charter rights were violated by police, and charges were laid against him for posting photographs on Flickr and tweeting concerns about the billion dollar “security theatre” being staged in Toronto for the Toronto G20. He was punitively denied bail for almost a year, and when finally granted bail it was under onerous conditions, so he was effectively a political prisoner for nearly two years.
In Syria, Internet activist Bassel Khartabil has been unjustly detained for over a year, without trial or any legal charges being brought against him.
Since March 15, 2012, our colleague and friend Bassel Khartabil has been in prison in Syria, held without charges and not allowed legal representation. Bassel is an open-source coder and leader of the Syrian Creative Commons program. He believes in the open Internet, and has spent the last ten years using open technologies to improve the lives of Syrians. Not only did Bassel build the CC program in his country; he worked tirelessly to build knowledge of digital literacy, educating people about online media and open-source tools.”
Syrian Free Culture advocate Bassel needs to be free to blog, not imprisoned without charges.
Around the world, we’re seeing increased restrictions on free speech as the breadth of copyright laws have been expanded to allow censorship, and we face an unending barrage of laws like SOPA and CISPA that allow government and corporate incusrions into our personal privacy, and trade agreements like ACTA and CETA.
Unesco is promoting the free exchange of ideas & knowledge that is possible with social media, and wants everyone to have a voice and be able to speak freely and in safety, no matter where they are in the world.
There is a growing awareness that ensuring freedom of expression must also necessarily extend to safety online. World Press Freedom Day 2013 focuses on the theme “Safe to Speak: Securing Freedom of Expression in All Media” and puts the spotlight, in particular, on the issues of safety of journalists, combating impunity for crimes against freedom of expression, and securing a free and open Internet as the precondition for online safety.”
— Safe to Speak: Securing Freedom of Expression in All Media
Which dovetails nicely with the fact today is also the International Day Against DRM. If DRM becomes a built in part of the HTML5, any hope of a free and open Internet will be lost.
DRM restricts the public’s freedom, even beyond what overzealous copyright law requires, to the perceived benefit of this privileged, powerful few.”
DRM is “Digital Rights Management” or “Digital Restrictions Management” ~ either way it is “Technological Protection Measures” employed in the proprietary software and hardware we purchase. DRM controls how we can use our digital media and devices.
This year the W3C is in the process of hammering out the new standard for HTML5, the language that the Internet is written in. Some of the biggest, most powerful Internet corporations are trying to pressure the W3C to write DRM into the specifications. Adding DRM to HTML would cause a host of problems for freedom and interoperability on the Web, and we need to build the grassroots movement against it. Nobody except these big corporations want this change to the core of the Web, but most of the Web users that it would affect don’t know about the issue yet.”
Any DVD player would be able to play any DVD in the world but for region encoding, one example of DRM. If you move to a different region, don’t plan on bringing along your DVD collection, because it won’t play there. DRM is often employed to “protect” digital copies that are under copyright.
Corporations like DRM because it can be used to tie us in to their proprietary products — we need to buy this type of game machine to continue to use the games we’ve already purchased — or buy ink cartridges even though the ones in the printer aren’t actually empty but because the DRM says the ink is past it’s best-before date — or purchase the same music over and over again as digital media wears out or the device is declared obsolete.
A specification designed to help companies run secret code on users’ computers to restrict what they do on the Web would severely undermine that trust. “
Nothing is stopping these big companies from deploying DRM on their websites now, with the exception of consumer choice. But if DRM is written into the HTML5 Specifications, DRM will become the default, and consumers will lose the few choices we have now. It will become harder to free our devices and ourselves from the shackles of DRM. And I rather expect it will have the unfortunate side effect of breaking the Internet.
You’re welcome to use my Day Against DRM Facebook Cover, my Day Against DRM Twitter Banner or the square “Don’t DRM the Internet” avatar.
Image Credits
Bassel Khartabil by Kristina Alexanderson released under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) License
Map of the Internet – photo by the Opte Project released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 1.0) License
Both social media banners, Day Against DRM Facebook cover and Day Against DRM Twitter Banner incorporate the Opte Project Internet Map, tand so are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) License
Copyright Harm
The most common justification given for copyright law is that it helps creators make a living.
Yet instead of helping indie musician Edwyn Collins, a corporation with absolutely no claim to Edwyn’s work was able to step in and prevented him from distributing his own work online through the employment of spurious copyright allegations. I mentioned Edwyn’s tale previously, but it is certainly well worth repeating:
Scottish performer Edwyn Collins never gave up control over the copyright to his own music. As an Indie musician he set up a MySpace page where he was making his music available for his fans to download. Or at least he was until suddenly an erroneous take-down order resulted in MySpace taking down Edwyn’s music, preventing him from sharing his hit song A Girl Like You. Yet Edwyn Collins was the rights holder, the record company was not. Because of the traditional power invested in the major recording companies, MySpace did what they were told by the record company even though the record company had no legitimate claim to Edwyn’s music. (One of the bad things about the DMCA; no proof is required.)
Edwyn Collins had to fight to get the right to put his own music on his own MySpace page.
“[We are] aware of who the biggest bootleggers are … It’s not the filesharers.”
~ Grace Maxwell, Edwyn Collins wife/Manager, Guardian: Edwyn Collins stopped from sharing his music online
Today I discovered Canadian writer Cory Doctorow was facing the same problem. Doctorow is a best selling novelist who self identifies as a copyfighter, or perhaps “the” copyfighter. Most of his work is released under Creative Commons licenses, yet Torrent Freak reports that the digital downloads he’s made legally available online are being hit by spurious take down notices. Clearly copyright law is interfering with the writer’s ability to distribute his own work in the manner of his own choosing.
“My Creative Commons licensed 2013 novel Homeland, the sequel to my 2008 novel Little Brother, spent four weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and got great reviews around the country. But Fox apparently hasn’t heard of it — or doesn’t care. They’ve been sending takedown notices to Google (and possibly other sites), demanding that links to legally shared copies of the book be removed.
These notices, sent under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, require that the person who signs them swears, on pain of perjury, that they have a good faith basis to assert that they represent the rightsholder to the work in question. So Fox has been swearing solemn, legally binding oaths to the effect that it is the rightsholder to a file called, for example, “Cory Doctorow Homeland novel.”
It’s clear that Fox is mistaking these files for episodes of the TV show “Homeland.” What’s not clear is why or how anyone sending a censorship request could be so sloppy, careless and indifferent to the rights of others that they could get it so utterly wrong. I have made inquiries about the possible legal avenues for addressing this with Fox, but I’m not optimistic. The DMCA makes it easy to carelessly censor the Internet, and makes it hard to get redress for this kind of perjurious, depraved indifference.
— Cory Doctorow Fox sends fraudulent takedown notices for my novel Homeland
As long as copyright law enables large corporations to suppress the distribution of creative works they have no claim to, the ability of independent self publishing authors, musicians, and film makers to make a living from their own creative works will continue to be at risk.
“The DMCA makes it easy to carelessly censor the Internet, and makes it hard to get redress for this kind of perjurious, depraved indifference.” ~ Cory Doctorow
Edwyn Collins photo © Guillaume Sautereau / POPnews
released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) License
“Homeland” cover art released under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivs 2.0 License (by-nc-nd)
Cory Doctorow portrait by laurelrusswurm released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Copyright and Castle
[This was supposed to be a review, but what's between the covers isn't as interesting as the story around the books.]
Word of mouth brought my attention to the lively Castle tv series. The show’s premise pairs fictional Pulitzer Prize winning mystery writer Richard “Rick” Castle with the tough fictional NYC detective Kate Beckett. Like Remington Steele and Moonlighting before it, the series establishes an underlying romantic attraction that the characters can’t act upon.
In the show, fictional writer Richard Castle writes a series of detective novels based on the detective character Kate Beckett. (Confused yet?)
Having been a Stephen J. Cannell fan since the Rockford Files, a bonus for me was the real writer/producer’s cameo as one of the famous writers who play poker with he Castle character on the show.
Castle is supposed to be a successful writer, so naturally the ABC art department had to create cover art and mock-ups of the fictional Richard Castle’s fictional novels as props and set dressing for the series. So it wasn’t much of a leap to take it a little further… just by inserting some words between the covers ~ voila! you’ve got a novel. What could be more clever than packaging and selling it as a series tie-in?
Publishing a Richard Castle novel was a cute idea. There’s even precedent — it isn’t the first time a fictional character has been attributed as the author of a real novel.
Samuel Holt ostensibly authored his own autobiographical detective series. As it turns out, Holt was entirely the creation of prolific novelist Donald E. Westlake.
Easily the most famous fictional novelist predecessor was the 30′s detective hero Ellery Queen, not only the star of his own series of detective novels, but the named author. Ellery Queen played on radio and various small screen attempts. Later Ellery Queen’s name graced the masthead of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, which went on to be “the most influential English Language crime fiction magazines of the last sixty-five years.” [1]
But, of course, a fictional person can’t actually write an actual novel. The reality is that Ellery Queen was the creation and pseudonym of writing duo, Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee.
It’s was a great marketing strategy to go ahead and publish a Richard Castle novel. Naturally, it sold a lot of copies. So of course it became a series of novels…
“Naked Heat”
When I heard about the Castle novels, I was curious. My favourite Indie Bookstore, Waterloo’s Wordsworth Books, only had Naked Heat, the second book in the series in stock., so that was the one I bought.
Naked Heat features the tough fictional NYPD Detective Nikki Heat. Above Richard Castle’s name on the cover is the legend “The New York Times Best Selling Author of Heat Wave.”
The bottom of the dust jacket features a blurb from quote from a New York Times Bestselling Author:
“Richard Castle is a pro. He gets better and better each time out.
“Naked Heat” proves it.”— New York Times Bestselling Author Michael Connelly
There’s even a blurb on the back attributed to New York Times Bestselling Author, Stephen J. Cannell.
And of course, don’t forget the handsome author photo on the back. It isn’t too surprising to discover Castle is easy on the eyes; pictured is the leading man who plays the fictional Richard Castle in the ABC TV series “Castle.”
Richard Castle may be a real “New York Times best Selling Author” but he is still a fictional character.
Going from TV to Books
I loved it when Buster Keaton stepped into the movie screen in Sherlock Jr, and just as much when Jeff Daniels’ character stepped out of his own screen into the world of Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo. I’ve always enjoyed it when the line between fiction and reality are blurred.
The fact remains that the only way a fictional character can write a book is for a real person to do the work.
The first question would have to be:
- did Nathan Fillion write this book?
Although the actor’s face is smiling out of the author photo on the dust jacket, it is highly unlikely Nathan Fillion wrote this or any of the Castle books. It isn’t that actors can’t write; several highly talented writer-actors — John Cleese, Orson Welles, Kenneth Branagh — spring to mind.
But it is extraordinarily unlikely in this case; if the Canadian actor had written any of the books, the attendant publicity would have been far too good for ABC to pass up.
Who cares who *did* write it?
As a reader, knowing who wrote the books I enjoy reading has proved to be the most consistent way to find more. I have been remembering author’s names since discovering my first favourite, Beatrix Potter. The flipside is that it helps avoid the real stinkers as well. That makes it important information.
As an author, my name on the book is my own personal brand. Any creator’s reputation is built upon the body of work associated with their name, which is why attribution is so important. Some creators think copyright guarantees attribution, but clearly it doesn’t.
A logical assumption might be that the novels could be written by writers in the Castle story department (the writers and story editors who write the episodes of the tv series).
The Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) lists the Castle series writers:
Andrew W. Marlowe (88 episodes, 2009-2012)
Shalisha Francis (20 episodes, 2010-2012)
Elizabeth Beall (9 episodes, 2009-2013)
Terence Paul Winter (9 episodes, 2009-2013)
David Grae (9 episodes, 2009-2012)
Alexi Hawley (9 episodes, 2009-2012)
Moira Kirland (7 episodes, 2009-2012)
Terri Miller (7 episodes, 2009-2012)
Will Beall (5 episodes, 2009-2011)
David Amann (5 episodes, 2010-2012)
Kate Sargeant (3 episodes, 2010-2012)
Rob Hanning (3 episodes, 2011-2012)
René Echevarria (2 episodes, 2009-2010)
Jose Molina (2 episodes, 2009-2010)
Barry Schindel (2 episodes, 2009)
Matt Pyken (2 episodes, 2010-2011)
Scott Williams (2 episodes, 2010-2011)
Christine Boylan (2 episodes, 2012)
That sure looks like an awful lot of writers to me, even for a show that has been on air now for years. One or some of them may have actually written the Castle books. But which one(s)?
I’m pretty sure this book was not written by the series creator, Andrew Marlowe, if only because the quality of the writing isn’t on par with the series writing. But that isn’t surprising, as this book isn’t so much a novel as a marketing gimmick.
In some ways it seemed like an ambitious bit of fanfic, since books have allowed the fictional writer and fictional detective to consumate their attraction on paper. The Castle books may not have been written by anyone associated with the tv series. ABC could just as easily hired a ghost writer to do the job.
There is a chance Heat Wave (the first in the Castle-Nikki Heat book series) was a better book than Naked Heat, but I wouldn’t know. It’s too bad Naked Heat isn’t a very good book.
If we skip inside to the copyright page we discover:
Castle © ABC Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Hmm. The Ellery Queen books were copyright by Ellery Queen (whose name was also the name of the business partnership owned by the actual writers, Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee.) The Samuel Holt books were copyright by Samuel Holt, again a legal pseudonym for the actual author, Donald E. Westlake.
Whoever ghost wrote this “Castle” book is not credited at all, and the copyright belongs to ABC Studios (the television production division of Disney-ABC Television Group). Even though large corporations own a great many copyrights, a corporation can no more write a novel than a fictional character can.
For centuries we’ve been told copyright is good if for authors. But if fictional authors dominiate the New York Times Bestseller list, what will happen to real authors?
Reference [1] Quotation from Old Time Radio
Happy Internet Freedom Day [January 18th]
This is the first anniversary of the day the Internet went dark.
All kinds of big powerful important websites went dark to protest two dreadful bits of American legislation, SOPA and PIPA. Amazingly, it worked, and the laws were withdrawn.
It wasn’t just American websites. The Internet doesn’t stop at any border, so web sites around the world went dark in solidarity.
And it wasn’t just big organizations like Wikipedia and EFF or big commercial sites like Cheeseburger or Tumblr.
Plenty of ordinary people made their blogs go dark too. And I have to tell you, it’s a lot harder for us little people who have to figure out the tech to make our blogs go dark (and then turn them on again afterward!) Free Press has a petition Declaration of Internet Freedom petition for Americans.
A lot of the big organizations like the EFF are putting on celebretory events today. But many of us ordinary people scattered around the globe will be celebrating the way we do every day… by trying to keep the Internet free and open, engaging in citizen journalism, sharing, blogging, denting, tweeting, tumbling…
Aaron Swartz was one of the people leading that fight against SOPA, because Aaron knew how important it was that the Internet remain free. But now he’s dead, the rest of us have to pick up the slack.
Image Credits
Aaron Swartz photo by (creativecommoners (Fred Benenson) released under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) License
Death by Copyright
No one should ever go to jail over copyright law.
It is inconceivable to me that anyone should ever die over it. Now someone has.
Aaron Swartz killed himself on Friday. He was 26. A legend in the tech community, probably a dotcom millionaire. He could have lounged around poolside sipping designer martinis for the rest of his days.
Instead he worked for the public good, fighting the copyfight, defending the internet and the public domain.
Sometimes people of principle feel the need to challenge unjust laws. And like many reformers before him, Aaron Swartz ran afoul of the law in trying to change the world.
A murderer might have to serve as many as seven years for taking a life.
But 26 year old Aaron Swartz faced perhaps more than 35 years in jail. Over copyright.
Lawrence Lessig characterized it as bullying.
I seem to spend an awful lot of time writing about what’s wrong with copyright law. Since I started looking at copyright with new eyes, I can’t seem to avoid seeing the harm that it does.
Copyright law isn’t a right, its a government backed monopoly that supposedly promotes innovation. Aaron Swartz was certainly an innovator. He, too, was disturbed by the harm copyright does, and so he tried to push against it. But copyright law pushed back, and made sure he will innovate no more.
There is a great outpouring of agony across the Internet. Having myself struggled with the demons of depression, Cory Doctorow’s eulogy makes me weep. Depression can seem interminable; I can’t imagine how much worse would it be looking at potential decades of imprisonment.
But what gets me is this comment made by someone I’ve never met on Lawrence Lessig’s blog:
No amount of IP will ever be worth a human life. I don’t care how you justify it. Putting Aaron away for 35yrs may be legally justifiable, just as sending slaves back to slave owners from non slave states once was. I however cannot begin to align the life of any human with imaginary property.”
Aaron was only a little older than my own bright and principled child. My heart aches for Aaron, and his family. No family should have to endure this. This is simply beyond acceptable. There is no harm greater than this.
Image Credit
Aaron Swartz, released under CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication by Cory Doctorow
Copyright Fallacy #5
CLAIM: Copyright Protects Creators Work
REALITY: Not true for most creators.
We have this idea that copyright provides some kind of magic protection to the work we write, draw, film or compose. Yet the reality is that the only way for creators to assert our “rights” under the copyright monopoly, is by going to court.
Which can become very expensive.
When I began writing, I learned that all Canadian creative work was automatically covered by copyright. A standard practice to prove ownership and provide documentation was to mail a copy of the work to yourself, and keep it in the sealed envelope against the day you might need to assert your copyright in the work. The sealed envelope was supposed to prove the work existed on the date verified by the government postmark.
Of course, nowadays I don’t know how successful that would actually be, since postal automation means that a lot of mail doesn’t actually get postmarked, or if it is, not legibly. Worse, these days Canada Post doesn’t offer any reasonably priced shipping options.
When I began writing spec television scripts, and submitting them to American television production companies, I took the precaution of first registering them with the Writers Guild of America. Canada Post then offered a service called “return receipt requested”, which meant a bright pink postcard was added to the exterior of the package. When the package was delivered, someone had to sign the postcard, which then went back through the mail to me. An ingenious system that provided a nice physical receipt. In the event I wanted to issue a copyright challenge, I would have a chain of evidence.
registration
Like the United States, Canada also has a Canadian Intellectual Property Office, and you can register your work there for a $50 or $65 fee. It isn’t very much, right?
Of course, it could get awfully expensive for a haiku poet or a short story writer. Or any creator, really. Fifty dollars is a lot when publishers still mostly pay pennies a word. There is no doubt in my mind that most Canadian creators don’t register their copyright in light of CIPO’s high fees. Why bother, when everything we create is automatically protected by copyright anyway. Yet CIPO gets registrations.
I am quite sure they get copyright registrations from publishing companies. From record labels. And from film and video production companies. Just not much from the people who actually created the works. Unlike most creators, these companies have money to spend… money earned from copyright.
what if…
…you think George Lucas copied Star Wars from the script you sent him? If you do, copyright law won’t magically hand over a 2 billion dollar cheque. First, you have to hire a lawyer, and then you have to prove it in court. You must have evidence that (a) George actually opened your envelope and (b) actually read your idea. Even if you could prove this, how long would it take in court?
Copyright only works the way we think it works for those creators who can afford to use the court system. Americans can prosecute a lawsuit in the United States if they convince a lawyer the claim has merit and the lawyer is willing to take the case on spec in exchange for a hefty chunk of the settlement. So if your American Lawyer believes your lawsuit might be winnable, s/he may take it on for the twenty or thirty years that George’s lawyers would be able to stall.
However, lawsuits work a little differently in Canada. Canadians have to pay our lawyers every step of the way, so lawyers don’t take cases on spec. It makes no difference if you are in the right, if you run out of money the case is closed.
It stands to reason that if $50 was too steep a price to pay to register your script, paying legal fees over decades will be too costly for most Canadian creators. Because most Canadian creators don’t make a living from our creative work; we need day jobs to pay the rent.
recourse
Copyright law is not magic, the only way it “protects” writers is by allowing us to sue anyone who infringes our copyright. Would I sue a company I’d sent my work to if I thought they had infringed my copyright?
If I did, I might get a wildly lucrative settlement. But would it be enough to live on for the rest of my life? Because the very real effect of any such suit would be that no other production company would ever dare risk opening an unsolicited manuscript from me ever again. Lawsuits are sometimes seen as quick and easy way to make money, but it’s never a good business to sue your potential market. Not if you expect to make a living from your work. So even with my copyright proof or WGA registration in hand, I very much doubt any provocation would have made me sue.
Creators who still believe copyright protects them should consider what would happen if they had to assert their copyright in court. If it comes to a copyright challenge, will the court believe you when you present your bedraggled postmarked envelope you claim to have mailed to yourself? Or will the court be dazzled by the signed and sealed CIPO copyright registration made by the glamorous Movie Company you allege infringed your copright? After all, there are opportunists everywhere. Envelopes have been steamed open before … and who can even say that what is in the envelope is what was mailed on the postmarked day?
Will the court believe the no-name writer or the brand name Corporation backed up by the authority of a goverment agency?
court is always a gamble
Even if you go to court, there are no guarantees you’ll come out of it with what you want. Sometimes vindication carries a hefty price tag, as can be seen by Howard Knopf’s EXCESS COPYRIGHT: A Cautionary Tale of Costly Copyright Litigation Consequences: How to Win a Little and Lose a Lot
who can afford copyright remedies?
The few creators who can afford to use copyright to protect their work are those few creators rich and powerful enough to take on the handful of powerful media companies that control the mainstream market. That lets most of us out.
And, of course, the handful of multinational media companies that control the media industry can afford copyright remedies. That is, of course, why copyright law keeps getting longer and wider.
what do you want to spend your life doing
While lawyers may prefer to spend their days in court, me, I would rather spend my days writing. Because I’m a writer.
Canada’s majority government passed Bill C-11 in June, 2012, transforming the co-called “Copyright Modernization Act” into “The Copyright Act,” in spite of unprecedented Canadian opposition. The tragedy is most Canadians are unaware of copyright issues and don’t yet realize the growing impact it exerts over our daily lives.
This is the fifth in my Copyright Series:
Special Tea
My NaNoWriMo wordcount was pretty far behind when I came down with a cold.
Naturally, I grumbled about it on Identi.ca, and Ryan Weal kindly shared this home remedy:
As with most recipes, I made a few changes…
substituting Chamomile in tea bags
boil the water
insert chamomile tea bags
steep the tea for 10 minutes
Starting with a chunk of ginger root
my cheese grater produced a tablespoon or two of grated ginger
I used the whole lemon
and all the juice
When the tea is steeped I removed the tea bags and added grated ginger… The first day I just dropped the ginger into the tea, but then I had to contend with floaty bits, which isn’t a lot of fun when you’re sick. The second day I put the ginger in my mesh tea basket. A tea ball would work too.
then I strained the lemon into the tea pot
I left it sit for anothe five to ten minutes, then removed the basket of ginger so I could fasten the lid and keep the tea hot longer. Poured into the cup; add honey to taste.
My cold began with a bad sore throat for two days, but then it hit my nose on the third day. That was the day I made my variation of Ryan’s tea. My tea pot holds a little more than a litre, about 5 cups of water.
I drank the first pot of tea the day I was the sickest, then spent much of the day blowing my nose. In the past, this miserable phase has lasted for 3 days, but with Ryan’s special tea, the worst of that was over in one day.
Maybe it was just a milder head cold, but I think the special tea sped up the process.
The variation to try next time is to substite garlic for ginger. We’ll see.
[and now, back to NaNoWriMo]
Ryan Weal’s original recipe was shared via Kafei Interactif Status to Identi.ca; content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Thanks Ryan!
Random Act of Kindness Day?
When I popped into the mall this morning I discovered today is “Random Act of Kindness Day.”
The Mall is really behind the idea, maybe because it ties in with the good cheer of the approaching festive season… The poster lists a bunch of corporate sponsors, and the places you can get “Random Act of Kindness” cards. [Ahem... Cards?]
The very idea of sponsoring random act of kindness seems odd. I mean, who do you sponsor? I would rather see corporate sponsors get behind solving the very real poverty issues plaguing our community. Our country. There are plenty of good causes that need sponsorship, particularly in this economy.
I didn’t stay for the presentation, but there was a podium set up in the Food Court, and free copies of the local newspaper laid out on most of the tables. And there was even a young woman pushing a cart full of little white cylinders she was handing out to everyone.
Maybe its because I’m a writer, but this really annoys me.
I mean really … random?
random
1) adj. Having no specific pattern, cause, or objective. Often used in statistics.
Um. It isn’t “random” if you’re supposed to do it on a specific day.
If someone does you a kindness, and tells you to pass it on, any kindness you then do is no longer “random,” because it has in fact been caused by the kindness done to you.
If we are supposed to pass on kindness today, because it is “Random Act of Kindness Day,” we are committing kindness for an objective… because it’s “Random Act of Kindness Day.” Not random.
And every act of kindness committed today is part of the pattern. Which means it is not random at all.
The little cylinders turned out to be rolls of candy. Is that a kindness? Maybe for the dental profession. Parents of small children, or people on diets, or fighting diabetes might disagree.
You might think I’m just being picky. Maybe I’m a grammar nazi writer with her knickers in a twist because the word is being misused. But that’s not my problem.
My problem is that the idea is being misused.
Because it is a beautiful idea. A human idea. The idea we should commit “random acts of kindess” when we can. Whether it’s helping someone who looks lost find their destination, or holding the door for the man with an armload of packages, inviting a neighbor for a walk in the park, or giving half our own sandwich to someone who might be hungry.
Truly random acts of kindness are done because we are human. Random acts of kindness are ways to connect with other people, to help or share with others, because it’s the right thing to do.
Not because we expect a reward, or adulation. That’s not random, that’s a transaction.
Not because we’re supposed to… that’s not a kindness, that’s an obligation.
When people commit truly random acts of kindness, we feel good inside, because we have connected with another human being. We are social creatures, and random acts of kindness are good for society.
Making it an official “Day” sours it for me.
Instead of feeling good about ourselves — because we have been good neighbors, good citizens, good people — when we have committed a random act of kindness, maybe we are now supposed to feel good about the corporate sponsors who sprang for the free roll of candy that encouraged us to “pass kindness on”.
What happens on the other 364 days of the year? Once we’ve done our obligatory “act of kindness,” we’re off the hook for the rest of the year, right? It’s safe to get back to normal, where we can pretend we don’t see the homeless we hurry past. Where we don’t have to keep an eye out to see if our fellow humans might need their driveway shovelled, or even just a kind word.
It isn’t just “Random Act of Kindness Day” it’s actually “Random Act of Kindness Day®”.
That little ® means the phrase has been registered under the trademark branch of copyright law. What does “Kindness” have to do with “Intellectual Property Law”?
What it means is someone, some organization, corporation or person, legally owns the intellectual property known as “Random Act of Kindness Day®” which gives it/them the right to legally prevent others from using that phrase.
A trade-mark is a word (or words), a design, or a combination of these, used to identify the goods or services of one person or organization.
— Canadian Intellectual Property Office: What Is A Trade-mark
So it isn’t safe to organize a school fundraiser under that name, because your bake sale proceeds might not go to pay for the books the school library needs because the funds may need to fight off a lawsuit.
You may think nothing like that could ever happen. How could such an important idea… a worthy idea to spread kindness… how could that possibly end up in court? Sadly, it could happen the very same way the idea of honouring our Canadian war dead with the poppy symbol has led to legal challenges by the Canadian Legion.
There is no question that the world could use more kindness. We need to be nicer to each other. We need to co-operate more. Lend a hand where it’s needed. Real kindness isn’t an advertising gimmick, it comes from within us.
So for me, I’m opting out. No random acts of kindness for me today.
That’s what the rest of the year is for.
[Although I still wear a poppy to honour our war dead, I wear it only on November 11th. But it is always an old one, or a home made poppy, because I refuse to support Canadian Legion intellectual property bullying.
And now, back to writing my NaNoWriMo novel]
Stop Darlington Deadline: Midnight Tonight
This is a wind farm I happened on near Shelbourne, Ontario, a few years ago. It was awesome. Quiet, too.
DEADLINE FOR WRITTEN SUBMISSION TO THE CNSC IS TODAY!
Today is the deadline to submit written testimonies to the CNSC (Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission) regarding the Darlington project. You may have already submitted – if not, don’t worry, you can do it! We need as many people to participate as possible. The deadline is MIDNIGHT TONIGHT – submissions received after that time will not be considered.
Your letter doesn’t have to be terribly long, nor does it need to be formal. What’s important is that you speak not just from your head, but also the heart, about your opposition to the Darlington nuclear expansion.
This is my letter:
Louise Levert
Secretariat
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
280 Slater Street PO Box 1046
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5S9Dear Ms. Levert:
Everything I’ve heard indicates nuclear power costs are at the high end of the spectrum, and is never an economical alternative. Worse, it requires operating at a high threshold, which ends up penalizing Ontarians for conserving energy.
Although nuclear energy may have been necessary at one time, Ontario is currently positioned to be able to switch over to less dangerous power supplies as our aging nuclear generators go off line. The last thing Ontario needs is expansion of the nuclear facilities at Darlington.
Please don’t put our province’s natural environment at further risk with increased nuclear power operation. Green energy is a real viable alternative; there is no need to gamble with our future.
Don’t expand Darlington. Please.
Sincerely,
Laurel L. Russwurm
If it will help, please feel free to use any or all of my letter when writing your own letter.
Your letter must be submitted directly to the CNSC by email at:
interventions@cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca
Greenpeace says citizens will be allowed to participate in the hearings November 13 and 14 in Courtice by making an oral presentation, but you need to request a slot in your letter to the CNSC. If you require any help or information email stop.darlington@greenpeace.org
Good luck with your submissions.
If you’re not familiar with the issues, this 32 minute video will bring you up to speed:
