“Bill C-11 contains an “enabler” provision which currently states, “It is an infringement of copyright for a person to provide, by means of the Internet or another digital network, a service that the person knows or should have known is designed primarily to enable acts of copyright infringement if an actual infringement of copyright occurs by means of the Internet or another digital network as a result of the use of that service.” — Russell McOrmond Is Bill C-11 related to SOPA/PIPA?
Pardon?
If it’s an infringement to provide a service the person knows or should have known is designed primarily to enable acts of copyright infringement IF AN INFRINGEMENT OCCURS…
Wait: does that mean it isn’t an infringement if no one actually infringes?
brothers keeper
Hum. It appears that Bill C-11 is straying pretty far afield for copyright law. And sounds pretty dependent on what other people do.
It is reasonable for me to be responsible for my own dog, because I have control of my own dog. If my dog bites the letter carrier, it is my responsibility.
But I would not be liable if someone else’s dog bit the letter carrier.
Or what about “the person knows or should have known” …. Well. We all make mistakes. Who can know what anyone else will do?
If rent out a building to a tenant who cooks up methamphetamine in the basement, or takes pot shots at passersby out the window… is this then my responsibility? After all, it’s my building. It’s in a bad neighborhood so I should have known renting it out might make it possible for badguys to do bad things.
Think about it.
“…the person knows or should have known is designed primarily to enable acts of copyright infringement…” If the design of the thing is to primarily enable bad things… why don’t we make laws like that for anything in the real world?
Guns
Many perfectly respectable stores like Canadian Tire sell guns. In a pinch, you could use your handgun to drive a nail, but that isn’t what it was designed for. A gun is a weapon that is clearly designed to put holes in things. Quite often, guns are used to put holes in people. And guns can and are used in a commission of a crime far more serious than copyright infringement.
Yet no one is suggesting gun manufacturers be held responsible for crimes committed with the guns they made.
In the real world, this kind of preventative lawmaking is not the practice in Canada.
Drugs
Recreational drug use has been illegal in Ontario throughout my life, yet there are whole stores devoted to selling the attendant paraphernalia. It is perfectly legal for “head shops” to sell hookahs and bongs openly on the main shopping street of law abiding cities like Waterloo. And these devices are most certainly designed to enable acts of illegal drug use.
Any tool can be used for good or ill, as Cory Doctorow recently pointed out with his suggestion that wheels should be outlawed since wheeled vehicles allow criminals to flee from the scene of the crime. A hammer is a wonderful tool for driving nails, and yet a simple hammer can double as an effective weapon since it is easy for anyone to wield.
In the real world, we don’t arrest people for thinking dangerous thoughts or manufacturing goods or creating a service that someone else might use to break laws. We don’t hold innocent people responsible for the crimes of others.
The legal standards for citizen protection must be the same both online and off. Yet Bill C-11 lowers standards for citizen protection in Canada.
Along with learning about blogging and self publishing, I’ve been learning how the Internet works. In order to do the things I want to do I’ve had to learn how to employ the technology, but I am by no means a “natural.”
One of the most important lessons is to share what you learn with others. I have learned so much from what others have shared with me, that it’s only natural to return the favour. Because I have several web sites and blogs, I’ll often get the same spam for different sites. The one that’s prompted this blog post is the following verbatim reprint of a particular spam email I get periodically for my various blogs and websites. If you get one like this, my advice is:
Don’t do it.
Although I’ve redacted the names to protect the guilty, the rest of the email is reproduced word for word here:
Hello,
Let’s do a 3-way link swap with your website http://russwurm.org. I’ll give you two links in exchange for one from
you.
3-way linking is a very effective link building strategy. Since you’re getting the links from third party websites, they appear totally natural to search engines. Such inbound links help your website rank higher in Google and other
search engines.
The tip off is that these links “appear totally natural.” It appears to be a way to scam the search engines, but what it really wants to do is scam us out of our good reputations.
When you start creating web content like blogs or websites, you often hear about rumoured — almost magic — ways of getting your website noticed by search engines. Search terms. Meta data. Tags. SEO. Categories. Search Engine Optimization. Everyone wants our web page to be on the top of the Google search, because that will brings readers.
Search engines have a variety of ways to decide how to rank web pages, and one of them is based on how many incoming links you have. As long as there has been an Internet there have been ways people have tried to scam the search engines. The reason for this is simple.
If someone types “costumes” in the search bar, if your costume blog is at the top of the list the search engine returns you will get a lot more visitors. If it first appears on page fifty, well, not so much.
The thing to remember is that any search engine is trying to provide every web searcher with the correct website or information they want, as quickly as possible. So search engines are not happy with fake results. I’ve heard tell that Google refuses to index bad actors who do things like salting their web pages with invisible words in hopes of gaming the search engine. If you’re a fly-by-night operator, maybe how you get page hits doesn’t matter. If you are looking for a quick buck and are willing to change domain names more often than underwear, maybe that’s okay. If Google black lists you, you just get a new five dollar domain name from godaddy.
No thanks
When I was starting out, the advice I got was to build solid content. You will get readership if the content is there. If people want to read what you write, they will find you. But it takes time, and a lot of effort.
Murray works at distracting me.
That’s what I have tried to do, because I’m here for the long haul. Web credibility is important. If anything, your online reputation might even be more important than your real life reputation on the Internet. What you put online is the basis of what you are judged for online.
If I were to trade links with this organization, I might get traffic, but is it traffic that will do me any good? Would it be people who actually want to find my blog?
I have worked hard on all of my blogs. So I don’t want people being directed here in error — long enough to discover that they have been deliberately sent to the wrong place. If you trick people to come to your site, even if they might find your content interesting, or even of use, they will be annoyed at having been misdirected, which very likely will not result in a regular readers. That’s important to me; I want people to actually read what I write.
After all, would I really want to direct my readers to web pages that aren’t good enough to attract readers legitimately?
I don’t think so.
Worse, do I want to squander my hard earned web credibility on some scammer? No way.
Like most good con jobs, this seems to cost nothing, but in fact it comes very dear. Like many things, quite often anything that sounds too good to be true, is.
The essential backyard writer workstation (cats are optional) LEFT: Fair Trade Coffee CENTER: Netbook (red tape obscures camera lens). RIGHT: mouse on futuristic mousepad
Everything takes longer than I thought it would. Part of it is the learning curve.
Although I’m working at setting up the Inconstant Moon serialization blog, it is has proved far more difficult than anticipated. XHTML is one thing, PHP is something else again.
Part of what I’ve been wrestling has been my plan to include supporting material, background &tc. for Inconstant Moon. As well, from the outset I have always intended to blog about the experience, in hopes of helping others following this path. Any way you slice it, it is two very different sets of blog pages.
And then, of course, I’m nearly done the first draft of my next novel. As soon as Inconstant Moon is in the can, I’ll be getting back to the Girl In The Blue Flame Cafe. That’s when it It occurred to me that what I really need is a central Libreleft Books blog. It would, of course, provide the perfect place to gather all my self publishing tidbits. So, that’s what I’ve done today… well, yesterday into today. So it’s a beginning, and I am quite sure it will evolve, but it’s just a beginning.
So it isn’t just the learning curve. Not that I needed another blog, or anything…. ;D but the Libreleft Books Blog is begun.
Anyway, the birds are chirping and it’s gotten rather light out there, so I’d really better grab a bit of sleep before getting back to my serial theme.
[I won’t mention that between the computer crash and the upgrade, my serialzation blog seems to have been knocked about… ]
Oh, right; the tentative date for the Inconstant Moon release is Friday May 27th.
Since I’m finishing my novel and committed to uploading it to CreateSpace Sunday night, I’m *not* supposed to be blogging!
But this is a pretty serious FaceBook privacy breach passed on my by friend Mary, and the sooner people know the sooner they can pull their numbers.
If you’ve ever given Facebook your phone number, it is now published.
ALL PHONE NUMBERS are now on Facebook! No joke …
Go top right of your screen –
click on ACCOUNT then
click Edit Friends.
Go to the left of the screen and
click the phone book.
Everyone’s phone number has now been published.
Please share this with your friends so they can remove their numbers when changing their personal settings.
Of course, the phone book is only published to *your* Facebook Friends…
AND every app that you’ve allowed to access your friend list now has all of their phone numbers.
This one doesn’t hit me because I never gave Facebook my phone number because I follow:
Internet Privacy Rule #1
Never Give Out Unnecessary Personal Information online.
The ONLY time you need to give out your home address or phone number is if you want someone to call you or mail something or visit.
Just because some website insists on accessing your private information does not obligate you to give it to them. If they insist, you are perfectly within your rights to lie. Give them a phony address (not the address of anyone you know). Change your birthdate, lie about your age. Yesterday I advised one of my my brothers to set up a disposable email address before divulging his real email address to someone he thought may be up to no good. And for years I’ve been telling every one I know — including my child — to lie about everything online. (Even just a postal code narrows your location down right quick.)
Think about it. I don’t have to give my identification to walk into a Canadian Tire Store, so why is it necessary online?
My computer guy advises that the best policy for Facebook is to assume that EVERY bit of information you put there will be written on a billboard for every one to see. Facebook may have privacy settings but no real privacy. Facebook lays claim to everything you put there – it belongs to them. See the movie. And realize that the movie is the sanitized glammed up version.
Online Security is spelled https
FYI: While on Facebook, look at your URL address;
if you see http: instead of https: then you don’t have a secure session and you can be hacked.
Go to Account|Account Settings|Account Security and
click Change.
Check the first setting (secure browsing)
Re-Post for your Friends
FB defaults to the non-secure setting.
Only https offers you a secure internet connection. Which is still not encryption. I’ve been told that the reason https is secure is because it is encrypted.
(If you don’t want Bell using DPI to read your mail or peek in your packets with DPI, you want to go further & use encryption… which I have yet to figure out myself. I’m looking into a thing called Truecrypt.)
[This is an expanded version of the comment I posted to the CBC’s online article Toronto’s ‘Officer Bubbles’ sues YouTube. Of course, it’s subject to moderation and I have had many comments well within stated CBC guidelines declined. So I decided to post this here as it’s too important an issue to let slip through the cracks.]
The calls for an Inquiry into the G8/G20 debacle aren’t going away, they are getting louder.
Officer Bubbles certainly knew he was being recorded when he took his stand. The protester
with a camera stood directly in front of him—
close enough to reach out and touch.
A National Post article lauds this lawsuit, believing Officer Bubbles’ attempt to intimidate by lawsuits is a blow for… accountability?
Will the courts allow citizens to be stripped of the right to comment anonymously? If you make an anonymous comment expressing your disagreement with a situation like this, can you be sued? Is an opinion slander? Or since it’s published online libel?
Anonymity can be a powerful tool for good. Whistleblowers can leak information that their consciences dictate ought to be public which often serves the public good.
Must we guard our opinions, and take care not to voice them for fear of litigation?
Using lawsuits to squash the cartoons that ensued is a terrible precedent for the future of free speech and free expression in Canada. It’s interesting to note that Officer Bubbles is not attempting to take down the video. After all, it really happened.
The fact is he spoke and acted, knowing he was being filmed. Performing his professional duties as an officer of the law, on a public street, as a matter of public record. Officer Bubbles is a public servant interacting with a member of the public. In this context, Officer Bubbles should be no more immune from depiction in political cartoons than the Mayor or the Prime Minister?
Many citizens protested the G8/G20
I must have dozed off at the part where they made political cartoons illegal in Canada. Is that in Bill C-32?
silencing dissent before it happens
Meanwhile, there is another protester that there is no video for.
This protester was arrested before he even had a chance to protest the G8/G20 — before it even began — apparently on the basis of Twitter remarks which led to a search warrant. The result is that Byron Sonne was arrested, and languishes in jail some four months later, denied bail by a Justice of the Peace.
Malcolm Gladwell may not believe in online activism, but Canadian police services take it seriously.
A Justice of the Peace isn’t a lawyer, or a judge. This is a political appointment. I have to wonder if a Justice of the Peace, an appointed position not requiring formal legal education, is the right person to be making decisions about who is or is not entitled to bail? It’s bad enough that in criminal offenses, the decision as to whether a defendant can walk free between accusation and trial may fall victim to a JP’s personal bias.
But to have political appointees ruling on the liberty of those accused of political offenses during peaceful protests is simply ludicrous. A Justice of the Peace appointed by the government of the day can hardly be expected to be impartial, especially in cases of political dissent.
Many laws have built in latitude enabling them to cover a range of infractions. There is certainly latitude in every one of the charges brought against Byron Sonne, allowing the exercise of a great deal of discretion.
This certainly becomes an issue in a world where a soap bubble is adjudged a weapon by the forces of Canadian law enforcement.
There can be no democracy without dissent.
Peaceful protest is legal in Canada … isn’t it?
Or has dissent become a criminal offense?
I have written a lot about ACTA mostly in my other blogs. But this little film distills it’s into an easily digestible morsel which beautifully explains what the fuss is all about.
It’s important to spread the word.
ACTA Stop the Kraken
For free software users I’ve loaded the highest quality
ogv version I could get here
OGG transfers via TinyOGG
Released under a Creative Commons
Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike License (CC by-nc-sa)
Credits:
Video & Audio: Anonymous
Music by Wasaru – New Andromeda Theory
NOTE: although “published” I will be working on editing & adding to this post through the day.
Bill C-32 would lock up my novel
Copyright is a big issue for me, and seems to crop up more often than not all through this, my personal blog.
Because of Bill C-32 and ACTA, my Oh! Canada blog also has an increasing number of copyright posts. And of course since copyright is being used to attack net neutrality, it also features in my tech issue blog StopUBB.
As my personal Software Freedom Day initiative I’ve decided to begin compiling a list of important information about copyright law. As a writer, I am passionately opposed to Bill C-32, the supposed copyright reform currently before the Canadian Government. Written as though by foreign special interest groups, if passed Bill C-32 will place horrendous barriers to Canadian artists, musicians, filmmakers, writers, citizens, and students through it’s ironclad protection of DRM/TPM.
This law will make it possible to stop anyone who uses the Internet or other digital means to distribute/disseminate/share their own creative work. Currently 30% of the Canadian recording Industry is Independent of the big labels. This renaissance of Canadian culture could be stopped dead by Bill C-32. This is bad.
For me personally, passage of Bill C-32 would impede my ability to self publish and distribute my novel.
One of the leading copyright authorities and resources is the University of Ottawa’s Professor Michael Geist who always makes available a good translations of copyright legalese that might be used to choke Canada’s creativity.
Russell McOrmond is my other leading source for copyright information and analysis although he’s not a lawyer, he is very knowledgable about copyright issues. McOrmond’s Digital Copyright provides a Conservative Copyright Bill C-32 page which guides visitors through the Copyright Bill C-32 issues.
Practicing Canadian IP Lawyer Howard Knopf provides insight into copyright law in his blog Excess Copyright
Like me, Wayne Borean is affected by copyright issues on a number of fronts. He’s been putting together some excellent material in the copyright segment of his blog Through the Looking Glass.
TechDirt always has lots of good coverage, but I particularly liked this one TechDirt: Canadian Music Industry Spokesperson Claims User Generated Content Supports ‘Piracy’ since this is what I believe to be the real purpose: to stop people from putting their own content online. The growth of independent creativity is cutting into the bottom line of powerful corporations.
Jesse Brown is a good resource in general; this copyright podcast highlights the idea that Canadians are tired of fighting the same issue over and over again.Search Engine with Jesse Brown: Audio Podcast #43: So Bored of Copyright CBC online is the only mainstream news media to cover StopUBB issues. Along with the other mainstream media they seem willing to cover some of the Bill C-32 issue, although none of them seem willing to cover ACTA. I think C-32, the UK Digital Economy Act ( DEAct) and the American Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) are all “warm-up acts for ACTA. One of the key stumbling blocks to completing the ACTA negotiations is that each country will have to alter domestic law in order to be able to ratify it. The DEAct succeeded remarkably well in passing domestic law even worse than ACTA requires, which is why UK
One of the byproducts of laws like this one that have been playing out in the UK (Digital Economy Act) and the USA (DMCA) has been the rampant often specious lawsuits which often have no merit, but can be very profitable when used to extort people into settling them from fear. We can assume that this is one of the things Canadian will have to look forward to as well.
Of course since these negative effects have already happened as a direct result of the American DMCA and the UK DEA, should the Canadian government pass Bill C-32 it will be way past “unexpected” when the same effects ensue here.
The CRIA companies have long dominated Canadian airwaves. They work hard to fullfill that 35% Canadian Content requirement. After that’s done the remaining 65% of the Canadian radio dial can be filled with recordings conveniently provided by the American mother companies.
Except the nature of the recording industry has changed; more and more Canadian artists are choosing not to sign with CRIA companies, instead opting for Independence.
The Way the Music Biz Was
Although sound recording technology came into existence in the tail end of the 19th Century, it really only became established through the 20th Century. Although the music recording industry began as a wealth of small companies, the competition as they jockeyed for position and power led to mergers, eventually winnowing them down to a mere handful of companies. In this way recording companies achieved a kind of corporate oligarchy based not on wealth or bloodlines but on market domination due to control of the distribution system.
Under the old fashioned music industry regime, a record company would decide to “sign” an Act. The Act would of course be over the moon because they have been “discovered”. They are going to be famous. What’s not to love?
Suddenly, the Act feels like they are at the center of the universe. People are buzzing about them. THEY are the buzz.
Naturally the record company calls the tune, by virtue of their “expertise”. The record company makes all decisions: where to book the Act, how to “package” it. Does the Act need new costumes, or a new look? New wardrobe. Publicity materials. Promotional parties. Press junkets.
You can’t be a recording artist without a recording. The Big record companies don’t stint, it’s first class all the way. When the Act walks into a major recording studio to record that first album they rack up big expenses. This stuff isn’t cheap you know. Maybe re-recording from scratch if the music company exec doesn’t think it’s good enough. Once the mix is right, press it onto disks, print sleeves, ship it out to radio stations and record stores. And of course don’t forget the advertising. Take it on tour. Woo the radio stations with interviews and hand out promotional copies along the way. The Act makes appearances at record stores and shopping malls. Airtime is key, so that people know who the Act is, so the Act’s sound becomes known. That’s how fans are made. Then the Act can sell albums and fill seats in the venues to be played on the Act’s tour.
Today Erica Ehm is the Yummy Mummy and JD Roberts traded in his mullet to be a CNN Anchorman
then came rock video
A whole other media to woo. Suddenly the Act can’t make it without shooting a video. In the early days, a few groups took the bull by the horns and made their own rock videos, putting themselves in the public eye without benefit of the recording Industry. Promote it to the VJs on Canada’s Much Music and MTV. Advertise. Giveaways. Contests. Interviews. Then the tour.
A big part of the deal was that the record company provides the Act wider exposure than they could manage on their own. Initially this meant nationally, but as the distribution networks grew and grew it became global. The Act would have to agree to sign over some or all of their music copyright to the record company. In exchange, the music company would record and promote the Act.
Although all the expenses associated with touring are paid for up front by the record company, in actuality the musical Act is generally contractually obligated to pay it all off out of the proceeds. Even though the music company makes all the decisions, the Act ultimately pays for it all over time.
[And no, I’m not making this stuff up. You can read about singer-songwriter Janis Ian and her gripping article “Internet Debacle” in this week’s Through the Looking Glass (can you say “indentured servitude”) or the incredibly astute number crunching in the transcript “Courtney Love Does the Math” at Salon.com]
And the downside? Well, the record company might decide that the Act isn’t going to make it big after all.
Maybe the fans aren’t into the Act as much as was hoped. (Even if what the fans don’t like is the “new look” dictated by the record company.) Whatever the reason, if there isn’t a big enough turnout at the bookings sometimes “the buzz” just fizzles.
Or the Act’s CD isn’t selling as well as the company wants it too. Big labels sink big bucks into recording and it all has to be recouped.
Or perhaps its just that the exec who signed the band got the axe. The successor certainly won’t want to make the Act into a hit and make the predecessor look good.
So the company decides not to throw good money after bad. The company has sole discretion over promoting the Act. They can stop at any time. Remember, it was their contract, their lawyers. Everything is in the company’s favor because they were in a position of supreme power when the Act signed.
For whatever reason, even if the record company didn’t promote the Act as aggressively as they might have, even if the Act’s recordings are sitting unreleased on a shelf somewhere, the fault can be entirely due to company mismanagement but the recording company continues to own and control the Act’s music.
Of course the record company doesn’t do anything so foolish as give the copyright back. If the Act decides to tour on their own, or just take a regular gig at a local blues bar, they still owe a piece of the action to the record company. If the Act decides to put up a web page, they have to get permission from the company before they can give their own music away for free.
The Act will be paying the record company back, no matter how long it takes, for out-of pocket expenses.
After signing with the record company, all decision making power has traditionally been with the record company. They hold all the cards going in to the initial negotiation. If the Act didn’t agree with the contract terms, they didn’t get a contract. The record company had total discretion in how long or how hard they will promote the act. Even if it’s a matter of hours, they still hold the copyright.
Why would musicians sign up for this?
The music companies held all the marbles. Especially as the media companies became more and more centralized, the reality is that they controlled distribution.
And, well, musicians are artists. Very few artists want to do business. Mostly artists want to create art. A record contract was the holy grail. The company would handle all the annoying details and let the artists get on with making music. And in fact that’s how it worked… at least for the headliners.
If you were a musician and wanted to cut a record and get it played on the radio and distributed in record stores, you had to be aligned with a music company. If they didn’t take you on, you were out of luck. It was just about the only way to be successful (ie. to be able to make music without having a day job).
The only Canadian musician I know of who became a star without a record company in the fifty years before the Internet was Canada’s Stompin’ Tom Connors.
It wasn’t easy. A single man with low expenses, Stompin’ Tom worked hard, and paid to make his own recordings while traveling the length and breadth of Canada gathering experiences and regional tidbits from which to fashion his music. Constantly touring he sold his own records wherever he performed. Stompin’ Tom built up a following across Canada one record at a time. Eventually he became a star in spite of the big music companies. And today Stompin’ Tom Connors is enough of a Canadian Icon to have graced the face of a Canadian stamp.
Now, if music was just an ordinary career, like, say, ditch digging, once the Act plateaued or plummeted, the act would get career counseling, maybe go to college, or become a landscape architect and move on.
But music, like any art, is not so easily shirked.
If you’re an artist, you create art
Artists want their art to be out there… they want to be heard.
Just because the record company you signed with holds all the marbles, it doesn’t mean you stop making music. And the record company that holds the copyright continues to make money from the Act, long past the point where they are actually doing anything to promote or distribute the Act. Musicians make music. You keep on keeping on. The Act continues plugging away, performing. Maybe even recording on their own nickel. It may take decades but a following can be built.
Copyright law is different depending on where you are. Sometimes there have even been cases in this modern world where acts have gotten free of the record companies. American copyright law provides for the return of music rights to the actual creators or heirs starting in 2013. I’ve not heard of anything similar for Canadian artists. Still, the record companies continue to wield an extraordinary amount of power.
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.”
Advances in modern technology means that it no longer costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to set up a professional recording studio. Even more important, the advent of the Internet has brought economical and easy global music distribution. Suddenly, within the last 15 years, it has become possible for musical acts to get out there and create their own music and distribute it themselves– without having to sell their souls to the record company.
Sure, it isn’t free. It still costs money to cut an album, but it’s doable. A major label thinks nothing of sinking twenty or thirty thousand dollars into recording an album. Thing is, it no longer has to cost that much. Professional musicians can record an album in a commercial studio these days for around one thousand dollars. If you possess the home equipment and recording/editing software along with a bit of technical expertise it is more than possible to record your album at home for next to nothing.
Yes, you’ll probably still need your day job. You are unlikely to become a star overnight. Marketing and promotion is a very big job, even with the power of the Internet. But if an act chooses to record their music Independently, first and foremost, they retain title to their music.
An Independent does not have to give up their copyright.
The Independent gets to make all the decisions about how their money will be spent on promotion and distribution. The Indie decides where to perform. One new way of marketing many artists are following is to distribute their music free under Creative Commons Licenses. Artists give away their art because they need exposure to grow an audience. Art must be out there.
Adding the Internet to the mix makes it possible for artists to distribute their work for next to nothing. They can make their music available for free in online venues like MySpace or allow downloads through the Pirate Party of Canada Tracker or ideally on their own webpage.
When independent artists begin to make a name for themselves, they don’t want to spend time they could be spending on their music selling and promoting the act.
It would have been really clever for the “traditional” record labels to alter their business models to embrace these new successful independents. But that would mean giving up absolute power and dealing with them equitably. Instead they are pretending nothing has changed and attempting to legislate anti-progress (with laws like the American DMCA, and the even worse Canadian version currently misleadingly titled “Bill C-32 The Copyright Modernization Act”). Since the “dinosaur” companies aren’t able or willing to serve the needs of the next generation of musicians, new independent record labels are coming into existence to fill the need.
the new music business
Before the Internet, pretty much the only distribution channel open to musicians who cut their own records was to sell them at their performances. Or through mail order. Last November I was surprised and impressed to read an article in This Magazine that 30% of Canadian recording artists are recording Independently. Before the existence of the Internet, that number was closer to zero. It’s especially amazing when you consider the Internet has been been publicly accessible for less than twenty years.
Even more interesting to me is that Canadians are leading the world in this exodus away from the established record labels. Why would our musicians be turning their back on the traditional recording companies in such numbers? Could it be for the freedom?
Some acts like Canadian musical comedy group The Arrogant Worms have a Music Page on their website so you can listen to their music, and choose to download a single song, an individual album, or their entire catalogue. They also have a video page, where they feature fan videos of their music, a clear indicator that they support fan remixes and understand the importance of the internet.
Free & Legal Music downloads, DRM free, Thorny Bleeder Records
You can also purchase Arrogant Worms material
direct from their label Maple Music, whose website provides an internet presence or a virtual home for a large number of Independent Canadian recording artists.
Alert Music Inc. provides management or a label, or both. Labels like this one are coming to exist and thriving with a small roster of clients. This young company makes use of internet tools to promote their clients: you can find many Michael Kaeshammer clips on YouTube, for instance.
record label replacement companies?
As more performers opt for independence and become established the need for flexible support is increasingly provided by start ups offering the kind of support available to name artists from labels in the last century.
bit torrent download available via the Pirate Party of Canada
This shift has been made necessary by the big record labels inability to adapt to 21st century conditions.
Thorny Bleeder Records is an online label that makes music available for download — music that is free and legal, as well as DRM free — from their site. If you like it, you have the option of paying what you choose into the “tip jar” to support the artists of your choice. They also offer compilation albums for download through the Pirate Party of Canada’s “Pirate Tracker”.
Thorny Bleeder Records has also launched an Artist Services division. “We’re a new kind of ‘Record Label Replacement Company’,” Brian Thompson jokes, “offering a range of services to replace the old-fashioned style of a record deal. We’re here to help new bands have their music heard by the public, without having to wait and be discovered by the increasingly tight and inward looking circles of the music industry.”
Although originally signed to a major label, Julie Crochetière has chosen Independence. Going out on her own Julie Crochetière began with an EP which she followed up with her exquisite debut album “A Better Place,” both available through Maple Music. Her first album produced the hit single “Precious Love”, and she’s bringing out her new album Steady Ground this fall. She’s just released the first single, “Tomorrow” which can be heard on Julie C’s MySpace page pr purchased at iTunes. Crochetière is making good use of the Internet for both promotion and distribution, using the name @juliecmusic on Twitter and MySpace.
Allison Crowe is another Independent artist who has been recording and distributing music with her own Rubenesque Records label starting in 2001. Her music has been available through increasingly open Creative Commons Licenses, and probably accounts at least in part for the wealth of fan made videos available online. Allison Crowe’s utilization of the new technology and distribution models available is quite comprehensive. She is making very good use of the Internet:
Clearly the Canadian Music business is entering a golden age. More Canadian music s being made, recorded, shared and sold than ever before. Canadians are having no trouble marketing ourselves– and our culture– around the world.
Best of all, no one is bemoaning the lack of a ‘Canadian Identity’
as they did in days gone by, because Canadian voices are raised and our culture is flourishing in this digital age.
I haven’t seen the MAPL designation any any CD in quite some time. Have you? In the same way that CRTC CanCon regulations have made Canadian music an undesirable brand on the radio, the TV CanCon regulations have ensured that:
the absolute least “Canadian content” possible makes it to Canadian TV.
Because you can be sure that although the quotas may be met they will never be exceeded. The excellent Canadian series Less Than Kind took years to get on air. So although home grown Canadian programs are good, getting them financed can be a herculean task which is not helped by CanCon.
Canadian Content regulations are essentially a quota system.
If there MUST be a quota system…
… the only way it might benefit Canadian culture would be is if the quota is very high.
Which is not what we have in Canada.
90% should be the absolute minimum, although 95% would be better still. This would eliminate airplay for all foreign recordings except for the very best.
Once the merely average foreign content is removed from our airways, there would be much more air time available to a much wider range of Canadian artists. This would give Canadian artists a better forum from which to reach their audience. At least domestically.
The result of having low quotas for radio airplay has actually suppressed the Canadian recording industry. It was a message to Canadians that Canadians were simply not good enough to compete, which is ridiculous. In practice, one the quotas were filled the other 65% of Canadian airwaves were populated by anything else. It didn’t have to be particularly good, it just had to be not Canadian. The result was a ghettoisation of Canadian recording artists.
If we are going to have Canadian Content regulations, they need to be applicable in every cultural area, not just radio and television. If we regulate some, we must regulate all. Otherwise it has all the effectiveness of a partial embargo. Canadian Content would have to apply to everything: books, magazines and movie theaters. Not to mention public education.
Of course it would be really difficult at first. There would certainly be growing pains. The first few years would be dismal, sure, but eventually we would be left with enough of a percentage of good CanCon to make it worth it. After all, a guaranteed market would keep our best and brightest creators home.
Except.
What we’d be is isolated. Our best and brightest would be denied access to the best and brightest from around the world. And if we close our gates on the world, most of the world will surely reciprocate.
The thing is:
Everything is a remix.
Mushrooms may grow well when isolated but the best art does not come out of a vacuum. In many ways the Internet has been breaking down the artificial barriers people put up to isolate ourselves. More than ever before we are reaching out and offering our culture to the world, while at the same time having the opportunity to experience the best the rest of the world has to share.
As recently as 2007 people were talking about imposing CanCon regulations to the Internet. Casey McKinnon, Galacticast podcast creator most emphatically came down against CanCon in her blog.
The very idea of extending CanCon to the Internet was roundly dismissed by those in the front lines because it would not help. It would be bad for Canadian culture venyures. And Canadian culture is doing quite well at present, thanks in no small part to the Internet.
You can’t legislate culture.
The most any government can do is to support culture.
Traditionally investment and tax breaks encouraging investment have been important ways government has supported culture. Making sure that CBC and the NFB are properly funded would go a long way. But those aren’t the only ways our government could help our culture flourish.
Equally important to protect the Internet environment. Net Neutrality is crucial because it allows the Canadian arts a level playing field. Our government needs to take care to prevent the Internet carriers from gouging consumers (which will be made worse with the introduction of Usage Based Billing) because equal Internet access to all Canadians is important for Canada’s full participation in the global digital economy.
And of course, it would be good if our government doesn’t make life worse for Canadian creators with the introduction of bad copyright law.
CanCon isn’t helping anymore (if it ever did)
Clearly at this point CanCon regulations and designations are more of a liability than an advantage.
The thing is, you can make a law saying there has to be X amount of Canadian Content, but nothing will guarantee that it is good Canadian Content.
It’s long past time we dropped the CanCon regulations.
Canadian artists are plenty good enough to succeed without them.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I was somewhat surprised by the launch of the Digital Economy Consultation. There didn’t seem to be very much lead time and the consultation period seemed very short. Particularly considering the great quantity of material supplied by the government for consideration, as well as the framework of “themes” and the format asked for in the submission. To do a proper job of it would certainly have taken me more than the few days I was able to devote to this. I’d think the ideal time needed to do a proper job of it would be a week of full-time devotion to the task.
I have been hard at work finishing my novel, and so barely had the time to get any submission in at all. My submission is posted in Oh! Canada here
But I think that it is terribly unfortunate that Russell McOrmond won’t be able to make a formal submission to this consultation. Although I am still incredibly new to both the digital world and copyright issues, to my mind, if I ran the zoo, or, at least the legislature, Russell McOrmond is the one who I would be inviting to author Canada’s digital economy strategy.
Which is why I highly recommend checking out Russell McOrmond’s comments on the Digital Economy Consultation in his excellent blog Digital Copyright Canada. He has a few suggestions that are well worth thinking and talking about.
In the meantime, after killing myself to get it done, last night when I went to post my submission I discovered that the Consultation period had been extended, making the new deadline midnight, Tuesday, July 13. Personally, I think it should have been extended a month rather than a few days.
Regardless, every Canadian is entitled to make a submission. Please check out the online discussions, and at least read over the submission questions. Remember, this is not a test, this is the government soliciting our input. You can make a submission which answers all the questions, or just one. Any input is good input.
Canadians need to tell our government what’s important to us. This is for our future.
Like I need another blog…. but really there wasn’t much choice. I had to start Oh! Canada to keep politics from swamping in the wind. Which is supposed to be my personal blog darn it! This is supposed to be for fun. Politics is hard work. Oh! Canada will be primarily for political musings, which at the very least should provide in the wind with its own prorogation vacation. The kick-off post for Oh! Canada is, coincidentally enough, called Prorogation Vacation.
When I began in the wind, my first blog, I was advised to set up an identi.ca account and then to start a Twitter account, which could be linked with the identi.ca account. Since the two accounts talk to one another, if I write something on my identi.ca account, it will also go out over my Twitter account, so I only need to say things once. At that point I’d been resistant to the idea of Twitter, largely due to the fact that I have no desire to type anything on a phone beyond a phone number. The fact that I can use these things online makes all the difference. And as it turned out the advice was good as identi.ca and Twitter have proven useful not only for me to announce my new blog posts, but also for finding all kinds of useful information.
Of course nothing is perfect, and it seems that everything I see on one account does not show up on the other. Re-Tweets and Re-Dents don’t seem to cross over at all, so if it’s something one of my Twitter friends has said that I think my identi.ca friends would benefit from, I’ll sometimes cut and paste. I’ve also discovered that shortened URLs from Twitter don’t always come out correctly in identi.ca, so if I’m including a URL, I’ll usually post from identi.ca.
On Twitter you can “find people” so that you can follow them. Sometimes they will decide to follow you back. In this way we build communities. Twitter offers #tags, so you can find out what other people are saying by searching for the #tagged word in the “find a person” tab. identi.ca came after, and so has an additional capability that I find handy: !groups. When you join a group, you will have the group conversation appear in your timeline, but you also have the option of going into the group area where all the group conversation is.
On identi.ca, you don’t “follow” people, you “subscribe” to them. If you have an area of particular interest, you can either join a !group, or start your own !group. That was actually where I first began figuring how to connect with people. Signing up for the !quote group was the best thing I could have done; you can tell stuff about people based on who and what they quote. Sometimes I just look at the public timeline, or search for something I’m interested in. Twiiter seems more about sharing info and links, and that’s where I get a great deal of my political info. identi.ca seems to be more about conversation. When someone you’ve subscribed to is having a conversation with others you may not be subscribed to, you can select to see the comment “in context” so you will be able to join in if you chose.
I decided to try out TypePad. Although they offer a blogging service, you have to pay for it, which I am not inclined to do, particularlyt since I am very happy here with WordPress. But TypePad. offers free micro-blogging. Now, what they call micro-blogging is different than what identi.ca and Twitter do. Both Twitter and identi.ca describe themselves as “micro-blogging” sites, and the TypePad. micro-blogging layout actually looks very similar, but the key difference is that there is no 140 character limit. I thought I’d try it out, so I’ve written a couple of micro-blog posts starting with sharing a book can be a struggle over there just to see how it goes.
I guess ordinarily I could have made those posts here on WordPress. After all I’m quite happy with WordPress blogging, and in fact keep suggesting it to people who are considering starting a blog. But I’ve been pretty busy housecleaning… er– recalibrating– over here. However, I’m experiencing some problems in TypePad. For instance, I have yet to figure out how to “follow” people other than the ones they indicate are stars. So at the moment I am following Bill Cosby. I haven’t quite figured out what that gets me 🙂
Also, although it gives me the option to “preview” it doesn’t actually work, so the only way I have to preview is to publish. Fortunately I don’t have any readers there yet so I can change things with impunity. It’s probably some java script thing. My operating system is currently Windows XP, and there are a zillion things wrong, one being that “NoScript” doesn’t work properly. I’m working up to switching over to an open source OS instead.
down to a dull roar…er meow
I’ll try to reign in the blogs some so I can get my novel finished. Maybe while I’m doing that I can let my computer guy lose on my main computer to get things sorted out and working properly, with a GNU Linux operating system up and running. Just to keep life interesting, I came back from my accountant friend Paul’s place with a rocking bonus:
These little brothers needed a home together, and we’ve been sadly without a pet since last summer… needless to say, thanks Paul. (And they did finally come out from behind the furniture!)
So I kind of think there is a very good possibility that my life will be undergoing even more recalibration than my blogs…
It is reasonable for me to be responsible for my own dog, because I have control of my own dog. If my dog bites the letter carrier, it is my responsibility.
Many perfectly respectable stores like Canadian Tire sell guns. In a pinch, you could use your handgun to drive a nail, but that isn’t what it was designed for. A gun is a weapon that is clearly designed to put holes in things. Quite often, guns are used to put holes in people. And guns can and are used in a commission of a crime far more serious than copyright infringement.
Recreational drug use has been illegal in Ontario throughout my life, yet there are whole stores devoted to selling the attendant paraphernalia. It is perfectly legal for “head shops” to sell hookahs and bongs openly on the main shopping street of law abiding cities like Waterloo. And these devices are most certainly designed to enable acts of illegal drug use.
The CRIA companies have long dominated Canadian airwaves. They work hard to fullfill that 35% Canadian Content requirement. After that’s done the remaining 65% of the Canadian radio dial can be filled with recordings conveniently provided by the American mother companies.
Like I need another blog…. but really there wasn’t much choice. I had to start 
On 
I decided to try out 
I guess ordinarily I could have made those posts here on 
Laurel's Free Culture Blog 
