Why Copyright? The Fight for Canada’s Digital Future
In December Michael Geist gave a talk on Copyright and the fight for Canada’s digital future. Copyright changes are coming and this is a story that will forever continue as new media is generated. Michael urges us all to be silent no more as we see everyone becoming authors and taking ownership in this new media and how they think it should be handled.
Take a look and a listen to learn more about the ‘copyfight’.
Presentation Audio – Michael Geist [mp3]
Abstract
When the Canadian government introduced Bill C-61 in June 2008, new copyright legislation that closely followed the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the public response to the bill was both immediate and angry – tens of thousands of Canadians wrote to the Minister and their local Members of Parliament, leading to town hall meetings, negative press coverage, and the growing realization that copyright was fast becoming a mainstream political and policy issue.
In this session Dr. Geist will assess both the legislative proposals and the Canadian copyfight experience in an effort to answer the often asked question – how copyright had emerged as a contentious policy issue and why copyright matters?
Dr. Geist holds the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law and he is regularly quoted in the national and international media on Internet law issues. He has also appeared before numerous government committees on copyright, telecom, privacy, and e-commerce policy.
Summary notes of the copyright talk by an other presenter Stephan Downes;
Why has copyright become a ‘cool’ issue? Reasons:
Advocacy
- people organizing themselves online
- facebook groups
- twitter campaigns, etc
- examples
Government 2.0
- 2001 copyright consutation – 600 responses was huge
- today – British – “Ask the PM”
- other forms of interacting with public
- government blogs, government Facebook accounts
Our Digital Future
- Iron Sky – amateur production – alternativ funding
- Flickr and other content uploading – Facebook
- Culture – eg. Tetes a Claque
- CBC using BitTorrent
Our Knowledge
- Crowdsourceing – Wikipedia, wikitravel, etc.
- Wikitravel press – 400 page guide – POD – new, fresh
- Encyclopedia of Life, Project Gutenberg, Librivox
- Open access,
- the Canadian journal Open Medicine – editorial independence
- Open Journal System
Our Education
- open education – OpenCourseWare
- Moodle, open source software, BitTorrent
- Open books – more people buy the book if it’s freely available
Our innovation
- the justification for copyright always seems to be innocation
- but we see company after company flourishing in Canada under current copyright
Our Consumer rights
- what we can do with CDs – listening to it with the device of our choice
- region coding – wanting to view media purchased elsewhere
- ebooks and ebook locks
- cell phones – it would be an infringement to unlock your cellphone to switch carriers C-61
- is about copyright choices
- we could have chosen to move toward flexible fair dealing
- eg. by adding the phrase “such as” to the list of allowable circumstamnces
- eg. television recording “time shifting” – vs broadcast flag
- anti-circumvention provisions prevent fair use/dealing
- c-61 was, for all intents and purposes, a copy of DMCA – but worse
Open-Source Learning
Open-Source Learning is a topic, which is gaining considerable traction in the educational community. However, many teachers and students alike, my self included, have not enjoyed a clear and succinct explanation of what Open-Source Learning is, until now.
Richard Baraniuk of Rice University recently gave a talk on the topic of Open-Source Learning at a TED conference, an organization who’s credo is “Ideas worth spreading.” In this talk, Dr. Baraniuk provides a great explanation of Open-Source Learning. Below is a summary (my impression) of Dr. Baraniuk’s talk; however, I strongly recommend you to watch the presentation for yourself by clicking here.
Dr. Baraniuk describes our current educational climate, in relation to learning resources, as a one-way relationship. The authors of text books often have no, or very little, interaction with the students or instructors who use these books during their studies. Baraniuk would have us imagine Open-Source Learning to be a institution where an open relationship exists, where instructors, other authors, experts and anyone else who wishes to add to the body of knowledge on a given topic is free to do so. This system has a multitude of advantages, such as the creation of “Super Textbooks” where instructors would be able to pick and choose as they see fit, essentially producing a custom tailored textbook for their course. Also, instead of a new edition of a book being released on the order of every two or three years (often longer) a new edition on any topic would become available on the order of every twenty to thirty seconds. That said, students and the academic community would consistently find themselves on the cutting edge of knowledge. Additionally, as these “Super Textbooks” are digital, through new innovations they would become interactive, allowing students not just to see, but to do.
While there are many other advantages, the final one pointed out by Dr. Baraniuk which I will discuss here is the issue of textbook cost. Taking precedence from my personal experience, a textbook for an introductory course may cost up to $170 (this has been the upper limit in cost I have enjoyed for a first year course). Now, in a course, which is not my major, this situation provides a very difficult Visa slip to sign. Imagine now, if instead of $170, I could have bought my book (remember, that this book would consist of the absolute most recent knowledge in the subject and be custom tailored to fit my Professors teaching objectives) for $20; cost reflecting only the production and distribution cost. At $20, the reach of this book has been dramatically increased to included a vast population who’s pursuit of knowledge had been previously curtailed by fiscal limitations. This is the power of Open-Source Learning. Dr. Baraniuk goes into some detail explaining why this is the case and I will refer you to his presentation for this.
As a final note, I do wish to briefly address possible the most glaring concern over the above explanation of Open-Source Learning. Stated above, is that essentially anyone is free to add to, play with or modify any of the content. As everyone knows, this is how many other online knowledge databases, such as wikipedia function, and can, from time to time, create problems. Dr. Baraniuk has there for suggested that Open-Source Learning function under a system of peer-review, just as how all academic journals currently do.
This system of peer-review in place to safe guard content, Open-Source Learning represents a powerful and evolutionary shift in how, when, and where learning can take place as well as who is able to do the learning. This concept represents the ultimate integration of knowledge and educational technology. With Open-Source Learning, the knowledge of the world can be made available to the world, entirely and freely.
Watch Richard Baraniuk on “Open-Source Learning”
Also, check back soon, as our team at the EDC is working to compile a list of Open-Source text books, resources, and related sites!
And We’re Back! Recommended Reading to Start Off the New Year
Happy new year! Things at the office have gotten into full swing again, as we continue to support teaching and learning here at Carleton University. I thought we would start out with some recommended reading – lots of interesting news and information out there on the web to think about.
1. Clay Burell gets me thinking about abandoning RSS aggregator Google Reader for Bloglines (*gasp*) with his interesting write-up of the new Bloglines Beta that allows you to view the blog itself from within the reader, giving you convenient access to reading and making comments. Clay writes enthusiastically, “this one deserves trumpeting from the rooftops – because finally, RSS Readers are not conversation-stoppers. THANK YOU, BLOGLINES BETA.” RSS though, can be used not just for personal and/or research use, but also for education:
2. 101 Steps to Becoming a Better Blogger: a 101 list for serious bloggers, I love how the tips are practical and hands-on. If you are considering writing a blog, it’s a great one-stop-shop for concrete things you may want to be doing as a blogger. As a relatively new blogger myself, I found it extremely helpful.
3. Have you heard about the recent controversy over the copyright act being introduced in Canada, which in many ways seems to be a kind of copy of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of the United States? I think it will have ramifications for the accessibility of educational materials.
- Copyright Carol – a great video by Galacticast that summarizes the issues clearly and with style.
- Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook Group originally created by Michael Geist to fight the new DCMA-like copyright. Michael reports on the fascinating consequences of this Facebook group and the power of web 2.0, that group had a real affect on delaying the introduction of the legislation. He writes, “what happened next was truly remarkable – within hours, the group started to grow – first 50 members, then 100, and then 1000 members. One week later, there were 10,000 members. Two weeks later, there were over 25,000 members with another Canadian joining the group every 30 seconds.”
CBC’s hour on the Canadian Copyfight – Conversation with Michael Geist
4. Great find via Eric Tremblay at RMC, a wealth of free Biology resources (Interactive Animations, Biology Labs, etc) from Carnegie Mellon University.
Copyright
One of the tricky things to manage as instructors in Canada is meeting Canadian copyright regulations. It’s become very easy and convenient to scan and post readings online (as well as digitize video and audio); all to enable students to have quick and central access to learning materials.
At the EDC we often hear the following questions:
How much material can I photocopy for a class?
How do I go about producing a coursepack for my course?
Can I copy materials and put them on a course website?
Can I use a home video or off-air recording in class?
Can faculty/staff provide alternate format material to students with print disabilities?
If you have time tomorrow at 1:00 pm (Friday, Oct 26) join Ross Mutton, Terry Goodwin and Heather Cross in 316 Southam Hall for an Intellectual Property and Copyright Seminar.
Register online here.
(The seminar is being recorded and we will make it and any handouts available from our site.)
