rwmtest

If you haven't already read it, please read my earlier article where I discuss a layered model for road transportation , and I try to clarify that "technological protection measures" (TPMs) are actually a restriction on who is allowed to drive (IE: author software for), or choose drivers for, communications technology.  I strongly believe there are conversations that wouldn't even happen if we were talking about cars rather than computers . Once you have a similar understanding of the communications technology being discussed, and the most appropriate transportation technology analogy, you can begin to see just how inappropriate some of the statements made about communications technology sound. When I was a witness in front of the C-32 committee I gave a version of my "I'm holding up four things" talk I had already given in multiple settings (See: Protecting property rights in a digital world ).  The intention is to clarify that when discussing TPMs the...

Section 92 of Canada's copyright act indicates: Review of Act 92 Five years after the day on which this section comes into force and at the end of each subsequent period of five years, a committee of the Senate, of the House of Commons or of both Houses of Parliament is to be designated or established for the purpose of reviewing this Act. 1997, c. 24, s. 50; 2012, c. 20, s. 58. On December 13'th the following was included in a motion by Bardish Chagger Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism: (c) the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology be the committee designated for the purposes of section 92 of the Copyright Act; and This indicates that in the new year that the INDU committee will be reviewing the Copyright Act. I was actively involved in the process last round.  I joined the process in the summer of 2001 when I heard that Canada was contemplating adding "technological protection measures" to...

One of the things I like about working at Canadiana.org is the links between what I'm paid for (systems and software design,administration,maintenance) and other aspects of my life. A project we have with the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) is an example. A Linked Open Data Internet Hosting Project Canadiana's primary involvement in the project is to host the Artefacts Canada Linked Open Data website . The platform was developed by another contractor for CHIN, and is built upon two NoSQL database servers with Solr for text search and Blazegraph  as a graph database .  The 'aclod' (Artefacts Canada Linked Open Data) application is written in Java , and runs within a Jetty . Part of why we wanted to partner with CHIN is that we are growing our access platform and need to explore graph database technology for Linked Open Data (LOD) projects.  The graph database would be in addition to our existing use of Solr, CouchDB and MySQL. Our metadata architect, softw...

Canadian born science fiction author Cory Doctorow writes many excellent articles which try to wake people up to the real technology debates we should be having, recently discussing self-driving cars .  He makes the appropriate link to what I call "dishonest relationship misinformation" (DRM), which some incorrectly call Digital Rights Management due to a confusion on how technology works (they believe it is the interests of copyright holders being protected, when it is the rights of technology owners being revoked). I always like to extend the discussion beyond questions about whether owners should be treated as threats to asking why we can't move away from these unethical questions to making the obvious ethical choice.  We never need to treat owners in an unethical (even if temporarily legally protected) way if we clarified who owns what. If a vehicle is owned by a taxi company or municipal transportation authority, it is obvious that its passengers should not be legal...

The following is the text of a letter sent to our Prime Minister, my local MP, and a few key ministers. The Right Honourable Justin P. J. Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada Copies to: David McGuinty, M.P., Ottawa South (my riding) The Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Minister of International Trade (asking for feedback on TPP) The Honourable Navdeep Singh Bains,  Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (Non-owner locks on digital technology has great impact on this portfolio. Industry Minister listed as responsible for Copyright Act currently tainted with problematic policy) The Honourable Kirsty Duncan,  Minister of Science (Support for problematic policy largely comes from science fiction belief of how technology works.  Policy needs scientific evidence based review) Prime Minister Trudeau, We met at your constituency office in July 2010, and you tweeted my summary of the meeting to your followers: https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/19273983682 We dis...

On Monday many co-workers were circulating around a links to political quizzes.  I was asked what I thought about one that included a copyright related question, and if I was happy that Copyright was considered important enough to be part of one of these quizzes. I would have been excited, except that what I found was one of those non-copyright related issues which people commonly lump in with copyright law -- including governments who add these non-copyright related issues to copyright acts. The issue is so-called "digital locks", which when applied to content in the form of encrypted media are a competition law issues (Tied selling) and when applied to devices and software is a property law issue (IE: non-owners applying locks to things they don't own). The wording of the question and the available answers were: Should the government allow digital publishers to place locks on their content (MP3s, etc)? Yes No Let the free market, instead of the government, decide Yes, ...

Most people have heard about the emissions scandal where Volkswagen was caught hiding the fact that they were deliberately breaking the law.  This specific issue is minor when compared to the inevitable fatalities which will result from vehicles that allow remote control, or medical devices where the person whose life is being maintained by the technology aren't allowed to independently audit what and whose instructions it is obeying. Harper amended the rules for a caretaker government this election so that his minister can continue pushing forward controversial policy which would lock Canadian law to disallow the required transparency and accountability of the very rules which govern everything from transportation and communications to medical devices and in some cases elections. While the "copyright" aspects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership are being covered elsewhere , there are non-copyright aspects embedded in the leaked Intellectual Property Rights Chapter  tha...

I've been asked over the last decade how my activism will change once Canadian legislation that includes Paracopyright passes. Will my activism be finished, and will I admit "defeat" if a bill abrogates the government's responsibility to protect IT property rights ? At one level this could be a question about whether I will honour the law, which isn't really a fair question. Conservative MP Lee Richardson ( Calgary Centre ) suggests my honouring the law is optional , saying "If a digital lock is broken for personal use, it is not realistic that the creator would choose to file a law suit against the consumer, due to legal fees and time involved." I suspect the fact one of my early submissions to the government in 2001 involved documenting my circumvention of a TPM for an otherwise lawful purpose suggests that I will continue to do the same. The more important answer is to state that our activism can not discontinue, and any passage of legislation i...

We should answer the question of whether a paywall is a copyright issue, before we dive into the question of the importance of this question for the debate around the Paracopyright provisions in Bill C-11. I am familiar with paywalls from the perspective of both a user and a provider of such services. I will offer two specific examples of paywalls to illustrate the issues. I have been a paid subscriber to The Hill Times since 2005. This is an example of a service that offers some access to anonymous browsers on the Internet, but offers advanced services (full access to search through considerable archives, access to all new articles, etc) only to paid subscribers. You use a simple username and password to log in to prove you are a subscribe. My current job is as a software author and system administrator for Canadiana.org . We offer anonymous access to some content, while other content is only available to paid subscribers. All the content is in the public domain, so copyright isn...

I was asked on twitter to explain why DRM is bad.  Given I have spent more than a decade talking about this topic, you would think there is a simple twitter-length answer: but there isn't. Whether you believe the acronym expands to Digital Rights Management, Digital Restrictions Management , or Dishonest Relationship Misinformation , it doesn't define a specific technology or technique.  The acronym is used to refer to non-controversial technologies such as databases describing content and eCommerce websites, to highly controversial things such as digital locks which lock out the owners of what is locked. We can't entirely avoid using confusing terms, as people will immediately say "Aren't you talking about DRM" when you want to speak about specific harmful activities.  It is very useful to be clear whenever the time is available. When some people are concerned about DRM they are concerned about the inability to loan electronic books, or to...