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ltmurnauCanadian writers, publishers gather to consider Google book-digitalization
Last Updated: Monday, March 23, 2009 | 1:20 PM ET
CBC News
Canadian publishers and authors have been gathering at workshops to explore the legal ramifications of internet giant Google's massive book-digitization initiative.
The sessions are being held in advance of the May 5 deadline for authors and publishers to opt out of Google's plan to digitize 20 million books and distribute them online and to new devices.
Google began its digitizing project in 2005, with the Authors Guild of America accusing the company of "massive copyright infringement" and spearheading a class-action lawsuit against it. The company is digitizing books regardless of copyright, but only displaying snippets of those not yet in the public domain, claiming "fair use."
In October, however, the two sides reached a complex, out-of-court settlement, which includes the company paying a minimum $60 US per work to the rights holders of the approximately seven million books already scanned.
The settlement also details how Google will offer registered authors 63 per cent of potential sales, subscription and ad revenues of the digitized works.
"They're not selling [the digitized books] yet. I think, down the road, that's what their intention is," Wayne Grady, chair of the Writers' Union of Canada, told CBC News. "I mean why wouldn't it be?"
The union has recommended that authors accept the settlement deal, which if approved by a U.S. court, will apply to writers in more than 200 countries, including Canada.
"I think it's a tremendous opportunity," said author Penney Kome, who says the initiative will help give people around the globe better access to books.
"The ambition to control all of the world's information is certainly cause for concern, but the internet will have all the information in the world on it one way or another," Kome said after watching a session about the settlement in Toronto.
However, Katherine Gordon is among the 18 Canadian writers so far who have chosen to opt out, which allows them to launch a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google if their books are digitized without their permission.
"When I started looking at it, the alarm bells started ringing very, very loudly," Gordon said.
"I've been canvassing all the writers I know and their automatic response almost every time is: 'What do you mean by the Google book settlement?' " she added.
Last week, Google announced it would make 500,000 digitized books — all published before 1923 and no longer protected by copyright — available for free on Sony's e-book device.
In February, the company made 500,000 digitized public-domain books available to Canadian mobile devices like smart phones. More than one million titles are available in the U.S. because of differing copyright laws.
***
I wonder how many of those seven million books are by Canadians.
Katherine Gordon, one of the 18 Canadians who opted out, is "a globe-trotting half-French, half-English expatriate Kiwi and a former lawyer and aboriginal land claims negotiator ... lives on Gabriola Island, British Columbia, where she relishes the food she grows and the beauty of an untamed garden." She has written four books, all put out by the diminutive Sono Nis Press: a history of land surveying in British Columbia, one about the Slocan Valley, one about gardens and gardening, and one biography of Princess Abkhazi, who had a large garden. The sixty bucks might help out, at that.
And:
New Zealand yanks copyright law that would force ISPs to cut off violators
Move could influence international trade agreement, including with Canada
Last Updated: Monday, March 23, 2009 | 1:03 PM ET
CBC News
A controversial law that would have forced internet service providers in New Zealand to cut off service to repeat copyright violators will not come into force this week as scheduled, the government announced Monday.
"Allowing section 92A to come into force in its current format would not be appropriate given the level of uncertainty around its operation," Commerce Minister Simon Power said in a statement.
He maintained that large-scale copyright infringement as a result of "unlawful" file sharing is still an important issue.
"While the government remains intent on tackling this problem," he added, "the legislation itself needs to be re-examined and reworked to address concerns held by stakeholders and the government."
Section 92A is part of an amendment to the country's 1994 Copyright Act to deal with new technologies and bring it up to date with its obligations under the World Intellectual Property Organization treaty. The amendment, introduced in 2006, gained royal assent in November 2008.
Power acknowledged Monday that ISPs and copyright holders have been trying to negotiate a policy to implement Section 92A, and their discussions "have exposed some aspects of section 92A which require further consideration."
New Zealand's decision comes at a time when Canada is working on modernizing its own copyright legislation and negotiating an international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement with a group of countries that include New Zealand, the European Union, the U.S. and other nations around the world.
File sharers use internet for other activities: researcher
David Fewer, acting director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, based out of the University of Ottawa, said a major problem with rules like New Zealand's "three-strike" rule forcing ISPs to disconnect copyright violators is that even rampant file sharers use the internet for far more than just downloading songs, movies and other copyrighted material.
They also use it to engage in e-commerce, communication and dialogue, and a growing number of other important activities, Fewer said.
Therefore, cutting them off from internet service might be unconstitutional in Canada and in the U.S., he suggested.
Michael Geist, Canada research chair of internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, said Monday that a similar approach to the New Zealand law has been rejected in both Germany and in the U.K., although France is still considering it.
However, none of this stopped the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) from announcing in December that it would start asking U.S. ISPs to send warnings to customers who allegedly commit copyright infringement. It is also asking them to possibly follow that up by slowing down the customer's connection speed and ultimately cancelling their access. The RIAA alleged it already had agreements in principle with some ISPs.
Fewer said that with respect to the trade agreement under negotiation, the possibility of enforcement rules similar to New Zealand's three-strikes rule are likely being discussed, but it is hard to know because the process is not very transparent.
He suggested the controversy over such rules and whether they might be unconstitutional will likely stop them from becoming part of the agreement, "but you never know," he added.
He added that the government involved in the negotiations is the same one that brought the rule in to begin with.
"Maybe they can bring their experience to the table and identify that this just isn't acceptable to the population," he said.
"Or maybe they bring the complete opposite perspective — maybe they say, 'Look, we can't do this on our own. We need the obligations of a trade agreement to get this in place.'"
Meanwhile, Canada's minority Conservative government indicated as part of its election platform that it plans to reintroduce copyright reform to replace Bill C-61, a copyright reform bill introduced last spring that died when the election was called in the fall.
That bill did not include a "three-strikes" rule, but was in other ways more restrictive with respect to consumers' rights than New Zealand's act. For example, while the New Zealand act allows librarians to circumvent some digital locks on behalf of consumers, the Canadian bill proposed banning the breaking of digital locks altogether.
Both Fewer and Geist said Canada should pay attention to what is going on in New Zealand, as it says something about what consumers will consider acceptable policies.
"I think the events in New Zealand highlight yet again how copyright has emerged as a mainstream issue with people willing to make their voices heard against reforms that do not adequately address user concerns," Geist said in an email.
"Looking ahead, the Canadian government should factor this new reality into any future copyright bill."
***
Last Updated: Monday, March 23, 2009 | 1:20 PM ET
CBC News
Canadian publishers and authors have been gathering at workshops to explore the legal ramifications of internet giant Google's massive book-digitization initiative.
The sessions are being held in advance of the May 5 deadline for authors and publishers to opt out of Google's plan to digitize 20 million books and distribute them online and to new devices.
Google began its digitizing project in 2005, with the Authors Guild of America accusing the company of "massive copyright infringement" and spearheading a class-action lawsuit against it. The company is digitizing books regardless of copyright, but only displaying snippets of those not yet in the public domain, claiming "fair use."
In October, however, the two sides reached a complex, out-of-court settlement, which includes the company paying a minimum $60 US per work to the rights holders of the approximately seven million books already scanned.
The settlement also details how Google will offer registered authors 63 per cent of potential sales, subscription and ad revenues of the digitized works.
"They're not selling [the digitized books] yet. I think, down the road, that's what their intention is," Wayne Grady, chair of the Writers' Union of Canada, told CBC News. "I mean why wouldn't it be?"
The union has recommended that authors accept the settlement deal, which if approved by a U.S. court, will apply to writers in more than 200 countries, including Canada.
"I think it's a tremendous opportunity," said author Penney Kome, who says the initiative will help give people around the globe better access to books.
"The ambition to control all of the world's information is certainly cause for concern, but the internet will have all the information in the world on it one way or another," Kome said after watching a session about the settlement in Toronto.
However, Katherine Gordon is among the 18 Canadian writers so far who have chosen to opt out, which allows them to launch a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google if their books are digitized without their permission.
"When I started looking at it, the alarm bells started ringing very, very loudly," Gordon said.
"I've been canvassing all the writers I know and their automatic response almost every time is: 'What do you mean by the Google book settlement?' " she added.
Last week, Google announced it would make 500,000 digitized books — all published before 1923 and no longer protected by copyright — available for free on Sony's e-book device.
In February, the company made 500,000 digitized public-domain books available to Canadian mobile devices like smart phones. More than one million titles are available in the U.S. because of differing copyright laws.
***
I wonder how many of those seven million books are by Canadians.
Katherine Gordon, one of the 18 Canadians who opted out, is "a globe-trotting half-French, half-English expatriate Kiwi and a former lawyer and aboriginal land claims negotiator ... lives on Gabriola Island, British Columbia, where she relishes the food she grows and the beauty of an untamed garden." She has written four books, all put out by the diminutive Sono Nis Press: a history of land surveying in British Columbia, one about the Slocan Valley, one about gardens and gardening, and one biography of Princess Abkhazi, who had a large garden. The sixty bucks might help out, at that.
And:
New Zealand yanks copyright law that would force ISPs to cut off violators
Move could influence international trade agreement, including with Canada
Last Updated: Monday, March 23, 2009 | 1:03 PM ET
CBC News
A controversial law that would have forced internet service providers in New Zealand to cut off service to repeat copyright violators will not come into force this week as scheduled, the government announced Monday.
"Allowing section 92A to come into force in its current format would not be appropriate given the level of uncertainty around its operation," Commerce Minister Simon Power said in a statement.
He maintained that large-scale copyright infringement as a result of "unlawful" file sharing is still an important issue.
"While the government remains intent on tackling this problem," he added, "the legislation itself needs to be re-examined and reworked to address concerns held by stakeholders and the government."
Section 92A is part of an amendment to the country's 1994 Copyright Act to deal with new technologies and bring it up to date with its obligations under the World Intellectual Property Organization treaty. The amendment, introduced in 2006, gained royal assent in November 2008.
Power acknowledged Monday that ISPs and copyright holders have been trying to negotiate a policy to implement Section 92A, and their discussions "have exposed some aspects of section 92A which require further consideration."
New Zealand's decision comes at a time when Canada is working on modernizing its own copyright legislation and negotiating an international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement with a group of countries that include New Zealand, the European Union, the U.S. and other nations around the world.
File sharers use internet for other activities: researcher
David Fewer, acting director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, based out of the University of Ottawa, said a major problem with rules like New Zealand's "three-strike" rule forcing ISPs to disconnect copyright violators is that even rampant file sharers use the internet for far more than just downloading songs, movies and other copyrighted material.
They also use it to engage in e-commerce, communication and dialogue, and a growing number of other important activities, Fewer said.
Therefore, cutting them off from internet service might be unconstitutional in Canada and in the U.S., he suggested.
Michael Geist, Canada research chair of internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, said Monday that a similar approach to the New Zealand law has been rejected in both Germany and in the U.K., although France is still considering it.
However, none of this stopped the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) from announcing in December that it would start asking U.S. ISPs to send warnings to customers who allegedly commit copyright infringement. It is also asking them to possibly follow that up by slowing down the customer's connection speed and ultimately cancelling their access. The RIAA alleged it already had agreements in principle with some ISPs.
Fewer said that with respect to the trade agreement under negotiation, the possibility of enforcement rules similar to New Zealand's three-strikes rule are likely being discussed, but it is hard to know because the process is not very transparent.
He suggested the controversy over such rules and whether they might be unconstitutional will likely stop them from becoming part of the agreement, "but you never know," he added.
He added that the government involved in the negotiations is the same one that brought the rule in to begin with.
"Maybe they can bring their experience to the table and identify that this just isn't acceptable to the population," he said.
"Or maybe they bring the complete opposite perspective — maybe they say, 'Look, we can't do this on our own. We need the obligations of a trade agreement to get this in place.'"
Meanwhile, Canada's minority Conservative government indicated as part of its election platform that it plans to reintroduce copyright reform to replace Bill C-61, a copyright reform bill introduced last spring that died when the election was called in the fall.
That bill did not include a "three-strikes" rule, but was in other ways more restrictive with respect to consumers' rights than New Zealand's act. For example, while the New Zealand act allows librarians to circumvent some digital locks on behalf of consumers, the Canadian bill proposed banning the breaking of digital locks altogether.
Both Fewer and Geist said Canada should pay attention to what is going on in New Zealand, as it says something about what consumers will consider acceptable policies.
"I think the events in New Zealand highlight yet again how copyright has emerged as a mainstream issue with people willing to make their voices heard against reforms that do not adequately address user concerns," Geist said in an email.
"Looking ahead, the Canadian government should factor this new reality into any future copyright bill."
***
no subject
Date: 2009-03-30 06:42 pm (UTC)http://thetyee.ca/Entertainment/2009/03/27/RemixManifesto/