Just as Industry Minister Jim Prentice is about to unveil the Canadian DMCA, the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook Group has passed the 20,000 member mark. Copyright's 10K became Copyright's 20K in only five more days. The continued growth of this group – picked up today by Mathew Ingram in the Globe and Mail – speaks volumes about the public concern over the government's approach to copyright and I expect that we will see this group become even larger and more active in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, Jason Crocker has created a Facebook application that allows members to receive a direct feed of recent developments and advocacy opportunities right in their Facebook profile.
Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook Group Passes 20,000 Members
Tags: cdmca / Copyright Canada / copyright for canadians / Copyright Microsite - Canadian Copyright / facebook / prentice
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Why NOT RSS
I completely understand the power of social networking that Facebook currently enjoys and I’m happy to see the rapid growth of the Copyrights for Canadians webpage.
BUT.
The fact that Canadians MUST REGISTER with a US based company in order to express our concerns about copyright and fair-use should not be overlooked.
The application you speak off sound A LOT like an RSS feed but unfortunately without a Facebook account you don’t get the feed. Considering the serious nature of the fight we’re going into I would really hope that we could find an OPEN and Made in Canada solution to organize and rally Canadians around this issue.
mliving – You can track what’s happening at Copyright For Canadians at [ link ] — one of the sources we use as a source is Jason’s Facebook app.
So after we pass the 22,000 mark, which would surpass ACTRA’s reported “over 21,000” membership, will we still be considered a “vocal minority”?
Vocal Minority
Perhaps we of the “vocal minority” should be granted the status of a “Nation”, like the Conservatives did for Quebec. Then all of our problems will be solved and we will be happy and we’ll go away, right?
Seriously though, I am amazed at how many people actually use Facebook, let alone how many of them joined the Fair Copyright for Canada group and how quickly they did so. I think that speaks volumes about how we actually are living the future right now, but are for whatever reason not living up to the visions of the visionaries from previous generations. Sceince fiction writers, such as Isaac Asimov, described governments that used computers to poll the feelings of their people on important issues so that they may be taken into consideration. We could actually DO that right now in Canada, were there the motivation to do so. This Facebook group is a great example of plausible the concept really is and given the proper investment of time and research, I’m sure Canada could create a forum for all Canadians to have their voice heard.
Let’s face it, our house of representatives are primarily a bunch of partisans with only a few independent people holding seats. This means that often times a member of parliment will vote for his party’s ideals, even when he knows his constituents (and perhaps himself as well) disagree with the party’s stance. Adding a national forum of awareness and consulation with all Canadians on all tabled bills is worthy of the investment. And, if the government was not interested in informing “the lay peoples”, then there would be a publicly funded TV station called CPAC. In the end, just what is the average person supposed to do with their feelings on matters, gleened from their research of publicly released information on policies, etc. if the only people who can make a difference in their name, their MP or MPP, just tow the party line regardless of input and feedback from consituents?
We have to do something and this Facebook group shows we’re more than willing to do it on our own as a nation of individuals united by a cause, when our house of representatives refuses to be our voice. Good show Canada. There is hope yet for us.
While watching the HOC feed just now, it seems that Minister Prentice has chosen not to introduce the bill this morning, as the opportunity for MP’s to introduce government bills has passed, with no members of the government rising to speak. Perhaps the vocal minority isn’t so minor anymore.
[ link ]
Live feed.
Testing Waters
I’ve been keeping an eye on our site meter over at http://www.canadiancynic.blogspot.com where I write as pretty shaved ape. About 7% of our traffic this morning has been from government. We normally get that many gc hits in a day if we’ve been totally snotty. I suspect that they are seeing whether we’ll let up. And thanks R. Bassett for the “vocal Minority” idea, I’ll be including that in my letter to ACTRA later today.
I must loggin to see the facebook page?
Don’t hide, make it open to the public!!!
I think it is just an error (the actual link is [ link ] while it should be [ link ]).
Until yesterday it was working but meanwhile it was done some layout editing.
Concerned Dude
about 2 days and over 8500 new members at that rate even if it goes at 2000 a day in a month we’d have 70,000 signed up. I also have found that firefox adblocker blocks facebooks posting image and leaves a little grey line that if a user right clicks and copies the url and pastes to a new tab it shows the image so you can paste , this also is why i did not initially sign up.
It might be due in part to my stricter ad blocking but am not sure how many others were blocked by that as facebook has a ton of ads.
and ill be at the protest