The current round of ACTA negotiations wrap up later today in Seoul, Korea. Having spent the first day focused on the now-leaked Internet provisions and the second day on the leaked criminal provisions, negotiators will spend this morning discussing whether they should make the draft treaty public. Many countries continue to face pressure on the transparency issue, with KEI posting a public letter to U.S. President Barack Obama this week on the issue. Past indications are that there is a split - some countries favour making the draft available immediately, while others prefer ongoing secrecy until the treaty is completed. Compromise positions apparently include allowing individual countries to make available text for which they are responsible.
At this stage, even ACTA supporters should be supportive of greater transparency. First, everything seems to leak anyways, so the substance of the treaty is already broadly known. Of course, there are specifics that have been shielded from public view, but there is enough out there to have generated an enormous backlash. Second, ACTA is quickly becoming so broadly discredited that it will be nearly impossible to garner public support for the treaty. "The secret copyright treaty" is hardly a selling feature for a treaty that may be dead-on-arrival in the minds of citizens around the world. Third, it is time for countries to make transparency a condition of participation. I have my doubts about the treaty as a whole - the recent Internet leaks should make it a non-starter from a Canadian perspective - but even if the substance is put to the side, governments should not be supporting secretive copyright talks.
The talks will end at 12:30 (Seoul time) with the release of a joint statement describing who participated along with a generic statement indicating discussions focused on Internet enforcement, criminal provisions, and transparency matters. It will conclude by indicating that the next round will be hosted by Mexico (most likely) in early 2010. But on a day devoted to secret talks on transparency, governments should drop the diplomatic language and be prepared to open up or get out.
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Crown copyright concerns were raised repeatedly during this summer's copyright consultation as many groups expressed the view that government works should be treated as public domain. The issue generated some surprise from Industry Minister Tony Clement, who asked for examples about why crown copyright was a problem. This morning, the Auditor General provided a helpful example as her office has sent takedown demands to the Globe and Mail and Scribd for posting one chapter from her report (Globe article, Scribd post). The office argues that crown copyright applies and that a written request for permission on a case-by-case basis is required. Leaving aside the fact that this is arguably fair dealing - it is news reporting and consists of one chapter from a much larger report - the very notion that Canadians need advance permission to post a portion of government report runs counter to the Auditor General's own efforts at government transparency and efficiency. The Auditor General should be encouraging broad dissemination of her work, not sending legal demand letters to shut down Internet postings.
This incident highlights yet again why the Canadian government needs a far more progressive approach to its own copyright policy. It should be leading by example by: (1) dropping crown copyright and (2) adopting Creative Commons licences on its work and sites to promote the use of government documents without permission (see this list for similar examples from around the world). Update: The Globe has reposted the chapter on Scribd roughly 24 hours after initially taking it down. It is good to see the paper stand up for fair dealing in this case. Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareThursday November 05, 2009 |
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