Last week I received a deeply troubling email from the Frontier School Division, which serves thirty-five communities and forty-one schools in remote/northern Manitoba. The school division wrote to the National Gallery of Canada last October requesting a copy of a photograph taken in 1850 of a then-young artist named Paul Kane. The request came after the Stark Museum in Orange, Texas donated four reproductions of Kane's paintings to the school division. The paintings were "coming home", with one of the portraits featuring Ogemawwah Chack, "The Spirit Chief," who is a direct ancestor of many local residents. It is the only likeness of this aboriginal elder in existence. The school district requested the photograph since it wanted to create an explanatory text to accompany the paintings.
In responding to the request, the National Gallery sought $150 for a copy of the photograph, more than ten times the fee charged by the National Archives for a similar service. Moreover, the Gallery claimed the right to see and approve final design proofs of the usage of this public domain image.
The School Division has produced a lengthy recount of the correspondence that followed (which they have kindly allowed me to post), including claims by the office of the Minister of Canadian Heritage that they could do little to help and further asserting that the Gallery holds copyright in the copy of the photograph. As the School Division notes:
"We have been involved in curriculum development at Frontier School Division for nearly two decades now, and have purchased hundreds of copies of archival photographs and paintings over the years at nothing more than the cost of reproduction. These copies have been used in our educational publications, which are expensive enough to create, without the additional costs that institutions like the National Gallery would like to charge us."
I'm not sure what is more remarkable: that our government officials would seek to deny that they have an important role to play in facilitating access to Canadian heritage or that this courageous school district would stand up and fight for access to its cultural heritage in the face of unyielding government and museum officials.
Just before Parliament broke for the summer, Canadian Heritage Liza Frulla claimed that she "does not need advice on protecting Canadian culture" given that "that is the story of [my] her life." If protecting Canadian culture means putting it under a pricey lock and key, perhaps not. Out of this sad tale, we must ultimately ask whether this Minister will recognize that support for Canadian heritage requires support for more than just large rights holder groups, who are frequently dominated by foreign interests? While I know that it can get noisy in an HMV record store, surely the Minister of Canadian Heritage can hear the cries of the archivists, historians, and other groups who are also directly part of the Minister's mandate.
Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareSunday July 10, 2005 |
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The Consumers Measures Committee, a committee comprised of federal, provincial, and territorial consumer protection representatives, has launched a public consultation on identity theft. The background paper identifies several potential legislative solutions including a requirement for organizations to notify consumers affected by a security breach; the placement of a fraud alert on a consumer's credit file; the ability for consumers to put a freeze on the sharing of their credit reports without prior notice; and a requirement for credit bureaus to take reasonable steps to authenticate persons accessing credit reports. Comments on the paper are due by September 15, 2005. Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareSunday July 10, 2005 |
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Late last week Canada became the first non-European country to sign the Council of Europe's Cybercrime Treaty Protocol that focuses on Internet hate. A few clarifications may be useful to ensure that people understand what this is and what it is not. First, the Council of Europe is not the European Union, but rather a separate (much larger) organization that includes countries such as Canada, the U.S., and Japan in many of their discussions. Second, the protocol has not yet taken legal effect. While it has many signatories, the protocol requires five ratifications to take effect. At the moment, four countries have ratified. Third, the protocol is a side agreement to the larger COE Cybercrime Treaty. Canada signed that treaty but has not yet ratified it either. The Cybercrime Treaty has raised some concerns as it extends well beyond the "traditional" notions of cybercrime to encompass issues such as copyright. Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareSunday July 10, 2005 |
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The Alberta Privacy Commissioner recently issued a noteworthy decision on the use of keystroke logging in the workplace that hits home for several reasons. First, the facts of the case: an employee at an Alberta library uncovered the fact that his supervisor had installed a keystroke logger program on his computer to monitor his activities. The supervisor claimed the move was made due to productivity concerns. The employee filed a complaint and last week Commissioner Frank Work ruled in favour of the employee. He found that the evidence did not support the supervisor's claims and that there were far less intrusive methods to address any productivity concerns. Moreover, the employee had actually been given permission to engage in Internet banking during work hours, yet this too was monitored and logged.
As I mentioned, this case has particular resonance for me. On a substantive level, it points to the disturbing level of unequal privacy protection in the Canadian workplace. This specific case involved a public institution in Alberta, but provincial privacy laws there would have provided some measure of protection for all workers. The same is not true for all Canadian provinces. In Ontario, workers at federally regulated businesses benefit from PIPEDA protection and workers at public institutions from public privacy laws. Moreover, workers in unionized settings also typically enjoy some level of protection. If you fall outside of those protected workplaces, however, you may be out of luck. That is simply wrong: the privacy protections against invasive surveillance enjoyed by some Canadians in the workplace must surely be enjoyed by all.
The case also resonates on a personal level. First, I wrote about these issues several years ago in a study for the Canadian Judicial Council, which was then concerned about the legality of electronic surveillance of the judiciary. The issues raised then remain valid today.
Second, I am very proud that the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), the public interest technology clinic at our law school, played a role in the case by providing a legal memo to the employee to help him pursue the case.
I receive regular requests for assistance and advice. I try to provide at least a short answer when I can, though admittedly the volume of correspondence is making that increasingly difficult. In any event, last June this employee sent me an email looking for help. I'm grateful that Pippa Lawson and her CIPPIC team jumped at the chance to get involved. CIPPIC has garnered considerable attention due to its involvement in the file sharing litigation. I think it has done a remarkable job in that case, but we should not overlook the fact that the clinic is helping to fill the void on many other important issues. Congratulations all round.
Update: CIPPIC has a short release on the case, while Dan Armeneau, the employee in the case, offers his thoughts on his blog.
Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareFriday July 08, 2005 |
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While some people may be taking a breather with the arrival of summer, commentary on Bill C-60 continues to trickle in. The latest comes from Brian Bowman, a lawyer in Winnipeg who writes a regular column for the Winnipeg Free Press. The paper features Copyright Changes Both Right and Wrong today in which Bowman supports the approach to ISPs, but criticizes the weak educational and library provisions. Bowman concludes that "the interests of large industry groups and creators of copyrighted materials have been better protected in the Bill. But individuals, and arguably the public good, may ultimately pay the price." Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareThursday July 07, 2005 |
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As I watch with admiration at the many sites that have added podcasts to their mix, I have been hoping to do the same. That may happen some time in the future, but in the meantime, I was recently interviewed for the Electric Sky podcast, a local Ottawa podcast site. We discussed Canadian copyright issues including some of the recent legislative proposals. I think I sound a bit subdued, but it was a fun experience and it is great to see the budding enthusiasm for these new forms of expression. Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareWednesday July 06, 2005 |
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The CBC Archive launched an interesting new feature today titled Inventing the Internet Age. The feature includes about 20 television and radio stories that trace the development of the Internet in the 1980s and early 1990s. The television stories from the early 1990s are particularly interesting as they include Bill Cameron reporting in October 1993 on "a computer network called internet" and Kevin Newman marveling over freenets and the ability to listen to music on something called the World Wide Web.
It is great that the CBC has pulled this together as it brings to mind just how much has changed in twelve years. The Internet has grown so dramatically in such a short period of time that we sometimes need these features to remind ourselves what we are experiencing in real time. I also think we need these features to remain humble about how much remains to be done. I suspect that the CBC Archive in 2015 that looks back at today's concerns such as file sharing will leave us shaking our heads wondering what all the fuss was about.
I also hope that the archive in 2015 will give Canadians far more rights to work with the content. The problem with today's archive is that all you can do with the content is watch or listen to it. Unlike the effort underway at the BBC, you can't use their stuff to create your stuff. This is an important historical record and it would be made that much better if the CBC would at least take some baby steps toward providing Canadians with greater access to the work that they have largely funded through their tax dollars.
Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareTuesday July 05, 2005 |
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The Globe and Mail ran yet another copyright masthead editorial today, A Line on File Sharing (reg. required), which predictably supported the U.S. Supreme Court's Grokster decision. Given its two other recent copyright editorials which virtually parroted the recording industry's position on copyright, it comes as little surprise to find the paper's editorial writers providing yet another ominous "memo to digital file-swappers." Reading these editorials, it makes one wish that the paper would read its own columnists such as Jack Kapica and Kate Taylor, who together provide some of the most balanced coverage of copyright, technology, and cultural issues in the Canadian media.
If they won't read their own people, however, perhaps they might want to read the competition. Last month I noted the Ottawa Citizen editorial on Bill C-60, which promisingly adopted a user rights perspective and has been rewarded with several supportive letters to the editor. Alternatively, they might take a look at this week's Economist (yes, the Economist) which not only had the sense to remove its editorial, Rip. Mix. Burn., from behind a paywall, but also measured its support for the Grokster decision by arguing for "a drastic reduction of copyright back to its original terms: 14 years, renewable once."
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Just as Canada and the U.S. were gearing up for a holiday weekend, there was a flurry of noteworthy policy developments. I expect that I will have more to say about each in the weeks ahead, so I only pause to comment briefly on each (in order of media coverage they generated) Internet governance, Internet pharmacies, and the conclusion of the Hague Conference Treaty on Jurisdiction and Enforcement of Judgments.
First, as many have discussed, the U.S. articulated a new (some would say old) position on Internet governance. While ICANN says that it is still working achieve independence, the U.S. might as well have said don't bother, since the NTIA now maintains that the U.S. position is that it "intends to preserve the security and stability of the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System (DNS). It will maintain its historic role in authorizing changes to the authoritative root zone file."
The bright light here is that the U.S. may have opened the door to a new deal on ccTLDs that would recognize national government sovereignty over their domains ("Governments have legitimate interest in the management of their country code top level domains (ccTLD)."). Assuming the U.S. retains ultimate control, however, they would essentially be "giving" countries the right to do as they see fit within their national borders, which is no more than a right they already have. The tougher question surrounds the right associated with a national domain in the global root zone file. If the U.S. isn't budging here, that spells a potential showdown as few countries are content to leave final control over a key resource to the U.S.
The Canadian position on Internet governance is certainly worth watching. Industry Canada issued a call for comments last week on Internet governance that said little about where Canada stands, other than noting that security and reliability are paramount issues. Canada has traditionally been supportive of the U.S. position, but one must wonder whether such unconditional support is warranted given the recent U.S. policy shift.
Second, the Canadian government is apparently planning to address the Internet pharmacy issue by restricting bulk sales of pharmaceuticals to the United States. This actually represents a shift in what most might have predicted several months ago. Reduced bulk sales will have some impact on Canadian Internet pharmacies, but won't kill the industry. This issue has the same feeling engendered by the copyright file: Canada tries to establish a policy that meets its national interest and seeks to provide its foreign partners (ie. the U.S.) with some satisfaction. The U.S. responds by saying thanks, but not good enough.
Third, amid absolutely no media coverage, the Hague Conference on Private International Law has apparently concluded a treaty on jurisdiction and enforcement of judgments. The Internet presents significant challenges for traditional laws and many observers have expressed the view that the best solution may lie in developing international agreements. I am skeptical of that view, but negotiators at the Hague have worked for more than a decade on a treaty that would address some Internet jurisdiction issues (though the treaty is not Internet specific). No final language yet, but Manon Ress has some details on what transpired.
Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareMonday July 04, 2005 |
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Apologies to RSS feed subscribers who experienced feed overload this afternoon. We were working to shift the new feed to old subscribers without necessitating a new url. I'm told that we were successful, but not before subscribers received multiple versions of the same postings in their readers. The problem should be solved, but note that the new site has a wider selection of more stable feeds that may make switching worthwhile. The full list is on the RSS Feed page. Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareMonday July 04, 2005 |
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