Peter Shawn Taylor with a lengthy piece in the National Post on copyright.
National Post Op-Ed On Copyright
Tags: copyright / National Post / peter shawn taylorCopyright Microsite - Mainstream Media CoverageCopyright Canada
2 Comments
Recent Posts
We Need More Canada in the Training Data: My Appearance Before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on AI and the Creative Sector 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 247: My Senate Appearance on the Bill That Could Lead to Canada-Wide Blocking of X, Reddit and ChatGPT 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 246: Mohamed Zohiri on the Rise and Emerging Regulation of Stablecoins 
Senate Bill Would Grant Government Regulatory Power to Mandate Age Verification For Search, Social Media and AI Services Accompanied By Threat of Court Ordered Blocking of Lawful Content 
Government Reverses on Bill C-2: Removes Lawful Access Warrantless Demand Powers in New Border Bill
Bad Article
It’s a bad article. Interesting from the historical perspective, but bad in that it characterizes you, Michael, as a copyright “free for all” whacko. We know that this is not the case. I’d love to see you write a strongly worded response to that article, which does not mention the issues of DRM at all.
Good Comments
Truly one of the best comments posted on that link:
The historical examples of artists losing profit via unlicensed copying is subtly different from the current state of affairs. These are examples of distributors in other jurisdictions profiting from the work of an artist w/o their permission. In each of the examples, the jurisdiction is attempting to bolster a newly minted industry at the expense of an established industry.
The current digital copyright issue is a case of existing (licensed) distributors worried losing their profit margin. There’s no proof that downloading has actually damaged this profit margin. In fact, changes in distribution (i.e. Walmart’s cheaper prices) may be the primary source of losses in the music industry.
In any case, those who download a work w/o license do not map directly into these historical examples. First, they typically use the unlicensed work for personal use rather than selling it (as a distributor might). Second, there’s no indication that they would have actually purchased the work had they not gained access to an unlicensed copy.