The Conference Board of Canada's Digital Economy report makes the front page once again as the Ottawa Citizen runs a second major story on the questions raised by its report. Following on yesterday's front page story on plagiarism concerns, the paper today reports on the Conference Board's decision to ignore […]
News
Conference Board Ignored Independent Study Commissioned For Digital Economy Report
As the media coverage of the Conference Board's Digital Economy report continues (CBC, Mediacaster), a new revelation has emerged. The Conference Board of Canada's defence included the following statement:
In the course of the research, the authors reviewed the full spectrum of arguments surrounding the issue of intellectual property rights in Canada. The final report includes those arguments considered most relevant to the policy under review.
A review of the report finds that the only arguments that the Conference Board seems to have adopted come directly from the International Intellectual Property Alliance, since it is their work (and words) that are recycled repeatedly in the report. What the Conference Board does not mention in its defence (nor in the report) is that it actually commissioned a study on the copyright issues from an independent Canadian legal expert. That report was completed by Professor Jeremy deBeer, a colleague at the University of Ottawa and frequent contributor to the Globe and Mail on copyright matters.
Professor deBeer has just revealed his involvement and posted a working paper based on his report submitted to the Conference Board of Canada. It turns out the deBeer was precluded from using the work for 12 months, a period that concluded today. It is immediately apparent that the deBeer paper arrived at very different conclusions from the IIPA and the Conference Board. In particular, it recommends:
Conference Board Plagiarism Story Front Page News, Gov’t Says It Contributed $15K To Report
The mainstream media has picked up on the story involving Conference Board of Canada's Digital Economy report and concerns about plagiarism and inaccuracies. The Ottawa Citizen features a lengthy piece on the front page of the paper that frames the issue as part of the larger battle over copyright policy […]
Conference Board of Canada Responds, Stands By Its Report
The Conference Board of Canada has issued a response to my posting on its Digital Economy report. The organization defends the report, arguing that there was only one case of a missed citation (which it has corrected) and acknowledging that "some of the cited paragraphs closely approximate the wording of […]
The Conference Board of Canada’s Deceptive, Plagiarized Digital Economy Report
The Conference Board of Canada bills itself as "the foremost, independent, not-for-profit applied research organization in Canada. Objective and non-partisan. We do not lobby for specific interests." These claims should take a major hit based on last week's release of a deceptive, plagiarized report on the digital economy that copied text from the International Intellectual Property Alliance (the primary movie, music, and software lobby in the U.S.), at times without full attribution. The report itself was funded by copyright lobby groups (U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network, Copyright Collective of Canada which represents U.S. film production) along with the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. The role of the Ontario government obviously raises questions about taxpayer dollars being used to pay for a report that simply recycles the language of a U.S. lobby group paper.
Start with the press release promoting the study, titled "Canada Seen as the File Swapping Capital of the World" which claims:
As a result of lax regulation and enforcement, internet piracy appears to be on the increase in Canada. The estimated number of illicit downloads (1.3 billion) is 65 times higher than the number legal downloads (20 million), mirroring the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s conclusion that Canada has the highest per capita incidence of unauthorized file-swapping in the world.
While the release succeeded in generating attention, the report does not come close to supporting these claims. The headline-grabbing claim of 1.3 billion unauthorized downloads relies on a January 2008 Canadian Recording Industry Association press release. That release cites a 2006 Pollara survey as the basis for the statement. In other words, the Conference Board relies on a survey of 1200 people conducted more than three years ago to extrapolate to a claim of 1.3 billion unauthorized downloads (the survey itself actually ran counter to many of CRIA's claims). The OECD study that the Conference Board says found the highest per capita incidence of unauthorized file sharing in the world did not reach that conclusion. The report – which is based on six year old data that is now out-of-date – was limited to the 30 OECD countries (not the world) and did not make any comment or determination on unauthorized activity.
That is just the press release – the report itself is even worse as it is largely a copy of the IIPA 2008 Special 301 Report on Canada. Given the lack of attribution in some instances, this work would face possible plagiarism sanctions in almost any academic environment. Even where there is attribution, the chart below demonstrates that the report simply adopts the IIPA positions and language as its own.
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