Earlier this week I
listened
to (MP3) an interview of Margaret Atwood by
Spartan Youth
Radio reporter Madeline Lemire. I found I agreed with some
of the views of Ms. Atwood. This surprised me because I was aware of
some of her views on Copyright, and because of this I had become
wilfully ignorant of her work. I did not want to financially support
someone I felt was a political opponent.
A typical quote from Ms.
Atwood on Copyright can be found in Excess
Copyright articles such as Speaking
of Smear Campaigns and More
Margaret Atwood on Copyright.
Ms. Atwood is
quoted as having stated the following as part of her testimony in
1996 to the Parliamentary Committee that produced dreadful
amendments to that years Copyright Bill C-32.
"In conclusion,
I want to emphasis that writers are small business people and our
copyrights are often our only real assets. Exceptions to copyright
are an expropriation of our property against our will. If copyrights
were cars, this would be car theft."
I strongly disagree with this
statement for two key reasons. First, I document in the article
Jefferson
Debate: A Godwin's law for copyright discussions
why I reject the analogy of copyright to tangible property. This
analogy confuses people as to what is owned, and the effect of
infringement or changes in copyright law to what is owned. Copyright
infringement is at its worst an unlawful reduction of the property
value of a copyright, and changing the contours of copyright such as
limitations or exceptions also only changes the property value of a
copyright. It does not expropriate anything, and there is nothing
that can be reasonably considered theft in either copyright reform or
copyright infringement.
Secondly, this statement by
Ms. Atwood misrepresents the fact that most exceptions to copyright
are for the benefit of authors trying to create or receive economic
value from new works. In the vast majority of cases these limits do
not reduce the value of the copyright at all. Limits to past
copyright must exist if new creative works are to be possible. Copyright is a balance between the interests of past creators and the
interests of new creators, and it is simply wrong to suggest that
tilting the balance too far in favor of past creators is of benefit
to authors.
The strongest views I have in
the copyright debate aren't really about copyright at all, but about
some of the alleged "solutions" to copyright infringement. The two areas come under the title of "circumvention of
technological measures" or "ISP liability", but are
about who sets the rules that communications technology will obey. They don't protect copyright, but instead replace copyright as the
primary rule-making and rule-enforcing infrastructure.
The January
10 & 12'th episode of CBC's Spark included a
description of The
Companions Project. From their website they say that,
"This will be an agent or 'presence' that stays with the user
for long periods of time, developing a relationship and 'knowing' its
owners preferences and wishes."
After listening to the episode
I posted the following as a comment.
I have come
to believe that the two most important questions to ask about any
digital technology are: is the device locked, and who holds the keys.
If the owner holds the keys, this is a neat
prosthetic device that serves both as companion and external memory
for people. In this context I would be happy to recommend it for a
parent or grandparent. I would be excited to have stories shared with
me that the parent/grandparent wouldn't think I would be interested
enough to tell me without the help of this companion.
If
someone else holds the keys, this is a turncoat fake-friend who will
relay the secrets it learns to its real masters who might use this
intimate knowledge to scam the user out of their life savings (or
worse). In this context I would do anything I possibly could to
protect my parents and grandparents from such devices.
As
an author in a few genres that include Dystopian fiction, I believe
Ms. Atwood would be quite able to write about the social and other
problems where it is someone (government or private sector doesn't
matter, and sometimes are interchanged in Dystopian fiction) other
than the person who possesses technology that controls the
technology.
This isn't the case for all
authors. There are authors, including with some of the writers
groups Ms. Atwood has represented in the past, who support the 1996
WIPO treaties and the "Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement
in the Digital Environment" sections of ACTA (Orwellian
double-speak titled Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). These
provisions call for revoking citizen control over communications.
technology (See: Protecting
property rights in a digital world if you haven't
read it already).
These foreign-lock supporters
have told me that if I don't like content that is tied to
foreign-locked technology, and don't like foreign-locked devices,
that I can just not buy them. This suggestion is about as
reasonable as telling someone who doesn't like the laws of the
country that they are a citizen of that they can just move (the rich
and powerful have that choice, most people do not). This is made
worse in this case as these extremists want to export their views on
locked technology globally.
Listening to the interview of
Ms. Atwood, I couldn't help but wonder what she would think of a
world where the primary means of communication and creativity was
under foreign lock and key. Unlike some authors who seem quite fine
with the idea of returning to their typewriters, I wonder if she
would understand the larger social and political implications.
I notice that a number of her
books are available
as unlocked (IE: DRM-free) audio books on eMusic. I plan
to purchase her latest (The Year of the Flood) as my next eMusic
audio-book download. Was making this available something her
publisher did, or something that she is aware of and supports?
I've not yet met Ms. Atwood,
but I am now very curious about what she thinks about what is
happening in technology law, and the threats to authors and other
creative people being justified in the name of authors -- or if she
has yet been made aware.
---
Russell McOrmond is a self employed consultant,
policy coordinator for CLUE:
Canada's Association for Free/Libre and Open Source Software,
co-coordinator for Getting Open Source Logic INto Governments (GOSLING),
and host for Digital
Copyright Canada.
