Ahead of the curve

Simple and fluid a process model must be

2011-07-12T17:50:00Z

Mapping out a process model is important for buy-in from all those who will be affected. But even a good process can get tossed out the window if the model doesn’t convey what it’s supposed to ...(read more)

Toronto SAM Summit on June 16, 2011

2011-06-14T14:51:00Z

For those looking to be educated on software license management for the purpose of dealing with audits, license compliance and contract negotiations with software vendors such as Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc., Toronto SAM Summit is taking place on June 16, 2011.

The one-day conference, hosted this year by Toronto-based OnX Enterprise Solutions Ltd., will feature expert speakers including:

Sherry Irwin, president of Technology Asset Management Inc.

Jason Keogh, founder and chief technology officer ofiQuate

Steve O’Halloran, founder and CEO of AssetLabs Inc.

Jon Mulligan, founder of OpenPlain

Conference registration is free to qualified registrants. Plus, there’s a chance to win a 64GB BlackBerry PlayBook.

Tying a corporate noose around social media can be tricky

2011-05-13T16:22:00Z

A lawyer I spoke with who specializes in defamation lawsuits said the sheer nature of social media—the ease with which users can post comments—presents a hazard for employers who could find themselves facing a defamation lawsuit for something an employee has posted using a work machine or device.

The lawyer suggested ways to mitigate the risk for employers. Those included what one might expect, such as establishing clear policies regarding using social media on work assets, as well as educating and training staff on the consequences of defamatory statements.

But, perhaps less likely to find success in an organization was his suggestion of a formal approval process that would include a team of reviewers to double-check content before it gets posted. The challenge with making that work is the success of social media is partly rooted in the empowerment of end users to engage directly with their chosen audience in the manner of their choosing.

While an approval process will surely reduce risk of defamation lawsuits, such a formal process would surely negate end user autonomy by preventing employees the freedom of posting content in the rapid, personalized way that social media sites afford.

Approving what goes out will work for a company’s official marketing voice, but auditing the average employee tweeting for their own amusement will be a little bit more difficult.

That said, as social media does increasingly become a bona fide tool in the workplace, some sort of control process will naturally begin to form as organizations learn from their mistakes. But, hopefully, not the sort of mistake that begets a lawsuit.

Read the news story:Beware defamation lawsuits from social media use: lawyer

Follow Kathleen Lau on Twitter:@KathleenLau

VIDEO: Cisco exec on turning the network into 'the platform'

2011-05-06T13:13:00Z

Scott Puopolo, a vice-president at network provider Cisco Systems Inc., visited Toronto last month where he spoke to ComputerWorld Canada, in this short video, about a new paradigm that sees the network becoming “the platform.”

By that, Puopolo means, that with device proliferation and worker mobility, the network should have a “unifying capability” to grant users access to any information at any time.

http://video.itworldcanada.com/?bcpid=7044989001&bctid=932760938001

Read the full story: VANOC’s John Furlong on the IT road to the Olympics

Follow Kathleen Lau on Twitter:@KathleenLau

How WestJet solved service governance in SOA

2011-04-21T13:49:00Z

WestJet Airlines Ltd.’s enterprise architect, Bill Souliere, recounts on camera his company’s approach to services-oriented architecture and the very surprising hurdle they faced in terms of governance of services. Here’s how they resolved it …

http://video.itworldcanada.com/?bcpid=7044989001&bctid=906154366001

Read thefull story from IBM’s Impact conference in Las Vegas this year.

Follow Kathleen Lau on Twitter: @KathleenLau

IBM not so Smart at home

2011-03-21T17:03:00Z

In light of thelawsuit by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, IBM Corp. should have perhaps started in-house first with its vision to implement processes and controls for better visibility and management in its quest to build a Smarter Planet.

According to a lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, IBM Corp. has been charged with doling out hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to Chinese and South Korean officials. The deeds are said to total US$207,000 in gifts, travel and entertainment in recent years that were given out, in some cases, through “slush funds” created at travel agencies.

The SEC, in documents filed last week, stated the Armonk, New York-based software vendor lacked internal controls that could have prevented the bribing from happening. IBM has agreed to pay US$10 million to settle the lawsuit.

What’s unfortunate is that IBM is always preaching visibility and management through established process as part of its Smarter Planet vision. The company believes that with the right technology, such as intelligent devices and data analytics, coupled with good process design and implementation, the world will function more intelligently and efficiently.

Yet, in light of the SEC lawsuit, the company is found to have been lacking in internal controls that would have allowed them just that insight and management of certain embarrassing events.

This one of course boils down to bad employee behaviour. But process is still about setting guidelines for acceptable conduct in the business and ensuring that all staff is aware and trained on it.

I suppose it’s true what they say that before you can change the whole world, you must first focus efforts on the home front.

Follow Kathleen Lau on Twitter:@KathleenLau

Investment Banking for Gold Medals: Going Cloud

2011-03-11T19:51:00Z

Meet IT manager Jason Cox, who single-handedly manages IT at Own The Podium, a Calgary-based organization that aggregates and shares athlete performance and funding data to Canadian athletes and coaches. At a recent roundtable discussion about cloud adoption, Cox outlines Own The Podium’s path to the cloud. He discusses the scalability that suits the four-year Olympic Games cycle, but he also acknowledges fear of potentially putting sensitive data in the cloud. While most companies tout the cost benefits of the cloud, Cox did say Own The Podium’s path to the cloud is probably capped at this point because putting anything further in the cloud for this small organization will prove more costly than staying on-premise.

Read coverage of the discussion that also features Trow Associates Inc.:‘Why Bother Workshop’ helpful in cloud adoption: exec

Follow KathleenLauon Twitter:@KathleenLau

Lotusphere 2011: Subtlety and Spacey were onstage

2011-02-04T20:56:00Z

The Lotusphere 2011 conference in Orlando, IBM’s user conference for Lotus developers, took a very subtle approach to trumpeting the past year’s successes and updates and new tools to the Lotus platform ...(read more)

‘Everything-as-a-service’ makes IT departments the liaison

2010-12-23T17:10:00Z

While the model will mean the IT admin is less burdened by daily operations, their new role will by no means be uninvolved. They’ll play liaison between the provider and the business to ensure the right service level is delivered, and ultimately assuming responsibility for the choice of provider ...(read more)

An honest expansion of cinema into the home

2010-12-12T14:21:00Z

I have never hidden that I consider so-called Digital Rights Management (DRM) to be dishonest, often calling it Dishonest Relationship Misinformation. I have also suggested that fairness is a matter of law and not technology. I will use the expansion of cinema into the home to illustrate the differences.

The cinema relationship

The relationships in the traditional cinema experience are simple. Copyright holders authorize movie theatres to display (public performance in copyright terms) the movie. Audiences pay for tickets to enter into the theatre, and are presumed to not be doing any copyright regulated activities (ie: no recording, etc).

Put in other terms, copyright holders authorize a platform to display the content. The platform is owned by someone other than the audience, with the audience only doing things that do not require a license or any interaction with copyright law at all. If an audience member doesn't pay their ticket and goes in anyway, they are breaking the law but it is not copyright law: most likely trespass.

The traditional/analog home entertainment experience

This is where the audiences owns the platform, and purchases, rents or licenses content that can be displayed on the hardware that they own (VCR, TV, cassette/record players, stereo, etc). It is the audience that chooses what brands of technology they will purchase, and copyright holders directly license audiences to do any copyright regulated activities. If the hardware is locked in any way to keep unauthorized people away from it, it is the owner (audience) and not a third party that has the keys.

The media formats that win are those that are not dependant on any specific technology brand, with vendor-neutral standards being the norm and the most open platform winning when there are less open competitors (VHS winning over Betamax).

An extension of cinema into the home

With digital technology it is possible to create a smart technology platform that is owned by a third party just as the movie theatres are, and yet the sound and picture are viewable from within the home.

The platform could be owned by a variety of intermediaries, including cable companies or possibly even the traditional theatres wanting to move into this market. The platform would be locked such that it is the owner, not audience, that controls the platform. Like the traditional cinema experience, the audience is presumed to not be doing any copyright regulated activities and thus do not need to be licensed by copyright holders.

From the perspective of the audience, they are renting or otherwise possess but do not own the technology platform. They are paying fees to the platform owner to view content just as they would for cinema outside the home.

There is an obvious need to regulate this relationship to ensure that the privacy and other rights of audiences are protected, just like we have laws to protect tenants who are living in a home owned by someone else.

Like any other situation with locked property, it must be illegal for someone other than the owner to circumvent the locks. It must be made clear to audiences that no matter what the payment system is (one time, monthly, whatever) that they do not own the hardware, and should never be confused into believing that they do. Confusion on the question of ownership will make enforcement of the property rights and the locks protecting those rights far more complex. Audiences should not be held legally responsible when the question of ownership is deliberately obfuscated by the platform owner or their agents.

What is wrong with the current DRM situation

The problem with current DRM systems is that they are offering technology similar to what I described as the extension of the cinema relationship into the home, but misdirecting policy makers and the public by falsely claiming it is like the traditional/analog home entertainment experience. The question of who owns what, who manages the keys to digital locks, and what regulatory regime should be used to keep all the various relationships fair and honest are deliberately obfuscated.

Anyone with a respect for the rule of law should be rejecting this obfuscation, but unfortunately lawmakers currently seem unaware of these abuses.

A technology person will notice that what I described as a honest extension of cinema into the home uses pretty much the identical technology to what is currently called DRM. The difference is entirely in the honesty of the relationships, and whether the appropriate laws are regulating those relationships.

Federal Copyright Bill -32, currently being debated by a special legislative committee, grants legal protection to this deliberate and dishonest obfuscation. While it is possible to ratify the two 1996 WIPO treaties and respect the traditional contours of existing Canadian law (federal and provincial), the government has thus far chosen a very different path. I believe it is critical that Canadians speak out and demand that politicians pay better attention to this critical issue.

---
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.

Software AG morphs into a vendor of software projects

2010-11-26T20:22:00Z

I visited Software AG’s headquarters in Darmdstadt, Germany last week, where I got to hear from CEO Karl-Heinz Streibich about the company’s direction. One thing that stood out for me was Streibich calling Software AG a “software project company.” Software AG’s battalion of software, services and products, said Streibich, are what make the company an all-round systems integrator ...(read more)

Nine things seen & heard at IBM Information On Demand

2010-10-26T01:17:00Z

There was the release of Cognos 10 and DB2 10 to much fanfare at IBM’s Information On Demand conference, the annual user event about data management and business analytics by the Armonk, New York vendor. Besides that, here are a few other things seen and heard ...(read more)

Rebranding SAP techs is not innovation that makes sense

2010-10-20T00:10:00Z

A topic at this year’s SAP TechEd is ‘Open Innovation’ where open ecosystem and interoperability were key themes. But how does wanting to rebrand NetWeaver, Sybase and Business Objects offerings align with that? ...(read more)

What if I was the Bill C-32 lead from the Official Opposition Liberals?

2010-10-01T07:15:00Z

On Thursday I met for a half hour with Pablo Rodriguez, MP for the Quebec riding of Honoré-Mercier, and the Heritage critic for the Liberal party. Copyright is joint between Heritage and Industry, so this is a key MP when it comes to the future of Copyright bill C-32. (See also: List of MPs I have met)

I came with some of my regular material:

A printout of the "copyright 4 things" handout (OpenDocument, PDF) , also referenced from article: Protecting property rights in a digital world.
A printout of the guest article in The Province: Copyright is no justification for digital locks
A printout of the bill C-32 FAQ.
A copy of Yochai Benkler's book, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

We started with me introducing myself, and my motivation for being involved: I am here as a creator who is trying to protect fellow creators from some of the very things they have been asking for.

I went through the "copyright 4 things", at which point he started to ask questions. He said that I was contradicting much of what he had heard from other groups. I explained that this is natural, given the representatives of these groups do not have the necessary technical background in order to understand the impact of this legislation on real-world technology.

He was surprised to hear that it was possible to infringe copyright without unlocking a digital lock, something that every technical person knows. If you take a bit-for-bit copy of a DVD, for instance, the resulting DVD is identical to the original. You can't view the DVD without the decryption key, but you can make exact duplications of the encrypted content without caring about the key at all.

I then spoke about how many forms of DRM are made up of two locks: an access control (encryption) on the content such that it can only be accessed with the right decryption key, and a lock on the hardware and software "owned" by the audiences which contains the content decryption key. I indicated that while most of the discussion was science-fiction about what the lock on content could do, the real-world technology created far more controversies associated with the lock on the devices: something the copyright holder clearly does not "own" and should have no standing in controlling.

There were many conversations at that level. I believe that my core message was clear, which is that far from protecting copyright and the interests of creators, misapplied and misunderstood technical measures are a great threat.

We then moved onward to a question politicians love to ask: If you were me, what would you be doing? What are the answers to the problems?

There are many ways to answer this.

I stated that current Canadian copyright law adequately protects the interests of copyright holders, and there is no crisis. Most of the alleged problems don't actually exist, some are self-inflicted, and only a tiny minority of issues actually need legislative clarification. While copyright clearly needs updating, C-32 heads in the opposite direction and will only harm the very people it alleges to protect.

I mentioned that the Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeals gave the recording industry a blueprint to sue music fans. It was their choice and not a mythical limitation of Canadian law that has meant that lawsuits have not been launched. I also suggested that what is happening in the music industry is not about infringement, but about the changing relationships between composers, performers and makers of sound recordings brought on by new technology.

The idea that Canadian law is stronger than US law in many ways came up. I mentioned moral rights and Canada's ratification of the WIPO Rome convention, suggesting that there are many more examples. We also spoke about how some are attacking the roll of WIPO now that majority-world countries have started to push towards treaties for the visually impaired, limitations and exceptions, and a more honest development agenda. I suggested that those trying to move international Copyright development to new forums like ACTA are anti-copyright in that they don't like the balance that exists in Copyright law or increasingly at WIPO.

But that doesn't address his shorter-term question, which is:

What should we do about bill C-32

Bill C-32 is an omnibus bill, covering an excessive number of complex and largely unrelated topics. We need to move to having a larger number of smaller bills which can be reasonably studied and debated.

If the bill goes to committee before second reading, anything can happen. The following is what I would be pushing for if I were there:

renaming the bill to: The 1996 WIPO treaty implementation act.
declare as off-topic for this specific bill any issue that is not directly related to Canada's implementation of the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) or the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT), both adopted in Geneva in 1996.

This is not to suggest that other issues aren't important, but to suggest that they are important enough to deserve separate bills to be debated separately.

These two treaties are themselves quite complex, with many possible interpretations of the language within them. There are a few key issues which we need to watch carefully. I will reference the WCT article, even though similar language is used in WPPT as well.

There are harmful and helpful interpretations of WCT Article 6 (right of distribution), Article 8 (Right of Communications to the Public) and Article 12 (Obligations concerning Rights Management Information). We just need to ensure that the helpful interpretation is used in Canada.
There are relatively harmless and greatly harmful interpretations of WCT Article 11 (Obligations concerning Technical Measures). This has been the focus of the debate, both at WIPO back in 1996 as well as each time legislation is tabled in any country.
I believe the ideal solution is to implement legal protection for technical measures in the appropriate provincial legislation such as contract, e-commerce, and property law. I clarify how this would fulfil WIPO treaty requirements in the bill C-32 FAQ. This would protect the legitimate uses of technical measures by copyright holders, and entirely avoid the abuses.
A lesser second option is to adopt the language from Liberal bill C-60, which was a translation into Canadian law of the WIPO treaty language.
Under no circumstances should the concept of "access controls" or "access" be added to Canadian Copyright law. These concepts were imported into bill C-32 from the USA DMCA, were rejected in 1996 at WIPO, and must be rejected in Canada. These concepts create an opt-out of the contours of Copyright. Proponents of these types of polices should be understood as being anti-Copyright, and these concepts should be constantly denounced by those of us who respect the traditional definitions and goals of Copyright.
Concepts of "national treatment", where copyright holders in any WCT country need to be offered the same treatment as Canadian creators. This may impact things such as compulsory licensing schemes (IE: Private Copying Levy) as collectives outside of Canada will be able to request a cut as well. Canada may be forced to repeal this regime, or create a regime closer to the PLR (Public Lending Right) which is not part of copyright at all, but is a properly administered government program.

I believe if we ratified the 1996 WIPO treaties, it would reduce the political pressure on Canadian politicians. The USA has been abusing our contemplation about these treaties to falsely accuse Canada of not having copyright law that adequately protects the interests of copyright holders. Those who have compared Canadian and US copyright law know that Canadian law is already more tilted in favour of copyright holders, but these facts aren't well known by politicians.

It isn't like these extremists will stop, but it may cause politicians to become more curious about what is really being asked of them. I don't think the US will be happy until all Canadian knowledge base sectors are wiped out, and we have radically increased our royalties trade deficit with the USA.

There were two primary excuses the United States Trade Representative used for adding Canada to their priority watch list in their 2010 Special 301 Report:

not yet ratifying the 1996 WIPO treaties
not allowing police and boarder officers the ability to search and seize property without a shred of evidence of infringement and without a court order.

I consider it obvious that we should reject the second proposal out of hand for being outrageous.

I believe that the two 1996 treaties head us in the wrong direction and will make things worse for creators. I still believe that for shorter-term political reasons we should ratify. My hope is that attention can then move to future WIPO treaties which will hopefully focus on limitations and exceptions, including those necessary for the visually impaired and to have a development agenda that allows other countries to develop the way current net-exporting countries like the USA developed. Newer WIPO treaties amend past WIPO treaties, and I fully expect to see treaties which correct the serious mistakes made in 1996. Copyright law is clearly in need of modernization.

Copyright: Get It Right, by not following Access Copyright proposals

2010-09-21T19:02:00Z

Collective Society Access Copyright, a business model intermediary used by some creators, has launched a C-32 related campaign website where they are critical of the fair dealings reform in C-32. I believe that the fair dealings reforms are a mixed bag of things which are "about time", things which are excessively complex, and only some I disagree with. As a creators' rights activist I must disagree with the perspective offered by Access Copyright, which I believe is harmful to the interests of Canadian creators.

I must start by saying that I question the legitimacy of Access Copyright claiming to represent creators. On their website they continue the claim that they represent Canada’s 600,000-strong cultural sector.

As a collective society they exist as an intermediary between copyright holders and licensees for specific uses of copyrighted works. People do not join Access Copyright like they do a political party, supposedly because they agree with the political views of the leadership. It is a way to get money that is owed to them, nothing more. Suggesting access copyright represents the political views of creators is like saying that anyone who applied for the HST rebate in Ontario did so because they agreed with the political views of Dalton McGuinty and Steven Harper.

Given this, I don't believe that collective societies should be involved in copyright reform process, alleging to "represent" their members. Their views can be heard at the Copyright Board when royalty rates are being set. It should otherwise be creators and groups representing creators that are independent of collective societies involved in the copyright reform process.

The site has some "fast facts", which I will make some fast comments on.

They claim that the new exceptions jeopardize the economic future of knowledge workers.
A repeat of the same as #1, using different words
A repeat, focusing on the educational exceptions
A claim that Canada's Creative Industry has lined up in opposition to C-32. This is true, but for a variety of very different reasons. Access Copyright's opposition is nearly opposite to my own opposition.
A call to get copyright right, something we can all agree on. This has no meaning given the loudest debates in the copyright reform process are different creators' disagreeing on what changes would benefit or harm creators.

Yesterday I summarized my views on five key issues around C-32. I think it is worth taking a closer look at the fair dealings reforms in C-32. I will do so by breaking those proposals into three groups.

Exceptions clearly for the benefit of follow-on creators.
The most obvious is the addition of "parody or satire" to our existing fair dealings which already had "research, private study". These are clear limits on the control of past creators that is necessary to enable new creativity. It is something that all creators should be strongly supportive of.
Access Copyright doesn't represent creators, but a business model. As such they want more money to flow through them, and are generally unconcerned with the burdens that such a system can place on creators -- especially those whose motivation for creativity are not royalty payments.
Exceptions that are similar to those that would exist under US-style living Fair Use regime.
This includes time and device shifting, backups, or non-commercial user-generated content, which does not have a negative effect on the value of the work for the creator. I believe the language in C-32 is excessively complex, and that Canada would be far better service adopting a US-style living Fair Use regime. Bill C-32 being excessively complex means that people who are not copyright specialists will likely interpret the terms wrong, inducing infringements that would otherwise not happen.
These are activities where the lack of requirement for permission or payment increases the value of the work to the audience, will increase the willingness to pay, and thus will increase revenue to creators. This basic economic analysis falls on deaf ears for those in Access Copyright who falsely believe that "more copyright" will mean "more money", when in fact the opposite is often the case. Any business person knows that as you decrease the value of something to the customer that sales will decrease.
These are activities which most Canadians already believed were outside of copyright. These exceptions will not cause a major shift in Canadian behaviour, just legalize the common activities of Canadians. There have been false claims that Canadian law is "weaker" than US law (meaning, balance less tilted in favour of past copyright holders). Canadians believe that any potentially copyright-regulating activity that was legal in the USA was also legal in Canada. I believe the USA got this aspect of their law better than Canada did, and has benefited their copyright industries to effectively have more exceptions to copyright.
This grouping includes the addition of "education" under the basic fair dealings list. The US made this more clear by including "multiple copies for classroom use" which recognizes the benefits of allowing educators to be able to step into the shoes of pupils and do things which would be an exception for the individual pupil.
Exceptions to copyright granted to specific institutions.
This is the one area that I partly agree with Access Copyright. I believe that the educational institution specific exemptions to copyright in Bill C-32 (and the existing copyright act) are a government program, paid for on the backs of copyright holders. In fact, I believe it is harmful to pupils to have one set of copyright rules when they are in the confines of an educational institutions, and a different set of rules outside.
Where I disagree with Access Copyright is that I believe the solution isn't to pay collective societies more money, but for the educational sector to migrate to the use of Open Access published works. Open Access is based on one-time payments to creators for the works, allowing for royalty-free redistribution. Creators get paid directly, and educational budgets are far more manageable than when institutions rely on legacy educational publishers.
In my opinion, if the educational sector refuses to explore alternatives to the incumbent educational publishers and Access Copyright, then we should feel no sympathy for their claims of budget hardships from their own business choices. We should not be adding government programs to federal copyright, and should leave this as an issue to be handled provincially.

The site suggest that I join them in defending Canadian culture & heritage. I must continue to publicly oppose their policy views in order to do my small part to defend Canadian culture & heritage,