How to support real (music) artists with or without “strong” copyright reform

Posted on June 15, 2008 by Thomas Purves

copy left

  1. Don’t buy DRM infected media. This includes CDs, DVDs, protected iTunes files, Microsoft Plays for sure (which by the way, usually doesn’t). DRM is a pain in the ass, you don’t need it and if Canada’s new legislation passes unamended, by accepting DRM you effectively void any privileges of how, when and where you might access your media unless explicitly authorized by the rights holder (effectively you do not own any media if it’s DRM infected).
  2. Do pay for music.

    3. Buy digital music in un-encrypted formats e.g. mp3, flac. With these formats all your the fair-dealings (called fair use in the US) allowances apply including time-shifting, format-shifting, being able to play it in more than one device etc.

  3. Go to shows

    4. Even in the hey-days of the CD, many bands still made all their income from touring and t-shirts rather the pittance of CD royalties. Buy tickets, go to shows and it’s a great way to discover new bands too.

  4. Buy the merch At the show buy something from the merch table. Buy anything: a tshirt, a record etc. Typically the band will be getting 100% of your money when you buy something at a show.
  5. Buy Analog media if you enjoy the pleasure of owning a physical artifact of your favourite albums, buy the vinyl! More fun to play, they sound great and vinyl is making a huge comeback. You can’t digitally encrypt analog media either.
  6. Buy indie not major labels the indies aren’t suing anybody, and for the most part, the music is better anyway

–photo by pwac

Posted in Archive, drm, drmfree, music | 2 Comments

How the new Canadian Copyright bill fails Canadians

Posted on June 13, 2008 by Thomas Purves

As reported everywhere, Canada’s industry minister introduced a new copyright bill yesterday. And it’s no good. However, assuming we need “reform” at all, there are simple changes that could go a long way to fixing it.

The most important of these would be a qualifier on “anti-circumvention”. In the current bill, any circumvention is automatically an infringement no matter the purpose, no matter how trivial the circumvention. Why anti-circumvention provisions are necessary at all is a dubious proposition to begin with. However, if we must have make this simple change: make circumvention only a crime if done for the purposes of infringement.

The way the bill is written now it gives media owners, and anyone who encrypts anything carte-blanche to over-ride all fair-dealings exceptions build into the copyright act.

Meanwhile the so-called “reductions” in penalties to infringers are fairly ridiculous. The “limited to” $500 penalties are per infringement. Any kid with a thousand song ipod theoretically liable for up to $500,000. Jesse Hirsh has put it well, describing the new legislation as criminalizing a generation of Canadians.

Why do we need “long overdue” copyright reform in Canada at all? Look at what the last 10 years shown us in, for example, the record industry. It’s shown us a steep decline in the revenues to top-40 manufactured hits and warmed over franchise brands pushed through old mainstream channels. Meanwhile the total amount, quality and variation of independent media and music has absolutely skyrocketed.

In the last ten years, the music industry has at last stepped away from it’s failed experiment with technical protection measures. Amazon, Itunes, emusic, zunior (in Canada) and every major label are all now offering DRM-free options. Why are we enshrining protection for these technologies based on 10-year old assumptions of how the industry would evolve?

The good news is that the bill has only reached it’s first reading and there will be time for revisions before the second reading in the fall. It’s important that you make your voice heard. Get behind the facebook group, keep an eye on Micheal Geist, and talk to your MP.

Jim Prentice was once known as a populist. He may find sense yet. There is still time for our country to take off the proverbial knee-pads and step away from the US media industry lobby.

Posted in Archive, copyright, drm | Tagged , , | 14 Comments

Enterprise 2.0, two years in

Posted on June 2, 2008 by Thomas Purves

About 2 years ago I started to think and work on an idea called Enterprise2.0. It felt to me at the time that changes that were just beginning to change the consumer internet at the time were really only the cusp of something bigger. That the more human, coperative and cloud based tools of “social” media would and could see there most transformative effects on the way we work and the way organizations from small to big and even at the enterprise scale are destined to evolve (seemlingly to me, the bigger the bureaucracy the more dire the need). A lot of this thinking (and pretty lofty goals) are what went into the firestoker project which Jevon Macdonald and I were working on.

Here’s a presentation I gave to introde an EnterpriseCamp and the idea of Enterprise 2.0 back in November of 2006. Looking back on it, the deck still feels surprisingly precient (and I’m noticing continues to get a fair bit of attention over at slideshare.net).

It’s been 18 months now and the world has evolved rapidly. And yet I still feel there is a long way to go. Back in 2006, I asked ended with a series of questions, do you think we are closer answering them yet?

    But we’re only at the Beginning

  1. What will these new tools look like?
  2. What new problems will they create?
  3. How do we teach new work behavior?
  4. What about resistance to change?
  5. Which industries will be the first to embrace change?
  6. Which will fall behind?
Posted in Archive, enterprise 2.0, enterprise2.0 | Leave a comment