Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

This is what the Internet is up against:

“it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the Telecom Trotskyites have scored another victory for the left over a Conservative government that is too scared and nervous to do the right thing.” -Terence Corcoran, Financial Post Published: Thursday, December 20, 2007

The freedom and communication digital freedom fosters, has enemies in the Main Stream Media. They seek to shut blogs down, block Facebook access, require repurchasing of music and movies to shift devices, and make even fair use copy/paste for the purpose of critique, illegal or questionable in the eyes of our law.

The Financial Post looms over us:

Who are the Telecom Trotskyites? Regarding all things related to telecommunications and the Internet, there exists a vast community of people who believe that new technologies have laid the groundwork for a revolution that belongs to telecom users. Anything that stands in the way of almost total telecom freedom, that prevents the movement and transfer of information at near-zero cost to and from consumers, must be overthrown as anti-democratic and suppressive.

Democracy and market setting the price = bad.
American/Canadian Corporate control = good.

“Support for social revolution in the advanced capitalist countries through working class mass action,” is one of the necessary components to Trotskyism, yet the innovative Canadian artists who include multi-millionaires (and thus not exactly “working class” any longer) are among those of us up in arms about the proposed Digital Millennium Copyright Act for Canada. The CMCC includes the Bare Naked Ladies, Feist, and a growing list of over 186 194 other music creators who want compensation without employing lawyers to sue it from ordinary people.

Meanwhile, an artist organization (ACTRA) that wants an ability to sue file sharers, is being completely hypocritical. There’s something wrong when the “working class” they represent want the working class who consumes their product to be subjected to lawsuits or even indictable offenses for using an iPod or VCR in the manner how most people do today. The working class makes mix tapes, transfers their CDs to their iPod, and backs up their DVDs, sometimes sharing them with friends and family. All that Canadian cultural sharing and enjoyment will be crushed under a DMCA law, while artists behind the lawsuits will be ridiculed and despised. Canadian content will fade further into obscurity in our country.

If the iTune you download can only be used on your iPod, that’s an assault on your rights. If you can’t resend that movie you just got off the Internet to a dozen friends, your rights are being trampled on. If you want to incorporate part of a television show into your work of art or whatever, you should not have to bother with copyright issues. In this view, just about all corporate attempts to limit use of material, backed by copyright law, are viewed as fundamentally opposed to “basic consumer rights.”

That’s easy for you to say, from your Mass Media Precipice, Mr. Corcoran. Perhaps you’d think differently about limited use of digital media if you weren’t backed by the National Post/CanWest Global corporation? I’ll deal with their bias at the end of this article.

ACTRA is a left-wing organization, if you look at their apparent connection with Canadian labour and unions:

ACTRA also works closely with many other trade unions, ad hoc industry advocacy coalitions and public interest groups on a wide range of cultural and economic issues facing not only artists, but also all Canadians. ACTRA is affiliated with the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and has a strategic alliance with the United Steelworkers (USW).

Why is ACTRA opposed to the apparently “left wing” ideal that Canadian content should be openly available to Canadians? Has the Financial Post become confused, or has ACTRA?

Remember how I said I’d deal with demonstrating CanWest Global’s bias? Maybe I’ll let ACTRA do that for me…

CanWest Global deal to purchase Alliance Atlantis a threat to Canadian culture

Toronto, December 20, 2007 - ACTRA is alarmed by the CRTC’s decision to approve CanWest Global’s purchase of Alliance Atlantis Communications. The U.S.-funded deal, with 64% ownership from U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs, gives a U.S. company effective control of two important Canadian media companies.

Oh my, they make terrible allies. It seems that Mr. Corcoran’s Mass Media backer has actually taken part recently in a sell out of Canadian content to American interests. Michael Geist’s invocation of the Conservative’s copyright bill being “largely a sell-out to U.S. interests” is the same thing Corcoran’s friends at ACTRA have said about the CRTC and CanWest Global/Financial Post. Why then does ACTRA mimic what a mouthpiece for “culture threat” CanWest Global spouts off about on copyright reform?

Where’s the unity among those calling for increased power for big business? Doesn’t ACTRA realize that they are arguing for a sellout to American lobbyists by calling for a DMCA, and then criticize CanWest Global and the CRTC when an actual sellout goes through?

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ACTRA’s Lie Sheet

Check out this ridiculous “Fact” sheet from ACTRA. In it, they admit they have no more knowledge of the coming Conservative DMCA than I do, yet they are so certain of the contents as to call their opinions of the bill, “facts”.

“While we have not seen the proposed amendment to the Canada’s Copyright Act — as it has not been tabled yet — it is to be based on the two 1996 WIPO Treaties with which we are quite familiar.”

So they go on the assumption that the Conservatives won’t exceed the WIPO treaty requirements? Despite the claims by Canadians that the DMCA in the States (done to meet WIPO) has gone too far by enabling big business to sue and blackmail tens of thousands of media consumers? Let’s just say that when the bill is tabled, that if it doesn’t go too far by providing protection for Digital Restrictions Management (DRM/TPM) then I’ll owe ACTRA a Coke.

{ACTRA disabled right-click on their website, making it more difficult for me to copy the link to their press release. Fools.}

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CMCC is another artist organization devoted to FAIR copyright reform. See artists, you don’t have to side with ACTRA and the Financial Post.