Found this over on Jill Golick’s Running With Eyes Closed site. It’s a great bullshit cleanser from the Writer’s Guild of Canada for the debate between the cable and broadcast companies in Canada who are arguing over who should pay for Canadians to receive local programming.
Yo - fuck heads - the airwaves are ours.
I’ve been watching the repeated showings of the self-serving ads the cable companies and the broadcasters have been running and every time they make me froth at the mouth with rage over their insolent arrogance. They need to have their heads knocked together. The CRTC needs to act on behalf of Canadian citizens and not their fat cat media cronies. Will that happen? Not likely. That’s why the CRTC should get fucked. Maybe if we all say that - really loudly - they’ll get the idea, get scared for their jobs and end up inadvertently doing the right thing.
There’s been a lot of bullshit happening in Canada as the Harper government does its best to look pretty whilst wearing the brown lipstick of the U.S. media industry. You can find out more about the pitiful shenanigans of the music industry, blatantly stacking town hall meetings to discuss copyright reform, and the suppression of alternative voices at these so called “open and public discussions”, on other blogs like Michael Geist and Jill Golick or P2P.net and BoingBoing. I’ve ranted and raved about it before - and doubtless will again - but right now it’s the weekend and I’m lazy and I’m gonna go lie down and read a cheap mystery novel.
In the meantime, here’s a short video of Prof. Lawrence Lessig giving a talk this past February at the New York Public Library (along with Steven Johnson and Shepard Fairey) addressing the very real concerns that our copyright laws are being hijacked by dying media industries to support a failed and archaic business model and in those efforts to stem the inevitable tide of technological and cultural progress they are stealing our voices, stealing our right to speak and hear about our world.
Will copyright laws stifle creativity? If the major media companies are allow to corrupt our elected officils and subvert our democratic processes to assert their right to define what culture is - as in: whatever they sell us and nothing else - then Yes the laws of copyright are a threat to creativity and freedom of speech as well as freedom of thought.
Make noise. Kick these fuckers in the nuts.
Cheers.
P. S. Actually the mystery novel is not cheap, it’s Dashiel Hammett’s classic “The Big Knockover” - in case you were wondering.
Michael Geist appeared on TV Ontario’s The Agenda last week, along with Bob Wiseman (formerly of Blue Rodeo), Matt Hartley of the Globe and Mail, Grant Dexter of MapleMusic, and Andy Maize of the Skydiggers and MapleMusic.
It’s a great discussion about the changes in culture and business wrought by digital downloading of music (in particular but other media by inference) with the clear emphasis being on how any business has to attend to the needs and desires of the consumers citizens who buy the products and services being offered for sale.
While the big attention being paid to the disruptive effects of digital media, commerce and accessibility invariably focuses on the music, film and television industries we can clearly see a rising tide of resonant effect in other industries as citizens become used to and insist upon having the ability to speak loudly and clearly about what they want and don’t want. This ripple-to-tsunami effect on the culture will touch more than industry, reaching deep into the processes of governance, law and how we share this planet with each other.
I’ve often been accused of being naive whenever I look past the current state of things and attempt to get a glimpse of the further consequences which await us. Naiveté connotes ignorance and while I might sometimes be admittedly dirt stupid about many things I’d like to believe I am far from ignorant. There’s a difference between naive and hopeful; and I am hopeful for what lies in store for us as we continue to embrace and use these new tools, these new extensions of our senses. It harkens back to Stewart Brand’s arguably hubric “We are as gods … “ statement in the opening pages of 1969’s The Whole Earth Catalog:
We are as gods and might as well get good at it. So far, remotely done power and glory — as via government, big business, formal education, church — has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing — power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested.
That’s not naive and it sure as shit is more than just being hopeful. It is a declaration of intent and one we would all do well to remember and embrace. The arguments of today in response to how our past is being changed before our eyes is, at best, a mildly interesting discourse.
The better conversation is: What do we do next?
Cheers.
P. S. And as we accelerate on our journey into the future-now we must still contend with the heavy clay-laden feet of the dying dinosaurs as they waddle behind us and eagerly copy each others lies to justify their indolence and greed.
Hey! It’s Tuesday! Let’s blog about important shit instead of posting video clips of cute puppies juggling elephant poo. Actually, that sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it? I’ll go search for that as soon as I’m done here.
In the meantime, here’s a talk given by James Boyle at the RSA which goes hand-in-hand with some of the presentations given by Lawrence Lessig on the same theme: Intellectual property laws have a significant impact on many important areas of human endeavour, including scientific innovation, digital creativity, cultural access and free speech..
If you must skip ahead through the talk please be sure to jump in at the 16 minute mark. That’s where the crux of Boyle’s observations come to a head and deserve to be heard by everyone.
The power of the media corporations lobbying efforts are concerned only with their self-interested quest for short term profits and control over the marketplace - unfortunately, for all concerned, the marketplace of intellectual property is not a mere physical space stacked with physical goods for sale - it exists in our minds and in our perceptions of the world around us and in our ability to speak to each other about our world and our lives.
The changes to copyright law and the subsequent corruption of the democratic process by these lobbying efforts serve to undermine our culture and our most basic human freedoms by the steady erosion of the public domain.
We live in an information age and we need to understand and respond to the laws which are being formed with respect to that information. It’s not just the business of the media corporations - it’s your business too.
ACTA is an international agreement that aims to target piracy and counterfeiting globally. The degree of secrecy surrounding the negotiations is astonishing. Many institutions, the press and various individuals have requested that the participating countries provide an insight into their plans, but none have succeeded thus far.
It almost seems they are actively blocking the public from having their say, while in contrast they continue to receive input from anti-piracy lobbyists such as the RIAA and MPAA. However, as time progresses more details about ACTA become public, largely thanks to Wikileaks.
Once again large media corporations are designing legislation outside of democratic discourse which directly affects your life.
