Recording industry slams Canada's 'out of date' laws

Recording industry slams Canada's 'out of date' laws 

Recording industry slams Canada's 'out of date' laws

By Vito Pilieci, Ottawa CitizenMarch 18, 2009

OTTAWA — Severely outdated copyright laws have opened the door for frivolous lawsuits in Canada, the Canadian Recording Industry Association says.

The association is responding to a recent petition in the British Columbia Supreme Court, in which a private company asked the court to decide whether search engines should be held accountable for the copy-protected content they find online.

The association, which represents the country's major record labels, was named in the petition, marking the first time a peer-to-peer file-sharing network has hauled a rights-holder into court.

"This is man bites dog," said Richard Pfohl, general counsel for the recording industry association.

"Our laws are so out of date and there is such uncertainty in our laws here in Canada that no one knows what the law is," he said. "Canada is the only jurisdiction in the world where the operator of the file-sharing service has sued the rights-holders."

The petition was filed by isoHunt Web Technologies Inc., a search engine for BitTorrent files, in September. The motion was struck down last Wednesday. The judge hearing the petition said such a ruling can only be made after a formal trial.

The ball is now in isoHunt's court and the company must decide whether to move forward with a full-blown court case against the recording industry association.

Its search engine, ranked among the top five most popular for BitTorrent, digs through more than 44 million music, movie and software files available online to help people find free content.

Last year, the association sent isoHunt legal notices informing the company that some content available through its search engine infringed on various copyrights.

The search engine filed its petition to obtain a legal opinion about whether it was breaking the law.

A lawyer representing isoHunt argued last week that the content available through the search engine can also be found through such other popular search engines as Google. He contended isoHunt is no different than Google and should be free from legal ramifications.

Association president Graham Henderson said the Google defence has been heard and dismissed in jurisdictions around the world. He is sure a court case with isoHunt would end in its favour.

However, Henderson believes if Canada's copyright laws reflected the current state of technology, isoHunt's legal arguments would have fallen on deaf ears.

"If Canada's laws were on par with those of Europe, the U.S., Japan and everywhere else I can think of, then (isoHunt) would have no doubt received advice from their lawyers that they would be insane to bring an action like this," said Henderson. "In the absence, in a vacuum, you have this kind of man-bites-dog story possible and, frankly, it starts to make us look like the laughingstock of the world."

Daniel J. Gervais, university research chairman in intellectual property and professor of law at the University of Ottawa, disagrees. While he believes that Canada needs copyright reform, he said stricter copyright laws would not guarantee fewer lawsuits.

"Canada hasn't done any of these changes to its copyright law and we are stuck with the old laws and the old principles. It doesn't mean it's inadequate, it means they are more vague and therefore it's to be expected that things might end up in court," said Gervais. "Even with more specific legislation you could have questions about what is the specific scope?"

The U.S. and its Digital Millennium Copyright Act is widely regarded as having some of the world's toughest copyright legislation.

The Canadian Copyright Act has not been amended since 1997, two years before Napster changed the way people obtain music and movies online. An attempt to update the act was made in 2005 but was abandoned. Another attempt was made in June last year, but the federal election in October stalled the amendments.

Charlie Angus, MP for the riding of Timmins-James Bay and NDP critic for copyright reform, argues it's not a lack of copyright reform that's making Canada a laughingstock, but rather the way new legislation has been treated as a hot potato by politicians.

"That's what makes this look embarrassing to the world. It looks pretty silly every time we come forward with copyright legislation that government panics and backs off. There needs to be political will to get the job done."

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

Recording industry slams Canada's 'out of date' laws

Bench Marks » Blog Archive » JOVE ends open access

Bench Marks » Blog Archive » JOVE ends open access 

JOVE ends open access

Thursday, April 2, 2009 at 8:07 am CDT by David Crotty permalink

What at first seemed to be an odd April Fool’s joke turned out to be real–the Journal of Visual Explanations (JOVE) has gone from an open access publishing model to a closed access subscription model. No official statement was made, but on Noah Gray’s blog, JOVE’s Moishe Pritsker made the following statement:

“We (JoVE) are changing our model, and from now will provide our content under subscription. Until now it was all for free.

The reason is simple: we have to survive. To cover costs of our operations, to break even, we have to charge $6,000 per video article. This is to cover costs of the video-production and technological infrastructure for video-publication, which are higher than in traditional text-only publishing. Academic labs cannot pay $6,000 per article, and therefore we have to find other sources to cover the costs.

As much as I would like to continue to provide our content for free, JoVE has to survive. I believe the world would be a better place having a video-publication under subscription than not having a video-publication at all.”

More details can be found on this Friendfeed thread:

“…we are indeed closing access. Not an April Fool’s joke. We’ve been trying to get universities to subscribe to us, but nobody seems to be taking us seriously and, given our situation, being free is just not sustainable.”

I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. JOVE set themselves a monumental task, trying to break ground with a new type of science publishing AND at the same time trying to do so with an unproven business model. Doing both together was perhaps a bit too ambitious. I can think of several reasons why open access wasn’t going to cut it for them:
1) their insistence on high production values–the only journals I know that are sustainable/profitable using an author-pays open access model are those that emphasize high quantities of publication and minimal editorial oversight and support. By striving for high production values, JOVE added significant editorial overhead and costs.
2) A large number of JOVE’s publications are demonstrations of techniques. As the editor of a methods journal, I’m painfully aware of the “second-class citizen” attitude most scientists take toward writing up methods. Obviously data papers are the bread and butter of the working scientist–that’s where they’re going to advance their careers. Methods papers are a nice addendum, but they are not a priority. It’s hard to get scientists to write up methods, and much of my time is spent trying to commission articles. At CSH Protocols, we go so far as to pay our authors a royalty as an incentive for writing up methods for publication with us. I find it hard to believe that there will be very many willing to not only spend the time to put together a video of a method, but willing to pay JOVE’s costs to do so.

And so the economic realities seem to have hit home. I wish the best to JOVE, the folks I’ve met from the journal are all smart, nice people and their experiment is an intriguing one. I worry though, that so much of their support and hype came from the small but very vocal group of open access proponents so prevalent online. This shift in business models may not be taken very well by that community.

Posted in Online Tools, Science Publishing, Web 2.0 |

Bench Marks » Blog Archive » JOVE ends open access

About OA week — Open Access Week - October 19-23, 2009

About OA week — Open Access Week - October 19-23, 2009 

About OA week

October 19-23 will mark the first international Open Access Week.

Open Access Week is an opportunity to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access to research, including access policies from all types of research funders, within the international higher education community and the general public. The now-annual event has been expanded from a single day to accommodate widespread global interest in the movement toward open, public access to scholarly research results.

Open Access Week builds on the momentum started by the student-led national day of action in 2007 and carried by the 120 campuses in 27 countries that celebrated Open Access Day in 2008. 2008 organizers SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition), the PLoS (The Public Library of Science), and Students for FreeCulture welcome new key contributors for 2009: OASIS (the Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook); Open Access Directory (OAD); and eIFL.net (Electronic Information for Libraries), which will again spearhead events in developing and transitional countries.

There are also partner organizations that are engaging their communities in every corner of the globe and these are listed on the main page of this site (SPARC Europe, SPARC Japan, DOAJ and BIREME). If you want join them and help get the word out please contact dokubo@plos.org.

This year, the organizers will highlight a growing suite of educational resources that local hosts can use to design their own programs on Open Access, for their respective audiences and time zones. The OASIS project features the resources for researchers, administrators, librarians, students, and the public — as well as different OA awareness levels — that will be the centerpiece of the 2009 Open Access Week program.

These audience-specific resource lists will be supplemented by the growing clearinghouse of educational materials available through the Open Access Directory, which will again serve as the key index for participating campuses and organizations on five continents. Through the collaborative functionality of the two initiatives, videos, briefing papers, podcasts, slideshows, posters and other educational tools will be drawn from all over the Web to be featured during Open Access Week 2009.

The organizers will also work with registered participants to develop a variety of sample program tracks, such as “Administrators’ introduction to campus open-access policies and funds,” “OA 101,” and “Complying with the NIH public access policy” that take full advantage of available tools.  Scholars, students, libraries, publishers, individuals, and campuses everywhere are invited to adapt these resources as needed and to mark Open Access Week by hosting an event, distributing literature, blogging, or wearing an Open Access t-shirt.

“After the success of last year’s Open Access Day, we’re delighted to be co-organizing the first ever Open Access Week with our fellow collaborators, again in conjunction with the anniversary of one of our flagship journals,” said Peter Jerram, CEO for the Public Library of Science. “We would ask our supporters to celebrate the fifth anniversary of PLoS Medicine by spreading the word about Open Access and getting involved in the week.”

“There’s no more certain sign of the momentum behind Open Access to research than an annual, global celebration of this scale,” added Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC. “Occasions like this are the best possible way to attract attention from busy faculty members and administrators. It’s SPARC’s pleasure to be working with our partners to realize the event once again this year.”

Read a Press Release about Open Access Week 2009.

About OA week — Open Access Week - October 19-23, 2009

Libertas Academica: Open Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery launched

Libertas Academica: Open Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery launched 

Open Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery launched

I'm pleased to announce the launch of Open Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery, an open access peer reviewed journal published by Libertas Academica. The journal is fortunate to have the support of an excellent Editor in Chief, Dr Hendrick Barner, and an internationally respected editorial board.
Register to receive automatic notification of new articles and journal news. The Editor in Chief's introductory editorial is now available.
I look forward to working with the journal's Editor in Chief, editorial board and authors and readers.
Individuals wishing to join the editorial board may register their interest.

Libertas Academica: Open Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery launched

Mandatory Open Access « Cheap Talk

Mandatory Open Access « Cheap Talk 

Mandatory Open Access

April 2, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: economics, incentives, politics, publishing | by jeff

A debate is going on between Lawrence Lessig and Congressman John Conyers about a bill that Conyers is sponsoring. The bill would repeal an existing rule for NIH funding that requires funded research to be published in Open Acess journals.  In addition it would generally prevent federal agencies from imposing these restrictions in the future. A good place to start is here and here are Lessig and Conyers. (hat tip: sandeep.)

There is some debate about the legal issues but to me those issues appear to be a red herring clouding the main dispute.  There is probably one point of agreement: for-profit journals will be hurt.  The disagreement is whether or not this is a good thing.

Requiring open-access publication obviously fulfills the aim of getting the maximum social benefit from dissemination of publicly-funded research.  The marginal cost of distribution is zero, so the efficient price is zero.  But the bill’s proponents argue that a dissemination is only one of the services provided by journals.  Far more important is the evaluation and editing of submitted articles by the peer-review process.  They worry that a zero price means that open-access journals have insufficient incentive to invest in this process.  The result is that it becomes harder for outsiders to distinguish good, credible research from bad, sloppy research.

I have two points to add to this.  First, as an editor of an Open Access journal and a member of editorial boards for many commercial journals I can testify that the publisher’s revenues are not being used effectively (or in most cases, at all) in providing incentives for editors and reviewers to do a good job.  To the extent that the peer-review system works, it works because reviewers have external incentives like reputation, prestige, and plain old scientific integrity.  And these incentives work at least as well in the Open Access world.  (In fact, they seem to work even better since reviewers feel better about their work when it is serving the public interest and not the profits of publishers.)

Second, even if you disagree with the above it remains an empirical question which market structure would best provide material incentives for peer-review.  Open Access publishing prevents the use of distortionary prices for raising the funds to pay reviewers.  The alternative is a model in which authors pay for peer-review with submission fees.  Of course this is also distortionary because the social benefit of having a manuscript carefully evaluated may outweigh the author’s willingness to pay.

But let’s remember:  we are debating a policy about public funding of research.  Basic research is publicly funded precisely because the social benefit of the research outweighs the researcher’s private incentive.  Given this, the funding agency maximizes the value of its subsidy by funding not only the research itself but its dissemination.  This is achieved by requiring Open Access publishing and earmarking some of the funds to pay for peer-review.

Mandatory Open Access « Cheap Talk

The free distribution of research and knowledge - Concordia Journal - Concordia University - Montreal, Quebec, Canada

 The free distribution of research and knowledge - Concordia Journal - Concordia University - Montreal, Quebec, Canada

The free distribution of research and knowledge

By Karen Herland

If knowledge is power, there are those who would control it and those who would share it freely. Open access is the free distribution of research and knowledge.

“The results of publicly funded research should be available to the public,” said Annie Murray, Librarian for Digital and Special Collections, speaking at a workshop on open access she and her colleague Tomasz Neugebauer, responsible for digital projects and systems development, gave on March 19 as part of the libraries’ series of workshops for researchers.

The session provided an overview of open access concepts and resources available for researchers, all linked on the library website at library.concordia.ca/research/openaccess.

Murray started with open access advocate Peter Suber’s definition: “Open access literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.”

Open access works can be read, cited, included in your course packs or linked to from your own website. The advantage is a wider audience for research and more potential for citations or acknowledgment.

Neugebauer pointed out that researchers used to communicate their findings by personal letter. Scientists could benefit by building on each others’ work and by establishing a paper trail of who discovered what and when.

At a certain point, academic journals took on this role. Peer-reviewed journals validate the veracity of research and coordinate its dissemination to researchers interested in the same concepts.

However, what began as an attempt to broaden the access to knowledge has, in some cases, limited it with spiraling journal subscription rates. The average institution is struggling to meet the specialized needs of the broad range of researchers it serves.

Open access provides peer-reviewed material in a coordinated manner – all it requires is the permission of the rights holder.

Neugebauer cited ArXiv, a digital repository established for physics researchers in 1991 as “a success story for open access.” After nearly two decades, ArXiv has expanded to include a half million items in mathematics, computer science, biology, finance and statistics.

Some journal publishers are using programs such as Open Journal Systems to establish online, open access journals that can be accessed through search engines like OAIster or Google Scholar.

Neugebauer points out that despite many researchers’ fears their institutions, funders or potential publishers expect exclusive rights to any work they have commissioned or accepted for publication, the reality is quite different.

SHERPARomeo, a web site providing the copyright policy of numerous publishers demonstrates that over 60% formally allow authors some form of self-archiving of their work, either before or after it has been edited by the review committee.

Similarly, SHERPAJuliet, lists the policies of funding bodies as regards open access. Several funders encourage the dissemination of research results through some sort of public archiving program.

Finally, an increasing number of institutions are offering the opportunity or researchers to deposit their work within an institutional open access repository. Concordia’s repository is set to open in the fall with retrospective Concordia theses as the bulk of its initial content.

A working group is currently preparing a position paper and will be initiating a dialogue on the topic soon.

Meanwhile, Congress 2010 convener Ronald Rudin has identified open access as a key theme of next year’s conference. “We are currently planning several key speakers and panels on the subject. It’s going to be a major focus of congress.”

The free distribution of research and knowledge - Concordia Journal - Concordia University - Montreal, Quebec, Canada

IP Crimes and Vices by Jeffrey A. Tucker

 IP Crimes and Vices by Jeffrey A. Tucker

IP Crimes and Vices

by Jeffrey A. Tucker

The 18 or so articles I've written about "intellectual property" – elaborating on a book I consider to be a seminal work of our epoch, Against Intellectual Monopoly – generated floods of email like I've never seen on any topic. The thing that gets people going is the conclusion: in a free market, there should be no legal grants of patent or copyright.

What many people do – and this is rather depressing from the point of view of a writer – is seize on the conclusion, ignore the reasoning and arguments, and then attempt an instantaneous, arm-chair refutation.

It always goes something like this: "Oh, you are telling me that I could just steal this article that you wrote, even put my name on it, sell it and take the money, and there would be nothing wrong with doing that?"

Some go even further to actually do this: put their names on it, post it somewhere, and send me the link.

I think precisely what you are thinking: "What a jerk!"

I'm not sure what other kind of response they expect from me. They must really think I will say: "Oh, this is so shocking! I had not considered that someone might actually do this to me if we got rid of the U.S. Copyright Office! My goodness, this kind of thing cannot be tolerated. I was completely wrong in everything I said. I too am grateful to the state for all it does to protect my intellectual creations and my good name."

Sorry to say, this is not my response. My detailed response actually goes as follows: "If you do that in a free society, you will not be arrested by the police or experience physical coercion blessed by official mandate. However, everyone is free to regard you as a poseur, a wretch, a menace to society, and wholly lacking in credibility. If having a good reputation counts to you, it's probably not a good idea to pretend to have written something that you have not in fact written."

The difference here comes down to a wonderful distinction that was made by Lysander Spooner in the 19^th century. He was careful to explain the difference between a vice and a crime. A crime involves aggressive force or threat of aggressive force against another person or privately owned property. A vice, however, is a much larger category of behaviors that don't involve invasion of person or property.

Vices can involve lying, being nasty to others, eating like a pig in public, abusing oneself with drugs or liquor, failing to shower and thereby stinking to high heaven, swearing in public, betraying benefactors, rumor mongering, displaying ingratitude, not keeping commitments, being a shopaholic, being a greedy miser, failing to do what you say you are going to do, making up stories about other people, taking credit for things you didn't do, failing to give credit where it is due, and other things along these lines.

In a free society, vice is controlled through decentralized social enforcement of social, ethical, and religious norms. The great problem of statism is that it turns vices into crimes, and then when the law is repealed, people forget that there are, after all, certain social norms that nonetheless need to be upheld and will be upheld once society is managing itself rather than being managed by the state.

Consider the case of classroom plagiarism, for example. A teacher wrote to me with a concern that the repeal of intellectual property law would make it more difficult to punish students for turning in work that claimed to be original but was actually copied from elsewhere. I pointed out that the police and courts are not involved in the enforcement of classroom rules now, so why would a change in federal legislation be any different? Plagiarism is still plagiarism.

IP law has really had the effect of distorting our society's sense of all of these matters. It has made everyone too unwilling to admit our dependence on imitation and emulation as institutions that permit and encourage progress. It has made people too shy to copy the success of others and admit to doing so. Writers, artists, entrepreneurs all live with this weird burden of expectation that everything they do must be completely original and they must never draw from others sources. It's preposterous!

On the other hand, we are too quick to credit the state for preventing the mass outbreak of old-fashioned vice. Even without copyright and patent, some kinds of behaviors and practices will remain shoddy, unseemly, ungracious, conniving, and social unacceptable. What, for example, would you say about a local author who claimed to write a new play that turned out to be written by Shakespeare? Doing this is perfectly legal right now. But the person would be regarded as a lout and a fool for the rest of his life.

Hence, the repeal of "intellectual property" law does not mean some sort of crazed free-for-all chaos in which no one can be entirely sure of anyone's identity, creations, who wrote what, what company did what, where credit is due, what one's commitments are, and the like. What we will gain is a great sense of our moral obligations to each other.

And in the absence of the state's grant of monopoly privilege, we will become ever more vigilant in giving credit where it is due. You still have to be a nice person who acts with a sense of fairness, equanimity, and justice, as conventionally understood. If you don't, the state will not crack your skull, but you will lose something profoundly important.

In other words, in the absence of IP, we gain a greater sense of the distinction between what is vice and what is crime, and a better means for dealing with both.

March 19, 2009

Jeffrey Tucker [send him mail] is editorial vice president of www.Mises.org.

Copyright © 2009 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

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IP Crimes and Vices by Jeffrey A. Tucker