On copyright crazy… Article by Roberto Fedrman, Washington Post In 1987, Norberto Colón Lorenzana had what we can all agree is a pretty unremarkable idea. Colón, who had just started working at a fast food joint called Church’s Chicken in Puerto Rico, suggested to his employer that they try adding
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centre of the universe: Money for Nothing
Copyright is, at its simplest form, the method by which creators are paid for their work. It is a registration of an intellectual property (IP). It says “the creator has the right to charge, or not to charge, money for you to use this”. It’s not a form of censorship
Continue readingOpenMedia.ca: CBC: ‘Shrewd’ Canada playing long game as TPP trade talks begin in Maui
Aloha! Welcome to the weekend, where things get real for TPP negotiations in Hawaii. Speak out now at StoptheSecrecy.net Article by Janyce McGregor for CBC News As Canada’s lead negotiator Kirsten Hillman and the rest of her Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiating team sit down with their counterparts in Maui, Hawaii this
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week. – Murray Dobbin writes about the damage caused after decades of allowing the corporate elite to dictate economic policy – and notes that the Cons are determined to make matters all the worse: However you see it — as separate from society or integral
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Secret TPP talks in Ottawa: Harper has “something to hide”
“Most Canadians would be surprised to learn that Canada is hosting the latest round of TPP negotiations this week in Ottawa,” says University of Ottawa Prof Michael Geist The post Secret TPP talks in Ottawa: Harper has “something to hide” appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingArt Threat: Michelangelo’s David takes up arms in American gun ad
An American weapons manufacturer is the subject of outrage in Italy — but this international offensive lies strictly within the cultural realm. ArmaLite, an Illinois-based small arms engineering firm, has bestowed indignity upon Michelangelo’s David by using the classical sculpture as a prop in a rifle advertisement. The tacky advert
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Krugman Gives TPP a Thumbs Down.
New York Times economist and Nobel laureate economist, Paul Krugman, tends to support free trade but even he wants the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, or TPP, dead and buried. Krugman’s big objection is that the deal allows corporations to monopolize intellectual property and will result in monopolized trade, not free
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Murray Dobbin writes about the crisis of extreme capitalism: (T)he “free economy” romanticized by Friedman and his ilk is anything but. Completely dominated by giant corporations whose wealth outstrips all but the richest nations, economic freedom does not exist for anyone else, including
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading… – Joseph Stiglitz discusses the abuse of intellectual property law to turn publicly-funded research into privately-held profit centres (no matter how many people die as a result): (A) Utah-based company, Myriad Genetics, claims more than that. It claims to own the rights to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #mtlqc13 Priority Resolution – Human Rights
The final panel on policy resolutions at the NDP’s Montreal convention will deal with human rights issues. And the Young New Democrats of Quebec have proposed a resolution which covers a number of issues worth including in that discussion: 6-26-13Resolution on Rights in the Digital AgeSubmitted by the Young New
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Jeremy Hammond: Aaron Swartz & the Criminalization of Digital Dissent
It is not the “crimes” Aaron (Swartz) may have committed that made him a target of federal prosecution, but his ideas – elaborated in his “Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto” – that the government has found so dangerous. By Jeremy Hammond – #18729-424 | Metropolitan Correctional Center, Feb. 20, 2013: The tragic
Continue readingCanadian Progressive: What’s Wrong With TPP?: Prominent Academics Respond
Prominent Academics Respond to the TPP (via EFF) We asked several academics to let us know their thoughts about the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). The TPP is a secretive, multi-national trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property (IP) laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Carol Goar comments on the CEP/CAW plan to merge and work toward a far more active type of unionism: Both the CAW and the CEP — of which I am a member — gobbled up smaller unions to reach their current size.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Since the Cons don’t seem to have much else in their quiver at the moment, I’m sure they’ll keep trying to pretend that it’s monstrous of Thomas Mulcair to suggest that all industries (including those in Alberta) pay the cost of their real
Continue readingLaw is Cool: What, What, In the Butt?
Yes, this video is actually being litigated on copyright infringement grounds. Summary from Electronic Frontier Foundation, South Park aired the “What What” parody in a 2008 episode critiquing the popularity of absurd online videos. Two years later, copyright owner Brownmark Films sued Viacom and Comedy Central, accusing South Park of
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Access Copyright
I have an opinion piece out on Access Copyright, English Canada’s longtime copyright middleman. I argue that Access Copyright is a bit like the Blockbuster Video of Canadian university libraries—once indispensable, and now almost obsolete (largely due the Internet). Within a year from now, it’s possible that no Canadian university will still have day-to-day dealings with […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Copyright on Campus
A recent article by George Monbiot in The Guardian takes a critical look at academic publishers, apparently with a focus on the United Kingdom. The article makes the following points: -Journals now eat up 65 percent of university library budgets. -”[A]cademic publishers get their articles, their peer reviewing (vetting by other researchers) and even much of their editing for free.” -The […]
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