p2pnet - rss feed: Online advocates and the copyright debate
p2pnet news view | P2P:- I’m a great fan of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist, his incisive intelligence and his ability to cut through the rhetoric directly to the core of matters of importance to Canadians, the most recent being the attempt to stick us with unbalanced copyright legislation which would have benefited the entertainment cartels rather than the people they’re supposed to be serving.
On Saturday, “In reflecting upon a remarkable week - the Canadian DMCA delayed until 2008, 15,000 new members of the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook Group as the total passes 25,000, the Calgary meeting with Industry Jim Prentice, and the avalanche of blog postings and media coverage on Canadian copyright - it strikes me that two big issues emerge,” he posted, going on:
One is the power of social media to galvanize grassroots advocacy, an issue addressed by Mathew Ingram in the Globe, Dierdre McMurdy in a Sympatico MSN piece, and in my forthcoming Toronto Star/Ottawa Citizen column. It’s an enormously important story since it may foreshadow a dramatic change in how citizens speak out and policy gets made.
The other big issue is that the debate around Canadian copyright has been altered from one focused exclusively on creator rights and “piracy”, to one that includes (and this week focused on) user rights and consumer property. That change is at the heart of the thousands of letters and phone calls from Canadians who come from across the country and across the political spectrum. It is also evident in the media coverage of this issue. There was a time - not that long ago - that a group like [the] CRIA could put out a press release criticizing the government’s decision to delay copyright legislation and could expect the media to cover the release as if it were the last word on the subject. No longer.
Online advocates have forced the reluctant mainstream media to acknowledge they’re no longer the only games in town.
The latter have for the most part been conspicuous by their readiness to parrot any and all our utterances from entertainment cartel fronts such as the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America) as though they were credible pronouncements from reliable sources.
They failed almost entirely to give not merely equal, but any space, to issues of real national concern, now constantly and consistently highlighted in and by the grassroots media, most of it the shape of blogs such as Geist’s.
“It’s an enormously important story since it may foreshadow a dramatic change in how citizens speak out and policy gets made,” says Geist of the Canadian DMCA scandal.
It is indeed. But this amazing change isn’t being brought about by pressure from the mainstream media. Very late in the day, most print and electronic news outlets are merely reacting to events which were already well underway online.
It’s all about P2P power —- people to people.
Citizen journalists were, and are, responsible for the changes and challenges, and that reality will become even more evident as increasing numbers of people around the country open Net accounts and log on.
Because for the first time in history, thanks to the Net and 21st-century forms of communication such as IM, chat, texting, and so on, ordinary people are finding they’re now able to make themselves heard.
And it’s early days yet.
“At a time when Canadian politicians seem more concerned about American demands than those of the people who elected them, it’s a chance for Prentice to do what he should have been doing all along,” p2pnet posted last week, going on:
“He can, ‘brush aside the momentary embarrassment of the delays and instead work toward a genuine copyright balance by reaching out to all Canadians,’ says Geist, adding:
” ‘An astonishing number of people have voiced their concern over the past two weeks and the government seems to have listened. Now it must act by openly consulting and engaging with a country that genuinely cares about copyright’.”
In another post, “‘I’m very happy that I was able to contribute to the public debate and I’m flattered that I’ve been identified as one of the leaders,”Geist told p2pnet, adding:
“The real story, however, is how tens of thousands of Canadians came together in a matter of days to voice their concerns about fair copyright for Canada.”
Geist is a leader and Canada is in desperate need of him and others like him to step up and join genuinely concerned politicians such as the NDP’s Charlie Angus in helping to make sure Canada doesn’t become a mini-America where corporate interests rule.
Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people, right on - John Lennon
Jon Newton - p2pnet
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December 17th, 2007 at 10:03 am
“Canada is in desperate need of him and others like him to step up and join genuinely concerned politicians such as the NDP’s Charlie Angus in helping to make sure Canada doesn’t become a mini-America where corporate interests rule.”
Too late.