johndegen.com

what's your hurry, free culture?

2013-04-09T21:55:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, Access Copyright, the collective licensing agency for Canada's writers and publishers announced they had been forced to launch legal action against "York University, ministries of education, school boards and post-secondary institutions that copy - and promote the copying - of copyright-protected materials without a licence."

According to their statement, these actions were taken reluctantly as a last resort against intransigent former partners who have simply walked away from the legal necessity to licence the works they continue to use in large quantities.

To anyone following the now Homeric plot of copyright reform in Canada, legal action by Canada's writers and publishers, through their collective, is about as surprising a twist as the Blue Jays not being handed the 2013 World Series trophy by their opponents on opening day. Writer groups, publisher groups, Access Copyright themselves all made official submissions to government during the design and passing of last year's Copyright Modernization Act, and all unhappily concluded we would have to go to court if educational administrators used ill-defined changes to the Copyright Act as an excuse to stop paying for our work.

So, here we all are. Those pushing a free culture agenda in the educational community have always claimed that they do not condone copyright infringement, that they respect the rights of creators and publishers and truly believe Canada's cultural creators deserve to be paid when their work is used in educational settings.

Well, Access Copyright believes they have found instances of infringement, and an organized and officially sanctioned lack of respect for the rights of creators and publishers. They believe their affiliates are rightfully owed licence royalties for work used in educational settings.

Is free culture sympathetic? Of course it's not.

Today, free culture theorist and law professor Michael Geist characterized the Access Copyright legal action as a "desperate declaration of war against fair dealing." In a blog posting that admitted to not researching the actual legal documents in the suit* (they weren't online - how was a professional scholar supposed to find them?), Geist seems to conclude Access Copyright does not have a substantive argument to make.

In a talk Michael Geist gave to the Professional Writers Association of Canada in 2006 (a talk for which he was paid - I know, because I signed the cheque) he insisted that copyright infringement is against the law and that writers should take infringers to court. In 2013 apparently, legal recourse is no longer a remedy for writers; instead it's an attack on fair dealing.

Also quick out of the prejudgement gate today was the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT). In a press release, CAUT decided the Access Copyright lawsuit against York University is "hopeless," that the business of collective licensing represented by AC is "obsolete" and that, bafflingly, the Supreme Court of Canada established fair dealing for research and study in 2004 (pretty sure fair dealing for research and private study predates 2004 by several generations, and still doesn't condone large scale infringement).

On their website, CAUT makes this statement about intellectual property:

CAUT actively defends the works of academic staff from expropriation and misuse by employers and other special interests.

Access Copyright believes it sees expropriation and misuse of work (much of it by academic staff, no doubt - there's a lot of writers in the academy). Not only is CAUT expressing zero sympathy for the rights of those possibly misused in this instance, somehow they figure they know the end result of this legal action. It's a confusing position for a professional association to take. Don't bother trying to protect workers against expropriation; it's hopeless.

Writer groups (like The Writers' Union of Canada, for whom I work), publisher groups and our collective licensing agency are all involved in active outreach to academic faculty, students and information workers in libraries across the country. We're working to counter an awful lot of incorrect assumptions that seem to have grown up around the need for licensing in educational settings. It's funny, when you get away from the gurus and the radicalized advocates and talk to the people who actually have to use copied materials, you hear an awful lot of regret that some administrations might be poisoning our cultural well by trying to avoid licensing, and you hear a lot of hope that at some point the courts will find a remedy for this mess.

Free culture objections to the very idea of legal action on infringement sound an awful lot like issue avoidance. We all want to know if lines have been crossed here. Why don't we let our legal machinery work the way it's supposed to?

Why the rush to judgement, free culture?

* For the record, the actual court documents filed by Access Copyright are crystal clear about what is in dispute, and it has nothing to do with any theoretical definitions of fair dealing (as suggested by both Geist and CAUT):

Effective September 1, 2011, the defendant represented to the plaintiff that it was no longer making or authorizing the making of any non-exempted reproductions of copyright-protected works within the Repertoire. The defendant asserted that the terms of the Approved Tariff were not applicable to its activities. No further royalties were paid by the defendant to the plaintiff for any period subsequent to that date. Thus, as and from September 1, 2011, all acts of reproduction of copyright-protected works within the Repertoire by Educators and the defendant’s students have been unlicensed and not in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Approved Tariff...

As particularized in Schedule “B” herein, more than one Educator has, on and after September 1, 2011, reproduced, in whole or substantial part, and authorized the reproduction by students and third party copy-shops, in whole or substantial part, of more than one copyright-protected work within the Repertoire.

Maybe we should all reserve judgement until the court weighs the evidence?

(image courtesy Access Copyright)

robbing the 99%... in the name of the 99%

2013-03-15T14:54:00.000-04:00

In an engaging, sacred-cow tipping essay in the March 2013 issue of the Literary Review of Canada, economist George Fallis sketches a portrait of what he calls Canada’s Surprising One Percent. The subtitle of the essay brilliantly sums up our current state – Never have so many been paid so much to care so little.

Noting that Canada has enjoyed a “steady reduction in after-tax poverty” in the last three decades, and that much of that reduction is the result of the very government intervention Occupiers demand, Fallis wonders about the “jumble of incoherent complaints” that came out of last year’s Occupy protests. If the 99% in Canada is, in fact, not being slowly crushed by the unstoppable advance of poverty and a crumbling social democracy, then why do we feel so threatened?

Fallis finds his answer by taking a long honest look at Canada’s actual 1% of top wage earners, who have indeed seen their compensation packages rise sharply in comparison to the average among the rest of us. But instead of blaming just the usual caricatured fatcat bankers and robber barons of industry (though these figures certainly exist in his paradigm), Fallis posits it is the relatively new one percenters in education, media, business and culture who are failing our society, mainly by abdicating the very responsibilities of leadership for which they are so handsomely paid.

Jane Jacobs, Fallis writes, argued there are five pillars of our culture that we depend on, including higher education and the self policing of the learned professions. These pillars are showing signs of decay. Universities drift away from educating toward credentialing. Legal and accounting fraud increases; neither profession can be trusted any longer to “maintain stability, honesty, and good order for the common welfare.”

I’ve wondered elsewhere at the outright gall of extraordinarily well compensated university administrators campaigning to further impoverish the already underpaid cultural underclass, and the tenured professors enjoying guaranteed income for life (plus generous bonus and benefit packages, sabbaticals and extremely flexible work hours) who lend authority to this attack on workers’ rights by theorizing about an ill-defined common good that demands others make far less than they do.

I’ve also wondered at media supercorporations (making record profits through concentration and vertical integration) who demand more and more from their workers with no compensatory rise in pay. That is precisely what’s happening right now with freelance contracts attempting to scoop up every single income-producing right from writers while offering pay that was standard thirty years ago.

And it’s also what’s happening as a 1% class of college and university administrators, faculty leaders and chief legal counsels spread the doctrine of expanded fair dealing throughout education. In the fair dealing model, on display across the educational sector in aggressive new policy statements, writers and artists are expected to provide their work for free, while tuitions shoot ever upwards, and more and more of the actual work of education is foisted on underpaid sessional instructors. Who profits from this ironically named expropriation? Certainly not the students, who are all headed for the same kind of treatment from the 1% after graduation.

What George Fallis leaves out (though I’m hoping he’ll get into this in an upcoming book) is how the 1% manages to get away with its absurd financial success on the backs of a majority who really should have the power and will to force greater (actual) fairness.

I think the answer lies with those overpaid theorists, who have somehow managed to mask their own privilege. Nothing surprises and depresses me more in the current copyright battle over compensation for educational use than running up against the underclass of “free culture” true believers – the students, library workers and adjunct teachers who wave a fair dealing banner with all their might. To them - absurdly - artists and writers averaging $24,000 a year in real wages represent the elite and entitled.

Somehow, a handful of wealthy faculty and administrative bosses have convinced thousands of their lessers to hit the streets in a protest against paid work – a protest absolutely designed to make sure those same students, library workers and adjunct teachers will never rise to the level of economic comfort and safety as that enjoyed by the intellectual leaders of their movement.

Well played, 1%... well played.

between a rock and an oddly unsympathetic place

2013-03-04T18:36:00.002-05:00

The Rock

Today, the Canadian Media Guild put out this press release taking Transcontinental Media to task for new freelance writing contract terms. Transcontinental Media publishes some Canadian magazine staples, like The Hockey News, Canadian Living and Style at Home, and a number of local community newspapers across the country. They are an important partner in Canadian culture in that they provide Canadian readers with Canadian stories and they provide Canadian writers with a market for those stories.

Used to be, freelance writers would sell first Canadian serial rights to the content they wrote for outfits like Transcon. What that meant was the publisher had the first right to publish the work in a Canadian magazine or newspaper. That's what they paid for, that's what they got. The writer retained all other rights under copyright to the work, allowing her to resell the work in a non-competing market, collect it into a book, sell it to a database, etc.

Most importantly, the writer retained the moral rights to her work, meaning control over the integrity of the writing, the by-line, the opinion expressed, stayed with the person who actually thought up and wrote down the sequence of words. What a concept.

All that has changed. As media companies concentrated, vertically integrated, converged, united, corporatized and grew, writers saw more and more of their rights demanded in contracts. Occasionally, they saw more and more of their rights taken despite contract terms to the contrary (ask Heather Robertson what that's like). To add insult to injury, even as rights-demands increased, pay rates for freelance writing stalled and even shrank. The average writer in Canada makes less today than 30 years ago.

Corporate freelance contracts are the butt of industry jokes these days, with wording that asks for a rights territory as large as the universe, and so all-encompassing that they often account for technology not yet invented. According to the CMG, this latest contract from Transcontinental even goes so far as to demand the waiver of the writer's moral rights.

Writers groups of all sizes in Canada are joining with the CMG and calling for writers to stand firm against this latest incursion onto our intellectual property. Frankly, if the waiver of moral rights under copyright becomes a standard contract term, there might as well not be creator copyright anymore. What's the point of owning the work you create if those using it provide crap compensation, and claim every possible use for the one crap fee?

Freelance writer, Ann Douglas, set a brave example as she resigned from her columnist contract with the Toronto Star over similarly ridiculous terms. Good for Ann... though it pains me to have to congratulate someone for quitting paid work. It will pain TorStar's readers as well, because Ann is one of the most-read parenting writers in North America.

The Oddly Unsympathetic Place

I note that it's the Canadian Media Guild (a union), the Professional Writers Association of Canada (the industry association for freelance writers), the Canadian Writers Group (an agency) and The Writers' Union of Canada (the industry association for book authors) who are doing a lot of the heavy lifting on copyright and contract issues for Canadian culture these days. That seems natural, doesn't it? One would expect associations, unions, agencies, collectives of all kinds to come together in solidarity when the rights of Canadian workers are threatened.

Why then are writers also forced to fight a rearguard battle against a bunch of other collective organizations actively promoting incursions onto our intellectual property as dire as those in these ugly contracts?

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT - a collective for the rights and interests of teachers and professors) says on their website (emphasis mine):

As the creators of intellectual property, academic staff have a strong interest in ensuring they receive credit for and control over their work. CAUT actively defends the works of academic staff from expropriation and misuse by employers and other special interests.

This suggests that they might stand with the CMG, PWAC, CWG and TWUC against rights-grabbing contracts for the creators of intellectual property. And yet, CAUT has also published a document called CAUT Guidelines for the Use of Copyrighted Material, which spells out a number of ways CAUT advises its members to use the intellectual property of Canadian writers without permission or payment. In that document, CAUT says:

Copying 10 percent of a work is likely to be fair.

Copying more than 10 percent of a work (up to and including the entire work) may be fair depending on the circumstances.

For example:

Copying an entire chapter from a book is likely to be fair.

Copying an entire article from a periodical publication is likely to be fair.

Copying an entire short story, play, poem or essay from a book or periodical publication is likely to be fair.

I've noted elsewhere how strange and disappointing it is for writers to watch our traditional partners in culture walk away from licensing arrangements. With millions of dollars per year in writer royalties on the line, educational and library associations seem to be falling all over themselves to not stand with Canadian writers in our quest for fair compensation.

Certainly, it's with growing disgust that most Canadian writers watch college and university administrations cut their costs by advising faculty to avoid paying writers and publishers for their work. In my job, I hear again and again from writers asking me if their own alma mater has signed a licence... because that same university just sent the writer a donation request.

When I tweeted about Ann Douglas' resignation from the Star the other day, a research librarian from a unionized Canadian university tweeted back:

"[the] Star has right to offer dumb contract, and yr friend has right to refuse. no rights denied"

Let me ask all Canadian university teachers and librarians... the next time you are offered a dumb contract, do you want your union to do something about it, or will you just exercise your right to be unemployed?

And when the day of that dumb contract comes - and we all know it will - who will your union call to be the public face of your PR campaign?

Book Room #16: Douglas Gibson

2013-02-26T21:16:00.003-05:00

If the player above doesn't work for you, try this direct download link.

For over forty years, Douglas Gibson worked with the best and brightest in Canadian letters, helping to create from the ground up the collective work we proudly label CanLit.

As editor and publisher, working for Doubleday, Macmillan, publishing his own imprint, Douglas Gibson Books, and finally taking the top job at McClelland & Stewart. Gibson has worked directly with three Prime Ministers on their memoirs, convinced Alice Munro that short fiction might just be her thing, and braved the ire of the formidable Mavis Gallant.

Gibson's 2011 memoir, Stories About Storytellers (ECW Press), collects his reminiscences about the many fascinating, intimidating and brilliant writers who passed through his office. Over the course of his career, Gibson traveled across his adopted country, seeing more of Canada than most of us who were born here ever will.

These days, Gibson spends much of his time traveling the country again - this time to present a stage show based on the stories in this book. The book is well enough known, having received excellent reviews in the Canadian media, and some of the stories in it have already become legends. My hope for this interview was to get behind the stories a bit, and find out more about Doug Gibson himself.

Doug Gibson joined me in the board room of The Writers' Union of Canada and the Writers' Trust of Canada, two organizations that have been around in the world of Canadian books not quite as long as Gibson himself. We spent a delightful couple of hours chatting, and I've carved that recording down to a solid hour. I hope you enjoy the podcast. I certainly enjoyed producing it.

every wolf's howl

2013-02-26T17:22:00.003-05:00

Novelist and former wolf-owner, Barry Grills reads from his memoir, Every Wolf's Howl (Freehand Books).

Regular listeners of The Book Room know that when I load a reading from the previous interview, the next interview is not far away. Stay tuned for Book Room #16, an interview with legendary Canadian publisher and editor, Douglas Gibson.

are you talking to me?

2013-02-12T12:39:00.000-05:00

It's probably a surprise to no-one reading this blog that I think a serious conversation between library workers, teachers, students and Canada's writing and publishing sector is long overdue. I am encouraging and inviting this conversation in all sorts of ways, not all of which are being well-received. Nevertheless, talk we must.

After my posting on a library association resolution last week - when librarians lend their politics, or, information wants to be doctrinaire - a thoughtful library worker wrote her own posting on her own blog:

Fighting for the Right to Copy: In Which Copyright is Discussed at Some Length

I recommend folks go and read it.

My response is below. I wrote this as a comment on this librarian's blog. For whatever reason, she has chosen not to publish it (I don't know what her comment policy is but she certainly isn't required to publish comments). I feel my response is important - key, in fact, to any discussion going forward, because it addresses not differences in interpretation but a clear and demonstrable misunderstanding of the actual law in play - and so I publish it here myself.

Hello Sara,

I am the author who "blasted" OLITA on my blog. I am also the Executive Director of The Writers' Union of Canada, so someone with a mandate to represent the interests of professional book authors in this country.

Can I start this comment by asking for an agreement between you and me at least, that “blasted” may be too harsh a term? I strongly objected to a resolution passed by OLITA. I continue to strongly object. That said, I want to thank you for your reasoned approach to the topic.

One of my goals is to open up conversation between the library, instruction and creation corners of our common enterprise, and get to a meaningful understanding based on the real facts. After I blogged the other day, I was called a jerk and a troll in public on Twitter - by librarians. So, perhaps not the best start for my project.

I hope it can eventually be accepted in good faith that no-one in my corner wants to make the work that goes on in your corner difficult. Access to creative works - and as seamless as possible an access - is a goal we share. I understand many think that Access Copyright has done a poor job with that. I'm willing to bet that folks inside AC believe they've done a poor job of it, but certainly not for lack of trying or intention. I disagree with your characterization of fair dealing, and I hope to explain why.

Let me get this part out of the way – I am a strong defender of fair dealing. Elsewhere within the library community, it’s been written that I don’t believe in fair dealing. Nothing could be further from the truth for me or for, I believe, any writer. It’s next to impossible to BE a writer without depending on the fair dealing provision for research and private study. We all use it in almost all of the work we do. Freedom to use short passages without permission for quoting, exposition etc. is also a cornerstone of a truly vibrant freedom of expression understanding. I love fair dealing, and I defend it in my work.

But, fair dealing is not a one-step provision, as you’ve described it. Thinking only about the purpose of your copying is a dangerous misunderstanding of the provision of fair dealing. You wrote “it means that if a student comes to me and says, “I’m writing a paper on the university’s architecture! Do you have any photos I can use?”, I can say, “Yes! Definitely! Sign this agreement that says you’ll only use them for research purposes and then we’ll start hunting.”

Well, that is simply not the case, and any good lawyer without an agenda will tell you so. The purpose (or category) of the dealing is NOT the only consideration when deciding whether or not that dealing is fair. You MUST also take scope (among myriad other things) into consideration. The licenses AC offer, the respectful royalty arrangements that have been in place for decades, cover the territory between where fair dealing ends (because of the scope or amount of copying – nothing to do with purposes or categories), and the need to actually buy a full text. Licensing has NOTHING to do with fair dealing and sits nowhere at all on that same territory. That is a misreading of C-11, recent SCC decisions and the basic concept of copyright – and while I don’t believe this of you, I do believe some are intentionally misreading this to push a free culture agenda, using the complexity of the law as a screen to get busy teachers, students and librarians on side.

So, when you say “Definitely!” to your hypothetical student, I’m afraid you are giving them very bad advice that exposes both them and you to liability for infringement. You’ve said you don’t advocate for infringement, and I believe you, but under your definition of fair dealing, infringement is almost a guaranteed outcome. In fact, it is only WITH a license like those offered by Access Copyright that you could ever say “Definitely!”

This is not something I should be telling you. It’s something that CAUT, OLITA and your own administration should be telling you. Unfortunately, the “licensing makes fair dealing more difficult” line has populist appeal, and administrations are being lured by potential cost-cutting.

I totally understand that librarians are uncomfortable being perceived as anti-creator, but in this instance, the math only works one way. Approximately $7.5 million was paid to Canadian creators for use of their work (not covered by any definition of fair dealing, new or old) in Canadian classrooms in 2011. That’s real money the writing community simply cannot afford to do without, and anyone advocating, as OLITA has done, to eliminate Access Copyright’s collective licenses is, in fact, advocating to take a similar annual sum from the writers who’ve earned it with their hard work. Will the elimination of those payments to authors mean reduced tuition or increased library budgets? I think we both know the answer to that question. Everyone loses when fair dealing is misunderstood in this way.

Thanks for the posting. More dialogue to come, no doubt.

- John Degen

Oh, and p.s. to everyone - I do NOT delete comments from my blog, and I never have. I have a comment moderation policy that I was forced to put in place after malicious and unhelpful commenting practices from a small cluster of loud free culture activists. You can find my policy here.

Open Book interview

2013-02-08T17:06:00.002-05:00

The delightful Grace O'Connell, novelist and teacher (I believe), interviewed me for the Open Book: Toronto website.

Guess what we talk about?

FREE FOR ALL:

CANADIAN COPYRIGHT, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

photo of Grace, courtesy Grace

"Al Purdy peed on my car," or, conversation does not always start well

2013-02-08T12:45:00.000-05:00

Two evenings ago, I was enjoying the Al Purdy Show at Toronto's Koerner Hall. This was a fundraiser organized by the Al Purdy A-Frame Association, a volunteer organization trying to raise about $1 million to complete the purchase and renovation of poet Al Purdy's old A-Frame cabin in Ameliasburg, Ontario, and establish it as the permanent site of a writing retreat centre, complete with programming in local libraries and schools.

Quick background:
I've been informally involved with, and a passionate supporter of the Purdy Association for the 5 years since it was founded by Jean Baird. I hosted a much smaller-scale fundraiser at Harbourfront a number of years back. Purdy's work means a great deal to me, as I published several of his later poems in ink magazine in the 90's, and carried on a treasured correspondence with the old fellow.

The show included an interview with Margaret Atwood in which she talked about the time Al took a pee on her car by way of making an argumentative point - "It was just pee," she said. "The rain washed it off."

Can't I get one evening off?

As I watched, I also kept an eye on Twitter where my own (virtual) car was taking a (virtual) soaking. My blog posting about a recent library resolution against collective licensing through Access Copyright had riled up some folks, and they were stepping to me on the interwebs. I won't get into identities, but I will say most of them appeared to be librarians, and I'm not sure how to register my extreme disappointment at the name-calling and scorn to which I was subjected. On the other hand, I've been called worse, so on we go.

I think I have a good handle on why these twitter-folks were angry with me. My posting made an explicit link between the recent over-expansion of fair dealing claims by the educational (and library) sector, and authors not being paid for their work. In other words, I made it look like librarians don't support authors.

So... here's the thing. I'm having a lot of trouble seeing it any other way, and since I didn't just pass a resolution attacking libraries, I'm not really sure it's my job to explain any of this further.

But I will.

The image above shows how licensed, fair dealing and purchased uses of copyright protected works exist on a spectrum. You can copy a little bit free because of fair dealing - that's how we quote and use short passages as examples. You can copy more, and do not have to buy a full text if (and only if) you buy a license to do so. Once you start copying substantially (up to the full text), you really need to buy the book.

Licensing, which I've noted is worth close to $8 million to the writing sector in Canada (2011 figures - real money) covers the territory between where fair dealing ends and the need to buy a full text begins. Licensing has NOTHING to do with fair dealing and sits nowhere at all on that same territory. To believe that licensing steps on fair dealing is to misread C-11, recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions and the basic concept of copyright. As well, licensing is not intended to make the lives of librarians and teachers more difficult. It is designed to provide maximum permission across the spectrum - to make things easier.

This next image is what happens when the definition of fair dealing is expanded to remove the need for licensing. Now, let's be clear - this has NOT actually happened in Canada according to actual law. It is simply what many school administrations, and resolutions like the one passed by OLITA are either mistakenly assuming has happened, or cynically trying to make happen through the establishment of a new common practice. I am very happy to believe that the OLITA resolution is the result of a mistake, but that doesn't change its outcome.

When you advocate for the expanded fair dealing model above (and the current attack on Access Copyright does just that), you are advocating to remove millions of dollars of annual income from Canadian writers. It took the Canadian writing community over 5 years to even come close to raising enough money to establish a fabulous new resource for our shared culture. The removal of collective licensing means the Al Purdy Show ends up at a net loss of about $7 million. One step forward, seven steps back and with pee all over our car. Delightful.

As well, let's keep freedom, access and the relative poverty of students out of this, please. Licensing is about providing more access, not less; more freedom, not less. Nowhere do writers or our licensing agency demand that students pay the licenses (the schools sign the licenses, the schools should pay them). Does anyone actually believe the removal of collective licensing fees will reverse tuition's rising trend or increase library budgets? All it will do is impoverish the cultural sector - a lose/lose for everyone.

Actually, a lose/lose/lose.

Again, that second image is NOT the new reality for anyone in Canada, not for teachers, students, librarians, writers or publishers. When the fair dealing arrow crosses into licensing territory, that is copyright infringement. Anyone assuming that fair dealing now looks like the above risks real liability, personally and professionally. If school administrations, library associations and teacher associations have not explained this to their members and staff, one really has to ask why not.

They crowded around me with tears
in their eyes and wrung my hands feelingly
for my pockets for
it was a heart-warming moment for Literature
and moved by the demonstrable effect
of great Art and the brotherhood of people I remarked
"-- the poem oughta be worth some beer"
It was a mistake of terminology
for silence came
and it was brought home to me in the tavern
that poems will not really buy beer or flowers
or a goddam thing
and I was sad
for I am a sensitive man

- from "At the Quinte Hotel", rooms for rent in the outer planets: al purdy, selected poems 1962-1996 (Harbour Publishing)

*photo of Al Purdy courtesy the Al Purdy A-Frame Association

when librarians lend their politics - or, information wants to be doctrinaire

2013-02-06T12:21:00.000-05:00

It's inconceivable to me that someone working in the chronically underfunded library system, or the increasingly underfunded education system could conclude that it is somehow fair or desirable to expect their most loyal and essential partners to suddenly work for free. When the Toronto Public Library system campaigned against potential funding cuts, who did they turn to for public support? A writer. Margaret Atwood led a group of Toronto writers in a petition campaign against cutbacks, garnering huge public support for the cause.

With Ontario's teachers in a work to rule dispute with the province for, so far, the entire 2012-13 academic year, who speaks out on their behalf and writes the supportive op-eds explaining their cause to an increasingly impatient province full of anxious parents and students? Writers. I don't think I know a writer who doesn't value the work of librarians and teachers, and I know a lot of writers. I am both a writer and the parent of two children in Ontario's school system, and I remain onside with my teacher friends and colleagues in their labour dispute.

How then to process some of the extreme anti-writer, anti-creative industry rhetoric one sees these days out of some corners of the academy and information sciences?

Would you like some politics with your library card?

The Ontario Library and Information Technology Association (OLITA) recently passed a Resolution on Opposition to Access Copyright License Agreements. This resolution, I understand, was intended to go to the OLITA annual general meeting where it was, apparently, unanimously passed by the members.

Who are the members of OLITA? Not sure. For an IT and Library association, they have a bafflingly unsharing web presence. Buried on the Ontario Library Association website, I finally came across this page letting me know who serves on the OLITA Council.

The OLITA resolution "urges Canadian post-secondary institutions not to enter into this licensing agreement, [and] encourages those who have already signed to exercise their termination options as soon as possible." The resolution contains a number of contentious and highly political "whereas" clauses intended as statements of fact. For example:

WHEREAS the addition of “education” to the fair dealing categories, and the broad support for fair dealing in the Supreme Court’s pentalogy rulings of July 2012 provide further support for the position that the Access Copyright license does not provide any additional value to institutions beyond their existing rights, and

WHEREAS the fee structure is inequitable to students on whom the costs are imposed, and

WHEREAS several provisions in the license agreements limit the use of emerging technologies and increase the potential for monitoring and surveillance,

Since it can quite easily be argued that not one of these statements is particularly accurate, one wonders how anyone could support the internal logic of this resolution.

What the resolution rather studiously does not point out is that when schools, colleges and universities decide to forgo licensing for copyright-protected content, millions of dollars in legitimate royalty payments to Canadian writers disappear. Stop paying Canadian writers and publishers for their work, and you set in motion an economic mill wheel that will almost certainly come around the crush those most dependent on the product of Canadian writers and publishers. Don't Canadian library workers want Canadian content?

Access Copyright is a collective licensing agency created by Canada's writers, publishers and visual artists to establish a convenient and efficient one-stop licensing shop for creative content in this country. It offers affordable licensing solutions to corporations, schools and governments, to ensure that Canadians can access and copy a vast repertoire of works, and to ensure that Canadian creators and publishers are properly compensated for their work. I think I can be 100% certain that we will never see the day when the Access Copyright AGM ever passes a resolution demanding that librarians and teachers not be paid.

Let's all be Open!... except when we want to hide something.

It seems there's an aggressive strain of doctrinaire, and somewhat hypocritical, free-culturism making its way through the immune system of our libraries.

The President of the OLITA Council, Nick Ruest, posted on his blog this past Monday that Access Copyright was engaged in intimidation tactics, and were trying to embarrass OLITA.

"Access Copyright tried to circumvent a democratic process, refused to engage in a public dialogue, and tried to misrepresent and embarrass OLITA..."

This in response to a letter from the co-chairs of Access Copyright (one a Canadian publisher and one a Canadian writer) requesting a conversation - an "open and honest" conversation, in fact - about "the interconnected work we do as teachers, creators and librarians." Having been told by Mr. Ruest that he considered AC's request to talk some sort of anti-democratic gambit, Access Copyright made their letter public. This is the intimidation and embarrassment Ruest refers to? Making information public, on the "open" Internet?

I note that every single member of the OLITA Council is an employee of either a university or a public library system. I also note that paying the salaries of these folks could easily be interpreted as putting an unnecessary and unfair burden on student tuition rates and/or taxpayers. Of course, I would never interpret it that way, because I recognize the value to our culture of paying information specialists. It's a shame that recognition doesn't always flow in both directions.

talking copyright on campus at CKUT (McGill)

2013-01-23T11:37:00.002-05:00

I was awake and surprisingly coherent this morning at 7 a.m., for an interview with Courtney Kirkby, host of the Wednesday Morning After show on CKUT radio at McGill University in Montreal. We discussed recent changes to Canadian copyright law, how those changes are being broadly misinterpreted by educational administrators, and the longer term implications of that misinterpretation for Canadian students, teachers, writers, publishers and the cultural economy in general.

Have a listen why don't you?

finally, I'm popular (high-school-me would be very impressed)

2013-01-08T10:47:00.002-05:00

Recently, while doing some quick research in preparation for a copyright presentation I will be giving, I came across respected intellectual property lawyer Barry Sookman's compilation of copyright- and IP-related blogs.

I admit to being stunned - stunned - to find this very blog at #11 on a list of the most popular Canadian intellectual property and technology law blogs.

I'll bet we're #1 (maybe in the world) on a list of intellectual property and technology law blogs not written by a lawyer.

Now, how can I monetize this status? C'mon Internet - show me the money.

book room #15: Barry Grills

2012-12-29T17:05:00.000-05:00

As 2012 draws to a close, the final Book Room episode of the year features North Bay, Ontario author Barry Grills.

A former chair of both The Writers' Union of Canada and the Book and Periodical Council, Barry has been working in the business of writing in Canada for close to half a century. He has been a journalist, an editor and a publisher. Barry's latest book is Every Wolf's Howl, from Calgary's Freehand Books.

Every Wolf's Howl is a moving, somewhat painful memoir of Barry's relationship with a wolf-dog named Lupus, a wild animal who, through some mysterious and inexplicable tolerance for human company, lived with Barry during a period of great financial and emotional trouble. As circumstances conspired to take much of tangible value away from Barry, his wild companion taught him how to let go without regret.

I drove through a late fall snowstorm to speak with Barry in his beautiful home in North Bay. The trip took me past Canada's vast Algonquin Park, home to a large population of wolves.

a good girl, by Amy Jones

2012-12-27T23:44:00.000-05:00

Thunder Bay author, Amy Jones fills The Book Room with the opening notes from A Good Girl, one of the stories in her collection What Boys Like, from Biblioasis.

You know what it means when The Book Room loads a reading. That's right... a new interview is on the way. Stay tuned for the yuletide edition of The Book Room with North Bay, Ontario author Barry Grills.

when they say “it’s not about the money," check your wallet

2012-12-14T13:01:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago, I traveled to Toronto’s far north for a lunch presentation (recorded on video as part of the excellent IP Osgoode Speaker Series) from the Honourable Mr. Justice Marshall Rothstein of Canada’s Supreme Court. Justice Rothstein was the author of the dissent in the recent 5-4 SCC fair dealing decision that went against the interests of writers and publishers, and is right now being broadly misinterpreted by shortsighted educational administrations keen on saving money.

Justice Rothstein was wise, charming and occasionally hilarious in his presentation. “Everyone at the Supreme Court thinks they’re an expert on copyright,” he quipped. On the topic of whether or not broad unlicensed classroom copying has suddenly been legitimized by the SCC, he referred to his dissenting opinion in the Access Copyright case, “private study couldn't mean hundreds of thousands of copies made across a province as part of an organized program of instruction.”

Last week, I attended a two-day conference in Toronto examining recent changes to Canadian copyright law (including the SCC decision above). The meetings took place in the steel and glass canyons downtown, were filled to capacity with lawyers (and the occasional association executive), and provided little assurance that the quest for a truly fair copyright regime for the digital age is anywhere near over.

The one certainty delivered at the conference is that everything about copyright is even more uncertain than it was before the passing of Bill C-11, Canada’s Copyright Modernization Act. Key terms have been left undefined, key meanings unclarified. It looks like Canada is headed into a sustained period of legal wrangling over these terms and meanings – a period that will further confuse the already confused, and cost absurd amounts of time and money.

And speaking of money, I came away from that conference with two key learnings about Canada’s freecult – those academic theorists railing against copyright and the “legacy” rightsholders who insist on protecting it. Firstly, they haven’t a clue about the real economy they are trying to disrupt, and secondly, when they say “it’s not about the money,” everyone should fly to Vegas immediately and place a very large bet on “it’s about the money.”

Ariel Katz, a law professor at U of T most famous (to me) for his offensive tweets, drew a lot of shaking heads when he questioned whether or not the Canadian publishing sector would even notice a loss of collective licensing revenue (calculated loosely (very loosely) at about $40 million per year). Admitting that he’d not actually done any real research on the question, Katz declared he’d taken a quick look at some earning statements of large publishers and wasn’t convinced $40 million would be missed. That’s right, to Canada’s freecult - all safely and comfortably tenured professors - $40 million is a trifle that no one in writing and publishing should worry our little heads over.

Michael Geist, on the other hand, may have inadvertently drawn back the freecult curtain with his unexpected admission that educational administrations may not quite be the "freedom" fighters the freecult would like them to be. In the middle of a predictable panel conversation about how copyright disrupts educational access and the freedom of students to learn, I wondered aloud if educational fair dealing is all about access and freedom, and not really about money, why is there so much focus on how much collective licensing costs (that insignificant $40 million again). Geist allowed that while students and professors may focus on access, it is possible educational administrations do consider the money to be an important factor. He then said something I found startling.

Geist mused that educational administrations might be more likely to sign collective licences if they were priced lower. Not at $20 per student, is how he put it, but perhaps at $5 to $10 per student.

Strange... the new fair dealing policies being drawn up for K-12 schools, colleges and universities around Canada are meant to be in place of licensing, aren’t they? And they seem meant to declare that schools can now depend on the law to excuse them from any price for those formally licensed uses, don't they? That’s certainly the non-binding legal opinion Professor Geist has been offering through his blog for months now, unless I've been reading him incorrectly.

Why would any school sign any licence at any price if the law told them they didn’t have to? I mean I know they still need to sign licences, I’m betting Justice Rothstein of the Supreme Court of Canada thinks they still need licences, but a freecult leader also admits the likelihood of licences while continuing to suggest they are unnecessary? How is that possible?

I think the answer is obvious. The freecult, with their superficial grasp of cultural economics, and their loose analysis of actual law, doesn’t have any idea what their advice will do for education. One wonders, as well, if they care.

fair (?) dealing in Canada's colleges

2012-11-24T12:22:00.002-05:00

On November 12th, 2012, the Association of Canadian Community Colleges began a cross-country series of seminars designed to teach their members the details of a new "fair dealing" policy. I joined a couple of members of The Writers' Union of Canada as they attempted to air their views during that initial seminar, in Toronto, in an airport hotel meeting room. As you can see in the video below, "fair dealing" in Canadian community colleges does not involve actually talking with writers about what they think is fair.

Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, a Canadian novelist, short fiction writer and - interestingly enough - a writing instructor at the post-secondary level, was not even allowed to introduce herself to the assembled college admin. When we attempted to hand out The Writers' Union of Canada's statement on fair dealing, we were blocked from doing so and the papers taken from us.

Hal Niedzviecki, another Canadian writer, also a writing instructor at the post-secondary level, founder of Broken Pencil magazine (a journal that has launched the careers of hundreds of Canadian artists) and the editor of TWUC's quarterly Write magazine came along to document our attempt at discussion.

We even offered to pay the $125 (per person) fee the ACCC was charging for their seminar, and still we were removed by security.

The new ACCC policy is the result of extremely broad and, I believe, incorrect interpretation of both the Copyright Modernization Act and a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision. It is not based in settled law, and will result in lost income for Canada's writers and publishers.The main aim of the new policy is to allow Canadian community colleges to stop paying collective licence fees for the use of Canadian writing in their classrooms. The policy declares that traditionally licensed copying - the use of entire chapters of Canadian work in course pack collections - is suddenly perfectly fair and free and need not be paid for. Those uses represent millions of dollars of annual royalty income for Canada's writers.

The ACCC charged their own members $125 each to learn how to use the work of Canadian writers for free (strict legality not included).

Word is the latest round of Access Copyright royalty payments have just recently gone out to writers. I know from personal experience, as a working dad with a mortgage and bills to pay, that the AC cheque usually comes at a perfect time and is very welcome indeed.

But, as the video above clearly illustrates, Canadian writers aren't just fighting for their hard-earned incomes. We're fighting to be heard. Free culture advocates love to wrap anti-copyright policy suggestions in the rhetoric of freedom and access. Ironically fitting, then, that the ACCC would hold their free culture seminar the day after Remembrance Day.

On November 12th, 2012, freedom meant writers were free to be removed by security, and access meant writers were allowed access only to the airport parking lot (for a fee).

PLEASE - if you are as offended as I am by the idea that a free exchange of ideas is not allowed within Canada's Community colleges, share this video as widely as possible.

Thanks to The Writers' Union of Canada National Council for authorizing the production of this video. If you are a book author in Canada and not a member of TWUC, now would be a great time to join and include your voice in the ongoing discussion about writers' rights.

Book Room #14: Amy Jones

2012-11-04T15:42:00.001-05:00

The 14th Book Room episode finds me in Thunder Bay, Ontario - one of the most beautiful communities you will visit, unless you already live there, like Amy Jones, my latest guest in the room.

Amy Jones is the author of the 2009 Metcalf-Rooke Award-winning collection short fiction, What Boys Like, and other stories (Biblioasis). She lives and works in Thunder Bay, and I caught up with her there in October when I was in town doing some outreach for the Ontario Arts Council.

We talk about drinking in graveyards, urban bears, and dreams of escape. Enjoy.

This photo of Thunder Bay's majestic Sleeping Giant and Lake Superior was taken from the Book Room. Nice view, huh?

ants with plans, by Stuart Ross

2012-11-03T18:42:00.000-04:00

Poet, short fiction writer, novelist and literary godfather to many, Stuart Ross reads the chapter called Ants with Plans from his novel Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew (ECW Press).

And, of course, having heard the reading and loved it, you will want to hear the Book Room interview with Stuart Ross, in which he explains everything.

boo!

2012-10-31T15:26:00.001-04:00

Thanks, as always, to The Devil's Artisan, for their fabulous - and spooky - collection of wood engravings.

next stop, Richmond Street

2012-10-26T13:23:00.002-04:00

As you can read in today's press release from The Writers' Union of Canada (below), I am leaving my job with the Ontario Arts Council to take over the Executive Director position at TWUC. Kelly Duffin, who has been leading TWUC brilliantly for the last two years is moving on and will be dearly missed. I will especially miss sitting with her at the Giller dinner, and losing my bet to her about who will win.

I've been with the OAC for just over four years now, during which time the Literature Office has seen immense change, both in the numbers of applications, and the functioning of the granting programs. I'm very proud of the work I put into public funding in this province, especially of the advances we've made in spreading the funding for writers more widely (and in a more northerly direction). I leave this position with a mixture of excitement and sadness. Extraordinary people work at the Ontario Arts Council - folks dedicated to a healthy cultural sector, whose days are jammed with client meetings, outreach opportunities, advisory sessions and an almost unbelievable amount of administrative detail. I will miss all of them.

While I could have happily stayed at the OAC until retirement, the chance to help lead Canada's writing community into a future full of opportunity and immense challenge is one of those offers you just don't refuse. We are all aware of the uncertainty and risk involved in being a cultural worker today. This week's news about Canadian publisher Douglas & McIntyre filing for bankruptcy is the latest knock to writers' confidence. I've been deeply involved in the decade-long struggle for a copyright reform in Canada that carries crucial protections for the work of writers into the digital age, and it's no secret that I see much work remaining in that file. The national conversation about copyright and cultural work is just beginning, and I intend to make sure our writers are leading that conversation.

While I'm fully aware of the challenge and work ahead, I want to stress my overwhelming confidence in the continuation of Canadian writing as a profession. There are far too many gloomy predictions out there. I believe there has simply never been a better time to be writing in Canada. As a great Canadian publisher, Matt Williams at House of Anansi Press, wrote just this week, "We don’t come to work to survive. We come to work to publish books for readers today and into the future."

I leave my Bloor Street office with a bit of sadness, but I'll be arriving on Richmond Street ready to get on with this vital and growing business of writing in Canada.

For immediate release

Toronto, October 26, 2012

The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC) is pleased to announce that John Degen, well-known cultural commentator and arts administrator, has been hired as the new Executive Director of TWUC.

John is a skilled administrator, policy analyst, and writer. Outspoken in defense of writers' rights
on issues such as copyright, John is at the forefront in using digital technologies to communicate
within and beyond the cultural sector. He is currently the Literature Officer with the Ontario Arts
Council, and was formerly the Executive Director of the Professional Writers Association of
Canada (PWAC) and the Communications Manager for Magazines Canada (formerly Canadian
Magazine Publishers Association). He knows the literary world from the inside as a published
novelist and poet and as founding editor of Ink magazine and host of The Book Room, an online
audio show featuring author interviews and readings.

Degen replaces Kelly Duffin, who leaves on November 23 to become Executive Director of the
Ontario Institute of the Purchasing Management Association of Canada. Kelly advanced the cause
of authors in this country, forging alliances within the sector, both nationally and internationally.

John’s passion, commitment, and expertise will not only carry on the current work of the Union,
but advance us even further as a strong professional and advocacy organization for Canadian
writers.

John begins his duties on November 26, 2012.

-30-

The Writers’ Union of Canada is our country’s national organization representing more than
2,000 professional authors of books. Founded in 1973, the Union is dedicated to fostering writing
in Canada, and promoting the rights, freedoms, and economic well-being of all writers.

www.writersunion.ca

really?

2012-10-23T20:29:00.002-04:00

This week is Fair Employment Week, during which the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) wants to draw your attention to the plight of adjunct and sessional professors, who are poorly paid for their work.

I totally support this cause. Our educators should be well paid. As should the writers and publishers who produce the content that is used by our educators in their jobs.

One small problem. CAUT spent lots of time, energy and money lobbying against the rights of Canadian writers and publishers during the decade-long copyright reform process in Canada. Their efforts resulted in a theoretical expansion of copyright exceptions that will now take another decade to work its way through the courts, costing Canadian writers and publishers tens of millions of dollars (per year) and reducing tuition, and raising faculty salaries by... well, who knows?

Almost certainly, by nothing.

Thanks CAUT. I support your cause, as do almost all of the writers and publishers whose rights you helped to weaken.

We're ready to talk when you are.

writing without a net

2012-10-20T11:38:00.005-04:00

Writing Without a Safety Net from John Degen

Yesterday, I was pleased to present a short talk at Ryerson University in downtown Toronto, as part of a conference called Will Work for Exposure: Cultural Work in Precarious Times. The day featured interesting keynotes from Davenport M.P., Andrew Cash and NYU Professor of Social & Cultural Analysis, Andrew Ross.

Several other Andrews presented during the daylong event, and I was part of a late morning panel entitled Working Without a Safety Net. My fellow panelists were Karl Beveridge from CARFAC and Mary Gellatly from the Workers' Action Centre. Each of us gave a brief presentation, and then the floor was opened for questions.

Above is a slideshare show of my talk, including audio I recorded later. Just click the play button and the slides will advance automatically with the audio (no need to advance them yourself, despite my audio prompting). Feel free to share this presentation widely.

The wood engravings in the presentation are courtesy The Devil's Artisan website, the cover image of Free Culture is courtesy Lawrence Lessig, and the various logos throughout courtesy those fine institutions.

N.B. This was my first attempt at creating a slideshare presentation. I apologize for any audio quirks. I'll get better at it.

voyaging north

2012-10-17T20:05:00.003-04:00

I have been in Thunder Bay, Ontario for the last few days, presenting grant information to local writers, recording a Book Room podcast episode, meeting with publishers and chatting with the delightful Cathy Alex, host of Voyage North, the CBC Radio drive time show here at the top of Lake Superior.

If you live in northern Ontario, or know someone who does, have a listen to my interview with Cathy Alex. It's a quick summary of the detailed talks I've been having here in TB.

And, for my publisher friends... you know what I meant when I said becoming a publisher is sooo easy these days. I meant it's sooo easy if you're brilliant and great-looking and a fine humanitarian. Otherwise, it's still really difficult. You are geniuses.

Other things I saw in Thunder Bay:

The memorial statue for Terry Fox, which I visited for my son who is doing a project on him. That's Terry above, with Thunder Bay's famous Sleeping Giant peninsula in the background.

I had to discourage several deer from leaping in front of my rental car.

And, I had a bit of a stand off with the biggest crow (raven?) I've ever seen, who would not budge from a skunk carcass in the middle of the road. You know, when something is eating skunk parts in front of you, it's best to treat the situation with some delicacy.

for the record: the changing tune of educational fair dealing

2012-10-10T09:58:00.002-04:00

The Hill Times, Canada's politics and government newsweekly, has published an op-ed in which I note a curiously altered message from educational representatives concerning educational fair dealing.

Before the passing of the Copyright Modernization Act (C-11), educators told the Parliamentary committee that suggested changes to the fair dealing categories "will not impact any of the creators or any businesses at all. Those things will stay intact." They further defined educational fair dealing as "small extracts, one or two pages, two to three pages of works."

Now that C-11 has passed, we are hearing a very, very different message from the educational sector. Fair dealing in education is suddenly being defined as up to 10% of a work, entire chapters, and inclusion of such copying into educational course packs. Far from having no impact on creators or cultural businesses, the post-C-11 definition has already dramatically changed the revenue outlook for Canada's writers and publishers, leaving educational copyright licences unsigned in the midst of a relentless copyright land grab by colleges.

Read the full article in the Hill Times online here.

Of course, before C-11 passed - in fact, way back when the Bill was called C-32 - creator groups expressed concern that just such a land grab was in the offing. They told the very same Parliamentary committee they expected exactly the outcome that has arrived. They were accused of fear mongering by the leaders of Canada's free culture movement.

I think both education and the freecult have some explaining to do to Canada's lawmakers, and I guess Canada's writers and publishers can now expect an apology from those who scoffed at their predictions.

NB: The op-ed originally stated, in error, that C-11 was still awaiting royal assent. In fact, the bill has received assent, and is now law, making retraction of statements before the committee impossible. Thanks very much to Quentin Burgess at Music Canada for the correction.

Listen to the latest Book Room audio podcast interview with poet and novelist, Stuart Ross, talking writing and Vertigo with John Degen.

Ontario books rock the GGs

2012-10-03T14:13:00.002-04:00

It's awards season in Canadian literary circles - a heady time of seemingly nonstop Facebook congratulation streams, and the occasional bitter aside from the unshortlisted.

Looking through my Ontario lens, I want to boast a little bit about yesterday's Governor General's Literary Awards shortlist announcement. All five of the fiction finalists, three of five poetry finalists and three of five non-fiction finalists are Ontario writers. In fact 17 of the 30 artists shortlisted across all the categories are from the province of Ontario, and 12 of the 30 publishers for those writers are independent Ontario-owned and -operated businesses.

You can find the full shortlist announcement at the Canada Council GG page.

Congratulations to Ontario's writers and publishers. You have created an outstanding literature.

Oh, and just FYI - shortlisted poet, David McGimpsey, was my guest in the Book Room last spring. We talked about his shortlisted book, L'il Bastard (Coach House Books).

Avid Reader Wall Clock image courtesy Cafe Press. You can buy that clock, here.

stay classy, freecult

2012-09-25T16:45:00.001-04:00

I have to say, I went back and forth on whether or not I'd write this post. I'm suffering a bit of copyright and freecult fatigue, what with all the copyright-related events of the past year. And, as astonishingly nasty as the freecult attack on professional writing and publishing in Canada has been over this past year (decade), there comes a point when you just get tired of listening to the shrieking crusaders who want to take away your rights.

And then those same crusaders smirkingly portray themselves as Nazis, just before Yom Kippur. From Twitter:

I know, I know - it's a tired old meme on the web. And that would, maybe, be an acceptable rationalization if the video didn't also contain vile, profane and unjustifiable attacks on the collective that represents my legal rights as a professional cultural worker. You can see from the subtitling above the kind of high-minded, fact-based criticism the video intends to make.

In case anyone's wondering who's involved in the sharing of this "hilarious" satire, you'd be excused for assuming it's a group of prepubescent boys.

It's not.

Ariel Katz @relkatz is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. He holds the Innovation Chair in Electronic Commerce. He has previously compared Access Copyright to an organized crime syndicate, and last week accused the collective of terrorizing universities.

Michael Geist @mgeist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa. He is Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law.

Samuel Trosow @strosow is an Associate Professor at the University of Western Ontario.

Howard Knopf @howardknopf is an IP lawyer at Macera & Jarzyna, Ottawa.

Rick Scott @shadowspar is, according to his blog, a "Canadian philosopher-geek who's profoundly interested in how we can collaborate to make technology work better for everyone. He's an incorrigible idealist, an open source contributor, and a staunch believer in testing, universal access, and the hacker ethic."

Well, you incorrigible idealists... you stay classy.

UPDATE: On his blog, Ariel Katz has issued an apology concerning his retweet of the Hitler parody video. Those interested in the apology will have to read past his attacks on me and Barry Sookman, all the way to the end of the posting.