Today we discussed the Associated Press‘ decision to issue “guidelines” for bloggers on what consitutes acceptable use of their stories. AP recently sent a C&D to the Drudge Retort, and then backed down. Some blogs, like TechCrunch, have announced a boycott of AP stories until they change their position. We talked about what AP’s bonehead stance would mean for bloggers, and their motivations for taking such an extreme position. What next? The NIAA (Newspaper Industry Association of America) suing children for bootleg papers?
We also talked about Olga Kharif’s story about how the iPhone will impact rivals. A year after it’s introduction, it has completely turned the mobile industry on its head, and now other manufactures and carriers who don’t have access to iphone are scrambling to compete.
On the call: Jeanette Fisher, Daemeon Welch-Abernathy, Dan York, Jim Courtney, Dave Brown, Jeb Brilliant, Ian Hood and Bill Volk.
Pierre hadn’t read the bill, but asked what my concerns were anyway. I told him that I couldn’t support the bill because it would make my family into criminals.
First, like many Canadian families we have a stereo in the living room. Over the years we’ve accumulated a tidy collection of CD’s. These are our CD’s for use by our family. They were purchased with family funds. We buy them to share with each other. And, frequently, we rip them to our iPods, play them on our computers, and play them using the networked music appliance I installed by the pool years ago. All of those innocent activities would be illegal under Bill C-61. We would have to own a separate CD for each and every iPod we own in our family in order to be legal.
We have 350 CD’s in our collection and 7 members of our family. If we assume an average cost of $15 per CD, Bill C-61 would result in a bill of 6x$15×350 or $31,500 for us to become legal.
Second, like many other families, we have a collection of DVD’s. Under Bill C-61, we would not be allowed to use those DVDs except in the DVD player attached to our TV. That just isn’t realistic. We regularly RIP those DVDs for playback on our iPods, the Nokia N810 tablet, or a PC. It’s a common and innocent way to use the license for the media that we paid for, and I don’t intend to stop doing it. Yes, the entertainment industry attempts to restrict my use of those DVDs by locking them. I unlock them using Slysoft’s excellent AnyDVD software. The entertainment industry were idiots to lock them in the first place, given the prevalence of digital playback devices. Besides, I paid for a license to the content – not the media, but the content on the media. I should be able to use it in any way that I choose.
If the entertainment industry and the government of Canada want to make ordinary citizens into criminals over innocent actions, then I say “Bring it on”. We’ll see civil disobedience on a scale that has never been seen before in this country.
I doubt it will get to that however. Saturday afternoon I also got a call from Pierre’s fundraising team, asking for my financial help in getting the Conservatives ready to fight an election. I told the person on the phone that I couldn’t support the party while they were proposing legislation that would make me, my wife, and my children into criminals.
