tags/politicsDavid Bremnerby-nc-sa-2.5
Copyright 2020, David Bremner
https://www.cs.unb.ca/~bremner//tags/politics/David Bremnerikiwiki2009-08-24T16:44:46ZCandidate dropped over blog postinghttps://www.cs.unb.ca/~bremner//teaching/old/3997/clippings/posts/green_party_shavluk/
<a href="../../whyCC/">by-nc-sa-2.5</a>
Copyright 2020, David Bremner
2009-08-24T16:44:46Z2008-09-04T03:00:00Z
<p>On September 4, the Green Party of Canada announced they were
<a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080904.wgreenpartyfired0904/BNStory/National/home/">dropping</a>
John Shavluk as a candidate because of allegedly anti-semetic remarks
he made in a comment on a blog.</p>
<p>To me, the main lesson there is that the <a href="https://www.cs.unb.ca/~bremner//tags/internet_remembers/">Internet
Remembers</a>. At the risk of making light of a
serious situation, it is worth noting that if Mr. Shavluk had done a
better job of <a href="https://www.cs.unb.ca/~bremner//tags/quoting/">quoting</a> rather than just "parroted what others
were saying", this story might have had a different ending.</p>
Copyright board inspired Dickens? https://www.cs.unb.ca/~bremner//blog/posts/Copyright_board_inspired_Dickens_/
<a href="../../whyCC/">by-nc-sa-2.5</a>
Copyright 2020, David Bremner
2008-03-03T11:45:13Z2007-10-21T12:14:00Z
<p>The Copyright Board of Canada, in their wisdom, recently <a href="http://cb-cda.gc.ca/decisions/m20071018-b.pdf">acceded</a> to a
request from SOCAN to allow a retroactive tax on all music downloads.</p>
<p>According to the learned members of the Copyright Board</p>
<pre><code> [100] Fourth, SOCAN members are not double dipping. The
communication and reproduction rights are separate rights,
often owned by separate persons, administered through separate
channels and subject to separate regimes.
</code></pre>
<p>So to summarize. If I buy a homemade CD for $10 from a band, I give
ten dollars to the band. If I download the <em>exact same bits</em> from a
web site (which is certainly possible with e.g. FLAC encodings), burn
it to a CD-R (which by the way I also payed a %$&^%$ levy on) myself
and get something completely indistinguishable, I now owe SOCAN
whatever percent they and the copyright board dream up?</p>
<p>Charles Dickens, in Chapter LI of Oliver Twist, wrote</p>
<pre><code> 'If the law supposes that,' said Mr. Bumble, squeezing
his hat emphatically in both hands, 'the law is a ass--a idiot.'
</code></pre>
<h4 id="Update">Update</h4>
<p>Maybe it is not just me. <a href="http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2007/11/socan-tariff-22-judicial-review.html">Howard Knopf's blog</a> reports there will be a
judicial review of this CCB decision.</p>