Did Less Than 10% Of Access Copyright's Income Go To Authors Last Year?

from the for-the-authors! dept

Access Copyright, the copyright collection society that collects money from universities for people copying written works, has been somewhat controversial. Even putting aside its silly attempt to claim a trademark on the © symbol, it's also been looking to increase its fees massively (over 1,000% in some cases). Michael Geist has been digging in on some of the numbers behind Access Copyright (something the non-profit does not make easy, since it appears to obfuscate the money flow), and appears to have worked out that less than 10% of the money it brings in goes to authors. You can read his methodology at the link, where there are some important caveats, including some money that's being held back until the results of a lawsuit are worked out. However, it does seem quite eye opening to find out that the group brought in $33.7 million last year, and only about $3.1 million of that went to authors directly, while $8.7 million went to administrative expenses. Kinda makes you wonder who Access Copyright is really representing.

Filed Under: authors, canada, copyright
Companies: access copyright

Senator Leahy Supports Bringing Drugs In From Canada... And Also Banning Such Sites From The Internet

from the confused-isn't-he? dept

In the latest bit of evidence that Senator Patrick Leahy, who is the official sponsor of the PROTECT IP Act, doesn't even understand what it is he's proposing, the folks over at DemandProgress are pointing out a massive contradiction in two separate bills that Leahy has introduced. First, of course, we have the PROTECT IP Act, which pharmacies like Eli Lilly are cheering on because they know that it can be used to block access to foreign online pharmacies (mainly in Canada) that Americans frequently use for parallel import or re-importation of drugs at more reasonable prices. Of course, Eli Lilly won't come out and say that directly, but the fact that they hype up the key point that this bill will encourage search engines and others to take "voluntary action" makes it pretty clear that this is what they likely mean.

No one denies that actual fake drugs are a real danger. But too many in both the pharma industry and among our politicians never separate out fake (and often dangerous) drugs from either generics or parallel import drugs that are just as effective, but often much, much cheaper. While government officials will insist up and down that their only concern is with the actual fake drugs, what's noticeably missing from this bit of legislation is anything that makes that point clear -- meaning that search engines and others who don't necessarily understand the difference may feel pressured to block those legit online pharmacies. Which, of course, would make the big pharma firms like Eli Lilly quite happy.

So what's the contradiction? Well, at the same time that Leahy is sponsoring the PROTECT IP Act, he's also a co-sponsor of the Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act which is designed to expand the ability of Americans to import cheaper drugs from elsewhere. Yup, so just as he's sponsoring a bill to allow more people to get cheaper drugs from Canada, he's also sponsoring a bill that will make that much, much harder.

Filed Under: canada, drugs, parallel import, patrick leahy, protect ip, reimportation

Oh Look, The Overall Music Industry In Canada Has Been Growing As Well...

from the and-so-it-goes... dept

We've discussed many, many times how the recording industry is merely a subset of the music industry, and it's quite unfortunate that many (including in the press and among politicians) seem to think that the recording industry is the music industry. However, if you actually take a look at the larger view, you quickly realize that almost every other part of the music industry has been doing quite well over the past decade. It's really just the recording industry part that's struggled. In fact, we've pointed to studies covering the UK, Sweden, Sweden and Norway which have all seen their overall music industry grow.

Even more importantly, in all of those, musicians themselves were making a lot more money than before. That's because the shift in the industry was towards markets and business models where the artists were able to collect the money, rather than a gatekeeper who kept most of it (i.e., the record labels). In an excellent article for the Toronto Globe and Mail, by professor Dwayne Winseck, which details all the problems with the copyright reform proposals in Canada, Winseck also does the same analysis for Canada, and once again finds that pretty much every other area of the music industry is growing: When you look at it that way, you begin to realize that perhaps the only real issue is that one segment of the industry is becoming obsolete. But the other parts of the industry are more than making up for it -- indeed, the larger music industry has grown from $1.26 billion to over $1.4 billion. So why are we wasting so much time around the globe trying to pass laws to buck up that one obsolete segment? And why do politicians and the press buy this false story that the industry is in trouble?

As Winseck notes:

Ultimately, only once the myth that the music industry is in peril, and that it is the canary in the coalshaft for all media, is discarded will we get copyright laws fit for these digital times.

Filed Under: canada, copyright, copyright reform, growing, music industry

Access Copyright Claims Trademark On The Copyright Symbol

from the you-have-to-be-kidding-me dept

Okay. This is just insane. Via Howard Knopf, we learn that Canadian copyright licensing agency Access Copyright is claiming to hold the trademark on the classic copyright symbol: ©. You can see it in their new website: While there are three TMs in the image, at least two of them (top logo and in the righthand column) appear to be on the copyright symbol itself. You can see one directly here: Are they serious? I mean, I recognize that maximalists believe strongly in copyright, patents and trademarks together... but it still seems insane that a group like Access Copyright would make a totally ridiculous trademark claim on the © symbol.

Filed Under: canada, copyright, copyright symbol, trademark
Companies: access copyright

The Stupidity Of 'You Must Be A Criminal' Copyright Taxes: The SD Card Edition

from the math-and-moore's-law dept

For years, we've discussed the various attempts up in Canada for the CPCC -- the Canadian Private Copying Collective -- to put its "you must be a criminal" tax on the iPod and on your ISP. Both efforts have failed, and now it appears they're just trying totally random stuff just for the hell of it. Howard Knopf explains that the CPCC's latest proposal includes a tax on memory cards:

50¢ for each electronic memory card with 1 gigabyte of memory or less, $1.00 for each electronic memory card with more than one gigabyte of memory but less than 8 gigabytes of memory, and $3.00 for each electronic memory card with 8 gigabytes of memory or more.

What does this have to do with music? No one seems to know. The CPCC seems to be arguing that such cards are regularly used for making copies of music, but that's ridiculous. Perhaps some are using memory cards for such things, but it seems unlikely that it's a large percentage of such cards. They're regularly used in digital cameras and phones, but those have little to do with music most of the time.

The rates are also flat out ridiculous. We've already discussed how the levy in Canada represents around 90% of the cost of a CD-R in some cases. While this isn't quite that bad, it's starting out high, and the rates are static so it's only going to get worse. As Michael Geist explains:

The financial impact of the levy would be significant. A 2GB SD card currently sells for about $6.00 and this would add an additional dollar or almost 15% to the cost. Given that the levy would remain static (or even increase) but the costs of SD cards are dropping by roughly 30% annually, the percentage of levy in the overall cost would likely gradually increase over time. Moreover, music plays a small role in the use of memory cards. A recent report indicates that digital cameras are the primary market for SD cards with smartphones the second biggest (and fastest growing) market. Music is a small part of the equation, yet the CPCC is demanding payment for every memory card sold in Canada regardless of its intended or actual use.

Another way to put it in perspective is via Knopf's original post, in which he notes that this is actually the second time the CPCC has tried this, and the last time around they wanted $0.008 per megabyte, and he does the math on that:

On today's typical 16 GB card that sells for about $30 or less, that would be a "tax" of $128 -- or about 400% -- which shows the CPCC's foresight and the application of Moore's Law.

It's really quite astounding how little the legacy recording industry seems to understand technology and the advance of progress at times. A tax like this is massively damaging to their own interests in the long run, but they just don't seem to recognize it. In the meantime, as ridiculous as this is, Knopf notes that it still means there's going to be a lot of wasted money fighting over this:

Unfortunately, the way the Copyright Board works, it seems inevitable that one or more parties are going to have to spend a lot of money to convince the Board not to impose this levy -- or "tax" as most will call it. The CPCC will spend a lot of money -- which it has from undistributed levies -- to line up its usual expensive experts to provide evidence of its entitlement to this "tax". One or more parties will have to provide evidence and experts at great expense to refute this -- even though it seems so obviously wrong. But that's the way the Copyright Board mechanism works in this and other instances where a collective is entitled to file a proposed tariff.

It's really quite stunning the sense of entitlement the industry feels here, that it can simply put a massive tax on a form of memory that is rarely used for music. Though, if it passes, and musicians really want to make some money, they might be better off getting jobs at Best Buy and pushing people to buy SD cards.

Filed Under: canada, copyright, levy, sd cards

Movie Studios Got Canadian Police To Arrest Movie Cammers As A Personal Favor

from the disgusting-abuse-of-power dept

You may recall a few years ago when the movie industry went ballistic on Canada, because it didn't have a criminal law against recording movies in theaters. With the way the industry and its supporters were talking about it, you would think that this meant people could record a movie and upload it with no legal problems, but that simply wasn't true. There were still civil laws against such recording, and the industry could enforce those. On top of that, there were still plenty of existing laws against distribution. Yet, there was a big campaign claiming that camcording in Canada was where 40 to 70% of all the leaked movies came from. This number was made up out of thin air, and seemed obviously false when another campaign for similar laws in New York City then claimed that 50% of camcorded movies online came from NYC. Either way, the lies about the numbers were effective. The industry got its law criminalizing recording a movie.

We've already discussed the Wikileaks releases on US influence on Canadian copyright law, but TorrentFreak points us to a particularly interesting cable on the subject of camcording in Canada. It kicks off with the embassy admitting that the movie industry was now claiming that perhaps only 18% of camcorded movies came from Montreal, despite an earlier claim that it was 40%. Not surprisingly, the MPAA only made a big stink when it claimed the numbers were in that 40% to 70% range... and was pretty quiet about the revised number.

The cable goes on to note that Canadian law enforcement thought the whole thing was pretty silly, and didn't believe camcording was a big deal. Instead, they (quite reasonably!) felt that their efforts would be better focused on stopping things like counterfeit pharmaceuticals from circulating. Later in the report is the really scary part, where Canadian law enforcement (the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) admitted that a particular individual was arrested twice as a "personal favor" to the movie industry, despite his actions not actually breaking the law:

With regard to the arrest of the individual who had been pursued by the CMPDA, RCMP officers stated that they arrested the individual "as a personal favor" to a [movie industry] official, and that they did not view theater camcording as "a major issue."

The TorrentFreak article goes on to note the tragic details of the individual who was arrested -- again, despite not having broken any law, and apparently as a "personal favor" to someone in the movie industry:

The arrest triggered a chain of events which would lead to Adam, who had a history of depression, enduring a 14 month wait for any charges to be brought. He went on the run, was detained and eventually sentenced to jail. Adam began using drugs in jail to cope with his imprisonment and shortly after his release he tragically died of an overdose.

Nice "personal favor," huh?

Filed Under: arrest, camcording, canada, favors, movie industry, rcmp

Canadians Ignore Ban On Tweeting Election Results

from the now,-will-anyone-get-fined dept

We recently noted that Canadians faced jailtime and fines, if they tweeted Canadian election results prior to the polls closing. The law, originally intended for TV and radio, despite a total lack of evidence that reporting on the results actually influences elections, has been deemed to cover the internet as well. As news of this spread, more and more people promised to tweet results, and plenty of people did so, with some setting up a specific site, TweetTheResults.ca to aggregate all the election result tweets.

So, now the big question is if Election Canada will do anything about this. It admits that it only investigates if there's a direct complaint, so most Canadian election Tweeters are probably safe, unless they have a really mean enemy. Still, one hopes that this attention will finally help Canada drop this pointless anti-free speech law.

Filed Under: canada, elections, free speech

US On What Makes A Good Canadian Heritage Minister: Willing To Disappoint Canadians To Please Big Business

from the wow. dept

As a separate followup to the Wikileaks leak showing US influence on Canadian copyright issues, Michael Geist points us to a particularly ridiculous memo from the US embassy in Ontario, discussing the Canadian Heritage Minister at the time (in 2005, Liza Frulla) and her position on licensing for satellite radio, in which they make an observation on what makes a good Canadian Heritage minister:

Canadian Heritage ministers must be strong enough to disappoint that core constituency in order to strike compromises with other departments, primarily Industry Canada.

Yeah, read that again. They must be strong enough to disappoint the people they represent, in order to please big business. US politics at its finest. The same memo notes that Frulla might not be well suited for this role, because she's "too close to cultural-nationalist interests to handle the job effectively." Yes, how dare the Canadian Heritage minister actually care about national culture instead of big business...

Filed Under: canada, copyright, politics

Latest Wikileaks Release Shows How US Completely Drove Canadian Copyright Reform Efforts

from the surprise,-surprise dept

With Wikileaks State Department cables showing how much the US influenced copyright policy in Sweden and in Spain, it shouldn't really be much of a surprise that the US unduly influenced copyright policy elsewhere as well. The latest Wikileaks report confirms what pretty much everyone knew already: copyright reform in Canada was driven mainly by US interests. Michael Geist points out some of the highlights, including the US Government demanding anti-circumvention provisions (things that the creators of those provisions in the US have even admitted were a failure). Yet, the US demands this, while maintaining that it would prefer there be few, if any, exceptions on circumvention:

If there are any exceptions to TPM or rights management information (RMI) liability, the exceptions should be clearly enumerated and narrow in scope

Separately, the US demanded third party liability on ISPs to pressure them into acting as Hollywood's private copyright police force:

A system of protections and obligations for ISPs that shelters them from certain liability, reduces and prevents copyright infringement on the Internet and provides incentives for ISPs to work cooperatively with copyright owners.

In response, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harpher seemed happy to promise such things, which explains why the Canadian government kept pushing so hard for anti-circumvention "digital lock" rules, despite widespread opposition to that key part of the proposed Canadian copyright reform. And yet, the US keeps complaining that Canada isn't ratcheting up its copyright laws fast enough, not recognizing the widespread public opposition that such laws are facing.

Embassy Ottawa remains frustrated by the Government of Canada,s continuing failure to introduce - let alone pass - major copyright reform legislation that would, inter alia, implement and ratify the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Internet treaties. Several recent factors compound this frustration, including the fact that:

-- the Prime Minister told the President last August that Canada would pass copyright legislation;

-- the November Speech from the Throne laying out the government,s Parliamentary agenda stated that it would "improve the protection of cultural and intellectual property rights in Canada, including copyright reform;" and

-- senior GOC officials, especially Industry Minister Prentice, repeatedly assured the Ambassador and senior Mission Canada officers that the copyright bill would be introduced "soon." Specifically, assurances were given that the legislation had been finalized and would be introduced prior to the Christmas recess, and then again immediately upon Parliament's return in January. Neither of which occurred.

Note that there is no discussion as to why Canada hasn't moved forward. No discussion of the rather effective opposition to overly draconian copyright laws. Just demands that Canada "do something," and plans for the US to keep applying more and more diplomatic pressure.

Even more telling, the US ambassadors only seem to speak with either the government or copyright holder organizations in all of this. In one cable, it discusses concerns from the recording industry and the movie studios that Canada's proposed legal changes don't go far enough. Nowhere do they seem to speak to actual consumers or to anyone who represents consumers. Because, you see, it's not about them. In fact, it appears that the "Canadian" Recording Industry Association has a very cozy relationship with the US government, with the two meeting to get feedback on proposals and strategize about policy issues. Again, no mention of any similar consultation with the people actually impacted by such changes in the law: everyone else. In fact, it seems like the only time the public is mentioned at all, it's to note how pesky it is that they don't seem to like these changes, and to explain why Canada has slow rolled the changes (because politicians were afraid negative publicity would hurt their re-election campaigns).

In one of the earlier documents linked above, the State Department (based on feedback from industry) criticize the idea of "notice and notice" rather than "notice and takedown" with a snarky complaint about how it's "if I told you once, I've.... told you once." Apparently, the officials don't recognize how notice and takedown invariably leads to false takedown and stifling of free speech (something we thought US diplomats were supposed to be protecting).

Once again, none of this is even remotely surprising. The US government, at the urging of the US entertainment industry, has been pushing its own brand of overly aggressive, speech stifling, copyright laws around the globe. It's just too bad that Canadian politicians apparently don't have the guts to stand up to bullying US diplomats.

Filed Under: canada, copyright, diplomats, reform

Kraft Threatens Cooking Teacher With Trademark Claim For Teaching Students To Cook Beyond Kraft Mac & Cheese

from the morons-in-a-hurry dept

I haven't had Kraft Mac & Cheese since I was a kid, and had no idea it went under different names in different countries. Apparently, up in Canada, it's called the Kraft Dinner or KD for short, where it's apparently even more iconic than in the US (where it's still pretty iconic). Either way, Kraft is upset. That's because a cooking instructor in Calgary, who had set up a free cooking class for students called "Kick the KD," is apparently violating its trademarks (via Rob Hyndman) -- and, yes, the company trademarked "KD." I don't know how different trademark law in Canada is compared to the US, but this seems like a pretty specious claim. First of all, there's no use in commerce. It's a free cooking-class put on by a non-profit. Second, there's no likelihood of confusion going on here, because it's not like anyone hearing about the Kick the KD is going to think it's associated with or sponsored by Kraft when the whole point is to get people to think about actually cooking their meals, rather than just breaking out a box of "KD" (I'm picking up the lingo). Now, of course, you can understand why it might upset Kraft that there's a class being taught to students about how to cook beyond the near instant simplicity of its Mac & Cheese, but that doesn't make it a trademark violation. Still, the class's instructor doesn't want to fight Kraft, so he's changing the name. Trademark bullies chalk up another win.

Filed Under: canada, cooking, kd, mac & cheese, trademark
Companies: kraft