The Rants of Issachar

My e-mail to Senator Fitzpatrick got a response! It doesn't really say anything beyond "thank you for sending us your views on copyright", but it was an actual reply. No response yet from Senators Carney or Jaffer). I'm not expecting to hear back from Stockwell Day or Jim Prentice until at least January of course. Ground letters are a little slower.


I'm not sure what small effect my writing will have, but hopefully some. Certainly I can't leave the representation of my views up to the National Post. Apparently Terence Corcoran thinks I'm a "Telecom Trotskyite". (Well note me personally).

I'm not even sure where I should begin with that editorial. When I was in the debate club in high school, one of the most important thing I learned was that if you couldn’t summarize the opponents point of view so accurately that they said “yes that’s what I think”, then you weren't a good debater. True debate is to summarize your opponents views correctly and then point out why they’re wrong. If you have to misrepresent your opponents then you don't have a case.

To quote from the editorial in a section that claims to represent the views of people like me:

If the iTune you download can only be used on your iPod, that's an assault on your rights.

No. That's not what we think. We think that if a song that you bought can be played on different devices, but that you are legally prevented from playing the song you bought, then that is wrong. See the difference? And what's with calling a song an iTune?

And here's another lovely quote:

Canada has also agreed to international copyright agreements, but has not yet implemented them.

That's a bit rich coming from a man who wrote this on September 16 2006:

News that the Conservatives might be taking a more cautious approach to Kyoto and climate change could not come at a more appropriate time.

Leaving aside the merits of Kyoto and whether or not we should implement it, that's a bit of a contradiction. We not only signed the protocol, we ratified it. We haven't ratified the WIPO treaties he's talking about.

Corcoran also throws in some comments about Net Neutrality, and this little gem.

Industry Canada's recent wireless-spectrum auction regime, which involves a form of nationalization of telephone-cable assets, has its roots in the idea that the people rule.

Nationalization? Does he even know what that word means? I do not think it means, what he thinks it means. (And what does this have to do with copyright?)

What the government did was reserve part of the spectrum for new entrants. This ensured more competition between private companies in the market by preventing incumbents from using their established businesses to prevent new companies from entering the cell phone market. Not even close...

I'm not going to get into the issue of Net Neutrality that he touched on briefly. It's more complex than he suggests and I haven't had dinner yet.

Oh, and is it wrong to include the quotes I put in? Or is it fair use? After all, they're Corcoran's words and the copyright belongs to him. (Or more likely the National Post). Here's what he said on that:

If you want to incorporate part of a television show into your work of art or whatever, you should not have to bother with copyright issues.

He wrote words, and my blog isn't art, but the copyright issue is identical. I'm using his copyrighted words without his permission. I'm not bothering with any copyright issues. Why not? Because it's fair use.