Michael Geist reports the scariest part of the Speech from the Throne tonight: the probable introduction of draconian copyright laws in Canada…
As expected, the government has prioritized copyright reform, promising to “improve the protection of cultural and intellectual property rights in Canada, including copyright reform.” No words of balance, no words of access – simply more protection led by copyright legislation. This suggests – consistent with most speculation – that a DMCA-style bill could be coming to Canada within a matter of weeks.
It’s highly unlikely that any of the major parties will oppose this legislation, since it’s usually framed in terms of: “Canadian culture is under attack from American influences… the only way for our ideas to become stronger is to give our artists better copyright protections”. Nobody will vote against it because it’ll seem like a vote for Hollywood (which is true irony).
If only there was a Pirate Party in Canada, and there’d be an election before the copyright bill was introduced. And, well, we had enough votes to do something about it. Sigh.
Image courtesy of Matt Henlow (BTW, feel free to include site links etc in your emails so I can point people to your sites).
Page 3 is up much faster than expected, and it makes me vaguely worried we’re going to run out of queued contributors… so if you’ve got a creative streak, drop me a line and I’ll add you to the list.
Page 2 is in, courtesy of “Joanne”. If you’re interested in making a page for the book, just email me and I’ll add you to the queue. There’s plenty of space left.
Just a few notes that’ve come up: size your images for 5:7 ratio (tall, that is), colour is great, JPG, TIF, anything like that works great.
Thanks to all!
Creative Commons is 5 years old this year, and they’re trying to raise $500,000 before December 31. I’ve been a big fan of them since the very start, and I’ve been trying to think of something to do to help raise money that really meshes well with the idea of open culture. And here’s what I came up with:
This is the first page in a book. What comes next is up to you.
Here’s how it works:
- Anyone can play. Any style is good. Straight text, drawings, paintings, poetry or prose. Just sign up (see below) to get your position in the queue.
- Each page is posted here as it’s done, revealing a bit of the story. When it’s your turn, you take the newest page and come up with the next piece of the puzzle.
- You have to stay within the bounds of the story (no changing the entire concept out of the blue).
- You have a maximum of 24 hours to produce your page. If you don’t make it in time, you forfeit your turn. If you can do it faster, all the better.
- You have to agree to release your work under a Creative Commons Share-Alike license.
I’ll post each new page here as we go, so everyone can see how the thing evolves. At the end of 30 days, we’ll put the book up for sale on Lulu.com, and ALL money will go to Creative Commons. You’ll get proper credit, and get to do something good with your karma.
Want to sign up? This is a really patchwork project, so to sign up, just email me at this address and I will send you a message back to give you a heads-up about your likely 24-hour window, and then again to tell you when to start.
Please tell your friends about this project and sign up if you can. I think it’ll be fun and useful, and I hope you all will too.
Wow. According to the Lessig Blog, Creative Commons is turning 5 this year. They’re aiming to raise $500,000 before December 15, which is an astoundingly big number… should be interesting to see how it turns out. I remember when CC was just starting out, back when my younger daughter was a newborn, and thinking: “This is exactly the kind of thing that will make me want to write and draw more.” And now she’s off to school and CC is world-famous and inspiring all sorts of other people.
Makes me get a bit misty, really…
