I have recently attended a talk given by Michael Geist on the subject of “E-Publishing and the Law” through the Canadian Journalism Foundation. Here are some of the things that Dr. Geist spoke about, as well as some of my observations.

First of all, I believe I was one of the youngest attendees. I cannot gauge whether the target audience was meant to be composed of trade journalists all the way, although arguably they did form a large majority of the people present. The importance of me being one of the youngest there will become apparent later on I hope.

Geist started out by running through a few success stories of the Internet: the success of blogging, Facebook ‘demonstrations’ and YouTube videos in delaying the introduction of Canada’s displeasing new Copyright Bill¹; WikiTravel, CMAJ / Open Medicine, PLOS etc.

The argument was that this is the new environment, the new normal. He did not come out to say: “You have to do this, you have to help with this revolution.” Nor was the feeling of the discussion “Journalists Unite! Bloggers are running us out of business!”. Half of the talk revolved around some of the great sites of the Internet and great things people are doing online – from citizen journalism and dissidence to crowd sourcing etc². From overhearing chats after the talk I could tell that a lot of people found it illuminating³ and thus Dr. Geist did know his audience. This is troubling because, so late in the game, a lot of these people are far behind. I think it pretty hard for them to completely understand the beauty of Creative Commons Licensing or how trade and mainstream media can help and coexist with bloggers. A comment about CC that I really enjoyed mentioned that a lot of creators are interested only in content, in the message and the widespread distribution, and encourage others to use their work. I would add that remix and mash-up are not the signs of a weakening culture or of one that is losing the ability to be ‘truly’ original. I see them as the signs of a culture desperate to create and distribute more content, despite the barriers some are trying to impose. It is evolution.

The next focus of the talk was what I went there for: some of the legal aspects surrounding copyright and e-publishing in Canada. As some may know, Canada has no parody provisions or fair use regulations, which is why rampant violations of free speech and common sense can happen, such as in the Wayne Crookes case. Geist did not take a definitive stance on whether intermediaries should take down materials upon request, although he did indicate that part of the new copyright reform should address the issue of intermediary liability. Most people that handle content are unlikely to be able to deal with the burden of a trial and as such they tend to comply with the requests for take down. Talk about censorship⁴!

The Q&A revolved around net neutrality, which is when Geist gave the audience some insider scoop about the CRTC involvement in the Bell throttling case, as well as jurisdiction issues regarding the content, hosting etc. And a devil’s advocate asked how ISPs should deal with users of excessive bandwidth, if not through throttling⁵. The response asked for more disclosure, first of all, and possibly throttling the abusers, not the whole clientele.

All in all, an interesting talk. Again, maybe I misunderstand the facts, but the thought that I left with is that journalists have a lot of ground to cover. Some get it, some do not, but as a whole a serious push towards ‘netucation’ is needed.

1. Affectionately known as the Canadian DMCA [↩]
2. Apologies on the buzzwords [↩]
3. And I personally saw people scribbling website addresses as fast as they could [↩]
4. In the Wayne Crookes case, even linking was considered as defamatory, which is completely insane [↩]
5. There was no disclosure of affiliation before the question was stated [↩]