[Solar-general] Canada: "Make it legal: don't litigate, use creative licensing" campaign.

Lun Mar 1 14:54:43 CET 2004

Esto de Canadá se enlaza con el mensaje que quiero
transmitir al Estado: "No acepten presiones, sean
legales: migren a software libre!"

Una campaña que podríamos imitar: "sea legal: use
software libre" (nos acompañará la ONG Software
Legal?)

 --- Russell McOrmond <russell en flora.ca> escribió: > 
> Fully linked (and possibly updated) version is at:
>   http://www.flora.ca/makelegal200403.shtml
> 
> ---cut---
>-- 30 --
>Important Links:
>
>Stay Legal - Use Free Software
>http://www.stay-legal.org/
>
>Canadian File-sharing Legal Information Network
>http://www.canfli.org/
>
>Creative Commons
>http://creativecommons.org
>
>Fading Ways Music mission statement
>http://www.fadingwaysmusic.com/mission.html
>
>Perspective of a digital copyright reformer on past
>Heritage minister 
>Sheila Copps, contrasting with Internet entrepreneur
>Bob Young, 
>co-founder 
>of RedHat, founder of Center for the Public Domain,
>and Lulu.com.
>http://www.flora.ca/russell/drafts/copps-ndp.html
>
> 
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
> 
> Ottawa -- March 1, 2004 -- FLORA Community
> Consulting wishes to announce
> the "Make it legal: don't litigate, use creative
> licensing" campaign to
> encourage software authors, musicians, and other
> creators of works of the
> mind to use Free/Libre and Open Source Software
> (FLOSS) and Creative
> Commons licensing.
> 
> In March 2002, Roaring Penguin Software Inc. started
> a campaign called
> "Stay Legal - Use Free Software". CAAST, the
> Canadian Alliance against
> Software Theft, has been promoting a truce for
> businesses and
> organizations with improperly-licensed software. We
> believe the best way
> to manage improperly-licensed software is to switch
> to Free/Libre and Open
> Source Software (FLOSS - `free'' as in ``free
> speech,'' not as in ``free
> beer.'') where license maintenance is much simpler,
> and there are no
> per-desk, per-user or per-server obligations.
> 
> While this campaign has been a success and many
> software users have
> switched to FLOSS, the current litigation by the
> Canadian Recording
> Industry Association (CRIA) suggest it is time to
> extend this campaign to
> the creator community. Incumbent content and
> "software manufacturing"
> industrial associations in Canada such as CRIA and
> CAAST wish to place the
> blame for current problems on their own customers,
> and create considerable
> customer relations problems by suing their own
> customer base. FLORA
> Community Consulting wishes all creators to
> acknowledge that the source of
> their problems is not lawlessness of their
> customers, but their
> pre-Internet era business models which make illegal
> common and often quite
> helpful activities of their customers which should
> be royalty-free.
> 
> In the software industry most of the largest to the
> smallest software
> companies have either fully or partially adopted
> FLOSS licenses and
> business models. The larger companies include IBM
> who is a large Linux
> promoter, Novell which recently bought SuSe Linux
> and Ximian, Sun
> Microsystems who sponsor OpenOffice.org as well as
> market and support
> derivative StarOffice, Apple Computer with MacOS-X
> which is built on top
> of their Darwin project, RedHat Linux, and more than
> are possible to
> count. This model is being looked at seriously and
> positively by most of
> the software industry, with only a few well-known
> exceptions such as
> Microsoft, Microsoft dependents, and Microsoft led
> industry associations.
> 
> We wish the success seen in the software marketplace
> for modern
> Internet-era business models to also bring success
> in other creator
> communities. While we strongly support the right of
> creators to protect
> their creative rights through copyright, including
> the right to sue those
> who infringe copyright, we do not believe that the
> current lawsuits
> launched by various intermediary industry
> associations will benefit
> creators. "The protection afforded in copyright is
> to the creator as water
> is to humans; too little and you dehydrate and die,
> too much and you drown
> and die. Survival requires understanding this
> delicate balance", explains
> Russell McOrmond of FLORA Community Consulting. 
> With this in mind the
> first step of this new campaign was to sponsor the
> Canadian File-sharing
> Legal Information Network (CanFLI), now hosted for
> free at FLORA.ca's ISP.
> 
> "CanFLI is a network of technology law students and
> organizations across
> Canada who wish to gather and disseminate
> information to help people who
> are sued by the CRIA", explains Andy Kaplan-Myrth,
> M.A., law student and
> president of the Information Technology Law Society
> at the University of
> Ottawa. "We will provide FAQs and links to articles
> on the status of the
> law in Canada with respect to file-sharing, contact
> information for
> lawyers or organizations who may act for them, and
> perhaps information
> about how ISPs are responding".
> 
> The next stage of this campaign will be to offer
> creators some of the same
> free consulting services as the "Stay Legal - Use
> Free Software" campaign
> did for software users. Rather than making
> suggestions of what software to
> use, we would investigate alternative business
> models that make use of the
> great opportunities of the Internet to the creators
> advantage, rather than
> choosing business models which make the Internet
> appear as a threat. As
> with the existing campaign, many creators would be
> offered a free day of
> consulting.
> 
> "The Internet, and digital audio technology in
> general, provide great
> promotional tools", explains Neil Leyton, musician
> and manager of
> Toronto-based indie label Fading Ways Music. "Music
> fans can be
> inexpensive, often free, music promoters. We intend
> on putting the
> Internet to good use by no longer using the old
> copyright logo on our new
> releases, opting instead to display a Creative
> Commons license. These
> licenses are loosely based on the concept of Open
> Source which the
> software industry became familiar with years ago."
> 
> The idea is simple: musicians would take the
> activities which the
> recording industry claim are a great threat and make
> them legal. Rather
> than sending your money to lawyers to sue your
> customers, you shift these
> activities in your business model from being
> considered a lost revenue
> stream to being a gained form of marketing and
> promotion. Rather than
> trying to make money off of the private
> non-commercial communications of
> your work you would leverage this new marketing to
> make more money off of
> other aspects of your business.
> 
> Neil Leyton further explains, "One common
> misconception about Creative
> Commons licenses is that they eliminate royalty
> payments to artists. With
> the CC license we have chosen this is not so. Radio
> play remains a
> commercial activity, as they are in the business of
> selling advertising.
> That station, under the CC license, is still
> required to pay royalties for
> playing a Creative Commons song. Similarly,
> mechanical licensing would
> still apply with the obvious exception of the
> Canadian Private Copying
> levy. TV usage, commercial film usage, and all other
> such uses remain
> unaffected by a CC license. CC complements and
> clarifies Copyright. It
> does not take it away."
> 
>There are many types of Creative Commons licenses,
>some that allow
>commercial communications, and some that even allow
>derivative works 
>such
>that the Internet can become a worldwide musical
jam->session. While all
>creative commons licenses make non-commercial
>private distribution of
>works royalty-free, and thus makes P2P Internet
>distribution of those
>works legal, the creator has many options for other
>aspects of their
>business. The Creative Commons concept is that
>rather than being "all
>rights reserved", you have "some rights reserved"
>under the control of 
>the
>creator.
>
>As the old industry associations like CRIA and CAAST
>continue to head 
>to
>the courts to protect their old business models and
>special interests
>against the interests of creators and their
>audiences, it is hoped that
>these creators and audiences will make important
>choices to protect 
>their
>own interests. Creators and citizens need to turn
>the Internet into a
>great opportunity to build better relationships
>between them, and keep
>everyone out of the courts. As the animations from
>Creative Commons
>suggests, "it can be that easy when you skip the
>intermediaries."
>
>For more information please contact: Russell
>McOrmond. 
>Full contact information can be found at
>http://www.flora.ca/#contact


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