cosy industry-only roundtables replaced by 600 citizens roaring : digital concerns heat up

a cross-post from the Arcadian Recorder:

Looming Digital Copyright/DRM/Net Neutrality/Privacy Law changes have a way of making all of Canada's citizens feel a bit like a criminal, if they dare try anything out of the ordinary on the internet.

Citizens , 'voters' in politico-speak, want their say on these issues - in person and in depth, just like 'the suits' are used to.

By and large, they aren't getting that chance.

The government's claim that it would be more open on this round of proposed amendments to the Copyright Law finally boiled down to a total of two token town hall meetings with the public.

The two, one in Montreal and one in Toronto, only drew flies - and were designed to do just that.

Halifax got only a particularly one-sided private industry roundtable with Industry Minister Clement.

Now the Dalhousie Student Union and the local access-for-all internet provider, Chebucto, are about to hold a real town hall in Halifax.

The keynote speaker is Pippa Lawson of CIPPIC, who some have called 'the citizen's bulldog' , because of the David versus Goliath stand she and her little band of law students have taken against the federal government time and again to force them to do what the law demands they do.

It was Pippa and CIPPIC students whose complaint to the federal privacy commissioner forced the commissioner to move against Facebook over privacy concerns - a case that had had global implications.

DSU and Chebucto expect 600 to attend - not bad considering the GTA of Toronto is about twenty times as big as metro Halifax and Clement's own town hall in Toronto only got 300 people out and the town hall in Montreal drew 100.

The venue is the Dal Student's fabled McInnes Room, a hall that has hosted just about every PM and political leader in Canada at some time or other over the last 41 years.

If an election call does happen in the next little while, the date of their town hall, October 26th,could fall right in the election period .

Interesting, because if any one issue is likely to get the non-voting youth out in droves at the ballot box, it would be the thought that the government is about to make it easy to send young people to jail for downloading tunes off Bit Torrent.

Critics charge that the Harper Tories are choking innovation and any chance at creating new interesting jobs for young people when they propose regressive copyright changes that only shield dinosaur industries from having to face new digital realities.

Just imagine : an election fought over fostering innovation, with the Conservatives on the 'nay' side.

Could be interesting...

a town hall without the TOWN, isn't ( a town hall)

(If it wasn't for Michael Geist, I'd never even have heard of this marvel of mental furniture - a round table that is one sided, -------now read on:)

''Tony Clement - as only he can do it - in the role of the legendary Hank Williams - in ' The Halifax Town Hall He Never Gave ' ''

The October 26th Town Hall at the Dal SUB's fabled McInnes Room, over citizen concerns that the direction the Internet is heading towards is 'away from them', is a chance to address a great wrong.

On August 10th this year, federal Industry Minister Tony Clement slipped into Halifax to conduct a private, invite only, roundtable over the direction any amendments

to its existing copyright law should take.

{ A note aside: the Big Lie in Canada's copyright debate is the century old constant refrain that our copyright law is hopeless 'out of date' and needs urgent updating (so let us not waste time with needlessly public discussions), so we will no longer be the laughing stock of the civilized world.

Actually we have always been talking-about and changing-about our copyright laws since the day they were first created. But all that change supposedly 'due to changing circumstances' , has in fact been exclusively in one general direction.

Always the rights of the creators and their publishers has been expanded and always the rights of the consumers of creativity has been reduced.

Remember how artificial and society-slash-government-created copyright law actually is: the makers of machine tools don't have a government law requiring the purchasers of those machine tools pay them further every time they use the tool - but radio stations pay every time they play a record they paid for.

Copyright Law is supposed to balance the interests of creators and consumers , not be the lap dog of creators and publishers.}

On his trip to Halifax, Minister Clement didn't try to hold a dangerous open,public, advertised, Town Hall ; as he might if he actually wanted 'consultations' with' the public'.

Town Hall always represent the danger that masses of real live unpaid consumers might overwhelm the voices of the handful of paid lobbyists arguing for more money for creators & publishers.

And 'public' means all this ends up happening on the TV sets of millions of other ordinary consumers as they watch the evening news.

Worse, he went on to do in Halifax what he won't have dared to do in bigger cities like Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal.

His invite-only roundtable excluded representatives of ordinary consumers, of libraries and of teachers.

If a 'round' table can ever be 'one-sided' the Halifax roundtable was just that. For some lucky invitees, (industry invitees of course) this was their second invite to this exclusive soiree.

Clement figured Halifax would take it.

It didn't and it won't.

Chebucto Community Net and the Dal Student Union decided to do it up right.

On October 26th, even Tony Clement in Ottawa is going to hear this city and this region roar.

In all likelihood, five hundred and seventy ordinary consumers will be there,to contrast with perhaps only thirty lobbyists for the creators & publishers, and it will all play out in front of the TV cameras, microphones and reporters' notepads.

In the cosy world of industry-to-government lobbying this is sort of like Balloting Day in a goneral election.

You know, that rare one day every four years, when the vote of a homeless person weighs in just as heavily in the minds of Official Ottawa as does that of multi millionaire like Conrad Black.

Oops !- maybe more so...

Mark 7pm Monday october 26th, Dal SUB McInnes Room on your calendar - this should be fun.