Posted by
Heather Morrison on
Sep 24, 2008; 12:01am
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/Show-your-support-for-open-gov-data-at-ibelieveinopen-ca-tp1231p1269.html
Good points all, everyone.
There are times when I think civil disobedience is the best (or only)
strategy for change. This is not one of these times.
Open access to scholarly literature, government data, and fair
copyright are completely different things. Does everyone think,
though, that the average citizen (and policitian) fully understands
the differences? As an OA advocate and librarian working in public
policy advocacy, I'm sceptical. I find it necessary to repeat
definitions, often, and also that most people find copyright law is
very confusing. Even lawyers who specialize in copyright think this.
On reflection, I would agree that it is better to either obey the
law, or to infringe openly as a matter of civil disobedience. If the
latter course is pursued, I would advise anyone in the open access or
fair copyright movements (or even open data) to steer clear. I'm
assuming, too, that those who infringe will happily pay their own
legal expenses should they be sued.
best,
Heatherr Morrison
On 23-Sep-08, at 3:57 PM, Russell McOrmond wrote:
> Heather Morrison wrote:
>> The folks who are fighting for fair copyright in Canada could have
>> the same potential synergies, and the same issues here.
>
> Abolishing crown copyright tends to be one of those "Fair
> Copyright" issues, so we are talking about infringing a form of
> copyright that we don't believe should even exist.
>
> Abolishing Crown Copyright is at a level far beyond the
> CivicAccess requests which is that government created data which
> Canadians have already paid for (sometimes multiple times) should
> at least be made freely available to Canadians.
>
> What the CivicAccess folks are asking for is much easier than
> what the OA folks are asking for, given with OA we are saying that
> the results of publicly funded research done by third parties be
> made available, while with CivicAccess we are saying the stuff
> which our government created themselves should be available.
>
> The public sector as a copyright holder is a very different
> situation than any other sector being a copyright holder.
>
>
> (Guess I didn't bow out of this interesting conversation ;-)
> --
> Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <
http://www.flora.ca/>
> Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
> rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
>
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/>
> "The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
> manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or
> portable media player from my cold dead hands!"
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