As mentioned last week, Industry Minister Jim Prentice spoke at the U of C on Friday, February 8, 2008. He didn’t end up speaking about copyright, though the audience sure did. His topic was on policy making around greenhouse gas reductions, but 5 of the 8 questions asked were about copyright law. He seemed to take them in stride, though got a little curt at the end. I was going to ask one too, but by then thought it’d be getting close to harassment…
Here’s the entire talk (51:00) with my comments inserted along the way. I highlighted words he said that I wanted to apply to his work on the copyright bill; words he told his soon-to-be-lawyers audience, like integrity and consultation, but which don’t seem to apply to the topic of copyright reform. If you watch the whole thing, or skip to the comments towards the end, the reason for the title of this post will be apparent.
Somehow when I encoded this video to flv I flipped it, which is why what you see here is reverse of the pix below.
I recorded this with my Macbook and a USB headset mic attached – had to really pump up the volume on the edit, which went through quite a process. As you may know, the Macbook camera only points towards the keyboard, so I used a Huckleberry mirror from Mungai Mirrors to shoot towards the front. Unfortunately, the Macbook model really doesn’t work very well – pointing pretty high up. Fortunately, the box in which the mirror is stored is just the right size for propping up the laptop and getting the right angle 🙂 Makes typing a little tough, but at least I got the recording. (looks like the model for the Macbook Pro is much better, IMHO)
Michael Geist (who wasn’t actually there) has some thoughts on the Q&A period as well…
Comments
4 Responses to “As of yet, no copyright bill has been introduced…”
Hi Paul,
Thanks a lot for recording and posting the entire talk.
Cheers,
Kempton
Jim Prentice Speaks – with Fair Copyright Q A
Yesterday, Industry Minister Jim Prentice came to Calgary to deliver the William A. Howard Lecture as presented by the University of Calgarys Faculty of Law and Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. (more pictures here, Note: William A. Howard founded a l…
Thank you for posting this. It puts the Copyright related questions in a larger context.
While you may agree or disagree with their conclusions on climate change, it is clear that they spent some resources to do some homework. I do not get the sense that similar work has even been attempted on Copyright, given the non-consultations of various committees that didn’t bother inviting many stakeholders, and the antiquated public consultations from 2001/2002 are being considered sufficient.
The WIPO treaties are complex enough to deserve their own study, separate from any other Copyright issues. This study should include the same rigorousness economic impact analysis that was suggested they apply to other policy decisions.
Thanks Russell – what made me a little uneasy is when I mentally substituted the words “copyright reform” for “environmental policy” in the talk. That made the talk sound really good – if he was actually *doing* what he said. But, what if they’re not even doing what he said around environmental policy? I don’t know enough about that topic to know, but would be really disappointed if they’re actually blowing off all the issues the way they are copyright. Surely that can’t be the case. Can it? :-/