Michael Geist, professor at the University of Toronto, and Canada’s equivalent to Lawrence Lessig, started a Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook Group on December 1, 2007, in response to several potential threats to the freedom of music lovers in Canada (the introduction of a Canadian DMCA). As he put it on the website, he had limited expectations of how it would go, but after nearly 38,000 people signed up in support, he realized there was a real need for this discussion.

The result? The number of members and the passionate discussion within actually succeeded in delaying the introduction of a Canadian DMCA. There is still a threat, but the group has turned into a bevy of local chapters and a central site for information and action. This is pretty powerful stuff…the use of the social networking tools for influence over policy decisions…that seems to have an impact.

We encourage everyone to go check it out and contribute in any way possible.

One of the core messages that came out of the Media Web Meetup III: the Producers was this:

Copyright laws, DMCA, etc. were tools that were instituted to help large organizations protect themselves from large organizations, it did not imagine the negotiations of individual producers in the Open Media Web. Instead of bringing the massive amount of baggage these tools wield into our communities of indie content producers, we should start talking about how - as a community - we need to figure out an ethical set of protocols for how to handle these negotiations…and these protocols needs to be flexible, relationship-based and anchored in social capital.

Ironically, these protocols appear to exist moreso in the world of text than they do in the world of multi-media. What do I mean by that? Think about what happens in blogging communities. Very early on in the days of blogging, a community protocol was established around attribution, even when attribution desires were not voiced. If you were blogging about an idea that someone else had or using a quote from another blog, it was attributed and there was a link back to the original idea/text. Now, if you didn’t do that, you weren’t served a takedown notice, you may be seen as a jerk (relationship based) and people would lose respect for you (the loss of Social Capital) and they would stop reading your blog (real social consequences). There are grey areas to this (flexible), but in general, successful bloggers err on the side of caution and attribute as much as possible.

And this works great. It not only keeps people honest, but it has benefited the entire community, circulating ideas and helping encourage more people to contribute those ideas (the myth of the ’stolen ideas’ is busted when bloggers get recognition and prestige from publishing theirs openly, which encourages others to do the same). There were no laws separating bloggers from bloggers here. No centralized rulebook. It happened organically through a series of communications and experiences in the early growth of the community.

But when it comes to multi-media, we somehow passed over an early opportunity to establish similar protocols. Images, audio files and videos are constantly passed around online without attribution, used without permission and then big, expensive, heavy legal tools are wielded to stop this behavior. When a photographer’s image is posted on a website that doesn’t attribute or get permission, the same social stigma doesn’t take place. Photographers are told, “That’s what happens when you post your work online”. And, more often, a photographer won’t find out that their work is being lifted anyway, since multi-media isn’t as searchable (a simple filename change throws off the trail).

Even though their heart is in the right place, Creative Commons doesn’t really alleviate this situation, and it may even exacerbate it. Many photographers find that it further harms the perceived value of their work, as lack of education leads to the interpretation of a CC license to mean, “It’s Free!” And, since it is a legal tool (and not a community agreement), it remains an externalized barrier that stands between personal drives to resolution that should be taken up within the web community.

We should really look at this as an issue to solve with community tools, not more legal clout.

The wonderful panel that included Jason Schultz (EFF), Lane Hartwell (photographer), Heather Champ (Flickr) and Jim Goldstein (photographer) would all probably agree with me when I say that this is a real issue of the Open Media Web. One that we should be as conscious of as the early bloggers were of the flow and exchange of their own intellectual property (with a lower case i and p).

I just had to post it. Enjoy.

So…how does the following list get to be part of your own Workout routine? Well, the way that Tantek demonstrated it, he used songs with MP3 urls on the net and followed these instructions…but all of mine are DRM’d (bought through iTunes). Currently, there isn’t a way for you to load up my list, have it scan your collection for songs you have, then purchase the ones you don’t (through whatever means you desire).

Bummer. Oh well, until someone comes up with that solution (hint:hint:a great project for the OMW), here is my Workout Routine marked up in hAudio:

1. Artist: Daft Punk
   Track: Robot Rock / Oh Yeah (6:28)
   Album: Alive 2007
2. Artist: Basement Jaxx
   Track: Rendez-Vu (5:46)
   Album: Remedy
3. Artist: Jude Sebastian
   Track: Rubber Man (Miles Dyson Remix) (5:30)
   Album: Global Underground Digitized 2
4. Artist: Daft Punk
   Track:Around the World (Radio Edit) (3:59)
   Album: Musique, Vol. 1 (1993 - 2005)
5. Artist: Justice
   Track: Phantom (4:24)
   Album: Adam Freeland - Mexico City (Global Underground GU032)
6. Artist: Daft Punk
   Track: Touch it / Technologic (5:30)
   Album: Alive 2007
7. Artist: Basement Jaxx
   Track: Red Alert (4:18)
   Album: Remedy
8. Artist: Daft Punk
   Track: Harder Better Faster Stronger (Jess & Crabe Remix) (6:00)
   Album: Daft Club
9. Artist: Justin Timberlake
   Track: SexyBack (4:03)
   Album: FutureSex / LoveSounds
10. Artist: Justice
    Track: Genesis (3:55)
    Album: Cross
11. Artist: Eminem
    Track: Lose Yourself (5:22)
    Album: 8 Mile (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture)
12. Artist: Basement Jaxx
    Track: Do Your Thing (4:41)
    Album: Rooty
13. Artist: Boys Noize
    Track: Lava Lava (Original) (4:03)
    Album: Lava Lava - EP
14. Artist: Interpol
    Track: The Heinrich Maneuver (Phones Remix) (6:03)
    Album: Remix - EP
15. Artist: P!nk
    Track: ‘Cuz I Can (3:43)
    Album: I’m Not Dead
16. Artist: Daniel Bedingfield
    Track: Gotta Get Thru This (D’n'D Radio Edit) (2:41)
    Album: Gotta Get Thru This
17. Artist: Nine Inch Nails
    Track: The Hand That Feeds (3:32)
    Album: With Teeth
18. Artist: Mstrkrft
    Track: Easy Love (5:35)
    Album: Easy Love - Single
19. Artist: Nine Inch Nails
    Track: Only (4:23)
    Album: With Teeth
20. Artist: Britney Spears
    Track: Toxic (3:19)
    Album: In the Zone
21. Artist: Nine Inch Nails
    Track: Closer (6:13)
    Album: The Downward Spiral
22. Artist: Bob Sinclar Featuring Steve Edwards
    Track: World Hold On (Extended Radio Edit) (3:36)
    Album: World Hold On (Children of the Sky)
23. Artist: Everything But The Girl
    Track: The Future of the Future (Stay Gold) (7:53)
    Album: Temperamental
24. Artist: Chic & Shape: UK
    Track: Lola’s Theme (3:25)
    Album: Lola’s Theme - EP
25. Artist: The Pointer Sisters
    Track: How Long (Betcha’ Got a Chick on the Side) (7:23)
    Album: I’m a Good Woman, Vol. 3

For the second episode of the Open Media Web interview series, we talked to Tantek Çelik, a long time advocate of open standards efforts like microformats, who recently made mandatory all contributions to the microformats wiki to be licensed under the public domain. This interview was also recorded at the Neue Songbird Nest in San Francisco during the second Open Media Web Meetup called Portable Playlists and other POSH-ibilities.

Tantek talks about openness, data portability, Digg’s use of public domain and the adoption cycles of data formats.

Download original (168MB, Quicktime).