JEREMY JOHNSON

Sarr Wrirer

If you’re into the copyright debate, the question may have
crossed your mind at one point or another: if the major record
_labels had their way, how far would they go to allegedly “pro-
tect” their intellectual property? If you have an imagination
like mine, the extremes may sound rather silly or unrealistic.
While some of the wild ideas in my wild imagination may be
far fetched, there are a few that may be more realistic than first
expected.

Of course, I’ll have to make note that I, myself, think that
the lawsuit campaign is beyond stupid and simply self destruc-
tive on the record labels’ part. As a matter of fact, I have made
music and posted it online for free for others to download and
share on P2P networks, so I actually do know what it’s like to
sit down and record (or, in my case, render) music.

Either way, there have been some bothersome attempts from
the United States to restrict copyright further. The most re-
cent is a file-sharing case that is now being defended by the
Electronic Frontier Foundation. Sure, on the surface, a case
in court about an alleged file-sharer hasn’t been anything new
in the United States — particularly, at the very least, since the
case against Jammie Thomas — but this case is different in a
big way (and a good reason why the EFF has intervened in the

OVER THE EDGE
March 12- March 26, 2008

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On the Digital Front

Jeremy Johnson - Staff Writer —
How Far Would Record Labels Go: 2

even if it wasn’t downloaded, that would constitute a copyright
infringement and they would be entitled to statutory damages.
Of course, the real reason behind this whole argument is to
bypass even having a need to investigate beyond pointing a
finger at an IP address and saying ‘sue!’ if you ask me. I got
this off of an EFF press release:

“This amounts to suing someone for attempted copyright
infringement -- something the Copyriglit Act simply does not
allow,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann. “If
the RIAA wants to keep bringing these suits and collecting big
settlements, then they have to follow the law and prove their
case. It’s not enough to say the law could have been broken.
The RIAA must prove it actually was broken.”

I did a little bit of background checking and found that an
amendment by Roberto Gonzales was tabled in 2007 which
was essentially outlawing “attempted copyright infringement”
I was reminded how there was other speculation which in-
cluded that some file-sharing programs break files up into tiny
increments like BitTorrent. With a law like that, even sitting
with a partial file would land you in trouble. Yup, a quite often
un-previewable waste of ones and zeros with the number of
sources sitting permanently at zero would still possibly land
you with a letter from your Internet Service Provider. In my
mind, that’s like seeing an illegally imported weapon and sud-
denly you are charged with trafficking contraband because

which even eres were struck dit The most fietable name
I can think of is the INDUCE act from 2004. Essentially, if
the law did pass, then “inducing” others to commit copyright
infringement would mean that you are a copyright infringer.
“Say, how about we go up to your place and you can download
some of them Britney Spears songs!”

Either way though, it has me wondering how far copyright
lobbyists are willing to go in Canada. After all, the Canad-
ian Recording Industry Association represents effectively the
same labels as the Recording Industry Association of Amer-
ica. CRIA is currently trying to push for restrictive copyright
laws, but claims that it has nothing to do with the DMCA,
just WIPO. Ultimately, same thing, different acronym I say.
When Bill C-60 arrived in 2005, it was a mirror of the DMCA
minus a few details that make the DMCA look good. Back
then, CRIA was all for this bill and I doubt much has changed
from then and now. Really, though, it’s like saying, “I don’t
want water, but I want the liquid that has two hydrogen atoms

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and one oxygen atom each molecule!

I suppose this returns me to my question, how far would the.

record labels go in copyright laws? The common joke online
is that, if they had their way, whistling would be copyright
infringement. The argument today is that there isn’t a real need
to have solid evidence to convict someone (essentially speak-
ing), what would tomorrow’s argument be if they got their

first place).

est-ruling head of state announced he would
be stepping down from his duties as president
and commander-in-chief of Cuba, the county
he had ruled since he led a revolution there
in 1959.

The media response to Fidel Castro’s an-
nouncement, published on his personal web
page was swift, as magazines and TV stations
around the world ran retrospectives on his life
that are normally reserved for someone who’s
dead, not just someone who’s retiring.

But then, they’d been waiting for this a long
time. In 2007, the respected Economist maga-
zine published its annual “predictions” issue
in which analysts forecast the major events
for the coming year. This time they ran a story
about how many times they’d been wrong,
and noted that if the last forty-odd years had
taught them anything, it was that Fidel Castro
will not die if experts say he will.

And it’s not just media who have been wait-
ing for his death: the United States was quick
to respond, with George W. Bush saying he
hoped Castro stepping down would lead to an
era of change for the people of Cuba, who had
for too long suffered under Castro’s dictator-
ship. Which leads some to once again reflect
on what could well be the world’s most point-
less grudge match.

For the record, it has been estimated that
Comrade Castro has survived up to 638 assas-
sination attempts, both overt and covert, from
the US government. Rallying against their
Communist neighbour was a tradition solid-
ified by the Kennedy brothers, who carried on
a decade-long secret war against Cuba, and
has been one that no president since has been

The record labels allege that if a song is in a shared folder,

On eoeraney 19, 2008, the wont s ore

you saw the thing.
Though.

willing to: caer The reasons come een to
simple voter dynamics: Miami is the second-
largest Cuban city in the world, and many of
its expats were rich landowners and business-
men who didn’t take too kindly to Castro’s
policy of taking from the rich to give to the
poor. “The math is not difficult,” wrote Wil-
liam Finnegan in the New Yorker magazine.
“Endorsing the [economic] embargo [against
Cuba] (which is, after forty-five years, surely
the single most unsuccessful peace of Amer-
ican foreign policy ever) might lose a candi-
date ten votes in Iowa. But not doing so could
lose him a hundred thousand votes in South
Florida.”

But of course there’s slightly more to it than
that. In the narrative of the Cold War, having a
challenger to the liberal economic order mere
kilometers away was something the United
States simply couldn’t stand for. From Eisen-
hower to Reagan, a tough stance was taken
against Cuba, since it was a part of the “evil
empire” represented by the Soviet Union. In
the modem era, Castro’s Cuba has been re-
cast as a terrorist state, but the point remains:
Cuba is the whipping of boy of American pol-
icy, and until a leader that its foreign policy
hawks approve of is put in place, nothing’s
going to change.

Now, I’m not trying to pull a Michael Moore
and portray Cuba as some sort of magical
paradise. In the short time I’ve spent there, I
was made more than aware of its shortcom-
ings—I met a 35-year-old doctor who had to
live with his parents and hitchhike to work.
And no one can deny that the mass killings
carried out by the Castros and Guevera are
antithetical to the ideas of freedom and peace

eq ually crazy wee have also happened i in the US,

way?

we hold so dear in Canada. But then, so is the

slave-ownership that went on under George
Washington, and the treatment of the Metis by
John A. Macdonald. Castro has had his short-
comings, sure, but he’s far from the evil pres-
ence that his detractors would have you be-
lieve—in world affairs, context is everything.
The facts are this: Cuba is a tiny country with
few resources or manpower, and for almost
fifty years the United States, the world’s lar-
gest military power, has been attempting to
rid it of Castro. Castro simply would not have
survived if he didn’t have at least some sup-
port from ordinary Cubans.

And why shouldn’t he? Prior to Castro’s
revolution, Cuba was little more than an eco-
nomic holding ground for international busi-
nessmen, in which lavish hotels and casinos
were built on the backs of the poor languish-
ing on their doorsteps. And unlike the Stalins
and the Maos of the world, it seems like Cas-
tro actually wanted to improve the lot of the
poor, not just spout socialist doctrine while
building up a personal fortune. That’s the se-
cret behind his longevity: he actually gave the
people something for their troubles.

While Chinese and Russian peasants starved
in work camps, Castro put food on plates and
created a decent education system, leading
to health and literacy rates that are among
the best in the world. While it’s true that my
doctor friend hitchhiked to work, he also had
a roof over his head, food on his plate, and
never paid a cent for his education, which
is more than can be said for many living in
the “land of the free.” As of late, people have
been praising China for opening up its doors
to foreign markets, but while I lived there I

was daily contrite by ec aegis, and
mentally challenged people living on the
streets, a situation notably absent in even the
most dangerous neighbourhood of Havana.
Castro’s Cuba represents a challenge to the
prevailing doctrine of market capitalism: it’s
true that you are free to succeed beyond your
wildest dreams when you’re not constrained
by socialism, but you are just as or more free
to crash and burn. It comes down to John
Rawl’s veil of ignorance test for creating the
perfect society: if you didn’t know if you
would be rich or poor, privileged or impover-
ished, what kind of country would you prefer
to live in? One where gated communities shut
out people living in pestilence or poverty? Or
one where mansions may be out of reach, but
you'll always have the basic needs of life?

I think the key to understanding why Castro
is not the same as the other dictators of the
world lies in the notable lack of a cult of per-
sonality surrounding him. While people like
Saddam Hussein required his citizens to hang
portraits of him in their businesses and Chair-
man Mao is still on Chinese money, it’s some-
thing of a challenge to find pictures of Castro
anywhere in Cuba. Instead, quotes from the
poet Jose Marti and Che Guevera are hon-
oured in state posters and literature. Castro
has taught his people to honour the departed,
and for this reason his prediction that he may
become more powerful after he’s gone could
well be true. And as long as the wealth of the
world continues to be generated by the poor
of the world, one only hopes so.

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