Conference Board Admits Plagiarism, Pulls Copyright Report 60
An anonymous reader writes "The Conference Board of Canada has withdrawn
all three reports on intellectual property after allegations this week by Michael Geist of plagiarism. The organization now admits that its report on copyright was plagiarized from US copyright lobby groups."
Do as I say..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously Conference Board of Canada, seriously? Did they think that people wouldn't check up on this??
Re:Yawn (Score:3, Insightful)
The GPL uses copyright only insofar as it subverts the copyright system against itself.
You just don't get it do you? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a difference between hating what some people do with a concept and the actual concept itself.
The one on copyright and intellectual property is as divided a perspective as abortion.
At issue is the different groups interpretation of what they should be allowed to do with a commodity.
One sells it and thinks that they should be allowed to control how their product is used once sold.
The other thinks that it has purchased a product and since they now own it, they should be able to do anything with it that they want.
The first group puts in place digital rights management controls to stop the "illegal" copying of their product.
The second group gets mad since they aren't able to use the product as they want now and think it's ok to break the "protection" in order to get at the goods they paid for.
This leads to an easy market for file sharing to flourish. The first group having left a gaping hole in the market for high quality digital downloads at low prices from the savings on physical packaging, shipping, and floorspace in stores. Only now with itunes and the other online outlets catching up to the ease and variety of the online file sharing services, they missed the boat on delivering to the masses what they wanted and could have given but didn't.
So when an organization comes along promoting the ideas that people should respect the copyright and intellectual property of others and then finds themselves on the wrong end of that spectrum. Yes, we get to laugh at them. Just as we should laugh at the file sharing people they claim that they are not taking something that doesn't belong to them unless they have purchased the song legitimately. Fair is fair.
Crime and Punishment (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok... the title above is obviously lifted, but it comes very handy and no longer under copyright protection, hopefully.
Let's see then the story here:
1) US copyright groups want to send people to jail in the US and around the world for downloading music, etc. for their own listening, viewing, etc. pleasure.
2) Conference Board of Canada was downloading documents from US copyright lobby groups, lifted them partially into a paid, for profit report to support the Canadian government to formulate laws, reflecting the interests of US copyright lobby groups.
3) How about feeding the US lobby groups recommended medicine to Conference Board of Canada as a test? Suing the hell out of the Conference Board of Canada? Demanding jail term for the head of the organization?
4) How about commissioning a report, on how US copyright lobby groups are influencing or directly rig the legislation process in other countries?
Re:Seriously??? (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I think the Board should be taken to court over this, they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and while I don't agree with the copyright laws necessarily, I think that if they are there, they should be followed, especially by the people who support it. If the people who are supposed to be the supporters of it are going against what they say, how can anyone take them seriously (Well, not like we would anyways, but you know..)?
Letter to Conference Board of Canada (Score:5, Insightful)
Under their retraction [conferenceboard.ca] they provide a contact link. I clicked on that link and gave them my thoughts as pasted below, and the acknowledgement promises a response. Will get back to you on upon their reply.
Dear Sir/Madam,
After almost selling out Canada to the USA via your plagiarized reports on intellectual property, I would strongly suggest that you contract Prof. Michael Geist or at least work closely with him in the next effort. Michael is well know, extremely knowledgeable on the subject, and trusted by a large number of Canadians. Only in this way will you regain the prestige you once had.
Sincerely,
...
Re:Yawn (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, but there's a flip side to not having copyright: Nothing stops anyone from taking what you've done, obfuscating it, encrypting it, tying it to a platform, and releasing it as if it were their own.
Oh, and they'll throw chairs at you if you try pointing out that they're doing it.
Re:Yawn (Score:3, Insightful)
Not true at all. The GPL depends on copyright law to put severe restrictions on what you can do with GPL'd code. That is very different than what the situation would be if there was no copyright, i.e. "subverting" the copyright system.
Your description might be applicable to licenses like the BSD license, if you squint hard, and almost but not quite, the LGPL, but definitely not the GPL.