James Moore on Copyright
I've never thought of myself as a radical extremist. I know a lot of ideas I have are radical in that they would significantly change the status quo and probably prevent a lot of the problems I see in government, but I recognize that and the importance of compromising to make my ideas more acceptable to more people. I don't think I'm extreme in my views, mostly because I recognize that what's right for me is not necessarily what's right or even good for others. Again, there is the need to compromise. When it comes to copyright laws, compromise becomes especially important since you have two diametrically opposite sides with their points of view as well as virtually everything in between. You can't please everyone, but you sure can come up with something that almost everyone can deem acceptable. So maybe I'm moderately radical, but definitely not an extremist.
Given this, it came as a bit of a shock to hear James Moore refer to not only myself, but many thousands of other Canadians, as "radical extremists" (that video contains just the comments in question that Moore has tried to deny ever saying, the full video of his entire talk is available here) simply because of our opposition to Bill C-32 in its current form. Given that Moore has blocked almost anyone on Twitter who has spoken negatively regarding Bill C-32, except for very high-profile users like Cory Doctorow, it isn't very surprising, but it's still a bit of a shock. I'm sure that there are some people for whom Moore has an accurate description; some people feel that they are entitled to anything they can access. However, a substantial number of groups and people representative of Canadian authors (including the quite vocal Cory Doctorow), artists and galleries, students (PDF download), consumers and educators all feel that the digital lock provisions of Bill C-32 need to be changed in favour of the rights of consumers and content producers rather than the bank accounts of corporations.
It's interesting to note that there is a major difference between James Moore and those in favour of Bill C-32 compared to those who have been dubbed "radical extremists" — the "radical extremists" are proposing fair copyright and compromise, while James Moore is proposing that those who are presumably neither "radical" nor "extremists" ensure that those of us against Bill C-32 be "confronted every step of the way" until we "are defeated".
I do have to wonder about the Minister's comment in its entirety. His full quote, as given in this CBC article, was:
"Those absolutists out there, who are babyish in their approach to copyright legislation, who think that any idea of copyright reform will be an attack on individual citizens ... [we must] make sure that those voices who try to find technical, non-sensical, fear-mongering reasons to oppose copyright reform are confronted every step of the way and they are defeated" (emphasis mine)
It's quite interesting that Minister Moore choose to equate technical reasoning with "nonsensical" and "fear-mongering" reasoning. One could certainly argue that Moore said this "in the heat of the moment" and intended something else entirely, but Moore has been in federal politics since 2000 — far too long for a slip that profound to accidentally find its way in there. If "technical reasoning" is equivalent to "fear-mongering", it's little wonder that Moore has been working so hard to avoid speaking to anyone proposing real change.
