Charlie Angus:
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Industry clearly does not understand the issue of copyright because he has refused to meet with key Canadian stakeholders. He shut the door to universities and educators. He has ignored the advice of senior government bureaucrats and he has completely shut the door to consumer groups, artists and software innovators.

Meanwhile, his government has been rolling out the red carpet for corporate lobbyists and the U.S. ambassador.

Canadians have a right to know why they will be stuck with an unbalanced, one-sided piece of made in the U.S.A. copyright legislation.

Hon. Jim Prentice (Minister of Industry, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, I note impatience in my hon. friend's voice in his question.

The hon. member knows full well that the copyright bill has been under discussion in this country for a number of years. He also knows full well that our country has signed international treaties going back 10 years and that there are obligations pursuant to those treaties. However, he knows in particular that I am not at liberty to share the particulars of any piece of legislation until such time as it is tabled in the House.

The bill will not be tabled in the House until such time as myself and the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages are satisfied.

Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, international obligations, that is pretty rich from a government that right now is trying to sabotage the talks in Bali because it might interfere with the pillaging of the tar sands.

What is also rich is that the government tabled the bill this morning. Now, three hours later, he is telling me that he has cold feet. What? Did he just discover Facebook this morning?

This is what happens when due diligence is not done. He has not spoken with the key Canadian stakeholders and he is embarrassing the House if he thinks he can keep dragging this out without meeting with the key innovators, artists groups, consumer advocates and education authorities.

Hon. Jim Prentice (Minister of Industry, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, I sense from the question that my hon. colleague is confused as to whether he is talking about Bali and the environment or copyright in Ottawa. He seems unclear as to whether a bill has been tabled or not tabled, whether he wants it tabled or does not want it tabled.

When there is some precision to his question I would be delighted to answer it.

Note Prentice avoiding any answers.

This is a tactic that these neoCons have honed to perfection.

What is also rich is that the government tabled the bill this morning. Now, three hours later, he is telling me that he has cold feet. What? Did he just discover Facebook this morning?

The Associated Press, one of the nation’s largest news organizations, said that it will, for the first time, attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.’s copyright.

The A.P.’s effort to impose some guidelines on the free-wheeling blogosphere, where extensive quoting and even copying of entire news articles is common, may offer a prominent definition of the important but vague doctrine of “fair use,” which holds that copyright owners cannot ban others from using small bits of their works under some circumstances. For example, a book reviewer is allowed to quote passages from the work without permission from the publisher.

Fair use has become an essential concept to many bloggers, who often quote portions of articles before discussing them. The A.P., a cooperative owned by 1,500 daily newspapers, including The New York Times, provides written articles and broadcast material to thousands of news organizations and Web sites that pay to use them.

Yabbut, sometimes all I have time for is a copy and paste! All I wanna do is get it spread around the blogosphere...

The AP sounds as though it is trying to think it through reasonably.

This complaint comes from an organization that leaches off original reporting and kills links and credit to the source of that journalism. Yes, it has a right to reproduce reporting from member news organizations. But as I point out here, the AP is hurting original reporting by not crediting and linking to the journalism at its source. We should be operating under an ethic of the link to original reporting; this is an ethic that the AP systematically violates.

...their Terms of Use explicitly prohibit you, even if you’ve paid them, from quoting the Associated Press in order to criticize the Associated Press...

Lots of blogs are calling for boycotts of AP content. Not me. I'm going to keep using it. I will copy and paste as many words as I feel necessary to make my points and that I feel are within bounds of copyright law (and remember, I've got a JD and specialized in media law, so I know the rules pretty well). And I will keep doing so if I get an AP takedown notice (which I will make a big public show of ignoring). And then, either the AP -- an organization famous for taking its members work without credit -- will either back down and shut the hell up, or we'll have a judge resolve the easiest question of law in the history of copyright jurisprudence.

The AP doesn't get to negotiate copyright law. But now, perhaps, they'll threaten someone who can afford to fight back, instead of cowardly going after small bloggers.