Converging in Parallel
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Panel 3: Access to Knowledge? Opening Communication Policy to Information Abundance
9:15-10:30 -- Friday, November 10, 2006

Moderator: Tina Piper (Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University).

Jump to panellist: Bannerman, Byers, Couture, Glick, McCulloch, Trehearne.

1. Sara Bannerman (Doctoral Candidate, School of Journalism and Communication, Carleton University). What evidence-based research is, and should be, undertaken to evaluate the interests of the "changing Canadian copyright public" in a way that would speak to the balance struck in Canadian intellectual property policies? Who is best positioned to undertake such studies?

Today many long-held assumptions and ideologies surrounding intellectual property (IP) policy have given way to new sets of questions: Given the threat of legal suit to new business models in news, information and entertainment, do IP policies adequately encourage culture and creativity? Given high drug prices and locked-down patents, does IP benefit public health? Given the strength of flows of IP proceeds from developing to rich countries, does IP contribute to international development? In Canada, what evidence is presented that IP policies work in the public interest? Given these questions and the challenges they pose to traditional assumptions, evidence-based research is becoming increasingly important to both demonstrating and challenging existing IP commonsense.

There are a number of typical examples of evidence-based research in the area of IP. The results of industry-sponsored research are often viewed in newspaper headlines: "Canada's piracy rate falls as enforcement pays off"; "Our piracy plague: IDC study says 36% of software in Canada is pirated."¹ This research typically supports certain commonsense notions about IP: that IP protection benefits creators and leads to the availability of more IP products. Government and industry-sponsored research often focuses on the health of various Canadian industries and the potential effects on industry of various policy proposals.² Educational institutions, libraries, and consumer and watchdog groups have generally focused on advocacy and position statements rather than on the production of evidence-based research.

In light of the challenge to traditional assumptions, two questions arise: what research is now needed, and who is best positioned to undertake that research? First, it would appear, given the routine headlines regarding industry studies, that certain types of evidence-based research are well-represented. However, other types of research are also greatly needed; educational institutions, libraries, public-interest groups, advocacy organizations, and groups involved with the issues of traditional knowledge must also pose questions and present evidence. Research governed by agencies concerned with worldwide public health and international development is also quite necessary. The need to confront new questions with evidence-based research has begun to be acknowledged by some members of the World Intellectual Property Organization, where proposals have been presented for the formation of an independent research office.³ Efforts in some quarters have already led to a number of paradigm-challenging studies, some sponsored by the Canadian government and some emerging from academic work.⁴

Both national and international IP institutions are in danger of being perceived as closed to new IP stakeholders and to questions of public concern insofar as they remain distant from evidentiary research. These institutions, and governments, must remain open to challenges presented, and must contribute balanced and transparent support for the kinds of research for which industry funding is not available. Academics must also contribute to this effort. Given the emphasis in law on legal theory and in economics on industry-centred research, opportunities remain for communications researchers to conduct evidence-based research focussed on questions surrounding the public interest, public health, and educational objectives of IP policy and to encourage the support of such research by government and international bodies.

2. Michele Byers (Associate Professor, Department of Sociology & Criminology, Saint Mary's University). Would the requirement that regulated Canadian media lodge their programming in an open, searchable archive address the media concentration issue? Would it disincent such media from investing in new programming in the first place?

As one of what are only a handful of scholars doing research on Canadian television texts, I have felt quite strongly that we need the national television archive that has been called for, for at least two decades. In the last five years of my research I have been amazed at the difficulty of getting access to televisual materials for the purpose of research, even those produced within the last twenty years. Although an increasing number of US TV series (old and new) are available for purchase on DVD, the same is not true of most Canadian series. I believe that as a nation that funds most of our television media, we need to insist that a national archive (such as exists elsewhere) be developed as a resource for anyone with an interest in Canadian television; the need to recognize the media as a national resource and media products as important historical documents is a policy issue. The question as asked here does not specify the sort of media archive where Canadian media programming might be held. Originally I imagined something like the National Archives of Canada whose resources, in the area of television, are somewhat limited. After stumbling upon a professional panel of the Atlantic Film Festival that was televised locally in September, I also began to wonder about another sort of archive; an on-line archive where Canadian programming could be housed and made accessible (possibly for purchase) to viewers with Internet access. The Internet or TV-on-demand might be allies in finding audiences for quality (as well as mediocre or downright terrible) products that have limited audiences - a good description of a lot of Canadian television. These questions of accessibility, of ownership, of technological development (and so on) paint a complex and still rather murky picture. And the question of whether a searchable archive - whether housed online or in a national archive - would address the media concentration issue… well, I'm honestly not sure what the answer is. I do know that it is far cheaper for Canadian television stations to buy American shows than to produce/buy local ones, and Canadian television producers rely heavily on subsidies, tax incentives, and CanCon laws to get their work made. The idea of an archive that somehow divested producers from potential (or future) revenues is clearly problematic, but adding archiving to the regulations placed on Canadian producers need be no more a disincentive than cost (if the government covers the cost of the archive). Already, huge corporations where the bottom line is the central issue have a less vested interest in promoting Canadian voices within the television industry. The decision by the CRTC and other government bodies to support media concentration suggests that Canadian-made programming is already in jeopardy. We must act to preserve it and creating a national archive and partnering with new technologies might be steps in that direction.

3. Stéphane Couture (Doctoral Candidate, School of Media, Université du Québec à Montréal). Can communication policy research draw on the FLOSS experience to build policy-relevant contribution and critique, yet maintain a critical distance from the political project of free software activism? Should it?

More and more civic and community initiatives are rooted in the practices and devices of free/libre and open source software (FLOSS). FACIL, a Quebec group, brings together about ten community organisations related to FLOSS, and maintains a public calendar on which events related to FLOSS and free acess to information pop up almost daily. Other local groups, like Koumbit, develop free and open source software for community groups, and in so doing develop new forms of organizing inspired by those we find in free software communities. Some Community Wireless Networks are engaged in the development of free software, too (Powell, 2006): Île sans fil, for instance, developed the Wifidog software now used throughout the world, and recently launched the HAL project whose code allows users to access local cultural content from several Montreal cafés. What is it that free software,contributes to stimulating these community projects, though?

Many companies, organizations and public administrations show an enthusiasm for a supposedly-more-effective economic model for collaboration associated with FLOSS. Recall, however, that the concept of Free Software was born in the ethical claim that sharing source code, and knowledge in general, was a crucial aspect for the life of communities. For Richard Stallman, who originated the term, "free software is before a everything a question of freedom and community" (Gleizes and Papathéodorou, 2000). To understand this "community" dimension of free software, it is worthwhile to see software development as a form of expressivity. Indeed, if the software is most of the time understood by users in its binary format as a functional technical device, it also constitutes, though its source code, a form of expression of ideas coded by a programming language, with its own vocabulary and language structure (Julien and Zimmerman, 2006). It is from this perspective that some free software participants request that software be protected under freedom of expression, not as intellectual property (Coleman, 2004).

Philosopher Gilbert Simondon (1958) suggested in his foundational work that what he viewed as our civilisation's malaise towards technologies and the technical, could be to way that machines are considered a perfectly stabilized entity apprehended only in terms of its use-value. Beyond the use of information technologies, I believe research on public policy should consider the way in which the development of these technologies can also take part in democratic and community life at a time of strong digital mediation. I think that this is an important lesson to draw from the FLOSS movement.

4. Jacob Glick (Legal and Policy Counsel, Canadian Internet Registration Authority). In the broadcasting sector, Canadian content policies are under great pressure-yet, within the Internet domain name system, a dot-ca domain persists. What is the rationale for a dot-ca domain with "Canadian content" rules regulating who may register such a domain? Does the Can-Con rethink have anything to learn from dot-ca?

Relative availability of telecommunication resources determines similarities and differences between the broadcasting and dot-ca approaches to Canadian content regulation.

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority ("CIRA"), the not-for-profit corporation that manages the dot-ca top level domain, takes a hands-off approach to Canadian content regulation, relative to the heavy regulation of the broadcasting sector. This is made possible by the relative abundance of possible dot-ca domain names¹ compared to the available radio spectrum, digital channels or satellite space.

CIRA does not require that dot-ca registrants use their domains in any particular way. It merely requires that only entities with a Canadian presence can register dot-ca domain names. This Canadian Presence Requirement ("CPR") (pdf) requires that dot-ca registrants fall into one of 18 prescribed categories. Registrants self-select their category when they register their domain names. Once registered, people can do more or less what they please with their domain names, within the bounds of the law. CIRA does not regulate content.

Notwithstanding this apparent difference -- content regulation in broadcasting compared to the "presence" requirement in dot-ca -- both kinds of Canadian content regulations serve similar public policy goals: encouraging the development of a vibrant Canadian commercial, cultural and intellectual community. For dot-ca the CPR serves these goals by, inter alia, facilitating users' self-identification as Canadians.

Not all parts of the Internet signify Canada or have a Canadian identity. For example, Canadians can register domain names in any number of top-level domains, like dot-com, that have nothing to do with Canada per se.

In choosing a dot-ca domain name, CIRA's registrants make the affirmative choice to make their Canadian identity part of their identity online. Contrast this choice to the traditional broadcasting context where carriers and broadcasters are compelled to be Canadian. The kind of Canadian internet community that arises in the dot-ca context is one unburdened by the orthodoxy of what it means to produce "Canadian content" in the traditional sense with its rigid quotas, formulas, etc., but is nonetheless uniquely Canadian.

Ultimately, dot-ca facilitates for Canadians an internet space use as they please, to create the content they want and promote their interests and ideas, to the benefits of all Canadians.

5. Anne McCulloch (Doctoral Candidate, School of Communication, Simon Fraser University). Do academic traditions in the field of communication studies-for instance, audience research-provide sufficient resources for communication policy researchers seeking to intervene in policies concerning Canadian public health information? Should they evolve to do so?

The academic traditions of political economy and audience research within the field of communication studies offer resources to communication policy researchers seeking to intervene in policies concerning Canadian online health information, but the focus of these traditions on the power relations of macro-level structures and the interpretation of meanings disseminated through mass media leaves room for further development of policy interventions informed by the science, technology and society tradition.

Discussions in the field of communication studies that relate to Canadian policies for online health information focus primarily on issues of network development and universal internet access. The Canadian government has also invested in developing health information websites for informed decision-making about health. In 1999, the Canadian Advisory Council on Health Infostructure recommended a pan-Canadian approach to setting up information and communication technologies to help to empower Canadians with better health information and improve the health of Canadians. Of concern within Canadian communication policy is the introduction of information and communication technologies with optimism that gains for society will inevitably follow but without providing for the educational and intermediary support required for Canadians with limited computer, health, media and general literacy to sort through the abundance of more or less accurate, relevant health information available on the internet and thus benefit from this technology. For information and communication technology policy to be democratic, the technology and the information it communicates must be both accessible and useful to all citizens who wish to engage with it and deliver benefit proportional to funding invested.

The focus of communication policy researchers should extend beyond the health system-level cost-saving goals and issues of access by considering online health information as a public good with economic, political, cultural and social consequences. The public good of online health information can only be assessed once it is used, and as with cultural content produced about Canada and Canadians, online health information produced for Canadians is more useful when it is culturally and regionally specific. Audience research brings forth important insights into user behaviours on the internet and attitudes towards internet content, though content users differ from audiences in that they have more control over the content they consume. Both the content of health websites and the technology through which it is delivered affect Canadians' ability to use online health information and require examination.

Canadian communication researchers can play a role in improving the access and utility of information and communication technologies by adopting the perspective that the development of technology is ongoing and occurs within society, by conducting ethnographic research with the technology's users and non-users in partnership with decision-makers and by communicating research findings and policy recommendations to decision-makers. An understanding of the barriers and enablers individual users encounter when using online health information will clarify whether policy objectives are being met, whether they should be altered based on the Canadian public's use of the technology, and whether the technology should be developed in new ways to better meet both the public policy goals and individual user goals.

6. Lara Trehearne (Masters Candidate, Department of Communication, University of Ottawa). Does the Broadcasting Act really need to be amended in order for the CBC to create a digital archive? What policy elements already exist that would support such an initiative?

The CBC's mandate calls for programming provided by our public broadcaster to "actively contribute to the flow and expression of cultural expression;" "contribute to shared national consciousness and identity," and "be made available through Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means and as resources become available for the purpose". Although not specifically mentioned in its mandate, increasingly it appears that the Internet is in fact the most appropriate and efficient means for the CBC to achieve these and other aspects of its mandate. One example of the unique contribution that can be made by our national public broadcaster in the online environment is its digital archives.

Digital archives have emerged as unique learning tools that have the potential to contribute significantly to the understanding and development of Canadian identity. To this end, the Department of Canadian Heritage (PCH) launched the Canadian Culture Online Program (CCOP) in 2000. The focal point of this policy initiative is the funding of digital archives for the creation and preservation of digitised Canadian cultural and historical artefacts. The Memory Fund was created by PCH in recognition of the need to create a Canadian presence online and make Canadian content available from authoritative and reliable sources. As a funded recipient, the online presence of CBC.ca archives answers its critics by showcasing its role as one of the guardians of our national memory. It makes accessible a reliable database rich with Canadian historical artefacts, available on demand, and, significantly, free of charge to the Canadian public.

Moreover, its online accessibility and emphasis on pedagogical resources provides a stronger means to draw Canadian youth, exposing them to these rich resources. As such, this platform could be exploited further to build upon existing successes, preserving and promoting the diversity and richness of Canadian identity and historical memory. With one of the highest rates of internet usage in the world, Canada is well situated to exploit the advantages of emerging technologies for the advancement of our nation's historical consciousness, and the assumed corollary between historical memory and collective identity. Digital archives establish a palpable connection with the past, its voices, its people, and idiosyncrasies, and provide context that fosters historical understanding. Their pedagogical use is said to foster the advancement of historical narratives, critical discourses, and opportunities to engage with the breadth and richness of Canada's past.

Yet the greatest threat to its online successes may come from its now outdated mandate. The Broadcasting Act fails to specifically include the Internet as a platform, leaving the CBC open to questions about its online presence and the use of public funds to compete with private interests online. While a review is necessary and inevitable, it is essential to the health of Canada's public broadcaster that it be empowered to successfully exploit digital technologies, and especially the Internet, if it is to achieve its mandate and remain relevant to coming generations.