#IdleNoMore #CDNPoli #NWT Arrange meeting requested by Chief Spence, Lawyers Rights Watch Canada tells @PMHarper

"...The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2
Fax: 613-941-6900
E-mail: stephen.harper@parl.gc.ca; pm@pm.gc.ca

Dear Prime Minister,

Re: Meeting requested by Chief Theresa Spence of Attiwapiskat

We write to urge that you immediately arrange a meeting as requested by
Chief Theresa Spence. Chief Spence wants a meeting on a Nation to Nation
basis with the Prime Minister, the Crown, and the Provincial and
Territorial leaders along with all the First Nations leaders to discuss
First Nations' inherent and treaty rights.
[...]
Please remember that Canada is constitutionally defined as a "free and
democratic society" founded on principles that recognize the supremacy of
the rule of law. This means that law must be formulated with the informed
consent of the Canadian people. The equality rights in our constitution
are meant to ensure that law is used as a tool to achieve justice for all.
This is part of our traditional Anglo-Canadian constitutional heritage.
These principles have been affirmed by international human rights treaties
that Canada has ratified. The Canadian constitution also explicitly
requires respect for "aboriginal and treaty rights". Moreover, just as
Parliament was established to ensure that law-making is founded on
informed public discussion, so too the Supreme Court of Canada supports
the right of Indigenous peoples to meaningful consultation on issues that
concern them. In addition, we draw your attention to Article 19 of the
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which
Canada has endorsed, and which provides that...
"States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous
peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in
order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting
and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may
affect them."
In summary, in this country it is unquestionably illegal to use the power
of the State to destroy or repress rights or grant unwarranted privileges.
Conversely, it is unquestionably legal to use all peaceful means to
resolve both internal problems and external disputes...."
http://www.lrwc.org/canada-arrange-meeting-requested-by-chief-spence-lawyers-rights-watch-canada-tells-pm/

The coming drone attack on America

"... People often ask me, in terms of my argument about "ten steps" that mark the descent to a police state or closed society, at what stage we are. I am sorry to say that with the importation of what will be tens of thousands of drones, by both US military and by commercial interests, into US airspace, with a specific mandate to engage in surveillance and with the capacity for weaponization – which is due to begin in earnest at the start of the new year – it means that the police state is now officially here. In February of this year, Congress passed the FAA Reauthorization Act, with its provision to deploy fleets of drones domestically. Jennifer Lynch, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes that this followed a major lobbying effort, "a huge push by […] the defense sector" to promote the use of drones in American skies: 30,000 of them are expected to be in use by 2020, some as small as hummingbirds – meaning that you won't necessarily see them, tracking your meeting with your fellow-activists, with your accountant or your congressman, or filming your cruising the bars or your assignation with your lover, as its video-gathering whirs. ... In other words, the Pentagon can now send a domestic drone to hover outside your apartment window, collecting footage of you and your family, if the secretary of Defense approves it. Or it may track you and your friends and pick up audio of your conversations, on your way, say, to protest or vote or talk to your representative, if you are not "specifically identified", a determination that is so vague as to be meaningless...."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/21/coming-drone-attack-america

--
GEORGE LESSARD

Information, Communications and Media Specialist
Spécialiste en l'information, communications et  media
451 Norseman Dr.
Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
X1A 2J1, Canada
Yellowknife Cell # (867) 445-9193
E-mail: mediamentorATgmailDOTcom
Website mediamentor.ca
Twitter Feed on Northern  & First Nations Issues
Twitter Feed on Journalism & Media Issues
Twitter Feed on Community Radio Worldwide
Member:
Canadian Artists Representation / le Front des artistes canadiens
Canadian Artists Representation Copyright Collective

10

10

40 Scholarships for Journalists to Change the World - Applications Due November 18, 2012

40 Scholarships for Journalists to Change the World
Applications for the April 2013 School of Authentic Journalism Are Due November 18, 2012
By Al Giordano
Founder, School of Authentic Journalism
September 26, 2012
The next School of Authentic Journalism, April 17 to 27, 2013, in Mexico, will mark ten years since we held the first one in 2003. More than 300 journalists, independent media makers, community organizers and social movement leaders have passed through these doors since we began.
This will be the sixth session of the school but it also might (or might not) be the last one for some time to come, for reasons I'll explain before this invitation is done. My point is that if you have ever thought about attending but never got around to actually applying: don't lose this opportunity. It might (or might not) be the last for a while.
At the 2013 school we will hear from a leader of South Africa's anti-apartheid boycott and general strike, a union organizer who strategized Bolivia's "water war" that stopped the privatization of that resource, an organizer who helped – this year – stop the deportation of 800,000 undocumented immigrants from the United States, a strategist who launched the global movement to end nuclear power, a writer and journalist who became a movement leader when her town was threatened by a nuclear waste dump, a young organizer whose creativity and humor helped topple his country of Serbia's dictator, and two legendary theorists and organizers who worked alongside Martin Luther King to end racial segregation.
This ten-day intensive program is for the following kinds of people: Journalists and communicators who report on and alongside social movements, community organizing and civil resistance campaigns, and also for those participants in those movements who write, blog, photograph, create and manage websites, make video, radio, graphic design or political cartoons about them. In previous schools we have accepted some applicants with little experience but whose raw talent and urgent desire to make change in their communities and in the world impressed us, and a good number of them have gone on to do great works. Some are even professors of the School of Authentic Journalism today.
More information at
http://narconews.com/Issue67/article4626.html

Call for Submissions / Artist-Run Centres and Collectives Conference / Call for Video Project Proposals

Call for Submissions / Artist-Run Centres and Collectives Conference / Call for Video Project Proposal / Montreal, QC / Deadline Date: Monday, July 30, 2012

ARCA, a conference of nine regional and cultural associations of artist-run centres, is calling out to artists of all disciplines to conceptualize, script and produce a communications video (max 3min.) destined to represent the artist-run network as an active and long standing member of the wider arts milieu.
Rather than insist on borders, time-zones, cultures and languages, the artist (individual or team) will depict, suggest, represent, characterize, parody how individual centres, or loosely connected groups of centres share the common idioms and forms of art.
This communications video is destined to be viewed by an audience mostly familiar with the network but not necessarily. The project will probably work best if approached with the craft, thrift and levity of artistic simplicity, possibly using and remixing documentation material provided by individual centres.
The artist (individual or collective) will work in dialogue with ARCA's regional representatives, artists Michel Boutin (Indigenous Peoples Artist Collective, Prince Albert, SK), Joe Katylnik (RAW: Gallery of Architecture and Design, Winnipeg), Michael McCormack (Eye Level, Halifax), and the administrative support offered by ARCA's coordination.
Please understand that ARCA aims to launch this video during the opening reception of Institutions by Artists, October 11 2012 in Vancouver.
All submissions must be received by July 30th, 5pm eastern time.

Please include:
-A description of the project and intended approach;
-A work plan and calendar;
-A resume (max 3 pages);

Links to video excerpts (5 min. max) with brief descriptions of the material and any other relevant support material.

General information:
ARCA offers a $3,000 fee for a broadcast quality, finished video as well as a web-ready version;
The call is open to art professionals of all ages and levels of experience;
The proposals will be reviewed by a committee of peers.

Email your proposal to info@arccc-cccaa.org, indicating PROPOSAL FOR ARCA VIDEO in the subject line

Results will be sent via email to all applicants shortly after deadline.
Information: 514-730-6129 info@arccc-cccaa.org

Prix international du dessin de presse (3)

Prix international du dessin de presse (3)

Look at my cousin's blog for more about cqrtooning..
http://badoleblog.blogspot.ca/2012/05/prix-international-du-dessin-de-presse_25.html

"...Plantu en parle dans L'Express.

..."

Jan Wong: Workplace Depression, video tapes, a secret psychiatrist and a new book called "Out of the Blue"

The Globe and Mail fires a journalist suffering from depression after Manulife Insurance secretly videotapes her and has a secret psychiatrist declare her not ill.

Jan Wong: Workplace Depression
A much-honoured reporter with The Globe and Mail for more than 20 years, Jan Wong incurred the anger of management, suffered a breakdown and the agony of clinical depression and eventually was fired.
In the midst of her depression, she couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, could barely converse with friends. She eventually pulled out of it, and has written about her experience in a new book called Out of the Blue.
Jan Wong talks with Michael about a little-acknowledged condition: workplace depression.
http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/features/2012/05/06/jan-wong-workplace-depression/

--------------------
Was Canada's "Globe and Mail" "MIA" with Jan Wong?
"...Jan Wong is an award winning newspaper reporter and author, who was, at one time, the Beijing bureau chief for the Globe and Mail and one of the most prominent feature writers Canada has ever produced. ... Jan went through a complete nervous breakdown. The Human Resources department at the newspaper cut off her benefits and sick leave after six weeks. (Her union contract stipulates that workers are eligible for six months sick leave). Jan was ordered back to work but felt it was too soon as she was unable to write and had a medical certificate so stating. When she failed to show up in the newsroom as required, she was fired in 2006...The Globe has been a great employer when it comes to handling reporters in war zones and other stressful situations. Jan Wong clearly underwent a clinical depression caused by job-related post-traumatic stress disorder. If she has been in Iraq or Syria or Sierra Leone, the Globe would have had no hesitation about giving her or any war correspondent the necessary support and care. .... It's not too late for the Globe to acknowledge the nature of workplace depression wherever it occurs. A good starting point would be to ask Ed Greenspon to review Jan's book. ..."
http://www.nowthedetails.blogspot.ca/2012/05/was-globe-and-mail-mia-with-jan-wong.html
--------------------
"....This is the kind of country we live in. The Globe and Mail fires a journalist suffering from depression after Manulife Insurance secretly videotapes her and has a secret psychiatrist declare her not ill.
Thankfully in finally settling with Manulife (after the lawsuit needless to say) she arranged to have excerpts from the surveillance videos posted to You tube - though only for six months..."
--------------------



http://youtu.be/zxNQq366gfU
Published on May 5, 2012 by writerwong http://www.youtube.com/user/writerwong
These are excerpts from secret videos commissioned by Manulife Financial that resulted in the Globe and Mail firing me in the middle of a major clinical depression. For more than 20 years, I worked as a staff reporter at the Globe. When I suddenly fell ill with clinical depression, the Globe didn't believe me. Manulife, the insurer, hired Garda, an international security company, to surreptitiously follow and videotape me. Manulife showed the tapes to its consulting psychiatrist, who ruled I wasn't depressed. Read more in my new memoir, Out of the Blue.
http://www.janwong.ca

NorthWords Writer's Festival May 31 - June 3, 2012

CBC Northbeat is a Proud Sponsor of NorthWords Writer's Festival May 31 - June 3, 2012

 

 

NorthWords NWT holds an annual festival every year the first weekend in June, which allows established and emerging northern authors to share the stage with renowed Canadian authors.  The festival supports writers through workshops, mentoring and literary contests.

 

This year, NorthWords Festival is featuring 2010 Giller Prize Linden Macintryre, host of CBC's The Fifth Estate.  Linden recently released his latest book "Why Men Lie".  In addition, other special authors include:

 

• James Bartleman, author of As Long as the Rivers Flow, a novel on the intergenerational impact of the residential school experience on the current epidemic of youth suicide in Northern Ontairo.
• Michael Yahgulanaas who uses graphic narratives to communicate a world view particular to the Haida.  He is known for the Haida Manga.
• Dawn Dumont, a comedian of Cree and Metis descent whose first book Nobody Cries Bingo was published in 2011.
• Margaret Macpherson, an award-winning poet and author of both fiction and non-fiction, originally who grew up in Yellowknife.
• Richard Van Camp, a proud Tlicho Dene from Fort Smith, NWT who has earned international acclaim as a writer of short stories, children's books and novels.
• Jamie Bastedo, a Yellowknife writer of both fiction and non-fiction who specializes bringing science to the people.
• Annelies Poole, a Yellowknife writer whose funny take on life in the country has entertained readers for many years.
• Cathy Jewison, a Yellowknife author whose short stories see the humor in northern life.

A program will be released within the next couple of weeks.

 

Visit NorthWords website at http://northwordsnwt.ca

HOW TO BE A CITIZEN JOURNALIST Protester and documentarian has all the details

http://www.capilanocourier.com/2012/03/how-to-be-citizen-journalist-protester.html
[excerpt]

TORONTO (CUP) – Derek Soberal stands along a police barrier with a crowd in Nathan Phillips Square as a part of a January protest against Toronto budget cuts. Holding a small camera, he films the scene as tension grows between the protesters and police.

The situation erupts as a protester attempts to break through the line. In the ensuing chaos, a police officer knocks Soberal's camera down and punches him in the face before stomping on the camera. However, when Soberal crosses the police barrier in an attempt to retrieve his camera, he is arrested and charged with unlawful assembly, mischief, and two counts of obstructing a police officer.

A photo in the Toronto Sun shows Soberal in handcuffs, bruised and bloody. He quotes Martin Luther King, Jr. in rationalizing why he went over the police barrier to retrieve his camera, containing potential evidence of the alleged assault: "I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law."

BABY STEPS

Soberal has gone from being unable to recite his phone number without stuttering to being a prominent voice of the Toronto protest scene, featured on the CBC's Lang and O'Leary Exchange and credited in a G20 edition of The Fifth Estate. He also created an activist-based YouTube channel, TheSecretStore, with over 5,000 subscribers and 3.5 million upload views, as well as the 35,000-member Occupy Canada Facebook page.

But January's budget protest was not Soberal's first run-in with Toronto police. His life as an activist and citizen journalist started with the 2010 G20 protests and Ryerson's now-defunct CKLN radio station's Word of Mouth Wednesday program.

"Basically, I got involved because of the G20 summit," says Soberal. "That was my first protest … and I exercised my rights at that time. I got invited onto the show by [host] Daniel Libby to talk about the experience."

He would become a regular on Libby's show, eventually earning the title of CKLN programmer.

"Derek is attracted to media attention," says Libby. "He's not afraid to talk to reporters when they're around."

His ability to speak on the radio and communicate with the media is a hard-earned skill – from the time he was a toddler until his teens, Soberal underwent speech therapy. Today, he speaks with near-perfect clarity, pausing occasionally if his stutter starts to creep back in.

He says this ability to speak publicly is inspired by Libby: "[Libby] was confident on the radio, and my voice was cracking the first time," Soberal says. "I learned from him."
[...]

The 2012 Great Northern Canada Writing Contest Deadline - April 30, 2012

Annelies Pool [anneliespool@me.com] on behalf of Great Northern Canada Writing Contest has requested distribution of the following call for submissions:

The 2012 Great Northern Canada Writing Contest
Deadline - April 30, 2012

To enter, submit a piece of prose, either fiction or non-fiction, of up to 1,000 words about life in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut or Nunavik. Previously published items are not eligible.

Entries should be typed and double-spaced with the title, but not your name, on each numbered page. Please submit a separate cover sheet with your name, address, phone number, email address, word count and whether your piece is fiction or non-fiction.

Entries must be mailed to:

Great Northern Canada Writing Contest
Box 1256,
Yellowknife NT
X1A 2N9

We do not accept emailed or faxed entries.

Deadline is April 30, 2012. That means they must be postmarked by that date.

First Prize is $500 and publication in above&beyond, Canada's Arctic Journal.
http://www.arcticjournal.ca/

Special Emerging Writer Prize of $250 and publication in above&beyond, Canada's Arctic Journal, for writers who have never been published for payment. To qualify, identify yourself  "emerging writer" on the cover sheet you submit with your entry.

Winners will be announced at the 5th Annual NorthWords Writers Festival in Yellowknife, NWT on May 31 – June 3, 2012.

The following are not eligible: Staff and contractors of above&beyond magazine and their families, writers who have been published in above&beyond in the last five years, organizers and paid staff of the NorthWords Writers Festival and their families.

Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge - I support #wikipediablackout! Show your support here

I support #wikipediablackout! Show your support here http://tinyurl.com/7vq4o8g

Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge

For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia. Learn more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

The legal implications of tweeting

The (US) legal implications of tweeting: Can tweets be libelous? It turns out they can be
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/141987/what-journalists-need-to-know-about-libelous-tweets/

[excerpt, see original URL for embedded links]

So how can news organizations guard against libelous tweets? It's important, Ardia said, for staffers to have a basic understanding of the legal implications of tweeting.

Under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, news organizations are protected from defamation liability for content that's created by a third party. The law protects YouTube from libel lawsuits, and it protects bloggers and news organizations from defamatory comments that users may post. The law also protects retweets. So if a journalist or news organization were to retweet a defamatory statement, they would not be held accountable. If, however, they added a defamatory remark as part of the retweet, they could be.

Generally speaking, Ardia said, a news organization would only be responsible for an employee's defamatory tweets if the employee's use of Twitter was part of their job or otherwise related to their line of work. If the defamatory tweet wasn't work-related, the employee would be the only one responsible for it.

Having social media guidelines that lay out the legal pitfalls can help. A few months after the AP was sued, the organization updated its social media guidelines. (When asked whether the lawsuit Spooner filed prompted the AP to update its social media guidelines, AP Deputy Managing Editor for Standards and Production Tom Kent said, "Not that I recall.")

The new guidelines, which were issued a week after the AP warned staffers about expressing opinions, didn't specifically mention the legal implications of tweeting.

Some organizations, such as ASNE, have been criticized for creating "strict" social media guidelines that limit journalists' ability to develop their voice and skills on social networking sites. I tend to favor guidelines that encourage experimentation rather than those that limit it. But given that tweets can be libelous, I can see the value in setting stricter parameters.

When updating its guidelines recently, the BBC instituted a rule saying "two pairs of eyes" need to look over news updates for Twitter and Facebook. The extra set of eyes could prevent the BBC from tweeting something potentially defamatory, but that's not why the BBC made the update. Kevin Marsh, a longtime BBC editor who played an advisory role in creating the guidelines, explained that the update is an extension of the more general rules and practices that the BBC follows.

"Recorded content has to go through a lengthy and comprehensive process of compliance," said Marsh, who recently left the BBC after working there for 33 years. "Live content [anything published on social networks] has to go through a different process, for obvious reasons, with the warranty from the editor in charge of the output that there are at least 'two pairs of eyes or ears' across the content, one more senior to the other, able to take action — apology, taking down, correction — if necessary."

At The Guardian, journalists who identify themselves as Guardian employees in their Twitter bios are advised to include a disclaimer such as, "These are my personal views and not those of my employer."

This can be helpful, Ardia said, but it's not a complete shield to liability.

Facebook moving to China?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rebecca MacKinnon <rebecca.mackinnonATgmail.com>
Date: 9 April 2011 06:17
Subject: [chineseinternetresearch] Facebook moving to China?
To: chineseinternetresearch <chineseinternetresearch@yahoogroups.com>, "oni@eon.law.harvard.edu Initiative" <oni@eon.law.harvard.edu>, liberationtech <liberationtech@lists.stanford.edu>


http://mashable.com/2011/04/08/facebook-china-4/
Is Facebook Moving Into China?
[REPORT]<http://mashable.com/2011/04/08/facebook-china-4/>
15 hours ago by Charlie White
<http://mashable.com/author/charlie-white/>
14<http://mashable.com/2011/04/08/facebook-china-4/#disqus_thread>

According to the latest crop of rumors,
Facebook<http://mashable.com/category/facebook>is about to make a deal
that will bring it into the vast Chinese market.

Though such rumors have been circulating since
2007<http://mashable.com/2007/10/31/facebook-china/>,
the information is presently coming from numerous credible industry sources.

But don't expect to friend anyone in China. Keeping with the country's
closed nature, any new Facebook social network in China wouldn't be linked
with the rest of the site.

According to *TechRice<http://techrice.com/2011/04/09/blockbuster-rumor-facebook-partners-with-baidu-to-enter-china/>
*, Facebook will be partnering with
Baidu<http://mashable.com/follow/topics/baidu/?page=1>,
the largest search engine in China, valued at $50 billion. That's if Hu
Yanping, founder of the Beijing-based Data Center of the China Internet (
DCCI <http://www.dcci.com.cn/>), tweets the truth. He says Facebook has
already signed an official contract with Baidu to create a new social
network in China.

Marbridge Consulting<http://www.marbridgeconsulting.com/marbridgedaily/2011-04-08/article/45061/rumor_baidu_facebook_ally_to_launch_sns_in_china>has
also heard from multiple industry sources, which say Facebook will be
working with Baidu on the new China site, bolstered by rumors that Baidu
visited Facebook in February.

So we have tweets on top of rumors on top of blog posts. The preponderance
of evidence is that Facebook has something going on in China. But given that
China wants to prevent the kind of revolutionary fervor reaching a fever
pitch in the Middle East and Northern Africa lately, any version of Facebook
in China will likely be tightly regulated and censored.

Could this end up being like that pale imitation of
Twitter<http://mashable.com/2010/12/15/chinas-communist-twitter/>we
saw sprouting up in China late last year? And will China's penchant
for
censorship mean a Chinese version of Facebook is doomed to die? Let us know
what you think in the comments.


--
Rebecca MacKinnon
Schwartz Senior Fellow, New America Foundation
Co-founder, GlobalVoicesOnline.org
Cell: +1-617-939-3493
E-mail: rebecca.mackinnonATgmail.com
Blog: RConversation.blogs.com
Twitter: @rmack <http://twitter.com/rmack>
Facebook: facebook.com/rmackinnon


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------------------

Via

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chineseinternetresearch/

Which URL Shortener Should You Use?

Which URL Shortener Should You Use? - #SocialMedia http://ow.ly/4s7tx full report http://ow.ly/4s7uR

All URL shorteners are far from equal. That’s what new data from online performance monitoring service Watchmouse finds.

WatchMouse monitored the availability (uptime) and performance (page load speed) of the most popular URL Shorteners from February 24 through March 28, 2011.

We report on the following for each of the websites:

• Availability


• Performance


• Site Performance Index

Legal Lesson Learned: Copywriter Pays $4,000 for $10 Photo

Legal Lesson Learned: Copywriter Pays $4,000 for $10 Photo | Webcopyplus Web Copywriter Blog

[excerpt]

Why would copywriters at Webcopyplus pay $4,000 for a digital photo that retails for about $10? Well, frankly, we screwed up. It's an expensive lesson on copyright laws that we wish to share with other marketers, so you don't make the same mistake.

Our web copywriters were under the impression that images on the Web without any copyright notices were "public domain" and therefore free to use. Naive? Yes. A notion limited to our copywriting firm? Definitely not. It likely has to do with the fact that works no longer need a copyright notice to have copyright protection (you can read about the Berne Convention Implementation Act, which the US adopted in 1988).

Designers, writers, developers, marketers, business owners, and ironically even photographers, use photos from the Web without permission. Sites like Google make it so convenient. Enter your keywords, do an image search, and you've got an endless photo library ripe for the picking. Woman laughing delivers 5.2 million photos. Business man offers 423 million photos. And the keyword kids brings up a whopping 778 million images. You can find pretty well anything, too, from ABBA to zombies.

The Copyright Crime

While we maintained an active stock photo account for our blog with access to an array of suitable photos, one of our copywriters grabbed a photo from the Web. The image: a colour 400 x 300 pixel beach shot with some greenery in the foreground. A nice shot, but nothing spectacular.

We posted it on a client's tourism blog to add zest to a promotional article — done. Sip some caffeine, get a little Twitter action, and then dive into the next copywriting project. Photo forgotten. That was in May, 2010.

The Lawyer's Letter

Fast forward a few months, we got a call from the client a couple of days before Christmas, and he wasn't feeling overly festive. He received a formal letter from a lawyer with the following introduction: "Cease and desist demand and offer to settle copyright infringement claim, and digital millennium copyright act claim, subject to Rule 408, Federal Rules of Evidence."

Apparently copyright infringement involving images that are registered with the U.S. Copyright Office allows for statutory damages of up to $30,000, or $150,000 if it can be demonstrated it was a willful act.

The Lawyer's Demands:

the rest at...

http://ow.ly/3ZBcI

Canadian Museums Association attacks artists' fees

February 2011

 

Canadian Museums Association attacks artists' fees

 

The Canadian Museums Association told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday they would like to see the Exhibition Right "abolished". Jon Tupper, President of the CMA, also asked to be exempt from paying artist fees for things such as reproductions in catalogues, in slides for public lectures and online.

 

Canadian museums are the main source of copyright income for visual artists. An amendment proposed by Bill C-32 to open fair dealing to education appears to have been perceived by the museum community as an invitation to stop paying the fees that artists such as Jack Chambers fought so hard for. Although they claim their budgets are too tight, for most public galleries artists' fees represent a small portion of their budget. When faced with similar arguments back in the 1970's, artist Tony Urquhart suggested to a Montreal museum director that instead of hosting twenty contemporary exhibits in a year, he host nineteen and use the last budget to pay the artists.

 

Tupper insisted that museums should not have to pay artists fees for artwork which they own but recognized that more and more museums do not have the funds to purchase artwork. In Ontario alone, 98 percent of art collections are acquired by donation, meaning that visual artists would not receive any payment for these works if the CMA's recommendations were followed.

 

"The principle of compensating artists for the public presentation of their work has been enshrined in two Canadian laws for over twenty years," said CARFAC president Gerald Beaulieu. "Clearly our parliamentarians have supported this notion because it is sound and just public policy."

 

What do you think about the Canadian Museum Association's statement?  

 

Post your comments to our Facebook group or send them to communications@carfac.ca

Schools Must Validate Artistic Expression - Creativity is a key part of the educated mind.

Schools Must Validate Artistic Expression

Creativity is a key part of the educated mind.

[excerpt]

I heard a great story recently about a six-year-old girl in a drawing lesson. The teacher said this little girl hardly ever paid attention in class, but during this lesson she did. The teacher was fascinated.

She asked the girl, "What are you drawing?" And the girl said, "I'm drawing a picture of God." The teacher said, "But nobody knows what God looks like." The girl said, "They will in a minute."

[...]

...we are educating people out of their creative capacities. Picasso once said that all children are born artists. The trick is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately: We don't grow into creativity; we grow out of it. Or, rather, we get educated out of it. Creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.

[...]

We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we're educating our children. And the only way we'll do it is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are, and seeing our children for the hope they are. Our task is to educate our whole being so they can face this future. We may not see this future, but they will. And our job is to help them make something of it.

By Sir Ken Robinson http://sirkenrobinson.com/skr/ an international leader in creativity, innovation, and educational reform and author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative. This article is based on a talk he gave at the 2006 TED conference.

- - - -

For twelve years, he was Professor of Education at the University of Warwick in the UK and is now Professor Emeritus. He has received honorary degrees from the Open University and the Central School of Speech and Drama; Birmingham City University, Rhode Island School of Design, Ringling College of Art and Design and the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. He has been honored with the Athena Award of the Rhode Island School of Design for services to the arts and education; the Peabody Medal for contributions to the arts and culture in the United States, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the Royal Society of Arts for outstanding contributions to cultural relations between the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2005 he was named as one of Time/Fortune/CNN's Principal Voices. In 2003, he received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts. He speaks to audiences throughout the world on the creative challenges facing business and education in the new global economies.

Why Paywalls Are Bad Business

09 Feb 2011 12:57 pm

by Zoe Pollock

Felix Salmon predicts that the NYT will lose to sites like the Huffington Post:

more at:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/02/why-paywalls-are-bad-business.html

Original post:

Tom McGeveran asks an important question, in his analysis of the AOL-HuffPo deal:

What is it about the environment of traditional journalism that makes it so that readers are more likely to interact with the Huffington Post reblog of a New York Times article than they are with the article itself?

The answer to this question, I think, is also a key part of the reason why the NYT paywall is a bad idea.

more at:

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/02/08/why-the-nyt-will-lose-to-huffpo/

Interview: USA Today social media editor Michelle Kessler on the evolving newsroom, measuring success

Interview: USA Today social media editor Michelle Kessler on the evolving newsroom, measuring success

http://socialmediatoday.com/trevorjonas/264923/interview-usa-today-social-media-editor-michelle-kessler-evolving-newsroom-measur?utm_source=smt_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

[excerpt]

The impact of social media on the media and publishing industries has been well documented. Newspapers and magazines are increasing their focus online, which means an investment in social media channels as well as the company website.

I recently asked USA Today's new social media editor,  Michelle Kessler, a few questions about the evolving state of the newsroom and how social media is impacting news gathering and reporting.

Jonas: You recently became social media editor at USA Today. How is the role currently defined and what, specifically, are you responsible for?

Kessler: My job is to help reporters and editors use social media to connect with readers and sources.  That includes everything from training to maintaining feeds to helping sign partnerships.

[...]

Jonas: Generally speaking, how are your reporters and editors using social media to connect with readers and sources? What's the benefit? Or put another way, how are you tracking success?

Kessler: USA TODAY has a large social media presence, including multiple official Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. (Examples are here, here, and here.)  In addition, many of our reporters and editors are extremely active on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other sites.

Social networking is just a new way of talking to people, which is what reporters have always done.  It's often easier to ping someone on Facebook, or make a connection on LinkedIn, than it is to chase someone down over the phone.  Twitter can be an extremely efficient way to share news or ask a question to a large audience.

And these sites also make it easier for readers to talk to us.  For example, we monitor every Twitter comment that mentions  @usatoday, and respond when appropriate. Last night we asked for our readers' take on the State of the Union address, and ran a few of the most interesting comments here.

Forwarded by:

GEORGE LESSARD
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Simon Waldman on Creative Disruption - What You Need To Do To Shake Up Your Business In The Digital World

Simon Waldman on Creative Disruption - Video - What You Need To Do To Shake Up Your Business In The Digital World
http://ow.ly/3EAJC

Simon Waldman - who used to run the digital business at the Guardian newspaper and is now an executive at Lovefilms - is the author of an interesting new book entitled Creative Disruption: What You Need To Do To Shake Up Your Business In The Digital World.

I caught up with Waldman earlier this month in Athens, Greece at WPP's Stream conference, where he gave a memorable presentation about his new book. Looking at disruptive digital businesses like Amazon, Skype, Google and Apple, Creative Disruption is designed as a manual for managers in companies attempting to make the transition into the digital age. Using the examples of successful reinvented businesses like IBM, Waldman's book is all about how to reinvent your business in the digital age without throwing out everything you do and everything you know.

Waldman's message is an important one. While the digital world has had a huge impact on the media industry, it is only now beginning to radically transform the broader economy. Any manager in healthcare, retail, financial services or the insurance industry needs to read Creative Disruption. The digital world is about to disrupt your business. Listening to Waldman might guarantee that this disruption won't result in destruction. –Andrew Keen

Andrew Keen is the author of The Cult of the Amateur.

Influential journal of feminist theory & innovative writing now available online open access

Influential journal of feminist theory and innovative writing now available online open access

Influential journal of feminist theory and innovative writing now available online open access

The late Professor Barbara Godard of York University, elected to the Order of Canada in 2010, left the feminist scholarly community with an outstanding parting gift.

As one of the founding editors, Professor Godard secured the approval and the means to enable all 21 years of Tessera to be available online without access restrictions.

Tessera is an influential scholarly journal which published feminist theory and innovative writing by Canadian and Quebecois women. Some of the nation's most important feminist writers were published by the journal, including Nicole Brossard, Louky Bersianik, Louise Cotnoir, Linda Hutcheon, Daphne Marlatt and Marlene Nourbese Philip among others.

Tessera is hosted by the York University Libraries using Open Journal Systems software.

For more information see:  http://www.yorku.ca/yfile/archive/index.asp?Article=16191