Thursday, May 30, 2013

The political use of copyright law by the Bank of Canada


I am curious about the politicised deployment of the Bank of Canada’s copyright interests. In response to a satirical image circulated by cartoonist Dan Murphy on or around May 29, 2013, the Bank of Canada issued a cease-and-desist order to Artizans, the distribution agency for the cartoon. Since Mr. Murphy intended the cartoon as political satire and is self-employed as a political satirist, it stands to reason that the Bank of Canada is grounding its complaints in the commercial activities of the ostensibly offending cartoonist. Surely such is within the legal jurisdiction of present copyright law in Canada. However, the question then becomes why the image of Canadian money is itself copyrightable material.

Copyright law is intended to protect the rights of content producers to the profitable sale of the material their create. Obviously, in the age of mechanical reproduction the ability to economically produce facsimiles of literature, fine  and commercial art, music, “IP”, and product design necessitates that the rights of creators be protected to ensure the continuing economic viability of such innovations.

To this end, I cannot help but wonder about the desire of the Bank of Canada to restrict the use of images referencing Canadian money. Certainly, measures to control the production and circulation of counterfit bills are necessary to protect the integrity of the monetary system. However, the deployment of copyright law against a political cartoon (or any other creative recontextualisation of such images as dollar bills) does not serve to protect either the integrity of the country’s monetary system, nor the commercial interests of the Bank of Canada, the producer of the images in question as protected under copyright. The Bank of Canada will not have its creation undervalued and will not face competition in the marketplace as a result of the breach of copyright law as reflected by Dan Murphy’s editorial cartoon. In fact, I would argue that the operations of the Bank of Canada, commercial or otherwise, are entirely unaffected by the creative recontextualisation of images of Canadian money. Moreover, the creative recontextualisation of the images of Canadian money is entirely within the public’s interest and right to live as informed and active citizens as protected by the freedom of expression clause of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, namely Section 2b of the Constitution Act.

Furthermore, in this particular instance the nature of the creative asset being protected needs to be examined. Unlike commercial products which require copyright provisions to maintain their economic and social value, money as instantiated in dollar bills and their likeness as representations (please note that the ontology of representation is beyond the scope of this letter; refer to your local university media studies/literature/philosophy department for details) is not the end product of commerce but rather the infrastructure by (and in) which commerce is enacted. This fact is the first indicator that the Bank of Canada is improperly applying copyright law to protect the creative recontextualisation of the images of Canadian money. Unlike the reproduction of an artist’s graphic design work, a musician’s song, or a company’s retail packaging, the reproduction of Canadian money does not devalue money in terms of either its economic or symbolic operations. Unlike a creative person or business which loses a sale to counterfeit goods, or has the price of sale affected by the availability of counterfeit reproductions, the marketplace in which the Bank of Canada operates is not affected by the reproduction of images of dollar bills. In no way is the Bank of Canada compromised in its function or intention. In its institutional capacity, the Bank of Canada is not a producer of goods, but rather a regulator of the infrastructure of commerce. As such, the end results of its operations, namely the dollar bills themselves, can be afforded no protections under current Canadian copyright law except to the extent that the counterfeit production of money is restricted. The Bank of Canada should indeed deploy copyright law to ensure that the majority of (if not all) bills in circulation have been manufactured by and remain under the supervision of the mint. Any other use of copyright law by the Bank of Canada oversteps the intentions of copyright provisions as well as the mandate foundational to the Bank.

Satire has a long history of constitutional protection as free speech. For satire to function, it must redeploy and recontextualise the contemporary images of politics, culture, art, science, technology, and economic practice. To focus on the present situation, political cartoons have a long history of using nationally-accurate depictions of dollar bills as important symbols and referents for the syntax and meaning in which the cartoon can be understood to operate. They also serve as visual shorthand frequently deployed in political cartoons for a variety of concepts such as greed and corruption. To be specific in this instance, Dan Murphy’s cartoon, which recontextualises a Canadian $50 polymer bill to make statements (again, which themselves have a long history of being protected by freedom of expression laws) about contemporary politics, namely the activities of one particular public figure and the (rather scandalous and illegal) activities responsible for the instance of their public notoriety presently. Despite the commercial nature of Mr. Murphy’s enterprise, his actions were protected under Section 29.1 of the Copyright Act as the syntax and content of the message relayed by the cartoon is one of political commentary and not one whereby the function or intentions of the Bank of Canada as manifest in the image of a dollar bill is in any way undermined or absconded by the cartoonist. Again, in no way does the cartoon challenge the “market” wherein the processes and institutions of money as regulated by the Bank of Canada operate. As copyright provisions are grounded in the idea that unauthorised reproduction devalues the market for the good or service in question, in no way can it be applied to the Bank of Canada’s “ownership” of dollar bills as images, as such cannot be understood to be a goods or services produced and sold in a competitive marketplace.

Here, I turn to what I interpret as the politicised deployed of copyright law by the Bank of Canada. The image of Canadian money has been reproduced on flyers disseminated for advertising purposes by supermarkets and dollar stores, and is routinely used on flyers produced and distributed by local businesses. Usually, the reproduced image signals to the reader of a sale or reduction in price, or of how the use of this product or service will save the reader money. Perhaps such is done outside of media reportage, but I have not heard of other instances where the Bank of Canada produces and delivers a cease-and-desist order to the ostensible copyright violator. In the case of Dan Murphy’s political cartoon, it appears to outside observers that the Bank of Canada is taking an interest in this particular “violation” of their copyright to silence a criticism against a scandal which extends throughout the ranks of the current government. As the Bank of Canada is a government institution, it is not much of a stretch for these same outside observers to question the political (and politicised) intentions of this particular intervention by the Bank of Canada.

Monday, May 13, 2013

letter to Guelph City Council, re: anti-music noise bylaw

Hello,

Having read about Guelph’s new noise bylaw in the Guelph Mercury, I cannot remain silent on this issue of community silence. As a past member of the music industry who currently studies art and culture professionally, I must say that I was quite thoroughly appalled when I read about the bylaw clause forbidding “the operation of a radio, television, stereo or other electronic device including any amplification device, or any musical or other sound-producing instrument” in residential and mixed-use areas. Surely it is not the wish of Guelph city council to censor all musical activities within city limits, for such a desire would not only prove itself illogical and untenable, but would be a serious impediment to the quality of life in Guelph, as throughout recorded history music has served as one of the principal means for the joyous expression of the spirit of humanity. Furthermore, banning human noise production in residential areas will disallow children from a musical education. If people cannot teach themselves how to play an instrument in the home, where do you expect musical crafts to be honed and perfected? While it is true that studio rental spaces may be available to aspiring musicians, renting space to learn musical performance and composition is exceptionally expensive and will result in the consequence that only affluent children will learn music. The educational benefits of participation in musical appreciation and performance [see article from Scientific American, linked below] will be restricted to wealthy families in Guelph. To learn how to play any instrument at the “concert” level requires thousands of hours of daily practice; obviously if such practice cannot occur in the home, then such practice will not occur. Given the implacable nature of the human spirit relative to its own expression through art, however, it’s much more likely that the noise bylaw will simply be ignored by most residents. Policing costs along with property taxes will increase as more and more people are harassed in their own homes by police seeking to shut down five friends with a stereo or teenagers making hiphop in a garage. Many residents will purposefully break compliance with the bylaw, and if I lived in Guelph I would certainly and happily be one of them.

More importantly, however, what is the actually purpose of the new bylaw? To what end are the lives of Guelph residents improved by the imposition of silence? Silence has not been enshrined as one of the driving forces of civilization (in fact noise is the marker for civilization), and has not been codified as a fundamental human right in any modern legal jurisdiction. But of course, Guelph residents won’t suddenly be without noises: traffic, people talking, construction, industry, daily commercial activities – all of these noises will continue unabated. What privileges the noise these activities produce over the concerted (and if they are talented, poetic) expression of a person with a trumpet or a guitar? As an aside, I noticed that the real noisemakers which pollute residential neighbourhoods are all exempt from the noise bylaw: lawnmowers, leaf blowers, power saws, power washers, compressed air machines, generators, etc. Surely the noises these machines produce, often very early in the morning, are far more obnoxious than is a car stereo or a child singing into a microphone. I cannot help but consider that the current Guelph city council members think it more important that the rights of residents to watch their evening reality shows and pretend through silence that the rest of the world doesn’t exist is superior to the rights of individuals to pursue and explore the fascinating potential of their own existence as reflected in musical expression. While in The Republic, Plato did in fact ban music from his political utopia, such censorship should not reasonably be expected as a component of an enlightened 21st century democratic jurisprudence.

Music is ornamentation for time in the same way that painting and architecture serve as ornaments for space. Indeed, music is a celebration of life against the inevitable closure of death, the silent end-of-time in which we must all ultimately find our peace. People who regularly practice musical composition and performance enrich their intellectual abilities and their capacity for learning. Due to the newly-passed noise bylaw, Guelph will be a city with less capacity to placate and enlighten the distempered soul as it passes through life. I am certain that the residents of Guelph will not abide such inhuman and illogical attacks on artistic expression within residential areas. It heartens me to see the increasing prominence of the art community in Guelph, as it is they who will surely lead the protest against the insanely unhuman, unnecessary, and illogical noise bylaw which City Council has just passed. Hopefully, council members will see the folly of this bylaw and reverse or remove the new amendments, lest their careers be defined in terms of the inhuman silence they illogically imposed on a community.

Regards,

--
qzh

PS: an article in the popular journal Scientific American about the pedagogical benefits of musical participation: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2012/08/21/even-a-few-years-of-music-training-benefits-the-brain/  . A full bibliography outlining such benefits as listed in numerous peer-reviewed academic studies can be made available to Council upon request.