Canadian copyright lobbyists leaned on “independent” researchers to change report on file-sharing
It was good to hear Jesse Brown holding the Conference Board’s feet to the fire the other day on TVO’s Search Engine… plugplug
Flashback: Think tank plagiarizes, pulls report on Canadian piracy | France passes ‘three strikes’ Internet surveillance law | Pirate Bay lawyer calls for retrial after judge confirms ties to copyright groups | ISOHunt points out Google, Yahoo torrent engines too | Obama Administration Claims Copyright Treaty Involves State Secrets | Do We Need a New Internet? | Latest Round of Closed-Door ACTA Copyright Negotiations Wrap Up
Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing.net
June 3, 2009
The Conference Board of Canada’s sellout on copyright just keeps on getting worse. To recap: the Conference Board is a supposedly neutral research outfit that was asked by the Canadian copyright industries to write a report on file-sharing and piracy in Canada. They hit up the Ontario government for $15,000 to fund an event where the findings of the report would be presented.
Then they hired an independent researcher who concluded that there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with Canadian file-sharing. They threw away his research.
Then they plagiarized dodgy press-materials produced by the leading US copyright lobby group, quoting lengthy passages that were factually wrong.
Then they denied any wrongdoing.
Then they admitted they’d plagiarized, but insisted that the public money hadn’t been spent “on the report” — it had been spent on the conference about the report, which is a Different Thing Altogether.
Then the founder and leader of the Conference Board, Anne Golden, appeared on the TVOntario podcast Search Engine and argued that she didn’t really see anything especially egregious about the fact that the plagiarists had copied the talking points of the people who’d hired them to write the “independent” report. She even tried to discredit the distinguished academic who wrote the conflicting report that they discarded by saying that he’s a plagiarist for saying that “if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck” (in reference to the Board’s apparent bias-for-money position), because someone else said that first.
And now, it just got worse.
One of the named authors of the plagiarized report has come forward to say that the funders of the report — Canadian copyright lobbyists — actively pressured him to come to the conclusions that they wanted to see. He asked to have his name removed from the report prior to publication — and Anne Golden called him to talk it over and then hung up on him.
# # My new work was interrupted in mid-September by my former supervisor at the Conference Board to tell me there had been “push back” from one of the funding clients about the research and inclusion of Mr. deBeer’s contribution. I had quit almost two months earlier so this was of no concern to me.# Around the same time, my new work was also interrupted by a call from one of the funding clients who expressed similar concerns. Again, I informed him that I no longer had anything to do with these reports.
# I received news of its publication on May 26, 2009, ten months after my resignation. I downloaded and read the research after I was informed of the controversy and was alarmed to see the direction it had taken.
# I sent my letter to Anne Golden the following day.
# The VP of Public Policy e-mailed me on May 29th to ask for my assistance in finding both researchers who could “fix” the reports, as well as external reviewers who would be impartial in reviewing the new work. His message stated that “I trust your judgment, experience and knowledge and would value your help.”
Source | See also under Internet: China begins internet ‘blackout’ ahead of Tiananmen anniversary | UK chases Obama on cybersecurity | Cybersecurity Is Framework For Total Government Regulation & Control Of Our Lives | Think tank plagiarizes, pulls report on Canadian piracy | Obama Set to Create A Cybersecurity Czar With Broad Mandate | Next up for France: police keyloggers and Web censorship | France passes ‘three strikes’ Internet surveillance law | Canadian Parliament Threatens People For Posting Video Of Proceedings Online | EU wants ‘Internet G12′ to govern cyberspace | UK Home Secretary has secret plan to surveil, ‘Master the Internet’ | UK wants industry to track Internet users as plans scrapped for state database | Fredericton police arrest well-known N.B. blogger on legislature grounds | Pirate Bay lawyer calls for retrial after judge confirms ties to copyright groups | Jail terms for Pirate Bay founders, appeal in works | French legislators reject internet piracy bill | Put NSA in Charge of Cyber Security, Or the Power Grid Gets It | Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies | Pentagon spending millions to fix cyberattacks | Aussies Announce $31B National Broadband Network | Britons block Google Street View van | Should Obama Control the Internet? | Cybersecurity law would give feds unprecedented net control | Munk Centre researchers discover botnet, call for international cyberspace ‘legal regime’ | Google Street View comes to Canada | In Australia, censored hyperlinks could cost you | ISOHunt points out Google, Yahoo torrent engines too | Obama Administration Claims Copyright Treaty Involves State Secrets | Internet ad tracking system will put a ’spy camera’ in the homes of millions, warns founder of the web | French government accused of ‘Big Brother’ tactics over internet piracy | Australian web censorship plan to begin trial despite house opposition | Time to regulate online content, cultural groups tell CRTC | Facebook’s Users Ask Who Owns Information | Do We Need a New Internet? | New law to give police access to online exchanges | Chinese Learn Limits of Online Freedom as the Filter Tightens | Britain unveils plans for nationalized internet service | Google plans to make PCs history | EU Police set to step up warrantless hacking of home PCs | Defense Contractors See $$$ in Cyber Security | UK Culture secretary wants international age restrictions for web | Protests in Australia over proposal to block Web sites | Latest Round of Closed-Door ACTA Copyright Negotiations Wrap Up | China restarts online crackdown | CRTC Internet regulation proposals take shape | Cyberbullying verdict turns rule-breakers into criminals | Felony hacking precedent not set in case of Myspace cyberbully | Myspace terms of use could become fulcrum for destruction of online anonymity in precedent setting case | Bell can squeeze downloads, CRTC rules | Australia to Implement Mandatory Internet Censorship | Microsoft patents web moderator robots, forbidden phrases to be memory-holed | CRTC to consider Internet regulation, invites public comment | RCMP to helm a Canadian “cyber-security strategy” | Is an Internet tax coming? | Italian Judge: Blogs are Illegal | Digital rights groups sue for access to secret ACTA treaty | Berners-Lee W3C Consortium to ‘Authorize’ Website Content? | Digital issues deserve spot in election campaign | Critics waging a cyber offensive to fight copyright changes | Law Professor tells tech conference: plans to shut down Internet already on deck | Bell continues throttling Internet, proposes bandwidth caps for resellers | Rogers Looks For New Ways To Annoy Customers, Hijacks Failed DNS Lookups | MySpace signs up to OpenID scheme | Vint Cerf blasts ISPs for choking off internet infrastructure | Bell’s internet throttling illegal, Google says | Canadian Industry Minister lies about Canadian DMCA on national radio, then hangs up | The Canadian DMCA: Check the Fine Print | Government ready to drop copyright bomb | Transparency needed on ACTA | Net neutrality bill hits House of Commons | Revamped copyright law targets electronic devices | New Attempt to Align Canada’s Copyright Act with USA Coming Soon | CRTC revisits Internet oversight | Bell accused of privacy invasion | Canadian DMCA To Be Introduced Tomorrow Morning?
June 5th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
[...] Canadian copyright lobbyists leaned on “independent” researchers to change report on fil… [...]
June 9th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
[...] to slay Canadian file-sharing myths | CRTC keeps new media exempt from broadcasting regulation | Canadian copyright lobbyists leaned on “independent” researchers to change report on file-sharin… | China begins internet ‘blackout’ ahead of Tiananmen anniversary | UK chases Obama on [...]
July 17th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
[...] Time to slay Canadian file-sharing myths | Canadian copyright lobbyists leaned on “independent” researchers to change report on file-sharin… | Think tank plagiarizes, pulls report on Canadian piracy | Pirate Bay lawyer calls for retrial [...]
July 26th, 2009 at 4:52 am
[...] to slay Canadian file-sharing myths | CRTC keeps new media exempt from broadcasting regulation | Canadian copyright lobbyists leaned on “independent” researchers to change report on file-sharin… | China begins internet ‘blackout’ ahead of Tiananmen anniversary | UK chases Obama on [...]
July 26th, 2009 at 4:58 am
[...] law ‘reform’ to kick off with consultations | Time to slay Canadian file-sharing myths | Canadian copyright lobbyists leaned on “independent” researchers to change report on file-sharin… | Think tank plagiarizes, pulls report on Canadian piracy | Obama Administration Claims Copyright [...]
November 21st, 2009 at 9:02 am
[...] to slay Canadian file-sharing myths | CRTC keeps new media exempt from broadcasting regulation | Canadian copyright lobbyists leaned on “independent” researchers to change report on file-sharin… | China begins internet ‘blackout’ ahead of Tiananmen anniversary | UK chases Obama on [...]
January 16th, 2010 at 6:25 am
[...] to slay Canadian file-sharing myths | CRTC keeps new media exempt from broadcasting regulation | Canadian copyright lobbyists leaned on “independent” researchers to change report on file-sharin… | China begins internet ‘blackout’ ahead of Tiananmen anniversary | UK chases Obama on [...]
February 5th, 2010 at 7:33 am
[...] to slay Canadian file-sharing myths | CRTC keeps new media exempt from broadcasting regulation | Canadian copyright lobbyists leaned on “independent” researchers to change report on file-sharin… | China begins internet ‘blackout’ ahead of Tiananmen anniversary | UK chases Obama on [...]
March 12th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
[...] law ‘reform’ to kick off with consultations | Time to slay Canadian file-sharing myths | Canadian copyright lobbyists leaned on “independent” researchers to change report on file-sharin… | Think tank plagiarizes, pulls report on Canadian piracy | Obama Administration Claims Copyright [...]
June 3rd, 2010 at 4:21 am
[...] law ‘reform’ to kick off with consultations | Time to slay Canadian file-sharing myths | Canadian copyright lobbyists leaned on “independent” researchers to change report on file-sharin… | Think tank plagiarizes, pulls report on Canadian piracy | Obama Administration Claims Copyright [...]
June 17th, 2010 at 10:45 am
[...] law ‘reform’ to kick off with consultations | Time to slay Canadian file-sharing myths | Canadian copyright lobbyists leaned on “independent” researchers to change report on file-sharin… | Think tank plagiarizes, pulls report on Canadian piracy | Obama Administration Claims Copyright [...]