Requiring citizen contributors to waive their moral rights sends the message that the site isn't about community or bringing people into the news process. It's just about grabbing as much free content as possible without having to compensate or offer any consideration to the people supplying said content. As I noted in my previous post, I'm sure The Gazette isn't planning to take submissions and then deny people credit. But making people waive their moral rights give the paper the right to do so, among other things. Unfortunately, the same can be said for the CBC's citizen contributor terms of use.

Yesterday on the great Inside The CBC blog Tod Maffin raised many of the same issues about the terms of use for the CBC's website. It seems as though large media organizations are adopting unfair practices when it comes to their potential use of user generated content. I understand that they need to be granted certain rights in order to be able to use the content. Totally necessary. But that doesn't mean you just take any and all rights you can think of. Tod highlights one particularly troublesome section from the CBC terms of use (emphasis mine):

By posting or uploading Submissions to the Web site, you grant CBC/Radio Canada a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, unrestricted, worldwide license to use, reproduce, store, adapt, translate, modify, make derivative works from, transmit, distribute, publicly perform or display such Submissions for any purpose; and to sublicense to third parties the unrestricted right to exercise any of the foregoing rights.

Translation: the CBC could take your photo and resell it someone else. You give, they take. And maybe make money selling your content. Maffin rightly slams the CBC for this (emphasis his):

I have a major stick up my butt about this one. If I send a photo or short video of a breaking news event to the CBC web site for the CBC to use freely on air and/or online, that’s one thing. But I certainly would feel cheated if the CBC turns around and resells the content to, say, CNN! (The Terms don’t specifically say any money would change hands, but there’s nothing that says it can’t.) Shouldn’t I get at least a cut, if not a say in the matter?

This is exploitative and unfair. Maffin also takes on the issue of waiving moral rights (italics his):

To be clear, if you waive those rights — which you do as soon as you submit anything to the CBC — the CBC can do what it wants with it, regardless of how it might affect your reputation.

Some might argue, in fact, that the CBC is in violation of section 14.1(2) of Canada’s Copyright Act by asking you to waive your rights “in favour of CBC.” In the Act, it says that “moral rights may not be assigned but may be waived in whole or in part.” I’m not a lawyer, but to me waiving my rights is waiving them. Kissing them goodbye. But if I waive my rights “in favour of the CBC,” it sure sounds like I’m specifically assigning those rights to the Mothercorp, which would be a clear violation of the Act.

I’ve asked the CBC law department for its interpretation of how “moral rights” are used in practice.

I look forward to the answer. And I look forward to the day when large media organizations stop treating citizen contributors as gullible free labor undeserving of any rights or fair consideration.

This is not the way to encourage citizen journalism.

Thanks to Roberto Rocha, I just learned that The Gazette will soon be launching a hyperlocal website for the West Island of Montreal. Steve Faguy also has a post up about it.

The site is in "late beta testing" and anyone can visit and sign-up. In general, I think this is a step in the right direction for the paper. The West Island represents a core audience for The Gazette, and the site is potentially a way to forge a stronger bond with the community.

User generated content is at the core of Westislandgazette.com. People can create an account and begin contributing news, photos and event information. A major bonus is the fact that the site is not under the auspices of Canada.com, the national network of CanWest web properties that is, to put it bluntly, horrible and borderline unusable.

The paper’s best web success to date is its excellent Habs Inside/Out blog. Like the new hyperlocal site, it’s free from the bonds of Canada.com. The Habs blog has managed to attract a very loyal and vocal following, which is not a complete surprise. Habs fans are passionate about hockey; a blog fed by The Gazette’s writers and editors would seem to be a can't miss idea.

But that doesn’t mean it’s an easy thing to execute. The paper deserves credit for building H I/O into a solid property. Some of the posts generate hundreds of comments, and users have even organized an outing to a game. It’s a community that works. (I’d like to see more daily content and analysis on the site, but that’s one fan’s opinion.)

Westislandgazette.com shares some of the same potential, yet it has one key difference: a reliance on user generated content. The paper needs to get a critical mass of people signed up and contributing to the site in order to make it a success. The Gazette will also be uploading content from staffers, but that’s not enough to make the new site a true hyperlocal community.

The idea of building hyperlocal sites fed by citizen journalists is becoming more popular, but the concept itself is no guarantee of success. I’m sure The Gazette is well aware of the challenges. The oft-quoted line “if you build it, they will come” does not apply. How you build it is important, and people need to see the value of contributing. This value could come in the form of a financial reward (we pay you if we use your story/photo); a reputational benefit (you can become a valued and recognized contributor, a so-called "super-contributor"); or a specific value in terms of exposure (get your event, writing or photo published by The Gazette).

The paper isn’t offering any financial reward for potential contributors, so the first incentive doesn’t apply. Here’s the value proposition on the site:

If you are organizing an event, we have a space for you to tell everyone else in the region. Did your child score a goal at his or her hockey game? Do you have a photo of that triumphant moment? Send it to us. We'll make sure everyone sees it. Are you a mom who wants to touch base with other moms in the area? Is the family dog not feeling well? Perhaps you would like to ask our resident veterinarian a question on her blog?

In the end, according to the paper, “This is going to be the place where West Islanders and off-islanders to the west will come together. You will be able to comment on each other's contributions, communicate with one and other, and connect in a way that will add a new dimension to life in the West Island.”

The promise is publicity, participation, reputation and community. Not bad things. My main concern at this point is that anyone thinking of contributing should pay very close attention to the site’s Terms & Conditions for users. These Terms & Conditions are not written in the spirit of delivering reputational or community value. In fact, they undercut these ideas.

By signing up, you’re giving CanWest a bundle of rights and licenses to your contributions. Everything that goes on the site can be used in any form by any CanWest entity “in perpetuity, throughout the world, in any and all media now known or hereafter devised.” That's to be expected. One positive aspect is that the company is only asking for a “non-exclusive” right and license, meaning a person could republish their photos or writing somewhere else.

The troubling part is that CanWest is demanding every contributor waive his or her “moral rights.” The relevant section:

4. You hereby expressly waive, to the fullest extent permitted by law, any so-called "moral rights" which may now or may hereafter be recognized by legislative enactment or otherwise at law or in equity with respect to the Content.

Here’s how the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, a government agency, describes moral rights:

Even if you sell your copyright to someone else, you still retain what are called "moral rights." This means that no one, including the person who owns the copyright, is allowed to distort, mutilate or otherwise modify your work in a way that is prejudicial to your honour or reputation. Your name must also be associated with the work as its author, if reasonable in the circumstances. In addition, your work may not be used in association with a product, service, cause or institution in a way that is prejudicial to your honour or reputation without your permission.

By asking people to waive their moral rights, CanWest is in effect removing itself of any responsibility to credit them for their contribution. That’s not a very community-minded thing to do. The company could, for example, use a photo you took of someone fleeing the scene of a crime and run it in papers across the country without having to give you credit. It could also remove your byline from a written contribution.

I’m not saying this is what the paper plans to do. In fact, I’m certain The Gazette sees the value of crediting its citizen contributors. But then why demand people waive their moral rights? Why take away their right to be credited for their contribution? There’s no justification for it.

The moral rights clause is in bad faith. It’s contrary to the spirit of community that the paper is trying to foster. It in effect says, “we value your contribution and want you to help build this site, but we reserve the right to deny you credit and recognition.”

My goal isn’t to criticize The Gazette before it even gets the site underway. I think westislandgazette.com has a lot of potential, and I imagine people at the paper are excited to be able to strike out and create something new. It’s a good initiative.

The issue I raise is not simply about a byline or photo credit. It’s about the nature of the relationship between the paper and its citizen contributors. There needs to be a foundation of trust and mutual benefit in order for the site to succeed. By taking moral rights, the paper is beginning the relationship on a decidedly unfair note. It's missing out on an opportunity to forge a closer bond with its would-be contributors.

In contrast, NowPublic.com, one of the most successful citizen journalism networks going, uses a Creative Commons license. Its terms of use are relatively easy to understand. It doesn't demand people waive their moral rights. NowPublic.com also offers the potential for payment. It gives and takes. Fair exchange is the essence of any community.

I imagine a lot of people will sign up to westislandgazette.com and not pay attention to the Terms & Conditions, but that doesn’t make it okay for CanWest to make a wholesale rights grab. The paper should take another look at the T&C and create an agreement that better reflects its goals for the site, and better serves citizen contributors. Step one is getting rid of that nasty moral rights clause.

The case began over a decade ago when freelancers discovered that their work for The Gazette was being loaded into paid databases such as Infomart (now FPinfomart). The writers argue that they never gave the paper the right to electronically reproduce their work; the paper says consent was implied. Obviously, there are more details to both arguments, but that's the basic dispute.

I was in court yesterday morning to present a letter of support for the ERDC on behalf of PWAC. You can read it below. Unfortunately, the publishers' lawyers objected to me reading the letter into evidence, so it was not heard by the court. But Judge Eva Petras allowed me to give some brief testimony wherein I attempted to communicate the importance of electronic rights, and the fact that many PWAC members would potentially be part of the class action if the case was permitted to proceed. I also attempted to explain that electronic rights are often taken from writers without their consent, but that raised an objection from The Gazette's lawyer. So, it was a brief court appearance for me, but the ERDC seemed pleased.

One humorous moment came when the ERDC's lawyer unwrapped a pie and used it to demonstrate that writers make the pie but then the entire pie resides with publishers when they take our rights and don't offer compensation for them. The judge, who is very pleasant and professional, allowed the pie demonstration to run its course. Some of the lawyers form the other side also took the opportunity to make comments about not being tempted by our delicious pie. For the record, my understanding is that it was a strawberry pie.

The hearings continue today and tomorrow in room 16.01 at the courthouse.

PWAC's LETTER

Honourable Justice Eva Petras, j.c.s,

The Professional Writers Association of Canada appreciates this opportunity to provide support to the Electronic Rights Defence Committee’s request for class action authorization. PWAC, established in 1976, is a national organization representing 600 professional freelance writers and journalists across Canada. It has followed the ERDC’s case with interest and support since 1997 when class action proceedings were begun.

PWAC maintains the principle that copyright must remain with the creator unless explicitly relinquished. Too many Canadian writers now have to contend with protecting their rights. We agree with many of the organizations represented here today in saying that the terms of many contracts being issued are simply untenable for a working writer. This is a sad message being sent throughout the industry.

A freelance writer’s livelihood is dependent upon the freelance work they do for various publications. We have a strong interest in seeing that electronic rights are fairly negotiated in the contracts with media organizations, particularly with regards to compensation and copyright. Obviously, extended rights are valuable or media organizations would not be demanding them, so what they are saying to writers is, “We value the rights you have over your work, but not enough to pay for them.”

There is an increased reliance on freelance writers (“independent contractors”) within the media in Canada, and freelance writers have always positioned themselves as equal partners in producing content. Clearly, there is a need for change in the contractual arrangements so the industry can move forward with a positive understanding of the rights of writers.

Sincerely,

Carolyn Gibson, National President, PWAC
John Degen, Executive Director, PWAC

In the world of quirky media corrections, this sharp-eyed author is king

Regret the error, by Craig Silverman

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Some kids collect coins. Craig Silverman collected corrections. Newspaper corrections from around the planet, that is. Winters were long for Silverman growing up in Nova Scotia. He had plenty of time on his hands.

Winters proved to be even longer for Silverman when he moved to Montreal 12 years ago to pursue journalism studies at Concordia University. He had less time on his hands, but his interest in collecting corrections remained unabated. So much so he started and became editor of the RegretTheError.com website.

Silverman, though only 30, is now considered to be among the world's foremost authorities on corrections - admittedly, not exactly an overpopulated field. His expertise has been sought by media giants like CNN, the New York Times and the Guardian.

And there's no stopping him now, thanks to the recent publication of Silverman's Regret the Error (Viking, $30), a compendium of more than 300 media corrections as well as a treatise on the subject. The corrections are often hysterically funny, though on occasion rather tragic and/or just plain baffling. The treatise is a historical overview filled with fascinating factoids. The book is a must, not only for zealous copy editors but for everyone obsessed with the business of news gathering and delivery.

In his foreword, Jeff Jarvis makes this stunning observation: "Nobody's perfect - not even journalists ... especially not journalists." Who knew? Kidding aside, Jarvis, who is a journalist, follows with this all-too-sobering point: "The public's trust in news organizations is falling about as fast as their revenues are (and, yes, these facts may be related.)" All by way of saying the faster news organizations admit their mistakes and correct them, the faster the public's trust might be restored.

Silverman reports in a survey conducted in 1985, 84 per cent of Americans believed most of what they had read in newspapers. But by 2004, that number had dipped to 54 per cent. He also cites a 2007 Canadian poll in which only 26 per cent of respondents trusted journalists, just slightly better than those with faith in lawyers, car salesmen, mechanics, CEOs and politicos.

Silverman insists both the book and the website were inspired by a clarification printed on the front page of Kentucky's Lexington Herald-Leader on

July 4, 2004: "It has come to the editor's attention that the Herald-Leader neglected to cover the civil rights movement. We regret the omission."

Alrighty then.

"I began to realize that no one was paying serious attention to corrections and that the issue of accuracy wasn't really being addressed," Silverman explains from his Plateau digs. "I also realized there would be tons of untapped content for a book."

And he knew where to dig it up. "I lead a very exciting life whereby I read between 100 and 200 corrections a day," says the author, also a columnist for the Globe and Mail and Hour. "I find them online and I scan the corrections pages of newspapers and other news organizations to find the content for the book as well as my site. I'm pretty sure there is no one else in the world who has read more corrections than me. I think I've surpassed the 100,000 mark by now. But I have to be honest and admit I'm a poor speller who has made more than my share of errors. Like using 'pubic' instead of 'public.' I guess I do this work with a sense of sympathy for others who make mistakes."

...

Montreal Gazette
Saturday, October 7, 2006
CRAIG SILVERMAN
Hugh McGuire went online about a year ago to look for a free audio book recording. His surfing took him to Project Gutenberg, a free online repository of books and other works in the public domain - but he came up empty-handed.

"I went through the Gutenberg catalogue and found they had very little audio, which was a surprise," he says.

McGuire was searching for a recording of a Joseph Conrad novel whose copyright had expired, meaning anyone was free to make a recording of it. But no one had, and so McGuire, 32, a computer programmer and writer in Montreal, decided to fill the void.

He set up a blog to gather volunteers to record free audio books of works whose copyright had expired. McGuire called his project LibriVox and he then "emailed a bunch of friends and people doing literature podcasts and blogs to ask if they were interested in joining in," he recalls during the first of two meetings at a St. Laurent Blvd. cafe.

Within a few hours, McGuire had enough volunteers to produce a recording of the book.

McGuire, a soft-spoken man with glasses and a light beard, then picks up his coffee and casually delivers a massive understatement, "It was clear to me very early on that this was a very interesting project."

Though McGuire is loath to brag about it, LibriVox.org has in one year grown to become the single largest repository of free audio books on the Internet. Its roughly 2,000 volunteers have recorded over 150 books and more than 200 recordings of short stories, plays, speeches, poems and documents like the Magna Carta and the U.S. Declaration of Independence. LibriVox offers works in French, German, Japanese, Hebrew, Finnish, Latin, Italian and Russian, with recordings currently under way in Arabic, Spanish, Swedish and Chinese. (English is by far the dominant language.)

Every LibriVox recording is offered free for anyone to download, listen to, copy and share as they please. About 25,000 LibriVox books have been downloaded over the past year, McGuire says.

LibriVox's success is a study in how blogs and other collaborative Internet technologies are enabling large groups of people from all over the world to come together and build not just a community but also something tangible, a product or service.

In the case of LibriVox, they created a library of free audio books. A similar but much larger project, Wikipedia.org, is a massive free online encyclopedia with 3.8 million articles in more than 100 languages written and maintained by 48,000 volunteers.

McGuire doesn't hesitate when asked to pinpoint the moment he saw the potential for LibriVox to grow and create something special like Wikipedia.

"When we got BoingBoinged," he says. "That was the big thing that changed everything, that really blew it up."

People all over the world aspire to get "BoingBoinged."

That means you or your website/book/article etc. have been mentioned on and linked to from BoingBoing.net, a website ranked as the most linked-to blog on the Internet. The site is run by five well-connected, tech-savvy writers and businesspeople who post links or articles about interesting things or ideas they discover, or that have been sent in by their legions of loyal readers. BoingBoing's tag line is "A Directory of Wonderful Things."

And the site's stamp of approval means a ton of Internet traffic is coming your way.

On Sept. 12, 2005, LibriVox got BoingBoinged.

That day, Cory Doctorow, an author and BoingBoing contributor, posted a link to LibriVox, noting, "I love audio books, and the store-bought varieties are viciously expensive - an audio version of the Gutenberg Project would be a gigantic mitzvah."

The same day, McGuire says, "We had 10,000 visitors ... to the site."

LibriVox instantly went from a few volunteers to hundreds, and it kept growing. People began planning and producing recordings on their own or in large or small groups. (Some recordings are divided up by having a different person record each chapter.) The LibriVox message boards - where members organize recordings, answer questions and otherwise hang out - began filling up. Some volunteers started spending several hours per week helping with the website, moderating the boards, and working to integrate new volunteers.

What began with a simple idea, a blog and a few emails had, in the span of a few weeks, become a global community with dedicated volunteers and a growing reputation.

"The principles of the project are to be totally noncommercial, totally ad-free, totally volunteer and totally public domain," McGuire says.

Those principles are a major contributor to LibriVox's growth. They're why BoingBoing took notice, and why the project has managed to dwarf other older free audio-book projects.

One such project, Telltale Weekly, sells recordings for 25 cents to $8, but makes them available at no charge through its Spoken Alexandria Project after five years or 100,000 downloads, whichever comes first. Alex Wilson, a writer and actor in Chapel Hill, N.C., who founded the project, reads the vast majority of the works himself.

Another service, LiteralSystems, raises funds for its free recordings and hires professional-quality voice talent to read them.

Both projects predate LibriVox, yet because of their centralized structure and need for funding or revenue, they both have significantly fewer recordings available.

By contrast, LibriVox is an entirely open, volunteer system that requires no financial support. It's considered part of the world of Web 2.0 - a term used to describe new projects and technologies that enable people to create, share and collaborate in new ways online.

Jon Udell, a technology writer and the lead analyst and "blogger-in-chief" for InfoWorld magazine, says Web 2.0 projects like LibriVox and Wikipedia are helping realize the true goal of the World Wide Web.

"From my perspective, the key value of this is in changing people's expectations about the relationship between being a consumer and being a producer," he says. "For several generations we've been trained to be consumers ... the option to be a producer in a variety of ways doesn't even occur to people."

He continues, "The entire bunch of awkward terminology you hear like 'Web 2.0' is expressing what the original purpose of the WWW was. It was designed to be a two-way medium where there was symmetry between readers and writers and producers."

The concept is also expressed in how McGuire responds to those who say they don't like a particular LibriVox recording: "If you think a recording is done badly, then please do one and we'll post it as well."

They often take him up on the offer, and thus the growth of LibriVox continues.

One of LibriVox's most dedicated volunteers and prolific readers is Kara Shallenberg, a married mother of one in Oceanside, Calif. She has read more than 200 individual chapters and six novels for LibriVox, in addition to shorter works. Shallenberg joined LibriVox after she had already been making home recording of books for her audio book fan son, Henry.

"Everything I read to Henry was copyrighted," she says, adding that she was frustrated she couldn't share those works. "The idea of creating audio books that other people could enjoy was exciting."

She has since turned Henry, 10, from an audio book lover to a budding voice talent who has recorded some of Aesop's fables.

"I would be surprised if he didn't keep doing recordings, because he loves audio books," she says. "When you love something that much, you want to get involved."

Another LibriVox volunteer, Gord Mackenzie, is a Canadian working in Detroit. He was drawn by a more philosophical reason. Mackenzie says he is concerned about the "dearth of material from the 20th century entering the public domain."

For him, LibriVox is a way to make the statement that works in the public domain can be used to benefit society. (In Canada, copyright applies for the author's life plus 50 years after their death, at which point the work enters the public domain. In the U.S., where LibriVox is hosted and administered, the general rule is that works published or registered for copyright before 1923 are now in the public domain.)

Both Shallenberg and Mackenzie came to LibriVox via BoingBoing. McGuire estimates that there are only "10 or 15" Montrealers involved in the project, most of whom are friends he contacted in the early days.

"LibriVox went global before it went Montreal," he explains.

Robert Foster, a 59 year-old semi-retired technical writer in Senneville, started recording for LibriVox this past spring and has completed one full solo recording of Aristotle's Poetics, along with three individual chapters of other recordings.

Like many LibriVoxers, he uses a basic microphone that plugs into his computer in conjunction with affordable sound recording and editing software. Recording software is also available for free on the Internet.

"It's a way to volunteer and do it from your home," he says, "I'm trying to get my son to do it as well. I think it's also good for voice training."

LibriVox's volunteers are restricted in their material only to previously published works in the public domain in the United States. McGuire says this open policy has let the personal preferences of volunteers shine through.

"If someone turned up with a smut book from 1850, we would do it," he says. "We did Fanny Hill, which is an early erotic Victorian book. Everyone was laughing in the discussion forums about having to keep quiet while recording so their kids wouldn't hear them."

Other LibriVoxers have proposed reading the Koran (some have already read chapters of the Bible), recording Supreme Court decisions and reciting pi to an unknown, but you can assume lengthy, number of digits. A multilingual recording of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights is under way, as is a full cast recording of The Pirates of Penzance.

Still, there's no lack of notable authors in the LibriVox catalogue. Some of the most recorded include Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Jack London, L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, William Shakespeare and Lucy Maud Montgomery.

At its worst, a free LibriVox audio book can sound like a teenager reading aloud in high-school English class. At its best, it can offer excellent sound quality and skilled narration infused with a passion for the text. In between is a world of competent readings, sometimes spiced with affected accents, mumbled words and distant car horns and reflecting all manner of literary interpretations.

Udell, who has downloaded from LibriVox, says the range of recording and reading quality only adds to the appeal.

"The advantage is that when I listen to a LibriVox recording I know the person who made it did so purely for the love of the work and for the desire to share that work," he says, adding the recording quality will continue to improve as LibriVox grows and volunteers gain more experience.

Shallenberg says her pet parakeet often makes unscripted contributions to her recordings, and she's happy to leave him in.

"We're just regular people, we're all volunteers," she says. "If his were a for-profit situation (requiring rigid quality control), the fun would be gone really fast."

As would Shallenberg, her son, and her parakeet, no doubt.

SIDEBARS
A growing appetite for audio books

The audience for audio books - both free and paid - is growing as more people download works to their digital music players and listen to CDs in their cars.

The North American audio book industry, which typically sells recordings for $15 to $30,

released 3,430 titles, taking in $832 million U.S. in 2004, the last year for which figures are available. By comparison, Hugh McGuire says, over the past year roughly 25,000 LibriVox audio books have been downloaded.

"Readers are increasingly turning to audio books as a way to supplement their reading time, and publishers say it's now expected that an audio book will account for 10 to 15 per cent of a book's overall sale," according to a report from the Audio Publishers Association, a trade group.

Downloadable audio books are especially on the rise. Audible.com, a major seller of downloadable audio books, had sales of $5.1 million U.S. in 2001; by 2003 its sales totalled close to $18.5 million.

According to a 2001 APA survey, 76 per cent of American audio-book listeners are female and 24 per cent are male. For women, the average listening age is 45. For men, it's 47.

LibriVox Top 5

Here are the five titles most frequently downloaded by visitors to
LibriVox.org

1. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen.

2. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, by Mark Twain.

3. Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson.

4. Call of the Wild, by Jack London.

5. Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

On the web

Audio books

librivox.org

literalsystems.org

spokenalex.org