When students arrive in Giuseppina D’Agostino’s class on intellectual property at Osgoode Hall, iPods in hand, she doesn’t detect much awareness of the applications of copyright. “They have no concept of what they can do with copyrighted work,” says the assistant professor, who has written extensively on the subject. “They think it’s all fair game. I don’t think that’s the way forward, I really don’t.”
D’Agostino echoes the voices of dozens of creators’ groups, worried about the emergence of a “free-everything” culture that assumes if something’s on the Internet, it’s free for the taking. The pervasiveness of that attitude can leave advocates for stronger copyright laws feeling like they’re fighting against culture itself.

“A smart approach to copyright law recognizes that copyright is key for allowing creative industries to flourish,” says Jacob Glick, Canada Policy Counsel for Google. “But it’s not a mutually exclusive distinction between users’ rights and content owners’ rights. Copyright doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game.”

For example, in 2006, Google acquired the video sharing website YouTube for $1.65 billion. YouTube has struggled with copyright issues as users often post content that incorporates copyrighted material. Now, rather than remove content that infringes on copyright, Google offers the rightful owners (read: major Hollywood studios and huge record labels) the opportunity to advertise beside the “offending” content.

“The whole culture of sampling, remix, and parody exists precisely because of exceptions and limitations to copyright,” says Glick. “The ability to use copyrighted works in news reports or in criticism exists because of limitations to copyright. Smart copyright tries to recognize the need to provide remuneration and business cases for creation, while encouraging mash-ups, remixes and parody and other cool stuff.”

“We ought to recognize that copyright is not the only incentive to creativity,” says Michael Geist, leaning over a table at a tiny, packed Second Cup on the University of Ottawa campus (“his second office,” noted a colleague).

Geist started speaking up on the subject 2001. At that time, DirecTV, an American satellite-TV operator, was fighting to stop Canadians from decrypting its signals. At a townhall-style hearing in Ottawa, DirecTV representatives were complaining that only a fraction of Canadian companies were complying with the takedown notices it was issuing, notices issued under US copyright law, not Canadian.

“They were really concerned that only a small percentage of Canadian providers were paying attention,” Geist says, radiating incredulity seven years after the fact. “I said, ‘I’m really concerned. A small percentage of Canadian providers are following US law here!’”

It’s this combination of home-and-native-land indignation, policy wonkishness, and outright persistence that’s made him one of the country’s biggest proponents of what you might call user-friendly copyright. At the age of 40, Geist is a syndicated columnist, a filmmaker, a prolific blogger and, with an active assist from famous bloggers like Doctorow, a minor Internet celebrity. He’s become a facilitator of public protest, a travelling lecturer, and the Canadian media’s go-to guy on copyright — much to the consternation of those who don’t share his views.

Geist isn’t a free-everything activist (of which there are plenty on the Internet). But he has argued loud and long that overprotection can be as dangerous and innovation-stifling as underprotection.

Geist argues that users’ rights to use copyrighted works for fair purposes shouldn’t be restricted by contracts or digital locks. His vision recognizes that, like it or not, users are increasingly becoming creators in their own rights. With the advent of “Web 2.0,” the technological barriers to accessing, altering, and rebroadcasting copyrighted material have evaporated. And, adds Geist, “what used to be a relatively small community of geeks became us. It became the Canadian public.”