On this episode of Spark: Female start-ups, family trees, and copyright. Click below to listen to the whole show, or download the MP3 (runs 54:00).
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:00 — 24.8MB)
You can also listen to individual stories below.
A Brief History of Copyright
Canada is taking yet another crack at updating its copyright laws. Bill C-32 is in committee for amendments before going to its third and final reading. The law is badly in need of some updates. And for something that doesn’t sound all that—um—sexy, copyright reform has been very contentious. To see why, we need to have a little Spark story time. James Boyle is our storyteller. He is a law professor at Duke University and author of The Public Domain. He’s spent a lot of time looking at copyright, and how to balance the rights of copyright holders with the rights of citizens and the broader public interest. So, let’s settle down and let James weave a tale. It’s called A Brief History of Copyright. (Runs 5:20)
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What Does Copyright Have To Do With ME?
So basically, for the last 300 years, we’ve been engaged in this repetitive cycle, trying to negotiate amongst different interests as the technology of copying changes and changes. Trying to weigh creators’ rights, distributors rights and the collective benefits of access to information. But why does copyright matter to you and me? Do we really need to care about this? Nora spoke with David Fewer, director of The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. He thinks that although it may not seem that exciting, Bill C-32 affects us all. (Runs 8:28)
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- Bill C-32
- Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic
- Full uncut version of interview with David Fewer
DIY Genealogy
From copyright’s new frontiers in the digital age, to another tradition that has been massively affected by information technology – the family tree. Many of the records that used to reside in dusty, old cabinets in never-visited lands are now online. As a result, geneaology has never been more do it yourself. Nora spoke with Jon Kalish, Spark’s guide to the D-I-Y world, about one man’s tale of charting his family tree online and in the process bringing the Twersky’s of the world together. (Runs 7:44)
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Women + Kids = No Startups
A little while ago we came across something on the web titled Women Don’t Want to Run Startups Because They’d Rather Have Children. It was written by Penelope Trunk, the founder of three startups, an author, a blogger, and a mom. In her post, Penelope tries to figure out why female entrepreneurs are still such a minority in the world of venture-backed tech startups. Nora spoke with Penelope about her controversial blog, but first, we hear The Story of Suzie Startup. (Runs 12:01)
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Women + Kids = Startups!
So we’ve heard the argument that men and women are just different, and that the reason there are so few women at the head of venture-backed tech startups is that women just have different priorities. Well Vivek Wadhwa begs to differ. He’s a a researcher who divides his time between three universities: Duke, Harvard, and Berkeley and earlier this year, he co-authored a paper called Are Successful Women Entrepreneurs Different from Men? Nora spoke with him to find out. (Runs 7:24)
Play audio:
- Vivek Wadhwa
- Men and Women Entrepreneurs: Not That Different
- Are Successful Women Entrepreneurs Different from Men?
Computer Science: Where Are All The Ladies?
At Spark we’ve talked quite a bit about the dearth of women entering the field of computer science. Even though we live in this highly tech-savvy universe, the enrollment numbers are actually decreasing. So Nora called up Wendy Powley at the School of Computing at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario to find out more about the situation in Canada. (Runs 5:36)
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Just out of curiosity, are the individual segments available for download anywhere?
I'm looking for it as well. That would be a great feature. I love the show, but just don't have the time to listen through all of it.
Poking through the source, it seem the individual MP3 are:
A Brief History of Copyright – http://podcast.cbc.ca/spark/plus-spark_20101128_s…
What Does Copyright Have To Do With ME? – http://podcast.cbc.ca/spark/plus-spark_20101128_s…
DIY Genealogy – http://podcast.cbc.ca/spark/plus-spark_20101128_s…
Women + Kids = No Startups – http://podcast.cbc.ca/spark/plus-spark_20101128_s…
Women + Kids = Startups! – http://podcast.cbc.ca/spark/plus-spark_20101128_s…
Computer Science: Where Are All The Ladies? – http://podcast.cbc.ca/spark/plus-spark_20101128_s…
I'd like to correct the statistic that I incorrectly quoted for Queen's University undergraduate female enrollment. Currently the undergraduate female enrollment in computer science programs at Queen's is just over 35%, which is up significantly from previous years and is far above the national averages (last CRA Taulbee Survey in 2008-2009 states 11.2% of bachelor degrees in computing went to females).
I work with a graduate program in the computer science arena, and worked for over 30 years in IT. What I see is that technology has become very technical (skillsets for serious technicians include at least 3 programming languages). Believe it or not, the level of technical skill has grown to that required in the early days of computer development (50s and 60s)That technical focus attracts “geeky guys”, the stereotypes abound, and in any IT/CS arena you’ll find men who proudly fit the stereotype.
Most women in IT/CS, and many college women, and many high school girls, not only don’t want to “be like geeks”, they don’t want to closely associate with them. Women tend to have better-rounded lifestyles, or can be encouraged to round out their lifestyles. Not only should schools and educators be encouraging girls and women into math, science and CS, they should be encouraging men to be well-read and well-rounded. As long as the geek stereotype is a badge of honor, a lot of women will say “that’s not me”.
Great "Brief History of Copyright".
Anyone wanting to read a more Canada-centric history, please see http://www.digital-copyright.ca/chronology
Many Canadians often hear about US copyright law, and Canadian law is very different (and in most respects stronger than US law). While the US only joined the international copyright community in the 1970's, Canada was under UK copyright law until 1921 which means we were part of (and remained part of) the international copyright community effectively since confederation.
Being an entrepreneur doesn't have to entail being beholden to VCs and shitting blood. The people at 37 Signals preach that you shouldn't take in VC. That you should work regular hours. That you start small and build slow. They also think that it's a good idea to look for business ideas that can be profitable from day one, rather then for ideas that rely on having getting a millions users, and then maybe make money. From what I hear they are doing pretty well.
I find that it really helps to live in a country (Sweden in my case) where good child care, education, health care and other basic stuff comes free of charge. This really lowers the risk of going into your own business, or at least the cost of failure.
Interesting comment. I actually just came across some similar thoughts from Anil Dash, who advises start-ups to look to alternative funding models, such as Kickstarter or even personal credit cards, at least until they're further down the road.
Here's the post, fyi http://dashes.com/anil/2010/11/the-other-startup-…
Bill C-32 contains the following:
"6. Section 10 of the Act is repealed.
7. Subsection 13(2) of the Act is repealed."
To quote from our copyright act, section 13(2) http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/C-42/page-2.html#co…
"Engraving, photograph or portrait
(2) Where, in the case of an engraving, photograph or portrait, the plate or other original was ordered by some other person and was made for valuable consideration, and the consideration was paid, in pursuance of that order, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, the person by whom the plate or other original was ordered shall be the first owner of the copyright."
This is the issue that David was highlighting.
The other important photography section repealed by Bill C-32 is section 10, which among other things included: http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/C-42/page-2.html#co…
"(2) The person who
(a) was the owner of the initial negative or other plate at the time when that negative or other plate was made, or
(b) was the owner of the initial photograph at the time when that photograph was made, where there was no negative or other plate,
is deemed to be the author of the photograph and, where that owner is a body corporate, the body corporate is deemed for the purposes of this Act to be ordinarily resident in a treaty country if it has established a place of business therein."
I wrote about the harm caused by the repeal of section 10 at http://billc32.ca/faq#photographers
David is right in his interpretation of how the law works today, and also the fact that a large number of harmful changes to the act are being shoved under the rug because of how many even worse changes are being proposed at the same time.
The document version of http://BillC32.ca/faq is 22 pages long, and I could only give a superficial response to some of the changes proposed in this omnibus bill.
We were looking for a photographer to take pictures of our new daughter. We assumed that the way it worked was they took the pictures and we had to pay them for the prints, end of story. The first one we went to wanted it to go beyond that. She claimed that she should have the right to sell our daughters pictures to whom ever she wanted (including companies to use in their advertising campaigns). We said, "hell no" and kept looking (I do wonder how many people just sign that woman's release and let her do what she wants). We settled on someone who was very good and let us simply buy a DVD of all of the pictures to do with as we wished.
And as far as searching for family in cyberspace, I'm the mesuhugenah in the family on that one, but so far I only have about 900 people on our tree.
I just listened to this podcast and was very interested in what Vivek Wadhwa had to say about employment equity in Silicon Valley. He mentioned that it was a negative to have an underrepresentation of India CEOs thirty years ago whereas now 15% of CEOs are Indian; however, he stated that Indians represent 6% of the working force. Wouldn’t this overrepresentation indicate a problem with hiring practices just as much as an underrepresentation would? If an argument is going to be made for equal representation, I would assume that both sides of the coin must be addressed.
I may have misunderstood his point, so if anyone could clear this up for me I would appreciate it.
Nora's question about whether affirmative action should be taken to increase the number of women working in Computer Science was an interesting one, particularly in light of the Globe and Mail's recent hysteria over whether or not there are now too many women in medical school (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/failing-boys/the-changing-face-of-medical-school/article1753261/comments/).
Maybe compsci faculties should look at the ways that medical schools attract female students- as long as they are willing to accept it when women start out-competing their male counterparts.
By happenstance I caught your interviews on the subject of genealogy. Nothing ground breaking here, but it did raise the question why you and your interviewees pronounce the word with an additional 'O'. Is this one of those trans Atlantic English issues?
What is the length of message allowed? Mine was too long but no acceptable length was given.
Dave
Hello, David. We use the IntenseDebate commenting system. Here is some more information about comment length limits:
http://support.intensedebate.com/posting-comments/help/#comment-length-limit
Google Exec Marissa Mayer Explains Why There Aren't More Girl Geeks:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/06/google-m…
copyright is bad,