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Canada's Conference Board Found Plagiarizing Copyright Report
An anonymous reader writes "There is a storm
brewing in Canada as the prestigious Conference Board of Canada has
been caught
plagiarizing US copyright lobby group documents in a report on copyright
reform. The report was funded by the Canadian copyright lobby as
well as by the Ontario government. The Conference Board has acknowledged
some errors, but stands by the report, while the Ontario government admits
spending thousands of dollars and it now wants some answers."
Turnitin.com eh?
Why, plagiarism is highly illegal Cory and Trevor! You shouldn't plagiarize, Cory and Trevor!
Those quotes were stolen from our hardworking corporate lobbyists without acquiring the relevant content licenses and now it's time to exact a settlement from the Canadians.
Once again, the copyright lobbyists are eating themselves like an ouroboros lawyer. Are they going to hire Lars Ulrich to explain us why it's alright to pirate your own work when you've been so adamant about suing the pants off everyone else?
As a Canadian, my first reaction to reading this story on /. was "what is the prestigious Conference Board of Canada?" I mean, I know what the "Ontario government" is and the "US copyright lobby" and "Canadian copyright lobby" are self-explanatory terms, but I'm not familiar with the Conference Board of Canada. When I read it here, I thought maybe it was an agency of the federal government.
Anyway, I little digging turns up that the Conference Board of Canada is basically a non-profit think-tank, that is funded on a per-service basis. So private groups and governments will pay it to research a topic and publish a paper on it. It also holds conferences and does research reports on its own. According to their official website, their areas of expertise are "running conferences", "conducting, publishing, and disseminating research", "economic trends", and "public policy issues". It is affiliated, but legally separate from, the U.S./international "The Conference Board, Inc. of New York".
They state: "Objective and non-partisan. We do not lobby for specific interests."
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Dear Mrs Morissette,
Please pay attention. This is ironic.
Thank you.
... the definition of irony :)
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
"...some of the cited paragraphs closely approximate the wording of a source document."
Closely approximate???!! Hell, they're word-for-word copies right down to the bullet points. They are not in quotations so they aren't really citations.
This really makes me sad because it shows an external corporate influence in Canada's affairs that would have Americans screaming if the reverse was true.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
You didn't expect them to actually work for their money, did you? Here's the way these things work: the government pays a lot of money to an organization for policy "consulting", so they can have a report which recommends doing what the lobbyists wanted them to do in the first place.
The report is a foregone conclusion. The $15,000 is spent to passing the blame, not on any actual work, and for a politician, it's money well spent. You can't really blame the conference board for plagiarizing their report, usually nobody bothers reading those things anyway.
It's great work if you can get it. You get to sit around, getting paid to accept blame for public policy. Except since you're just a private individual, there's no actual responsibility or consequences involved. Meanwhile, the politicians can point at you, defusing any potential scandal by claiming they're just doing as was recommended by the "experts" and if they made a mistake, well it was well intentioned and they did their best.
The requirements to bring charges in Canadian courts do not only rest with the Police and the crown. There is a process by which you can file charges and have them assessed and, potentially prosecuted without police involvement.
This isn't the normal process, and it is heavily discouraged but an incident a few years ago where an individual who was being prosecuted hard a charge of treason brought forward against a judge confirms it. The charge was not pursued as another judge overseas the process and it was without cause; but the point is that police do not have to be involved.
Props Canada, you show those stupid american companies what being a pirate is all about!!
This is the reason why we have to have very close fact-checking standards for legal and academic publishing. It's quite possible that if someone hadn't truly caught this then someone would be quoting this material as reliable information. It's actually quite frightening when you consider how much "reliable" material is out there that truly has basis neither in fact nor reality.
I like losing arguments, it just means that I can take your point and make it my own.
That's redundant. Canadian's ARE American's. They just aren't US American's
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
The summary is incorrect in that at this time, the Ontario Government has yet to seek answers into how the funds it provided were used. The questions posed are by Michael Geist as to what the Minister responsible should be asking.
Are you talking about a specific case, or in general. I find it hard to believe that Assault is not being enforced when an innocent person is assaulted.
I'm talking in general. I'm talking about huge fights breaking out in the street while the police watch and do nothing. I'm talking a massive crime wave going on over the last week, with a massive number of assaults occurring and nothing being done about it. I'm talking about shootings on an almost daily basis in an area that doesn't usually see a lot of it. I'm talking a friend of mine got his head beat in in the middle of a movie theater, and the police advised him that they didn't do anything about common assault.
I'm noticing that people in my community who have been listening to me rant about what's going aren't arguing any more, but are looking to me for answers, and I'm thinking I'm going to have to organize people myself if anything is going to get done. I don't really like the idea very much, but my family and friends are here.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
"...some of the binary files on my hard drive closely approximate the sound of a copyrighted song."
Hey, after all, MP3 is lossy ...
what if Canada gets sued for copyright infringement.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
What is wrong with you people? If someone said "I hate Iranians" and "I hate the French", everyone would be in an uproar.
But you bash Canadians and Americans and it's entirely OK? Eat shit, hypocrite.
Read it again.
Americans would scream (yes, the 'e' is there) if Canadian corporate interests interfered with US internal matters.
The reality, of course, is that they do as does corporations from all over the world. Suitable screaming thus ensues but nothing is really done.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
This has been true, to varying degrees, for a long time. In general it is very hard to get Canadian police to pursue a common assault case unless if there is overwhelming evidence that the assault happened and was unprovoked, or the victim suffered a life-threatening injury. The problem is that most assault accusations come down to one person's word against another's. It is very easy to claim self-defence if you do attack someone, and the legal system is based on a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. When there is no clear evidence to support an assault charge the police tend to just separate the parties involved and get back to work.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
Michael Geist writes: Update (5:15): Brian Jackson of IT Business reports that the Minister's office acknowledges spending $15,000 on the report. It plans to follow up on the issues raised in my post.
davecb@spamcop.net
This is the kind of crap that results from a casual disregard for plagiarism in schools. It's awful here in the states, and I imagine just as bad in Canada. Copying that freshman assignment leads to copying conference reports later on in life. Any form of plagiarism is corrosive to real progress.
It's a problem when a government pays for a report from an uninterested third party, and gets a quickie rewrite of a pressure-group's screed. And a dishonest one at that.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
It's usually at this point that I like to remind Americans that Canada is the only country to succesfully attack the White House, and there are still scorch marks on the walls of that hallowed building to commemorate it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Washington
So keep it up skippy. We're a feisty lot. Don't fall for that "Canada is a peace loving country" crap either. Hockey is our national sport.
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
Hockey is our national sport.
Actually, it's Lacrosse.
"We just realized we could produce more content by borrowing from and building on the work of others. Ow! C'mon, guys!"
True, but they felt so bad about it afterwords that they apologized a lot and finally burned down their own Parliament buildings about a hundred years later.
That's one of your national sports, and only for the past fifteen years. Before 1994 Canada's only national sport was Lacrosse, a game loosely based on an old First Nations game in which hundreds of participants would run around a field beating each other with long sticks while ignoring a small ball. Modern Ice Hockey is just a pale, polite shadow of Lacrosse.
Posting anon since I don't want to take the karma hit for flaming.
You sir, are a gigantic flaming asshole. We've lost over 100 soldiers in Afghanistan fighting a war that you started and left for us to clean up. So go fuck yourself sideways with a rake.
Hockey is our national sport.
Actually, it's Lacrosse.
Frankly, the point still stands. Perhaps even better.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
Contrary to popular Canadian belief....no Canadians were ever involved in the attack on Washington. The members of that attack were all from the British Isles. Stop believing this crap, and we'll stop saying you eat whale blubber and live in igloos all year round.
Semantics. Obviously since Canada didn't exist as an independent country until 1867 and the White House burned in 1814, Canada as it is now could not have been involved.
However, if you think there were no people involved that were born on what is now Canadian soil, then you are mistaken. Yes, it was British soldiers simply because Upper and Lower Canada were British colonies, and not all were sent from Britain itself.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
There's nothing strange about it. You can have my country as a "territory" when you pry it from my cold dead hands, because I will always be a Canadian.
I find it strange that any citizen with a choice chooses to live in a country that has a death penalty, a history of drafts in offensive war time, and a gun lobby that's so powerful it scares politicians.
If it were me, I'd have gotten the hell out as soon as Reagan was elected. (If Harper ever gets a majority up here I may well try to flee as well...)
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
Afghanistan was a cesspool that generated terrorists, and had a government that oppressed and routinely terrorized it's own people, and was the breeding and operational ground for the 9/11 attacks. It's only slightly better now, but it is better. On the other hand, Iraq was just Bush being an idiotic, imperialist douche riding the anti-Muslim wave. Very different countries, very different wars.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Additional information has come to light since the original posting. Some interesting blog posts from:
"breeding and operational ground for the 9/11 attacks"
You mean the White House Right?
Lets not forget the Blue Dot.... Apparently if Americans take an interest in a sport they must change the rules and add blue dots in order for it to be accepted.
American: "Man this is much easier to watch with a blue dot on the puck"
Canadian: "WTF is this FU@king blue dot, is this a joke. Saddle up the moose we are paying FOX a visit."
I grew up in Government Housing and where my mom still lives. I think the problem with these areas is far less the police but the people that live there. Gotta love getting robbed at gunpoint while Jamaicans call you yellowskin.(Happened 4 times)Who is the racist now?
Unlike glucose, fructose is almost entirely metabolized in the liver. "When fructose reaches the liver," says Dr. William J. Whelan, a biochemist at the University of Miami School of Medicine, "the liver goes bananas and stops everything else to metabolize the fructose." Eating fructose as compared to glucose results in lower circulating insulin (pancreatic beta cell insulin release is controlled only by blood glucose levels) and leptin levels, and attenuation in the suppression of ghrelin postprandially.[53] These hormones are implicated in the control of appetite and satiety, and it is suspected that eating large amounts of fructose increases the likelihood of weight gain.[54] Excessive fructose consumption is also believed to contribute to the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.[55]
Also, consider this Newscientist article, this one, and if you want more, have a look at an article published in "The Journal of Clinical Investigation" about a link between HFCS and Diabetes in April.
Hockey is our national sport.
Actually, it's Lacrosse.
It's both. Hockey is the official winter sport, Lacrosse is the official summer sport. Check out the National Sports of Canada Act:
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowFullDoc/cs/N-16.7///en
You have to wonder how much time the politicians used up drafting this. The curling lobby must be pissed.
The attack was led by Rear Admiral Cockburn. And you had to flee because of rain. Let's just say the whole thing was less than fabulous for your side.
I know what you did last summer. Just kidding, I don't work at the NSA.
Canada was granted its independence by most definitions in 1867. This was when we became self-governing (when a "responsible government" was installed.")
The difference Theory and Practice ...
In Theory, the Monarch of Canada appoints the Governor General. The Governor General convenes Parliament and dissolves Parliament. A bill passed by Parliament becomes law only after the Governor General proclaims it so in the name of the Monarch. The Governor General remains in office until the Monarch of Canada appoints a new Governor General.
In Theory, we do not have "responsible government" in Canada even today.
In Practice, the Governor General is whoever the Prime Minister says should be the Governor General. The Governor General convenes Parliament when the Prime Minister says that Parliament should be convened. The Governor General dissolves Parliament when the Prime Minister says to dissolve Parliament. The Governor General proclaims an act into law when the Prime Minister says it should be proclaimed (few Canadians realize just how close our Prime Minister is to being a dictator for the (up to) five years he is in office).
In Practice, the Province of Canada got "responsible government" in 1848 (not 1867) when Lord Elgin replaced the executive council with a cabinet nominated by the party that won the majority in the legislative assembly. The Province of Nova Scotia had succeeded in getting "responsible government" slightly earlier.
1982 was when we got our own constitution.
Not exactly.
Canada, like many countries in the world, does not have a single document which is its constitution. The British North America Act of 1867 joined the provinces into the Dominion of Canada and affirmed in law the form of "responsible government" which was already in place. The Statute of Westminster in 1931 gave us Canucks full autonomy. 1982 was when the Constitution Act added the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to our "constitution" (among other things).
> 1. No, you can't deduct the mortgage interest
> on your home.
That wouldn't have anything to do with the massive housing crisis would it? Perhaps people overextending themselves on mortgages, drunk on cheap credit and tax deductible interest.
No...no...I suppose it wouldn't.
> No, you don't have the right to free speech
This is patently untrue. It's explicitly enshrined in the charter of rights and freedoms. Section 2b.
> bare arms
You have the right to bare arms, it's just not recommended in December or January.
You also have the right to bare your breasts in public, should you choose to do so:
http://www.niagarathisweek.com/news/article/112115
If what you meant was "bear arms" you have those rights as well, but there are restrictions. There are restrictions in the United States as well, ours are just more reasonable (unless you consider private ownership of automatic weapons whose sole purpose is the killing of human beings a "right" in which case, I'm kind of glad you're there and I'm here.)
> 4. No, you don't have title to your home in
> Ontario, we maintain a record of your tenancy
> in our government database. You car either.
Also patently untrue, though there are exceptions when houses are built on public lands. You have title to your house.
I do with our constitution more firmly enshrined property rights, but our courts have upheld them well.
As for your car..you have title. Just because you have to register it (and provide proof of insurance) doesn't mean you don't have title. Vehicles are registered in states as well..or do you think those licence plates get handed out on the street at random?
> 5. No, you can't spend your money to save your
> life. Get in line for "free" health care.
People always cite this without the flipside: hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt because you were hit by an uninsured driver? Because you were born with a genetic heart defect?
Our system isn't perfect, but healthcare is a right not a privilege for those who can afford it.
I'll take our system over yours, though I'll work to improve it.
Free healthcare is a myth anyway: most provinces charge a monthly fee, waived for low incomes. In BC it's $52/month.
So no flamebait. If you like it where you are, by all means stay. It's your choice.
I've made mine.
"Socialist pablum?" Dude, put the Fox News down before you hurt yourself.
Also, "bare arms" = short sleeves. I am exercising my right to bare arms at this very moment. You probably meant "bear arms", aka "carry arms". While it's not in the Canadian constitution, there are plenty of guns in Canada and you know it.
While we're at it, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms most certainly includes freedom of speech and religion. And I personally criticize the shit out of my municipal, provincial and federal governments on a regular (and public) basis. And I do so safe in the knowledge that they can't do a THING to me in retaliation. Jesus, did you sleep through grade 10 civics?
All things considered (seriously, you plan to "blow the head off some daft politician"?!?), I'd encourage you to apply for US citizenship as soon as you're able. I hear the Appalachians are lovely this time of year.