How I got Minister James Moore to appear on Search Engine
James Moore is a divisive character in the ongoing saga of Canadian copyright reform. He's called critics of his bill "radical extremists" and blocked many Canadians from following him on Twitter for questioning and criticizing him. He's shut me out too, turning down my interview requests- until now. Here's how I finally got him on the show.
Last Thursday James Moore, having just held a press conference to re-introduce his copyright bill, was hitting Twitter pretty hard, quoting the industry groups that support his bill...
- He included this quote from the The Canadian National Institute for the Blind:
But he left out this part:
"CNIB recommends that business practices such as Technical Protection Measures, which restrict accessibility, not be enshrined in legislation".
Blind people need to be able to break digital locks when these locks prevent them from accessing content (i.e. buying a book that isn't available as an audio book & breaking its copy protection to feed it into text-to-speech software) . They do not support Moore's copyright bill as it is written, though his representation of their words suggest that they do.
I decided to try again for an interview, this time issuing my request in public:No reply. Instead, Minister Moore (re)tweeted this, which tweaked me further:
The idea that Bill C-11 represents the will of the people is absurd. When Canadians were asked what they thought of digital locks in a 2009 consultation, almost everyone who participated spoke against them. Did the election somehow erase those voices?
I peeped up again....- Still no answer. I had tried to speak privately with the Minister. Failing that, I spoke to him publicly. Still getting no response, I decided instead to speak about the Minister.
- and that's when he finally spoke back:
- this was interesting...
A direct message from Minister Moore suddenly popped up in my inbox!
"Sure. Give James Maunder in my office a call"I publicized the news instantly, just in case he changed his mind...- Two hours later, we recorded!
