bob tarantino

"our local brand of half-assery"

Having co-hosted a blogstravaganza or two with Joey (Accordion Guy) de Villa (as well as having seen him bring down the house at Kickass Karaoke), I can vouch for the fact that he's a righteous dude.  Helpfully, we've had over the past few days a blog post which not only demonstrated that, but also serves as a quick tutorial in the differences between copyright infringement and plagiarism, demonstrates the "horizontal editing" function of blogs, and sparks some discussion on the efficiencies and other benefits to borrowing designs.

Start here: Joey notes two "suspiciously similar subway safety posters" from Toronto's TTC and New York City's MTA.  "Who plagiarized whom?" queried Joey.  It should be noted at this point that Joey's question was prompted not by snark, but by that sentiment which animates so many denizens of this city of a certain generation and which must be baffling to those slightly older: pride.  Why couldn't my city come up with its own damn subway safety poster? seemed to be the cry.

Helpfully, within a few hours, one commenter on the post had pointed out that the poster contained a trade-mark notice giving credit to the NYC MTA (the notice is helpfully reproduced in full in this post at Torontoist), and, even more enticingly, the TTC's Director - Corporate Communications himself commented and confirmed that the design had been licensed from the NYC MTA.  (I should note at this point that the "trade-mark notice" which is apparently reproduced on the poster is likely incorrect: it should be a copyright notice, since you would not be able to register a trade-mark for the entire poster - at least I can't see how you could.)  So Joey updated his post to correct the record, and then put up a second post, helpfully clarifying that "it's not plagiarism, it's just lameness".  A perhaps unnecessarily cutting conclusion, all things considered, but the comments on the second post start raising the questions noted above, such as whether the TTC's limited funds are better spent creating new poster designs or licensing existing ones from other transit authorities.

Anyways.  On to my point.  Joey called "plagiarism".  He could just as easily have called "copyright infringement" - but most people wouldn't think to do so.  In this case, given the substantial similarities between posters, any unlicensed use would certainly have been infringement.  But what's the difference between "plagiarism" and "copyright infringement"?  There's overlap between the two concepts, but they aren't entirely continguous. 

The basic distinction is that copyright is a legal matter, while plagiarism is an ethical matter (copyright, being legal, is also potentially ethical, on the theory that any violation of the law is prima facie unethical, but since laws can be themselves unethical, their breach is not necessarily so).  That distinction has a number of implications - perhaps the most important being institutional.  As this short note by The National Council of Teachers of English puts it, "Schools enforce plagiarism. The courts enforce copyright infringement."

This detailed post at plagiarismtoday.com offers a good overview.  The American Historical Association also has a considered take on the matter, including examples.  And Miguel Roig has published the amazingly in-depth "Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical writing", which should be enough to strike the fear of God into anyone who has ever submitted a written paper for anything.

"“Plagiarism is unacceptable”

Torontoist notes an intriguing copyright infringement story:

Just before noon on July 25, 2007, Joel Charlebois caught a man, he says, breaking into his house. When Charlebois gave chase, the man fell from the second-storey deck, landing hard on the ground below and breaking his leg. As police arrived, Charlebois—an avid photographer who has a Flickr account under the name uwajedi, who is an active member of Torontoist's Flickr Pool, and who we've regularly featured—took photos of the man. ...

When [local Toronto television station] CityTV arrived on the scene to do a story about the burglary, Charlebois says that he "refused [a reporter's] request for an interview....[and] asked him to leave." Charlebois did, however, say that he "had taken pictures of the perpetrator and was looking forward to posting them on [his] Flickr site"; the reporter "was interested in seeing them," so Charlebois gave him his card, but, he says, not permission to use the shots in any way.

Charlebois uploaded the photos to Flickr, then left for Montreal later that afternoon. ... When he came back home, he was surprised to find out that the story had aired on the 6 p.m. broadcast of CityNews (on both City and CablePulse24), and, most importantly, had included the photos that he had uploaded to Flickr (above)—without permission from or credit to him.

Charlebois complained to the station, which countered with two responses: (a) the recollection of their reporter was that Charlebois had given verbal permission to use the pictures, and/or (b) to quote the News Director, "Canadian copyright law recognizes that third party materials like photos may be used for the purposes of news reporting. It was in that context that we used this photo."

Not quite.  I often hear surprise expressed when I explain just how narrow the "news reporting" exception is under Canadian copyright law.  Section 29.2 of the Copyright Act states:

Fair dealing for the purpose of news reporting does not infringe copyright if the following are mentioned:

(a) the source; and

(b) if given in the source, the name of the

(i) author, in the case of a work,

(ii) performer, in the case of a performer’s performance,

(iii) maker, in the case of a sound recording, or

(iv) broadcaster, in the case of a communication signal.

Embedded with Section 29.2 are actually two separate requirements: first, the use of the copyrighted work (in this case, Charlebois photos) must itself constitute "fair dealing", and second, there must be attribution of the source and author (in this case, Charlebois).  Unfortunately, the drafters of the Copyright Act declined to provide a definition for "fair dealing".  Fortunately, the Supreme Court sought to remedy that in the CCH v LSUC decision (see this earlier post where I recounted the criteria for what constitutes "fair dealing").  Regardless, in this case, CityTV had not provided attribution, so the question of whether their use fell within the definition of "fair dealing" is moot.

Charlebois, sensibly, rather than pursuing an infringement claim (which would have cost him an arm, a leg and four fingers in legal fees), complained to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.  The CBSC released its decision today and sided with Charlebois, finding that CityTV

breached Article 11 of the Radio-Television News Directors Association – The Association of Electronic Journalists’ Code of Ethics in its broadcast of a news report of a bungled burglary on July 25, 2007.  As a part of its coverage of the story, CP24 included three still photographs of the injured burglar without providing any credit to the photographer, whose identity was known to the broadcaster.  By failing to provide that accreditation, the broadcaster has failed to honour the intellectual property rights of the photographer, contrary to the provisions of Article 11 of the RTNDA Code of (Journalistic) Ethics.

The CBSC decision is worth reading in full, as the Council attempts to grapple, in a common sense, non-legal fashion, with both the requirements of the Copyright Act and the applicable Code of Ethics.  In the end, the legal and ethical norms converge:

The Panel begins with an appreciation of the purpose of copyright, namely, the encouragement of creative work by assuring the protection of the rights of the creator, in this case, of the photographs.  It also understands that, for the purpose of news reporting (and other matters not of relevance here), an exception exists to the restrictive demands of copyright protection.  It is that exception that falls within the category of “fair dealing”.  The exception ought not, however, to be misunderstood; it does not provide the news reporting entity with an absolute exemption from copyright rules, or a free ride.  It would be more accurate to observe that the use of copyright material for news reporting purposes opens the door for the user.  But it is not flung open.  Those who wish to pass through it must do so fairly.  Indeed, fairness is the essence of the exception to the total protection that copyright would otherwise afford.  And the definition of what is fair, what, in terms of the RTNDA Code, will “honour the intellectual property of others”, must, at the very least, and consistent with Section 29.2 of the Copyright Act, mention the source, including the name of the author, of the photographic work.  It seems to the Panel to be the opposite of honouring the intellectual property of a creator to take his or her work without acknowledgment and to, in effect, pass that work off as the broadcaster’s own.  Although that may not be the intention of the broadcaster, it is the inevitable effect of the failure to accord credit, particularly where, as in the present matter, the identity of the photographer was known. ... The Panel concludes that the failure of CablePulse 24 to establish in any way that permission was granted by the photographer to not provide credit to the complainant for its use of his photographs, and the subsequent failure to provide the necessary credit to a known photographer constitutes a breach of Article 11 of the RTNDA Code of (Journalistic) Ethics.

The sanction for the violation of the Code of Ethics is that CablePulse24 (the all-news sister channel of CityTV, which was the channel on which the alleged infringement occurred) must air an on-screen announcement about the decision containing the text prescribed by the CBSC.

Section 29.2 of the Copyright Act has not, to the best of my knowledge (but I don't have an annotated act close at hand), been judicially considered - but I don't think a court's analysis would come up much differently from the CBSC's.  Which raises an inordinate number of questions - and implies that an absolutely astounding amount of copyright infringement occurs on news reports (imagine news coverage of a CONTACT event - virtually every reproduction of a photograph on-screen constitutes infringement).  One more reason why the Copyright Act needs to be amended.

Toronto Star on Toronto Film

The Toronto Star spent considerable effort this past weekend focusing on the Toronto film industry.

• Peter Howell wrote about "the paradox of Toronto that even while the city enjoys international recognition and acclaim for the annual Toronto International Film Festival, the burg can't catch a break when it comes to actually appearing as itself in movies. You are as likely to see the CN Tower in a Hollywood movie as you are the Abominable Snowman. It's almost inconceivable to think of a film being made in Paris without showing the Eiffel Tower. Yet Paris is rarely called upon to wear a mask the way Toronto so often is." (Left unasked is the question of whether the disguising of Toronto perhaps has something to with the fact that the most compelling visual of the city that Howell could come up with was in fact not a "visual" but the fact that we have a film festival every fall...)

• Philip Marchand profiled the post-production industry in the city.

• uber-producer Don Carmody offered his thoughts on Toronto's selling points for US studios and what else could be done to enhance the city's profile as a filmmaking destination.

• A graphic representation [.pdf] of declining film and TV spending in Toronto over the last eight years.

• A map of the Filmport facilities [.pdf].

• A nice graphic [.pdf] showing how soundstages are constructed.

Passing By 04.03.07 (Cecil Pt 2)

Part 1 of this two-part Passing By can be found here.  In the first installment we moved east from the west end of Cecil Street in downtown Toronto, a shot street which, to my eye, offers numerous examples of some of the more charming aspects of living in the urban core.  For all the sights offered by the western end of Cecil, from the squat castle of the Community Centre to the parking lot murals, as we head towards the eastern end of the street we start encountering some features which give Cecil its unique character.

First up, some of the houses which reflect a late Victorian style (I think - if anyone is better able to identify the architectural style, please let me know).  The trim surrounding the second-floor balcony, when nicely maintained as in the first example, is one of the elements common to older houses populating the surrounding streets.

I also like the gating which you can see in this example:

On either side of Ross Street, which runs north from Cecil, there are twinned buildings like the one below - I still can't figure out whether these are original buildings which have been restored, or relatively new buildings in the style of older ones.

Now we start getting to the good stuff.

One of the big presences on the block is the squat three-story brown building which houses the United Steelworkers of America.  The building is named after Larry Sefton, who was a prominent member of the Canadian Labour Congress.

This part of downtown has a relatively long history of organized labour involvement.  Tucked back from the Steelworkers building is this gathering place - the Toronto Labor Lyceum (note, oddly, the American spelling of "Labour"):

I actually rather like the utilitarian lines of the Lyceum - the front is composed of six equal boxes, providing a nicely elegant contrast to the somewhat rococo elegance of some of the trim on the nearby houses.  The building is also noteworthy for the fact that the access ramp at the lower left was so well-incorporated into the design that it actually enhances it, by adding a visual accent which still maintains the geometric lines of the structure.

Jack Layton and Olivia Chow live around the corner from here (Olivia is the MP for Trinity-Spadina, the riding in which Cecil lies), and this neighbourhood and this building fly their colours:

At the far left (ha!) of the first picture of the Lyceum, above, you may have noted a small white sign affixed to the building.  The sign points members to Steelworkers Dental Office, guided by the smiling visage of Alex the Tooth.  I swear I am not making this up.

Seeing as we're downtown, and outside a labour/left stronghold, it seems apposite to point out what the people (or at least the postering subset thereof) are saying:

Some of these buildings house mysterious gatherings.  This building, for instance:

In the lower right-hand corner, you will see space for signs built into the brickwork beside the stairs.  Here is the sign:

For the longest time I was baffled by the reference - "The Church in Toronto".  I wasn't really sure where the emphasis should go: was it "The Church", but it had an office in Toronto? Or was the nature of the church in question that it was in and of Toronto? Was this some sort of Arcadian sect which knew the secret? Or something more mundane? Figure it out for yourself.

As we saw in Part 1, Cecil continues to witness the reappropriation of buildings for new uses, reflecting the needs of the community inhabiting it.  What is now home to Chinese-Canadian social clubs:

was previously home to buildings servicing Caribbean-Canadian immigrants:

As we continue east, we're getting closer to the end of Cecil, and the building stock changes markedly.  The houses are newer, not possessing the character of homes farther west.

Where Cecil crosses Beverly Street, we find an outpost for yet another immigrant group:

The modern building features one element not often seen downtown: open-air parking (well, there's a ceiling) which is located under the building, barely visible in those shots.

I have no idea what to make of this, present at the corner of the plot of land on which the Polish Combatants Association building:

A silver stone.  Why is it there? Why is it silver? Is there some legend of a silver stone in the Polish mythos? Anyone?  One possible, if decidedly less interesting, guess is that the stone was getting covered by grafitti, so they decided to cover it up, and they just repaint it every once in a while; but I've never seen it tagged, so if they are responding to grafitti, they're doing it awfully quickly.

Anyways.

Crossing Beverly, we encounter one of the true mysteries of Cecil Street: a massive abandoned building (the blonde in the picture is no mystery, she's just equipped with bad timing).

This is a big building - lying completely unused in downtown Toronto.  The value of this land must be laughable - I've seen houses in the immediate area listed for more than $700,000.  Just south of Cecil on Baldwin, a similar plot of land is being developed into townhouses.  An intransigent owner waiting for a higher price in a hot market? Environmental concerns? Haunted?

No idea what this is supposed to represent, or what it is he's holding - a breadstick? Or something more, uh, primal?

This one is interesting as well; I like the little guy with the crown:

As we get to the end of Cecil, there are a handful more houses, along with a large co-op.  Behind the abandoned building, we can see an access alley with garages, which allows houses on the street (in this case, Henry Street) to be built without driveways, permitting a more intimate relationship between the homes and the street.

Finally, we reach the eastern capstone of the street: Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church.

Note the image of Christ and the three-barred cross which sit at the top of the nave, looking rather sternly down over Cecil.  Take from that what you will, I suppose - because with that we've come to the end of this edition of Passing By.

Passing By 04.01.07 (Cecil Pt 1)

I grew up in the suburbs.  And loved it.  But ever since moving away from home permanently (i.e., not including stints at unversity and law school), I've only lived in decidedly urban environments.  And loved it.  One of the things that I think many people overlook about downtown Toronto is just how interesting it is from an architectural and social history perspective - if you're looking for the right things.  Downtown isn't always pretty, but I like to think there's a more complicated beauty which can be uncovered.

So here's a look at a street which I happen to walk along fairly often and which possesses the sort of understated charm which requires a bit of attention to discover: Cecil Street.  I won't be able to do it justice in this photo essay, but I'll do my best to get a start on it, as we saunter from Cecil's western end to its eastern terminus (a total of about a four minute walk).  You can see the street on this map, running as it does between Spadina Avenue on the west and Henry Street on the east:

Map of 2 Cecil Street Toronto, ON M5T, CA

Now, Cecil is surrounded by some interesting stuff.  To the west of Cecil, on the other side of Spadina lies Kensington Market.  To the north, on the other side of College St., is the University of Toronto campus, an entirely underappreciated font of amazing architecture in the middle of Toronto.  To the northeast and east is Queen's Park and University Avenue.  To the south and southwest is Toronto's Chinatown.  Actually Cecil probably belongs to Chinatown as well (since the streetsigns bear both English and Chinese script), but it takes inspiration from most of its surroundings and works its own charm.  In any event, Cecil is so unassuming that it gets overlooked - most people from outside the neighbourhood have little, if any, reason to traipse along it. 

One of the reasons I think it's so interesting is that it is bookended by two buildings, which are perfectly centred on the street and, if buildings had eyes, could be seen to be staring each other down.  They are buildings of strikingly different character, and between the two of them Cecil unfolds, and the nature of Cecil and the uses made of it changes several times.  The western bookend of Cecil can be found in this commercial streetscape:

The actual bookend, centred, as I mentioned, almost perfectly with the middle of Cecil Street, is this commercial/residential building on the west side of Spadina:

Note the opening near the top: I don't have faintest clue what it's there for.  It opens onto the roof, which is essentially not accessible.  It's not a window, just a frivolous design element - but frivolity has its own value, I always say.  Spadina at this point, between College and Dundas, is not the most gripping of streets: a frazzled mix of Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese restaurants, Asian dollar stores, cheap clothing stores, computer outlets, import/export shops, empty units, fly-by-night bargain book sales, and an inordinate number of stores selling flags.  I've never been able to figure out the flag stores.

Anyways.  At the western end of Cecil proper, sitting on the southern corner of Cecil and Spadina, stands a Toronto institution: Grossmans Tavern, which boasts live blues music seven nights a week and this mural:

Across from Grossmans you get a taste of what downtown living can sometimes be like, with a rather handsome building marred by grafitti:

I'm one of those people who is endless fascinated not just by architecture, but by buildings, especially smaller, idiosyncratic ones.  This white one has always freaked me out a little bit:

It's not really connected to any other building, and you never seem to see lights on there.  Lately I've started hearing a band practising in there.

At the far right of the photograph above you can see the corner of a central feature of Cecil Street: the Cecil Community Centre.

What appears to be the history of the Community Centre (as gathered from the outside of the structure) is worth recounting, since it seems to be a concise summation of this entire neighbourhood, as different waves of Canadians have washed across the area.  The Community Centre was originally built in 1890 as a Church of Christ -

At some point, the building was modified to accommodate the Jewish community -

And now it serves Chinese-Canadians -

On the south side of Cecil, across from the Community Centre, is a parking lot; but even there, there's art and humour to be found.

I didn't say it was good humour.

Continuing east, a stretch of attractive row houses begins.

One of the best things about downtown is that, because the building pattern is so organic, the most fascinating things spring up out of nowhere.  F'rinstance, you may think this is just a service alley behind the Community Centre:

In fact, it is Glasgow Street, which is the downtown equivalent of a cul-de-sac, completely inaccessible except from Cecil, and its own mini-neighbourhood tucked away behind what you pass by on the street:

Glasgow even has its own little parkette:

Going back to Cecil (really our only option since, as I mentioned, you can't go from Glasgow to anywhere else (you used to be able to wind your way on foot through an alley to College, but that has been closed off)), the intersection of Cecil and Huron streets offers a glimpse of the different types of buildings and residences to which a downtown neighbourhood is home.  We'll look from the SE to the SW to the NW to the NE corners.

First up, an attractive older house which only recently offered itself up to pedestrians, since it was previously hidden by tall hedges:

Next is a newer multi-unit residential building:

On the northwest corner is a single-family dwelling with a sizeable lawn (relatively rare down here), and built at some point in time between the two prior examples:

Finally, on the northeast corner sits a Hydro substation:

That strip of green you see running between the substation and the street is an attempt to make good on the city motto, visible in the sign below - "Toronto - A City Within a Park".

It doesn't look like much before the flowers have begun to bloom, but little touches like this parkette, with its benches, flowers, greenery and playset for kids, are part of what makes downtown eminently habitable.

That's it for Part 1.  I'll continue with Part 2 shortly, as we move east along Cecil.  In the distance of the shot below, you can see the eastern capstone of Cecil, Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church, about which more next time.

Part 2 will include what I think is the even more interesting part of Cecil Street, with the Steelworkers, the Lyceum, and the mysterious silver stone.  For now, I leave you with pictures of branches.  Just 'cause - I mean who doesn't like bare branches against the sky?

Passing By 11.19.06

One of the best things about living in downtown Toronto is the opportunity to observe the warp and weft of graffiti, especially the attempts at political relevance.  A few years ago, there was the illiterate who markered every National Post box in sight with "facist" - but he or she seems to have gone back to whatever suburb of disaffection from which they were spawned.  Or perhaps they just morphed into the "Lies" guy, who typically brands Post, Sun and the occasional Globe box thusly (Star boxes mysteriously don't get the same treatment (*cough*)):

But then someone, armed with a letter "F" and clearly counterrevolutionary instincts, made an unholy mockery of that bold statement.

Politics, especially the zealous brand practiced by the "Lies" guy, doesn't generally deal well with humour, so it's the best way to disarm them.  The incidence of "(f)Lies" tagging seems to have dropped off markedly.

Anyways, we're all becoming lazier as technology advances, and it's no different for your local speaking-truth-to-power types, so the most recent development appears to be the use of stencils - mostly painted on sidewalks (there appears to be a preponderance around U of T, go figure).  Of course, this all might be some sort of dada comment on graffiti and propaganda, since this new line of commentary seems to be willfully opaque.  The first one I came across was this:

An image from the widely-circulated and widely-debunked Mohammed al-Dura footage, purportedly showing the killing of a Palestinian child by Israeli soldiers (do a Google search on "al Dura" and you figure out the truth), accompanied by the statement "both sides shoot children".  So - what is the stencil saying?  I mean, it takes a certain amount of political engagement to even recognize the image as being from the low-level war between the Israelis and Palestinians - but assuming the viewer is conversant with the image, is this a denunciation of the Israelis?  Most likely, but why use such a contested image, which would inevitably raise charges of fabrication?  It could also be a knock against the Palestinians - sort of a "you try to say the Israelis are killing your children, but you do the same thing - even going so far as to make it up".  Or something.  Is it a charge of moral equivalency? An argument that the justness of one side's cause is enhanced by the depravity of the other side? Or a claim that the justness of one's side cause is not mitigated by the fact that it shoots children? Are we against shooting children or for it?  Maybe it's no deeper than the surface statement, and we're angry at everybody involved.  Or just angry.

Then there's this one:

A tank, with the ominous "coming soon".  A warning of impending fascism? War? A reference to those hilarious Liberal "Soldiers with Guns. In Our Cities." ads from the 2006 federal election?

This one, though, is my favourite by far:

Not the faintest clue how to read this one.  Is it "stop playing around bush,"? Or "bush, stop playing around"? What's with the paper airplane? Is it meant to be threatening?  Who's afraid of paper airplanes? Or is the paper airplane meant to be a comment on the notion that George W. Bush treats war like some kind of game? Whaaa?  Anyways, yes, Bush, stop playing around, dammit.

Readers are encouraged to forward photos of other interesting graffiti as they see fit.  You send 'em in, I get to decide what to do with 'em, though.

Passing By 11.14.06

I like to think of libraries as one of the more important threads that make up a community.  It especially helps when, as in Toronto, many of the buildings either have historical significance, or are throughtful, interesting pieces of architecure unto themselves.  Standing guard at the entrance to the Lillian H. Smith library is the above gryphon (also spelled griffin, though I prefer the former); it spends its days staring down .  Across the street is the University of Toronto campus (the real campus, not the Mississauga and Scarborough interlopers), and just down the street is the superlative ein-stein pub, home to the best wings in Toronto that I've ever discovered.  Lillian H. Smith is home to the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation & Fantasy, one of the best non-internet geek-out experiences available free of charge.  Also the site of a recent reading by James Bow.  Spot the monkey in the picture for extra points.