MaRS has a blog. Up since September, I am glad that the "central node" of Toronto's (and Ontario's) research, innovation and commercialization ecosystem is using social media tools. Add it to your newsreader if you're interested in what's going on in the city in science, commercialization, entrepreneurship and related topics.

Technorati Tags: Innovation, Toronto

One of the most interesting avenues for economics research today is in the area of environmental economics. From Mancur's classic "The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups" to today, we are still struggling with the economics of collective action and the tragedy of the commons. Our political paralysis over climate change and other environmental issues illustrates the need for new economic theory, policy mechanisms and political practice. So I read with great interest the news of a report from the UK that attempts to take the climate change debate from the world of climate science to that of economics. The "Stern Report" was written by a former World Bank chief economist, Sir Nicholas Stern.

"Our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century," Sir Nicholas writes.

The report suggests that 1 per cent of global domestic product be spent immediately on dealing with climate change, to avoid higher costs later. Failure to act would lead to a drop of 5 to 20 per cent of global GDP and make large swaths of the Earth's surface uninhabitable.

Tony Blair is positioning the UK as a global leader in the efforts to deal with climate change, and has signed on Al Gore as a special advisor to the government. [youtube]bvnMKBDjhnU[/youtube] Mancur's work on the logic of collective action argues that "in the absence of collective incentives, the incentive for group action diminishes as group size increases, so that large groups are less able to act in their common interest than small ones." His work concludes that "not only will collective action by large groups be difficult to achieve even when they have interests in common, but situations could also occur where the minority (bound together by concentrated selective incentives) can dominate the majority." Globalized capitalism's efficiency at creating externalities is incredibly powerful. Creating collective incentives and internalizing those externalities onto political powerful minorities is a key strategic lever to collective behaviourial change. A number of policy options are readily available, including tradable pollution credits, carbon taxes and regulatory changes. The problem is resistance to change by those same politically powerful minorities. In this way, we can see the current debate over Harper's Conservative government's "Clean Air Act" as merely a microcosm of a global dynamic.

Technorati Tags: economics, global, politics, climatechange, environment

The latest from Garth Turner:

The digital generation, in real time, is instantly informed and ready to react. They don’t need to be told by MSM reporters and columnists what to think. They don’t wait twelve hours for stories to be written, turned into page layouts, put on presses, and then be delivered on paper by 12-year-olds. They’re beyond being told by TV talking heads what matters and what doesn’t. They are their own media. We’re all media. The implications for political leaders are profound. The fact no other MP that I know of has an interactive web site is a worry. The fact most MPs rely on brochures sent to homes as unaddressed admail underscores the digital divide being created. This will change, of course. But as it does, there will be a grinding between the 19th Century form of representation we have now – the PM as president, not elected directly by the people and demanding unanimity of thought – and the 21st Century political reality in which democracy gets messy again, people have far more access and control, and the top guy will be, by necessity, a broker and an inspirational leader. This excites the digital crowd. Excites me. One thing about the future – it’s coming.

Technorati Tags: blogging, Canada, digitalboy, garthturner, politics

Via Rob Hyndman, news of a massive public-private funded project to develop a tech cluster in upstate New York: Rob attended the recent meeting with ICT Toronto and registers his skepticism:

I’m a sceptic - I’m dubious that government can achieve anything of the sort - and my scepticism deepened considerably when I learned recently that the program has effectively no budget. Be that as it may, it’s a noble goal, and you can’t help but wish such well-meaning efforts well... Again, I’m dubious, and the article quickly summarizes some of the reasons why scepticism may well be due, but in any event - $1 billion!! I’m not sure which effort I admire more - the ICT shoestring effort or the New York state deep pockets effort.

I think that skepticism and scrutiny of government mega-projects is warranted. I am much more interested in the possibilities of community-based approaches and place-based strategies to cluster development, approaches that are based in the authenticity of a place and its people. From that NY Times piece:

But nurturing high-technology hubs, development experts say, is tricky, and simply making big investments in factories and labs is no guarantee of success. The real goal, they add, is to build gradually a network of people and companies with technical, design, financial and entrepreneurial expertise — one that pursues a whole range of high-tech opportunities instead of being dependent on a particular product, factory or industry niche.

As for the $1 billion in subsidies from the State of New York, I would point Rob and others to the various programs of Ontario's Ministry of Research and Innovation, Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, Ministry of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Industry Canada programs, SRED, OITC, etc and total up the amount of dollars being invested in Ontario's tech clusters through public and private investments in places like MaRS, the Institute for Quantum Computing, the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, the Ontario Science Centre's Weston Family Innovation Centre, the new McEwan Centre for Regenerative Medicine (aka "stem cell research") and the list of public and public-private tech cluster initiatives goes on and on. Clearly somebody thinks that cluster development strategies are worth pursuing and investing in. ICT Toronto is just one such initiative at the city level for one sector, but is part of a bigger constellation of public-private initiatives in the global battle for tech supremacy. ICT Toronto needs to recognize its place and define its role in that larger battle and to also recognize the scale of global competition. What is going on in Ontario is a big and complex story to tell, and the NY Times hasn't covered it. Then again, has the Globe and Mail? More to come on this topic...

Technorati Tags: Canada, clusters, creativeclusters, ICTToronto, Innovation, Ontario, technology, Toronto

[via BoingBoing] YouTube Takes Down Comedy Central Clips Based on DMCA Claims

I received a couple of emails from YouTube this afternoon (see below) notifying me that a third party (probably attorneys for Comedy Central) had made a DMCA request to take down Colbert Report and Daily Show clips. If you visit YouTube, all Daily Show, Colbert Report and South Park clips now show “This video has been removed due to terms of use violation.� For a long time, Comedy Central has passively allowed the sharing of online clips of its shows—because let’s face it, it’s helped them generate the kind of water cooler talk that has made them a ton of money.

Mathew Ingram's been all over this and the whole issue about whether Google's takeover of YouTube was smart business. The cultural and social importance of Daily Show clips as part of the political blogosphere can't be understated. Without Jon Stewart's recontextualizing political figures' propaganda, public discourse would suffer. Yes, I'm serious. Clearly there is a public interest in fair use.

But apparently, all good things come to an end when there is money and attorneys involved. I assume the only online clips that will remain will have to qualify under fair use – probably short clips, with social or political importance.

More...

Technorati Tags: copyright, dailyshow, fairuse, jonstewart, youtube

So how is the average user/contributor to YouTube going to determine fair use? Like a good user, you read your terms of use and consult YouTube's handy Copyright Tips page:

While videos that are direct copies of someone else's content are clear copyright violations, there are certain very limited circumstances in which the use of very short clips of a copyrighted video or song may be legal even without permission. This is known as the "fair use" principle of copyright law.

To determine whether a particular use of a short clip of a copyrighted video or song qualifies as a "fair use," you need to analyze and weigh four factors that are outlined in the U.S. copyright statute. Unfortunately, the weighing of these four factors is often quite subjective and complex, and for this reason, it's often difficult to determine whether a particular use is a "fair use." If the copyright owner disagrees with your interpretation of fair use, the copyright owner may chose to resolve the dispute in court. If it turns out that your use is not a fair use, then you are infringing the copyrights of the owner and you may be liable for monetary damages.

OK, maybe not so handy. YouTube won't tell you what is fair use, and they certainly aren't giving their users legal advice, so forget YouTube actually providing guidance on the four factors to determine what is fair use in U.S. copyright law and how they are balanced. But they provide some handy links to other sites that discuss the topic. So here you find the four factors:

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; the nature of the copyrighted work; amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Ok, somebody dumb this down for me. If I upload a clip of Jon Stewart doing a bit making fun of George Bush, is it fair use on its face? Is it fair use if I use the video to make a comment on this blog? Is sharing and talking about a news item via the Jon Stewart clip fair use? Now what about Canada's fair dealing exception? And realistically, who will push back to test fair use in a YouTube context? Copyright owners probably won't sue users as long as YouTube complies with removal requests, so the line likely won't be tested in court. Could a more active approach by content owners have a chilling effect on the vibrant fair use culture that has developed around YouTube?

During my recent convalescence, I've been reading Andrew Sullivan's blog a lot. In this appearance on Anderson Cooper's show in September, Sullivan gives an impassioned plea for caution and an attempt to bring attention to the radical consolidation of executive power, permanent suspension of habeas corpus and embrace of torture in the recently passed U.S. Detainee Bill. It's intelligent, thoughtful punditry:

COOPER: Why do you think, though, this story, this -- what is happening really hasn't gotten much traction? I mean, people don't want to hear about it. I mean, I know the ratings for this segment are going to go down because people turn this stuff off.

SULLIVAN: That's how it always happens. People always, when these things occur, look the other way. People think it's always going to happen to someone else or they think that these people are somehow all terrorists. They're terror suspects. 90 percent of the people we detained in Abu Ghraib were innocent, it turned out, as the U.S. admitted. Dozens of people in Guantanamo were completely innocent, as the Army and military subsequently admitted. So, there is no process to determine who is innocent or guilty in these matters. They're being detained without charges.

This video clip goes on to describe the case of Canadian Maher Arar as evidence of the risks of this path.

And now to add evidence as to why torture is a flawed intelligence tool, we find out that some of the faulty intelligence used by Colin Powell at the UN (to make the argument that Sadaam was working with al Qaeda as justification for the Iraq invasion), was evidence extracted by torture.

A dangerous new chapter begins.

Technorati Tags: andrewsullivan, politics, torture