March 21, 2013

MARCH 21, 2013 | VoLuME XCIV| IssuE XLVIICANADIAN BEAST MODE SINCE 1918

STORM SEASON STUDENTS CLIMB WALL 22-STOREY TOWER TO SET UBC HEIGHT RECORD

UBC’s COPYRIGHT CRUsADEYOUR UNIVERSITY TOOK ON

THE COPYRIGHT STATUS QUO. READ WHY ON PAGE 5

HUBERT LAI: CHARGED WITH

COVERING THE SCHOOL’S ASS

AS THEY BROKE WITH PRECEDENT

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013 | 2YOUR GUIDE TO UBC EVENTS + PEOPLE

STAFFBryce Warnes, Josh Curran, Peter Wojnar, Anthony Poon, Veronika Bondarenko, Yara Van Kessel, Catherine Guan, Ginny Monaco, Matt Meuse, Hogan Wong, Rory Gattens, Brandon Chow, Joseph Ssettuba. Tyler McRobbie, Sarah Bigam, Stephanie Xu, Natalya Kautz, Colin Chia, Kim Pringle, Geoff Lister

MARCH 21, 2013 | VOLUME XCIV| ISSUE XLVII

ediToriAl

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News EditorsWill McDonald + Laura [email protected]

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UThe Ubyssey

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Editorials are chosen and written by the Ubyssey staff. They are the expressed opinion of the staff, and do not necessarily re-flect the views of The Ubyssey Publications Society or the Uni-versity of British Columbia. All editorial content appearing in The Ubyssey is the property of The Ubyssey Publications So-ciety. Stories, opinions, photo-graphs and artwork contained

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ty. All letters must be received by 12 noon the day before in-tended publication. Letters re-ceived after this point will be published in the following is-sue unless there is an urgent time restriction or other mat-ter deemed relevant by the Ubyssey staff.

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Video contentMake sure to check our latest weekly show, airing now at ubyssey.ca/videos/.

Mary Lynn Young on journalism, feminism

and educationElba Gomez NavasContributor

Dr. Mary Lynn Young is certainly a woman of influence. In fact, in 2010 she was named one of “B.C.’s 100 of Influence” by the Vancouver Sun — the same year in which, under her leadership, UBC’s School of Journalism became the first Canadian school to win an Emmy.

Going back to more humble beginnings, Young reminisced about her first job after graduating from the University of Toronto: re-porting for Ontario’s oldest weekly newspaper.

“I worked around the clock covering local news, entertainment (fall fairs), sports ( junior hockey) and taking photographs. My biggest learning involved understanding the relation-ship between journalism and small commun-ities,” she wrote in an email to The Ubyssey.

The experience she gained proved valuable later in her career; she went on to write for the Globe and Mail, the Vancouver Sun and the Houston Post, among others. Yet even after accomplishing so much in the field, Young felt her time in academia was not yet over.

“After covering so much crime, trauma and policy-making in those domains that often re-quired social science knowledge, I realized that my humanities degree in history and English had not prepared me well enough to contrib-ute to the public journalism conversation,” she said.

Young returned to the University of Toronto for a master’s in criminology and a subsequent Ph.D. She said she realized that innovation in journalism would only be possible if the theory she learned was meaningfully integrated into

her work. Young took that realization to heart by not

only expanding her academic work, but also delving into projects like the Feminist Media Project, a website devoted to analyzing the media coverage of missing and murdered women cases through a feminist perspective.

“We came together proactively to intervene in media discourse and to help build that cap-acity among feminist groups, as well as increase public access to some of the academic critique.

“Unfortunately there are too few self-iden-tified feminist journalists writing in [main-stream media] in Canada,” Young lamented. “However, the good news is there are a number of talented feminist bloggers tackling import-ant issues.”

Young merges her journalistic insights with volunteer work at the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre in Vancouver; she has served as a member of its board of directors for three years. She’s also involved in a popular UBC initiative called Humanities 101, where people from the Downtown Eastside take classes at UBC.

Young is also the associate dean of communi-cations and strategy in the Faculty of Arts. She is currently trying to bring her experiences to the classroom through a new initiative.

“I am working on a model of feminist jour-nalism education that integrates the notion of ‘implicatedness’ in how we teach journalistic knowledge creation, and the importance of that for transformative educational experiences,” she said. U

WHAT’S ON tHIs wEEk, MAy wE suggEst... OUR CAMPUS oNE oN oNE wItH tHE PEoPLE wHo MAkE uBC

THURsDAY 21

BUT BABY, I’M A FIREWORK9 P.M. @ THE GALLERYsing your heart out at the gallery’s open mic night.

FRIDAY 22

DIGITAL TATTOO PROJECT: THINK BEFORE YOU INK12 P.M. @ LILLOET ROOM, IKBHow should you manage your on-line identity? what are new trends and features in social media and networking? what resources can the project provide for you? Find out here.

For this issue’s cover, I was given a photo and asked to create a mixed medium piece. I basically drew white doodles to make stuff look all cool and conceptual.

—Indiana JoelIllustrator

sATURDAY 23

ON THE

COVER

EARTH HOUR 2013@ UBC

7 P.M. @ MASS, BUCHANAN DEnergy conservation, music, art, free food and speakers! Join in a night of conversation and music

as we turn out the lights for Earth Hour 2013. Can’t make it? Join in at home by turning the lights out

from 8:30–9:30 p.m.!

The Ubyssey’s aNNual GENEral mEEtiNGMarch 28

2 pm in AMS council chamberstentative agenda1. Financial statements

2. 2013-14 editors interviews3. light lunch

4. Witty reparte

Contact [email protected] for more info.

U

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013 | 3EDITORS WILL McdonaLd + Laura rodgers

laura rodgersNews Editor

There are 54 days left until the provincial election. Do you know where your student lobby movement is?

Polls and pundits expect power in Victoria to change hands for the first time in over a decade. This is when major policy changes can happen: old priorities get thrown out and new ones replace them. Lobbyists on many fronts — indus-try, environment, K-12 education — are making their voices heard as parties prepare their platforms. But organizations representing post-secondary students haven’t made a major dent in the prov-incial conversation yet. So what does the post-secondary student movement want, and how do they hope to get it?

There are two B.C. organiza-tions claiming to represent the interests of post-secondary stu-dents: the longstanding Canadian

Federation of Students–BC (CFS-BC) and the nascent, decentralized Alliance of B.C. Students (ABCS). Both have markedly different goals and different approaches in talking to provincial decision-makers.

CFS-BC represents 16 schools across the province, fashioning their student association as num-bered union locals. Their lobbying bent has long been left-wing and protest-driven, with rallies on the lawn of the Legislature and a con-stant push to grant students lower tuition. They count the B.C. Liber-als’ decision to adopt a tuition cap in 2005 as a victory, but they’ve had little success in their lobbying efforts since then.

For the May election, they’ve adopted a slew of policy positions, from the classic hope of lower tuition to pushes about pipe-lines, oil tankers and the Idle No More movement.

The organization traditionally ran a brief, concerted lobby effort each March, where student union

reps from across the province would travel to Victoria, hold a barrage of meetings with the gov-ernment and stage a demonstration advocating against high tuition fees and student debt. But this year, they took a softer approach: rather than one big lobby blitz, they had student union representa-tives across the province meet dir-ectly with their MLAs and kept in regular contact with the Ministry of Advanced Education.

“It’s good to not be predicable. It’s important as student activ-ists and lobbyists that you’re not becoming predictable to the very people that you’re lobbying,” said Kate Marriocchi, chair of CFS-BC.

But for some student societies, this change in direction from CFS-BC was too little, too late. The organization has courted a string of controversies in past years. In 2008, Kwantlen Polytechnic Uni-versity’s student association held a referendum to leave the CFS (both its B.C. arm and the national CFS

organization, which does federal lobbying).

The CFS went to the B.C. Supreme Court to delay the vote, which was ultimately unsuccess-ful. The student societies at SFU and UVic were involved in years-long membership disputes, which both ended recently with the societies leaving the CFS.

Some student societies, like the UBC Students’ Union Okanagan, are beginning to distance them-selves from the CFS while growing closer to the ABCS. Unlike the CFS, ABCS has no central staff or binding membership agreements, and they’ve pledged to stay out of student government elections.

“We’ve distanced ourselves away from the message the [CFS] uses. We do our own lobbying efforts here and we don’t really participate in any of the federa-tion’s lobbying efforts,” said Curtis Tse, financial coordinator for the UBC Students Union Okanagan.

“[MLAs] are more than happy

to meet with students, as long as they’re not on the front lawn with signs and chanting.”

Tse continued, “Because we’re still part of CFS, we haven’t fully jumped on board [with ABCS]. However, I know we are involved in the discussions.”

ABCS began over a year ago at UBC Vancouver (a non-CFS school) as the “Where’s The Fund-ing” effort, a loose single-issue push many non-CFS schools across B.C. agreed on. They held a num-ber of small campaigns, including sending “Valentine” cards to Vic-toria advocating for more post-sec-ondary funding.

With a recent name change, the group now hopes to become a major voice in the provincial con-versation. ABCS has fewer schools on board than the CFS, but there’s buy-in among the biggest in the province: UBC Vancouver, UVic, SFU, Langara College, UNBC, Kwantlen and University of the Fraser Valley, along with tenta-tive agreements with BCIT and UBC-O. The group has adopted some less strident positions on the issues: rather than pushing to lower tuition by any means neces-sary, their hope is to first push the government to make a modest in-crease to post-secondary funding.

“CFS has some ideas that, I’d say, politically, we don’t agree with,” said Tanner Bokor, VP External of UBC’s AMS. “We have plans in the works to make [ABCS] much more active, much more visible, and really make it seen as the actual voice of students when it comes to [post-secondary] issues in this province.”

But despite their differences, both CFS-BC and ABCS are put-ting their effort in similar places as the election nears. Both say getting more students to vote is the top priority. CFS calls their get-out-the-vote campaign “Rock the Vote” and ABCS calls theirs “VOTE education,” but both have the same rationale: If more students vote, then the government is more likely to pay attention to their wishes. U

Riot sentence stands for UBC student Alex Peepre

the B.C. Court of Appeal has ruled against increasing the jail term for Alexander Peepre, a uBC political science student who participated in the 2011 stanley Cup riot.

In September 2012, Peepre was sentenced to 60 days of jail time, to be served on weekends, as well as 18 months of probation. In Octo-ber 2012, the Crown appealed this sentence, arguing that he should receive a harsher punishment. In a B.C. Court of Appeal decision issued Tuesday, a three-judge panel decided that Peepre’s initial sentence was sufficient.

Peepre was charged with partici-pating in a riot, and also with assault, for punching a bystander who was attempting to put out a trash can fire. The man he punched, Cameron Brown, received hospital treatment for a concussion and has filed a civil suit against Peepre.

Peepre completed his jail time in December 2012. He was also ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution to the owner of a 1996 GMC Sierra truck that he helped flip during the riot.

In the ruling rejecting the Crown’s appeal for a harsher sentence, Justice Nicole Garson said, “[Peepre’s] conduct is shameful. The very public condemnation he has experienced, the publicity his sentencing has attracted and the remorse he feels are strong deterrents against his re-offending.” U

two student lobby groups vie for a voiceIn 2011, the Canadian Federation of students organized a protest in Victoria to support the lowering of tuition fees.

EMILy LAINg FILE PHoto/tHE NEXus

PROviNCiAl ElECTiONS >>

NEWS BRIEF 22-storey tower planned for South Campus

dEvElOPMENT >>

ming WongSenior News Writer

A new 22-storey residential tower is set to be built in Wesbrook Place, in the south of campus. Upon com-pletion, it will be the tallest build-ing in the neighbourhood. And not everyone is happy about it.

The proposed 213-foot-tall high-rise will be built on a tree-lined area across from Binning Avenue, facing Pacific Spirit Park on the east side. More residential towers are planned to spring up alongside it.

Two sets of smaller two-and-a-half-storey townhouses are also set to be built on the same lot.

At an open house about the development, Joe Stott, director of planning at UBC’s Campus and Community Planning, said UBC plans to have 12,500 people eventually living in the Wesbrook neighbourhood. The current popu-lation there is only 25–33 per cent of that figure.

Stott said prices for the 217-unit high-rise condos will be in line with the other market housing in the neighbourhood, and units will be sold with a 99-year lease.

Construction will likely start this fall, and the building is ex-pected to be completed in 2016, according to Gwyn Vose, a designer from the architecture firm in

charge of the project.Frits Daniels, who has lived in

Wesbrook’s Tapestry retirement residence for two years, said he was concerned new buildings like this tower will leave his neighbourhood overpopulated and overbuilt. He said the new development differs from the medium-density plan he was sold when he first moved to Wesbrook.

He’s also worried about whether the new tower will block the view from his windows. “It’s ugly; it’s not nice,” he said of the tower’s planned design. “It’s not what … was promised to us when we came here. I really feel deceived, you know.”

Increasing the number of residents in Wesbrook is essential

to turning the area into a thriving community, Stott said. “In terms of the pace of what’s been going, the actual development has been ne-cessary to get the parks, the green streets and the commercial village in place.”

He suggested that the “actual sense of the [building]” may be different from what Wesbrook residents initially expect when they hear of its 213-foot height.

More residential developments in Wesbrook will continue for the next 12 to 15 years before the popu-lation goals for the neighbourhood are met, Stott said.

Stott added that Campus and Community Planning will report the “diversity of opinion” from current Wesbrook residents about

the high-rise to the development permit board, who are responsible for approving the project. “But quite often, you’ll find people [who] are just against any developments,” said Stott.

Shirley Moss, another Tapestry resident, said she won’t be bothered by the height of the building, as her suite does not face the proposed tower. However, she is realistic about more high-rises being built.

“You’ve got to go up; you can’t go sideways,” she said. “So I guess it has to be.”

The next public meeting to de-termine the community’s opinion of the building will be on April 10. After that, UBC’s development permit board will review public feedback on the project. U

CouRtEsy oPENstREEtMAP/ JEFF AsCHkINAsI gRAPHIC/ tHE uByssEy the 22-storey tower is planned for Lot 6, a plot of land in wesbrook Place.

4 | NEWS | THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013

Brandon ChowStaff Writer

A group of UBC engineering students have developed two ultra fuel-efficient cars to compete in the annual Shell Eco Marathon Americas competition.

The UBC Supermileage team exhibited the two cars, called the Mark VIII and Odysseus, at University Hill Secondary School’s parking lot to a host of reporters and Shell Canada representatives on March 19.

Shell Canada hosts the competi-tion every year in Houston, Texas; this year’s event will run April 5–7. Over 140 teams from North and South America compete in a num-ber of different categories.

Each car must complete 10 laps of a 0.97-kilometre track on the streets of downtown Houston, and fuel consumption is then meas-ured to determine a winner.

Conner Schellenberg-Beaver, a fourth-year electrical engineering student and team captain of the UBC Supermileage team, said that they have high hopes for this year’s contest.

He said an earlier version of the Mark VIII — competing in the prototype gasoline category — per-formed at 3,145 miles per gallon, giving the team plenty of potential to take home this year’s title.

The winner of last year’s contest performed at 2188.6 miles per gallon.

Materials engineering student Kush Shaw said each year’s model is a redesign from the previous year, so they continually become more efficient.

He said the success of the designs for this year’s competition can be attributed to a number of

tweaks and revamps, done over an eight-month period by a group of over 60 students using engineer-ing department resources. Other financial contributions came from Shell Canada and the UBC profes-sional activities fund.

Schellenberg-Beaver described several new features of the Mark VIII model, including an entire-ly new body design and a 50cc fuel-injected engine to support the 80-pound vehicle.

During competition, the cars will be driven by team members Nancy Peng and Nancy Chu, both mechanical engineering students. They were chosen for their smaller height and weight, to make the vehicles as light as possible.

Peng will be driving the Odys-seus in the urban concept cat-egory. The Odysseus is much more conventional-looking than the Mark VIII, complete with working headlights, turn signals, taillights and a windshield wiper.

“It’s amazing how similar it is to an actual car,” said Peng, who also worked on designing the new shell for the Mark VIII model.

Chu will drive the Mark VIII; she described the feeling of driv-ing the car as “almost like flying” because of its proximity to the ground. She also said that both vehicles require a driving licence to operate.

Sia Wu, a representative from Shell, said the cars are only evalu-ated on their energy efficiency, not their speed.

Wu was impressed with the UBC team’s designs. “It’s amazing that these students can build and design a car, given the short period of time and lack of funding they have.” U

Eco-friendly car can drive 3,145 miles per gallon

ENGiNEERS >>

HogAN woNg PHoto/tHE uByssEy

HogAN woNg PHoto/tHE uByssEy

HogAN woNg PHoto/tHE uByssEythe uBC supermileage team built two ultra fuel-effi cient cars for an upcoming competition in Houston, texas.

An earlier version of the Mark VIII performed at 3,145 miles per gallon.

the odysseus is a more conventional-looking car, but it is still highly fuel-effi cient.

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013 | FEATURE | 5

Three years ago, to escape what it termed 'extortionist' demands by licensing behemoth Access Copyright, UBC became the first major Canadian university to independently license

teaching materials. Now, landmark legislation and court decisions have validated UBC’s decision, and other universities are following suit. How

UBC changed copyright in Canada.

NEXT PAGE

6 | FEATURE | THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013

Hubert Lai runs his hand over a ragged block of concrete affixed to a trophy stand in

his office.“There’s supposed to be a glass

box around it,” UBC’s highly acclaimed university counsel said, lost in the memories of what the concrete represents.

Lai had spent the past hour or so detailing the university’s battle with Access Copyright, the intel-lectual property rights behemoth from which UBC licensed nearly all its copyrighted classroom material until two years ago.

Much of the interview con-sisted of technical explanations of tariffs, committee work and the responsibilities of his office, but when the discussion veered into other topics, Lai was transformed.

Leaning back from the table, where he had been sifting through papers to answer questions about the complex timeline of the Access Copyright fiasco, Lai relaxed as he began to speak of his start as an attorney.

Attending law school out of pure interest, Lai was unsure until the end of his final year whether he actually wanted to become a lawyer. But looking back now, Lai seems pleased with his choice of career. His praise for the work of judges parallels terms others would use for ballet dancers or theatre performers.

“There were these incredibly interesting problems — social problems, disputes, thorny, thorny issues. Then you would see the solutions the judges had reached, and in many cases those solutions were elegant, or just beautiful,” Lai said, hanging on both of the

final adjectives.And Lai’s interest in architecture

— what he said he’d likely be doing if he weren’t in the legal profession — offers insight into how he ap-proaches his work at the university.

While lawyers don’t design buildings, Lai said, many build the legal structures that determine how people behave, much like how architectural plans govern how occupants of a building go about their lives.

The hunk of concrete that Lai admired is a memento of his work helping raise funds for the new Fac-ulty of Law building, Allard Hall. Lai, who was recruited to work his contacts in the legal community, played down his role in the overall fundraising effort. But the $4–5 million he said he was responsible for pulling in were, no doubt, essen-tial in the construction of a building that was pressed for funds right up until its opening in September 2011.

But it’s another project that came to fruition in September of that year that bears Lai’s hand-print, even more than the beautiful new law building. The project was constructed of legal analysis and gutsy decision-making, rather than metal and glass, so it makes sense that Lai doesn’t have anything as tangible as a chunk of concrete to remind him of his work. There’s no doubt, however, that Lai’s work on the Access Copyright spat will be inextricably linked to the way Can-adian universities treat intellectual property in years to come.

dot com, dark days

File-sharing sites like Napster,

Limewire and Megaupload have all incurred the wrath of entertain-ment producers and record labels. But with the exception of these occasional high-profile lawsuits, issues of intellectual property and copyright law have flown under the radar for most people in North America. The digital landscape has changed what it means to steal, as anyone who has streamed a television show or downloaded music without paying can attest to. But the anonymity of the Internet and ubiquity of illegal downloads means few people worry about landing in legal trouble. Outside of the vague understanding that what they are doing is illegal, intellectual property law is not part of most people’s consciousness.

Not so for a university, as dem-onstrated by the Access Copyright–UBC dispute, a rare example of an explosive and very public univer-sity debate. The battle was fought between a copyright licensing agency trying to resist technologic-al changes that wreaked havoc on their business model and a univer-sity determined not to acquiesce to what it considered outrageous demands, even if it meant causing uncertainty for its own students and faculty.

The essence of the dispute was over who UBC had to pay for the rights to copyrighted materials used in teaching, like the pages from books and academic jour-nals included in coursepacks and, increasingly, in academic databases made available to students through the UBC Library.

For years, UBC, along with nearly all Canadian colleges and universities, had entered into

licences with Access Copyright, a non-profit collective representing the major publisher and creator groups in Canada. For universities, signing an Access Copyright licence meant they didn’t have to establish individual rights to the works pub-lished or created by the 36 groups Access Copyright represents. For the publishers and creators, joining Access Copyright meant they didn’t have to figure out how to licence all their own work, and they gained the bargaining power of an entire industry.

Access Copyright, in this sense, provided a valuable service for uni-versities, publishers and creators.

But this harmonious relationship began to break down as more and more copyrighted learning materi-als moved online.

The photocopier industry grew exponentially throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, and copyright holders began to fret. It was becom-ing easier than ever for a copy-righted work such as a book, paid for only once, to be widely duplicat-ed through photocopying.

An influential journal article published in 1985 highlighted copy-right owners’ concerns.

“Creators and owners of intellec-tual properties are alarmed by the growth of technologies that ease the task of copying these proper-ties,” read the paper by copyright expert professor Stan Leibowitz, now at the University of Texas.

By the time Access Copyright was founded in 1988 to help pub-lishers get ahold of the changing dynamics, photocopier sales were booming. Japan produced 2.21 million units in 1987, and by 1993 photocopiers were a $23.4-billion industry in the United States.

Fittingly, the licences Access Copyright negotiated were based on the number of copies made. The licences charged a small fee per student, plus a fee for each copy of a copyrighted page.

The only problem was that these licences remained essentially unchanged, even as the technol-ogy being used by universities eclipsed photocopying.

In 2010, the photocopier re-tailers were responsible for just $512 million in sales. As the 1990s progressed, desktop computers became common and the explosion of the Internet meant documents and other files could be shared without physical copies. At a time when many photocopier companies were diversifying their offerings, several companies failed to make it out of the dot-com boom. For example, the Mito Corporation, known for their advertising motto,

“All we make is great copiers,” was acquired in 2000. Even Xerox, its name synonymous with photo-copying, expanded its offerings beyond photocopying to include credit card processing and other business services.

Yet despite the reduction in actual photocopying, as of 2010, Access Copyright’s licence with UBC still consisted of a $3.38 fee per student, plus $.10 per photocopied page.

It should not have come as a huge surprise, then, that when the agreements Access Copyright had with UBC and other members of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) came up for renewal, the collective an-nounced they wanted new terms.

“See, it was easy with photo-copying,” said Stan Leibowitz, now the director of the Center for the Analysis of Property Rights and Innovation at the University of Texas at Dallas. “You knew where the photocopiers were and who was getting them.

“Now, with works that are digital, the question is: can the publishers accurately gauge which copies are going to high-volume users?”

In seeking to answer this ques-tion and account for the shift from photocopying to digital sharing of copyrighted works, Access Copy-right seemed to overplay its hand. In negotiations with AUCC, Access Copyright proposed a fee of $45 per student and no per-page copying fee. With an eye toward monitoring copying in the digital age, Access Copyright also wanted access to universities’ emails, computer sys-tems and auditing records. AUCC was opposed to these terms, and with each side blaming the other for the breakdown in negotiations, Access Copyright went to the Copy-right Board of Canada to seek the imposition of a temporary tariff.

In the winter of 2010, UBC decided to expose themselves to massive legal liability, retrain hundreds of teachers, break with decades of precedent and begin managing copyright licences in house. This is the story of why they did it.

kAI JACoBsoN PHoto/tHE uByssEyDavid Farrar, who oversaw uBC’s decision not to renew their licence with Access Copyright, called it “just the right thing to do.”

By Arno Rosenfeld

In 2006 Access Copyright launched the widely mocked “Captain Copyright” campaign to provide pro-copyright propaganda to chil-dren in elementary school.

The question is: can the publishers accurately gauge which copies are going to high-volume users?

Stan LeibowitzDirector of the Center for

Analysis of Property Rights and Innovation at the

University of Texas, Dallas

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013 | FEATURE | 7

The Copyright Board of Canada is a regulatory agency charged with, among other things, oversee-ing disputes over the use of copy-righted work. The board also has the power to impose tariffs, which is what it did in the case of Access Copyright. The temporary tariff stipulated that any institution that used material belonging to Access Copyright, and that didn’t secure the rights independently, had to pay the collective a fee determined by the board.

The dramatic changes in the terms Access Copyright was seek-ing for licences, and the speed with which they left the bargaining table with AUCC and sought the tariff, would eventually backfire.

Eight months after the interim tariff was imposed, on Jan. 1, 2011, 26 Canadian colleges and uni-versities announced they would stop paying the tariff and secure the rights to copyrighted works independently. On the list were 14 of Canada’s 25 largest universities, including the University of Alberta, Queen’s University, York Univer-sity, Carleton University and, of course, UBC.

And Hubert Lai believes UBC’s decision to operate independently, made very early in the process, encouraged many of the other uni-versities to follow suit. The move obliterated what had been Access Copyright’s monopoly on Eng-lish-language academic works used by Canadian universities.

“You don’t want to be the first,” Lai said. “UBC was prepared to be the first because we knew nobody else wanted to be.”

Legal backing was crucial to UBC’s VP Academic David Farrar, the man who oversaw the univer-sity’s decision to withdraw from Access Copyright and the tariff.

“The decision that we made was based on the fact that I thought then, and I still think now, that it was right thing to do,” Farrar said. But, he added, “It put the university in a situation that may have been a bit more risky.”

It was the fear of legal retaliation from Access Copyright that kept many universities from being the first to break away.

“I think UBC showed real leadership,” well-known legal commentator Michael Geist said in an interview. “They were the first major university to do this and they did it at a time when they weren’t sure if others would follow.”

Breaking free

For UBC, the transition from oper-ating under the Access Copyright licence to going at it alone was not easy. Not only was the university stepping into uncharted territory, but it was trying to change the habits of a massive institution in a matter of months.

“Changing things at universities is very hard,” Lai said. “It’s like trying to turn an aircraft carrier: it takes time and it takes space.”

Indeed, the first few months of operating outside of the tariff were difficult for the university, with some TAs and professors lamenting delays in distributing readings as they tried to determine what they had the rights to use.

To preempt this problem, UBC opened a copyright office as a resource for faculty. Spearheaded by Allan Bell, the office offers educational clinics and works with faculty one-on-one to answer questions about what material can be used.

Joy Kirchner oversees the office’s staff and gives talks to dif-ferent faculties about how to deal with intellectual property in the classroom. She said the office has been able to assuage many of fears faculty had about the changes to

handling copyright.Rather sheepishly, she added

that she now sometimes receives standing ovations from faculty at the end of her presentations. Such is the power of putting uncertainty to rest when it comes to issues of copyright in the classroom.

heating up

The Access Copyright fight was unique among administration-level debates at UBC, in large part be-cause of the rhetoric it took on.

Gone were the buzzwords and vague rhetoric that is so often heard from high-ranking administrators during controversial initiatives.

“We were, frankly, being held hostage — I use that term intention-ally — and we decided we had to push back,” UBC President Stephen Toope said at his annual town hall meeting, just weeks after the uni-versity began operating independ-ently of Access Copyright.

In an interview with The Ubyssey in September 2012, Lai referred to Access Copyright’s pro-posed new licence as “extortionist.”

“All the universities looked at this and said, ‘Are you kidding?’” Lai said at the time.

Access Copyright fueled the con-tentious atmosphere when in Sep-tember of last year, it announced it was asking the Copyright Board to demand that universities and colleges operating independently of Access Copyright answer a lengthy questionnaire detailing their copying practices.

“Access Copyright would have greatly preferred to avoid this pro-cess entirely,” read an Access Copy-right statement. “Unfortunately not all post-secondary institutions … have joined their colleagues in signing licences.”

In response, Lai told The Ubyssey, “It is UBC’s position that Access Copyright has no entitle-ment to require universities to undertake a massive interrogatory exercise.”

The trading of passive-aggres-sive barbs is probably not the most effective negotiating strategy for Access Copyright, whose business model has been, in large part, eviscerated — both by the number of institutions who dropped their Access Copyright licences, as well as several recent Supreme Court case decisions and a change in copyright law.

The Supreme Court released a batch of decisions on intellectual property over the summer, expand-ing the definition of fair dealing to include much of what is dis-tributed in coursepacks and used by teachers in class. Personal use for educational purposes, such as photocopying a chapter in a library book, had long been accepted as fair dealing and did not require the user to obtain rights to the work. The Supreme Court determined that teachers making copies of a chapter and distributing them to students was also protected under fair dealing provisions. The change in law came with Bill C-11, which explicitly stated that educational use falls under fair dealing.

But then again, Access Copyright

has long seemed out of touch with the communities it was theoretical-ly providing a service to.

In the summer of 2006, Access Copyright launched a propa-ganda website featuring Captain Copyright, a superhero educating children about the virtues of strong copyright laws. Targeting stu-dents as young as first graders and intending to be used by educators, the website featured assignments like writing a letter to the editor in support of copyright laws.

The Captain Copyright pro-ject was criticized for making no mention of fair dealing exemp-tions to copyright law, as well as for violating copyright law itself. The website contained a number of unattributed excerpts from Wikipedia; some bloggers also al-leged that the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore used a charac-ter also named Captain Copyright.

Access Copyright disputed the last assertion, claiming they thought of the idea first. In any event, the Singaporeans came up with a new character, Detective IP, who wore a grey fedora and trench coat rather than Captain Copy-right’s green-and-white spandex.

But Access Copyright hasn’t only gotten in trouble for targeting chil-dren with propaganda characters. In the spring of 2011, the Writers Union of Canada, angry with Ac-cess Copyright’s lack of transparen-cy and what the union considered inability to fairly distribute the fees it collected, announced it would look at separating creators from publishers within the collective.

The essential problem was that Access Copyright took fees charged to universities on a per-use basis, but then distributed the revenue to its members in a uniform manner not based on whose work was

used most.“I’m a supporter of copyrights,”

Farrar said. “So in many ways, I thought it was fairer, although a lot more work, to simply obtain the copyright from the publishers directly.”

why the wait?

If Farrar felt so strongly that main-taining a licence with Access Copy-right was not in the best interests of UBC, and Lai offered the legal backing for UBC to go independent, the question must be asked: what took so long?

Geist, the legal commentator, speculated that universities had long treated the relatively afford-able Access Copyright licences as a type of insurance policy. With students footing the bill through coursepacks and tuition, the licence was a small cost to pay

for protection against a litigious organization like Access Copyright. But when Access Copyright sought to massively change the terms of its agreement with universities, charging the schools exponentially more in fees, administrators started to more carefully examine whether they needed the licences.

“I think if I’d looked at it in detail six years ago, I would have come to the same conclusion,” Far-rar admitted. “But it took Access Copyright trying to redefine their rights and really raise the cost of [the deal] to force me to do that.”

Armed with the example of their peers in higher education, the re-cent Supreme Court cases and Bill C-11, the universities that did renew licences with Access Copyright may not keep them for long.

“My sense is many of the insti-tutions that signed on will seek to leave Access Copyright at their earliest opportunity,” Geist said. U

kAI JACoBsoN PHoto/tHE uByssEy

university counsel Hubert Lai oversaw the legal process behind uBC’s decision to bring copyright licensing in house.

UBC was prepared to be the fi rst because we knew nobody else wanted to be.

Hubert LaiUniversity Council

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013 | 8EDITOR C.J. PENTLAND

STORM THE WAll >>

The perfect stormYour tell-all guide for assembling the ideal Storm the Wall squadJustin FlemingSenior Lifestyle Writer

Time to dig out your swimsuit, oil your bike chain, tape up those nipples and start working on your vert — yes, Storm The Wall is back. The mounds of dirt and painters tackling walls on the plaza to the north of the SUB mean that the competition is almost upon us, with the dead-line for registration just having passed. So if you’re looking to achieve glory, these are the people that you should include in your elite crack squad of fellow student-athletes.

the swimmer

The first stage of the event is the 225-yard swim. If you struggled to find a swimmer, you can take some comfort in the fact that most other teams had trouble finding this highly sought-after aquatic linchpin too. Swimmers are like the elf in Lord of the Rings or the acrobat in Ocean’s 11; their specialized skill is pivotal to the success of the team, and not just anyone can fill their shoes.

Everybody and their grand-ma knows someone who used to swim at least semi-competitive-ly, but the key in that phrase is “used to.” You don’t need some has-been who flaps their gills about the good old days when they won the K-12 family fun swim. You need an Olympic-cali-bre teammate.

Hairlessness is key, so you could’ve tried loitering around the Chemistry Building, because even a small amount of sulfur-ic acid can leave forearms and eyebrows crispy and bare. Lung capacity is another big factor. A UBC opera ensemble production is a good talent pool, as some opera singers have been known to swim multiple lengths of a pool in a single breath.

A swimmer who creates a big

enough wake can also subject his fellow competitors to high levels of turbulence, so size can work to your advantage; the more water displacement, the better.

the sprinter

This brings us to the sprinter. This might be the most iconic, prestigious position on the team, so you need someone who won’t let success get to their head. You also want someone light and fast, so if you got a lead on any of the child prodigies attending UBC, this can be your ace in the hole. These little geniuses have min-imal wind resistance, boundless reserves of energy and haven’t

yet polluted their bodies to the extent of your average under-grad.

Fear is also a great motivator, so don’t be afraid to harness your sprinter’s fight or flight re-sponse; startle them into motion by dropping a spider in their hair, siccing a dog on them or blasting an airhorn in their ear.

the Biker

Biking is up next, but just because anyone can ride a bike does not mean that just anyone should be riding for your team. It is important to be ruthless when it comes to choosing your biker, because the biker’s leg is 2.8 kilo-

metres and you don’t need some-one who will turn down the heat as soon as they’re out of sight.

Many people will try to distract you from their inability to do anything else by playing up their ability as a competent bike rider, but you need someone who’s better than competent. You need to throw friendship to the wind and cut these parasites away for the greater good of the team.

Biking is all about stamina, so you need a special type of friend — the one who leaves the party last and is the first one up the next morning, the one who can study for 12 hours straight without gouging out their eye-balls, the one who takes a couple

days off school to play World of Warcraft.

Med students, law students, master’s students — basically anyone who’s going to be in school for more than four years — are all people who will possess great stamina and intensity. Also, tell friends with a soft spot for the green stuff to lay off it for a bit, since the last thing you need is a doping scandal.

the Long-distance runner

Your long-distance runner will be doing the last leg before the wall, one kilometre in total, so it is im-portant that they finish strong to give a good spike in team morale before hitting the wall.

Focus and determination are two key qualities of a good run-ner, so you need someone who can turn off their brain and settle into that runner’s high. Members of the UBC Meditation Commun-ity can be that tranquil teammate who will let the power of positive thought take your team to the finish line.

If you’re desperate the night before for a fill-in, try canvas-sing some all-hours pizza joints and find some highly intoxicat-ed individuals who have been carb-loading all night; they will be very receptive to suggestions with the right combination of f lattery and pizza.

the waLL

The 12-foot wall is where your group will finally get to test the bonds of camaraderie and teamwork. It is where all of your small, seemingly insignificant skills will compound to give the team the edge it needs. So with some careful consideration and a bit of luck, you and your team-mates could live forever in the halls of Storm the Wall history. U


Assemble your team of five to take on the wall — or be an ironman or ironwoman and take on the course all by yourself.

two sports are better than onevARSiTY >>

Colin ChiaStaff Writer

Student-athletes have a lot on their plates, having to balance academics with highly competi-tive sports. It can be an over-whelming task, but it’s a challenge that Christina Donnelly faces head-on. Not only does she play on the UBC women’s soccer team — she also competes on the alpine skiing team, making her the only athlete at UBC who plays two varsity sports.

Growing up in Ottawa, Don-nelly played soccer during the summer, and come the winter she would ski at Mont Ste. Marie, a ski resort one hour north of the city.

“You can’t really play soccer outside [in winter], so it kind of gave me an opportunity to ski as well. My main sport growing up was skiing; my parents skied a lot and my dad’s actually a coach,” said Donnelly.

“[The sports] kind of help each other, because when I’m playing soccer I miss skiing, and when I’m

skiing I miss soccer.”Donnelly did quit skiing for

a couple of years at one point to focus on soccer, but she found that she missed skiing. So with the encouragement of her fath-er, she decided to get back on the slopes.

“UBC ended up just being the right fit of soccer level and ski level, and I wanted to find a school where I could do both. So that’s one of the reasons I came here.”

The differences between the two sports — soccer’s emphasis on stamina, skiing’s reliance on strength — do pose a challenge when they overlap. Donnelly finds her speed deteriorates in late au-tumn when she’s strength training for skiing and the soccer season is still in progress. At the same time, however, the overlap does com-plement the midfielder’s physical style of play on the soccer pitch.

“In terms of agility and endur-ance, my soccer really helps my skiing, and just my fitness level

is higher, just from doing both,” said Donnelly.

“They do help each other, but they also hinder each other when I’m training different energy systems.”

Although the competition sea-sons for alpine skiing and soccer don’t conflict, Donnelly has had to miss several exhibition soccer matches this semester. Although it’s only preseason preparation, it obviously doesn’t please new UBC soccer coach Andrea Neil.

“She hasn’t been too happy with me that I’ve been missing so much, but ski season is over, so now I can focus back on soccer,” she said.

She has one more year of CIS eligibility, but after graduation, Donnelly doesn’t plan to rest: she intends to stay involved with both sports. Off the pitch, she wants to stay involved with the UBC women’s soccer alumni, and on the slopes, she hopes to take up a coaching position with a ski team in the area. U kAI JACoBsoN PHoto ILLustRAtIoN/tHE uByssEy

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013 | 9EDItoR ANNA ZORIA

Justin Fleming Senior Lifestyle Writer

With spring in full swing and the end of the school year on the not-so-dis-

tant horizon, it’s the perfect time to start a project or two. And if you have the time, why not make it a skill that will last you a lifetime?

Springtime is the right time here in B.C. for tasty greens and foragables. And while some will soon be busy hiding Easter choc-olates, nature has been working on a more refined treasure hunt for those with enough gumption.

So grab a book, enlist a know-ledgeable friend or sign up for a class to discover the bounty growing in backyards, overgrown garden beds and nearby woods. We’ve done some research to provide you with four options for where to start if you’re pining to get closer to nature.

1. forest foraging

Robin Kort, chef and owner of Swallow Tail Tours, is a firm advocate for all things found and foraged.

“Nothing can get fresher or taste better than something you’ve picked right away,” said Kort.

The aim of Kort’s tours is to connect people to foods that are accessible, easy to use and sustainable. Kort’s pupils range from survivalists to chefs to those just interested in the qual-ity of their food.

You don’t need much to get into foraging, according to Kort — just a decent set of eyes, some knowledge and a slow walk.

“Our wild edibles tour starts in May with mostly shoots and leaves,” she said. “In the summer we focus on berries and flowers, while still teaching about weeds, miner’s lettuce, fiddleheads,… and during the fall we go into mushrooms.”

2. gardening

If you’re interested in exercising your green thumb, think about dropping by the Faculty of Land and Food Systems orchard and getting your hands dirty as part of a volunteer work party.

“We’re getting ready to start planting, so that means prepping beds, digging in manure, weed-ing and taking out last season’s plants,” said Heather Verdin, a third-year student doing a work study at the orchard.

Volunteers can expect to take home a variety of skills in garden-ing, planting, bed preparation and plant identification — not to men-tion any extra edibles that aren’t sold to Sprouts or the Agora Café.

Don’t be afraid to work up an appetite, as the work parties often finish the day by making soup, bread or some other tasty treat. Whether you’re looking for a cas-ual drop-in or an opportunity to take on a leadership role with one of the several management teams, absolutely anyone is welcome to volunteer.

3. Beekeeping

For those with a penchant for sweets or a soft spot for in-sects, this spring could be the time to delve into the world of beekeeping.

Provided you check city bylaws and have the space and access to the right equipment, the world of beekeeping is fairly accessible. Melissa Cartwright, local honey producer and founder of Mellifera Bees, start-ed keeping bees four summers ago. For her, keeping bees offers more than just honey, beeswax, bee pollen and propolis; it’s also a unique window into an enchanting world.

“When you open up the top of the hive, it’s like another uni-verse in there. It’s fascinating,” she said.

But while beekeeping may seem simple and the workload unfairly weighted in the keeper’s favour, the learning curve for keeping bees is steep, according to Cartwright. She encourages those who are interested to get some books or take a class before heading out and buying bees.

If you are apprehensive about beekeeping solo, there are many ways to get involved in the beekeeping community, much of which is built around mentor or peer-to-peer relationships. The Richmond Beekeepers Associ-ation, for instance, is made up of members of all ages and skill levels, from backyard hobby-ists to commercial beekeepers. Courses in beekeeping, as well

as equipment, is also offered at the Honeybee Centre in Surrey and Homesteader’s Emporium on Hastings.

4. hunting

Hunting may seem like an alien concept to many Vancouverites,

but for those concerned about the quality and ethical sourcing of their food, hunting your own game can be a rich learning and cultural ex-perience and a surefire way to know where your food is coming from.

If you’re a prospective hunter, there are some administrative hurdles you’ll have to jump. You’ll also have to acquire some general knowledge and field skills. If you start now, though, you can be ready come hunting season.

Dylan Eyers is the founder of EatWild, a Vancouver-based company that offers workshops, courses, seminars and dinners with the goal of making hunting more accessible to people from an urban background. Eyers’ aim is to diffuse negative perceptions about hunting and help develop a hunting ethic that people can fit into their own lives.

“Our effort is to be accessible and to reach out to the folks with the most amount of barriers,… who live in the city but believe strongly in where their meat comes from,” he said.

EatWild workshops will school you in the art of sausage-making and help to develop hunting skills, such as orienteering, tracking, butchering and shooting. U

into the wild Feeling the call of nature? Four green hobbies that are fun, adventurous and very outdoorsy

GREEN liviNG >>

When you open up the top of the hive, it’s like another universe in there. It’s fascinating.

Melissa Cartwright Local honey producer and founder of Mellifera Bees

INDIANA JoNEs ILLustRAtIoN/tHE uByssEy

whether it’s forest foraging or beekeeping, taking up one of these hobbies has delicious rewards —not to mention dinner table brag-ging rights.

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013 | 10STUDENT VOICE. COMMUNITY REACH.

Go Global a homeside headache

re: Katic: Proposed destruction of community garden emblematic of higher ed funding (march 18)

A columnist is expected to have an opinion, but supporting facts should be accurate and coherent. The following points in Katic’s column are misleading or inaccur-ate. Readers should question his inferences and conclusions.

Land and Food Systems Dean Murray Isman indicated to Katic that the garden could be relocated to the Plant Science Field Lab as soon as required – however, it will take one to two years before it could be moved again, closer to its present location, if the garden can be accommodated in the new Or-chard Commons project. Bottom line: there will be no loss of time or opportunity for students.

Orchard Commons is an academic project, built solely for students. The analogy drawn to commercial UBC neighbourhood developments is misleading.

At certain times of the year, UBC has 2,500 students on housing wait lists, in large part because students consider the rents affordable, even in the new-er, higher-priced buildings.

Many of UBC’s Student Hous-ing and Hospitality Services’ buildings are new and therefore carry a mortgage that is reflected in SHHS’s operating budget. The university’s Board of Governors made the decision to invest part of the Endowment Fund in student housing, and to ensure financial sustainability of the fund by char-ging a competitive mortgage rate.

Finally, the university is com-mitted to finding efficiencies and additional sources of revenue in order to make up for any shortfall in public funding. This is what allows UBC to maintain an out-standing learning environment for its students, while adhering to the prescribed provincial limit on tuition fee increases.

Sincerely,

Lucie McNeillDirector, UBC Public Affairs Office

Stylish Parisiennes trip past me on red heels. I let the excited French babble of the Champs-Elysées flood my senses as I bite into a macaroon from LaDurée. But instead of cara-mel à la fleur de sel, I get only the bitter taste of stress.

My exchange trip to a university in Paris during my third year was hands-down the best experience of my life. I learned a new culture, a new way of life and a lot about myself, and I wish everybody was lucky enough to have this opportun-ity. But there was one huge negative: while my friends were getting help on everything from their exchange advisors back home, I was getting emails from Go Global aimed at re-cruiting next year’s students. In fact, once I was accepted into my partner university, I received zero informa-tion or help from Go Global until my return — and upon my return, the process of getting my transfer credits took almost a year. Why did I put my trust and $363 in an organiz-ation that would so totally abandon me in a foreign country?

Go Global manages exchanges with universities everywhere, which is great. They have several different advisors; one specializes in Europe and French Polynesia, for example, and another in Asia and Latin America. Needless to say, having one person specializing in several continents didn’t lead to a lot of specialization. Students were told from the get-go that we were re-sponsible for figuring out university websites, courses, accommodation, you name it.

I submitted my course requests in early March, and the website clearly stated that “transfer credit can take up to 16 weeks to process” — I should have my courses approved by June at the latest, right? Wrong. My courses were not approved until Aug. 31, five months after I submit-ted them. This effectively left me in third-year standing on the Student Service Centre for course selection in June, and I ended up having to beg my way into my required fourth-year courses. A UBC staff person redundantly changed my standing for me manually — in October.

My transcript arrived from the host university in April. Go Global eventually processed it, months

later, and through the wrong department. This unnecessarily delayed the process; plus, it meant I needed to make several trips later to the English department and waste their time individually approving my courses (which they did; they were very accommodating).

In addition to the mess created by sending my courses to be approved all over campus, there was also a massive delay in getting my tran-script approved in the first place. In September all my courses were “ten-tatively finalized,” but there was still some kind of hold-up. I emailed Go Global again to see why my courses weren’t fully approved. It turned out that the transcript the Paris univer-sity had sent wasn’t detailed enough. Though everybody had apparently known about this since April, and Go Global, in fairness, had sent two unsuccessful emails to Paris asking for a new transcript, they failed to let me know that there was this hur-dle to jump over before my credits could be approved.

I emailed Paris and a month later (quick, for France) the ex-change advisor there found me an “adequate” transcript that would meet UBC standards. The ques-tion remains: why is Go Global sending students to a university whose transcripts they refuse to accept? If there was one thing they assured us of, it was that all our courses would transfer back to UBC; the only question was under which course code.

Within Go Global itself, it’s unclear where responsibility lies for the delays and numerous setbacks to the process. When I tried making an appointment, Go Global sent me to Arts Advising, and when I went to Arts Advising, the secretary gave me a slip of paper with her email address and told me she didn’t do “in-person.”

After 10 months of kicking and screaming at a brick wall, my cours-es were finally approved, and this January I managed to get enough of them transferred to the Eng-lish department to help complete my degree. All I can say is that I hope it doesn’t take 11 months for everybody to complete this process. I will always encourage going on ex-change, because it truly is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Just consider yourself warned: don’t expect any help at all from Go Global after you have been selected for a university. U

LETTER

uBc shows uncommon guiLe on copyright issue

When UBC opted out of copy-right licensing agency Access Copyright last summer, they were making a bit of a risky choice. Sure, being part of Ac-cess Copyright was expensive, but it was an easy catch-all way to make sure licensing for the myriad content UBC copies and reprints was always covered. Moving copyright licensing in-house required setting up a whole new office to vet copy-right on campus — a major headache, to say the least.

But the decision to leave Access Copyright was soon followed by a Supreme Court decision that made it possible to copy a lot more things for a lot less money. Later in the summer, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down a de-cision that widely expanded the definition of the “fair use” copyright exception for content that’s being used in a classroom. This means that UBC’s decision to start figuring out copyright in-house will get a lot cheaper and make a lot more sense.

So this risky decision is now looking like the one that was the wisest all along. Good on you, UBC.

uBc’s high-rise hopes Bound to anger residents

UBC is going to build another tall building on campus.

UBC held a public consul-tation session on March 19 about plans for a 22-storey tower slated for South Cam-pus. Although residents had a chance to voice their concerns, UBC has a history of consulta-tions turning into information sessions. UBC listens to what residents have to say, then ignores them and does what it wanted to do in the first place.

This tower is another case of construction on campus that isn’t for students. The tower just brings more construc-tion and more residents who

don’t have the same priorities as students.

As the owner and developer of land on campus, UBC can build what they want with little accountability. While public consultation is important, it is useless if UBC already has its plans set in stone.

uBc’s Big oL’ freedom-of-information LoophoLe

There’s a lot of hoopla going on about access to information in B.C. Here’s the issue in a nutshell: According to prov-incial law, the government — and other bodies funded by taxpayers — must disclose all files about what they’re doing, because they should be account-able to the public at large.

The B.C. Liberal govern-ment is facing a scandal over a “multicultural outreach” strat-egy that saw public servants doing campaign work during (taxpayer-funded) work hours. And one of the main strategies they used to try to conceal this was to send emails to and from personal accounts, rather than government accounts. The B.C. privacy commissioner is now in the process of looking into whether these public servants should be required to disclose emails sent to and from their personal accounts if they’re about government business.

Which brings us back to The Ubyssey’s favourite access-to-information issue. Using personal email accounts isn’t the only way a taxpay-

er-funded body can try to evade access-to-information law. Here at UBC, everything the university does is public infor-mation, subject to access-to-in-formation laws. But there are exceptions: the university operates a handful of satel-lite organizations as separate corporations, but they still have complete control of them. Ex-amples include UBC Properties Trust, the group that controls development on campus, and IMANT, which is charged with managing the university’s in-vestments. A recent court case ruled that because Properties Trust is legally separate from UBC, they don’t have to disclose any of their files to the public.

So if personal emails used to carry out government busi-ness are fair game, separate corporations used wholly to conduct taxpayer-funded busi-ness should be fair game, too. Expand access to information laws to include bodies like UBC Properties Trust. It’s only fair.

British coLumBia’s student LoBByists are set to miss a Big opportunity

Provincial elections are always a time to take advantage of the opportunity to harass politicians to make promises. But this one will be especially important: there’s a big chance there will be a change in gov-ernment, meaning that now’s a great time to twist arms on both sides of the aisle.

The Canadian Federation of Students has been constantly haywire lately; it seems to focus harder on membership spats than lobbying, and despite mak-ing a bid to capture the voice of students, the Alliance of B.C. Students’ platform doesn’t seem to have much substance.

Both are focusing on voter outreach, which is admirable, but given that students aren’t going to be on campus on election day, maybe focusing on changing the conversation could have more of an impact. U

LAST WORDS

kIM PRINgLE ILLustRAtIoN/tHE uByssEy

PERSPECTIVESby Danielle Pacheco

uBC gets cheeky on copyright.

UBC’s decision to start figuring out copyright

in-house will get a lot cheaper and make a lot

more sense. RE: UBC’s win over Access

Copyright

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013 | 11PICTURES + WORDS ON YOUR UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE

Free time vs. schoolwork: Where are you on the axis?CATTY AXIS

FREE TIME

AM

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NT

OF

SC

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HACKÉDEXyour uBC word of the week

The Ponderosa complex, phase one, is slated to be completed by September 2013. The first of three parts, the complex will house Faculty of Arts classrooms, as

well as a new year-round housing facility for upper-year undergrad and graduate students.

PIC OF THE WEEK

A student conquers storm the wall with a little help from her friends.


What I’m Drinking Nowterm Papers Season

GATORADEsource:

storming the wall.

RED WINEsource:

your night-table. Papers are hard.

WATERsource:

waterFillz machines in the

suB.

TEQUILAsource:

A deep sense of shame #bdn.

NYQUILsource:

shoppers. Avoid mixing, like Lil’ wayne.

FIRST YEAR MATH(e.g. MAth 100/102/104)

BIOCHEMISTRY(e.g. BIoC 301)

ARTS SCIENCE CREDIT

(e.g. ASIC 200/frSt 300)

COMMERCE CLASSES

(e.g. um...all of them?)

BIRD COURSE(e.g. Crwr 213)

12 | GAMES | THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2013

PuZZLE CouRtEsy BEstCRosswoRDs.CoM. usED wItH PERMIssIoN.

across1- Crazy as a ___5- weeps9- Highland hats13- superior of a monastery15- gator’s cousin16- “the time Machine” race17- Din18- Mandlikova of tennis19- Follow20- ___ Moines21- Israel’s Barak23- Ancient musician25- Big birds26- Flexible27- spider’s traps30- Alley ___31- swift 32- Desire for food37- school founded by Henry VI38- Fathers40- From the u.s.41- Monocle43- Broadcaster44- ___ kippur45- Ailment47- the continent50- salamander

51- tropical fruit52- ___ silly question...53- Bordeaux buddy56- Actor stoltz57- Bear in the sky59- Arabian republic61- Head of France62- Beef cut63- Big rigs64- Citrus coolers65- River to the seine66- taboo

down

1- ground2- It’s blown among the reeds3- kimono ties4- Refusals5- straight downhill ski run6- toward the mouth7- ___ vivant8- Bivalve molluscs9- Aquarium fi sh10- Actor Delon11- Damp12- River sediment14- swarmed

22- wheel center24- Holy moly!25- “Dallas” family name26- Bishop of Rome27- Algonquian language28- Like Cheerios29- Lodge lett ers32- ___ longa, vita brevis33- spoil34- Hungary’s Nagy35- golf pegs, northern English river36- Makes a boo-boo38- Brazil’s largest city39- woe ___42- City on the Rhone43- Continuously45- Demented46- Monetary unit of Albania47- Having auricular protuberances48- Band together49- speed contests51- second lett er of the greek alphabet52- garage sale sign53- Bullets and such54- Chow ___55- Not ___ many words58- Louis XIV, e.g.60- Bard’s nightfall

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March 21, 2013

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Transcript of March 21, 2013