Feds launch six sizzling weeks of copyright talks, forget to redesign website

July 21, 2009

Feds launch six sizzling weeks of copyright talks, forget to redesign website

I just posted an article about yesterday's launch of the federal government's copyright consultations at the Vancouver Media Cooperative.

Something that didn't quite fit into the story, but that keeps nagging at me, is the website that the feds launched yesterday. The site supposedly has the intention of promoting this process.

I say supposedly for a number of reasons:

•the site itself is horrid to look at, harking back to the dying days of Web 1.0.

•the site does not appear to be linked to or from any other Government of Canada pages, including the Consulting with Canadians page.

•the site was launched yesterday, so existing traffic is nil. Though it does have a date stamp on the bottom which reads Date Modified: 2007-11-14

•the site lacks essential details, and yesterday's press release was posted as a blog entry.

The ministers responsible (Tony Clement/Industry, James Moore/Heritage) seem to think that opening a Twitter account is enough to propel the consultations into the wider consciouness.

When I asked them about this at yesterday's press conference in Vancouver, Clement responded that he hoped the consultation process would "go viral." Guess he hasn't seen the website.

For what it's worth, the second round table is currently under way in Calgary.

The town halls, which are open to the public, will take place July 30, 2009 from 1-3pm at the Centre Mont-Royal in Montreal, and August 27th from 7-9pm in an undisclosed location in Toronto. Both require pre-registration (as does access to the webcasts), which you can do at http://copyright.econsultation.ca.