Canadian Copyright Reform 7
mikers writes: "The Government of Canada is looking for submissions into their public consultation process of Copyright reform. Up until September 15th, 2001, we Canadians can voice our opinions on two consultation papers - the first of which is titled "Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues" - that will shape changes made to the Canadian Copyright Act in the years to come. "Industry Canada and the Department of Canadian Heritage are seeking comments regarding possible amendments to the Copyright Act with respect to the issues described in these two consultation documents... Subject to consent, all written submissions received will be posted on the two departments' websites ..." Now would be a good time to get your comments in and tell our government our views, or else risk letting "industry experts" and other non-geeks (Canadian RIAA) have the only say."
Call to arms! (Score:1)
Alright, Canadians. It's time to make ourselves heard. I've seen post after post bemoaning the fact that most of the people concerned about the DMCA in the U.S. never said anything when they could have. And this is usually accompanied with a bunch of hand-wringing and 'if only I had...'.
Get your asses in gear. Now's the time to make sure that the uninformed bureaucrat receiving submissions has heard the whole story. And we'll have no one to blame but ourselves if they don't find out.
However, if they listen to what we all say and throw it out the window, that will just be our wonderful Canadian 'democratic' system in action. Hehe.
Rock
Re:Call to arms! (Score:3, Insightful)
Let the government know that we assert its primary responsibility is to represent the interests of Canadian citizens, not those of international corporations.
Let them know that networked personal computers are more than mere content-delivery devices. Protest the fact that (for example) the music industry is charging you $0.21 for every CD-R you buy, even if you're using it to back up personal data or record your own music. Tell the government that you will not tolerate any further power-grabs by the music and video industries. Assert your right to create and manipulate your own data on your own PC, without interference.
Let them know that due process must be applied whenever a corporation wants to have a user's website shut down for alleged copyright infringement. Demand penalties and the user's right to seek compensation whenever a corporation makes a false accusation.
Refute the notion that content publishers are entitled to make the same profits they did with their pre-Internet business models. Times change, and economic factors change (just as they did when technology such as the phonograph and printing press were invented, essentially creating the publishing industry).
Demand the freedom to analyze, reverse-engineer, and discuss the technological systems used to control content. Prohibit only the disclosure of the encryption keys used by a particular protection method (following the general cryptographic principle that all the security is in the key, not the algorithm). Don't let corporations use your tax dollars to subsidize poor engineering (by arresting anyone who dares to point out the weakness in their ultra-secure "XOR-with-constant" protection technology).
Warn the government that extending the term of copyright (lifetime of author + 70 years, up from + 50 years), coupled with technology that replaces "sale" with "pay-per-view", will reduce the incentive to create new content (a goal of the copyright act) because it will be cheaper to just re-distribute the same old content over and over.
Say something!
p.s. Tell your friends, too. Many of my co-workers (at a dot.com) had never heard of Dmitry or the DMCA. Just because we see these stories every day, it doesn't mean the rest of the world does.
Re:Call to arms! (Score:2)
And if you're a Canadian residing in dot-comland (the States), make damn sure your elected officials (in Canada) know that laws like the DMCA in the States are a factor in your choice of where to live.
Put bluntly - "if you guys pass a DMCA.ca, there'll be no reason to go back home" - is an argument a politician can understand.
Canadian politicians are no different from American ones in that they don't give a flying fsck about their citizens. But they do care about losing out on the tax dollars and the "brain drain" issue.
If you left Canada because of a better climate for technology research in the States, and are having second thoughts about the move (for instance, due to US-specific political decisions such as the DMCA vs. programmers or stem cell research vs. biotech labs), you have a right to ask your politicians to preserve what competitive advantages Canada still has.
Make a business case as to why Dumb Laws (tm) are a bad thing, not just a moral case.
Re:Call to arms! (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously, under the current Liberal Government, as we merrily goose-step along with the Yanks, something like the DMCA is a definite possibility.
Get off our prosteriors, indeed!
By the way, the entire Government of Nunavut IT section has gone down a couple of times due to its slavish adoption of WinNT and the consequent exploits by various critters. The whole system government-wide, including the education side, runs on NT. Duh!! The latest snafu was when they shut the entire education side down for over a week to port
I sent my letter in (Score:2, Insightful)
So have you sent in your letter?
Make your voices heard. (Score:1)
This review process is in addition to attempts to get DMCA style legislation passed here via the FTAA (see previous Slashdot article [slashdot.org]).
It is important that we in Canada voice our objections to any laws similiar to those in the US.
While you are writing your letters, it would be worthwhile to send copies to several other people in goverment who are involved in the copyright arena. I've put together a list of relevant contacts here [steenerson.com].
We do not need another DMCA