Review Canadian Copyright Reform Opinion Papers

chathamhouse writes: "It was mentioned last week on Slashdot. If you're a Canadian citizen, today is the final day to submit opinion papers for Industry Canada's Copyright Act reform process. You can quickly (cut, paste and email) try to avoid the legislation of a Son-of-DMCA in Canada, or write your own in a coffee induced last minute haze. My submission can be found here. Please read and provide comments. I hope that others post their submissions, so that the Slashdot community may point out flawed/broken logic, typos, stupid/embarassing ideas, and the like. Nothing like a bit of 11th hour polish -- remember that we're up against some very resource-rich copyright holders that have considerable vested interest in the evolution of a DMCA-style law!"

I sent mine weeks ago

[Kernel Kurtz]

This is my letter

To whom it may concern:

It has come to my attention that the Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright
Issues that is being circulated by the Canadian Department of Industry contains
proposals that could at best be considered extreme.

In particular, I take issue with the proposed anti-circumvention provisions that seem to
be taken directly from the US Digital Millenium Copyright Act. These provisions
serve to remove many lawful rights from individuals for the benefit of a small
number of multi-national corporations, and are an insult to the freedom that all
citisens of Canada take for granted. The DMCA in the US is already under
constitutional challenge, and it is likely that any similiar laws here would
not be consistent with the free speech guarantees of the Canadian Charter of Rights
and Freedoms.

The provisions in question would disallow Canadians from exercising our hard won
"fair dealing" rights with regard to digital media as well as stifling academic and
technological research. These laws have already had negative effects on computer
research in the US, where foriegn programmers are now scared to travel to trade
shows and industry conferences as a result of the arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov, a
Russian programmer, under these draconian provisions of the DMCA. In order for
the US to counter this atmosphere of distrust, thier tactic of choice appears to
be to bring other western countries "down to thier level" though organs such as
the Free Trade Area of the Americas and other international agreements.

I believe Canadians value thier rights of free speech be it written words or
computer source code. I also believe that the government of Canada wants our
country to be an open place for businesses in the world of information
technology. Repressive laws such as the provisions outlined above are directly
contrary to these goals and values. While it is important for intellectual property to be
adequately protected, this must be carefully balanced against the rights of the general
public. I urge you to remove the anti-circumvention clauses from the final
document, as copyright infringement is already adequately addressed under the
current framework, and the use of these provisions as an impediment to lawful
acts is simply unacceptable.

We thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely

Blair Steenerson
Winnipeg, MB, CA

A list of further contact addresses can be found here [steenerson.com]

call for participation

[rakerman]

I think the key is to make sure you exercise your democratic rights (and responsibilities) in this matter, and if you have any strong opinion either way, just write a short clear letter to that effect.

Public moderation to follow....

[Jetson]

Even if you missed the September 15th posting deadline you can have some input into the process. The Canadian government will be posting the received opinions and comments to a web page for public viewing, and are encouraging the public to comment on the submissions no later than October 5th. The web site [ic.gc.ca] doesn't yet contain the comments-- keep your eyes peeled. Finally, a place where "me too" posts are not only appropriate but encouraged!