DMCA du Canada
Now, I know what you're thinking: "Did he file six
interventions or only five?" To tell the truth, in all the excitement I kind
of lost track myself. So what you should be asking yourself is, "Do I feel
lucky?"
Industry Canada's "Intellectual Property Policy Directorate" and the
Canadian Heritage Ministry are reviewing Canada's copyright laws with an eye
to modernize them to take into account new digital technologies. Some
people are fearful that this could herald Canadian legislation parallelling
the DMCA or, worse, the SSSCA. The Government asked for submissions from
concerned members of the public, and there've been a lot of those.
Q: Where should I start reading first?
A: You should start with the list of Top 12
Copyright reform issues, then come back here and read the more detailed
items that interest you on the lists below.
This page is one of three overlapping links pages I maintain; depending
on your interests, you may find better-focused material on one of the
others:
- Centigrade Minus Twenty
- freedom to read, especially focused on printed books
- DMCA du Canada - restrictions on
Internet and other electronic communications, especially stemming from
intellectual property privileges
- ISP licensing in Canada
- restrictions on Internet and electronic communications, especially
stemming from child pornography fears
Contents
The Justice Department's comment process on "lawful access" (introduction
of a wiretapping regime to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on
Cybercrime) is not really about copyright, but it's closely related. I'm
not following it as closely, but I did write a
submission. For more detailed information I recommend
Jason Young's page on
the Cybercrime consultation. Here are some other links:
- Transcripts of U.S.
DRM hearing (17 July 2002), from the "Understanding Broadband Demand
Digital Rights Management" workshop in Washington.
- Jamie
Kellner (Turner Broadcasting) interview in which he claims that the
"tolerance for going to the bathroom" comment was not serious, but
repeats his claim that fast-forwarding through commercials will kill
television as we know it. (12 July 2002)
- The
Internet Debacle by Janis Ian (May 2002, opposing record companies'
exploitation of musicians)
- Open
Letter From Harvey Reid About Internet Radio (April 2002, calling
for independent musicians to support Webcasting)
- The original posters of the Jamie Kellner "I guess there's a certain
amount of tolerance for going to the bathroom" interview have made that
page of their site pay-only. Since they apparently want to avoid any
chance of benefiting from the publicity of the article, I'm going to help
by not mentioning their name. Instead, here's a link to an item in
The
Shifted Librarian containing pertinent excerpts. (April 29, 2002)
- Courtney
Love does the math (16 May 2000, opposing record companies'
exploitation of musicians)
- Testimony on Home Recording of
Copyrighted Works before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties,
and the Administration of Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary,
[U.S.] House of Representatives, Ninety-Seventh Congress. From 1982,
various movie and television industry representatives claim that
fast-forwarding through commercials will kill television as we know it.
Source of the Jack Valenti "Boston Strangler" quote.
- Speech
by Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) from 7 December 1906, in favour
of copyright as a natural right, and infinite term extension (although he
acknowledges that that would not be Constitutional).
- Speech by
Thomas Babbington Macaulay from 5 February 1841, against copyright
term extension.
- Letter
by Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson, 13 August 1813, against
copyright as a natural right.
- The
Statute of Anne, or more formally An Act for the Encouragement of
Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Author's [sic] or
Purchasers of Such Copies 8 Anne, c. 19 (1709), often thought of as
the first modern copyright law.
- Lots
of historical documents about U.S. copyright law from the book
The Founders' Constitution. Two of the links above are into this
site.
- Some earlier documents and references are described in
a section of the Skala submission above.
- Earliest known copyright expansion attempt: the
Statement
of Yakval Enti, spokesman of the MPAA (Mnemonists, Praise-singers, and
Anthemists Association) to His Highness Hammurabi, King of Sumeria
- Support for the claim that all new media are first used for pornography:
Sumerian
"religious" literature from the dawn of written language
- Supreme
Court decision in Harvard College v. Canada - patenting of higher
life forms (5 December 2002)
- Ontario
Privacy Commissioner's Report on DRM (7 October 2002)
- Ross Anderson's
TCPA/Palladium
FAQ
- "My
list" - an index to the govt.-posted submission documents, filtered
based on similarity to the EFF form letter and labelled as to length.
Intended to be useful if you're trying to read all of the hundreds of
submissions. Also, my (Matthew Skala's) working notes on others'
submissions used while writing my response submissions. This will
eventually be cleaned up and posted on ansuz.sooke.bc.ca; it's at
edifyingfellowship.org for the moment for convenience in updating.
- The Edifying Fellowship
of Ook, which made a submission of its own linked off that page in
various formats.
- Canada DMCA Opponents at
flora.org; a mailing list and a list of links.
- World Cultural Intelligence
Network, with its own view on copyright issues.
Comments
Copyright © 2001-2003
Matthew Skala
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