Students from the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic have been attending the Heritage Committee's meetings and will be posting their notes on Lex Informatica, probably faster than the evidence goes onto the Parliamentary Web site. Here's the first set of notes, covering the October 23 meeting where the Committee heard from the Canadian Photographer's Coalition; the Canadian Library Assocaition; the Writers' Union of Canada, Periodical Writers Association of Canada, League of Canadian Poets and the Playwrights Guild of Canada; and DAMIC: Droit d'auteur multimedia internet copyright. [Notes from October 23 Heritage Committee meeting] (5 November 2003)
So, it's been twenty days since I last posted here. Sorry about the delay; combination of schoolwork and work on my submission to the Heritage Committee. I sent it in on the deadline (the 17th) and have heard nothing since. Unfortunately, I think that means they aren't planning to call me as a witness, at least not at this stage. Recent postings from Philippa Lawson to the Digital Copyright Canada mailing list (16 October, 24 October) suggest that they aren't really calling any public-interest kinds of witnesses at this stage, and that's unfortunate; but we can still hope that they'll call me, or at least some people representing positions similar to mine, in the more detailed hearings next year. [231 words...] (27 October 2003)
The October 7 and October 9 (linked above) meetings of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage featured Mr. Bruce Stockfish (Director General, Copyright Policy, Department of Canadian Heritage) and Ms. Susan Bincoletto (Director, Intellectual Property Policy, Department of Industry) giving introductory presentations on what the Departments want out of the copyright reform process. They were still very much talking in generalities at this point, but it's worth at least a skim. I was pleased that Ms. Bincoletto at least mentioned several of the points I consider most important, and in a way that indicates she's aware of some of the things I want her to be aware of. For instance, she said on TPM protection): [304 words...] (27 October 2003)
It took me a while to get this online, but here at last is the submission I sent in a week and a half ago, summarizing my position and trying to convince them that I'd be a good witness to call. The main link is to a PDF file; if you're suitably equipped you may also be interested in my LaTeX source and BIBTeX database. I generated the PDF using pdflatex and the url and hyperref packages, and was amazed at how well the results turned out (I hadn't used those packages in any serious way before). The margins are still a little screwed up, but the hypertext links are perfect. It's good software. [Submission to the Heritage Committee] (27 October 2003)
This is it, folks - the Heritage Committee has announced that it'll be studying copyright reform, and is calling for those interested in testifying or submitting briefs, to send in summaries. Deadline for the summaries is September 15. This is the next cumulative step in the copyright reform process; see my DMCA de Canada page for lots more resources, and this Web log for information that hasn't made it onto that page yet. [Heritage Committee to conduct study on copyright] (19 June 2003)
Sorry about the delay posting this - it actually came out about a week ago, but there are a lot of things demanding my attention at the moment. Anyway, this is the second part of the Heritage Canada DRM/TPM study (first part came out in April) by Dr. Ian Kerr, Alana Maurushat, and Christian S. Tacit; 73 pages of detailed legal analysis and recommended reading for us in the copyright trenches. [Canadian Heritage study on Technological Protection Measures: part II] (16 June 2003)
![[Ad box removed; this image serves to flag pages that need to be updated in my log file.]](/i/boxremoved.png)
![[OPML file]](/i/opml.png){kind=small}
![[RSS syndication file]](/i/rss.png){kind=small}