Digital Copyright Canada

From the Throne Speech delivered earlier today:

To encourage new ideas and protect the rights of Canadians whose research, development and artistic creativity contribute to Canada’s prosperity, our Government will also strengthen laws governing intellectual property and copyright.

This speech takes as an assumption the very thing politically debated and inadequately studied, which is the link between "stronger" Patent/Copyright law (stronger meaning tilted in favor of incumbent copyright holders) and the encouragement of new ideas, research, development and artistic creativity. The reality is that PCT is to creativity and innovation like water is to humans: too little and you dehydrate and die, too much and you drown and die. We are already drowning and the government has threatened in the throne speech to throw more water at us.

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I received the following response from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to my submission to the ACTA consultation.

I find it frustrating that they continue to try to misdirect critiques with a suggestion that it is premature to speculate about any specific measure. My critique is primarily based on the lack of disclosure as well as the merging of entirely unrelated areas of policy (Counterfeiting, "piracy"/de-minimus infringement, Internet/etc issues). These problems were only confirmed by the response, something that is definitely not reassuring.

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The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) tipped their hand a bit in this years submission to the “Special 301" report process. While they again attacked Canada for having strong copyright law that is different than the USA, the most telling was their opposition to policies encouraging legally free of charge Open Source in their submissions for Brazil, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Encouraging legally free software is by far the best policy instrument to reduce software copyright infringement for the less financially rich countries and individuals of the world. For the vast majority of the worlds population the only viable options are to infringe royalty-based software or switch to royalty-free alternatives. The fact the IIPA is encouraging countries to have policies which increase infringement rather than have people switch to competing software is telling about their actual goals.

This is consistent with what past Microsoft business group president Jeff Raikes previously stated, "If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else".

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In an article for The Mark I suggest that we shouldn't blame Google when music blogs are shut down, since it’s the major record labels that are to blame.

Leave it to the FSF to initiate the only coverage of the iPad that sees it as I see it. (See: The Register)

I received an email from the Defective by Design campaign that started:

"Today, Apple launched a computer that will never belong to its owner. Apple will use Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) to gain total veto power over the applications you use and the media you can view."

They then reference a petition. Not sure how useful a petition to Mr. Jobs that questions his entire business ethic could be, but it does make for a useful educational tool. If you are a Canadian and agree that the owners of technology should be the ones who hold the keys, and not a third party, then sign our Petition to protect Information Technology property rights which is tabled in parliament and can actually have influence.

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By now you will have read many articles derived from the statements made by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer at Google about China.

The primary issue that Google was bringing up was a simple and not politically hot one. Companies need to know that the government of countries they are trying to do business in will have laws and enforce them against those who attack the physical or virtual infrastructure of these businesses.

Many of the comments and articles about this incident suggested Google was trying to protect online free speech. I do not buy that argument in this case.

Read full article on IT World Canada's blog ...

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Charlie Angus has sent a letter to International Trade Minister Peter Van Loan challenging him to explain how ACTA will impact Canada's domestic copyright policy. Full text of letter is on Charlie's website.

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According to an article in the Hill Times by Harris Macleod, the Conservative government intends to reintroduce Bill C-6, on consumer product safety, in its original form. Bill C-6 was supported by the opposition parties in a form that eroded property rights and gave too much power to bureaucrats without judicial oversight. This was amended by the Senate to make less bad, but these amendments would be wiped out by the ongoing procedural games from the Conservatives. (See earlier article)

Government House Leader Jay Hill (Prince George-Peace River, B.C.) said of this bill and Bill C-15, "On those two in particular I would be seeking unanimity to proceed with them at an accelerated rate".

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The Prime Minister announced changes to the federal ministers. (CBC) The important thing for us is that the Ministers of Industry, Heritage are the same.

The Minister of International Trade is now Peter Van Loan, while the Minister of Foreign Affairs remains with Lawrence Cannon. It can be argued that these ministers, and not Industry or Heritage, actually have the primary responsibility for Copyright law given Copyright is primarily set in trade and treaty negotiations.

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Earlier this week I listened to (MP3) an interview of Margaret Atwood by Spartan Youth Radio reporter Madeline Lemire. I found I agreed with some of the views of Ms. Atwood. This surprised me because I was aware of some of her views on Copyright, and because of this I had become wilfully ignorant of her work. I did not want to financially support someone I felt was a political opponent.

Read full article on IT World Canada's blog >>

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I normally don't follow the Consumer Electronics Show, but this year is different. The way in which it is different for me is also part of the story of the show.

I've been watching coverage of the show via the live stream from This Week in Tech. As well as this, I have Rhythmbox (an Audio/Video tool that supports RSS) automatically downloading both the MP3 audio and the Video downloads for their TWiT Live @CES.

Full article on IT World Canada's blog >>>

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Liberal MP Marc Garneau (Westmount—Ville-Marie, critic for Industry, Science & Technology), has participated in a Q&A with SaveOutNet.ca. While the responses are interesting, I would like to compare with what would be said by Dan McTeague (Pickering—Scarborough East, critic for Consular Affairs, Consumer Affairs) who has expressed quite different opinions on digital strategy issues. I wouldn't be surprised to hear McTeague supporting both 3-strikes and the Google Tax.

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Interesting discussion is attached to this TechDirt article. This is not just a Canadian issue, but a global issue. It is also not just about automobiles, but about all forms of tangible property rights being eroded by intellectual monopoly laws.

A few media outlets are reporting on Irish rocker Bono's latest rantings. (See: CBC, New York Times, SlashDot). My SlashDot comment summarises my thinking on his views.

"Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime."

You forgot the real issue here, which is that Bono, Gates and similar pseudo-philanthropists are actively involved with making a variety of "teaching" (sharing of knowledge) expensive and/or illegal. This is the core of what Bono is ranting about this time, suggesting the world's governments should go as far as the human rights violations in China to (theoretically -- no proof of "benefit") grant him more money.

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I made a year end political donation of $600 to the campaign of author, broadcaster, editor, journalist, musician, negotiator, singer, and Timmins--James Bay MP Charlie Angus. Added to my earlier $500 donation this brings me to the maximum of $1100 that can be donated.

I believe if you read other articles on this site attached to the Timmins-James Bay riding you will understand why I am donating to Mr Angus, if you don't already know. Out of the 308 sitting MPs he is the one that has the most modern and advanced thinking on technology law and laws regulating and promoting creativity. I make this donation to Mr. Angus regardless of the party he is associated with, not because of the party.

Thank you Mr. Angus for the great work you do on behalf of Canadian creators, their fans/users, and all other information technology owners.

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Press release via pm.gc.ca: "Throne Speech on March 3 and a federal Budget on March 4."

Articles: CBC, CTV, Canwest Global.

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I posted the following as a comment to Michael Geist's blog. The context is Barry Sookman's ongoing claims that Canada is a "piracy haven", and that the reason is lax copyright laws.

The core of Sookman's message seemed to be that according to Torrent sites hosted in Canada, Canada has lax copyright laws. His "solution" is to change Canadian law.

But if you look at the source of the claim that Canadian law is lax, it is his clients. The legitimate solution would be for him and his clients to stop misleading people (ranging from politicians to torrent sites) about the state of Canadian law. If more Canadians believe that Canadian law is lax, then Mr Sookman and his clients are to blame -- not Canadian law.

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According to a Hearst Seattle Media blog article, Mike Landreville, an advisor in the Intellectual Property Office of Environment Canada sent a letter to German Internet Service Provider (ISP) Serveloft requesting that the sites "enviro-canada.ca" and "ec-gc.ca" be removed. Without any judicial oversight of any alleged infringement claim (not that I can think of any legitimate claim for these spoof/paridy sites), the ISP shut off the range of IP addresses that served those sites as well as 4,500 other Web sites that had nothing to do with the spoof.

Whatever you think of the prank/spoof, this is obviously over-reaching by a Environment Canada bureaucrat and incompetence on the part of an ISP who removes websites due to random requests. This might be another Hoax given the claims originated from the Yes Men, but this would not have been the first time an ISP shut down an IP address range without judicial oversight based on a letter from someone alleging to be a lawyer.

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The following is my submission to the ongoing consultation by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, on the so-called Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

Available in HTML, OpenDocument and PDF formats

An Ars Technica article by Nate Anderson includes:

As part of a comprehensive bilateral trade deal it's working out right now with Canada, the EU has asked for a host of intellectual property changes: Canada will need to extend its copyright terms by another two decades, will need to ban the circumvention of DRM, will need to adopt a "making available right," and must implement a "new resale" right giving creators a cut of the money every time their work is resold in the future.

Just an important reminder for those Canadian and European activists who mistakenly believe that the backward-facing pressure on Copyright all comes from the USA.

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