Digital Copyright Canada

Defective By Design have created flyers about ebooks.

They've really nailed the issue with DRM :

You Buy a Lock,
But You Don't
Own the Key!

I enjoyed this article by David Pogue in the New York Times. It gives some great examples of the shades of grey in copyright law and the mismatch between what's legal and what's morally ok, plus a fascinating (and suprising, to me) illustration of how what's morally ok in this area varies with age.

I'm left wondering if my attitudes in this area are like some earlier generations' attitudes to homosexualty or even earlier generations' attitudes to race.

An article in Wired magazine gives some info on Radiohead's "pay what you like" experiment.

It turns out the gambit was a savvy business move. In the first month, according to comScore, more than a million fans downloaded In Rainbows. Roughly 40 percent of them paid for it, at an average of $6 each, netting the band nearly $3 million.

Well worth a read.

Mainstream media have definitely picked up on this as an issue worthy of coverage. We've seen plenty of articles in newspapers, debates on TV and radio, etc.

And I've never had as many phone calls saying that my letter to the editor is being considered for publication.

In the hopes that others will also send letters to the editor, here's my recipe :
- So far, I've always written in response to an article. I don't think this is essential, but I find that it makes it easier for me to write a focussed letter.

According to an article in the Globe and Mail, at least one MP believes that the Copyright Act should cover health and safety issues :

Liberal MP Dan McTeague, meanwhile, says the government has not done some of the things that could have made a difference for consumers - like introducing a copyright act that would have targeted such products as the counterfeit toothpaste that was found to contain bacteria.

William Patry's blog is a great read. He spent 25 years as a copyright lawyer in the US (6 of those representing copyright holders), and also worked at the US Copyright Office.

This posting (Via Archive.org) is a great complement to Russell's "copyright as water" analogy.

William Patry has a great blog post (Via Archive.org) about why every change to copyright grants more rights to rightsholders. It gives some good detail on some of the spin used by the intermediaries in copyright discussion.

I particular like this bit :

It is and has long been an open secret that the paeans to authors paid by those who buy rights are phony; this has been the case since 1709, when book publishers, rebuffed in their efforts to extend monopolistic licensing laws benefiting solely themselves, put authors out in front as lobbying puppets.

Yes, the intermediaries have been claiming that what they want is really for creators' benefit for nearly 200 years now !

Michale Geist reports rumours that we'll see the bill tomorrow.

A reply from PWAC to my letter and Richard Stallman on "DRM".

CBC's Search Engine is trying to give Canadians a last chance to ask the minister questions before the Bill is tabled.

Submit your questions here.