The following to the MP was carbon-copied to Simon Doyle of the Hill Times.
Dear Susan Kadis,
Liberal critic for science and technology,
I read your policy brief article in this weeks Hill Times.
My own interest is in the support of what is often called Commons-Based Peer Production (See: http://flora.ca/floss ), such as can be seen with Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS). Rather than treating knowledge as if it were similar to tangibles which have a marginal cost, we harness the ways in which knowledge is different in order to enable wider collaboration. We charge fixed costs for knowledge development, rather than marginal costs, and license our knowledge in ways that allow others to "stand on the shoulders of giants" without additional permission or payment.
I am wondering what your thoughts are on this modern way of producing, distributing and funding knowledge? Would you support policies which would help promote these methods, as well as oppose policies which disallow or disadvantage this option to innovators?
In the same issue of the Hill Times, Simon Doyle tried to do an interview of Minister Bernier. Unfortunately all he received was an email interview with departmental staff who didn't bother to answer 12 of his 19 questions.
I am very interested to hear your thoughts on some of the latter questions, such as the 2'nd last question about copyright. We need to modernize our copyright act to create a living Fair Use model where perfectly legitimate private activities relating to time, space and device shifting are clearly carved out of copyright law. Telus CEO Darren Entwistle said this a number of times in recent months, and I know of a large number of other groups that agree. (I have a transcript of a recent speech he gave which I can send you http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1499/125/).
Do you support Canada moving forward with this type of modernization which would clearly legalize activities which do not harm the legitimate interests of copyright holders, but which Canadians believe are or should be legal? Unfortunately the current direction is to make more activities infringing and make copyright law far harder to understand and obey.
This lack of clarity and excessive complexity of current law is harmful to innovation in Canada, and makes it harder for people to invest in new technology or modern methods of knowledge production.
I live and work in Ottawa, and can meet with you if you wish to discuss this area of policy. I would also like to get your permission to publish any reply to my WebLog at http://digital-copyright.ca/
Thank you.
Russell McOrmond
[some contact information removed for posting]
http://www.flora.ca/#contact
Note: I am the volunteer policy coordinator for CLUE: Canada's association for Open Source http://www.cluecan.ca/clue-people
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Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/
"The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or
portable media player from my cold dead hands!"