Last Friday I had the opportunity to speak with a lawyer that was trying to understand the differences between "access controls" and "use controls" in the context of technological measures used by copyright holders. Bill C-61, in the definition of "technological measure", makes a differentiation. In our discussions she observed that nearly every technological measure that controls the "use" of a copyrighted work restricts "access" to the work first. It was then asked if if was appropriate to differentiate between the two at all.
I'm a technical person, and while I love to talk to lawyers about technology law, I can't answer why lawyers want to make this distinction. All I can do is share my technical knowledge, and hope that the legal community will author and interpret laws that make sense.
C-61 gives a new right to control access to a work
One of the really scary things in C-61 is that if it passes then, by applying a TPM, rightsholders can legally control who can access a work.
Public Libraries were created so that people without enough money to buy books could still partake of our shared culture.
I just hope that TPMs don't get to the point where they are able to say "only women (or caucasians, or Muslims, or hetereosexuals) are allowed to read this book", because C-61 would give that restriction the force of law.
TPM discrimination basis
TPMs may not yet restrict based on gender, race, religion or sexual orientation, but they already restrict based on economic and political beliefs.
I am someone who subscribes to the Lessig "Code is law" philosophy. I think of computer science as similar to political science (process of creating rules computers obey, process of creating rules which humans obey), and not a branch of engineering or other natural sciences.
I believe that peer production of software is far better for the economy as a whole (economic beliefs), and I believe that software rules should have the same level (or better) of accountability and transparency as the political rules which govern us.
The vast majority of TPMs first restrict what brands of hardware/software people are allowed to use if they access DRM infected content, with that hardware/software then being locked down to disallow the accountability and transparency I believe all software rules should have.
Some people say that I have enough choices of devices and software to access DRM encoded multimedia content. In my mind this is no different than telling me in politics that I'm allowed to vote for anyone I want, as long as they are members of the Communist Party.
The general public doesn't yet spend the time to think about the roll of software in our lives, and are apathetic even worse than they are with politics where a decreasing number of people are engaged. We haven't yet outlawed political parties other than "The Party" yet in Canada, but given the rhetoric I hear from the proponents of C-61 I don't know how far off that will be.
Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) consultant.