Digital Copyright Canada

The ninth meeting of the C-11 special legislative committee was held on March 7, 2012.

They say laws are like sausages, and you should never watch either one being made. This last day of witnesses before committee moves to clause-by-clause consideration on Monday was likely the oddest day so far, but still very interesting to watch.

The eighth meeting of the C-11 special legislative committee was held on March 6, 2012.

The first panel offered similar themes from the Canadian Music Publishers Association (CMPA), the Audio-Visual Licensing Agency Inc (AVLA), and the Société professionnelle des auteurs et des compositeurs du Québec (SPACQ).

CMPA started with the familiar argument on ephemeral recordings, going further to claim that Berne says you can't revoke a right that is currently being monetized.

As a reminder, the first meeting minutes has the details, with length of witnesses and clause-by-clause set at that meeting.

Mike Lake moved, — That the Committee begin clause-by-clause consideration of the bill no later than Wednesday, March 14, 2012; that debate be limited to a maximum of five (5) minutes per party, per clause, and five (5) minutes per party per amendment; and that if clause-by-clause consideration is not completed by 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, March 29, 2012, the Chair shall interrupt debate and put the question on all remaining clauses and amendments, as well as all other questions necessary to dispose of this stage of the bill forthwith and successively without further debate and shall report the bill back to the House at the earliest opportunity.

The "no later" than next Wednesday may be an earlier date, but I'll write on that as I find out. In any case, we have a maxim of 4 more days of witnesses.

I want to point people to a great post by lawyer Howard Knopf discussing an issue that has come up the last few days at committee. There are people who don't like that the Supreme Court of Canada 6-factor test from the CCH case doesn't prioritize the factors and place the effect of the dealing on the market as the primary (or possibly only) factor. Mr. Knopf deals with what the case actually says, and corrects some misinformation given about the situation in the United States.

Apologies that my post on todays meeting will be late. After committee this morning I met with Kennedy Stewart (NDP MP from Burnaby—Douglas) to discuss Bill C-11 and petitions, then a regular work day.

I then headed to Carleton University to a meeting with technology students, professors, Liberal MP Hon. Geoff Regan (Halifax West, on the C-11 committee), Liberal Senator Hon. Wilfred P. Moore, CIPPIC staff lawyer Tamir Israel and myself.

I was interviewed by Jesse Brown for TVO Search Engine on Friday, and the MP3 of that interview is now available.

Note: Apologies for the sound quality at my end. I was at my workplace and we ended up using the microphone built into my tablet, which offered better sound than the external mic I use with my phone. Seems I need to buy a better microphone if I plan use VOIP on this tablet in the future.

The seventh meeting of the C-11 special legislative committee was held on March 5, 2012.

Most of the discussion seemed very familiar, with the interactions from MPs matching what I wrote on the weekend as the theme that has emerged from committee. Near the end of the day we heard Mr. Lake going into details of what the bill actually says, suggesting (quite correctly in my mind) that many of the fears that some of the witnesses have about the copyright bill are simply not reflected in the bill.

I don't always agree with Eric S. Raymond, but believe his open letter to Chris Dodd is right on the mark.

In my words: The technology community has drawn lines in the sand. Your right to protect your copyright ends at our computers and our Internet. We will help if you want to create an honest way to make a living that doesn't cross those lines, but if you want to attack what we consider to be fundamental rights we will defend ourselves and those rights from people we consider to be "liars and thieves".

I have noticed a theme emerging at the C-11 committee.  Copyright law impacts other areas of policy, including cultural policy and with the type of Paracopyright policy in C-11 we see impacts on property, contract, eComerce and other areas of (primarily provincial) law.

While the governing Conservatives have the copyright policy right, they have the non-copyright policy wrong.  The official opposition NDP have the non-copyright policy right, but have the copyright policy wrong.   The lonely Liberal is just doing what he can to get a question or comment in from time to time.

While not related to Copyright, I wanted to mention bill C-304 which I have been following.

Among other things, it repeals section 13 of of the Canadian Human Rights Act, something I am strongly in favor of.