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.

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".

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 ...

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.

EFF commentary by Gwen Hinze discusses the counterfeit treaty ACTA.

The Internet provisions have nothing to do with addressing counterfeit products, but are all about imposing a set of copyright industry demands on the global Internet, including obligations on ISPs to adopt Three Strikes Internet disconnection policies, and a global expansion of DMCA-style TPM laws.

DMCA-style TPM laws are a direct attack on property rights, and 3-strikes laws are invalid given we already have statutory damages which is "one *PROVEN* strike" laws. 3-strikes is all about punishment without proof, where the punishment doesn't fit the crime (cutting off legs for jaywalking).

The mis-labeled Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (which itself is counterfeit, as politicians have been entirely dishonest about the origins and content of the treaty) has again had parts of its secret contents leaked. Some details are on Michael Geist's blog.

This Wednesday, October 7'th, there will be a book launch from 4:30 - 6:30 P.M. at the Parliament Pub, 101 SPARKS ST. (CASH BAR)

Brewster Kneen studied economics and theology, and is (or has been) a farmer, producer, author (Chapters search, Ram's Horn), and director for the Forum on Privatization and the Public Domain.

A Globe and Mail article discusses how federal Industry Minister Tony Clement has claimed that a temporary non-binding deal granting Canada's independent garages access to the proprietary software and tools to fix newer-model cars is sufficient to protect the right to repair. He is claiming that that Private Members bill C-273, the Right to Repair bill, is no longer necessary, suggesting that "intellectual property rights" need to be balanced against the rights of automobile owners. Sorry, but unless the automobile owner is manufacturing and distributing new automobiles, there are no legitimate "intellectual property rights" at question.

For a party that alleges to hold protecting property rights as a founding principle, they don't seem to be interested in protecting this right.

Georgia Straight has been publishing a series of op-eds on copyright. I authored an article on behalf of CLUE that took aim at the article by Danielle Parr from the Entertainment Software Association of Canada.