Digital Copyright Canada

Author, broadcaster, editor, journalist, musician, negotiator, singer, and MP Charlie Angus has released a letter to Heritage Minister James Moore discussing how the Minister has his facts wrong on Copyright.

It is great that we have an actual creator in parliament, able to speak on behalf of fellow creators, rather than too many parliamentarians that get confused by intermediaries falsely claiming to represent creators!

A tweet from lawyer Barry Sookman (who has also blocked me, BTW), referenced an article with Further Copyright talk. At the end the author, Todd, said:

So is circumventing a TPM (even for legal purposes) like going into a theatre without paying or taking a book from a bookstore without paying? Or is it like being able to photocopy the relevant sections of a book in a library? To me it seems more like the former than the later.

Yesterday I authored, printed, signed and sent through snail-mail a letter to Peter Van Loan, Minister of International Trade. It was in reply to a reply letter he had written me earlier on ACTA, the Orwellian double-speak named Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. In it I asked him to protect the global intellectual property system from this attack on existing institutions.

This morning I read that the European parliament passed a resolution calling on Canada to support moving ACTA to WIPO.

While a bit out-of-date a day later, I included my letter in an article on IT World Canada's blog.

There are now only 5 days left to make your voice heard on this critically important issue. In recent years two different governments tabled copyright bills: the Liberal Bill C-60 on June 20, 2005 and the Conservative Bill C-61 on June 12, 2008. (Note: Similar numbers only coincidence). When looking at these bills, both of which died on the order paper, you will notice that the majority of the bills dealt with ratifying two treaties Canada signed in 1996. We must look at these treaties to understanding what will likely form the bulk of the next copyright bill.

>>> Read full article on IT World Canada's blog.

As the headline suggests I've become skeptical of the wide reporting of Canada's involvement in trying to stop a WIPO treaty that would facilitate grater access for blind people to written material. I had read this many times, but when I heard Jesse Brown mention in the June 1'st episode of his podcast that he tried to get an interview with Bruce Couchman and that Bruce never got back to him. Since I have met Bruce many times I decided to send a letter to Bruce and to Jesse about this issue. While Bruce got back to me right away and has been sending multiple messages on this issue since, Jesse Brown hasn't yet acknowledged receipt of the material I have sent him. Bruce was unaware of an interview request, so there may be problems with Jesse's email/etc.

While I hope that a professional journalist like Jesse will cover this issue, I'll do my best to let people know what Bruce has been sending me. My hope is that Jesse will see this, carry out the interview which Bruce seems willing to offer if requested, and possibly set the record straight.

People in many countries reading an article by Nate Anderson in Ars Technica about radio vs netcasting may be confused by the statement that, "rightsholders have turned their eyes in recent years to commercial US radio, which currently pays songwriters (but not performers or record labels) for the tunes that power their business". In most countries all three music copyright holders (songwriters, performers and record labels) are paid for the broadcast of their music on radio. In fact, the requirement to remunerate performers and/or producers of the phonograms is article 12 of the Rome convention, a 1961 WIPO treaty that Canada acceded to in 1998.

United Nations Day was proclaimed in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly. It is held annually on 24 October, the anniversary of the coming into force of the UN Charter on 24 October 1945. 2008 is also the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

This makes tomorrow an ideal time to reflect on what many consider to be a misinterpretation of the UN UDHR that has lead to many of the technology policy debates today.

Read the rest of this entry »

There is an interesting trend with WIPO that is interesting to observe. A recent article by William New for Intellectual Property Watch talks about the WIPO Copyright Committee begins a new era with a revised agenda. The committee has not been able to get anywhere for about a decade (since the highly controversial treaties in 1996).

William New BLOGS on ip-watch.org about "The “historic” first day of the new World Intellectual Property Organization Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP)". Meetings Mar 3, 2008 to Mar 7, 2008 (Geneva, Switzerland).

A press release from Charlie Angus (Timmins James Bay) stated that the Conservative government should open a debate on the 1996 WIPO treaties before tabling implementing legislation. Given how much confusion there is both within Canada and worldwide about the meaning of key language in these treaties, this seems to be a critical first step.