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.

According to an article in the Hill Times by Harris Macleod, the Conservative government intends to reintroduce Bill C-6, on consumer product safety, in its original form. Bill C-6 was supported by the opposition parties in a form that eroded property rights and gave too much power to bureaucrats without judicial oversight. This was amended by the Senate to make less bad, but these amendments would be wiped out by the ongoing procedural games from the Conservatives. (See earlier article)

Government House Leader Jay Hill (Prince George-Peace River, B.C.) said of this bill and Bill C-15, "On those two in particular I would be seeking unanimity to proceed with them at an accelerated rate".

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.

I have been asked a few times what the impact on copyright is of the current political turmoil. The general feeling is that even before the current situation, the economic crisis would already have pushed issues like copyright to the back burner of any party. It has been stated by much better political observers than I am that, even while mentioned in the recent throne speech and in the Conservative party platform, that copyright won't show up any time soon.

The Conservative party has released their platform. Various online forums are filled with people who might otherwise vote Conservative, but that are not doing so based on technology law which was tabled in the last parliament and promised to be re-introduced by a re-elected Conservative Government. What I find interesting is that more conservatives are starting to recognize that with this policy the Conservative party is either abandoning some of their founding principles, or admitting that they don't understand a bill they have tabled.

Read the rest of this entry on IT World Canada »

Michael Geist was the first to write that the Conservative Party has released its platform and it devotes a half-page to copyright that leaves little doubt that it plans to bring back Bill C-61 and continue to support ACTA.

See also: CBC, ZDNet

It is interesting to see an article from the Department of Culture, a spoof hosted by artists opposed to various cuts to arts funding, talking about the various artist groups that disagree with the Conservative party on cultural policy.

While I personally disagree with the "anyone but" way of voting, I find the AnythingButConservative.ca website to be interesting as it was launched on September 15 by Danny Williams, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador and Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador.

I know that I'm the first to remind anyone I'm speaking to that the Progressive Conservative party is different than the current Conservative party with PC organizers and supporters splintering between leaving politics, joining the Liberals, joining the Greens (where they get their recent strength) and joining (not merging with) the Conservatives. That said, I'm surprised to see such a vocal opposition to the Conservatives from a Progressive Conservative.

Along with this PDF I received the following note:

The author of this literary and artistic work exercises his or her moral right to remain anonymous! ;)

It's a riff off the old Reform Party/anti-gun-control campaign from 1996, "Remember Bill C-68 When You Vote"

The irony is not lost on me. Bill C-68: An Act respecting firearms and other weapons created a registry that was an IT boondoggle, but for a true property-rights protecting conservative should be considered a minor issue compared to Bill C-61.

Thanks to Michael Geist, I was pointed to an issue where the Conservatives are being asked to take down (friendly request to avoid litigation, not part of a notice-and-take down request which doesn't apply to Canada) potentially infringing clips. See The Agenda and a note on Kady O’Malley blog.

Note: Some Conservative partisans want to bring up the Green Shift naming issue as a comparison. Sorry folks, but from what I could tell there was no trademark issue, just bad communications skills on the part of some inconsiderate Liberal employees. There is no way to compare these two issues -- one where a political party is likely infringing a law which they have treated as a "law and order" / "tough on crime" issue and made more complex, more unrelated issues into infringements, and increased potential statutory damages.

I think all the partisans out there need to get past just blindly rooting for their party and do a bit of research into the important issues at stake in technology law.