Archived - Lambert, Tyson

Dir Sirs,

As a consumer Canada's current copyright laws protect me from expensive litigation and settlements with content distributors. It is important to continue to protect the consumer from the actions of content distributors who wish to make an example in order to deter other consumers from copying digital content. By observing our neighbors to the south we have seen that this does not serve as an effective deterrent and only serves to financially ruin a handful of consumers.

As a content creator I do, however, see a need to ensure there is some incentive for a creators to do their work. We must often invest time and money to create our work and, without a reward, we may not do so, or may only be able to do so on a scale smaller than otherwise possible. Therefore it is also necessary to provide the creator of a work with some reasonable potential for financial reward.

What we must avoid is creating legislation that protects only the distributor of creative works. Record labels were created out of necessity. They were created in a time when large organizations were required in order to record music with prohibitively expensive equipment. They would then print recordings with specialized manufacturing equipment, on a variety of mediums, and distribute them. The process is so expensive that royalties, earned by artists, often never cover the expense leaving them unrewarded for their work (the recording company pays itself first).

Increasingly we are seeing artists and creators distributing their work directly to consumers over the internet. This is a healthy business model and copyright reform should serve both the creator and consumer in this exchange. We must be cautious not to allow distributors to shape this area of copyright law because they are not involved.

In the digital age distribution can occur with far less effort and investment. Copyright reform must ensure that the portion of the profits earned by distribution companies reflects this change. It must also ensure that the creator of the content is sufficiently rewarded to encourage artists to make the investments and take the risks that create great work. Finally it must protect the consumer from unmanageable financial hardship.

Finally, You may decide that copying copyrighted artwork, without rewarding the creator, is a crime. Lets put it in it's place, though, among other crimes and give it a penalty representative of that. To me it seems like the penalty should be less than, for example, a serious traffic offense. My rationale is that nobody's life is put in danger when a copyright is violated.

Thank you,

–Tyson Lambert,
Software Creator,
British Columbia