Archived - C.L., Guillaume

As a software developer and recent student, Canada's copyright laws are on the forefront of my mind. My job and livelihood is affected by the copyright laws in Canada, and as a student, I had to deal with those issues every day. The major issue I have, is with fair use. Fair use has not been modernized in any way. The problem lies in that the way we use media has changed. No longer do we get second-rate copies of tapes from a friend-of-a-friend, but we can buy individual songs, for a fairly cheap price, and in theory, play them anywhere. Now, I say in theory, because the current draconian copyright laws allow any company to issue unfair rights on any media buyer. No longer am I buying a song to listen to, but I am leasing the rights to listen to a certain format of a song on certain devices. Clearly, this isn't right, I shouldn't have my rights to listen to a song revoked at some point just because a company decides to. This is the equivalent of the company breaking into your house and stealing your DRMs, tapes, LPs, etc.

The question is, how can this be resolved, well, I've got a few suggestions.

1. Redefine fair use to apply to digital media, allowing us to make back ups for personal use, being able to use the content anywhere at any time without remote activation, and to allow conversion to other formats.
2. Protect users rights to exercise fair use of content. For example, by allowing fair use rights to superceed the terms of a contract.
3. Continue to allow people to develop and use circumvention devices and technology to allow users to exercise their fair use rights.

If you think this will lead to rampant piracy, this is just flat out wrong. There have been numerous studies to show that DRM and anti-circumention technologies do nothing to inhibit piracy. If anything, these technologies will make it harder for honest people to use the content they have paid for (see the game Spore for example). The fact of the matter is, that DRM is only going to cause problem for honest people, if someone is pirating, then they will remove the DRM, there are no exceptions.

Lastly, I'd like to mention the copyright town halls, the fact that the record and movie industries thought it best to "stack the deck" by filling the room with as many people under their control as possible shows that they really don't want the laws to change in any way but their favour. Clearly, interfering with a public discussion just goes to show that they do not have consumers' best interests in mind. The companies are not there to make customers happy, they are there to make a profit, anyone believing otherwise is simply deluding themselves and others.

I'd like to close this suggestion with a quote from a Canadian game developer that summarizes my feelings about this matter, "Most players don't want to rip-off game developers. The least we can do is extend them the same courtesy."

—Guillaume C.L.—