By having clear, readable copyright laws, one fosters an understanding on limits. Having fair limitations that err more to the side of content creators, and being able to use material for fair use, fosters creativity and innovation. This brings talent to Canada, as artists will have the freedom to create and express themselves.

There should be 3 seperate ways which creative works should be legally utilized. Commercial usage (For Profit), Public or Creative use (Not for profit) and Private use (Not for Profit or public display). This distinction is really quite simple.

Commercial usage: If money changes hands, or the user receives money through advertisements, etc… a license needs to be obtained.

Public/creative use would be where a person will be using a work publicly, such as Youth groups having a free movie night, or for usage by non-profit groups and charities. Purchase of license should be required. The creative part of this classification would also cover mashup artists, and musicians who distribute their music for free (Hobbyist musicians). credit to Original content providers would need to be required, and special license must be granted if an agreement for bypassing the limitations of the law is used (ie: if a legal sample has a time limit, but special rights were granted to allow more than the legal sample size).

Personal use is exactly that - Personal. Anyone can do whatever they want so long as they don't make it public. File sharing should be included here, because there is no money changing hands. If an unlicensed work is performed in public, that is the violation of copyright. No public displays of the work.

This will allow content consumers to have free reign in their personal business, as any law that would prevent a private user from copying files in this day and age, would be unenforceable.

This will also allow content creators to receive royalty off the public use of their music. By requiring public broadcast to pay for such fees, combined with a blank media levy 9fairly distributed unlike it is now) to compensate for personal use, One would create a progressive environment where we could lure the most creative artists and feed our economy with Canadian talent.

Do we really want to setup and protect a digital media monopoly that will stifle innovation and create a society of fear in Canada? I know we don't but that is exactly what media syndicates want (namely music and movie industries), and they keep including it on their yearly agendas for their lobbyists. They want to setup an absolute monopoly with great power and control. They want to control our access to information so they can tailor any information distribution channel to their choosing and set any price, as extraordinary as it may be. And on top of it, they want us, the tax payers, to pay for the protection of this monopoly.

Monopolies stifle competition, discourage investment, and are a great obstacle to innovation and progress. We have outlawed monopolies in many different industries but monopoly in this area for some reason we tolerate, and through this copyright reform, we may give it even more rights.

News Corp announced last week that it will charge fees for all its news websites. It is getting out of the free information business. Rupert Murdoch predicted that all major media would shortly follow suit. I agree.

The next day, the Financial Times announced a similar policy.

Free, ad-supported content does not generate revenues over costs and will therefore shut down.

Canada should be leading the way in strengthening copyright protections for online content. This will make Canada attractive to cultural industries.

For example, Vancouver is emerging an a global cluster of innovation and excellence in New Media. This emergence in undermined by Canada's weak anti-piracy legislation.

Iron-clad copyright legislation in Canada will drive investment and innovation in our country.