P.S.

About copyright agenda in Canada

This copyright consultation is a good thing, I hope, but there are at least two shady initiatives by the Canadian government underway, and it is particularly troubling.

First, the Minister of Industry is overseeing the new initiative behind the scenes during this public consultation on copyright, which will then likely be passed as The Answer, without being one. This new initiative does not try to understand why there is so little respect for copyright and does not try to address the causes. Consumer is not in the equation of this initiative, neither are the alternative licensing methods like Creative Commons. As a future parent, I am concerned about this "brainwashing" in schools, and other Canadian parents should be concerned too (just look here: Taxes in Québec).

Second, there are Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations. It is not transparent enough, nearly everything we know is from leaks on Wikileaks.org, and what we know that it is about trade, and about protecting business models of big corporations and not about dealing with counterfeit product: countries that are the biggest sources of counterfeit are not on the negotiation table. The biggest problem here is that history repeats itself. Our elected politicians force Canada into international negotiations and sign treaties that they did not have authority to sign: WIPO treaties and ACTA have far-reaching consequences for Canadians yet they were not consulted on WIPO treaties, and neither on ACTA. Dear politicians, if money talks more than the votes, maybe you can answer us how much we Canadians need to pay you so that you leave your office and this country for good? ( http://voice.liberal.ca/pages/14699-on-probation/suggestions/153975-how-much-we-need-to-pay-you-so-that-you-leave-the-country-?ref=title )

Finally, Toronto town hall has been taken over by corporations. Only gangs of lawyers and accountants were dominating the discussion and even creators did not have time to speak: great creators usually do not blog (unless it is their specialty), they are busy creating, many of them are touring in the summer, and they do not have time. This is why one of the things that should be done is extending the consultation into the fall to let creators who came back from touring speak too. And Toronto should get another copyright town hall or two in compensation for the botched "industry town hall that did not invite the town".

Consumer confidence is necessary for strong digital economy. Digital restriction management consumer control, tivoization of devices (only approved software can run on a device), walled garden ecosystems (Apple App Store for iPhone), mobile phone locking and mobile price gouging, Internet throttling are hitting hard on Canada's digital economy, making Canada an outsider rather than a leader. These practices are anticompetitive, not all of them are related to copyright though copyright is often abused to enforce these practices. If the law is changed to minimize copyright abuse, this would increase consumer confidence and make Canada's digital economy stronger.