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No doubt by now the submissions you have received are blurring together.

For the sake of brevity, I'll add my full support to the previous submissions of professor Michael Geist (http://speakoutoncopyright.ca/copyright-consultation-my-submission), VisibleGovernment.ca (http://visiblegovernment.ca/blog/2009/09/11/how-crown-copyright-hurts-canadians/), and Cory Doctorow (http://craphound.com/CanadianCopyrightConsultation.html).

All three submissions address the issues involved more elegantly than I ever could.

However, I will indulge and provide a personal perspective on the issue of Crown copyright.

As a citizen I want to see a more open and transparent government. The submission from VisibleGovernment.ca addresses the challenges that Crown copyrights poses in making this type of government a reality.

I am also a federal public servant and graduate researcher in information security.

A lot of my research uses open source tools. During the course of my research, I make changes, fix bugs, and expand these tools. These modifications would be of value to the community that has been built around these tools.

Crown copyright makes it extremely difficult for me to share these advances. The principle of open source software only works when people contribute to the software.

This issue is becoming more and more common in the public service. Our new CIO is pushing for more open source solutions (for a variety reasons out of scope here). Crown copyright is a major roadblock to Canada becoming an active member of this community.

I believe that Crown copyright is an outdated concept. The work done by the Canadian public service is paid for by all Canadians, we should all have the right to access that work without encumbrance.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Mark Nunnikhoven