Protect and Enhance Digital Freedoms for Education

In order to foster education, fair dealing should be expanded so that teachers and students can make effective use of any materials which can be used for learning. This should include the free integration of copyrighted works into course materials, for presentation in the classroom and distribution to students anywhere in the country.

Fair dealing should explicilty preserve the freedom of Canadians to:

• Remove digital restrictions (i.e. Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology, or Technical Protection Measures (TPMs)) which restrict a work from being useable as a learning object
• Take apart, modify, and "reverse engineer" software or devices to explore their technological underpinnings, and/or in order to remove digital restrictions as mentioned above. This is so Canadians may:
  – learn about technology and how devices work (e.g. case study material)
  – discover how to create competitive products in the marketplace
  – modify the technology so that it can be used as a vehicle for learning

For example, a digital textbook may contain DRM technology so that it self–destructs after a window of time. The DRM, possibly in conjunction with copyright, may prevent educators from including the work in its course materials. The government should defend the freedom for students and educators to circumvent these arbitrary limitations.

This would greatly enhance the learning ability of Canadians. It would also save a tremendous amount of costs in our publicly–subsidized education system from funneling away to private interests (by way of licensing copyrighted works, duplication of public spending on the same work for multiple institutions, etc.)

Comments

R — 2010–06–02 22:42:26 EDT wrote

Thanks for describing some of what is wrong with C–32. We can only hope this can be fixed before it is made into law!

chcarrero — 2010–06–04 14:55:22 EDT wrote

This era kids can learn very fast in terms of technology. This is a great opportunity we have for them to be part of the education using digital economy. Schools and Universities should use more application that relays in Digital Economy ( Chat rooms, Video Conference, phone conferences, Digital TV; exchange experiences with other students in the other side of the world ) This is possible today. That could be am optional alternative of learning when hearing others experiences and sharing ours.