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COPYRIGHT REFORM PROCESS
SUBMISSIONS RECEIVED REGARDING THE CONSULTATION PAPERS
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Submission from Dave Smith received on July 29, 2001 3:01 PM via e-mail
Subject: Comments - Government of Canada Copyright Reform
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While some of the extensions to Canadian copyright law under consideration may be worthy of implementation, there are serious dangers to Canadian democracy and to our future economic competitiveness in the more extreme measures proposed.
You are considering laws that would:
1) set out a new exclusive right in favour of copyright owners, including performers and record producers, to make their works available on-line to the public;
2) prevent the circumvention of technologies used to protect copyright material; and,
3) prohibit tampering with rights management information.
Item one may be workable, but items two and three would not be, as events in the United States have shown.
The adoption of a US DMCA-style copyright law would not only destroy the fair use rights of Canadians, but also seriously infringe upon our basic freedoms of expression and scientific inquiry. In the United States, as noted by US Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), "It is a crime to circumvent a password or other gateway even for the purpose of exercising fair use rights." There is no need for criminal intent.
The current US imprisonment of Russian Ph.D. student Dmitry Sklyarov should serve as a cautionary note to Canada. He has been held so far for two weeks without bail for publicising the results of his very useful research into the security of Adobe's PDF products. Already, vitally important researchers such as Linux kernel coder Alan Cox have decided to cease visiting the US. Future conferences on the increasingly crucial subject of computer security will have to be held in "the free world"--outside the US.
The United States may be able to afford such damage to its international credibility; Canada, as a much less powerful nation, surely cannot. We would risk losing both academic and independent researchers to other countries if we attempted to implement such excessive restrictions.
When corporate lobbyists are invited to control the drafting of legislation for the sake of their short-term profits, both our freedom and long-term prosperity are at risk. Extensions of copyright law must be kept in check, with an eye to protecting fair use rights and freedom of expression.
Sincerely,
Dave Smith
(e-mail address removed)
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