ARCHIVED — Batz

COPYRIGHT REFORM PROCESS

SUBMISSIONS RECEIVED REGARDING THE CONSULTATION PAPERS

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Documents received have been posted in the official language in which they were submitted. All are posted as received by the departments, however all address information has been removed.

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Submission from Batz Batsy received on July 31, 2001 2:06 PM via e-mail

Subject: Copyright reform

First, I would recommend going through your proposals and drafted legislation and ascertain whether they still make sense if the phrases "stakeholder", "consumer", and "copyright holders" are replaced with the words "the public" or "people".

Regarding the section entitled "Database Protection" in the document "A Framework for Copyright Reform" which reads as follows:

"The issue is therefore whether non-original databases should be protected under the Copyright Act and, if so, what form that protection should take. Also at issue is whether such databases ought to be protected under traditional copyright principles or according to other principles. "

The stakeholders must recognize that this will allow them to apply for copyright almost arbitrarily for any data that they compile into a "database" and thus will be able to apply for copyright based upon "context". i.e a database which allows a user to compare stock prices to speed limits, could then become the exclusive property of whomever decided it was usefull to compare these two peices of information, regardless of the sources of the archive.

This may sound preposterous, but given the recent history of patent applications in the US for such things as "search engines" and "filesystems", this is not an unlikely scenario. For the sake of the public I hope this is dropped.

In the section of the same document entitled "Digital Issues" which reads"

"There are various emerging copyright issues that are related to the digital environment. These include: giving rights holders an exclusive right to make sound recordings available on an on- demand basis over digital networks; preventing the circumvention of technical measures aimed at limiting access to or reproduction of works; and prohibiting tampering with rights management systems that are normally used as identifiers of works."

This will not just apply to digitized content, but will also drastically inhibit legitimate scientific research. In the US, the DMCA has sections which prohibit the reverse engineering (or "tampering") of copyright controls. This can be a very serious safety hazard to consumers, in that, these sort of laws prohibit the consumer from independantly evaluating the safety and functionality claims of the vendor. This will also inhibit scientific inquiry into the claims of say, a pharmacutical manfucaturer, an auto maker, or a software vendor, by disallowing all inquiry into the functioning of the product without the express permission of the "copyright holder".

The doument further reads:

"Another important issue relates to the circumstances under which Internet service providers should be held liable for the transmission and storage of copyright material when their facilities are involved. The Act does not clearly identify the conditions for imposing liability, nor does it explicitly ascribe any limitation to such liability. "

By putting the onus on the ISP, you are asking a service provider to act as a tool of the copyright holder, as opposed to its customer. Currently most ISP's refer any legal requests to the customer who is allegedly violating the plaintiffs copyright. Under these new proposals, the ISP would then take the position of a judge, and remove the content in question, without any legal inquiry into the plaintiffs request.

This is absurd. This allows for frivolous threats by copyright holders to discourage open and free discussion, which may or may not affect the reputation or intended brand attributes of the "product" in question.

This sort of legislation is not about reinforcing existing property rights, but rediefining property in the interests of a few "stakeholders".

This proposal for legistlation doesn't reinforce existing property rights, it creates new and broadly defined "thought crimes", which are enforced arbitrarily by this new class of "copyright holders", against those who would undermine the value of these alleged "assets" though legitimate scientific inquiry or other criticism.

This legislation further slants the governance of the Internet in favour of a few corporate interests, and though its privatisation, creates a police state of "copyright" laws, and private enforcement agencies. As the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, particularly the right of a free press, free expression and freedom of association doesn't apply on private property, and the Internet being a privately owned service, I guess the only rights you have online are the ones you get when you incorporate, or worse, the ones you pay for.

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batz
Reluctant Ninja
Defective Technologies

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