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COPYRIGHT REFORM PROCESS
SUBMISSIONS RECEIVED REGARDING THE CONSULTATION PAPERS
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.
Submission from Andrew Gorman received on September 8, 2001 1:13 PM via e-mail
Subject: Canadian copyright reform
To Industry Canada, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Intellectual Property Policy Directorate and other concerned agencies:
Dear Sir or Madame:
I am writing to you because I recently discovered that Canada is considering implementing a law similar to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the United States. I understand that this is found I in the intellectual property provisions of the Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues (CPCDI).
As a citizen as and as a programmer, I am very much opposed to the implementation of anything resembling the DMCA in Canada.
My primary concern is that the DMCA does not allow for fair use, it simply makes any decryption of encrypted material illegal. This effectively makes various forms of legal fair use illegal. For example, I am an avid DVD collector, but the DMCA makes it illegal for me to view my DVD on my computer using software that I have written or that has been written by other programmers that is not specifically authorized by the Motion Picture Association of America. Furthermore I am not allowed to reverse engineer any software for any purpose. This effectively hobbles me in any attempt to test the security of any piece of software.
Similar provisions in the CPCDI would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and would remove my tools as a programmer to exercise fair use, test computer security and transfer digital copyrighted material to new mediums, rather than purchasing new copies of the same material.
I strongly urge you to eliminate these oppressive provisions from the CPCDI language. Their only purpose can be to pander to American corporate interests at the expense of the rights and freedoms of Canadians.
Sincerely,
Andrew Gorman
[Address removed]
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