ARCHIVED — Zaritsky
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Copyright Reform Process
SUBMISSIONS RECEIVED REGARDING THE CONSULTATION PAPERS
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Submission from Marc Zaritsky received on September 8, 2001 via e-mail
Subject: Comments - Government of Canada Copyright Reform
September 5, 2001
Comments - Government of Canada Copyright Reform
c/o Intellectual Property Policy Directorate
Industry Canada
235 Queen Street
5th Floor West
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0H5
Attention: Industry Canada, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Intellectual Property Policy Directorate and other involved parties.
I am writing to express my grave concerns regarding the anti-consumer, pro-corporatism, “over-the-top” intellectual property provisions of the Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues (CPCDI). Based on the severely flawed US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), these measures give far too much power to publishers and copyright holders, not only at the expense of individuals’ rights, but at the expense of Canadian sovereignty itself.
The DMCA (already under legal challenge in the US) has proven to have a demonstrably negative impact on economic growth and prosperity; gravely chilling scientists and computer security researchers freedom of expression around the world for fear of being prosecuted should they ever venture into US territory. It has also resulted in the unlawful arrest of a Russian programmer in an extra-territorial application of American law. The CPDCI provisions, which serve no one but (largely American) corporate copyright interests, are just as overbroad as those of the DMCA.
These provisions would amend the Canadian Copyright Act to ban, with few or no exceptions, software and other tools that allow copy prevention technologies to be bypassed. This would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantee of freedom of speech, and similar guarantees in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, since such tools are necessary to exercise lawful uses, including fair use, reverse engineering, computer security research and many others.
I urge you to remove these controversial anti-freedom/anti-consumer provisions from the CPDCI language. The DMCA is already an international debacle; we should not be importing and forcing it on Canadians.
Sincerely,
Marc Zaritsky
(Address removed)
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