ARCHIVED — Gordon Melvin
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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 Gordon Melvin received on September 8, 2001 via e-mail
Subject: Intellectual Property Provisions of the Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues (CPCDI)
Comments - Government of Canada Copyright Reformc/o Intellectual Property Policy Directorate
Industry Canada
235 Queen Street
5th Floor West
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0H5
fax: (613) 941-8151
copyright-droitdauteur@ic.gc.ca
Dear Industry Canada, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Intellectual Property Policy Directorate and other concerned agencies,
Subject: Intellectual Property Provisions of the Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues (CPCDI)
I am writing to express my concerns regarding the subject stated above on internet and digital copyright issues.
The intellectual property provisions of the CPCDI, based on the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which was signed into law Oct. 28, 1998, give far too much power to publishers, at the expense of individuals' rights. The DMCA itself is already under legal challenge in the United States (Dr. Felton vs. RIAA - http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/Felten_v_RIAA/20010606_eff_complaint.html), has gravely chilled scientists' and computer security researchers' freedom of expression around the world for fear of being prosecuted in the United States (see materials regarding Dr. Felton and the SDMI), and resulted in the arrest of a Russian programmer (Dmitry Sklyarov - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010828/aponline205227_000.ht m). 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 absolutely necessary to exercise lawful uses, including fair use, reverse engineering, computer security research and many others.
I strongly urge you to remove these controversial and anti-freedom provisions from the CPDCI. Stated simply, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is an international failure. Its flaws should not be imported into Canada and forced onto its citizens.
Sincerely,
Gordon Melvin
(address removed)
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