ARCHIVED — Andrew Jones
Archived Content
Information identified as archived on the Web is for reference, research or recordkeeping purposes. It has not been altered or updated after the date of archiving. Web pages that are archived on the Web are not subject to the Government of Canada Web Standards. As per the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada, you can request alternate formats on the "Contact Us" page.
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 Jones received on September 10, 2001 via e-mail
Subject: Canadian copyright reform
To Industry Canada, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Intellectual Property Policy Directorate and other concerned agencies:I am writing to express my concerns regarding the intellectual property provisions of the Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues (CPCDI).
These measures, based on the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), give far too much power to publishers, at the expense of individuals' rights.
The DMCA itself is already under legal challenge in the US and has gravely affected scientists' and computer security researchers' freedom of expression around the world for fear of being prosecuted in the US. This research-restricting effect will only result in ineffective security measures (like the SDMI initiative and it's flawed watermarks) and even more illegal activity in this area, plus a welter of expensive lawsuits.
The damage to fair use and first sale doctrines, meanwhile, will mean loss of individual rights of consumers. This will lead to consumer-market rejection of the newer technologies for e-publishing, unless (as has been proposed by Sen. Hollings in the US) the government steps in to force adoption of the technology. The CPDCI provisions, which serve no one but (largely American) corporate copyright interests, are just as overbroad in these areas 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 and anti-freedom (not to mention expensive and burdensome) provisions from the CPDCI language. The DMCA is already an international debacle. Its flaws should not be imported and forced on Canadians.
Sincerely,
Andrew Jones
(address removed)
- Date modified:
