ARCHIVED — Aaron Matthews
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COPYRIGHT REFORM PROCESS
SUBMISSIONS RECEIVED REGARDING THE CONSULTATION PAPERS
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Submission from Aaron Matthews received on September 10, 2001 via e-mail
Subject: Comments on Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues
To Industry Canada, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Intellectual Property Policy Directorate, Dennis Mills (Federal MP) and other concerned agencies:
I write to express my extreme concern regarding the intellectual property provisions of the Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues (CPDCI).
The outlined provisions for copyright protection are too far-reaching. Copyright law as it is gives a very usable model for digital copyrights. The United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has already been proven to chill legitimate scientific research, place undue limits on free speech and has resulted in the unjust arrest of a Russian programmer. It is not a good model for Canada to follow.
The proposed purpose of the CPDCI questions whether or not to "prevent the circumvention of technologies used to protect copyright material; and, prohibit tampering with rights management information". There is a need to be able to access material legally purchased for uses that are covered under "fair use" laws. If technology is implemented that prevents the copying of sections of, for example, movies off of a Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) then the "fair use" laws will have been effectively bypassed, preventing the backup of a movie or the ability to watch a movie on a laptop computer, while the DVD remains safely at home. If a DVD legally purchased were to become badly scratched, say for instance, in transit while an individual was relocating, the disk becomes useless and the only way to remedy the situation would be to purchase a new disk, at the expense of the individual and the gain of the publisher. The publishers of copyright material benefit at the expense of individual consumers.
Some of the other problems with measures such as the DMCA include; problems the CPDCI would include. Such as historians being prevented from archiving material, even after the material has passed on to the public domain. Cryptographers would not be able to do legitimate research for fear of arrest if they publish their work, as shown in "A Dutch cryptographer who claims to have broken Intel Corp.'s encryption system for digital video says he will not publish his results because he fears being prosecuted or sued under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act" (Source at http://www.securityfocus.com/news/236).
One other interesting thing to note is that the copyright holders who would benefit financially from Canada enacting a law or laws similar to the DMCA are almost solely US corporations. One of the stated reasons for the CPDCI is "the government's priority of promoting the dissemination of new and interesting content on-line, for and by Canadians." Laws similar to the DMCA would not achieve this. It places too many unneeded and unjust restrictions on individuals.
The provisions that would amend the Canadian Copyright Act to ban, with minimal or no exception, software or other tools that would allow copy protection to be bypassed are unwise. The act of bypassing protection should not be an illegal one. The tools; be they software or otherwise, are protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, guarantying freedom of speech, with similar guarantees in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The previously mentioned tools are necessary to be able to accomplish lawful uses, such as fair use, reverse engineering, computer security research and many others.
I beseech upon you to remove these unnecessary and anti-freedom provisions from the CPDCI language. The DMCA is already an international debacle. Its flaws and poor design should not be imported and forced upon Canadians.
Sincerely,
Aaron Matthews
(Address removed)
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