ARCHIVED — Galen Tucker
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 Galen Tucker received on September 11, 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:It has come to my attention that the Canadian government is exploring the issues of digital copy rights with the intention of passing legislation similar to the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). As a Canadian citizen I feel compelled to express my grave concern regarding the extreme 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 indivdiuals' rights. The DMCA itself is already under legal challenge in the US, has gravely chilled scientists' and computer security researchers' freedom of expression around the world for fear of being prosecuted in the US, and resulted in the arrest of a Russian programmer. 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 dealing, reverse engineering, computer security research and many others.
As a Canadian IT professional currently, living in the US, I feel qualified to speak, from a professional point of view, on this topic. I agree that there is a need to protect the copy rights of those companies and people producing digital media, however passing wide sweeping laws that go far beyond protecting business rights to infringing on the rights of individuals is a serious mistake. Businesses in the US have shown that given these broad powers they can, and will, press beyond the intensions of the policy makers to gain new advantage over other businesses and consumers, going so far as to suppress innovation, dispite their claims to the contrary. I urge you to remove these controversial and anti-freedom provisions from the CPDCI language. The DMCA is already an international debacle. Its flaws should not be imported and forced on Canadians.
Sincerely,
Galen Tucker
(address removed)
- Date modified:
