ARCHIVED — Aaron Fultz
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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 Aaron Fultz received on September 13, 2001 via e-mail
Subject: Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues
To Industry Canada, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Intellectual Property Policy Directorate and other concerned agencies:
The intellectual property provisions of the Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues (CPCDI) contain extreme language which has me very concerned. This is my reason for writing.
Rights enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights should take priority over the interests of US copyright holders. Since the circumvention of technological protection measures restricting use of copyrighted works can easily fall under legitimate, legally protected uses such as reverse engineering, computer security research, and fair-use, making and distributing tools with which to exercise these rights should under no circumstances be made illegal. Attempts to do so are morally and intellectually offensive; language in the CPCDI is modeled on the US DMCA which is a flawed law that has been abused by both US government agencies and corporations. It has, in my opinion, turned the USA into a cultural police state, both figuratively and literally.
Already, a Russian citizen has been arrested and charged for activities which occurred in Russia and are completely legal there, but violate the US's DMCA. His software allowed legitimate fair-use activities with regards to Adobe's PDF file format and his arrest is a reprehensible intellectual farce arising from the flawed provisions of the DMCA.
It would be a terrible shame to see such things happen in Canada, where true freedom exists and should be protected in accordance with existing legislation such as our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Do not let the DMCA's anti-freedom provisions infect the CPCDI.
Thank you,
Aaron Fultz
(Address removed)
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