ARCHIVED — Scott Howard
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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 Scott Howard received on September 13, 2001 via e-mail
Subject: Canadian copyright reform
Re: Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues
I have been employed in the computer and electronics industry for over twenty years. I am currently self-employed as a software developer and consultant; in other words, I make my living by writing software for myself and others. As such, I have a strong self-interest in having access to effective copyright protection. For the most part, the current copyright laws in Canada do a good job of protecting my rights as a software author while balancing them against the rights of others.
However, I am deeply concerned by some of the proposals that I see in the above-mentioned consultation paper. In particular, I am very concerned about the proposals to 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.
I strongly urge you to remove these proposed measures from any legislation that may result from this consultation paper.
These proposals seem very similar to ones enacted in the United States' Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). While in theory the goals of copyright protection are laudable, the onerous measures implemented in the DMCA (and in the Canadian proposals) are far too damaging to the rights of individuals, and are not justified by the meagre additional copyright protection that they might provide to content publishers. More importantly, it seriously skews the balance of rights in favour of content publishers (whom are mostly large American corporate interests), to the detriment of scientists, journalists, engineers, researchers, and individuals worldwide. As a result of the DMCA, there has already been a serious 'chilling effect' in the world of software and computer research, where scientists are starting to refuse to present their research at scientific conferences for fear of prosecution.
The DMCA is now being challenged in court, and in time it will almost certainly be struck down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Although I am not a lawyer, I believe that the changes to the Canadian copyright laws proposed in this consultation paper would violate the provisions in our Canadian Charter of Rights that guarantee free speech, and that if implemented in law they would almost certainly be struck down in a court challenge.
The proposal makes the point that 'some rights holders may be deterred from making their copyright material available on-line'. While this may be the case at the moment, in my opinion it is far more important to protect the free exchange of ideas, opinions, and information, and also to protect the content customer's 'fair use' rights, than it is to remove such a deterrent. There are many other ways to distribute copyright material that do not violate these very basic rights.
Digital publishing and distribution is just now in its infancy. The technology is evolving rapidly, and the issues of rights and responsibilities of the various stakeholders are just now beginning to be explored. In addition, rapid technological development may soon give rise to new ways that content providers may achieve their goals without trampling the rights of others.
It is far too early at this point to take a snapshot of the current situation and enshrine it in legislation that is short-sighted and poorly thought out, and would almost certainly be struck down in a court challenge. I firmly believe that more time, and in particular more consultation, is needed with all the stakeholders on this issue. Once the technology has matured, we would then need to determine first of all whether additional protection is really needed, and secondly if it is then how to provide that protection without compromising the rights of others. I strongly believe that the DMCA is a failed early attempt, and we should not rush to emulate it; we should take some time to learn from the U.S. process before we implement our own legislation.
Sincerely,
Scott Howard
(Address removed)
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