ARCHIVED — Steven Singer
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Copyright Reform Process
SUBMISSIONS RECEIVED REGARDING THE CONSULTATION PAPERS
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Submission from Steven Singer received on September 16, 2001 via e-mail
Subject: Copyright Comments
September 10. 2001.
To whom it may concern,
I am writing to comment on the consultation paper on digital copyright issues. I am employed as a software developer and hold a computer science degree from the University of Waterloo. I feel that it is important that users of digital works should not be given less rights than have traditionally been given to users of similar works distributed on physical media. There are two main areas that particular attention must be paid to.
Most importantly a distinction must be made between restrictions that are placed on using a copyrighted work versus restrictions on what types of devices that the work can be viewed on. If I go out and buy a DVD at a local store I should then be able to take the DVD home and play it on any player that is physically capable of playing that DVD. I should not be forced to play the DVD on a player manufactured or approved by the producer of the DVD I bought. Any changes to Canadian copyright law should entrench this right ensuring that I be free to build my own DVD player, or buy one my friend built if wish. Similarly if any individual wishes to build an "open source" DVD player they should be free to do so. The American DMCA does not allow this. During the past few years people who have developed or distributed open source DVD players have been charged with violating the DMCA.
The second issue I wish to raise is that of authors being allowed to place restrictions on digital works that would be considered unreasonable by traditional standards. Consider the case of someone going into a bookstore and buying a book and finding out that they are only allowed to read the book they just bought on the third Sunday of every month. Reading the book any other time is against the licensing terms of the book. This sounds absurd to most people since its an arbitrary unreasonable restriction and would probably be un-enforceable under current copyright law. After all I bought the book so I should be able to read it anytime I want. The same concept should apply to a digital book or other digital works. A digital book publisher should not be legally able to say that "You can only read the digital book on the third Sunday of every month". The only restrictions that the publisher should be able to place on the digital book are of the type that I should not be allowed to copy it. I should be free to read it whenever (or however many times I want), loan it to my friends(Assuming I don't keep a copy for myself), view it on any reader I choose, or print it out and burn it if I so desire. All of these are rights that we have with traditional paper books and should remain with digital works.
Thank you for your time.
Steven Singer
(Address removed)
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