ARCHIVED — The Graduate Student Society of the University of British Columbia
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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 The Graduate Student Society of the University of British Columbia received on September 24, 2001 via e-mail
Subject: IP - WCT and WIPO
To: Intellectual Property Policy Directorate, Industry Canada
The Graduate Student Society of the University of British Columbia. recently passed a motion brought forward by a group of graduate students in Computer Science. This motion expresses their concern about some of the proposed changes to the Copyright Act, specifically regarding any attempts to criminalize any attempted circumvention of technological protection measures.
We acknowledge that Canada is a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and signatory country to the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT), and that article 11 of WCT and article 18 of WPPT mandate signatory countries to
" provide adequate legal protection and effective legal measures against the circumvention of effective technological measures" that restrict access to copyrighted works.
Such legislation would suppress any discussion of actual technological measures, which is integral to academic research in fields such as encryption. Conforming legislation, such as the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, has already been used for this purpose, as in the recent cases of Dimitry Sklyarov and Edward Felton.
The Graduate Student Society of the University of British Columbia thus opposes the principles of article 11 of WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and article 18 of WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT). The Graduate Student Society of the University of British Columbia further opposes any implementation of article 11 of WCT and article 18 of WPPT in Canadian legislation that would criminalize existing fair uses of copyrighted works as such legislation would suppress any discussion of actual technological measures, which is integral to academic research in fields such as encryption.
Sincerely,
Annick Gauthier
Annick Gauthier
President
Graduate Student Society
(Address removed)
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