ARCHIVED — A Peter Colijn

COPYRIGHT REFORM PROCESS

REPY COMMENTS

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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.

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Reply comment from Peter Colijn received on October 21, 2001 via e-mail

Subject: Reply Comment

This reply comment is regarding the "Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues."

I certainly agree that now is a very important time for Canadian industries involved with the Internet and other networked resources. Access to the Internet is very widespread in Canada, and of very good quality, at the moment.

I also agree that there are non-trivial concerns regarding the distribution of copyrighted works as it pertains to the Internet and networked resources in general.

I have some concerns regarding the proposed amendments, intended to help resolve these problems, in the above-mentioned paper.

My biggest concerns are with the use of technological measures to prevent unauthorised copying of copyrighted works. Such measures can infringe upon the individual's fair use of the works, and I would encourage the "departments" to be very mindful of how such technological measures should be allowed to be implemented, so that fair use is protected. To do otherwise would simply be to encourage the use of works distribute in conventional ways over digitally-distributed works.

I would also encourage the departments to consider users/viewers/listeners of digitally-distributed works using non-standard playback technologies. One example of a fairly large group of such people are Linux users. Linux is a free computer operating system, used on various types of computers, that is not maintained by any corporate body; it was created and is maintained solely by volunteers. As such the Linux community does not have the resources to license the potentially expensive, patented measures used to prevent unauthorised copying of copyrighted works. This community would thus be deprived of access to such works.

A situation similar to this recently arose with DVDs. As the departments are certainly aware, DVDs are encrypted to discourage unauthorised copying. When DVD players became available on computers, there existed no means of playback within the Linux operating system. Thus people who had paid fully for a DVD (or for the service or renting a DVD) but used Linux were completely unable to view the work. A Norwegian, Jon Johansen, managed to "crack" the encryption used on DVDs, thus enabling software to be written allowing Linux users to view DVDs. However, due the American DMCA legislation, Jon Johansen was arrested in Norway and questioned, and the group of programmers to which he belonged was sued. A great deal of these people were simply movie-lovers who were unable to view works for which they had fully paid, and yet they were persecuted for their activities.

It is my view that if this sort of persecution were to occur in Canada it would be a real shame, and could potentially be damaging for the Canadian business community. I therefore encourage the departments to legitimise only those measures designed to prevent the unauthorised copying of copyrighted works that are not proprietary and do not require licensing. In this manner communities with very little resources would still be able to comply with regulations when using and creating their own means of using copyrighted works.

Many of the talented individuals who work in industries that make up the new economy are themselves members of communities similar to the Linux community. As such, it is important that these people feel that Canada is a good place in which to partake in these communities, (which, I would remind the departments, are completely *uninterested* in pursuing illegal activities) and persecution similar to that described above would certainly not add to that feeling.

I would also like to draw the departments' attention to situations in which the circumvention of measures designed to prohibit unauthorised copying may be legitimately needed. A non-profit organisation might need to sample a work before it can determine its need for that work, for example. I would suggest that provision for such situations be provided in any amendments to the copyright act.

There is one other issue that I feel is important to address. There is a fundamental problem with measures designed to disallow the unauthorised copying of copyrighted works. In any such scheme, the work must at some point become available to the user/consumer. That is, at some point a song must be played through speakers, a movie must be displayed on a screen, etc. in order for such a work to be valuable to an individual. At this point, the point of playback, the work can then be recaptured and stored in an unprotected format. There is no way to avoid this possibility. Thus I am somewhat concerned about the usefulness of the proposed amendments, as it seems unlikely that the desired effects will be acheived. I understand that the amendments would make the above-mentioned circumvention illegal, and am not suggesting that Canadians will completely ignore the law. I would simply like to say that the enforcement of the proposed amendments might introduce some significant difficulties.

Finally, I would like to thank the departments for the opportunity to comment on these proposals and I hope that my comments have been helpful.

Sincerely,
Peter Colijn