ARCHIVED — A Patricia Wright

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 Patricia Wright received on October 23, 2001 via e-mail

Subject: Response to Socan Comments

Patricia Wright
(Contact information removed)

October 22, 2001

Comments – Government of Canada Copyright Reform
c/o Intellectual Property Policy Directorate
Industry Canada
235 Queen Street
5th Floor West
Ottawa, Ontario

Reference: Government of Canada Copyright Reform Process comments by Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada. (SOCAN)

I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the copy right reform process. As a Software Engineer it is essential to industry to retain the ability to reverse engineer software in any form. Thus I must take issue with SOCAN's following statement

"The other alternative #) which SOCAN does not advocate #) is to create an exception to the sanction against those that defeat or assist in defeating technological measures that protect copyright. This narrow exception would make it lawful to defeat or assist in defeating a technological measure to gain access to a work that is not protected by copyright. In SOCAN's submission, this would be a dangerous solution which would upset the balance of rights between creators and users, and result in "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" in an effort to allow unrestricted access to intellectual property. "

If it is unlawful to defeat encryption measures we have opened the public up to grave consequences.

1. We have outlawed a branch of mathematics and the opportunities to improve encryption processes. The American DMCA has already had a chilling effect in the United State's academia. As referenced in http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991063 many researchers are refusing to enter the United States and are advising others to do likewise. Canada's technology industry is just beginning to flourish I would be saddened to see aspects of the industry move over seas because a researcher no longer has the freedom to investigate work in his chosen field.
2. We enable the taking of some works completely out of the public domain. Please consider the following scene:

A work is copyright but it is less than popular or commercially viable. It is available in an encrypted digital format. Given the current pace of digital technologies in 5 – 10 years the reader for that format become less popular and are no longer commonly available. The distributor of this work decides against updating the format that the work is in. When the copy right expires it is illegal for anyone to convert that work to another format and the work is irretrievably lost.

3. As encryption technologies advance a user should be able to transfer a work that he has purchased from one format to another. Just as they have the right now to transfer music tracks on a CD to another to create a mix CD they should retain the right to transfer a work from one computer format to another and from one system to another. This process would likely involve decrypting and re-encrypting a work.
4. A users should retain the right to backup their work. If encryption is locked to a specific computer they loose the right to restore the work to another computer in the case of hardware failure.

In addition to these comments on SOCAN's submission I would like to draw you attention to the following submitters:

Electronic Frontier Canada: http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/rp00559e.html This submission identifies many undesirable side effects that could be caused by poor implementation of legislation. It also identifies ways to negate those side effects. I would encourage the department to strongly consider these arguments so they may avoid negative consequences on Canadian culture and society.

Canadian Association for Interoperable Systems: http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/rp00326e.html I feel this is an excellent submission for it documents many of the assumptions made about technology by those who are unfamiliar with the design and implementation of technology. It shows the fallacy of those assumptions and I would encourage the department to give weighty consideration to their arguments.