Here is a copy of the letter I am going to sent to various members of the Canadian government voicing my concerns over the changes to Canadian Copyright Law.
The Honourable Andrew Telegdi
House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6
Stephen Harper
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa
K1A 0A2
Josee Verner
Minister of Canadian Heritage
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
My name is Darin Ohashi. I hold an Honours Degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of British Columbia and a Masters Degree in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo. For the last 6 years I have been working for a software company, one component of the copyright industry in Canada.
In reforming the Canadian Copyright Law, I urge you to consider the balance between copyright holders and the consumers who purchase copyrighted works. As is clearly evident by the experience in the United States, overly aggressive Copyright Laws serve only to punish those customers who legally purchase copyrighted works, while doing nothing to stop those who choose to violate copyrights.
Digital Rights Management (DRM) cannot and will not stop piracy. It is a fundamentally flawed concept. Instead of stopping piracy, its main use will undoubtedly be to force consumers to buy the same copyrighted work multiple times.
Here are a few examples to consider:
The iTunes music store (the online music store that Apple uses to deliver music to iPod owners) sells most of its music with DRM. This DRM prevents music purchased through iTunes from being used on any other type of device. Should an individual choose to purchase a non-Apple portable music player, the music purchased from iTunes will not work. However one can disable the DRM to allow this transfer of legally purchased music to another player. Should laws be enacted to make circumventing DRM illegal, this would no longer be allowed.
There are many portable video players being sold today. If one has purchased a library of DVD’s it seems reasonable to want to copy those movies on to the portable devices. Making DRM circumvention illegal would make such copying illegal as well, even though the device and the DVD were legally purchased.
The purpose of making DRM circumvention illegal is not to protect against piracy, but to control how users are able to use the works they have legally purchased.
I would also caution against accepting the statements from the CRIA without some skeptism. Recently a large number of the purely Canadian Artists and Labels (as opposed to the Canadian subsidiarities of American Labels) withdrew from the CRIA. Those artists formed the Canadian Music Creators Coalition (http://www.musiccreators.ca). The message from this group is much different:
“Until now, a group of multinational record labels has done most of the talking about what Canadian artists need out of copyright. Record companies and music publishers are not our enemies, but let’s be clear: lobbyists for major labels are looking out for their shareholders, and seldom speak for Canadian artists. Legislative proposals that would facilitate lawsuits against our fans or increase the labels’ control over the enjoyment of music are made not in our names, but on behalf of the labels’ foreign parent companies.”
It is clear that new technologies are forcing Copyright Laws to be changed. However when considering changes to the Copyright Act, please consider laws that will balance the needs of Canadian consumers and Canadian artists.
For more information on this topic, I suggest contacting Dr. Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. (http://www.michaelgeist.ca).
Thank you for your time.
Darin Ohashi