My Letter to My MP (Randy Kamp) regarding new Copyright Legislation

The following is the text of my letter to my MP regarding the potential new Copyright legislation. It was crafted based upon the sample letter found at Digital-Copyright.CA site.

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Dear Mr. Kamp

Member for Pitt Meadows/Maple Ridge/Mission

I have contacted you in the past regarding Copyright and similar legislation in this digital age, and have written about it both in correspondence with the Copyright Board, and in my web Blog (http://blog.pacdat.net)

The possibility that Canadians will be encumbered by a piece of legislation similar to the DMCA in the USA, which has already been found to be flawed in many ways and which has portions under appeal, without at least some form of “Fair Use” and without the repeal of the Blank Media Levy leaves me chilled to the bone. With this one piece of legislation our government will make virtually every “wired” Canadian a criminal and at minimum liable to unconscionable legal problems from organizations that are neither creators nor even true representatives of creators. This type of law does not serve the Canadian people and is already forming the basis for action by many concerned citizens.

While Bill C-60 died on the order paper when the election was called, I am worried that similar provisions will be contained in a future bill. While copyright is most often described as a balance between the interests of creators and the interests of the general public, the debate has been dominated by special interest industry lobby groups representing intermediaries (people who are neither creators nor the general public).

Bill C-60 may have been supported by these industry intermediaries, but was highly controversial with creators, and not supported by users. Industry lobby groups such as the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) can no more legitimately claim to politically represent the interests of creators than the owners of the major banks can claim to politically represent the interests of people who have bank accounts.

One of the many controversial aspects involved the legal protection of technical measures used by copyright holders. It may be appropriate to protect technical measures applied by copyright holders to their own content when it is broadcast or displayed/posted via the Internet. What cannot be allowed is the legal protection of technical measures that affect devices that they do not own (e.g. my home computer).

The Sony-BMG case, which infected hundreds of thousands of networks of computers with a "RootKit" and "SpyWare", resulted in many lawsuits against Sony-BMG. Speaking to a group of copyright holders about this issue, Stewart Baker, US Department of Homeland Security's assistant secretary for policy, said, "It's very important to remember that it's your intellectual property -- it's not your computer. And in the pursuit of protection of intellectual property, it's important not to defeat or undermine the security measures that people need to adopt in these days."

Not only should we not be protecting this abuse of technical measures, but we should be passing laws which clearly make it illegal to apply a technical measure to something without the informed consent of the owner.

More to the point, we should NOT be passing laws that make the research into and about security of technological products illegal or in any way restrictive in the name of “anti-circumvention” of DRM or any other technology. The fact is that making such an “anti-circumvention” law has lead to some of the most egregious security problems I've seen, simply because those who create them do so in a vacuum devoid of peer or any other review. Today's technological scene is no longer the sole responsibility of academics or government – it is the daily activity of hundreds of thousands of people across the world who may contribute small insights about a single item to the growing understanding of what we call technical security.

Please understand that prohibiting the “white hats” from research into whether any particular technology is good or bad does not stop the bad guys (black hats) from doing so and taking full advantage of the inevitable holes left by incompetent or even well meaning developers of such technologies. To borrow a phrase from the gun lobby, “Outlawing security research means only criminals will do research – and gain access to our systems to do their dirty ways.”

The fact that Canada signed the 1996 WIPO treaty, crafted before the Internet revolution had even minimally started, does not mean that Canada must ratify this already archaic treaty. Eleven years later the digital world has evolved to where most of the concepts of that treaty would stifle creativity and be a huge step backwards. Ratification MUST be preceded by informed debate by those affected – the Canadian people. It must not be done just because an industry stuck in the dark ages (publishing) thinks that this is the only way it will survive. Think of what the buggy whip manufacturers might have done in the last century – craft a law that required a person carry a buggy whip while driving. Think also of what the Teamsters might have done – craft a law that required every vehicle to have someone walk in front of it ringing a bell to keep it from scaring the horses.

Thousands of Canadians, including hundreds of people who are in creative or innovation industries, have signed the "Petition for Users' Rights" which articulates a more balanced vision. Creators support this balance as they realize that creativity builds on the past, and that the protection of Creators' Rights includes the protection of Users' Rights. In order for there to be a future generation of creators we must limit the control of past creator or non-creator copyright holders.

English Petition text http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/petition_en.pdf

French Petition text http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/petition_fr.pdf

More information on the petition http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/

Do you support this balanced vision?

Would you be willing to meet with me and/or members of our community to discuss these issues?

Sincerely,

Constituent of your riding