Election Questions On Copyright Law Proposals

In Decermber of 2007 I wrote a letter to my MP, Randy Kamp, asking about his stance on copyright reform. One of the local newspaper reporters here in Pitt Meadows/Maple Ridge came across it while "trolling the Internet" and asked me to pose a question for the local candidates on this topic. The following is most of what I replied.

Randy answered me on January 24, 2007, offering to meet. I have not had the time to take him up on it :(

I can give you a copy if you wish but here is the text... (spelling mistakes are mine ;)

--------------------

"Dear Richard

Thank you for your letter regarding copyright reform. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with me.

The Conservative government believes that the objective of copyright legislation should be to create opportunities to the greatest possible extent; to ensure that the rights of Canadian creators are adequately protected by law while being balanced with the opportunity for the public to sue the copyrighted words for teaching, research, and lifelong learning; to continue to allow individuals to make copies of sound recordings for their personal use; and to ensure that enforcement is applied fairly and in accordance with international standards. Our Minister of Canadian Heritage is committed to achieving these objectives.

That being said, I would be happy to meet with you to discuss this further. Please feel free to contact my constituency office to set up an appointment.

Regards..."

--------------------------

Bill C60 was in the session prior to the Conservatives getting a minority this past session.

Bill C61 was essentially the same legislation this session and again died on the order paper.

What question would I ask Randy? Problem is that much background needs to be given to put the question in context and I'm not sure he has any real understanding about the context at all.

There really are 3 different concerns:

1 - enshrining TPM (Technical protection measures AKA digital rights management) in the Copyright Act instead of in civil contract law where it belongs. This and the $20,000 fine for "circumvention" are crazy. The crooks don't circumvent TPM - they copy the whole disk, encryption and all. It is ONLY the public who wish to put their purchased content onto something other than the hardware that the industry has blessed who need to circumvent.

2 - difference between wholesale "pirating" (take a single disk and make thousands of them complete with liner notes and such and sell them at retail) and retail "copying" - use KaZaA or other similar software to find and make a copy to your own system and (incidentally and in many cases accidentally) make that copy and possibly other legitimately owned music available to others - currently covered under the Private Copying section of the current legislation and compensated by a levy on blank media.

3 - Lack of implementation of "Fair Use" similar to that in the US (we have "fair dealing" which is more to do with education and research - which is what Randy alludes to in his reply)

Fair Use is, above all in my opinion, the balancing item that (almost) fixes the other problems in the bill(s) proposed.

Note that #1 (and in fact most of the act) above does not just apply to music. Here's a scenario proposed by Joseph Potvin, one of the people on a copyright mail list I'm on...

---------------------

1. You buy an XYZ car, 2008 model.

2. To change a brake caliper, the software that controls the anti-lock brakes and spin control needs to be shut down properly with software sold at $XX,000 to authorized service centres. A software lock is enforced on the both the on-road software, and on the servicing software.

3. Warranty issues aside, you decide to take the brake work to ABC garage, which participates in an independent garage network that makes its own servicing software, which needs to bypass the TPM.

4. Four parties decide to violate C-61: you for contracting with the independent to bypass the TPM, the mechanic for doing it, the garage for selling such services, and the community for writing such software.

---------------------

This is by no means far fetched. Today's cars have a multitude of computer chips in them, all with software - and there is a thriving business in reverse engineering them to allow things like better gas mileage or better performance under load, etc.

Here is a sampling of questions proposed on the above noted list:

>From Aamir Hussain: "The Copyright Bill C-61 introduced in the previous parliament actually makes it illegal for you to buy a music CD and then take the music from your CD and put it into your Ipod (in some cases). What do the canddates think of this unbalanced approach and what will they do to protect consumer rights?"

>From Russell McOrmond: "Copyright and the previous Bill C-61 was seen by many to be unbalanced and changing copyright to further favor the interests of existing copyright holders over creators or the general public. If elected, what would you do to restore balance to modern copyright law?"

and this series of questions from Keith Rose

1) Do you agree with the Supreme Court of Canada that "[i]n order to maintain the proper balance between the rights of a copyright owner and users’ interests, [fair dealing, among the other exceptions in the Act] must not be interpreted restrictively." [CCH Canadian Ltd. v. Law Society of Upper Canada, [2004] 1 S.C.R. 339, 2004 SCC 13]?

2) Do you believe that Canada should implement and ratify the WIPO Internet treaties (the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty)?

3) If the answer to 2) is "yes", do you agree that the Article 11 WCT obligation (and similar obligation under Article 18 of the WPPT) can, and should, be satisfied without imposing a blanket prohibition on tools and/or technologies that may have both infringing and non- infringing uses?

4) Do you believe that the current private copying regime for audio recordings defined by Part VIII of the Copyright Act, including the associated levy and collective society is basically fair to both rights-holders and users of recordings?

5) Do you believe that a creator's right to control their creation includes the right to control or limit a consumer's private enjoyment of property?

So I guess it is now time to propose my question.

"In light of Heritage Canada's proposals (Bills C60 and C61 in the previous two parliamentary sessions respectively) to implement US-like copyright law similar to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, a law which has undergone extensive court challenges and revision since it was instituted by the way; and to allegedly uphold our commitment to the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization copyright treaty to which we are signatories but which we have never ratified and which was written before much of the "problems" this law purports to address ever arose; do you agree that Canada should also have a FAIR USE clause implemented similar to that in the US law, as separate from the current Canadian article of FAIR DEALING which deals mostly with libraries, schools and research; such FAIR USE to balance the rights of Canadian Citizens in light of the draconian demands of the music and software industry lobbyists for huge fines for circumvention of Technical Protection Measures ($20,000 per instance) such as "ripping" a DVD to their video iPOD, even though they have bought and paid for the right to view it?"

Long winded but it gets the point across. The list I'm on has been batting this "question of questions" about - how to best frame this complex issue in a manner that will achieve at least some measure of success in pointing out how flawed the concept is currently while giving those unfamiliar with the topic enough background to at least be able to think about an answer.

I don't know if this will help you ask similar questions of the candidates in your ridings, but hopefully it will bring to your attention the problem posed by the changes the lobbyists want to make to our copyright law.