Goal

The first thing I always need to remind my self before I start a letter is think about what the goal of my letter should be. When it comes to a online consultation my goal is to mention as many things in as short of time as possible because who would really pay attention to a 10 page essay on digital locks in that setting anyways. When it comes to writing a letter to a MP my goal is to not look like a "radical extremist" and to convince the MP that I would be worth while in a meeting.

I think the fact I don't come off as a professional writer actually works out in my favor. Not being in the intellectual property field or information technology field gives me a Joe the plumber edge I try and use as much as possible.

Here is my rough draft. Once again feel free to point out typos.

Back in December of 2007 I only became active in copyright for one reason and one reason only. Digital locks are able lock people away from their own property. Amazon proved that point by having kindles remove, ironically, George Orwell's 1984.

Digital locks have had a long history when it comes to computers. Digital locks have compromised computers, invaded privacy, and left consumers with unplayable content. There are many instance where people have had to remove digital locks because of these problems. To me it has become clear that digital locks themselves and the tools that break them should not be legally protected. Bill C-32 protection of digital locks only exacerbates the problem of abusive digital locks.

Bill C-32's protection of digital locks also adds some more problems to the mix. With a few extra lines of computer code it can prevent a person from exercising their fair dealing rights. For example there is a exemption for backing up under C-32 that gets hamstrung because people cannot break a digital lock without the risk of statutory damages. The result is people are still not allow to backup their favorite DVD.

I could go on with talk about examples of how Bill C-32 will hurt industries and consumers by using examples from the United States but I feel I would be able to do so better in a meeting so instead I would like to talk about the good in Bill C-32.

The separation between non-commercial statutory damages and commercial statutory damages is a important division. This will prevent ridiculous statutory damages awards as seen in the United States with the Jammie Thomas trial. What is missing however is separating commercial statutory damages from non-commercial statutory damages when it comes to circumventing digital locks.

The technology neutral approach taken with Bill C-32 is a vast improvement over naming VHS and CDs by name. This improvement allows the bill to be more applicable in the future when new technology comes.

Allowing non-commercial user generated content is a important part of Bill C-32. This combined with the notice of claimed infringement system will prevent frivolous DMCA takedowns as often seen in the United States.

The expansion of fair dealing to include education, parody, and satire is a great step forward to creating a balance between creators and consumers. What is missing again is the fact digital locks are able to prevent these exceptions and by doing so throw off the balance between creators and consumers.

I am pleased to see that there was no attempt to extend copyright term lengths however I would have liked to see them shortened.

Overall Bill C-32 is a well written bill except when it comes to digital locks where no concessions have been made. I am looking forward to the committee process where hopefully the problem of digital locks being able to override most exemptions will be fixed.

The Grind

I have a meeting set up and am having trouble writing a letter to accompany it. I know that the digital lock provisions undercut the majority of the good in the bill but it seems to be harder to put it on paper these days. I can only make a argument so many times before I get tired of it. I don't know how many more times I can talk about how you should be able to back up a DVD so when you give a young child their favorite movie and they eventually scratch it you wont be out a DVD. It is times like this I reminded of a quote from one of my favorite books.

"And I realized that to look out for people when you yourself need to do so, when you have a desire to help, is no great feat. But going out there when you don't want to, when you don't care anymore, that might just mean something"

Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall

Now if you excuse me my often used Orwell's 1984 example beckons.

P.S. To whoever combined the copyright act and how it looks before and after it has been amended by C-32 I would like to thank you[1].

Bill C-32 release day

Bill C-32 release day went much different from Bill C-61. Fair Copyright Edmonton Chapter had a proper looking media release. It explained who were are, what we have done, and how to contact us. There was no question we were prepared this time around. Alas, nothing came of it from our end.

It was interesting to note how the media covered the bill emphasizing the digital locks provisions. It looks like the battle lines have been drawn and it is going to be a heated battle too if Heritage Minister James Moore has anything to say.

Should I dress differently now since I am a radical extremists?

Final Draft

I have finalized the letter I am going to go with. You will notice the posted letter on this blog is missing a fancy graph. If someone is interested in seeing it and the raw data feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment.

I now get to work on a new letter for the Digital Economy Consultation. *sigh* The things I do so I can smugly reply "why don't you do something about it?".

It has been 3, almost 4 years since I started being active on copyright legislation in Canada. During all those years I asked everyone where is the consultation with Canadians. It was the topic of almost every discussion on copyright law I had. There was a public consultation from July 20, 2009, to September 13, 2009 with over 8,000 submissions not to mention the round tables and town halls. The lingering question in my head is did anyone learn anything?

I honestly believe that people did learn some of the pitfalls of bad copyright legislation. Unfortunately I do not believe that knowledge has reached the Prime Minister's Office if current news has anything to say. I am now back to doing whatever I can to get the proper information to the right people in order to get a good bill tabled.

I ask for legislation that is based on evidence and Canada's needs. The evidence used to draft the bill needs to be properly vetted and open to public scrutiny. Too often organizations have a predetermined answer and do not let the evidence speak for itself. They instead cherry pick pieces of evidence that supports their claim and discard the rest. Copyright legislation needs to be based on evidence that speaks for itself and not evidence that has been cherry picked.

Copyright is not a natural right, but a man made one which is why we should not loose sight of what the purpose of copyright law should be when looking at evidence. The purpose of copyright law in the United States is “to promote the progress of science and useful arts” and seeing how the purpose of copyright law is not clearly defined in Canada we should table a bill based on the U.S. definition. We should definitely not table a bill whose purpose is to prop up failing business models or whose purpose is to appease foreign pressure.

A problem is that some of the numbers that are used to describe copyright infringement or counterfeiting are not based on any scientific study. For example an often quoted FBI release on July 17, 2002 states “losses to counterfeiting are estimated at $200-250 billion a year in U.S. business losses.” When Ars Technica got a response they found out the FBI had “no record of source data or methodology for generating the estimate and that it cannot be corroborated”.

Here is another example of a bad study as shown by Ars Technica

After commissioning a 2005 study from LEK Consulting that showed collegiate file-swappers were responsible for 44 percent of movie studio "losses" to piracy, the MPAA then used the report it bought to bludgeon Congress into considering legislation to address this massive problem. Now the MPAA admits that the report's conclusions weren't even close to being right; collegiate piracy accounts for only 15 percent of "losses." Oops. And that's assuming you believe the rest of the data.

The problem with these numbers is they are still used today. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in the United States is a self described “non-partisan research and educational institute – a think tank...[who] publishes policy reports, holds forums and policy debates, advises elected officials and their staff, and is an active resource for the media.” In a December 2009 publication called “Steal These Policies: Strategies for Reducing Digital Piracy” on page 3 is a regular who's who of questionable numbers including the previously mentioned 2005 LEK Consulting study.

What worries me is this organization brings poorly vetted obscured evidence to elected officials in the United States. I have to wonder what evidence Canadian elected officials are seeing when it comes to copyright law.

By looking at the DMCA in the United States you can see evidence of the chilling effects on free speech that bad copyright legislation can have. The Electronic Frontier Foundation released “Unintended Consequences: Twelve Years under the DMCA” in February 2010 and has 20 examples of how free speech has been chilled in the past. Instead of a simple list I feel the need to post an example that caught my eye in full.

Foreign Scientists Avoid U.S.

Foreign scientists have expressed concerns about traveling to the U.S. following the arrest of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov. Some foreign scientists have advocated boycotting conferences held in the United States, and some conference organizers have decided to hold events in non-U.S. locations. In 2001, Russia went so far as to issue a travel advisory to Russian programmers traveling to the United States.

Highly respected British Linux programmer Alan Cox resigned from the USENIX committee of the Advanced Computing Systems Association, the committee that organizes many of the U.S. computing conferences, because of concerns about traveling to the United States. He also urged USENIX to move its annual conference offshore.

The International Information Hiding Workshop Conference, the conference at which Professor Felten’s team intended to present its original SDMI watermarking paper, chose to break with tradition and held its next conference outside of the U.S. following the DMCA threat to Professor Felten and his team.

If that is not damning evidence of how bad copyright legislation can chill free speech while simultaneously hurting the security research industry I do not know what is.

The last piece of evidence I want to leave with you is a graph of literary copyright registration per population as a function of time in the U.S. What it shows is how little effect extending copyright has on creating new works. In 1909 copyright terms lasted 28 years with another possible 28 years on renewal. Today it lasts the authors life plus 75 years or life plus 95 years if it was a work for hire. If the copyright terms extensions provided incentive to create new work there should have been evidence in the graph below. I do not see it.

*Cool Graph Goes here*I recreated this graph from Against Intellectual Monopoly using U.S. government data that can be found online.

If the newest copyright legislation looks like the last copyright legislation it means I obviously have not done a good enough job getting the word out on why the previous legislation is not supported by evidence and why it does not fit Canada's needs. If you feel that any of my examples are not clear or if you have any questions please contact me. The contact information is at the top of every page *excluding blogs*.

Thanks for reading.

Newest letter

I have now lost count how much I have written about copyright law. Well, here is my latest rough draft for a letter. Go my one reader! Rip apart my grammar and typos.

It has been 3, almost 4 years since I started being active on copyright legislation in Canada. During all those years I asked everyone where the consultation with Canadians is. It was the topic of almost every discussion on copyright law I had. There was a public consultation from July 20, 2009, to September 13, 2009 with over 8,000 submissions not to mention the round tables and town halls. The lingering questions in my head is did anyone learn anything?

I honestly believe that people did learn some of the pitfalls of bad copyright legislation. Unfortunately I do not believe that knowledge has reached the Prime Minister's Office if current news has anything to say.

I only ask for legislation that is based on evidence and Canada's needs. By looking copyright laws around the world while using Canadian's opinion we could create a gold standard in copyright legislation. My fear is that we will table a bill that caves in to foreign and big business pressure for reasons not based on evidence.

Copyright is not a natural right, but a man made one which is why we should not loose sight of what the purpose of copyright law should be which is “to promote the progress of science and useful arts.” What Canada needs is a properly tabled bill based on evidence that will help the aforementioned purpose not a bill based on fear, or corporation's agendas, or other failed bills, or even maximizing consumer spending. I will only accept a bill based on evidence and Canada's needs

In case you were wondering what caused my motivation feel free to check out Michael Geist's latest post. I was actually starting to believe in Tony Clement. I suppose in a way I still can. I will prepare to aim my dislike over the next copyright bill at James Moore. The ministers of industry are probably tired of me anyways.

Ground Breaking Ceremony

With the recent event's of Bill C-499 and M-506 not to mention the speech from the throne and Tony Clement's response to it means I need to break ground on a new essay which is the first step to meeting a MP. The first MP I meet with in person gets a copy of The Public Domain! Admittedly I will deface page 206 by highlighting a paragraph but it is a small price to pay to get a almost pristine book.

Here is the passage I am highlighting:

In this chapter I want to offer a suggestion that in any other field would be stunningly obvious, boring even, but in the funhouse mirror of intellectual property appears revolutionary. We should make our policy based on empirical evidence of its likely effects and there should be a formal requirement of empirical reconsideration of those policies after they have been implemented to see if they are working. Why is this a good idea?

One day I will not be the copyright guy because there will be good legislation in place and in the back of my head there will not be the nagging thought of "why don't you do something about it?"

Step one in building my essay is find out what happened with the Online Consultations [1][2]. Secondly I need to find out what a motion is besides jokingly making a motion for Chris to buy me a pop and hoping someone will second it.