I just thought I’d post this form letter I recieved from the local conservative MP:

Dear Mr. Laing,

Thank you for your recent e-mail which expressed your concerns regarding amendments to the Copyright Act.

After careful analysis of existing legislation and consultations with stakeholders, our government introduced Bill C-61 which will amend the current Copyright Act and bring it in line with advances in technology and current international standards.

These amendments were much needed and long overdue.  It has been ten years since the last major reform of this important legislation.  In that time we have seen nothing short of an Internet revolution and major advancements in technology.

In today’s technological environment, strong copyright law becomes even more important both to ensure the rights of those who hold copyright are protected and to ensure that users have access to copyrighted works.  That is why our government has made every effort to ensure that the legislation strikes the right balance between creators, rights holders and consumers.

For creators and rights holders, people who work hard to use their talents and abilities to create things, the Copyright Act provides protection over the communication, reproduction and other uses of their work while ensuring they are fairly remunerated for their efforts.

For the average consumer, Bill C-61 means you will now be able to record television shows for later viewing(time shifting); copy legally acquired music onto other devices such as MP3 players or cellphones; and make backup copies of legally acquired books, newspapers, videocassettes and photographs onto devices you own(format shifting).

The Bill also provides exceptions for different categories of users by permitting teachers, schools, public libraries, archives and museums to make copies of copyrighted materials for educational purposes.

Should individuals find themselves in violation of copyright infringement, the Bill provides protection from massive lawsuits for individuals who find themselves in violation of copyright infringement for private, non-commercial use.  In this regard, exposure to liability is limited to a fixed amount of $500 provided that the material is not protected by a technological measure(TM or digital lock).

Ensuring that artists, consumers and providers of digital technologies are protected and that copyright is respected will in the end promote creativity, innovation and competition in a digital, knowledge-based economy.

I understand your concerns and want to assure you that over the next several months our Government will continue to consult with Canadians to ensure the legislation balances the rights of all parties.

I look forward to a vibrant debate over the Bill’s provisions as it moves through the legislative process and I am confident that this debate will result in a stronger, distinctly Canadian approach to copyright law in Canada.

I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts and opinions with me.  If you would like to discuss this or any other issue please feel free to e-mail or telephone me at any time.

Sincerely,

Ron Cannan, MP
Kelowna – Lake Country
(250) 470-5075 (Constituency Office)
(613) 992-7006 (Parliament Hill Office)
“Your Kelowna – Lake Country Voice in Ottawa”
www.cannan.ca
ron@cannan.ca

Each and every one of those claims are patently false. I am currently working on a series of essays on the different aspects that this Bill does not talk about, or does completely wrong.

I’ll also leave you with this:

• Ten Questions for Jim Prentice

Anyone that is aware of the net neutrality debate has an inkling of what this post’s title means. But its the most important concept of this decade, if not this century.

Prologue to progress

Technology, not for the first time in human history, has enabled communication on a formerly impossible scale. One of Lawrence Lessig’s talks, at TED, talked about how each advance of technology, from the printing press to the radio, at first, enabled wider communications for all. But then, they became commercialized, and what was once a two-way line of communication became one way; companies creating content, and consumers consuming content.

This is the way companies like it. To them, technology for the masses, means more money, more consumers for their content. Radio, reached millions of people without needing wires, yet, to reach them all, it required a large radio tower- a hefty investment. For this reason, radio quickly became, in the mainstream at least, less about conversations and sharing between two or more people, but about popular consumption.

We are facing the same problem, yet again, where a gigantic advance in communication has spurred a rash, no, a plague of creation like none before. Technology enables, always. It enables advance, progress, profit, and enlightenment.

Changes to communication

This current advance, the internet, has even spurred changes in what were formerly one-way communications technologies. Unable to afford to publish newspapers, we published blogs and podcasts. Unable to use radio to communicate, we began to use bbs(later known as forums), chat rooms, and instant messaging.

You can tell when a new technology or derivative thereof is reaching the mainstream when a store like Radioshack(aka The Source by Circuit City in Canada), sells home products meant for such technology/services. Radioshack/The Source sells a home stereo system, that can tune into most of your favourite internet radio stations!

Thats pretty mainstream, if you ask me. But that example is only one-way, broadcast communication, which is not the internet. Merely an old form, redone with the internet. Radio has become cheaper to do, thanks to the internet.

Enabling encouragement

That however, is not my point. Technology enables people. So long as it is two-way, so long as people can participate, it can inspire and further society and art. So long as there is open and neutral access for all, can technology enable societal advance.

We’ve seen, time after time, how groups can either self-destruct, or achieve great things. And thats the best part, the potential for that to happen. So long as there is the potential to do great things, be they code(Linux), music(OCRemix), etc, then it will be achieved. By someone, by a group somewhere.

This, though, galls the corporate overlords. They have no control over these productions. Why, god damn it, they’re not even making any money off of this! Thats just not right. To them at least. They want us to consume, to suckle at the teat of consumption. Then they can make money. Then they can control things. Creativity that is not shackled to corporate goals scares them. It genuinely scares them.

Let them be scared. Write, compose, direct, create. Make them scared. Challenge them on net neutrality, and take hold of your progress. Don’t be spoon-fed content, never be content with that. Always do, and create, instead of consume.

Moxie Motto’s!

If you do create, and realize that people want what you can create, never fall into the trap of the corporate overlords. The value of what you create, is the potential. Encourage participation, work, insight and criticism. Become better, enrich others. Participate.

That is the motto of this new generation, of this generation of poets and writers and programmers and artists.

Our motto:

I create, therefore I am human.

Ruby and I were discussing our views on copyright and DRM. These are the views that OddCo will stick to, because we believe in them.

DRM will not be used for anything, if at all. The reason being that no matter what protections we could put in, people will get around it. The tougher the challenge, the more the geek, like myself, is intrigued. So, instead of making it harder, we want to make it plain easy to share our stuff, to copy it to your iPod v20.0, to backup, to show on a TV, large theatre screen, whatever. If we make it easy, why would people go to all the effort of pirating and distributing our stuff?

We would insist, however, that whatever content is accessible from the member’s only section, should not be spread everywhere. We will probably institute watermarking, so we can identify the exact member that shared our stuff.

Copyright is also a thorny issue, in that some people protect it aggresively and litigiously, and some have more liberal views of it. In our view, if you make something new from our copyright material, be it characters, video, music, parody comics, whatever that bears our copyright, you should attribute a credit to us. Most fan artists do so, in nearly every instance I can think of. So, if you take scenes from our blockbuster video, thats 3 hours long, and make a very cool and entertaining AMV, then by all means! Just so long as you attribute the copyright over the scenes and the music to the proper owners.

If however, you are making money from our copyright works, then we will not be so very happy and easygoing. In fact, you may even find us willing to sue for financial damages. However, we would not go insane on the damages, unlike certain parties in the recent media(*cough cough* $15,000 loss per song on a copied CD is not very fair or accurate…)

Another small thing is as long as no one takes our material and makes very violent, or sexual content with our material, that features real people, we would not be very pleased. However, if you make adult content only featuring fictional characters, so long as credit is attributed, then fine.

As Ruby said:

We promise that we will have QUALITY, free content, always available. It will be full and free. There will not be shitty demos, 30 second samples, or 2 page samples. That should be enough for everyone.

There you have it, a near-official, quasi-statement about or stand on copyright and drm.