Canadian students on copyright
p2p news / p2pnet: Canadian students have joined the fight to make sure Canada’s new government doesn’t hark back to the former Liberal government’s policy of caving in to the corporate cartels.
In an open letter from the Canadian Federation of Students, they demand to be heard in discussions on copyright and related issues.
(Thanks, Justine) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Honourable Maxime Bernier P.C., M.P.
Minister of Industry
5th floor, West Tower
C.D. Howe Building
235 Queen St.
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0H5
The Honourable Bev Oda P.C., M.P.
Minister of Canadian Heritage
25 Eddy Street
Gatineau, Quebec
K1A 0M5
April 17, 2006
Dear Ministers,
Re: Copyright Legislation
I am writing on behalf of over one-half million members of the Canadian Federation of Students.
In the next year, Parliament will likely examine a Bill to amend the Copyright Act. Students in Canada are greatly concerned about reasonable access to information and knowledge as digital technology increasingly plays an instrumental role in learning and research. Canada’s students have concerns with respect to calls from other stakeholders for legislation that would restrict access to materials on the internet and impose unwarranted and unmanageable fees on libraries, educational institutions and students. We are writing to urge the Canadian government to reject proposals for restrictive copyright laws, and to instead embrace policies that will support Canada’s vibrant and open knowledge community.
Bill C-60, An Act to Amend the Copyright Act, died on the order paper with the fall of the 38th Parliament. While students in Canada were pleased with some of the proposed amendments, the bill could have gone much further to promote Canada’s best interests.
Specifically, our issues include:
1. Legal Protection for Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) and Digital Rights Management (DRM) Developments over the past year have demonstrated that legal protection of TPMs and DRM is unnecessary and would be harmful to Canada’s students. Lobbyists are stating such protections are necessary as an incentive to use such technologies and build “new business models” around them. However, even without special legal protection, the content industry is increasingly rolling out TPMs and DRM. As the Sony BMG “rootkit” DRM amply demonstrated, these technologies are being used not to control copying, but to segment markets and to tie consumers to specific devices, and are dangerous to consumers’ privacy. DRM and TPMs replaces copyright’s balanced allocation of rights with one dictated by the content distributor. These often infringe on students’ rights to practice fair dealing with digital works, such as reverse engineering. We call on the Canadian government to refrain from legislating special protection for DRM and TPMs.
If the government chooses to so legislate, it should do so in a way that:
• Is consistent, and does not replace, copyright law;
• Recognizes appropriate limits on the invasiveness and scope of such technologies; and
• Does not outlaw the “tools” and “devices” that are essential to academic research but that may be used to circumvent TPMs or tamper with DRM.
2. Internet Service Provider (ISP) Liability – “notice and takedown” vs. “notice and notice”:
Previous discussions on this issue have focused on two methods of insulating ISPs from liability for the infringing activities of their customers: “notice and takedown” and “notice and notice”. We urge the government to adopt the “notice and notice” approach to ISP liability, as was outlined in Bill C-60. We oppose a “notice and takedown” procedure, because:
• it aims to silence an alleged infringer without proving infringement;
• it bypasses the mechanisms IP law has developed to arrest use of allegedly infringing material prior to a judgment;
• notice and takedown inhibits freedom of speech; and
• there is evidence that this system is already abused in the United States.
We urge the government to maintain the current “notice and notice” procedure as it was proposed in Bill C-60. This procedure is preferable because:
• it achieves exactly what the law requires: notice of the allegation of infringement;
• it is up to the content user at that point to decide whether or not to continue with the allegedly infringing activity; and
• the ISP remains neutral in the dispute, and can focus on providing Internet services, not taking sides in a dispute to which it is not a party.
3. Fair Dealing
A shortcoming of the current copyright law to address is the narrow scope of Canada’s “fair dealing” defense. Students in Canada would like to see fair dealing revised to be more in line with the “fair use” defense enjoyed by students in the United States, Canadian students ask this government to amend the Act as follows:
• Eliminate fair dealing’s restrictive, categorical approach (“for the purposes of…”) in favour of an “inclusive” approach (“for purposes including…“)
• Harmonize Canadian laws with American laws to clarify that fair dealing may include making multiple copies of copyrighted materials for classroom use
• Clarify that fair dealing embraces reverse engineering, parody, and the educational use of digital materials.
4. Digital Interlibrary Loan and Distance Learning
Canadian educational institutions are increasingly relying on distance education tools to improve the opportunities for learning enjoyed by Canadian students. Copyright law must support, not impede, this development. Canada’s students increasingly rely on interlibrary loan. Libraries and students need the flexibility and support that this service can provide. We supported Bill C-60’s approach to digital interlibrary loan and distance education, but reject the wastefully burdensome and technologically-partisan manner in which it sought to curtail these user rights. In our view, the Act should not unfairly and needlessly hinder educational institutions, libraries and students. We call on this government to clarify that distance learning and digital interlibrary loan are user rights, and to implement them in a manner that is fair, productive, and technologically neutral.
5. Statutory Damages
We call on this government to reform Canada’s statutory damages regime. Statutory damages have no place in license bargaining between collectives and Canada’s public institutions. Statutory damages are an effective tool to address enforcement of IP rights in commercial piracy cases. Educational institutions, libraries and archives are not commercial pirates. They should not suffer the threat of statutory damages. Students are concerned that the collectives and the major publishing and recording industries– entities motivated by profit–have been wielding too much influence in the process to-date, thereby drowning the legitimate concerns of teachers, researchers, librarians, and students.
In drafting new legislation, we ask members of Parliament to establish widespread consultations with diverse stakeholders on the matter. The last round of consultations was already five years ago and there have been many technological advances and legal developments since then. Students have previously not participated in such consultations and we ask that we be represented in such consultations.
We would welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues with you.
Sincerely,
[Signed in original]
Angela Regnier
National Deputy Chairperson
Canadian Federation of Students
cc: Patricia Neri, Director General, Copyright Policy, Department of Canadian Heritage, Susan Bincoletto, Director General, Marketplace Framework Policy Branch, Industry Canada
NOTE: p2pnet is being sued by Sharman Networks and Nikki Hemming, ceo of p2p application Kazaa. “The suit is a little odd, since P2PNet.net is a champion of peer-to-peer file-sharing, which is the same business that Kazaa is in,” says The Globe & Mail. If you’d like to help p2pnet, please go here.
May 26th, 2006 at 1:33 am
This letter to Parliament by Canadian Students is well-thought-out, intelligent, and non-emotional. It points out that governments of all nations, especially those contemplating statutory action to control the embryonic world of cyberspace, need to stand back, shake off the fear that has rendered them little more than marionettes, and reassess how much and what type of control is actually required. First and foremost, before any legislator sits down to consider setting in place any regulations that even remotely concerns the Internet, they should be forced to review the most basic of legal precepts.
Under Common Law, a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a preponderance of the evidence. Suspension of civil rights must be based on probable cause, sworn to before a highly placed magistrate, who must satisfy himself that the proposed “probable cause” is based on fact and an accumulation of evidence. Many of the recent laws enacted by the United States of America have totally twisted time-honored legal precedent – vague allegations and hearsay do not fulfill the requirements for probable cause.
More groups, both large and small, need to raise their voices. Our elected representatives need to be reminded by a multitude of inputs that the only answer to the establishment of just laws and procedure must begin with a tabula rasa. A general call to action, by the peoples of the world to their representatives, needs to go out loud and clear: stop the knee-jerk reactions to self-serving political groups with barrels of money designed to dictate the wording and nature of laws which are needed to protect all concerned.
Patch-work, add-on, and second-thought amendments to current law under the guise of careful legislative consideration are little more than infantile reactions where deliberative, intellectual new concepts are needed.
No matter what group you belong to, no matter how large or small, no matter what political leaning, no matter how zealous your beliefs in what is right, urge your group to write to your national legislatures encouraging them to stand back and take a fresh look. No law is yet carved in stone. Encourage the law-makers to start from a blank piece of paper and legislate this world-wide phenomenon from scratch. Tell them not to write laws that are unnecessary; tell them to base their laws on human and civil rights and on common law. Neither strengthen nor weaken the reasons for man’s necessity to control other men’s actions. Child pornography is already proscribed in most societies; there is no need to write new laws where old laws already apply.
Do not create ad hoc law enforcement agencies from simple businessmen. No ISP should be required to keep records that any other business is not required to keep. No ISP should be required to act as a law enforcement agency and should not be required to police the actions of its subscribers. No law enforcement agency should be granted greater rights over the Internet that they are otherwise permitted. Any allegation of wrong doing must be presented by affidavit of probable cause, which must satisfy a magistrate that such affidavit is not based on whimsy or unsubstantiated imagination.
A Continental Congress is necessary to approach the matter freshly. Such a Congress should be necessary in every sovereign nation; then a United Nations Committee should serve as a forum for the resolution of conflicting laws, insofar as the international availability of the Web is concerned. Each nation must be assured of its sovereignty, but where legal lines are blurry, this is where the International Forum would help. In many nations, sexual maturity is established at fifteen years of age; in other nations, eighteen is the age of consent. Where such discrepancies exist, the International Forum could coordinate the manner in which such cases would be handled.
However, excessive boundaries must not be treated by law, but rather by cooperation or protocol. Example: Religion is a flammable topic for many. In some countries, (U.S.A., for example), a web page depicting demonology or what might to some religions be seen as heretical, cannot and should not be legislated (unless legal statutes are treated illegally); access to such web sites by persons in sovereign nations that preclude viewing such subject matter, should become the concern of that objecting nation, and the International Forum might prescribe certain types of blocking chips or other technology which would not interfere with the web hosts rights while enforcing the laws of a sovereign nation.
I do not propose to know the answers to each situation. I do propose that every free citizen in a free society has the obligation to call upon his legislative representatives to demand and insist upon a fresh approach to this very fresh problem.
The World Wide Web was conceived as an almost miraculous way to share information and knowledge. It should not be reduced to some vast marketplace where every iota of knowledge becomes a commodity. Commercialization cannot be avoided, but just as objectionable items can be brought under some reasonable degree of control, so, too, can excessive venality.
If I were sitting on such a law-making forum, I would point out that when a shopper goes to the mall, he is not required to sign a Privacy Agreement or Terms of Service Contract, etc. I would do my utmost to make “browsing” or “web surfing” untraceable or unaccountable. If I want to browse through your on-line store, you should not be allowed to restrict me or preclude me, unless by prior action whereby you had specific reason to restrict a person an invoke a form “Trespassing” notice. Where age restrictions are required (as in pornography sites), a mode of proof-of-age could be devised by the above-referred to International Forum.
And foremost of all: no person, company, organization, country, or group of any nature could access my personal information without first obtaining a court order.
So write! Make it as formal as possible from a group to which you belong. Tell the world’s elected bureaucrats that the are not doing their job until a brand new “World Wide Web Internet Statutes and Procedures” has been written from scratch, and not pieced together like a patch-work quilt. It should be a Twenty-First Century document enunciating the rights of man.
May 26th, 2006 at 4:09 am
‘If the government chooses to so legislate [legal protections for DRM], it should do so in a way that…’
This sounds like something that came from a report submitted by the sub-committee to the full committee responsible for reasonable letter writing.
How about something like this:
‘We demand that DRM should not be given any legal protection. In fact, we believe that DRM should be illegal in this country.’
I guess idealism isn’t what it used to be.