Copyright laws in Canada are currently in the process of being reviewed, both as a domestic process, and also as a result of the Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations. It is important that Canadians speak out and let the government know we do not want oppresive, US DMCA style laws here in Canada
Information on the domestic review process, as well as a consultation paper for discussion and an address for sending responses, is available here.
The draft language for the proposed FTAA treaty can be found here (MS Word format). Information on the treaty proccess is available here.
Those of us in Canada should write polite, concise letters to these people:
Department of Industry, Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO)
FTAA official contact for Canada (Intellectual Property Rights)
CIPO Director, Copyright and Industrial Design Branch
CIPO Acting Director, Planning, International and Regulatory Affairs Branch
Brian Tobin, M.P., Minister of Industry
John Cannis, M.P., Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry
Commissioner of Patents, Registrar of Trade-marks, and Chief Executive Officer, CIPO
Copyright Board of Canada
Copyright Board of Canada, Mr. Justice John H. Gomery, Chair
Copyright Board of Canada, Stephen J. Callary, Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Canadian Heritage - Copyright Policy Branch
copyright@canadianheritage.gc.ca
Regulatory Affairs and Standards Policy Directorate
Do your part and write a letter. The sooner the better. Let them know there are many concerned people out there, but be courteous. You won't influence anyone by being rude.
Contact lists for other countries can be found here and here.
Here are some sample letters, courtesy of the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Dear Ms. Blue, Trade Policy Staff Committee, and Negotiating Group on Intellectual Property Rights:
I write to express my grave concern regarding the draft FTAA treaty's extreme intellectual property provisions.
These measures, based on the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) give far too much power to publishers, at the expense of individuals' rights. The DMCA itself is already under legal challenge in the US, has gravely chilled scientists' and computer security researchers' freedom of expression around the world for fear of being prosecuted in the US, and resulted in the arrest of a Russian programmer. The FTAA provisions, which serve no one but American corporate copyright interests, are even more overbroad than those of the DMCA.
These provisions would require signatory nations to pass new DMCA-style laws that ban, with few or no exceptions, software and other tools that allow copy prevention technologies to be bypassed. This would violate the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of freedom of speech under the First Amendment, and similar guarantees in other national constitutions and laws and in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, since such tools are necessary to exercise lawful uses, including fair use, reverse engineering, computer security research and many others.
I urge you to remove these controversial and anti-freedom provisions from the FTAA treaty language. The DMCA is already an international debacle. Its flaws - and worse - should not be exported and forced on other countries.
Sincerely,
[Your full name]
[Your address]
To Industry Canada, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Intellectual Property Policy Directorate and other concerned agencies:
I write to express my grave concern regarding the extreme intellectual property provisions of the Consultation Paper on Digital Copyright Issues (CPCDI).
These measures, based on the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), give far too much power to publishers, at the expense of indivdiuals' rights. The DMCA itself is already under legal challenge in the US, has gravely chilled scientists' and computer security researchers' freedom of expression around the world for fear of being prosecuted in the US, and resulted in the arrest of a Russian programmer. The CPDCI provisions, which serve no one but (largely American) corporate copyright interests, are just as overbroad as those of the DMCA.
These provisions would amend the Canadian Copyright Act to ban, with few or no exceptions, software and other tools that allow copy prevention technologies to be bypassed. This would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantee of freedom of speech, and similar guarantees in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, since such tools are necessary to exercise lawful uses, including fair use, reverse engineering, computer security research and many others.
I urge you to remove these controversial and anti-freedom provisions from the CPDCI language. The DMCA is already an international debacle. Its flaws should not be imported and forced on Canadians.
Sincerely,
[Your full name]
[Your address]