Heap Overrun

After a long coding spell (and obviously, no blog posts), I'm back. If everything stays on track, the Conservative government will be introducing their latest incarnation of a desperately-needed update to Canada's copyright laws within the next week, absolutely not later than 18 June 2010 if the Prime Minister's words can be taken at face value. Unfortunately, the rumour mill suggests an update that we would be better off without, even considering our terribly outdated copyright laws.

James Moore, Canadian Minister of Heritage, started his tenure on what appeared to be the right foot. He held nation-wide copyright consultations, which were loaded with representatives from the entertainment industry. That was to be expected though, it wasn't terribly suspicious even though it was basically only entertainment industry representatives who got to speak. In hindsight though, it was an indication of the way the entire process would be managed. Fast-forward to recent weeks, earlier this month in fact, and this same minister had his press secretary tell us that we shouldn't judge the bill until we've read it. Unfortunately, what the honourable member seems to have missed is that with the spectre of Bill C-61 looming over this whole process and the rumours coming out that suggest a virtual repeat of C-61 is what will be presented, we should be pounding down the doors to judge this bill and demand that our government be accountable to those who put them in power. If we wait until the bill has been tabled before we tell our elected officials exactly what we want, it may be too late to prevent handing the entertainment industry a law that would make Canada's copyright laws more draconian than the United States. You know, where millions and millions of people, including a dead grandmother, a family without a computer and a child bullied into perjury, are being harassed and extorted by the entertainment industry based on little to no proof.

I won't get into the issues of Bill C-61 (yet), they're well-documented in many places. Once the bill comes out though, I will put down my thoughts on what the changes mean for us, and hopefully some of my friends more well-versed in legalese will put their eyes to the bill and give their opinions as well. What I will get into however, is a brief look at what I feel we as Canadians should be demanding from our government with respect to copyright law updates. These are in no particular order, but they do represent what I think are the most important things to have.

• Clearly and solidly link anti-circumvention provisions to actual copyright infringement. It should not be illegal to own a device (or to write or obtain software) simply because it is capable of copyright infringement.
• Require that Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), or Technical Prevention Measures (TPM), be subservient to fair use and user rights. We can't legislate away DRM without artificially influencing the market, but the strict protections given to DRM in the United States is the other side of the same problem. Instead, we need to have legislation that permits removing DRM to enable exercising our fair dealing and property rights.
• "Notice & notice" style takedown. Canada doesn't officially have this, nor do we have the American-style "notice & takedown", but we have unofficially taken the "notice & notice" stance. This needs to be enshrined in law to protect people against the false copyright claims that have been used so often in the United States to remove content that is actually covered as fair use.
• Require demonstration of actual distribution for "making available". If a person simply enables access to copyrighted content, but no one access that content, that person has not assisted the distribution of content. They should therefore not be charged as if they had actually distributed content.
• Avoid being exhaustive, provide examples instead. Trying to provide an exhaustive list of anything, especially where technology is concerned, is asking for swift obsolescence. Instead, our copyright law should provide illustrative examples of legitimate and infringing acts so as not to outlaw otherwise legitimate technologies, both current and not yet created.
• Allow personal copying. This is one the entertainment industry would love to make sure we never get. This wouldn't allow copying things and loaning them to friends, but it would allow me to take that movie I legally purchased and copy it to my laptop or other portable device for viewing.

There are of course many specific examples that aren't mentioned above, but I think most of the popular ones are covered by the more general principles listed. Of course, I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the actual copyright bill and hope to see that we were all wrong and James Moore did keep the consumers in mind rather than the corporate lobby.