A followup release is now available.
In a tradition that should be familiar to Canadians by now, Stephen Harper’s government is set to introduce a copyright reform bill, entitled “An Act to amend the Copyright Act”, this morning. This will be the fourth time that the Conservative party has introduced copyright legislation after the previous three, C-60, C-61, and C-32, all died on the Order Paper. Unfortunately, as Harper now has a majority government, we can hope for no such reprieve this time.
We will issue a new press release once the text of the bill is available to us, but in the meantime, there are several important points that need to be emphasized. First, WikiLeaks has given us proof of the real driving force behind Conservative copyright policy. After evidence surfaced that Spain’s copyright bill had been written by American lobbyists, suspicions to the same effect were increased in Canada. In April, that evidence was finally published. Further evidence emerged showing that then-Minister of Industry Maxime Bernier had offered to leak the final draft of the legislation to American authorities, a serious breach of Parliamentary privilege.
Furthermore, while C-32 was less strongly anti-consumer than its previous incarnations, it maintained a troubling provision that went beyond all international obligations and even American legislation, despite repeated Conservative claims to the contrary. Bill C-32 would have given Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology the force of law, making it illegal to circumvent any sort of digital locks on material that you already own. This would have affected blind people using screen readers, Linux users wanted to watch DVDs on their computers, and anyone trying to format- or time-shift material they had legally purchased to view in it another medium.
Immediate implications aside, this provision would have provided an incentive to publishers to release deliberately broken products in order to take advantage of that legal protection. DRM cannot be easily banned, but publishers are gradually discovering that releasing broken products only punishes their customers, not those who seek to download their material for free. Releasing DRM-free material currently offers a competitive advantage, and without interference, we must surely gradually return to the light. C-32 would have destroyed all of that effort.
While we are trying to remain hopeful that the fourth time will be the metaphorical charm, that the new copyright bill will finally act in favour of the Canadians who re-elected the Conservative party to government (and especially those of us who didn’t), their track record makes this difficult. Regardless of the content of the bill, the Pirate Party of Canada will be actively working, alone and in concert with like-minded individuals and organisations, to encourage the government to protect the rights of Canadian artists and consumers rather than caving to self-interested American industry lobbies as they have so many times in the past.
A second press release will follow once we have access to the text of the new legislation.
The Pirate Party of Canada is a federal political party focused on thoughtful information policy reform, genuine democracy, civil liberties, and the freedom of the Internet. It contested its first general election in 2011, where it finished ahead of all but three other small parties in terms of share of the vote. You can find out more online at www.pirateparty.ca.
