Today is the last day make your written submissions
in the 2009 copyright consultation, but this does not mean the process
is over. In fact, we should be winding up towards the next stage in the
process and not winding down.
There are two sets of things that will be happening next: analysis
of submissions, and then moving this into the political process. Nik
Nanos will be summarizing the comments to the 5 topic areas, and the
bureaucracy will be doing their analysis of the written submissions. We
need to do our own analysis.
There may soon be a federal election. Whether there is or not, we
need to work within each riding to ensure that as many members of
parliament will be as informed as possible when a bill is tabled and
there is committee and house debate on the bill. It matters who these
individual people will be, and less what party they are affiliated with. To this end I have just donated $500 to the campaign of author, broadcaster, editor, journalist, musician, negotiator, singer, and Timmins–James Bay MP Charlie Angus.
While many people focus on the parties and leaders, I do not think
this will be helpful for a policy like copyright. There are only a few
MPs that have strong opinions on copyright, and the leaders will be
balancing the ideas from these MPs with the purely political pressures
they are receiving.
Of the 4 parties who currently have seats, Steven Harper (Calgary Southwest, Conservative leader) and Gilles Douceppe (Laurier - Sainte-Marie,
Bloc Québécois leader) haven’t said anything personal on copyright, and
only repeated party policy or thoughts from cultural critics. Jack
Layton (Toronto–Danforth,
NDP leader) once said he had “one copyright” (referring to a book, not
recognizing he like everyone else is the copyright holder of napkin
doodles and emails), and Michael Ignatieff (Etobicoke - Lakeshore, Liberal leader) recently re-joined the Writers Union of Canada.
Of these you may think Mr. Ignatieff has indicated the most since the Writers Union of Canada has a few controversial views on copyright. Their 2009 brief for the Copyright Consultations
presumes that more copyright will mean more money to authors (no
evidence of this). They want stronger collective societies as well as
extended licensing which is an “opt out” system that allows them to
collect money on the backs of non-member. For the Internet, which they
wish to levy, collective society members or supporters are a tiny
(possibly immeasurable) minority. They want moral rights to be
unwaivable, something that would cause great harm to peer production
(their major competition). They want a “notice and takedown” system
which is really a claim and censor system, which incorrectly suggesting
that alleged copyright holders can be blindly “trusted” without court
oversight. They also oppose reading/recitation of a “reasonable
extract” in public, an activity which should be considered Fair Use and
not require permission or payment.
I know a few members of the Writers Union, and they have told me
that the executive doesn’t consult the membership before lobbying “on
their behalf”. It is quite likely that Mr. Ignatieff isn’t aware of the
copyright position of the Writers Union, and hasn’t given any of the
proposals (and any unintended or harmful consequences) any thought.
On the other hand, Dan Mcteague (Pickering - Scarborough East,
Liberal issue critic) has quite strong views on this subject. He has
spoken along with recording and other incumbent industry executives in
favor of extreme versions of copyright, the expansion of copyright via
the counterfeit-labeled Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, and is
generally as strong an opponent to reasonable copyright as has existed
in the House of Commons. I have donated money to help opponents of
extremists, such as donating to Peggy Nash when she was a candidate in Parkdale-High Park
against Sam Bulte in the 2006 election. I will be watching Pickering -
Scarborough East very closely, and will do what I can to help the
candidate most likely to unseat Dan Mcteague.
During the last election I wrote an article titled Canada’s Copyright party is … the NDP
where I documented the transition that happened with that party. Prior
to the 2004 election the party was relying on cultural critic Wendy
Lill for direction on copyright and related technology law issues. In
the 2004 election the NDP stated that they wanted to ratify the 1996
WIPO treaties immediately. She was someone who saw modern citizen
controlled communications technology as a threat to creators, and
seemed lock-step with the foreign transnationals trying to put foreign
digital locks on content and communications technology.
She retired, and in 2004 was replaced by current digital issues
spokesperson Charlie Angus as their cultural critic. Mr Angus is
someone who not only recognizes the benefits to Canadian creators of
new communications technology, but also recognizes the democratic and
other rights enhancing aspects of these technologies.
This is not a story about the NDP as much as it is a story about how
few MPs have an interest in copyright, and how the few that do have
major influence within their parties and thus with how this area of
policy will go. We need this same type of transition to happen in every
party, moving out folks like Wendy Lill, Sam Bulte and currently Dan
Mcteague, and to replace them with more people like Charlie Angus.
We will only know who is who ahead of an election by getting
actively involved in our individual ridings. We need to find out who
the candidates are in each riding, and evaluate them as to their
understanding of the technological and economic transitions that are
happening in our society and economy. We need to oppose the campaigns
of individuals who are only wanting to face backward in time and are
opposed to the benefits of modern communications technology, and to
help the campaigns of allies — regardless of what party they happen to
be affiliated with.
The Digital Copyright Canada website has per-riding blogs
(and lookup tools to help you find your riding) which may be helpful to
report anything that people find. Please use these so that they will be
full of useful knowledge about all 308 ridings when we head into the
next election.
—
Russell McOrmond is a self employed consultant, policy coordinator for CLUE: Canada’s Association for Free/Libre and Open Source Software, co-coordinator for Getting Open Source Logic INto Governments (GOSLING), and host for Digital Copyright Canada.
