God keep our land glorius and free.
These words are right there in the Canadian national anthem.
And God's apparently been doing a good job of keeping Canadians free of the legal wranglings of copyright holders. In a recent court decision, Canadian Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled that P2P file sharing is not illegal. He compared P2P file sharing technology to a photocopier in a library.
Essentially he said there is nothing wrong with a person who puts thier own personal music collection on their computer even if it is in a shared directory. Just because the music is shared does not imply granting the right to download or constitute an act of distribution.
There are a thousand articles about this decision floating around the net right now... but you can read the decision yourself (paragrahs 25-28 are good reading)
But NOW the heritage minister of Canada Hon. Hélène Scherrer, has been quoted as saying that Canada will amend the law to make it illegal to download music from the internet.
So I wrote her a letter. (I also sent one to my own MP and all the NDP MPs.) It goes something like this:
Good day Hélène Scherrer,
A recent report has quoted you (Hélène Scherrer) as saying that Canadian copyright law would be changed to make the download of copyrighted material illegal.
I strongly urge your ministry's to reconsider any proposed changes to Canadian copyright law.
As the law stands today it strikes a perfect balance between the protection of intellectual rights and the rights of individuals to access the intellectual property of others.
In the recent court decision by Justice Konrad von Finckenstein, he compared P2P (peer to peer) file sharing to a photocopier in a public library. I believe that his analogy is 100% correct. Technology itself does not encourage or imply the right to copy material that is protected. The Canadian supreme court has also ruled recently that simply providing the means to create an illegal copy is not an infringement. Please understand that the internet is simply a collection of technologies.
It is clear that the law must protect the rights of content producers, but not at the expense of depriving Canadians access to the knowledge and the whole body of intellectual work.
The concept of fair use is not new to Canadian copyright law. Part VIII paragraph/section 80 of the current Copyright act clearly outlines what constitutes copyright infringement and what does not (when dealing with music). To make a change to the act that is contrary to this section removes the protection of fair use. It is a slippery slope. Changes to the act, if not carefully worded, could result in a society where the intellectual property rights outweigh the rights of individuals to access information. This goes against the spirit of Copyright law. It is also goes against the spirit of shared knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge.
I believe it is the job of government to protect the common good; and to protect the rights of Canadians to pursue knowledge and to use that knowledge to become productive members of society. I also believe that the current Canadian Copyright Act does this while at the same time protects intellectual property rights.
It is not the job of government to protect corporate interests at the expense of individual Canadian's rights.
If you believe in a society that encourages the acquisition of knowledge you must think twice before before amending the copyright act.
One must ask - if something is not broken, then why fix it?
Andre Molnar
Technology Consultant - Intellectual Property Right Holder - Copyright Holder.
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I encourage you to send your own version of this letter to your own MP before copyright law bars any fair use.
andre
Posted by andre at April 4, 2004 07:23 PM | TrackBack