Copyright Reform, Bill C-61

In correspondence with a young constituent of Newmarket-Aurora who was setting up a web site for this purpose, I responded to a number of his questions including the following question on copyright reform:

The current Conservative government tabled Bill C-61 an act to amend the Copyright Act.  This bill was widely advocated as a Canadian ripoff of the much criticized US DMCA.  C-61 appeared to take away the rights of consumers by giving legal support to digital locks and implemented mandatory fines (up to $20,000) for breaking them (which a 12 yr old can do). Unfortunately, this Bill was a huge step in the wrong direction for Canadian consumers/artists/educators who depend on fair dealing to educate, innovate, and create.

How would your party achieve a true balance between rights holders and consumers?

My response follows, and would seem to have been good enough to make Michael Geist’s blog, which is a big deal in itself.  Please note that this response was not an off the cuff answer from me alone and, while this is not specifically to be found in Vision Green, it is generally agreed by many if not all Green Party candidates.

Copyright legislation must evolve with the culture it is protecting, and the rapid evolution in technology has made it pertinent to revisit today.  Tantamount to reforming copyright legislation is protecting the interests of Canadian producers and consumers of intellectual property.  Responsible and reciprocal treatment of our international partners will follow from clearly defining our domestic interests.  In order to achieve these objectives the Green Party of Canada will:

1. Oppose ratification of the WCT, recognizing both their imprecise definition of obligations and their incongruence with fair dealing;
2. Establish a copyright registry that will facilitate tracking and protecting of copyrights where registration is optional for the original author, but mandatory upon the transfer of ownership or death of the author;
3. Remove the Levy on Blank Audio Recording Media and replace it with private copying exemptions;
4. Introduce a formal notice-and-notice mechanism for dealing with copyright infringement online, thereby affirming common carrier status for Internet Service Providers (ISPs);
5. Renounce the Crown Copyright applied to all government produced documents, thereby immediately releasing them into the public domain (doesn’t it seem ludicrous to charge Canadians for works that their tax money paid to create in the first place?);
6. Hold consultations with music and movie industry artists, producers and distributors along with citizen’s assemblies to address the issues of online peer-to-peer networks.