Find more information and ways to take action at http://www.digitalagenda.ca/take-action-on-billc32

Dear Minister James Moore

I write to urge you to support balanced copyright laws. I am concerned that Bill C-32, the Copyright Modernization Act, does not adequately address Canadian interests.

During consultations with the Canadian public in 2009, Canadians made it clear that we want copyright to strike a balance between the rights of creators and users, encourage Canadian culture, spur innovation and economic growth, and not stunt new technologies. To achieve these goals, the new copyright bill must reflect the reality of how Canadians create and experience content, and take a sensible approach to digital locks. The new copyright bill, Bill C-32, includes many excellent and long-overdue reforms that will bring copyright law into conformity with the reality of how Canadians experience content. However, these important user and creator rights are undermined by C-32’s extreme position on digital locks.

Bill C-32 includes many excellent new creator and user rights that show that Parliamentarians were listening to what Canadians told them during the Copyright Consultation in 2009. Bill C-32 finally legalizes fair parody and satire, and clarifies that educational use of content can qualify as fair dealing. The Bill also recognizes the reality of how Canadians use content, legalize format shifting (for example, putting music on a computer or iPod) and time shifting (using a VCR or PVR). The Bill reforms statutory damages, recognizing that non-commercial copyright infringement is not the same as commercial counterfeiting. And the Bill clarifies the legality of user-generated content. In these and other ways, the drafters of the Bill have shown that they understand that the ways Canadians access, create, and enjoy content has changed, and that these changes in many ways are in the public interest and so worthy of legal recognition. As the Bill moves through Committee, we can expect that these user and creator rights will come under attack. I call on you to defend these features of the Bill. They are balanced and in the public interest.

This balance, however, is not reflected in Bill C-32’s approach to legal protection of digital locks. It is important to build sensible limits on laws outlawing the circumvention of these locks. Bill C-32 outlaws the circumvention of a digital lock protecting access to a work even if your intended dealing with the work will not infringe copyright. These provisions reflect American and content industry demands, not the views of ordinary Canadians offered during last summer’s consultations. Under Bill C-32, digital lock rights trump fair dealing and other user and creator rights, including the new recognition for parody, user generated content and time and format shifting. As more and more content goes online, it will be easier and easier for distributors to lock down content, and our rights will grow more and more useless. Such hard-line measures in Canada will undermine the balance between the public and copyright owners. Circumventing a digital lock should only be prohibited if the underlying use is illegal. If I’m not infringing copyright, why should the law ever prevent me from creating with, reporting on or enjoying content?

Balanced law that recognizes the reality of how Canadians enjoy and create content and offers sensible protections for digital locks is the right economic and cultural policy for Canada. I urge you to support Bill C-32’s commitment to balance while fixing its digital lock laws. I support copyright amendments that respond to Canada’s unique interests. Bill C-32 does not yet do that.