Prentice Delays Copyright Reform Bill

I'm beginning to put money that it appears as a rider on a money bill, since Prentice is delaying the bill, and the HarperCons aren't exactly known for wanting to debate the merits of their legislation.

Of course, I think a big part of this is that Prentice knows that what he's been ordered to do is based on a deeply flawed approach to begin with - and any real debate or analysis would expose those problems quite quickly.

Attacking Canadians For Corporate Greed

Rumour has it that Minister Prentice will introduce his "Canadian DMCA" in the next couple of days.

This will no doubt be a variation on the legislation he backed away from last December, and he's hoping that we aren't paying attention right now.

The HarperCon$ have repeatedly gone after closer alignment with the United States on all matters, even when the US approach has been demonstrably brain damaged. Anything that models itself on the US DMCA is beyond brain damaged, it is an outright attack on individual freedoms and liberties - and is the very legislation that the recording industry in the United States uses to sue its customers.

I agree with the government on one point - the copyright and patent system needs to be overhauled in light of the modern realities. After that, I have my own ideas that are intended to be more constructive than punitive.

Minister Prentice - Sliced and Diced...

Via Canadian Cynic:

Charlie Angus rips into Minister Prentice over "Can-DMCA".

I agree with Prentice on one thing - the current system of copyrights and patents has been rendered obsolete by today's technology. I've started to muse aloud about this whole conundrum back here. Fundamentally, what we cannot, and should not do is implement anything modelled even remotely on the now notorious US legislation entitled Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The consequences of that act in the US have been topics like the recording industry suing its own customers, and apparent bans on a common (and valid practice) known as reverse engineering of technologies.

For Canada to ape the US on this would be disastrous on numerous levels. The fact that the Con$ have not been consulting with Canadians boiled over in a protest crashing Prentice's Christmas Party at his constituency office. Whether Canada signed onto the WIPO treaty is academic today - that treaty came along in the 1990s, and the last decade has contained a plethora of technology changes that it does not address adequately.

The Con$ claim to be a more democratic, grassroots party. Let them show that in doing some real consultations with more than just whatever industry lobbyists currently have their ear on this subject.