There have been rumbles over the past few months of movie and music industry personnel meeting with MPs to gain their support on reforming copyright in Canada. They essentially want to have a DMCA-style form of legislation in The Great White North.Feeling the need to make my opinions known, I sent a letter to my Member of Parliament, Liberal Geoff Regan, in the hope that he would become aware of this matter.
Please, send this letter on to your own MP to make him/her aware of this matter.
Mr. Regan;
I am writing this email to urge you, and the Liberal Party, to resist any Conservative push on a DMCA-style (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) of legislation in Canada. The United States passed the Digital Millenium Copyright Act in 1998. Since then, it has received criticism for impeding upon fair use and innovation.
Torrentfreak.com, a notable news blog quotes Jason Crocker, the Chairman of the Canadian Coalitition for Electronic Rights as saying, "corporate interests and the US government calling for DMCA-style legislation including a three-strike system and warning letters from ISPs".
It is worry-some that the mess of a system in the United States may soon take hold in Canada. Within the last month, university graduate Joel Tenenbaum of Boston was ordered to pay $22500 for 30 songs he shared on the P2P program, Kazaa, resulting in $675,000 in total fines. I do not believe pirating music is ethical, but $22500 per song is ridiculous, and will likely haunt Mr. Tenenbaum for the rest of his life.
This witch hunt enacted by the RIAA and MP AA, the heads of music and movie copyright in the US, has resulted in numerous false accusations as well. SIngle mother Tanya Andersen was brought to court for supposedly downloading songs off of Kazaa. She refused to pay as she did not download any music tracks. Luckily, after much time and stress, she was found innocent.
Here in Canada, we do not frugally sue each-other. We do not allow the big corporations to prey on the people. The Liberals, in the past, have supported similar copyright reform which would result in a similar situation to the United States.
I was reading an article in what I believe was The Globe and Mail referring to Mr. Ignatieff's trouble distinguishing the Liberal Party from the Conservatives. This would be a very powerful stance, especially in the online community and amongst young, technically literate voters. With both the Conservatives and the Liberals having the same thoughts on this issue, I fear the previously mentioned groups will turn to other parties with a more differentiated stance.
Yours Truly;
Sean M. Joudry
