Shortly the Canadian parliament will have legislation introduced which is similar to the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. You can find out more about this on Michael Geist's blog (the Canadian DMCA: What You Can Do), and via the Facebook group that he has created – the Fair Copyright group. Geist is an advocate for fair copyright laws, in addition to being a professor at the University of Ottawa. He's also one of the foremost experts globally on topics like privacy and copyright.
The proposed law will eliminate time shifting (goodbye PVR's and taping shows to watch later), make it illegal to RIP a CD and play it on your PC, and make it illegal to make a backup copy of that CD. The irony of this is that as the music industry is finally coming to terms with the damage that their actions have caused in the American market, our own government is about to embark on the same path.
It's bad legislation. It will make criminals of millions of law abiding Canadians. Your member of parliament needs to hear from you today.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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Hi Alec, You and I had a conversation about this legislation some time ago when I was staying at your house. If you are really serious about influencing MPs, I suggest you copy what some other groups do. For example if Friends of Canadian Broadcasting want to influence MPs they send an email which includes:
- a letter which one can sign and send to one’s MP. The sender can add to the letter if he wants.
- a field for one’s postcode. This finds the MP’s e-mail address if one needs it.
- a ‘send-button’ such as you have at the bottom of this message. Clicking this sends the letter to the appropriate MP.
- a field for you to fill in the e-mail address of an intersted friend. This sends a Friends e-mail to your friend.
How well this works i don’t know, but it does get one person who would otherwise not send a message to send one.
Dad