FIGHT FOR YOUR (COPY)RIGHT | Protecting Canadians right to media content
Did you know that it’s illegal to rip your own (legally purchased) CDs to your IPod in Canada? That’s right—it’s copyright infringement. Welcome to the sometimes-strange and complicated world of Canadian copyright law.
Copyright is set to become more complicated still if certain industries and lobby groups succeed in influencing the federal government’s copyright reform bill that will likely be tabled shortly after Parliament resumes on Jan. 28. All signs point to a copyright act that will cater to the demands of large content owners: music, movie, and publishing companies otherwise known collectively as “Big Content,” while criminalizing common activities and allowing consumer interests to be trampled in the name of anti-piracy.
It is expected that the big changes to the Copyright Act will be related to technologies that Big Content believes are the major cause of piracy and lost revenues. From photocopiers and VCRs to iPods and BitTorrent, technology has made it easier to use content, exercise fair dealing rights (“fair use” is the American equivalent), and to infringe copyright. To guard against infringement (and fair dealing), Big Content companies have taken a two-pronged approach: adding digital locks (digital rights management, or DRM) to their content and lobbying for laws to make it illegal to circumvent these locks.
These digital locks are objectionable in their own right because they allow Big Content to dictate terms of use for digital content that would be unreasonable for their real-world counterparts. For example, can you imagine not being able to sell or lend a book or CD after buying it? However, when coupled with legislation that outlaws the circumvention of these locks for any purpose, a very troublesome situation arises. Suddenly, even if a user is able to bypass the locks protecting content and intends to for legitimate purposes only, they are legally barred from doing so. It doesn’t matter if they wish to exercise their fair-dealing rights on protected content or if they need to access the locked content they purchased after the holder of the “keys” has gone out of business—all of these activities become illegal.
Such Draconian legislation would certainly upset the balance of rights that is central to copyright law in Canada. While some creators and most Big Content companies and lobby groups believe that protection of their economic interests is the sole purpose of copyright, others (including the Canadian Supreme Court) view copyright as a balance of rights: creators should have the right to compensation for creating new content (a public good), but the public should have the right to reasonably use this content that becomes part of our collective culture. Any new copyright law must maintain this balance.
We can learn about the effects of unbalanced copyright law by observing the nearly 10 years of experience of the United States with their Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Introduced to support content industries in the face of new technology, the DMCA has been ineffective in curbing piracy, yet has restricted user rights, allowed abuse by monopolistic content owners, and enabled ridiculous legal judgments against individuals downloading a CD’s worth of songs—all features that we should be loath to import into Canada’s copyright act. Instead, we must call for fair copyright law that addresses copyright problems while maintaining the balance between owner and user rights.
And what about that illegal music ripped from your CDs to your IPod? You probably won’t ever be arrested because of it, but it highlights the other side of fair copyright: the need for copyright changes to legalize clearly reasonable activity. There are a number of areas in the current Copyright Act that should be adjusted to provide exceptions for reasonable activity in our increasingly digital culture. Again, we must call upon our government to address these areas to ensure that copyright law is fair and accommodating of common consumer activities.
So, what can you do to ensure that Canada adopts fair and balanced copyright law? You need to let your government know that fair copyright is important to you. Start by joining Fair Copyright for Canada (Faircopyrightforcanada.ca), a group of citizens from all areas of society that oppose restrictive copyright law and support fair copyright for all Canadians. This national group and its local chapters are leading the charge against the anticipated copyright changes. They can help you take action to let the government know about the need for fair copyright, including writing, e-mailing, and meeting with your member of parliament, as well as encouraging others to learn more and speak out against unbalanced copyright law.
Canadians cannot remain idle and ignore copyright as another inconsequential law being tinkered with by bureaucrats in Ottawa. Copyright plays a fundamental role in how we interact with the elements that make up our collective culture, such as music, artwork, photographs, video, film, and written works. We must stand up for fair copyright law that maintains a balance between owner and user rights. Otherwise, we risk allowing Big Content to dictate how, and at what cost, we may access the content that defines our culture.
Steve Woodrow is the Fair Copyright for Canada Winnipeg Chapter organizer and an engineering graduate.
