By James Pew

This post is about Bill C-61, the Canadian DMCA. I briefly mentioned Bill C-61 in the post The New Copyright Part 1. I strongly urge you to follow the links found in that post, and read up on exactly what Bill C-61 is, who wants it, who doesn’t, and who doesn’t care (usually because they don’t understand the ramifications).

Copyright restrictions are about monopolies. Powerful lobby groups that represent corporate special interests want to control the flow of the intellectual property that has traditionally been the most important part of our artistic, educational, and scientific creative culture. Through these monopolies lobby groups (like the RIAA and CRIA) aim to keep creative works out of the public domain for periods of time that extend well beyond the marketable time frame of most creative content. And through DRM (Digital Rights Management), or digital locks, creative content that eventually reaches the public domain, may very well be useless and inaccessible.

The tradition of intellectual property law has been about leveling the playing field and dismantling monopolies, for the good of creative culture, by providing incentives for increased competition. Every decision made by judges and law makers from the early 18th century up until the late 1960’s offers proof that legal and constitutional aims of copyright were designed for the benefit of creative culture through a healthy, vibrant, and accessible public domain.

The propaganda coming from much of the media is a parroting of the manipulative lobby rhetoric. That says copyright restrictions are for the protection of artists and other content creators. They position the issue as a war of good vs. evil. The good being the poor artist, and the evil being the malicious pirate. Their argument is positioned this way because they know that no average citizen condones out right pirating of other peoples property. Expected is the typical emotional response elicited in most people, as they feel sorry for the unfair suffering of artists.

It is unfortunate that the debate has been framed this way. The increase in copyright restriction, and the expanded use of DRM, will do much more harm to our culture, than any good it may do for artists.

A leading intellectual on copyright law is Lawrence Lessig. He is one of the founding members of Creative Commons. And author of the book Free Culture, which you can download for free at lessig.org. Free Culture is considered among the most important analysis’ of the current trends in copyright reform.

I found this book to be extremely informative, and surprising easy to read. Mr. Lessig keeps the technical legal speak to a minimum. The book offers many interesting real life examples and entertaining anecdotes about the challenges faced by users and creators of creative content. Here is one argument that I thought was particularly moving and well positioned:

The section of the book dealing with P2P (peer-to-peer) technology. P2P is the technological innovations that allows people to make available the contents of their hard drives to a community of users who in-turn make available the contents of their hard drives. The most famous case of P2P technology is Napster. Mr. Lessig divides the use of P2P into 4 distinct categories:

1. Users of P2P that download unauthorized, or pirated copies, of copyright protected content. This is an unfortunate use of P2P technology. The negative effects on content creators are easy to see.
2. Users of P2P that download unauthorized, or pirated copies, of copyright protected content, as a means of previewing the content before they make the decision to buy. If they don’t like the content, they delete it. If they like it they buy it. This is a positive use of P2P where the benefits to content creators are easily seen.
3. Users of P2P that download content that is technically still under copyright, but is no longer available for sale. As this does not represent any lost income for the content creator who holds the copyright – this can be considered a positive use of P2P. If you are not willing, or able, to sell your content it only makes sense it be released to the public domain.
4. Users of P2P that legally download content which has either passed into the public domain, or has been given the authors permission through a creative commons or other such license.

The content industry lobby groups are putting massive pressure on governments to reform copyright law and destroy the potential of new and innovative technologies. As can be seen in Mr. Lessig’s user definitions of P2P, three out of four uses have positive impacts for both content creators and/or society as a whole. If governments bend before the wishes of corporate special interests, innovative technologies with virtually unlimited potential for the positive development of educational, scientific, and artistic communities, will be destroyed. At this time it is important to remember that the original intent and traditional purpose of copyright restrictions is to serve the interests of the public good through the positive development of creative culture, not to protect the economic interests of corporate monopolies.

Please read more on this issue by clicking through some of the links provided below. And as always please share your thoughts.

Special thanks to Gaetan for designing such cool anti Bill C-61 posters!

Talking Points To Defeat Bill C-61 – By Brendon Wilson

Online petition against Bill C-61 – If you are against Bill C-61 sign this online petition!

Canadians Against the New Copyright Bill C-61 – Facebook Group

Michael Geist Blog – Dr. Michael Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa and an outspoken critic of Bill C-61

The New Copyright Part 2 by James Pew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under Copyright, Music Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.