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Conservative Party

Liberal Party

Green Party

So far the Bloc and the NDP have not had the party or any candidates reply, but given there is at least one reply for each of the other 3 major parties.

With the Green Party they are running a full slate of 308 candidates and is a very decentralized party. Given this it should be expected that they would have sent in the most replies. I was surprised to see the Conservative candidate reply before the Conservative party headquarters had sent out its reply.

The Liberals are acting predictably with a number of candidates just sending in copies of the reply the executive director of the party sent in.

The Bloc tends to not answer questions from outside of Quebec (they only run candidates in Quebec). Of the major parties it is the NDP that has surprised me by not sending in any replies yet.

Conservative Party

Liberal Party

Green Party

So far the Bloc and the NDP have not had the party or any candidates reply, but given there is at least one reply for each of the other 3 major parties.

With the Green Party they are running a full slate of 308 candidates and is a very decentralized party. Given this it should be expected that they would have sent in the most replies. I was surprised to see the Conservative candidate reply before the Conservative party headquarters had sent out its reply.

The Liberals are acting predictably with a number of candidates just sending in copies of the reply the executive director of the party sent in.

The Bloc tends to not answer questions from outside of Quebec (they only run candidates in Quebec). Of the major parties it is the NDP that has surprised me by not sending in any replies yet.

The Canadian Government is about to be changed. This could me a change in trade negotiators, but probably not. They do get direction from parliament.

At the World Summit on the Information Society I read a few times that the Canadian government delegation was often in stealth-support of the extreme positions put forward by the USA. The USA positions included things like opposing inclusion of FLOSS, claiming it isn't "technological neutral" even though FLOSS is about methodology/policy and not technology.

Canadians should consider this when they vote later this month - what treaties will we be negotiating, signing and ratifying in the near future depends on how Canadians vote on June 28.

If you want to coordinate a response with fellow Internet/FLOSS/Creative Commons aware Canadians, consider the Digital Copyright Canada forum.

The Digital Copyright Canada forum and the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) are working to make Internet, Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) and digital copyright issues during the current election.

In 2001, with the help of the EFF, we were able to generate approximately 650 of the 700 written replies that the government received to their consultation. Our replies all opposed the DMCA being brought into Canada. Unfortunately parliament is not listening to us, and recent reports from parliamentary committees have directed government to immediately ratify the WIPO treaties that were implemented as the DMCA in the USA.

Rather than reacting, Canadians should be proactive and ensure that their candidates know where they stand on these issues. Both CIPPIC and the Digital Copyright Canada forum have questions for Candidates which can help you find out where they stand.

If you are one of those 40% of Canadians that don't vote, please consider protecting the Internet and FLOSS from bad government policy to be an important reason to get involved.

The WIPO Copyright Treaty was internationally developed back in a time when people, especially politicians, had no grasp of how digital data was an integral part of the modern world. The Internet, and copying of files, was seen as something awfully scary which threatened companies. Old white men fear change, and in 1996 the Internet looked like a pretty wild frontier. WIPO demands that digital data be treated specially, which IMHO is a big mistake. Everything we do these days relies on digital media and copying, an inherent action of computers and networks.

The WIPO was ratified in the United States to create the DMCA, which you all know and love. The similar EU laws, which are just as bent as the US's DMCA, also came from WIPO.

Now Canada is looking at bringing the WIPO, i.e. their own version of the DMCA, into Canadian copyright law. Terrible idea - visit this site if you want to learn more, and exert political pressure to stop this from happening.

This is the kind of lunatic laws you get when the recording industry lobbies government (hey, they got the cash!). Even in dear old Canada, where the courts protect our privacy through ISPs and uphold our right to freely copy media we own, the recording industry is lobbying government to change Canadian copyright law. If our government ratifies WIPO, as the industry is pushing them to do, we'll lose many of the media rights we enjoy (this will bring the DMCA into Canada). Please, visit our Digital Copyright Canada site, sign the Petition for Users' rights, and make digital freedom an election issue!

Currently in Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada and Federal Court of Canada have both ruled (in response to the music industry lobby) that downloading and copying music for yourself is allowed under fair use; sharing your music with friends is fair use; and ISPs do not have to reveal the identity of their customers to an angry recording industry.

Now it looks like things are going to change, and soon we will have the same situation as there is in the United States. The recording industry lobby, spearheaded by Canadian Recording Industry Association, CRIA is pushing our legislators to overhaul Canadian copyright law. The model for the changes is WIPO, which is implemented in the United States as DMCA.

Dammit, doesn't this look familiar? Are you scared yet?? The corporate lobby is rewriting laws that our courts have already decided are fair. Please speak up! Sign our petition for user's rights, if you're Canadian. Sign it, mail it to us, and we'll take them all to Parliament. We need to show parliament that we have demands as users of media, and that we will exercise our votes.

I'll just keep my figners crossed that we dont "import" this or a similar law to Canada.

I'll just keep my figners crossed that we dont "import" this or a similar law to Canada.

Try canada. Downloading music is free. No DMCA

One of the "interesting" items found deep (p21) in the ruling is the note that "However, an audio recording medium to which no tariff applies because the Board has decided that such a medium is not of a kind ordinarily used by individuals for recording music is, in the Board's opinion, removed from the ambit of the exemption " (bold is mine) (i.e. you can't legally copy other's music onto it) which they specifically apply (p43) to DVDs. "As previously explained, this determination means that copying music onto a DVD infringes copyright"

The discussion on the digital-copyright.ca mail list is running to the opinion that since the Board didn't rule on whether things like normal hard drives are "blank audio media" this still leaves open the right to use them for now, but that in the future (next round of levy determination for 2005-2006 for example) they (the Board) may rule that the hard disk isn't a blank audio medium and therefor Canadians may no longer copy music to them - or they may rule that hard disks are blank audio media and apply a levy to them which will confirm thier use for private copying - or they may rule that they are blank audio media but not leviable and therefor no longer allowed for private copying of music. Same applies to FLASH cards and micro-hard drives - they were not specifically ruled upon this time so still in a grey area.

It sounds rather DMCA-like. I wonder if Parliament passed something DMCA-like with almost no fanfare.

No. Heritage Canada and Industry Canada have been collaborating in a very significant consultation process accross Canada. I attended their Ottawa consultation meeting, which had surprisingly strong "citizen" representation. The big american content producers were given their say, but not given a lot of credibility. Michael Geist, a U of Ottawa lawyer , was particularly good with not letting things by.

Canada DMCA opponents mailing list.
Digital-Copyright.ca
Thorough background brought to you by Matthew Skala, the chap that broke (IIRC) the Cyber-Patrol encryption and, again IIRC, was pursued by Mattel for DMCA violations, despite being a Canadian.