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Campaigning for Copyright in Canada
kwandar writes "Politicians are on the doorsteps of Canadians over the next two weeks, as the Canadian election campaign winds up. Digital Copyright Canada put together a questionnaire for all the major parties, asking for their position. While I haven't made a decision, I think I'd mod the governing Liberal Party's response as 'off-topic'. The Election 2004 responses make for interesting reading."
am I the only one who can only find Liberal responses on spam and national ID cards?
File-sharing is especially popular among Canadian youth with 60% of Canadian secondary students admitting to downloading MP3s.
The other 40% don't admit it.
Link.
Closed protocols, systems, and architectures can play host to deleterious behaviour that is virtually impossible to correct. Open standards and architectures are necessary for any long-lived system.
The government must be able to create, customize, and improve its systems without having to rely on a single supplier. Conversely, the public must be able to verify and critique the architectures that are used to store, transmit, and protect sensitive information.
A Green Party government will only acquire systems are built upon open standards and protocols. If such systems are not available, or do not provide sufficient functionality, the value of creating or improving an open source solution will be weighed against the cost of using the equivalent closed system. A closed system will only be used if the vendor agrees to be liable for migrating to an open architecture within a reasonable time period.
I had been going to vote NDP, but unless they have a similar response I may vote Green instead!
Alphanos
Sharing files is not illegal reproducing copyrighted materials without permission and distributing them is. File sharing should not be prohibited, as it is simple transmission of information.
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The Green Party believes that the open discussion of copy protection mechanisms (including their mechanism and means to circumvent them) can only result in the creation of better copy protection schemes. Private citizens have the right to own and control devices used for lawful purposes.
Closed protocols, systems, and architectures can play host to deleterious behaviour that is virtually impossible to correct. Open standards and architectures are necessary for any long-lived system.
I havn't checked the rest of their platform, but they sure seem informed and their answers to this survey. Can't say the same about the Liberals though; all I got out of their response was "We don't know, but whatever it is it'll be good for the Canadian economy". Bah! Spouting off slogans isn't an answer!
Where are the PC's responses? And the Bloc? I hope posting to slashdot will expediate the reply processes.
How is it that the Canadian Green Party's responses coincided so perfectly with my own (and I believe many other /.ers) opinions?
I ask because I'm from that country parked due south of Canada and I can't seem to find a party I agree with so well, much less one that responds to a questionaire such as the Canadians have. Did I miss the U.S. Copyright questionaire or is it so pitling of an issue in this country no one cares to ask or tell?
Looking where to aim my vote,
Matthew
Direct away from face when opening.
Single issue voting is BAD.
No comment.
Right on.
;)
I'll admit, the green party has some very tempting planks, but some of their other stuff I disagree with (or is just flat out weird). For one, I think their fanaticism with the environment is severely detrimental to the rest of their platform. Increased gas tax? Penalizing petrolium companies? I'm sorry, i'm from Alberta and that shit just won't fly here. They try it, and the hard feelings over the NEP will seem like a gentle breeze compared to what would happen out west.
Honestly though, I DO find them interesting... they seem to be very open minded, and actually in touch with the modern world -- which is more than I can say for the rest of our deluded parties. But I think they're just a little too far left of my tastes. They seem to be idealists more like the Communis... uh, NDP, than Conservative style realists. So their stance on things like defence spending, justice, and corporate Canada strike me as being weak-handed.
But yeah, the parent is right. Single issue voting is bad. Look across the whole spectrum of parties and issues before you jump on a bandwagon.
Or not. You could very well be like me, decide no one party comes close to representing your views, conclude that Canadian 'democracy' sucks and is broken, and consequently you won't bother voting but will just go back to playing video games instead.
aren't a single issue party, are they?
Damn.
It might be useful for you to let other people in the riding know about what the Heritage Minister and Heritage committee was working on. We have per-riding discussion forums on the Digital Copyright Canada site specifically to help people organize in their area.
First they pat themselves on the back for the tax on CDs which mean that all the FLOSS CDs we have had a tax that went to the major record labels. Next they want to tax educational institutions for their use of the royalty-free Internet (Yes, students reading SlashDot will have money going to the book publishers). Don't think for a moment that before too long they will put a tax on computers and the Internet itself in order to give handouts to CAAST (Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft) members like Microsoft.
Digital Copyright Canada forum
I am the webmaster of Digital Copyright Canada and have been working closely with the CIPPIC and PIAC before and during this campaign.
Helping to run this information campaign has been an eye opener for me. I had thought that each of the parties were similar as far as having local candidates in each constituency able to run their own local campaigns.
The centralization is quite high: A number of NDP and Liberals have responded saying that party headquarters will be answering, with some NDP candidates indicating that it was against NDP policy for candidates to answer questionnaires.
As I wrote in the article " Candidates blindly endorsing party position", this is not an area of policy where there is consensus in any of the parties. For this reason the responses of candidates are more important than party responses, and yet some of the centralizing parties like the NDP and the Liberals discourage candidate responses.
Do you want a candidate who will be able to be informed and represent your views, or only one that will tow the party line?
Digital Copyright Canada forum
I think we should be proud that we are causing them to notice us during the election. We need to push harder, but we have a good start.
In the 2001 consultations we easily generated 650 of the 700 responses received. I'm hoping to get an even larger number of people involved during the election asking questions during all candidates debates and so-on.
We also have a petition for users rights that we will be presenting to the new parliament. Currently we have between 100 and 200 signatures, and I really want that to be over a 1000! If 650 people will write a letter to government bureaucrats to signify they don't want a DMCA in Canada, we should be able to get over 1000 people telling parliament directly!
Note: The recording industry claims that they asked for the levy as a stop-gap before they got Legal protection for DRM. They also more recently claimed that they lost a court case (BMG CANADA INC. vs. John and Jane doe) claiming that there is a "hole in the copyright act". There is no hole in the copyright act, unless you count the blank media levy and their entire lack of evidence of copyright infringement.
See: The Canadian File-sharing Legal Information Network (CanFLI) for more information on that case.
Digital Copyright Canada forum
We look forward to commentary on the NDP and the Bloc Québécois (Google Translation).
Missing at this point from the major parties is the reply from the Conservative party.
Digital Copyright Canada forum