Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Geist's Fair Copyright for Canada Principles

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the canada-leads-the-way dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Canadian law prof Michael Geist has been leading the charge against a Canadian DMCA including the creation of a Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group that now has more than 38,000 members. Having delayed the legislation, he now outlines what Canadians should be fighting for — more flexible fair dealing, a balanced implementation of the WIPO Internet treaties, an ISP safe harbor, and a modernized backup copy provision."

3 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Re:38,000 Canadians? by Geof · · Score: 5, Interesting

    that's like what, 32,000 Americans?

    The U.S. has roughly ten times our population, so in terms of political significance it's more like 380,000 Americans. At one point we had about two people joining every minute. Imagine if every 3 seconds an American signed up to protest the DMCA.

  2. State sanctioned. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I want the audiance to make note that he solves the copyright issues via society sanctioned means. Not by hiding behind a geo/content-hiding P2P client in the safety of one's basement. Talk about mass rebellion all you want, it's people like him who will do far more to make things balanced (as opposed to the lopsided solution piracy presents).

  3. Re:it's german by I_Voter · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Beardo the Bearded wrote:

    We do things differently in Canada. Instead of trying to tilt one way or the other, we try our best to come up with compromises ..

    -------------

    IMO One of the reasons this is less common in the USA, at least in political discourse, is that we lack "real" political parties. Political parties used to be organizations that could field politicians that reflected the organizations interests, and would carry the organizations name on the ballot. By requiring, (in most states) party nomination by public primaries, the state can specify the requirements for ballot access for the primary elections. A modern US "party" candidate is just an individual that competes in a single election district. By registering with the state as a member of the party of their choice - just like any voter who wishes to vote in primary elections. They are individually free to choose to run under labels such as Republican, Democrat, or any other party that has achieved ballot status! There is no enforceable party platform

    One important benefit of "real" political parties is their ability to facilitate political deals between different interests in society. A political party in a two-party system is a gigantic coalition of many different interests. Lacking an enforceable party platform - the other forces that decide which of these interests will get rewarded ( after the votes are counted ) are not very clear in either major party.

    My short polemic text on the subject -

    Do You Know What a Political Party is?

    http://web.newsguy.com/politicaleconomy/DefinePoliticalParty.html