Through my larger interest about the commodification of information, I have been following the introduction of new copyright legislation in Canada, Bill C-61. Both traditional and Internet media outlets, academic, and individuals are condemning the legislation as a “Canadian DMCA“. For the best coverage one should follow the blog of Michael Geist from the University of Ottawa. He has posts following press coverage, two posts tracking negative editorials from minor and major Canadian papers (the first with Industry Minister Jim Prentice’s “Letters to the Editor” replies”), a new post with more in-depth replies by Canadian columnists, and a series of ongoing posts showing the previously legal activities that an everyday person might have done with their various forms of media, which are now illegal.
The wonderful CBC Radio show Search Engine has posted an interview with Minister Prentice (MP3), where he hums and haws on a number of listener submitted questions.
Then the host Jesse Brown gets to the real issue with the law: while it allows for a number of different fair dealing rights, all of those rights are taken away by the fact that breaking any “digital lock,” digital rights management, or technical protection measure is a violation of copyright, regardless of the rights of the individual involved. This includes copying DRM’d CDs to your iPod, unlocking your phone to use overseas, or playing DVDs on Linux which requires an unauthorized decryption of some discs.
As Prentice is fighting to get off the phone, he comes out with the real motivation behind his copyright legislation: the free hand of the market will decide whether producers create works DRM’d up the wazoo, or whether demand will head towards unencrypted works which facilitate our legal rights.
I don’t want to say that the government grants us these rights. Copyright, the property right granted to creators as incentive for them to continue to create, is an artificial creation of society. Information cannot be owned, and the first pirates of the printing press will show. Society is gifting this right to creators, it is not inherent in their act of creation. So to say that the government is giving us fair use rights is incorrect: these are the rights we retain for ourselves. The right to quote for democratic and academic discourse. The right to make secure copies incase our original is destroyed. The right to enter interlibrary loan agreements. And the right to enjoy our purchased product in whatever manner we choose.
Prentice and the government sees a future where whatever freedoms we have with our cultural products are only those which are given by corporations, (or the “market”, as if a free and equal one exists). This is again the error of submitting what we hold as most dear to the logic of the market–add to this health care and education, which I am sure Harper would love to get his hands on (or off).
Actually, perhaps Prentice is correct. Maybe the market will rule, and people will stop buying these goods from large companies, and go back to a time when individuals interacted directly with the artists and creators themselves. While this required one to be a travelling musician in the past, now all one needs is five thousand dollars of recording equipment and a pretty website to make money. And I don’t think those dinosaurs in business and government have understood that reality yet.
