Re: [fsfc-discuss] After some thought

[David Henry]

On Wed, 2008-26-03 at 19:15 -0400, Blaise Alleyne wrote:
> ... The recent talk of copyright reform legislation is 
> probably the hottest Canadian topic at the moment, imho, 
> considering some are calling it the Canadian DMCA.... 

I understand the Minister, Prentice, *did not* submit the legislation
thanks to widespread dissent.  But there are meetings of the committee
as I write this -- it is very much going to see the light of day again.

So yes, this potato is hot-hot-hot.  And we'd very much have things to
say about it -- but I'll leave that for others to sketch out.  For the
time being, I'll just point to a few other players and sites, eh?

First would be an article that seems to encapsulate the issues well
enough:
http://www.vibetechmag.com/?p=669


Groups working directly on these issues:

Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights
http://www.ccer.ca/

Fair Copyright For Canada
http://www.faircopyrightforcanada.ca/

Worth following the US anti-DMCA peops:
http://www.anti-dmca.org/


Blogiverse stuff:

Jeremy Costin:
http://weblawg.costinmedia.com/wp/tag/copyright-reform/

Michael Geist, of course:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php


I should add that I watched the CBC's first torrent distro last night,
and got quite a laugh out of it!  It (the torrent distro model) is a
'positive' story about the advantages of user rights -- new business
uses and technology models, etc..  


Some interesting common ground:

Campaign for Democratic Media
http://democraticmedia.ca/

Volunteer-run forum on media reform:
http://www.mediareform.ca/forum/


On the government side of things....

Whenever the Feds are considering making changes, there are committees
hearing evidence.  I'm trying to put together a list of committees,
hearings and submissions that may affect free software.

Some intellectual property issues will come up at the House of Commons
Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (who are dumping
the National Science Advisor):
http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/cmte/CommitteePublication.aspx?SourceId=231160

Notices for the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage (CHPC): 
http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/cmte/CommitteeHome.aspx?Lang=1&PARLSES=392&JNT=0&COM=13180

Here's the archive for CHPC notices:
http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/cmte/committeelist.aspx?lang=1&parlses=392&jnt=0&selid=e21_&com=13180

The actual content (transcriptions) of committee meetings is much more
useful than notices, of course, so I'll try to dig some of that stuff up
next.


Will have to get back to work now....

All them good things,
David Henry