My Final #copycon Submission -- In Pdf Format, Because All The Cool Kids Are Doing It...

Canada's Digital Future Submission to Public Consultation on Copyright Reform September, 2009

Background: I am a retired writer and stage actor currently directing theatre in Toronto. I have also been producing new media content for over ten years. You asked: 1. How do Canada’s copyright laws affect you? How should existing laws be modernized? 2. Based on Canadian values and interests, how should copyright changes be made in order to withstand the test of time? 3. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster innovation and creativity in Canada? 4. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster competition and investment in Canada? 5. What kinds of changes would best position Canada as a leader in the global, digital economy?

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1. How do Canada’s copyright laws affect you? How should existing laws be modernized? I consider myself extremely fortunate to live in an age where the aggregated wealth of human knowledge and experience is readily available at the click of a computer mouse. And despite the alarm bells that some may raise, art and culture -- Canadian and otherwise -- is thriving in this new realm. The barrier between so-called "professional" artists and their audiences is quickly disappearing, and with amazing new digital tools any citizen with a computer and Internet connection is able to create their own art and instantly share it with the world. Understandably, this presents quite the conundrum for industries built upon the monetization of intellectual property. For much of the 20th century these businesses held the keys to our art and culture, doling it out incrementally for proft and making stars out of some while reducing the rest of us to consumers and markets. And now, these industries have largely turned their backs on the chance to embrace participatory culture, to add value to it -- instead seeking to make criminals of the very same Canadians who made their businesses not only proftable but entirely possible in the frst place. Thus I will submit that for effective copyright reform the needs of all Canadians must be prioritized over the wants of a privileged few. I want to live in a society where everyone is actively engaged with the arts, not passively consuming only that which we are told to. I am certainly not opposed to compensation for those who choose to make a living from producing intellectual property, but I honestly see no need for special consideration from government -- the market will decide what's worth paying for, as it always has. 2. Based on Canadian values and interests, how should copyright changes be made in order to withstand the test of time? I strongly believe that any changes to Canada's current copyright regime should be technology-neutral. As the explosive growth of fle sharing clearly demonstrates, digital locks do not work. Further criminalization of fle-sharing will most certainly not stop it; rather, it will simply drive those who are doing it further underground, where opportunities for even more nefarious activity will no doubt be present. Intellectual property peddlers can fgure out on their own how to make their wares more competitive. As for the rest of us, without the fnancial resources to enforce our 2

rights in court on a case-by-case basis, Canadians need government to be on our side in ensuring fair access to our shared culture. It is also vital that changes to Canadian copyright be ISP-neutral. Just as big media companies in this country have no right to keep our culture under lock and key, our Internet providers have no business providing anything but usable bandwidth to their paying customers. With this in mind, ISPs should not be responsible for policing the actions of their users. And at the risk of repeating myself, efforts directed towards criminalizing fle sharers with "three strikes" or "notice & notice" policies would be better spent drafting new and compelling means to deliver and monetize IP in this country. 3. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster innovation and creativity in Canada? It is my belief that art and culture in this country would greatly beneft from two things: I. More fair dealing -- specifcally, more exemptions for education & research and less criminalization of non-commercial use. I hopefully don't need to impress upon our government that those in our education system hold the keys to Canada's future. As such their needs should be given at least a double-weighting against any argument put forth by for-proft intellectual property industries. This is not to say that IP makers don't deserve to make a proft, but they do need to understand that not all sharing is piracy. Fan pages on the web, mash-ups and yes, even fle sharing engage people in the arts and oftentimes bring more paying customers directly to content creators. Though sharing media has never been easier, fnding the original source has also become a similarly trivial thing. II. A shorter copyright term. 10 years, 25 -- anything would be better than what we must currently endure. I wrote above that Canada's big media companies have no right to hold our nation's culture hostage. Worthy artists certainly deserve compensation for their current endeavours, but locking up our cultural archives benefts almost no one. We have an opportunity here to free up an important facet of our shared history by releasing archival works into the public domain. This would go a long way towards keeping our culture alive, and as new generations of Canadians engage with it what 3

was old will once again become new. 4. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster competition and investment in Canada? As its very name would suggest, I believe that the future of content is new, not old, media. And to properly embrace this future Canada must prioritize the needs of new media creation over the wants of old media companies trying to protect their archaic ways of doing business. One innovative approach to copyright already exists and seems to be working well on Internet sites like Wikipeda and the made-in-Canada photo-sharing service Flickr: http://creativecommons.org/ Though it is somewhat hobbled by its adherence to the DMCA, Creative Commons offers an international standard for IP use with a range of licensing options that are free of legal jargon and thus clear enough for an end user to understand. I myself have benefted from Creative Commons numerous times, and have had my photography published in international mass media because of it. I have read elsewhere about suggestions to broaden the levy on blank media to subsidize the funding for new media creation. To be honest I'm unclear as to whether this current levy subsidizes new works by artists or instead just pays off old media companies and maintains the current (and broken) status quo. I would propose instead that the major ISPs in this country, being the point of entry to the Internet, be required themselves to provide additional funding for made-in-Canada new media. 5. What kinds of changes would best position Canada as a leader in the global, digital economy? I am heartened that my government understands the global and digital opportunities for Canada's intellectual property. I have hopefully made a compelling case against the use of digital locks. I will additionally submit that the specifc practice of region-locking media has no place in an era of instant, global publishing, as media in digital form is no longer a scarce commodity. Furthermore there is no need to prioritize Canadian content on the Internet, as fnding such things is as easy as entering "Canada" into an Internet search engine. 4

I would also call upon our government to resist the pressure of certain WIPO member countries and not support a proposed and so far internationally unpopular ratifcation of the current treaty. Continuing to look abroad I am hopeful that Canada will learn the hard lessons of the DMCA in the United States, which has most certainly not stopped piracy and has succeeded only in bankrupting students and single mothers. Here at home I would ask my government to closely review the groundswell of criticism to Bill C-61, thankfully scrapped as a by-product of the last election call. Hopefully a similar situation this autumn won't derail the efforts of this important consultation!

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