www.simoncollier.ca

This is just too great to keep to myself. Thanks to my homey Sarah for the link, yo!

http://thesh.info/video/lip-dub-flagpole-sitta

Radio Alert

More info: UNHCR

Dear Mr Jaffer:

I work and live in the Strathcona area and would like to write to you as my local Member of Parliament about some issues that are causing me concern as I follow them in the news. I am a law-abiding and community-oriented member of the Edmonton community and a proud Albertan, and hope that you will read my concerns in that context.

My concerns are related to the copyright reforms promised by the Federal Department of Canadian Heritage. There are two major issues I wish to address:
Digital Rights Management (DRM) and anti-circumvention laws
Uneccesary additions to the copyright law to cater to U.S. whims.

Digital Rights Management is a major problem to me. I initially bought a lot of music online from Puretracks. These tracks are DRM “protected”, which removes my ability to play the music I paid for on many devices, including my iPod, my work PC and my XBOX. Why? Either because these devices don’t understand Puretrack’s choice of DRM, or the applied DRM explicitly denies me the right to use it. If I buy music from Apple’s iTunes store, I then cannot play music using my work PC or my XBOX, though I can use it on my iPod.

However, if I buy a CD from the store, I can rip it to my PC and play it anywhere I want, on any device I choose. It is clear then that DRM removes my consumer rights, and in no small way.

One workaround to this infringement of my rights has been this:

1. I pay for my music online and download it.
2. I burn the music to CD.
3. I then rip that CD back to my PC as new music files, which are free of DRM by default.
4. I use the new version of the tracks to play on my iPod, or take to work.

My intent in this example is to circumvent the DRM on my music purchase in order to play it on my music devices. I have gone to this much effort simply to allow myself fair use of my purchase. Currently this is legal, but I understand there is a movement to lobby for an anti-circumvention legislation which would make it illegal for me to do this.

This worries me. By allowing DRM my consumer rights have already been compromised, I do not wish to break the law by listening to the music I paid for. Bill C-60 would have addressed this concern by only making it an infringement to circumvent for the purposes of copyright infringement, but this no longer looks to be the direction new laws are moving. I would like this provision to appear in any new legislation we see put to bill.

What makes this situation even more infuriating is that the media I copy my legitimately downloaded music onto has a levy built into the price that is designed to compensate the Canadian music industry for music piracy. Every blank CD, video cassette, PC hard drive and iPod that is sold costs more because we pay this levy, and yet I have to go to these lengths to use my own music. (It is important to point out that I am not against this levy system, I simply note the contradiction in logic.)

My other concern is that lobbying/bullying from the US Government and private industries in the US may cause our government to change our laws to cater to them. There has been an explosion of media releases and publicity regarding several claims that the copyright laws in Canada are ineffective, even going as far as to claim that Canada is a piracy haven, comparing us to China and Russia (both known for their inability to control copyright infringements).

The information I have read shows that this is simply not true, and that these sources are wildly exaggerating figures for their own gain. In fact, reports show that the US is actually a far bigger source of copyright infringement, and they already have the laws in place that they claim will prevent this problem in Canada.

You can read an excellent summary of this situation here.

I am not an expert nor a scholar in the areas I address in this letter, so my points are referenced by links to sources I believe to be reputable and neutral. I encourage you to read these background articles as they provide insights that are rarely heard in these discussions, because they are not coming from lobbyists or large corporations who have the time, the money and the financial investment to ensure their positions are heard.

I know that you will take my concerns into consideration, and I thank you for that.

Please note that I have carbon copied Ms. Bev Oda M.P., Minister of Canadian Heritage, for her information.

Yours faithfully,

Simon Collier

This is how it works
You’re young until you’re not
You love until you don’t
You try until you can’t
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath

No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else’s heart
Pumping someone else’s blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don’t get harmed
But even if it does
You’ll just do it all again.

- Regina Spektor, “On The Radio”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSJQ1St1OnQ

I am easily irritated by companies that hold a monopoly and use that power to bully the public (Telus, Shaw, etc). What makes me irate is when a company plays dirty and lobbies for changes to the law in order to serve it’s own interests, especially when those changes are against the interests of the people. More frustrating than that is, how does the public stay informed about so many issues and then lobby government themselves, without an expense account to take their MPs to dinner?

I don’t have an answer to that.

The latest example of this is the US government and companies within the US lobbying for needless change to copyright laws in Canada. Rather than recite everything in my own words, I highly recommend you read Professor Michael Geist’s blog. For now, here are some links to get you started.

Warner’s Summer Blockbuster
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1929/125/

30 Days of DRM
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/component/option,com_topics/task,view/id,10055/Itemid,195/