By this point you know the drill. You might be interested in following up with one of the linked organizations, though.
--------------------------------------------- ORC News | June 3, 2008 | Issue 1.3 ---------------------------------------------Write to your MP about the new copyright bill: http://www.onlinerights.ca/get_active/copyright_for_canadians/
Dear Online Rights Canada Supporter,
We understand that the government will imminently introduce legislation to amend the Copyright Act – and it intends to push it through quickly. We at Online Rights Canada wanted to let you know what was ahead in the next few weeks, and what you can do to protect Canada from a new DMCA.
When we do get a copyright bill, we need a period to study the bill, and we need thorough Committee hearings that offer a wide range of stakeholders the opportunity to present their views to the Canadian government. We need to challenge Parliament to give provide oversight. If the current government tries to rush this bill through the Summer, we need to stop it in its tracks.
All the signs suggest that the bill will be a Canadian version of the American DMCA with a veneer of consumer concessions. The bill will likely include laws modeled on the DMCA instead of the approach adopted by earlier Canadian proposals. Concessions may include a time-shifting right and a format-shifting right, legalizing consumer use of the VCR and iPod after all these years. However, by protecting DRM at the same time, the government kills those consumer rights anywhere the content is locked down!
What can you do? Advocacy! Contact your MP – use the advocacy tools at http://www.CopyrightforCanadians.ca and the Facebook group, Fair Copyright for Canadians http://www.faircopyrightforcanada.ca/ to make sure Ottawa knows your views.
And get others to do so, as well – we’ll need a summer full of copyright activism to make sure that Ottawa knows that Canada’s copyright laws have to put Canadians’ interests first!
To start, take two minutes to send our first letter to MPs about the impending bill. Just visit:
http://www.onlinerights.ca/get_active/copyright_for_canadians/
and start spreading the word to your Member of Parliament!
Thanks again,
Online Rights Canada
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You’re receiving this because you subscribed to Online Rights Canada’s news service, either at http://www.onlinerights.ca/ or at http://www.copyrightforcanadians.ca/ .
