Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Intellectual Property Law Blogs -> The Patry Copyright Blog

Intellectual Property Law

: The Patry Copyright Blog

The Canadians Again Show us how to do things

By William Patry

Twenty years ago, in San Francisco, I was on a panel with John Perry Barlow at an annual meeting of a software geek group. In those days the cause celebre was the extensive scope of protection being given to software. I wasn?t impressed with Mr. Barlow?s attempts to play to the crowd about the evils of copyright and how copyright was allegedly on its deathbed. I rejoined that speeches like his and meetings like that where everyone preaches to the converted and the converted congratulate themselves for being true believers are not only a waste of time, but dangerous: everyone congratulates themselves on how smart and hip they are, while those they are reviling keep giving it to them in the shorts, year and after year. I added that if they ever wanted to change things, they needed to organize and participate in the political process.

I still feel that way. While in the last 20 years, the attention paid to copyright by the U.S. public has increased dramatically, it cannot be said that the attention had had any effect in the federal legislative arena.

Not so in Canada, where Professor Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa (along with other Canadians, such as
Corey Doctorow , Howard Knopf , and Kempton Lam) has shown those of us in the U.S. how things should be done. The government in Canada has announced plans to introduce copyright legislation dealing with issues such as technological protection measures and safe harbor provisions. Canada signed the 1996 WIPO treaties, but has not ratified them or passed implementing legislation. It has been under a great deal of pressure from the U.S. government to do so, and in a manner based on U.S. law. The pressure to ape U.S. law has been unpopular in Canada, which has no liability for conduits under a Supreme Court of Canada decision, and which has a voluntary notice and notice system for ISPs, as contrasted with the statutory U.S. notice and take down system found in 17 USC 512. My point here is not to debate the merits of any issue, but rather to note the Canadian public?s reaction to legislative proposals they object to.

Professor Geist, on his blog, published a number of posts challenging what he perceived to be the government?s failure to take into account public interest considerations and to engage in public consultation of the content of a bill. He then, however, went much further than kvetching in a blog, starting the ?Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook Group,? which quickly gained over 15,00 members, and creating and posting a video on YouTube. The group caught the attention of the mainstream Canadian press and others including a lengthy article here in Computerworld. The YouTube video was itself a form of political instruction, including 30 things Canadians could do to oppose a U.S.-like bill. (see link here to his blog posting which has the videos too).Others then created and posted their own YouTube videos about the bill. A single spark can start a prairie fire.

Mr. Lam, a Calgary technology consultant and blogger (www.ideasrevolution.com) has been quoted as saying, ?I?m the last guy in the world to be an activist," but "The copyright issue of fair use and dictating who can have access to what information really bugged me. And instead of just bitching, I figured I'd better do something." That something was a rally at Industry Canada Minister Jim Prentice's Calgary riding office last weekend at which Mr. Lam and others made their views known to Mr. Prentice in person, when Mr. Prentice came out to talk to them. Videos of the rally and of Mr. Prentice can be seen here. The rally got a great deal of mainstream press coverage.

The bill has now been delayed; it will either be introduced by this Friday, or failing that, next year. One does not know of course whether the government has changed its mind on the content of a bill no one had yet seen, or why the government delayed the introduction, but it does seem likely that the government was surprised by people?s protests and by their passion. As Professor Geist wrote, ?There were some people who apparently drove six hours down from Edmonton to have the opportunity to spend two minutes with the minister expressing their concerns about copyright. That really highlights the passion that we?re seeing amongst many Canadians.?

In the U.S. we have passion aplenty, but not direct action. It may be our politicians are less available in person, or that people simply don't make the effort to make their views known directly. My Congressman, Christopher Shays, has regular events here in the district where you can speak to him in person. Our mayor has a weekly open house meeting in his office. I once sent an email to our major complaining about his lack of attention to zoning issues in North Stamford at a time when he was running for governor, and noted that my neighbor was planning a fund raiser for his opponent who was from New Haven. I observed that was pretty embarrassing. I got not one but two personal calls from the mayor. The city is not super large, but it it has 120,000 residents and many major commercial businesses. Being mayor is more than a full-time job, yet he took the time to hear my complaints and did so frankly. When I have written to Congressman Shays about an issue I always get a personal response. (By contrast, when I have contacted Senator Lieberman's office I always get a canned, usually irrelevant form letter). Once I spoke to a staffer in the Stamford district office complaining about a fund raiser he had in the district and I got a two page personal letter from Mr. Shays a week later explaining the event. Mr. Shays, from my experience, is extremely approachable and responsive. This doesn't mean on any particular issue your representative is going to do what you want; it is a representative democracy after all. But politicians have very keen survival instincts -- the first rule of politics is to get re-elected -- so where a strong, massive sentiment is expressed, it will get attention, as the Canadians have taught us.

How Canada deals with the substantive issues is of importance, obviously, but for those of us in the U.S., how the Canadians have dealt with the process of having their voices heard is instructive indeed. There is much we have to learn from Canada. I cannot think of a better place to start than with H.R. 4297.

Full post as published by The Patry Copyright Blog on December 12, 2007 (boomark / email).