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Canadians Speaking Out on Bill C-32: Only Five Days Left

By Michael Geist

The House of Commons resumes next week with hearings on Bill C-32 likely to pick up where they left off in December.  As I noted last week, the Bill C-32 committee has invited Canadians to provide their views on the bill in email submissions due no later than January 31, 2011.  The call for comments has attracted some attention, leading to some posting their responses online:

• Project Gutenberg Canada
• CLUE: Canada's Association for Free/Libre and Open Source Software policy co-ordinator Russell McOrmond
• Professor Meera Nair, Simon Fraser University
• Option Key
  
• Karl Plesz
• Ben Harack

A reminder that the Committee has set the following parameters:

In order for briefs on Bill C-32 to be considered by the Committee in a timely fashion, the document should be submitted to the Committee's mailbox at CC32@parl.gc.ca by the end of January, 2011. A brief which is longer than 5 pages should be accompanied by a 1 page executive summary and in any event should not exceed 10 pages in length.

I've written regularly with my views:

• My initial comments on C-32 in June 2010
• My opening statement before the C-32 committee
• A general FAQ on the bill
• A detailed FAQ on the C-32 fair dealing provisions
• A detailed FAQ on the C-32 digital lock rules
• A proposed compromise position on key issues

For a more detailed examination of C-32 and Canadian copyright, I edited From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright": Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda, a book published in October 2010 that includes 20 essays on a wide range of copyright reform issues.  The book is available in paper version or as a free Creative Commons licenced download.

Full post as published by Michael Geist on January 27, 2011 (boomark / email).