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Still Time To Speak Out: Government Grants 48 Hour Extension For Submissions

By Michael Geist

The government has just announced that there is a 48 hour extension on submissions to the copyright consultation.  While the discussion forum has closed, Canadians now have until Tuesday night to submit their views on copyright.  If you missed last night's deadline, there is still time to craft your own submission, use a form letter, or send out a quick email.  There were many new submissions of note posted online over the weekend.  They include:

• Laura Murray
• Sam Trosow
• CIPPIC
• Privacy submission
• Appropriation Art
• Parker Donham on crown copyright
• Laurel Russwurm with a writer's perspective
• isoHunt

An op-ed in The Mark from Queen's University Principal and Vice-Chancellor Daniel Woolf is also a must-read. Woolf focuses on four key issues:

1.      Digital locks, though they may be used to stop piracy, must not impede users' rights.
2.     Fair dealing ought to be clarified and amplified.
3.     Specialized exceptions ought to be used sparingly because they likely wouldn't be able to keep up with technological change or accommodate a range of reasonable educational practices.
4.     Licensing mechanisms must not be seen as a substitute for users' rights.

The absence of an educational exemption for the Internet - as advocated by the AUCC - suggests that more of the educational community is (rightly) shifting toward fair dealing and DRM as the critical issues.

Full post as published by Michael Geist on September 14, 2009 (boomark / email).