p2pnet - rss feed: Tech firms protest ‘extreme’ copyright
p2p news / p2pnet: An alliance of Canadian technology security companies has sent an open to Bev Oda, minister of Canadian heritage, and Maxime Bernier, industry minister, calling on the Canadian government to reject calls for "extreme copyright laws".
The Digital Security Coalition says the letter is in response to ongoing lobbying efforts to convince the Canadian government to adopt copyright laws that would make it illegal to circumvent technological measures protecting content, such as software, without the consent of the content copyright owner.
"The work of security researchers lies at the heart of Canada’s efforts to build trust and confidence in new technologies," says group spokesman Brian O’Higgins.
Malware is getting ever-more sophisticated and is using encryption and other security technologies to infect consumer and enterprise systems, he says, pointing out that, "extreme copyright laws like the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act have had a demonstrably negative impact upon academic researchers, and upon security research generally.
"Security researchers improve the security of new technologies by testing and circumventing those technologies," he says. Adding:
"Canada does not want to create an environment, like that in the United States, where security researchers shy away from important research for fear of incurring liability."
Here’s the letter:
Digital Security Coalition
www.digitalsecurity.ca
June 22, 2006
VIA COURIER
The Honourable Maxime Bernier P.C., M.P.
Minister of Industry
5th floor, West Tower
C.D. Howe Building
235 Queen St.
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0H5
The Honourable Bev Oda P.C., M.P.
Minister of Canadian Heritage
25 Eddy Street
Gatineau, Quebec
K1A 0M5
Dear Ministers:
Re: Canada’s Copyright Revision
We write to you as the Digital Security Coalition, an alliance of Canada’s leading technology security companies, to introduce our concerns over the direction of Canadian copyright policy under the previous government in hopes that your government will approach copyright with greater attention to Canada’s commitment to fostering an innovation economy and with a sensitivity to the importance of the work of security researchers in Canada.
The Digital Security Coalition’s mandate is to advocate on behalf of its members and on behalf of all Canadians for sound public policies and laws affecting digital security technologies. The members of the Digital Security Coalition are leaders in Canada’s digital security field. We are innovative technology companies working at the cutting edge of cryptography and security.
We understand that your Departments are exploring means of legislating legal protections for technological protection measures (TPMs) and digital rights management (DRM) technologies. Some of the anti-circumvention law proposals we have seen call for a blanket prohibition on accessing material protected by a TPM, and criminalizing the distribution and use of circumvention “tools”. We urge you to reject these extremist views.
Anti-circumvention laws are not necessary. Advocates of these extreme laws simply have not established the case that these laws are necessary – or even useful – for facilitating the deployment of digital entertainment and knowledge tools to consumers.
The default condition for western democracies like Canada is freedom of the marketplace and freedom of competition. Intellectual property laws are a necessary intrusion into free markets to permit the functioning of markets in intangibles. The burden lies on any interest advocating the expansion of such laws to demonstrate – through rigourous analysis and with probative economic evidence – that such laws will promote Canadians’ economic well-being and Canada’s national interests.
Advocates of extreme anticircumvention laws have failed to meet that burden. Indeed, the evidence continues to show that anti-circumvention laws are unnecessary. Even without anti-circumvention laws, digital content is being deployed in Canada. Most often, such technologies are being deployed in the market to segment existing markets (for example, by the use of regional coding on DVDs) and for anti-competitive purposes (for example, to tie content to specific devices to support demand for the device). Anti-circumvention laws are not necessary to facilitate the development of digital content market, but would instead amount to a massive government intrusion into the market.
Should this government elect to enact anti-circumvention laws, it should do so in a manner that facilitates innovation, not hinders it. The American experience in this regard is instructive. In 1998, the Americans introduced harsh anti-circumvention laws through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”). In our view, this draconian law has not offered the American economy a competitive advantage. However, the DMCA has demonstrably harmed the innovation and security research communities in the United States. Canada should not repeat this mistake. If, however, your government deems that anti-circumvention laws are necessary in Canada, it should reject laws that give distributors legal rights of “access” to TPM- and DRM-protected content in favour of laws that look to the purpose in circumventing or tampering with technological protections.
There are many, many legal reasons for accessing content. Foremost among these, in our view, is the need to access content for security research purposes. Reverse engineering and security research should never infringe copyright or “quasi-copyright” laws. Such dealings ground innovation, facilitate economic growth, and ultimately serve Canada’s economic and strategic interests. Similarly, Canada should reject prohibiting the use or distribution of circumvention “tools” and “devices”. These laws are like banning screwdrivers because they may be used to break and enter. Good laws target unlawful behaviour, not useful tools.
In our view, debates over copyright policy have focused myopically on the demands of the multinational content industry, and not enough on Canada’s needs for laws that foster innovation and security in a digital environment. Canadian innovators rely on the unacceptably narrow defence of fair dealing for the legality of reverse engineering and security research. Our American competitors face no such uncertainty with respect to the broader US defence of fair use, which clearly captures reverse engineering. It is time to address this competitive disadvantage by harmonizing fair dealing with fair use.
We call on this government to publicly consult on these issues with a view to conducting a comprehensive, objective and transparent assessment of public benefits and detriments.
We hope you will engage in that process, and involve both of our organizations.
Sincerely,
Digital Security Coalition
DSC members include Third Brigade, Ltd, VE Networks, Inc, Bob Young, co-founder of, Red Hat, Inc, founder and ceo of Lulu, Inc, and owner, Hamilton Tiger-Cats Football Team, AEPOS Technologies Corporation, Synomos Inc, Borderware Technologies Inc, Random Knowledge Inc, Credentica, Innusec In., Elytra Enterprises Inc, Certicom Cor., Cogneto Development, Inc, and Q1 Labs Inc.
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June 22nd, 2006 at 8:35 pm
This is fabulous, congratulations to all members! Pretty soon there will be no excuse for Canadian government to implement draconian demands from American lobby and their puppet Rupublicans.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:06 pm
I very much agree except for one small point. Political graft is a non-partisan issue. The repubs are in the driver’s seat now. Even if that changes (I hope) the power and influence of a legislative and policy system grossly corrupted by special interest money will continue.
Just an observation from a patrotic US citizen who loves his country and deeply mistrusts and bitterly resents the power structure that is ruining it.
I will grant you this much. The current administration does seem to be much worse than anything we have seen in quite a while… Pure evil.
June 23rd, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Now wait just a second, who passed the DMCA? Who’s head of DoJ is on a cabal with entertainment industry executives? Who is threatening foreign and sovereign countries who are not in line with draconian IP policies? The Bush Administration and their Republican control of Congress.
Now, I’m not saying Dems are snow white. But there’s a Republican intent to please corporations at all costs and to the detriment of electors using any evil measures at their disposal. It’s so obvious one wonders what ever happened to covert ops in America.
June 24th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
Republicans and democrats …
Two sides of the SAME coin.
They both serve the exact same corporate interests.
The only provide the ILLUSION of choice.
We’re just to thick to admit it to ourselves.
June 29th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
Over the last couple years watching the DRM and other security systems being implimented I think I’ve discovered 1 thing… there is no one single copyright packaging or system which can be implimented beyond a simple model like this: setting a Universal accessible medium(s) containing the uncompressed, unencrypted, unaltered source (or in the case of audio raw digital version of mastered content), which A. does not create any proprietary structures or have requiste any specific tools beyond a generic accessible and FREE (where software is involved) medium interface. and B. does not hinder or impede conversion of that content to another packaging media/medium for personal use in whole or part, reverse engineering for research and security purposes, or interfere with usage/transportation upon multiple systems. Only in that kind of context should copyright really be controlled and licenced, and that way the end user has control as to how the software interact w/ their computer (be it through code optimization settings on a compiler of their choice) or through exclusions of unwanted sub sections. And in the case of music the consumer can listen to/manipulate/use the music, and through their personal rights convert and utilize that audio for their own non commercial activities, without entrapment within a specific tool environment.
In theory copyright on software and music should technically only be upon source code and raw forms not on any end packaging mediums and with digital purchasing of software it needs to be understood by the big copyrighting corporations that nothing ’structurally’ has changed since the early 1900s with the first commercial records, simply the volume and transit medium has, its still the music being sold not the package, thats an incidental.
After all, back in the 80s wouldn’t people have gone haywire if the latest tape by XXXXXX was ONLY usable in 1 specific tape player made by XXXX which could not be used on even another of that same brand/model player or in any other player? And what if that 1 specific player was lost/damaged/stolen, then what? You’ve got a tape of some audio (the content not the package is of interest afterall) that you now must RE-purchase just for the sake of continued usage, and in some cases a whole new player as well… Proprietary systems are not the way to go, consumer society learned that one already!