The federal NDP, wrote an open letter to Industry Minister Jim Prentice over the issue of his proposal to create a Canadian version of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. While arguing that Canada must meet its international obligation, Jim Prentice has consistently refused to allow any form of public consultation into his bill, and instead has drafted a kind of wish-list representing the fondest fantasies of US entertainment giants. In short Prentice proposes to criminalize the public who download music from the internet in order to pay the artists.

“As a follow-up to this Three Step approach I am offering Jim Prentice some thoughts regarding WIPO obligations. Minister Jim Prentice needs to come clean with the Canadian public over the fact that restrictive, U.S. style DMCA legislation is not synonymous with ratifying the WIPO treaty. Under international trade obligations Canada could ratify WIPO and still maintain a wide variety of choices of how to go about setting up appropriate copyright legislation for the 21st-century. We are in no way obligated to go down the same dead end road as the United States with their restrictive legislation.”[Charlie Angus]

Technorati Tags: DCMA, Canada, Copyrights

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