The “honourable” minister Tony Clement sent me a canned email today about how the C-32 copyright reform bill is a “fair, balanced, common-sense approach” to “promote homegrown innovation and creativity”.
This is a bill written by the rich, for the rich. It is even more repressive than the sternly abused U.S. DMCA, and provides for no oversight whatsoever. It completely ignores the issue of fair use and pretends to enable critical review and non-commercial creation, while hiding behind the weasel-worded outlawing of digital lock circumvention. Teachers, students, artists, consumers, families will now be labeled as criminals for the very same activities they have been happily and innocently practicing for hundreds of years.
Mr Clement, there is nothing balanced about this bill. You’ve been misusing the term “common sense” for nearly 20 years. Your so-called progressive conservative antics make no common sense to me. C-32 is about our lawmakers bowing to foreign media interests and hypercapitalist pressures. Fuck you, Tony Clement. You do not represent any Canadian I’ve ever known. You and Harper make a fine pair of hypocrites.
Here is the letter in its entirety:
Thank you for your correspondence regarding Bill C-32, An Act to amend the Copyright Act. This legislation will bring Canada in line with international standards and promote homegrown innovation and creativity. It is a fair, balanced, and common-sense approach, respecting both the rights of creators and the interests of consumers in a modern marketplace. The Government of Canada is working to secure Canada’s place in the digital economy and to promote a more prosperous and competitive country. The popularity of Web 2.0, social media, and new technologies such as MP3 players and digital books have changed the way Canadians create and make use of copyrighted material. This bill recognizes the many new ways in which teachers, students, artists, software companies, consumers, families, copyright owners and many others use technology. It gives creators and copyright owners the tools to protect their work and grow their business models. It provides clearer rules that will enable all Canadians to fully participate in the digital economy, now and in the future. For more information, please visit balancedcopyright.gc.ca. Sincerely, Tony Clement Minister of Industry James Moore Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages
And of course, our saviour Michael Geist’s take on C-32:
