Below is the text of a letter that I emailed and mailed (first time I’ve sent anything other than cheques by regular mail in a long time), to Jim Prentice, Gary Lunn (my member of Parliament), and Prime Minister Harper. I was inspired by a BoingBoing post I read this morning.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
e-mail: HarpeS@parl.gc.ca
House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
December, 8, 2007
Prime Minister Harper,
I have voted for the Conservative party my whole adult life, so I hope the rumours that my party is about to introduce a version of the DMCA in Canada is not true. I work in at the University of Victoria Library, so I know how important fair use is for creativity to flourish.
DRM systems do little to protect intellectual property right holders works, and criminalize fair use behavior that most people would consider reasonable. Most people are honest, and want to pay for the digital content they use. DRM makes those digital harder to transfer between devices, and encourages people to look for non illegal non DRM sources for digital content.
Thank-you for your time.
Rich McCue
1813 Penshurst Rd.
Victoria, BC
V8N 2N6
Sounds like the government had second thoughts over the weekend. From the CBC:
“A controversial bill that seeks to reform Canadian copyright laws, expected to be introduced early this week, may be quashed after a groundswell of opposition erupted over the past week.”
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/12/10/tech-copyright.html