The US, Canada and several other countries have been negotiating an international agreement concerning intellectual property for several years under a cloud of secrecy. Michael Geist reports on new information leaked about the contents of these negotiations as they relate to the Internet and copyright.
Most problematic may be the apparent effort to force participating countries to adopt strict "anti-circumvention" laws. These laws would prohibit the "hacking" of digital locks on creative works or the sale of any devices designed for this purpose.
The problem is that such laws, if enacted without exceptions, would effectively make it impossible for consumers/users to exercise their "fair use" rights without otherwise violating the law. A blanket prohibition would unduly favour the interests of the authors, owners and distributors of copyright protected works over the majority of businesses and consumers who are mere users of such works. Any such prohibition should be subject to appropriate exceptions to maintain a balance of these interests.
The Science, Technology and Innovation Committee at the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce recently submitted these concerns to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce about its own copyright policy and were provided the following response:
"The CCC will be standing by this policy as our corporate members do not favour a "fair use" provision being included in any upcoming legislation".
When I received this response, I wondered why the concerns of these "corporate members" take precedence over the concerns of the majority of small and medium businesses. It is just such elitist attitudes to copyright (and intellectual property law in general) that provoke so much animosity in the copyright law debate.
