Industry Minister Jim Prentice will screw you if you don't stop him

Do you feel like being sued by some behemoth of a corporation? No? Well, if Industry Minister Jim Prentice gets his way, that's exactly what will happen. Doing what you now take for granted with different forms of media information and entertainment will result in Big Media going after average Canadians in exactly the way they've done it in the US over copyright infractions, and virtually everything will be a copyright infraction.

From Michael Geist: (emphasis mine)

If the introduction of a Canadian DMCA were not bad enough, sources now indicate that Industry Minister Jim Prentice plans to delay addressing the copyright concerns of individual Canadians for years. Rather than including consumer concerns such as flexible fair dealing, time shifting, format shifting, parody, and the future of the private copying levy within the forthcoming bill, Prentice will instead strike a Copyright Review Panel to consider future copyright reforms. Modeled after the Telecom Policy Review Panel, the CRP will presumably take a year or two to consult Canadians on various copyright issues. In all likelihood, the government will then take another year or two to consider the recommendations, another year to propose potential reforms, another year or two to consult on those proposals, and another year or two to finally introduce legislation. Given that Canada has historically only passed major copyright reform once every ten years, Prentice will be in his early 60s and likely collecting his Member of Parliament pension by the time Canadians see copyright reform that addresses fair use. While a consultation is a good idea, the government should be consulting on all copyright matters rather than caving now to U.S. demands while leaving Canadians consumers, educators, and other stakeholders out in the cold. The Industry Minister claimed last month to "put consumers first", yet his copyright plan represents a stunning abdication of his responsibility to represent the Canadian public interest. As the protests mount over his Canadian DMCA and his attempt to sidetrack consumer copyright concerns, Prentice should acknowledge the public outrage, hold off introducing the Canadian DMCA, and look for plan B. That would optimally mean conducting a broad public consultation (or striking a CRP with a full copyright review mandate) before introducing legislation. Alternatively, a revised bill could be introduced in February or March that better reflects the copyright balance by addressing consumer concerns now rather than in ten years time.

In other words, Prentice plans to consult after imposing the most punishing copyright legislation in the world on Canadians. While some would call it "Made in USA" legislation, it is more accurately "Made in the corporate boardroom".

The only people who stand to benefit from a Canadian Digital Millennium Copyright Act are the mega-corporations who wrote it.

Oh yes, and the politicians who are only too happy to take campaign contributions from the big media companies.

As Pretty Shaved Ape says,

Modeled on the American DMCA, our neighbours have endured more than 20,000 anti-consumer lawsuits at the hands of Mr. Prentice's chosen constituents, big media. You need to remind Jim Prentice that he works for Canadians. We pay his legitimate wages as a member and minister, that trumps whatever monies he might be collecting or promised for future considerations.

Where to do that? Here's a start. Contact Jim Prentice at:

Ottawa office - (613) 992-4275
Calgary office - (403) 216-7777
Minister office - (613) 995-9001
Email address is: Prentice.J@parl.gc.ca

Once you send an email, print it out and mail it (no stamp needed!) to:

Jim Prentice
House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6

Be polite, but firm and to the point. Remind Mr. Prentice that he works for us; not big media. Remind him that the two ministers who preceded him and tried to put forward this kind of legislation lost their jobs. Remind him that, even if he does get this legislation through parliament, it will become an election issue unless he changes both the intent and the process.

Then contact your member of parliament and state your objections.

Do it now, because if you don't you are going to watch this government take away your right to fair use, to copying your own material, to backing up that which you already own, to using digital media in education and you will still be paying a levy to big media for every piece of recording media you buy.

Just do it.

Interesting example: Saskboy, who I have to say, has been paying extremely close attention to both Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) provides a timely example of what one could expect. Western Digital has created a 1 terabyte hard drive that won't allow you to access your content over a network if you install the "required" software. As he points out, if Prentice pushes through his DMCA, Western Digital's crippling software will be a mandatory installation and you'll be breaking the law if you work around it.

Catelli asks the all important question about this massive network storage device. Why would anybody buy it?

Precisely. If I can't put my largest files, graphic, audio and video on the thing and access them through my network, why would I need such a huge storage capacity?