canadian copyright whatnots

Some ripples in the Canadian copyright pond lately. Last week RMS was at U of T and UW to rant a bit about intellectual property issues. Today Michael Geist released a short video countering some of the claims about Canada's status as a "piracy haven". I have no idea how accurate his statistics may be, however many references are cited throughout and Geist is generally considered an expert in the field.



The clip is about eight minutes and touches on movie and music piracy, as well as the counterfeit product racket and Canadian anti-piracy activities. As most current copyright news is coming from our neighbors to the South these days it's nice to get a local update.

floss my hometown

It would seem that digital rights activists are being spotted more frequently in my home and native land. Folks are even going so far as to address politicians on the issues of copyright and fair use. While some remain mostly (or in some cases entirely) silent these days for various reasons, others such as UOttawa based CIPPIC and the Digital Copyright Canada forum continue their work to inform and encourage citizens and lawmakers alike to address electronic freedom issues in the great white north.

While I laud any effort to bring awareness of these issues to the masses, my thoughts on the political side remain firmly entrenched in the "don't encourage them" camp. Its my comfortable (if narrow minded) opinion that the less the policymakers up there in the house of common misconceptions know about what goes on in the digital world, the less likely they are to screw it up.

I am curious though what other Canadian groups may be lurking in my area. The UofT seems to have had some momentum at one point, but beyond academia there seems to be a distinct lack of active local organizations. If you know of one please prove me wrong!