Countdown to a New Copyright Bill

There are strong indications that, sometime in the next two weeks, Industry Minister Jim Prentice will introduce the Conservative's version of a new copyright bill. The word is that it be terrible step backward for Canadian copyright reform. It will contain a wholesale importing of the United States' dismal DMCA anti-circumvention regulations, with no new exceptions for parody or other "fair use" limitations and exceptions, and no fix for private copying or the levy. It's as though United States and major rightsholder lobbyists wrote a laundry list of wants, and the Conservatives were happy to hand it to them. We await the proposed language with concern, but in the meantime, write to your MP now, and urge them to take Canadian copyright into the 21st Century, not mimic the last decade of intellectual property missteps from the United States.