We interviewed Jake Daynes, a spokesperson for the Pirate Party of Canada recently and we had some interesting responses to our questions.

ZeroPaid: What is the Pirate Party and how has it grown since the launch?

Jake Daynes: The Pirate Party of Canada is the Canadian counterpart of the international Pirate Party movement, which has gained seats in Sweden and Germany. We are fighting for fair copyright, patent reform, net neutrality, and government transparency. Our goals can be found here.

ZeroPaid: We’ve heard about a Pirate Party distribution platform that is being launched. What is the distribution platform exactly? Has it been officially launched? Are there any partners involved in this project?

Jake Daynes: Right now I don’t want to say much, but I can say that it utilizes a very “pirate-y” distribution method. Right now it has been started up, though we have not made it live, and we have several partners in this, such as Musicians United Against Censorship, Electronica Artist/DJ: Frozen Ice Cube [Author's note: The latest music is currently here due to recent technical issues] , and Fading Ways Music.

ZeroPaid:What sort of artists are you looking for? Is it genre specific or location specific or can anyone around the world with any musical style join in? Is it moderated and if so, how long does it take for something to be posted?

Jake Daynes: No, we are not genre specific, we are looking for anybody and everybody! We do have a slight moderation system, which is mainly me going through every track, just to make sure it isn’t a copyright violation, but it shouldn’t take more than 24 hours to get something posted, once the project is live.

ZeroPaid: For artists, what kind of reach does this platform provide (like, how many people are accessing it)? Do you expect this number of people to grow?

Jake Daynes: This platform is access to a global stage, with Pirate Party support in the UK, Ireland, Australia, Sweden, Germany, and the US, we have access to millions of people that are all looking for new music to listen to!

ZeroPaid: I’ve noticed on your home page that you have a sufficient number of members, but you seem to have a second bar for people sending in forms. Are you able to officially register as a political party yet or do you have to have that number of forms handed in before that happens?

Jake Daynes: Right now we are asking everybody to send in their forms, as we need to have a minimum of 250 to register with Elections Canada, though those that sign up are still counted as full members, as membership is free!

ZeroPaid: It’s been talked about plenty of times that the Pirate Bay had a major influence on the success of the Swedish Pirate Party. The only big things like that happening around in Canada seem to have been copyright reform legislation which is already on the back burner because of the copyright consultations. Would you say that the Pirate Party’s growth is attributed to a reaction to major copyright related events or is it more of an ongoing growth for the Canadian Pirate Party?

Jake Daynes: Actually, few people know it, but Canada has it’s own Pirate Bay right here in Richmond, B.C.: isoHUNT, which is run by Gary Fung just south of Vancouver. Copyright is a global issue that is affecting everybody, and even though the copyright consultations are putting reform on the back burner as you put it, the PPoC is continuing to grow, with members and chapters all across the country.

ZeroPaid: There have been a number of countries that have Pirate Parties officially registered, but all these countries seem to be in Europe. Is it the goal of the Pirate Party of Canada to be the first non-European country to be an official political party?

Jake Daynes: Yes, currently the PPoC is looking to become the first non-European party to be officially registered.

ZeroPaid: There are rumours that there could, on a remote chance, be an election in the Fall. If that happens, is there a chance that the Pirate Party could be in that election?

Jake Daynes: Sadly no, because of current election legislation, the PPoC would have to have been a registered party 60 days before the writ of an election, though we will continue to push our issues, and hope that the voice of fair copyright is heard by current parties.

ZeroPaid: There are a number of people out there who might suggest that the party doesn’t stand much of a chance with the First Past the Post system along with the established parties. Having said that though, is it the goal for the party to win seats or is it more about sending a message to government that said Canadians are concerned with certain issues in the copyright, privacy and technology related fields of policy making?

Jake Daynes: Yes, it is in fact very difficult for a new party to break into the First Past the Post system, take, for example, the Green Party, garnering 13% of the popular vote last election and still not gaining a seat. Our goal is indeed to gain seats, though one important point is that our message is heard, because lets face it, we as a party prove that Canadians are concerned, and some even passionate about these issues.

ZeroPaid: Do you have anything further to add?

Jake Daynes: I, Jake Daynes, would just like to add that if anybody is interested in the Party, my personal email is JakeDaynes@PirateParty.ca, and I would be happy to discuss them with you. If you would like to debate the Party’s views, our forums are very lively.

ZeroPaid: Thank you very much for your time.

Jake Daynes: Thank you Drew

We would like to thank Jake Daynes for taking the time out of his busy schedule to talk to us.

The Pirate Party of Canada was started somewhere between the end of June and July 2nd. It’s been seeking membership since the launch and has grown to roughly 500 members in the span of two months. Pirate Party of Canada’s official website home page.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Maybe it’s our imagination, but last we checked, Joel Tenenbaum is not an admin of ThePirateBay nor did he have much involvement in the creation of the mixtape outside of the court documents that listed the songs in the first place.

Still, that doesn’t stop the RIAA member from pulling out all of the stops against Tenenbaum. In court documents, plaintiffs argued, “on or about August 14, 2009, Defendant posted to the “JoelFightsBack” twitter
site—a site intended to publicize Defendant and this case—the following post: “interesting: a
“joel” torrent list of the 30 songs is now on thepirateBay/other torrent sites and is being DL
widely in protest. #JFB.”

The document continues, “The Pirate Bay’s homepage, to which Defendant directed his readers,
prominently featured a photograph of Defendant and an advertisement and link to an allegedly
RIAA approved torrent, “DJ Joel – The $675,000 Mixtape,” containing the 30 songs at issue in
this case”

The document contained a screen shot of the home page of ThePirateBay which, at the time, featured the $675,000 mixtape. The document says, “When a user clicks on the image, they are brought to a Torrent site that allows users to easily, and without authorization or cost, download the 30 sound recordings for which
Defendant was found liable.”

“Additionally, Defendant’s website regarding this case, www.joelfightsback.com, includes literally dozens of other users who have picked up the “tweet” from joelfightsback and have reposted it to their own blogs and twitter feeds, thereby encouraging countless other individuals to illegally download these 30 songs “in protest” [...] In short, despite the verdict and a clear finding of willful copyright infringement by Defendant, he continues to promote, indeed advertise, illegal online file-sharing of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings—the very sound recordings for which a jury found him liable for willful copyright infringement”

It should be noted that there were three other arguments to support the plaintiffs conclusion, but using the mixtape someone half way around the world posted on a Swedish website as reason to say that Tenenbaum is contributing to copyright infringement (we aren’t aware of any evidence in the plaintiffs court documents that Tenebaum linked to that website in the first place) is absurd at best. If someone photoshopped a picture of Bill Gates breaking in to a car, does that make Bill Gates liable for car theft if it was posted online? The only thing plaintiffs showed was that Tenebaum mentioned the mixtape. If one were to say, “Interesting that someone in America would take cocaine”, is that somehow endorsing illegal drug use?

So what is the plaintiff asking for?

This court should permanently enjoining defendant from committing, or acting in concert with others in committing, future infringement of plaintiffs’ copyrights

This court should enter the monetary judgement awarded by the jury on July 31, 2009

It’s an extremely bizarre argument to make that suggests that others actions are somehow your fault even though you took no part in the creation or actions that started to, in this case, create the actual mixtape in the first place. It’s a growing theme that the copyright industry wants to double-dip – you are sued for your action and the action of your friend. Then that friend is sued for their action as well as yours. Essentially, it’s like your being sued twice for the same action.

We wonder how such an argument could be taken seriously, but then again, there are reasons why some believe the American court system has been bought and paid for by corporate America.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Prosecutors are calling it a landmark decision when they successfully sued two web hosting companies and the owner of the websites for trademark infringement. The web hosting companies that were sued are Akanoc Solutions Inc. and Managed Solutions Group Inc.

Apparently, the web hosting companies were contacted by trademark owners over the website owner – who just so happens to be the same owner of the hosting companies – selling the counterfeiting material. When the website owner, Steven Chen, received the demands to take down the website, he refused to take action. That’s what prompted the lawsuit against the companies and the website owner.

On the surface, the case seems to have been a big victory against people who sell infringing material – something that many would celebrate over. However, the case has sparked interesting debate, particularly on Slashdot, over whether or not this has a chilling effect on free speech as well because of the precedent set.

On the international stage, contributing to infringement has been one of the weapons the copyright industry has been using with sometimes surprising success. OiNK, a while back, had legal troubles when their domain name registrar was threatened with legal action if they didn’t discontinued support for the domain name. The Registrar folded and users quickly found their website seemingly offline (although connecting directly to the IP address would reveal that the site was still operational. This caused the website to be forced to move to a different domain. More recently, the “ISP of the ISP” was pressured into blocking ThePirateBay. That was a case where the owners remarked how the copyright industry was going after people who contribute to who contribute to who contribute to who contribute to copyright infringement – a case that brought ThePirateBay down for a mere couple of hours.

Let’s say this latest case does cause a chilling effect in US web hosting companies. That chilling effect that websites are taken down on a mere allegation of copyright infringement or trademark infringement or being threatened with legal action citing this particular case. All it’s really going to do is cause many website owners to simply pack up shop and take their business off American shores – whether they have legitimate reasons or not. This will be at the detriment to American businesses because many will fear that their website will be here today, gone tomorrow. Clearly, then, it would be a court decision that is bad for business.

In this case, it seems a little less likely that such a precedent has been set that the safe harbour provisions have effectively been rendered moot. This is because in this case, the owner of the website was also the owner of the hosting company. Why this is important is because the web hosting owner had full knowledge of the activities of that particular website. In most other cases, the web hosting company doesn’t know what is going on in every given website – only that they receive money at regular intervals in time.

So, it’s really a murky ruling over whether or not free speech and the safe harbour provision has been harmed or not. What it probably will depend on is what future court cases would bring as a result of this ruling.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

It’s becoming the low-light of the whole consultation in Canada. The Toronto town hall meeting had already been stacked in the foreign copyright industry’s favour. Even more dramatic fallout has since emerged.

We reported yesterday on how Canadian students and NDP MP Olivia Chow – wife of NDP leader Jack Layton – were targeted by private security for handing out fliers which included an interview with NDP MP Charlie Angus. They were threatened to be ejected from the premises unless they stopped handing out those fliers which detailed their stance on copyright issues. Shortly after, an American group circulated an e-mail accusing the NDP of departing from their party platform to buy votes from young people by supporting fair copyright. They labelled the move as “disgusting” and demanded an apology from the NDP for taking such a stance which included a broadening of fair dealing.

The NDP have responded to the accusations and apology demand.

“The fallout has been very bizarre.”Charlie Angus commented. He adds, “A copyright lobbyist with the American federation of Musicians is circulating an online e-mail demanding the NDP apologize for our “disgusting” position on balanced copyright.”

He responded to the fact that they had received such flack over handing out copies of an interview from the American organisation, “Seems to me the interview is consistent with what the NDP have always said on this file — we want artists to be able to benefit from the massive stream of information being traded but we don’t want average citizens turned into criminals.”

“I was elected to participate in discussions about public policy. I have never heard of a lobbyist group demand an apology for speaking out about a totally botched piece of legislation like Bill C-61. If they spent less time running e-mail attacks and more time speaking with the various players they might realize that the NDP position has been balanced and consistent from the beginning.”

He then responded to the apology demand, “As for a public recanting to satisfy the C-61 lobby ? Sorry, dude….it ain’t happening.”

As alluded to earlier in a previous report of ours, it’s hard try and find anything that requires any sort of apology unless it’s suddenly public taboo to exercise free speech in Canada.

It already does little to help the stance of copyright maximalists by stacking the deck at a town hall meeting – only serve to remind people that if there is opposition to the demands of the foreign copyright lobbyists, then the arguments fall apart – hence the need to keep opposition out of the debate. It further undermines the argument when what the foreign copyright lobbyists make enemies with an elected political party in the process as well – not just the general public.

What we’ve already seen in the public consultation is hundreds of people making submissions calling for a relaxed copyright law in some form or another. We have people from organizations that represent pretty much every background related to copyright, including librarians, educators and musicians, calling for effectively the same thing. Then the opposition, which mainly consists of foreign interests, enter the debates completely outnumbered make arguments that have been dissected and disproven time and time again. Then when they realize the debate is not going their way, they rig meetings and turn it into an uncivilized shouting match as we are clearly seeing between AFM and the NDP. Unless you are getting fed huge wads of cash, it’s hard to even take a copyright maximalist seriously. After all, they already proclaimed the whole consultation “useless” through Barry Sookman earlier. This is not to say they couldn’t approach this consultation in a more civil and respectable manner, but so far, the copyright industry have yet to choose to do so in several instances.

There’s still time left in the consultation for many more to make submissions and suggestions. Maybe things will turn around and be more stable toward the final legs of the consultation. Maybe the debate will degenerate even more from here. Who knows? All we know is that the Toronto town hall meeting has, thus far, proven to be a low light of the whole consultation and it reflects badly on those who want tighter copyright laws in the eyes of the public.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

The copyright industry, which consists of almost entirely foreign interests, have already resorted to insulting the process. Throughout the whole process, a vast majority of Canadian submissions have called for expanding fair dealings and blocking blanket anti-circumvention legislation to name just two.

The tiny minority of people who have called for tighter copyright laws are feeling, unsurprisingly, threatened. The copyright industry managed to rig the most recent town hall meeting so as to shut out any dissenting voices to their calls.

Just hours after news broke that they stacked an entire townhall meeting in their favour, the Canadian Federation of Students revealed that when they found out about last minute changes to the consultation, they attempted to hand out fliers at the town hall meeting only to be threatened with arrest by security. From their press release:

Heritage Minister James Moore and Industry Minister Tony Clement have been leading a round of public consultations on copyright reform. Thursday night’s meeting was one of two town halls designed to facilitate discussion from hundreds of live participants and online followers.

Because of the last-minute introduction of a lottery system that did not guarantee those participating the right to speak, students attempted to circulate a flyer detailing their position on copyright reform. Event organisers used private security guards to prevent the distribution of the flyers, threatening to remove the students from the premises of the hotel where the consultation was being held. The flyers contained an introduction to copyright that provided a summary of the results of campus copyright consultations held by the Canadian Federation of Students throughout Spring 2009.

“With the ever increasing cost of education, students should not have to pay even more to access the material they require to be able to study, research, and learn,” said Melanson. “It is ironic that while students are concerned that new legislation may allow copyright owners to lock up information, the government is locking up its own consultations.”

Here’s a copy of the flier that was handed out (PDF)

While not everyone agrees that the government is playing a roll in trying to tip the balance of the debate into the foreign copyright industry’s favour, there is increasing evidence that this is the case.

NDP MP Olivia Chow also helped to distribute the fliers, so she knows all about the incident where students were threatened with arrest. Unfortunately, the fallout has since deepened with the American Federation of Musicians issuing an e-mail, calling the calls for “balanced copyright” “disgusting”. Michael Geist has a copy of that e-mail:

Greetings to all.

I am attaching a flyer that was handed out by Olivia Chow at last night’s Copyright Town Hall meeting at the Royal York in Toronto. I am sure all of you will find its content equally as disgusting as I did.

In light of the fact that the NDP at its convention in Halifax this month dealt with a resolution identified as 6-21-09 Expanding Party Policy on “Supporting Canadian Creativity”, and showed clear support for “ensuring appropriate copyright protection so that creators are fairly compensated for their intellectual property”, I am shocked that both Chow and Charlie Angus are allowed to openly depart from party policy and directive, obviously just to shamelessly buy votes among young people and academics.

We intend on taking the NDP to task over this, and will accept nothing less than a retraction of Ms Chow’s statements and an apology.

What is there to apologize for? Exercising free speech or is the American Federation of Musicians also against free speech in general? Was it not enough to threaten your opponents with arrest and rig an entire town hall meeting, now you demand an apology because someone disagrees with you in a country where a vast majority of people who have spoken on the issue of copyright disagrees with you? Who’s really the disgusting one here?

It’s increasingly obvious that the copyright industry saw the consultation as a means where average Canadians can speak their mind and found it a threat to their outdated business models. So they have opted to fighting it on every level, by trying to paint it as a waste of time, then going so far as to hijack it to make it so that only one opinion is heard and even threaten their opponents with arrest – those opponents do include Canadian businesses, Canadian artists, Canadian consumers, Canadian educators and students, Canadian record labels, Canadian libraries and now, even Canadian MPs as well. We have a foreign copyright industry trying to meddle in the internal affairs of Canada and they are doing so by purveying myths that simply do not stack up to scrutiny whatsoever when real evidence is put forth.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

For those outside of Canada, the thought that a consultation could be rigged by the copyright industry may not be a surprise. For those in Canada, the thought that one group can stack the deck in a town hall meeting so as to shut out any dissenting voices is alarming and disgusting. It has caused many to denounce the town hall meeting a “sham”.

Michael Geist pointed to a video saying that readers could see for themselves, but when we accessed the video, the over 200MB file only showed a still picture that said that the webcast would begin shortly with the seeking disabled. The WMV file was played both in Windows Media Player and VLC to no avail. Judging by the comments of the posting, the video was, at one point, playable, but mysteriously, that is no longer the case from our end.

What has sparked accusations that the government was involved in stacking the deck was an e-mail that was passed out to attendees which was confirmed by several people. It contained the following:

4. In addition to those who registered for the Town Hall through the website, we have invited some individuals and organizations who specialize in copyright issues or can speak on behalf of a large number of Canadians for whom copyright is a significant issue. So that everyone can benefit from a breadth of perspectives, we will also be calling on some of them — again, selected by lottery — to present their points of view.

Other comments suggested that there were three rows that were filled by people involved with Warner – a foreign corporate entity that has been calling for stricter copyright laws.

“It was ironic in hindsight to have heard the moderator tell participants before the actual webcast that they should consider passing on their opportunity to speak (if their number was drawn) if the point they were going to make was already made by another person,” Darryl Moore, a prominent commentator on copyright issues in Canada said, “so as to give other perspectives an opportunity as well. The advice was obviously ignored, as the message coming from the well stacked floor was very much the same through the night.”

It’s one thing to have a number of people arguing for tougher copyright laws, it’s quite another go put forth such an effort to ultimately shut out any voices that disagree with a certain viewpoint. This was evidently the case here. The effort, at least in the public eye, further undermines the legitimacy of the arguments for tougher copyright laws simply because of the effort to remove any other voice from the floor.

As Michael Geist points out, the night had no reflection to what was being said online since a vast majority of the submissions, which are from all walks of life, have been arguing for a loosening on copyright laws – the most prominent way is to broaden fair dealing.

One thing is for sure, the credibility of what went on in that particular town hall meeting has become one of the most questionable events throughout the consultation. For some, it comes as no surprise that the most questionable events also happens to be the event that was most pro-copyright maximalist as well.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Should an ISP block website because of a complaint by a corporation or an organization of corporations? This could be one question that could draw a line in the sand between the copyright industry and supporters of free speech in Europe.

Earlier this year, the European Union blocked the three strikes law by declaring internet access as a fundamental right. Since then, the copyright industry has been scrambling to find some sort of quick cheap fix to stop all forms of file-sharing on the internet by, among other things, implementing three strikes, censorship, throttling and anything else they can get other people to throw at file-sharing. Since the political way by implementing things like the three strikes law seemed to not be quick enough, the industry went after ISPs. Eircom in Ireland was one of those ISPs.

Starting September 1st, as a part of a settlement between the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) and Eircom, the ISP has agreed to start blocking The Pirate Bay.

Just days afterwards, the Irish Pirate Party issued a statement saying that they are “deeply concerned by news that eircom is to block access from its subscribers to thepiratebay.org.”

“The Party,” the statement continued, “which is opposed to censorship and stands for the protection of individual privacy, finds this action wholly disturbing and believes it should not go ahead.”

“The Pirate Party believes that this block will set a precedent not only for further monitoring of Internet users, censorship and general debilitation of Internet services in Ireland, but also for similar action against other Irish companies providing Internet services, such as BT Ireland, Smart Telecom, Perlico and UPC (two of which have already been similarly threatened), severely damaging competition in this sector and curtailing efficient broadband rollout.”

It should be noted that as of the 20th, other Irish ISPs did vow to keep fighting IRMA which wants to force ISPs to implement three strikes and blocking internet websites such as The Pirate Bay. Given that the Telecoms package had the final say on disconnections by saying that internet access is a fundamental right, it’s not hard to conclude that Irish ISPs disconnecting users is not only bad publicity, but illegal by European law as well. From an observational standpoint, a lawsuit to force an ISP to break European law seems to be some sort of legal twilight zone – one can only imagine what is going on behind the scenes of these ISPs that are still fighting.

The Irish Pirate Party also noted that backup copies of The Pirate Bay have been distributed online as well and questions whether blocking the site would be even remotely effective in the first place.

In addition, the Irish Pirate Party quoted sections of Irish copyright laws IRMA used to go after ISPs and pointed out that “Neither the Pirate Bay, nor Eircom, store any copyrighted materials on any of their servers or within their service infrastructure. Also since the law specifically refers to singular works this section of the law cannot be used against an entire site or service.”

Unfortunately, as it has been proven in past cases, what local laws say hardly matters since the copyright industry tends to interpret copyright laws their way and enforces their interpretation of the laws as they see fit. In the past, this point was particularly prevalent when the copyright industry persuaded Swedish lawmakers to break local Swedish law when the websites server farms were raided by police back in 2006. The move by anti-piracy efforts backed by the US earned lawsuits from local businesses who were taken offline thanks to the server farm raid. Accusations of illegal activity by officials in 2006 during the raid ran fast and furious.

The kind of debate over whether or not ISPs are allowed to enforce their own three strikes policy or are allowed to arbitrarily block websites at the copyright industry bidding doesn’t appear to be exclusive to Ireland given that this kind of debate is already happening in the UK when a key political figure did a “u-turn” on the governments stance on three strikes after spending a short vacation with an American billionaire from the copyright industry and, by extension, in the Netherlands where MiniNova was ordered to remove all links to trackers containing allegedly copyright infringing material.

While it seems that the copyright industry is trying to find every back door they possibly can to try and find ways of defying the will of the European Union, this effort could ultimately backfire as it further legitimizes the stance of the Pirate Party in many European countries. It gives very real relevance to the concerns of the party for potential new voters who have already voted in one to two members of the party into the European Union. If the copyright industry doesn’t see it, surely policymakers should given that it’s their jobs on the line, not the industry’s.

Whether this particular issue between Eircom and IRMA becomes a key political point remains to be seen, but at the very least, it’s shaping up to be another controversial point in the European copyright debate.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

The way things are going, some might wonder – who doesn’t want an expansion on fair dealings? There are a small number of organizations and entities that don’t want an expansion on fair dealings. Though if one were to look at the submissions in general, those who want to stop the expansion on fair dealings have practically become like endangered species.

CASA had their own ideas on how to reform copyright.

A far better approach to clarifying fair dealing would be to simply expand the definition of users’ rights in the Copyright Act with the inclusion of the words “such as” before the current list of exceptions in sec. 29 of the Copyright Act. As several Canadian legal scholars and commentators have noted, such an approach would create a more open-ended, illustrative and flexible definition of fair dealing rights, in line with the CCH decision.

Rights holders benefitting from copyright have an obligation to provide reasonable fair dealing access to users. If anti-circumvention language is permitted, the government must include measures to ensure that access to materials for non-infringing purposes is allowed in spite of a rights holder’s use of locks, notices, or rights management.

Specifically, our system of copyright must ensure that any new permissive uses of ‘digital locks’ added to the Copyright Act do not impose barriers to access to information for people with perceptual disabilities. People with a perceptual disabilities often require adaptive technologies to conduct format to format conversion (screen reading software for example) in order to access knowledge and information; ‘digital locks’ could divest them of equal access to these materials.

This is just a sampling of the calls made by CASA, but they are very interesting ideas indeed.

Already, there have been several calls to expand fair dealings including documentarians, people from the humanities and social sciences, Canadian musicians and Canadians who work in the music business, and hundreds of Canadians from all walks of life to name a few.

One conclusion one can draw off of this is that many Canadians are frustrated with the limitations they have with legally paid for content – hardly the so-called pirate nation the foreign copyright industry would want many to believe.

Of course, there is still time to submit submissions to the Canadian copyright consultation, but time is starting to run out at this point. Canadians have been encouraged from all sides of the copyright debate to participate, so it’s an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed since such an opportunity only came up clear back in 2001; not something that happens very often. At least, so far, there have been a huge number of submissions already in the government consultation – a good sign of a healthy democracy.

[Hat tip: Michael Geist]

Update:

A Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) representative has written in to deny that they have made a submission. Michael Geist pointed to a submission saying that it was from CFS, but Noah Stewart denied this.

“Our organization has yet to send a submission in to the consultation” Stewart explained, “The link posted in the article, is to a lawyers post, and certainly not anyone linked to our organization. We were invited to participate in the first round table consultation in Vancouver, but as I have said our submission is still forthcoming.”

Although the submission is forthcoming, he offered the following PDF for those who would like to get a sense on what the submission would be like, but stressed that the CFS position is different from the CASA submission.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

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