There is plenty of information available on Bill C-61 (the proposed Canadian Copyright legislation) on the Internet. Michael Geist, who for all intensive purposes is leading the charge in educating the public and helping everyone become aware and understand the issue recently presented at a strategy session. If you want a 30 minute summary of the history and where we are at today I’d recommend taking some time to listen to it. Michael is a great speaker and he’s doing an excellent job getting the message out in clear and simple terms that just about anyone can understand, even if you have no background in copyright issues. I’d strongly suggest his blog for information and links to other good sources of information on this issue.
In listening to his talk, it confirmed that I personally am up to date on the issue. At one point Michael mentioned being characterized by a government individual as a “Pro User Zelot.” This made me smerk. I don’t know Michael personally, but the last word I would pick is a “Zelot”. I find him to be extremely reasonable and understanding of all sides of this issue.
Another interesting comment was made during the question and answer section at the end of the talk by a government individual. I couldn’t catch his name in the audio, but he spoke about “practical politics” and what people have to do to make the conservative government ‘care’. I am sure what he said is very true, and it really saddened me that what he said was correct. Of course deep down I know this to be true, but one can always hope it is not. To paraphrase the statement … ‘unless the issue is going to have enough momentum to change votes to the point of affecting the party they will just ride it out’. Another comment made by this person that caught my attention was
“If you accept the process then you are already done because the process is designed to go through.”
