I am not a lawyer, nor am I a politician or a copyright expert. I have been following the copyright debate quite religiously for the last 3-4 years, trying to learn what I can. In Canada Bill C-32 has been tabled to update the copyright laws. There has been lots of discussion about the Bill, specifically around the digital lock rules in this bill. Big industry wants to protect their materials, by making it illegal to remove digital locks, for any reason whatsoever, without permission of the copyright owner. It also seems that it is illegal to publish tools that would assist others to break digital locks. Both of these issues concern me.
See, I do research into security technologies as part of my job. Security is also a personal interest of mine. As an example, I am currently looking into a particular application that uses SSL to encrypt the data between points. In order to do what I need to do for the research, I downloaded an open source tool, that basically breaks the SSL. This allows me to work on my research with the application in question. If that tool was not published due to Bill C-32, then that stops me from doing my research. I suppose I could create my own version of the tool, but why would I do that if someone already has a tool readily available? It makes no sense. The most likely response to my specific example is that SSL isn’t proprietary so it does not matter. That is true in this case, but what about when I am evaluating a Blackberry PDA or an IPhone? I suspect RIM and Apple might not take to kindly to me exposing problems in their software. See, the current Bill C-32 might allow them to do this. That is bad for security, bad for keeping companies honest.
I think it makes more sense to punish those that use the tools in a wrong way. If someone was to take the tool, and use it in a botnet to extract credit card information, then the individuals that did this are guilty and should be charged. The person that made the tool is not the guilty party. It is like making Smith & Wesson responsible because they created the firearm that was used in a murder.
Overall, I think Bill C-32 has made much progress from the previous bills in Canada. My hope is that the Government starts to do their job and properly debate the bill and get input from all interested parties, not label people that question them as extremists.
