The Public Interest Advocacy Centre has been one of Canada’s leading consumer rights organizations, representing the public interest on consumer issues concerning telecommunications, energy, privacy, the information highway, electronic commerce, financial services, broadcasting, and competition law. PIAC submitted comments to the national copyright consultation that included the following on digital locks:

Consumers enjoy certain rights to use content without infringing copyright. The presence of technological measures doesn’t change that, and neither should anti-circumvention laws. Consumers must be able to circumvent technological measures, like DRM, providing that their access to the underlying content does not infringe copyright. These consumer rights fulfil important public policy goals, preserving consumer welfare, free speech, and innovation. The use of technological measures already threatens these values. Anti-circumvention laws shouldn’t statutorily undermine them as well.

Previous Daily Digital Locks: Provincial Resource Centre for the Visually Impaired (PRCVI) BC, Canadian Consumer Initiative, Retail Council of Canada, Canadian Council of Archives, Canadian Teachers’ Federation, Canadian Federation of Students, Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Documentary Organization of Canada, Canadian Library Association, Council of Ministers of Education Canada, Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright, Canadian Association of Research Libraries, Canadian Historical Association, Canadian National Institute for the Blind, Canadian Bookseller Association, Canadian Home and School Federation, Film Studies Association of Canada, Canadian Bar Association, Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Appropriation Art, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Association of Newfoundland and Labrador Archives, Canadian Association of Law Libraries, Federation Etudiante Universitaire du Quebec, Canadian Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres, Canadian Association of Media Education Associations, Association of Canadian Community Colleges, Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, Association pour l’avancement des sciences et des techniques de la documentation (ASTED), Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, CIPPIC, Canadian Association of University Teachers, City of Vancouver Archives