I appeared before the Bill C-32 legislative committee as part of a hearing that addressed a wide range of issues including digital locks, fair dealing, and statutory damages.  I’ll post the full transcript once available, but in the meantime, the video can be streamed from the Parliamentary site and my opening statement can be found below.

Appearance before the Bill C-32 Legislative Committee, December 1, 2010

Good afternoon.  My name is Michael Geist.  I am a law professor at the University of Ottawa. As many of you know, I have been very active on copyright policy issues for many years.  In 2007, I launched the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group that grew to over 92,000 members with local chapters across the country.  Earlier this year, I edited “From Radical Extremism to Balanced Copyright: Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda”, the largest academic study on Bill C-32 to-date, with peer reviewed contributions from 20 leading Canadian experts.

That said, I appear before this committee today in a personal capacity representing only my own views. 

While I am sometimes characterized as a copyright critic, the reality is that I am supportive of much of Bill C-32.  When the bill was first tabled, I described it as flawed but fixable, with strong support for many of the compromises found in the legislation.  That remains my view and I’m happy to talk about any aspect of the bill but want to focus my opening remarks on two issues – fair dealing and digital locks. 

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