For the past two Bill C-32 committee meetings, Conservative MP Ed Fast, a new member of the committee, has emerged as an important questioner. Fast has focused on the digital lock rules with several exchanges that defend the government’s approach. While dozens of groups (including education, consumer groups, libraries, archivists, retailers, and technology companies) have called for a link between circumvention and copyright infringement, Fast believes that opening that door would effectively eliminate the use of digital locks. 

For example, yesterday he asked the Canadian Federation of Students how it could justify “eliminating digital locks altogether by allowing circumvention for fair dealing purposes?” Last week, he had a similar exchange with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, stating “my concern is if you go that extra step and allow circumvention for fair dealing, you’ve now made it so much more easy to actually allow the cheaters to undermine the system, where digital locks become absolutely meaningless.”

Fast has clearly given some thought to the digital lock issue, but he is wrong that linking circumvention to actual copyright infringement would render digital locks irrelevant. 

Read more ›