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The Daily Digital Lock Dissenter, Day 38: The Canadian Association for Open Source

The Canadian Association for Open Source promotes the use and development of free, open source software, by providing a public voice to the community of its Canadian users, developers and supporters. The Association submitted comments to the 2009 national copyright consultation that included the following on digital locks:

The key policy for software authors is “technological measures”, given this policy is about what software the owners of computers are and are not allowed to install and use on their own hardware. The Liberal Bill C-60 recognized the nuances of the 1996 WIPO treaties and tied anti-circumvention legislation to activities that would otherwise infringe coyright. The WIPO treaties use language such as:

Contracting Parties shall provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by authors in connection with the exercise of their rights under this Treaty or the Berne Convention and that restrict acts, in respect of their works, which are not authorized by the authors concerned or permitted by law.

Being “used by authors in connection with” and “or permitted by law” suggests that anti-circumvention legislation should be tied to infringing activities. Copyright and other laws (including privacy law) should trump technological measures when there is a conflict, not the other way around. By clarifying that the anti-circumvention legislation is tied to copyright, the legislation could also avoid providing any protection for technical measures applied to devices by other than their owners.

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, Public Interest Advocacy Centre, Canadian Association of Educational Resource Centres for Alternate Format Materials, Canadian Political Science Association, British Columbia Teachers’ Federation

One Comment

  1. Simpler explanation:
    “against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by authors in connection with the exercise of their rights ”

    If I am circumventing but not infringing, authors are not exercising their rights in that specific instance.