Last fall, as Industry Minister Jim Prentice was preparing to introduce new copyright legislation, I wrote an article in the Hill Times posing ten questions to Prentice about the forthcoming bill. Many of the questions – which focused on issues such as flexibility in implementing international copyright treaties, concern about the bill from the privacy community, fears about the impact of the law on security research, and doubts about the constitutionality of the proposal – remain unanswered. Yet the six-month copyright delay has raised many more questions, including the following ten, which appear in this week's Hill Times (Hill Times version (sub req), homepage version):
1. Days before you were scheduled to introduce the copyright bill, you claimed that Canadian business executives were anxious for copyright reform. In February 2008, however, the Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright, which features a who’s who of Canadian business (Telus, Rogers, Cogeco, SaskTel, MTS Allstream, Google, Yahoo, Retail Council of Canada, and Canadian Association of Broadcasters) spoke out against U.S.-style copyright legislation and in favour of an expanded fair dealing provision. Why is Canada's Industry Minister prepared to ignore the concerns of Canadian business?
2. In recent months countries such as New Zealand and Israel have enacted wide ranging copyright reforms that have either rejected the U.S. approach or included significant flexibility to preserve the copyright balance. Why are those countries able to strike a balance in the face of U.S. pressure, yet Canada appears ready to cave to U.S. insistence that it follow its much-criticized model?
