Jim Prentice, Listen Up. We Are The Boss Of You.

Micheal Geist reminds us of just why a failure to speak up for your rights is a bad idea. If we passively allow Jim Prentice to slink around making cozy with cartels, you will have no recourse to right the wrong for a decade or so.

If the introduction of a Canadian DMCA were not bad enough, sources now indicate that Industry Minister Jim Prentice plans to delay addressing the copyright concerns of individual Canadians for years. Rather than including consumer concerns such as flexible fair dealing, time shifting, format shifting, parody, and the future of the private copying levy within the forthcoming bill, Prentice will instead strike a Copyright Review Panel to consider future copyright reforms. Modeled after the Telecom Policy Review Panel, the CRP will presumably take a year or two to consult Canadians on various copyright issues. In all likelihood, the government will then take another year or two to consider the recommendations, another year to propose potential reforms, another year or two to consult on those proposals, and another year or two to finally introduce legislation. Given that Canada has historically only passed major copyright reform once every ten years, Prentice will be in his early 60s and likely collecting his Member of Parliament pension by the time Canadians see copyright reform that addresses fair use.

Not only is the minister not interested in hearing your concerns or dealing with issues that will effect your rights, he's willing to defer those concerns well into the foreseeable future. Mr. Prentice's notion of accountability is to nod and bob his little head as he kowtows to off shore cartels. The only thing transparent in his actions is the charade of working for the benefit of Canada and Canadians. He is happily setting up a copyright regime that will hamper education, stifle innovation, curtail Canadian leadership in information technologies and open you and yours to endless litigation from abusive corporate interests.

Modeled on the American DMCA, our neighbours have endured more than 20,000 anti-consumer lawsuits at the hands of Mr. Prentice's chosen constituents, big media. You need to remind Jim Prentice that he works for Canadians. We pay his legitimate wages as a member and minister, that trumps whatever monies he might be collecting or promised for future considerations.