The Industry Minister's press secretary has advised journalists that the bill will not be introduced today or tomorrow. Since the House of Commons will break at the end of the week, the Canadian DMCA will not be introduced until at least late January.
While this is excellent news and something of a momentary reprieve, it is not the last of this issue. In fact, now it is perhaps even more vital that we press onward. And yes, that does include the challenge to the BTs. The House will not reconvene until mid-January. We have a month to rally support and organize, educate and consolidate. This time can be well used if we keep the pressure on all of our elected representatives. We either demand fair and equitable copyright that balances the needs of all parties or we'll get stuck with a broken DMCA.
Again, thanks to everyone that woke up and started yelling this morning. I've kept an eye on our site meter this morning and we have had a lot of hits from the federal government as well as provincial and municipal. Many of those hits went directly to the posts on the issue at hand. Whether they admit it or not, the government is paying attention. I suspect they are reeling a little from the speed and vigour of response from the Canadian online grassroots community. That is significant in that it indicates that we can have an effect on the process, despite the economic and political weight of the media cartels and the American government being brought to bear.
Once more I'm proud of all of the folks that have gotten behind this and written, yelled, faxed and phoned their way into the timid hearts of our pols. Thank you all. Don't quit now, we have them on the ropes, let's finish this fight and let's fucking well win.
3 comments:
I hope someone makes the case clearly that if this reform is not done properly, it's only going to be self-defeating for everyone concerned, as more people will simply ignore the legislation and become copyright violators.
Isn't that the usual result of social prohibitions? Invoke draconian laws which turn large segments of the population into instant law-breakers.
In some ways, what's been proposed when it comes to copyright is even worse. It makes people want to break the law. Aside from the obvious attack on the intellectual and creative commons, circumventing the technological/technocratic restrictions that are being envisioned is almost irresistible.
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