Digital Freedom

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been doing good work for some time now protecting individuals from heavy-handed copyright legislation, questionable litigation and pernicious digital rights management (DRM) practices. Certainly, things look grim in the States where the EFF seems to focus the bulk of its resources, but rights are being eroded in Canada too, and for some time we've needed a user organization to provide a counterpoint to corporate special interests. This has become highly salient with the recent news (spread all over Boing Boing) about Liberal Sam Bulte (currently seeking re-election) who accepts large sums of money from the entertainment industry and then promotes legislation that subverts public interests in favor of her corporate pals.

As such, I'm pleased to see that an organization called Online Rights Canada (ORC) has formed to promote "the public's interest in technology and information policy." ORC is just getting started, and I hope that they turn out to be a strong, viable voice in opposition to the corporate special interest groups. If you can, why not help them out by signing their petition, which reads:

WE THE UNDERSIGNED DECLARE:

We believe that the politicians who craft copyright policy should not take money from a small, wealthy subset of the people whom copyright is intended to serve. In order to address this conflict of interest, we request that Canadian politicians sign the following Copyright Pledge:

"No Member of Parliament who has accepted financial contributions or other benefits from (i) a copyright lobby group, (ii) its corporate members, or (iii) senior executives as well as (iv) a copyright collective shall serve as Minister of Canadian Heritage or as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, nor sit on any legislative committee (parliamentary or standing committees) conducting hearings or deliberations on copyright matters."

For further reading on Sam Bulte and her "close connection between Canada' s Parliamentary Secretary for Canadian Heritage and the largely U.S.-backed copyright lobby ," check out Professor Michael Geist's article, originally published in the Toronto Star--one of the few papers in Canada not owned by the right leaning CanWest Global conglomerate.