How Will Geeks Vote This Election

The fall of the Government and the call of the election on May 2 has made Canadians grumble about having to go through another campaign and voting for the fourth time since 2004.  For the few, the proud, the geeky dissolving parliament for an election comes just in time to kill yet another copyright bill that was nothing but a DMCA clone just weeks before it was due to become law.  

In previous elections, I personally voted Conservative partly because they were the only party that stood opposed to the blank media levy administered by the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC) which is nothing but corporate welfare for the recording industry.  Making people pay the levies on blank media is making people pay a fine even if they do not do the crime.

Under the Liberals the television broadcasting industry was allowed to take a we'll get to it when we feel like it attitude towards the transition to digital broadcasting.  It was chairman of the CRTC that was appointed by prime minister Stephen Harper that took a hard line position and told the TV industry August, 31 is the day that TV stations will go digital or go off the air. 

Unlike the blank media levy where the federal parties took sides both for and against, many tech related issues that matter to geeks have gone ignored by the federal parties.  Has any of the political parties come out and said, "Yes, we support net neutrality!", sadly not that I've heard.  Has any of the federal parties stated any opposition to usage based billing for broadband service? Again not to be found. 

Technology has become a big part of the lives of Canadians issues relating to technology require strong leadership to help Canadians who use and enjoy technology come to decision they can be comfortable about when they vote on May 2.

Canada Needs Election to Kill Copywrong Bill

If an expected Canadian election gets called at the end of the week it will kill one of the worst pieces of legislation on the order paper. Bill C-61 the bill to "reform" Canada's copyright act which has been stuck having only made it past first reading won't even make it past parliament.

This hasn't been the first time that a bill dealing with copyright legislation was lost due to an election. When the Liberal minority government was toppled in 2005, there was a copyright bill that died on the order paper.

Like the previous bill this copyright bill contains provisions that would create a clone of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the highly unpopular legislation in the United States. A ban on circumventing Digital Rights Management (DRM) is one of the provisions that is contained in both the DMCA and C-61. This ban on removing DRM is considered by many to strip citizens of their right to fair use of copyrighted works that they own. Ripping movies off of DVD's onto a computer for viewing in another location at another time will become illegal in Canada as it is now in the United States.

Bill C-61 also implements the use of the Broadcast flag technology which is supposed to prevent recording of television shows that are transmitted in a digital format be it Digital Cable or Satellite or OTA DTV. The use of the Broadcast Flag was banned in the United States because the supreme court felt that it violated fair use rights.

The cries of "I don't want another election" still ring out from citizens from coast to coast. To them and the politicians who represent us and potential politicians wanting to represent us, I've got three words for them "Bring it on"