Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights
 

After less than a month in office the new US Ambassador to Canada wasted little time re-hashing the stereotypical view of Canada and its supposed lax copyright laws. Speaking at a conference in Montreal on Canada-US relations, David Jacobson indicated that Canada deserves its position on the USTR’s Priority Watch List for not legislating copyright reforms dictated by the US (read: lobbyists, corporations).

Considering Mr Jacobson’s litigious past, he spent over 30 years at the prestigious Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP, one shouldn’t be too surprised by his rhetorical salvo against Canada and its copyright laws. Canadians can expect more of the same from Mr Jacobson and his office. It just remains to be seen whether the Harper Government will choose to amend Canada’s Copyright Act in a manner consistent with Canadian’s views and ideals or the bullying tactics of US litigators, lobbyists and trade groups.

Sonnenschein’s Intellectual Property & Technology Practice includes an active and extensive international trademark and patent practice. The firm has established a network of foreign counsel—local intellectual property practitioners in countries around the world—who provide vast and wide-ranging expertise in the laws of the countries in which the firm’s clients conduct business, source manufacturing, distribute products or chase infringements and counterfeits.

It seems Mr Jacobson’s message is getting through to Canada’s monopolistic-like media outlets and their mis-informed editors. I would invite Mr McKenna and other interested readers to inform themselves with this well written piece at TechDirt. Or if you prefer a well researched piece containing actual statistics and numbers, read here.

You can now follow the Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights on Twitter. We intend on using Twitter to update Canadians on the latest developments relating to Copyright reform and its impact on your rights as a creator/consumer.

itWorldCanada, the online resource for Canadian Information Technology professionals has posted a well written article by Rafael Ruffolo. Rafael’s article details the rapid growth of the national Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook groupand the spawning of local chapters. While contacting MP’s at the national level with emails, letters and faxes is beneficial in conveying disdain for poorly researched and developed copyright reforms, perhaps nothing hits MP’s harder than sitting down with them in their local constituency office at a barbecue or a hockey arena. John Q Public sitting down face-to-face over a Tim Horton’s double-double with their MP and saying “Hey, why has there been little to no public consultation for these copyright reforms?” could have a profound impact. Particularly in ridings where MP’s were only separated from their second place running mate by a close margin. Can you say ‘election issue’?

The article contains quotes from the founders of the Toronto, Winnipeg/Manitoba, Montreal and Halifax local groups and their plans to get boots on the ground and motivate troops in their own communities. The Winter session for the House of Commons begins sitting on Jan. 28, the time is now to get word out to MP’s before they make their way to Ottawa. One can only hope there are more MP’s like Charlie Angus out there!?!