I spoke earlier today with an official at Industry Canada regarding the thousands of missing copyright consultation submissions. I was advised that there was a huge spike of submissions toward the very end of the consultation period. There were slightly over 8,100 submissions, a huge number in comparison with virtually any other government consultation in recent memory (consultations typically draw 50 to 100 responses). The government is committed to posting all submissions in HTML format due to access concerns. Since many submissions arrived in PDF form, there is considerable coding work underway. Their current plan is to continue to post submissions with the hope of completing the job over the next few weeks. For those seeking to search the posted submissions, CCER has just launched a search engine of consultation submissions.
Industry Canada Responds: Copyright Consultation Submissions Are Coming
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Thanks!
It’s good to hear that the submissions haven’t simply vanished.
That search engine is handy!
I was able to find mine by my name :)!
Yeah, but are they actually going to heed the voice of the people, or was this nothing but a facade to pretend to listen to us? Call me jaded, but I don’t think they care too much about what the average person thinks… I think that they only care about the organizations that can give them funding for any upcoming elections
I don’t believe them. This will turn into another conservative scam.
Since when is harpers Industry Canada honest about anything?
8100 Submissions
Mark/Tony
What matters is that there are 8100+ submissions – many of them from private citizens. This is a good thing which makes me wonder what insights the pollster is communicating to the legislators involved.
Save the conspiracy/cynicism for later.
Marc
Indeed… and among those submissions there is an overwhelming voice against the notion that we implement into law the criminalization of technology that is used to circumvent copy protection on copyrighted works, or at the very least, restrict such criminalization such that it should (otherwise) only be so when tied to the actual infringement of copyright.
I do not think that continuing to have legal avenues by which the average consumer can bypass copy protection on copyrighted works is going to go over well with certain unnamed groups that are without a doubt the impetus behind concepts such as what we saw in the proposals of Bill C61. That bill may be gone, but the driving force behind it remains. If our government were not so willing to listen to these groups, it stands to reason that their ideas would not have been so prevalent in that bill.
Nevertheless, if I’m wrong, and our government is genuinely sincere about listening to the voice of the people, then it logically follows that they will heed the concerns that have been voiced over this issue, and not make circumvention of copy protection illegal, or else only do so when such circumvention involves the actual infringement on copyright (which in turn involves copying a copyrighted work without permission wherein the circumstances behind the act of copying do not otherwise permit a person to be exempt from infringement, such as private use copying, when fair dealing would be applicable, or archival/backup purposes).
It is almost a certainty that copyright reform is coming. Soon. When the next copyright reform bill surfaces, we shall see at that time whose voice our government really listens to. I can only sincerely hope that my cynicism is uncalled for and that I have misjudged our government’s intent.
Still waiting
I sent mine directly in email on Sept 8th so there’s no coding involved, and it still isn’t there. However, mine was a rather lengthy white paper (about 13 pages worth with references) so if they are reading, screening, and categorizing the responses then I suppose it might take awhile to get through. Still, they could at least put placeholders to indicate they were received and are in review (if indeed that is what they are doing). I haven’t received any notification they even received it.