October 11, 2008 by sharky
Fellow Canadians, if you put any stock in ‘net-neutrality, freedom of speech, and P2P filesharing, you’ll want to vote NDP in the upcoming election on Tuesday, October 14th. I simply and strongly cannot sit idly by and write about P2P topics when everything I believe in stands in such jeopardization. It is not only my duty as an avid proponent for BitTorrent, P2P and Internet neutrality, but also as a patriotic Canadian. Nobody’s asking for absurd copyright laws that diminish the rights of copyright holders and protect the infringers, but some middle ground must be found. It won’t happen if C-61 is reintroduced. Bored? Read no further.
UPDATE (Oct. 15): While NPD didn’t win, the election still proved to be a success. Again, a minority Canadian Government has been established, keeping the status quo.
Today, TorrentFreak ran a story ‘Canadian Democrats are Pro BitTorrent and Against Throttling‘, and P2P-Net also covered an interview with Jack Layton, the NDP leader in this article - Jack Layton on Net neutrality: P2P Power. Both are great reads, please check them out.
With so many private and public trackers being hosted in Canada (such as What.cd, Isohunt.com), and more joining the list every day - we, the P2P community, stand to lose it all - this isn’t just a ‘Canadian’ issue. Canadians, do you really want us to turn into the way the United States is? With draconic DMCA laws, RIAA lawsuits aimed at dead people, children, the elderly (in our case, the CRIA); a country where you can’t even share a Limewire folder, or set up a BT tracker without fear? Nosiree, folks. Not me, I don’t.
The proposal of an anti-P2P bill in Canada is not a new idea. In fact, it’s already drafted up & tabled in full, presently called C-61 (previously called C-60, C-42 and others), and requires little more than a majority Government to sign and pass it into law. Both the Conservatives and the Liberals will make good on it, if elected as a majority. CBC, the leading source for trusted Canadian (and worldwide) news, reported a story as recently as Oct. 7/08 - "Conservatives pledge to reintroduce copyright reform". Furthermore, the Liberals are fence-sitting on the idea, as seen in this blog at www.faircopyrightforcanada.ca.
Double-dipping, again: "As a Canadian, I already pay remuneration (cleverly disguised as a tax) to the recording industry every time I purchase ‘media’, such as blank CDs, DVDs, even cassettes. Answer me this: Why should they also have the power to prosecute & fine, when they already take a cut of my tax dollars? It doesn’t add up."
Here’s a small section of old C-42, which doesn’t stray far from tabled C-61:
One active opponent to Bill C-61 is Dr. Michael Geist, a law professor at University of Ottawa, who, four days ago wrote this article ‘Conservatives Promise to Re-Introduce Canadian DMCA‘. Not only that, but CBC covered the story here.
This election is much more crucial than most Canadians would like to believe. Voters will be facing a critical choice when trundling off to the booths on Tuesday – choosing whether to support Stephen Harper, Gilles Duceppe, Stéphane Dion, or Jack Layton. But allow me to make something absolutely crystal-clear: C-61 is against file sharing in general, in which both the Liberal and Conservative Governments - if able to secure a majority - will hastily pass into law, and that will be that. No voting on it after the fact, nothing.
Dig around on some of those links up there - you’ll be surprised at what you’ll find.
If I could vote a hundred times for NDP, I would. And if I can sway even a fraction of my fellow Canadian readers to vote NDP, well, that’s just as good.
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