Canadian Copyright, From The Horse's... Pen.

h/t to Michael Geist - GREAT op-ed essay on Canadian copyright reform in today's Globe and Mail entitled Who Needs Copyright, Anyway?. Rather than being written by a member of the government, or a lawyer, or even a professor (sorry Dr. Geist), it's written by John Degen, head of PWAC - the Professional Writers Association of Canada.

"The panic merchants who continue to try to sell the idea of an epic struggle for control of our culture have an agenda functionally unrelated to how we all continue to interact with that culture. For the most part, they just want cultural product to be free - not free as [Lawrence] Lessig defined it, as in free of unreasonable access-constraints; but free as in we shouldn't have to pay for it. Name something we don't pay for, one way or another. We'll learn, and adjust."

It takes into account Lessig's Free (as in beer) vs Free (as in speech) concept, and delightfully brings it home, touching on fair use, piracy, and even the privacy fight! All in all, truly a must-read for those interested in these matters, both in Canada and abroad.

Link to G&M essay