WSIC's petition regarding Bill C-61 is available at the following locations:

• http://wsic.uwaterloo.ca/c61/petition_en.pdf
• http://wsic.uwaterloo.ca/c61/petition_en.odt

Text and references

To the House of Commons in Parliament Assembled

We, the undersigned residents of Canada draw attention of the House to the following:

• THAT the Copyright Act is properly recognised as being a careful balance between the rights of creators and the rights of the public (including viewers, readers and listeners);
• THAT greater allowances for libraries, archives, and museums to determine when format shifting for older materials is allowed, described in section 30.1(1)(c) in the First Reading of Bill C-61 of the 2nd Session of the 39th Canadian Parliament, will promote the long-term availability of Canada's cultural works;
• THAT the "notice and notice" exemption (sections 41.25 and 41.26), the exemption for caching copyrighted material (section 41.27), and the exemption for infringement done on a web host's or Internet Service Provider's servers unknown to the company (section 31.1) described in the First Reading of Bill C-61 of the 2nd Session of the 39th Canadian Parliament will promote innovation by letting these companies focus on their core competency;
• THAT a government-sponsored 2002 study on technological measures recommended that "a policy choice that would result in anti-circumvention laws should be approached with great caution";
  • TPM study (see section 4.0)
• THAT many Canadian creators have spoken out against technological measure circumvention provisions, including Canadian author James Bow and the co-editor of pintday.org, Kjell Wooding;
  • James Bow's letter to Jim Prentice and Josée Verner
  • Kjell Wooding's letter to Stephen Harper and Jim Prentice
• THAT the extreme legal action pertaining to technological measures prescribed by the First Reading of Bill C-61 of the 2nd Session of the 39th Canadian Parliament are not required to implement the WIPO Treaties, which require only that a contracting State provide "adequate legal protection" to technological measures;
  • WIPO Copyright Treaty, Article 11
• THAT there will be some situations which require technological measures to be circumvented for legitimate use, such as accessing public domain works and using works under fair dealing; and
  • CSIA whitepaper (see the Summary of Recommendations, page 4, point 5)
• THAT a Copyright Act amendment that only restricts technological measure circumvention when it is done to infringe copyright and does not restrict the distribution of tools to circumvent technological measures would fulfill Canada's international obligations as set out by the WIPO Treaties
  • Possible implementations of the WIPO Treaties
• THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon Parliament to pass a Copyright Act amendment only when it properly recognizes the rights of Canadian citizens by making technological measure circumvention illegal only when such circumvention is done to infringe copyright and by allowing technological measure circumvention tools to be distributed. We further call upon Parliament to retain the exemptions outlined in sections 30.1(1)(c), 31.1, 41.25, 41.26, and 41.27, as described in the First Reading of Bill C-61 of the 2nd Session of the 39th Canadian Parliament in any Copyright Act amendment.