[d@DCC] Careful not to throw baby out with bathwater...

[Russell McOrmond]

Darryl Moore wrote:
> Live with it! In days when literally anyone can reproduce or generate
> content, the technical and/or legal measures required to meaningfully
> regulate it cannot help but infringe the civil liberties of an entire
> population. I don't find that acceptable. 

   I believe you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  I 
understand the anger against both the antiquated intermediaries and the 
equally out-of-touch politicians (Hey, we are in an election so can sort 
out who is who if people spend the time), but you need to think of the 
unintended consequences of your proposals just as much as the 
politicians must.

   Private activities should remain private, and unregulated by laws 
such as copyright.  "Patent, Copyright, Trademark and related laws (PCT) 
have no place in the bedrooms of the nation".

   Public activities are public, and as far as I am concerned there are 
no civil liberties issues at all when it comes to monitoring the public 
sharing of information (through mechanical or telecommunications, peer 
to peer or broadcast) to determine whether it is lawful or not.

   DRM, or any other attempt to meter, monitor or control the private 
activities of citizens is an attack on civil liberties, and many other 
charter and UN UDHR protected rights.   Monitoring P2P networks to 
ensure that only material authorized to be shared are shared does not 
attack anything that I can recognize as a right or civil liberty. 
(Injecting of viruses/etc into such a network is another story, and 
needs to be prosecuted the same no matter who the perp is).


   All that is needed is to ensure that before a Goliath gets the name 
of a David that adequate judicial oversight exists to protect privacy. 
While I believe The Honourable Mr. Justice von Finckenstein had better 
thinking on this than the federal court of appeal, if we keep privacy 
legislation modernized enough to deal with technical methods to invade 
privacy then we won't have a problem.

-- 
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  2386+ Canadians oppose Bill C-60. This bill protects antiquated 
Recording,
  Motion Picture and "software manufacturing" industries from modernization.
  http://KillBillC60.ca    Sign--> http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/