Answer #4 -- an ongoing public draft of my Canadian #CopyCon submission. Please discuss!

So I'm finally getting around to writing up my submission to our government's public consultation on copyright...

There are five key questions to answer:

1. How do Canada’s copyright laws affect you? How should existing laws be modernized?
2. Based on Canadian values and interests, how should copyright changes be made in order to withstand the test of time?
3. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster innovation and creativity in Canada?   
4. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster competition and investment in Canada?
5. What kinds of changes would best position Canada as a leader in the global, digital economy?

Here's the first draft of my answer to Question #4:

4. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster competition and investment in Canada?

As its very name would suggest, I believe that the future of content is new, not old, media. And to properly embrace this future Canada must prioritize the needs of new media creation over the wants of old media companies trying to protect their archaic ways of doing business.

One innovative approach to copyright already exists and seems to be working well on Internet sites like Wikipeda and the made-in-Canada photo-sharing service Flickr:

http://creativecommons.org/

Creative Commons offers an international standard for IP use with a range of licensing options that are free of legal jargon and thus clear enough for an end user to understand. I myself have benefitted from Creative Commons numerous times, and have had my photography published in international mass media because of it.

I have read elsewhere about suggestions to broaden the levy on blank media to subsidize the funding for new media creation. To be honest I'm unclear as to whether this current levy subsidizes new works by artists or instead just pays off old media companies and maintains the current (and broken) status quo.

I would propose instead that the major ISPs in this country, being the point of entry to the Internet, be required themselves to provide additional funding for made-in-Canada new media.

Thoughts/feedback/etc. are most welcome, as I won't be making my final submission until the end of the week...

Posted via web from Andrew Currie on Posterous