Canadian Copyright and my MP

I recently sent an email to my Member of Parliament, Mario Silva. He is the elected representative for my riding of Davenport. The email was regarding copyright reform in Canada. It was probably not the best letter I’ve written as I get a little worked up about these issues. It’s the reason I haven’t made a post on either copyright reform or network neutrality. I have a tendency to both write inflammatory remarks and ramble when trying to convey my feelings.

So, I received a reply today from Mr. Silva’s office. Here is the entirety of the email.

Dear Mr. Larry Coker,

Thank you for taking the time to contact the office of Mario Silva on the important issue of the copyright reform.

As you are aware, there is currently no bill on copyright reform before the government. C-60 was a bill introduced by the Minister of Canadian Heritage in 2005 and sought to amend Copyright legislation. With the new government, Bill C-60 died on the Order Paper. While copyright reform was a part of the Conservative Speech from the Throne, they have yet to submit their plans to the House of Commons. Until these plans are put forward and tabled for parliament’s review, Mr. Silva, and the Liberal party, cannot support such a bill.

What is certain is that under the leadership of Stéphane Dion, and as the challenges regarding copyrights evolve, the Liberal party will re-evaluate their position. It is unlikely that this position will be identical to the position taken previously, and we look forward to reviewing proposed amendments in the best interests of Canadian citizens, Canadian culture and Canadian Industry. When a new bill is available to all members of parliament for discussion, I assure you that Mr. Silva will be advocating a safe balance between creator and consumer, and that it will not be the technical approach of DRM (Digital Rights Management) technologies.

Thank you again for taking the time to write to this office and please do not hesitate to contact us again with any further questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Braden Root-McCaig

Special Assistant / Adjoint spécial
Office of Mario Silva / Bureau de Mario Silva
MP Davenport / Député de Davenport

? silvam8@parl.gc.ca ( (613) 992-2576 Â www.MarioSilva.ca

P Before printing, think about the environment. Avant d’imprimer, pensez à l’environnement.

There are some encouraging words in there with a lot of filler. At least I have some kind of idea where both the Liberal Party and Mr. Silva stand. I would recommend that everyone write to their MP and see what they have to say.

Sunday’s

So I had a number of things that I wanted to get done this weekend before the long weekend. What I didn’t take into account was that some small businesses still close on Sunday’s. I don’t begrudge them their day off but I think if I had a shop, I would close on Monday or some other day during the week. So I never got my boots repaired, my glasses fixed, nor my hair cut. Two of those three need to be done soon. I’m guessing you can figure out which.

On the other hand, I did get a number of other things accomplished. I think I now have almost everything I need for my trip to Germany this summer. One of my purchases was a new toy. I bought a new camera. I already own a point-n-shoot digital, it’s an Olympus C-5500 Sport Zoom. The thing takes pretty good pictures but it’s the slowest camera that I have ever used. If you are setting up your shot, it’s fine. If you are doing candid photography, it sucks royally. By the time the damn thing has finished screwing around trying to focus, you’ve lost your shot. So I bought one of the fastest cameras I could find, the Canon PowerShot SD870IS. So far the only issue I have is that many reds are a little over saturated. I need to do some experimenting but I’ve seen this with other Canon point-n-shoots. When you take away all the gimmicky options that Canon offers on their cameras, they don’t have many point-n-shoots that are of a better quality. The reason I didn’t go for something like the PowerShot G9 is size. If I was going to get a high end camera that’s somewhat bulky, I would just buy myself an SLR. I can stick the 870 in a pocket and not really notice it’s there. That was a huge requirement for me. Where I am going to be in Germany, I have to carry anything valuable on me at all times. Bulky and heavy would become a nuisance that would detract from my trip.

I have noticed one thing that I might go back to the shop and talk to them about. Canon now has a touch sensitive round switch. It offers quick access to some basics and it’s the cursor control inside of the menu system. The touch sensitive part is supposed to allow it to act as a rotary dial to quickly scroll through menu choices. It doesn’t seem to work to any usable degree. I don’t know if the capacitance switches in the body aren’t working correctly on my camera or if it just doesn’t work well period. Not a deal breaker for me as I didn’t even know about the capability until I read about it in the manual. Still annoying when a feature doesn’t work as designed.

Grandpa?

Reflecting upon events from this past weekend, I realized that I had picked up an unexpected habit. When my nieces are around, I call my father “grandpa”. I don’t just say this when talking with them, I use it when talking to my mother and sister. I don’t particularly remember referring to my mom as “grandma”. It probably happened but I’m not really aware of it. Whenever I was talking to my father directly, I would call him “dad”.

Busy busy

I haven’t had much time to myself of late. It culminated with my grandfather’s funeral on Saturday. I’m now hoping that I have time to slow down a bit again and not have something planned for every day.

I had considered posting something about my grandfather but I think I will just say that I think he had a good life.

I did realize that there are a few things that I want to do with my father while he is still able to do them. For a start, I need to finally get my hunting license and go tromp around in the woods with him. Time to start thinking a little more about the future and not just there here and now.