The Canadian DMCA and the medics

Michael Geist has been encouraging Canadian medics to take a serious look at the Canadian government's proposals for a new copyright law similar to the US's DMCA and the EU's 2001 copyright directive.

"Consider the potential impact on genetic research. Researchers seeking to obtain access to proprietary genetic databases could be forced to negotiate a licence from the database owner, despite user rights that would otherwise grant the right to access and use selected portions of the database content without prior approval...

The proposals would also harm the use of the Internet as an educational tool within Canada's medical schools. The federal government's copyright proposals contemplate reversing the decade-old policy of avoiding Internet licensing by creating a licensing system for Internet content that would create new restrictions to accessing online content. Although the proposals began with the laudable goal of increasing access while providing creators with appropriate compensation, by proposing a very narrow definition of what can be accessed without compensation, the plan would effectively force millions of Canadian students to pay for access to content that is otherwise publicly available.

Rather than adopting an approach that facilitates the use of the Internet, the government is moving toward a model that will force schools to pay to use Internet materials — contrary to the expectations of many creators. Canadian medical schools, which are struggling with 20th-century budgets to provide a 21st-century education, should call on the federal government to reject the proposal and instead adopt a balanced copyright approach that encourages the use of the Internet in Canadian schools."