Taking action for fair copyright in Canada

Following up from Copy Leftovers, here are some resources focused especially on the Canadian perspective. We should all be concerned and get informed before the Canadian DMCA is allowed to pass.

First off, you can join the Facebook group, Fair Copyright for Canada, which already has over 10,000 members. I have also been saving articles on del.icio.us relating to Copyright. Consider that Canadians pay for their RIGHT to copy digital media every day, according to Michael Geist:

The Copyright Board of Canada last week released its proposed tariff for 2007 for the private copying levy. The numbers remain unchanged: 21 cents per CD-R. As prices have dropped, however, the levy now frequently comprises a significant percentage of the retail price. Consider the purchase of 100 blank Maxell CDs. Future Shop retails the 100 CDs for $69.99. The breakdown of this sale is $48.99 for the CDs and $21.00 for the levy (even worse is a current Future Shop deal of 200 blank CD-Rs from HP, which retails for $59.99. The levy alone on this sale is $42.00 (200 CDs x 21 cents/CD) which leaves the consumers paying $17.99 for the CDs and $42.00 for the levy).

According to Steve Jobs, the music companies sell more DRM-free music than anyone else:

In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

On a lighter note, you can watch this video of a puppet saying why we should Stop the Canadian DMCA, with some interesting recommendations on what to do with our politicians.